![]() ![]() A brazen call for brainwashed nationalism and militarism, an explicit injunction not to think for yourselves because to consider what it means for a split-second is to realise what a cheap swindle it is. Then I Vow to Thee, My Country says ‘I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above, entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love the love that asks no questions, the love that stands the test, that lays upon the altar the dearest and the best the love that never falters, the love that pays the price, the love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice’. And war for aristocratic power and profit is portrayed as religious duty, sanctified by God. ![]() The con trick here should be obvious: it equates the land with the band of criminals who rule and glory with workers allowing themselves to be used as cannon fodder in the service of imperialist military aggression and capitalist profits. ‘O valiant hearts who to your glory came through dust of conflict… Proudly you gathered… to war as who had heard God’s message… yourselves you scorned to save… in glorious hope their proud and sorrowing land commits her children to Thy gracious hand’. O Valiant Hearts glorifies the sacrifice of soldiers on the altar of British imperialism – To further confirm the meaning of the red poppy™, let’s examine the lyrics of typical recitations at Remembrance Day services. Poppies™ are even made using prison labour ( inmates earn £10 a WEEK for making them). Moreover, the money donated funds current and ex-military personnel and thus eases the budget of Britain’s enormous death machine. It honours all Crown Forces past and present, not just the world wars. ![]() Furthermore, it’s not just about commemorating the dead the RBL asserts that poppies™ are ‘a show of support for the Armed Forces community, those currently serving, ex-serving personnel and their families’ (my italics). Civilians simply don’t count, according to them. The red poppy™ doesn’t even commemorate all the British dead, let alone all those who died in wars. The RBL state that they ‘advocate a specific type of Remembrance connected to the British Armed Forces, those who were killed, those who fought with them and alongside them’. So much for being ‘hope for a peaceful future’ (as the RBL claim on their website) and some sort of anti-war symbol, which some people still sincerely believe it is. The poppy had approval from Field Marshall Haig, the Butcher of the Somme, and was chosen based on a poem by a Canadian soldier (Colonel John Macrae) who explicitly called for vengeance on behalf of his dead colleagues and stated that refusing to continue to fight was an insult to those who died – ‘take up the quarrel with the foe… if ye break faith with us who die we shall not sleep, though poppies grow’. It was an effective weapon to ‘unite’ the oppressed class with their oppressors. In this context, the Royal British Legion (RBL) chose the poppy as a symbol to co-opt widespread grief over slain family members and friends and convert it into a positive feelings towards the viciously murderous ruling class who were responsible for their grief. Never had the British bourgeoisie been so uneasy about maintaining control. Movements for liberation were growing in Britain’s colonies – in the aftermath of the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland, in India – and the European working class was showing how they could organise and fight their respective ruling classes: the Kiel Mutiny and Spartacist uprising in Germany, the Hungarian Soviet Republic, and most frightening for ruling classes across the world, the successful Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Troops were sent into Glasgow to impose martial law. A wave of discontent swept across the country, returning soldiers refused to take part in victory parades and protested the degradation of their living conditions. They essentially ordered masses of young men to run headfirst into a hail of bullets, for zero strategic gain.Īs you can imagine, this caused some consternation domestically. During the First World War these ‘donkeys’ wantonly had their own conscripted troops (‘lions’) slaughtered in mass suicidal attacks on entrenched enemy artillery. Britain’s aristocratic ruling class already had a series of genocides on their track record. European empires were scrabbling for dominance over Africa and Asia, where their rule was astonishingly oppressive and inhumane for ordinary people. They were sent to their deaths for nothing. The death toll from WWI is estimated at 40M, over a million of those from Britain (not exclusively working class men, of course). The First World War was an abattoir for working class men. ![]()
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