It’s that time of year when two perennial topics of national debate pop up in the media, both of which have their origins in the First World War.
Every October without fail we have a debate about whether or not to keep daylight saving time, a practice that started in 1916. Then, as soon as the clocks have gone back, we have a debate about wearing poppies.
The first debate is an annual waste of time (no pun intended). The UK government does not have the power to scrap daylight saving time even if we wanted to, because it is controlled by the EU. EU law dictates that all member states will advance their clocks by one hour on the last Sunday in March, and set them back one hour on the last Sunday in October.
Few people are aware of this. As with much of what the EU does, the public are quite deliberately
kept in the dark (no pun intended). Mention this fact to any fanatical Remainer and you will get a textbook example of their inability to accept even observable truth if it doesn’t fit their world view.
“You’re a Brextremist liar. What a load of rubbish. This isn’t true. (And in one bizarre case) The BBC website doesn’t mention this so you need to check your facts.”
It’s as if EU Directive 2000/84/EC doesn’t exist. Ignorance is not just a characteristic of Remainers, it is a requirement. Our media and education system simply do not give people the facts about EU membership, for the simple reason that the more one learns about the EU, the less one likes it. It is no accident that even now, after two years of national debate, perhaps a majority of Remain supporters are entirely ignorant of basic facts about the EU – what it is, why it was created, how it works and where it’s going.
Ignorance is also a requirement for Cultural Marxism to flourish, and the growing popularity of white poppies is an indication of just how much damage it is doing to our once cohesive society. Marxist critical theory demands that all the values, ideas and traditions that bind our society together be critiqued, attacked and undermined. The white poppy is one of countless vehicles used to achieve this.
First introduced by the Women’s Co-operative Guild in the 1930s, the white poppy is now sold by The Peace Pledge Union. This leftist Union could have chosen any symbol to promote peace, if that were their aim. They chose to hijack the poppy, which they no doubt see as promoting the bloodthirsty, white patriarchy that’s responsible for all evils in this world, not because their aim is to promote peace, but to attack our values and history.
A record 125,000 white poppies are expected to be sold this year. Asked why the white poppy is proving so popular, the PPU boss said it was a reaction to the “rise of the far right”. That tells you all you need to know about his motivation, and where your money is likely to go if you buy one. Not to veteran charities, certainly.
Those who criticise the act of wearing a red poppy are not pacifists. They are Marxists who have spotted the poppy as another opportunity to virtue signal and attack our traditions and values.
Our education system bears much of the blame. Rather than turning out well educated citizens, it too often turns out people cut adrift from their country’s history at best, and outright Marxist activists at worst.
A hundred years ago, the students of the day had other things on their minds. Many young men at University put their studies on hold while they went away to fight for their country (something incomprehensible to most students today). Some never came back.
The University of Southampton has a mural in its Senate room which depicts an unknown soldier who has returned from the fighting to receive his degree. Any intelligent, sensitive student could not fail to be moved or inspired by this. Student Union President Emily Dawes saw it rather differently:
“Mark my words – we’re taking down the mural of white men in the uni Senate room, even if I have to paint over it myself.”
Emily did not see in the mural a moving story of lost youth, of potential and ability sacrificed to defend liberty and free speech. Emily saw only skin colour and gender.
Emily is, one assumes, not stupid. She was privately educated. She studied physics at University. She was elected to the paid position of Union President. Yet she views the world through a deeply bigoted lens. A blind ideologue who believes skin colour and gender are defining characteristics.
Emily is far from alone in masking her bigotry as virtue. Earlier this month, Cambridge University Students Union were considering crossing out the phrases ‘British war veterans’ and ‘Poppies’ from Remembrance Day plans. One hundred years ago, if Blackadder is to be believed, the Trinity Tiddlywinkers were leapfrogging their way to the Cambridge recruiting desk to sign up and give the Boche what for. All ten of them died, including Strangely Brown who bought it at Gallipoli and Hugh Laurie’s Lieutenant George who died in the incredibly moving final episode of Blackadder Goes Forth.
How can things have gone so wrong in such a relatively short space of time? Our young people have almost entirely lost the sense of duty, comradeship, patriotism and honour that saw the country through the hell of the 20th Century wars. In their place is a destructive nihilism that claims to want a strong society but in fact attacks and denigrates everything that binds us together and promotes policies such as multiculturalism which, by definition, divide us.
No doubt Emily would mock her forebears for marching to their deaths for ‘King and Country’, but at least King and Country are something. They are friends, family, tradition, culture, society. Better to march for such things, than to march against whoever the Marxist establishment has decreed to be the latest ‘oppressor’.
Emily has marched for the homeless. But in her heart of hearts, was she marching for the homeless, or marching AGAINST capitalism (of which she has undoubtedly been a major beneficiary)? She has been on feminist marches. But was she marching for women or AGAINST men? Has she ever marched for liberty, for individual rights, for free speech? Or has she in fact dealt a brave blow against such things every time she picks up a placard to march for the establishment.
I have always worn a red poppy with pride. Not because I glorify war, but because I honour the sacrifices made by those who went before me. Now I have another reason. To take a stand for all that has true value and meaning against those such as Emily, who blinded by ideology are sawing at the cultural branch we’re sitting on. War is chaos, and it is chaos that Emily and friends are unleashing as they systematically take apart everything that binds us together, be it the nation state, the family, our traditions, history or culture.
We must remember that the blood of all casualties is red – whatever their skin colour!
Some very interesting observations here – thank you.
Perhaps we should start a trend for poppies in our corporate colours – purple and gold. I might make a few over the year and distribute them this time next year.
Do not agree at all with your suggestion Debbie, The red poppy has great significance as it was adopted after WW1 because of the proliferation of them in Flanders fields on the former battlegrounds. White poppies are meaningless and an insult to the memory of the fallen as would be any made in UKIP colours.
https://www.google.com/search?q=poppies+in+Flanders+fields&client=firefox-b-ab&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjkj86Nt83eAhWLKcAKHTOHAOUQsAR6BAgAEAE&biw=1704&bih=966
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae
~ May 3, 1915
Never worn a poppy red or white. Yet sing in church choir at remembrance every year.
Don’t believe a tup’worth of what court historians tell us. Years of independent researching causes of WW1 leads to ineluctable conclusion it was primarily atheistic marxists and elite fellow travellers behind the destruction of the christian monarchies of Europe and brought in communism to Russia, Hungary, abortively in Germany. Go work it out online if you could be bothered. No better start than the noble, honest Gen. Smedley Butler’s “War is a Racket.” He was the most decorated US General, twice awarded Congressional Medal.
Would readily wear white poppy even to put one in the eye against the odious comments of head of PPU about white patriarchy and the rabid feminists both male and female.
Young christian and hindu and moslem soldiers were killed in their millions, sacrificed on the altar of profit and hegemony by vested interests who can easily be identified.
I wear the red poppy to honour, in remembrance, the sacrifices of those who fought in the war, not to honour the politicians who declared war. The reasons for the start WW1 have nothing to do with it. I believe it’s about the cessation of war not the start of war. -30-
Respect. Where is that found in UK. Sadly not by people like this Emily person. She’s a feminist too hey? But does not stand up for Muslim women, why? Because that’s racist! I LOVE men, always have and always will. Those men, some mere boys, who gave their lives so we could be safe and free out do any feminist, sick white Poppy wearer etc every day of the week. Just ask Emily… which countries today are persistently fighting all the time? Those who HATE those who disrespect , those whose viciousness is so imbedded they do not know what humanity is. Our military endlessly try to keep people safe, against foreign countries home made war, devastation and death. We ‘fight’ in Peace for Peace, wake up all Emily’s, it is not us causing war. Concentrate on those countries who hold pain, war, death so close to their sick hearts and go and wave your white Poppy at them.
Brilliant comment. Thanks for the info on Southampton Uni.
Today I laid a wreath at the Service of Remembrance in Tilbury. It was given to me to write on the card that came with the wreath. Here’s what I wrote.
“They sacrificed their all
¬so we could be free.”
Although I had pondered awhile before writing those words, it was only after writing them that I realised the implications of what I had said. That saddened me.
I wondered what those men, especially the young, those that had lied about their age to join the fray, would have thought had they been able to see what’s happening here now.
How the freedom from conquest that they bought for us, paid for with so much blood, was now being squandered away as if the high price paid was somehow worthless, by duplicitous, self-serving politicians, or if they could have heard, as I did, the minister open his prayer with “Let us pray today for all who suffer as a result of war …”
Where we then not there to remember those that gave their lives defending us?
Surely we weren’t there to remember those who died while taking theirs?
I would agree that those words would be fine and commendable in a service to pray for world peace.
But that wasn’t why we were there.
A Nation that is ashamed of its history, is no Nation at all ! Although Great Britain, in its heyday made some awful and bloody mistakes, its benefits to the world outweigh them in high measure. ….. When Globalism attempts to mask Nationalism, we have a big problem. A single world church, and a single world government, seems to be a good idea, but this is not new. Check out what the Holy Bible says about this, and you will be reading about ‘The End Times’ !
The White Poppy is a disgusting nonsense.- We all want peace, but this is a convoluted lie. The Red Poppy does not glorify war, but is a mark of Remembrance. My parents and their generation, took action against a world evil, and it cost the lives of so many, but their action made it possible for my generation to avoid the conflict of war. I THINK THAT IS WORTH REMEMBERING !
Good article Gary.
This is rather a long comment but I quote the Economist, which back then described itself as a “weekly commercial times, bankers’ gazette and railway monitor” and thundered against war. On August 1 (three days before Britain’s entry), “…we fumed against the attempts of the yellow Press and of the Times to drive the government into a European war saying that the quarrel is no more of our making and no more of our concern than would be a quarrel between Argentina and Brazil or between China and Japan…”
The Economist’s next article was designed “…to give our readers some faint notion of the extent of the financial calamity which has suddenly overtaken Europe and the world…the financial world has been staggering under a series of blows such as the delicate system of international credit has never before witnessed, or even imagined”.
A week later, Britain had joined the war but the Economist’s writers had hardly been overcome with a fit of patriotic fervour, bemoaning the disasters which have befallen manufacturers, merchants, shipowners and shopkeepers in all parts of the country.
This was the end of the first great era of international trade. It would be the 1980s before the world was so open again. The Economist warned that
“Death, anguish, starvation and despair are written over western Europe…It is the triumph of diplomacy over common sense, or force over reason, of brutality over humanity” – Hardly a jingoistic anthem. Indeed the writers commented that
“It may perhaps be the last time that the working classes of the Continent will allow themselves to be marched to destruction at the dictates of diplomacy and by the orders of their war lords. Certainly it ought to be recorded at once that this is not a war in which the populations have been consulted or concurred”
… and the far sighted Russian correspondent commented (on Aug 1) that
“should Russia be entangled in a Great War I am certain that a revolution would ensue”
Everything according to plan.
– A socialist (oh yes very pro-peace) plan!
On the further point of the Causes of war
What is often overlooked is that while WWI is blamed on capitalism actually every single one of the powers involved in the Great War was a reformist, liberal, socialist and prusso-militaristic type of state and not so democratic at all s Britain was at that time with its system of checks and balances via the two Houses.
Lloyd George removed the power of veto from the Lords, who would have opposed entry to the War. The leading European nation that was in fact the most reluctant to join the war was Britain, the centre of finance and world trade; so much so the French were close to despair that Britain might back out of the alliance and they demanded British support from Lloyd George – and they got that support from the Liberals after the Reform Acts. Who knows if war could have been avoided?
Here is a list of the WW1 leaders.
Austria-Hungary
Emperor Franz Joseph I, reformer
Franz Ferdinand, killed by revolutionary socialist nationalists causing the road to War to begin
Germany Kaiser Wilhelm II
Reforming militaristic Social Darwinist and early national socialist*
Ottoman Empire Sultan Mehmed V
Prussian-styled miltaristic jihadist
BritainKing George V, pliant ruler allowed Lloyd George (liberal) to reform the House of Lords making it powerless to affect govermment decisions.
Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith
Liberal social reformer, took Britain to war (Britain had remained neutral until 1914)
Bulgaria Tsar Ferdinand I, militaristic nationalist reformer
France President Raymond Poincare Middle ground liberal
Prime Minister Rene Viviani democratic socialist
Russia Tsar Nicholas II
resisted reforms, was murdered by international socialists who took Russia into war.
Serbia Crown Prince Alexander
reforming centrist aristocrat, killed by a socialist revolutionary
United States of America
President Woodrow Wilson Democrat left-leaning socialist
Japan
Emperor Taisho Liberal reformer
German Kaiser Wilhelm II said as it became clear that Germany planned to invade France:
“With heavy heart I have been compelled to mobilise my army against a neighbour at whose side it has fought on many a battlefield. With genuine sorrow do I witness the end of a friendship, which Germany loyally cherished. We draw the sword with a clean conscience and clean hands.” German Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg declared to the Reichstag that Germany was breaking international law.
The French were blamed.
All those who led Europe to WW1 were basically reforming socialist/liberals and Social Darwinists.
It is a legacy that began in the revolutions and anarchist movements of the C19th and which we have still not resolved
I think there was a defence treaty with Belgium, so when Germany invaded Belgium in 1914 Britain declared war on Germany.
If Britain and France had declared war on Germany in 1938 in accordance with a defence treaty with Czechoslovakia there would not have been a WW2.
And to bring things up to date, I think Theresa May is the worst Prime Minister since Chamberlain.
Yes agreed on all points!
“Russia Tsar Nicholas II resisted reforms, was murdered by international socialists who took Russia into war.”
That’s incorrect. It was the Czarist government, an ally of Serbia, which took Russia into war against Germany. It was the Bolsheviks who withdrew Russia from the war with the signing of the Brest-Litovsk treaty on 3 March 1918, after which they assassinated the then deposed Nicholas II and his family three months later.
Yes Cranky you are right, it was the Tsar who took Russia into war, and Kerensky and not the Bolsheviks who continued it, under the Provisional government I believe, or First Coalition Government was formed, and, this, I think if i am right, was when socialists, and representatives of the Soviet leadership, agree to enter the cabinet with Alexander Kerensky, the only socialist already in the government, then being made minister of War and Navy; with the collapse of the White Army and the spread of the Soviets, Russia’s losses grew. Probably you know more about this than I do, so please correct me if I am wrong, the Tsar after the 1905 Duma wanted to implement some reforms but at the same time to preserve his autocracy, when Franz Joseph declared war on Russia, he had vacillated in the hope that a pan-Slavic alliance would prevent conflict and at the Hague conference learnt that the Russian position was untenable.
It is a very complex period and probably my previous post was too cursory (as well as incorrect on this point)
The refrain sometimes sounds like “all poppies are equal but the white poppies are more equal than others” and those who sing that refrain say – appallingly – that the red poppy supports war, when everyone knows it has always been a symbol of Hope.
There are other poppies out there, and some – the purple poppy for instance – may not be a bad idea.
While saying the red poppy has a political significance (it doesn’t), those pushing the white poppy do have a political agenda and always have had. And who actually benefits from the sale of white poppies? Is it the veterans or their families?
No, the political organisation, Peace Pledge Union (PPU), does; condemned by George Orwell no less for its “moral collapse” and many of whose members, I think it is documented, were also members of the BUF in the 1930s – the upperclass British Union of Fascists and also tacit supporters of Hitler before WW2 and pushed the idea of the pan-european (military) empire.
Why are these facts not even mentioned by the mainstream media?
Well said Gary.
If we don’t defend everything we hold dear, eventually, there will be nothing left to defend.