I haven't got a lot of time to say much about this, read the article and think about next year... We must be wary of remembrance creep | Politics | guardian.co.uk. I must admit though that I have a similar impression about this: "My impression remains that the event grows bigger with every year that passes, but that comprehension does not. We talk about the horror of war but also sentimentalise it."
I suspect that for me I've long been uncomfortable with the occasion and so any ramping up of it's prominence is something that I am sensitive to. I think that it relates to the issue behind why white poppies came into being in the 1930's when a number of women became concerned that the red poppy remembrance was losing a focus on 'no more war' and becoming part of the myth of glorious war. As I say, I can't say more just now, but I do want to flag this up (pun intended).
"Spend and tax" not "tax and spend"
I got a response from my MP which got me kind of mad. You'll see why as I reproduce it here. Apologies for the strange changes in types...
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"'Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell yo...
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from: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/online/2012/5/22/1337672561216/Annular-solar-eclipse--008.jpg -
I'm not sure people have believed me when I've said that there have been discovered uncaffeinated coffee beans. Well, here's one...
3 comments:
Have you seen the piece on the Ekklesia site that I've flagged on my blog? (http://drmoose.wordpress.com/2008/11/11/remembering-what-exactly/)
It strikes me that this whole area would be worth some more (communal) thought.
I hadn't seen that piece and it's good to have seen; it articulates well some of the issues that give rise to my own discomfort with the matter (no surprise there, really). I think that the forces that gave rise to the white poppy thing in the 30's are still at work. In fact it is the myth of the glorious warfare at work (I mean myth as in a culturally resonant story rather than a fairy story) into which all who die are swept at peril of qualms being seen to dishonour the dead and disrespect the bereaved. The reality of warfare is far messier than the myth. Without the myth it is doubtful industrial-scale warfare could continue. Enter the final conscription: that of the memorial designed to say 'never again' into the uniform of the military industrial complex...
I wonder whether we should think about some kind of synchro-blog on it sometime?
I've noticed Brit TV announcers (mainly male ones) sporting poppies in October, long before 11 November. And politicians (again, mainly male ones). I suppose if you can have Christmas in October, why not poppies in August?
I actually wrote to Sky News about it, and they dismissed it with saying that it was two weeks before - first I've heard of that.
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