Do you observe a minute's silence for the 1 million Rwandans murdered in 1993-94?

[Brighton Breezy]

OTLW is a good bloke.

 

[somerset]

...... but...... lets not fall out............. I am already on LI's banned list.......

I do respect your right to a view..... perhaps i was feeling a bit tetchy because my Nan rang me up tonight, and kept mentioning my Grandfather scarred for life ( mentally ) after being torpedoes on one of the Russian convoys over the Archangel.

 

[the right footed denilson]

Mate, this is f***ing bullshit. Our parents/grandparents/great parents etc fought and died in the wars we remember.

By celebrating what these people did for us we are not forgetting anyone else who has died or somehow devaluing there lives.

I find it extremely offensive that you would criticise people for remembering the members of our own families.

 

[On the Left Wing]

If they were killed or suffered in the cause of Internationalism or by default socialism, then thats ok, but death for any other cause is not in the LI or OTLW picture.

Words in mouth, but not mine!!!!

Never been an international socialist and never wanted to be .... but used to have a mean left foot at free kicks outside the penalty box!

 

[Brighton Breezy]

...... but...... lets not fall out............. I am already on LI's banned list.......

Come the glorious revolution Somerset...you will be first against the wall.

 

[Hungry Joe]

No I wouldn't use words like glib, but I think there is a lot of unspoken political assumptions that underlie state-approved mourning. It's a complicated subject, but I jusy don't swallow the idea that these events are ever free from politics.

I agree. I guess it comes down to how you treat the occassion as an individual. The Queen does her bit as head of state if you like but I'm sure part of her as a person is thinking about people she has lost and how that feels.

 

[On the Left Wing]

Off to bed now to read Das Kapital .... and work out how best to use an ice pick!

 

[Yorkie]

Regardless of whether Remembrance day is organised by the state or not, I will always buy a poppy because the money is used to help servicemen and exservicemen.
Some have had difficuties like losing jobs and have no money, others who are worse off because they have terrible injuries and are invalids.

The poppies themselves are made by blind ex servicemen. My Dad was a Life Member of the British Legion before he died aged 78. He was a serving member in the Royal Navy before the war and after it (33 years in total) His youth was spent during the war (19-25)

Of course war is wrong but it happens. There has only been one year in the last 100 when the Royal Marines weren't involved with one conflict or another (1968) but it is right that we remember the futility of war and the sacrifice of lives that were made. Not just by the servicemen but the firemen and others at home as well.

 

[somerset]

On a different note RM.... likethe cut or your jib where music is concerned. Had a conversation with my brother who lives in Manhatten a couple of nights ago, he went to see Razorlight two nights running this week, said they were superb, but the yanks had no idea how to participate in a gig..... turns out he knows them a bit... friend of a friend sort of thing..... did the after show party thing too.... turned into an ex-pat love in....

 

[Brighton Breezy]

Regardless of whether Remembrance day is organised by the state or not, I will always buy a poppy because the money is used to help servicemen and exservicemen.
Some have had difficuties like losing jobs and have no money, others who are worse off because they have terrible injuries and are invalids.

The poppies themselves are made by blind ex servicemen. My Dad was a Life Member of the British Legion before he died aged 78. He was a serving member in the Royal Navy before the war and after it (33 years in total) His youth was spent during the war (19-25)

Of course war is wrong but it happens. There has only been one year in the last 100 when the Royal Marines weren't involved with one conflict or another (1968) but it is right that we remember the futility of war and the sacrifice of lives that were made. Not just by the servicemen but the firemen and others at home as well.

I think that is your best post ever Yorkie.

I could not agree more and I think you speak for most of us on that one.

My family has a history of being in the armed forces and that is something I am proud of.

I will always buy a poppy.

 

[Hungry Joe]

Regardless of whether Remembrance day is organised by the state or not, I will always buy a poppy because the money is used to help servicemen and exservicemen.
Some have had difficuties like losing jobs and have no money, others who are worse off because they have terrible injuries and are invalids.

The poppies themselves are made by blind ex servicemen. My Dad was a Life Member of the British Legion before he died aged 78. He was a serving member in the Royal Navy before the war and after it (33 years in total) His youth was spent during the war (19-25)

Of course war is wrong but it happens. There has only been one year in the last 100 when the Royal Marines weren't involved with one conflict or another (1968) but it is right that we remember the futility of war and the sacrifice of lives that were made. Not just by the servicemen but the firemen and others at home as well.

Amen to that, very well put Yorkie.

 

[Cian]

I actually bought a poppy this year - don't have a clue *why* the Royal British Legion was outside my local Tescos, I might have broken the space-time continum and ended up in England temporarily...

 

[Beach Hut]

War is pointless - there must be a better way, more talk talk

 

[Chicken Run]

One day London Irish you will pull your head out of your arse and smell the fresh air that is known as reality, until then keep sucking and blowing your own poo my friend!

 

[Brighton Breezy]

Mate, this is f***ing bullshit. Our parents/grandparents/great parents etc fought and died in the wars we remember.

By celebrating what these people did for us we are not forgetting anyone else who has died or somehow devaluing there lives.

I find it extremely offensive that you would criticise people for remembering the members of our own families.

SPOT ON.

 

[London Irish]

I actually bought a poppy this year - don't have a clue *why* the Royal British Legion was outside my local Tescos, I might have broken the space-time continum and ended up in England temporarily...

I suppose that does make some kind of sense. My great-uncle from Tipperary fought for the British in WW2, the numbers of southern Irish who did so were quite high. The Irish Free State, although officially neutral, didn't seem to discourage this too much.

 

[Brighton Breezy]

What about the IRA who got weapons supplied by Hitler with the intention of causing Britain trouble at home?

By no means am I meaning to distract from the Irish that fought on the allies side. I was just wondering what Irish made of this and whether it was as widespread as we are made to believe.

 

[Chicken Run]

I suppose that does make some kind of sense. My great-uncle from Tipperary fought for the British in WW2, the numbers of southern Irish who did so were quite high. The Irish Free State, although officially neutral, didn't seem to discourage this too much.

I say again
One day London Irish you will pull your head out of your arse and smell the fresh air that is known as reality, until then keep sucking and blowing your own poo my friend!

 

[Cian]

I suppose that does make some kind of sense. My great-uncle from Tipperary fought for the British in WW2, the numbers of southern Irish who did so were quite high. The Irish Free State, although officially neutral, didn't seem to discourage this too much.

The Irish Free State ceased to exist in 1937, LI. Only the UK refused to recognise it until the Republic of Ireland act in 1948.

We even dropped "Saorstat Eireann" from our coins in 1938...

 

[London Irish]

What about the IRA who got weapons supplied by Hitler with the intention of causing Britain trouble at home?

By no means am I meaning to distract from the Irish that fought on the allies side. I was just wondering what Irish made of this and whether it was as widespread as we are made to believe.

The IRA by 1939 was pitifully small outfit. It tried a few bombings at the outset of the war but these were relatively few and far between and this campaign petered out quite early. The Fianna Fail government of the time (made up of a lot of ex-IRA men) actually boasted that it had killed the IRA stone dead.

The IRA never really emerged as a half-serious military threat again until its "Border" campaign in the late-1950s, which was another fiasco.

So I don't know who led you to believe that IRA activity was widespread during WW2, but most historians would not back that up.

The IRA volunteers would probably have numbered in their hundreds. Compare that to this:

"Almost 150,000 Irish soldiers fought in the First World War; 49,000 died. More than 60,000 Irishmen - more than from loyal Ulster - also saw action in the Second World War; like their compatriots in the Great War, all were volunteers."

Taken from this interesting article that humanises the subject and brings it up to date with the death of an Irish-born British Army soldier at Basra:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/03/19/wirq619.xml