I'm glad I didn't see any white poppies at Humboldt's Remembrance Day ceremony Monday. And I'm very glad I didn't see them at Ottawa's ceremony at the National War Memorial, next to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
What an absolute insulting, revolting campaign.
The idea of a white poppy, meant to symbolize peace, has been around for generations but the Rideau Institute in Ottawa, a pacifist group, took it to new levels, selling them as a "I Remember for Peace" campaign.
Right. Because the rest of us don't want peace. We looooove war.
The president of the Rideau Institute, Steven Staples, said the white poppy pins are meant for "people who don't want to celebrate war."
Look it, if you're going to take an alternative stance against the original message, make sure you know what the hell you're talking about, and make sure you understand the original message clearly.
These bozos don't.
Maybe I've had my head up in the clouds but since when does the red poppy celebrate war? Celebrate killing? Celebrate death?
Celebrate?
I'd say far from it.
It honours (big difference) the soldiers we lost during the First World War, Second World War, Korean War, the war in Afghanistan and all other wars and peacekeeping missions our country has been involved in that, unfortunately, had lives lost as a byproduct.
These soldiers didn't want to go to war. They didn't wake up one morning going "Yipee! I'm shipping off to Europe today, not going to see my family for at least a year and might even get killed! Fantastic!"
Are you kidding me? These men and women understood full well the horrors they were about to face, the reality that when they hugged their mother or their spouse as their train was pulling away, that that very well could be the last time they ever see them.
Feel them.
Hug them.
Hear their voice.
But they went. They went not because they like war but because they like peace, peace between nations and peace in a country; peace of ideologies.
A white poppy representing peace? What, because the red poppy doesn't? Give me a break.
The red poppy represents the blood shed in these wars and yes, of course it's an awful, gruesome circumstance. Anyone knows that. We don't need a white poppy to remind us "Hey, wouldn't peace be nice?"
But the red poppy doesn't honour war itself, it honours the troops lost in war.
Big, big difference and unfortunately, many people aren't able to distinguish between the two.
You don't have to like war (uh, who does?) but you should support your soldiers when they're sent over in a conflict while you sit there in the comforts of your home with not a care in the world but the promise of a new day tomorrow.
These troops, they didn't think it up. They didn't declare war on another country and yet, they're the ones who will pay for it, many with their life. All the more reason to honour them and remember them, and all the more reason to wear a red poppy.
Don't be an ignorant, immature brat and wear a white poppy for "peace."
Peace is something we all want.
Instead, wear a red poppy for those who fought with indescribable valour and strength to obtain peace, in a campaign they didn't choose, in a country they didn't know, with a fate they weren't nearly sure of.
The late U.S. Senator George McGovern once famously said "I'm tired of old men dreaming up wars for young men to fight."
Exactly. And that's why you wear a red poppy.
Because it wasn't their choosing and yet they were the ones most greatly affected by war.
A white poppy? What a desecration and a national embarrassment that we even have people in our country willing to wear one.
As far as I know and will ever know, there is one poppy and that's the red poppy.
The white poppy-wearers decided against showing up to the National Remembrance Day ceremony in Ottawa on Monday, saying they weren't trying to offend any veterans.
Honestly, take some accountability for the words that come out of your mouth, Rideau Institute, you big dummies.
You really didn't think a white poppy campaign, directly contrasting with the red poppy, wouldn't be offensive, insinuating that those who died in war, and who the red poppy represents, were not for peace?
After getting all their press coverage and photos in the paper, that's when they pull out. Clever, and the old saying goes "No publicity is bad publicity" but I beg to differ in this case because you'd have to have the I.Q. of a turnip to sympathize with this initiative.
The fact that they were even thinking of showing up to the Remembrance Day ceremony in Ottawa, handing out white poppies directly in front of crowds of veterans, is sick.
I seriously equate it to the lunatics of the Westboro Baptist Church who take their radical beliefs so far, that they'll protest someone's funeral if their lifestyle contrasted with the church's ideaologies.
I'm all for freedom of speech but certainly to an extent, because some people need a muzzle, that horribly mean church and definitely this ridiculous white poppy campaign.
CM
