Sunday, 11 November 2007

Remembrance Sunday - opinion- by Plot Tracer

It is Remembrance Sunday. A day when luminaries such as Brown and Blair in the UK lay wreaths in remembrance of the people they sent to their deaths.

People across the country pay in to a fund that helps the survivors of these wars – though the name of the fund – Haig – is the name of the member of the British Aristocracy who sent thousands of young men to their deaths in World War One.

99.9% of those who die in wars are working class.

We will remember them.

…it is our business as socialists to develop 'class patriotism', refusing to murder one another for a sordid world capitalism… Let the propertied class, old and young alike, go out and defend their blessed property. When they have been disposed of, we of the working class will have something to defend, and we shall do it.
John Maclean 17 September 1914

November 9th is the birthdate of a woman who campaigned for peace during the first and second World Wars. Much more worthy as a representative of the working class. A voice from the past who struggled against the system that prevails – a system that year after year pits poor against poor in order for the rich to hold on to the world.

http://www.gcal.ac.uk/radicalglasgow/chapters/helen_crawfurd.html

We will remember them.

This week Rose Gentle, mother of Gordon, was given official recognition for her campaign to reveal the truth about her son Gordon’s death in Iraq. Army logistics failure led to the unlawful killing of a British soldier in a roadside bomb attack in Iraq, a coroner ruled. Selena Lynch, assistant deputy coroner for Oxfordshire, said vital bomb-disabling equipment was not supplied to 19-year-old Gordon Gentle's regiment, the Royal Highland Fusiliers (RHF) when it should have been.
She said: "It is more likely than not that the bomb would not have detonated had Element B [a bomb jamming kit] been fitted." After three years of ex-Prime Minister Blair refusing to meet her, the man who as Chancellor once proclaimed he would “spend what it takes” to disarm Saddam Hussein has said he will. Gordon Brown will need to answer the question of why we are still in Iraq and why did this young man and the tens of thousands of people in Iraq have to die?

And why are they still dying?

We will remember them.

http://www.mfaw.org.uk/

http://www.ivaw.org/

http://www.vvaw.org/


click HERE for the film, "War is Sell"

and HERE for Propaganda and War: Iraq and BeyondNoam Chomsky, professor, linguistics, MIT

Lest We Forget
By John Pilger
On Remembrance Day 2007 - Veterans Day in America - the great and the good bowed their heads at the Cenotaph. Generals, politicians, newsreaders, football managers and stock-market traders wore their poppies. Hypocrisy was a presence. No one mentioned Iraq. No one uttered the slightest remorse for the fallen of that country. No one read the forbidden list.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18726.htm

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"99.9% of those who die in wars are working class"

100% are human beings. Great to read an alternative response to the Remembrance ritual though.

I watched the BBC coverage of the parade at the Senotaph yesterday and found it impossible not to be moved by the dignity of those marching in honour of those they had lost. It also underlined for me just how cynically the UK government involvement in the current war has betrayed the sacrifices of those countless men and women in the past who laid down their lives in the sincere belief they were defending something noble and worthwhile. How Blair and Brown could even bear to show their faces yesterday is beyond me.

Anonymous said...

"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."

On Remembrance Day we also commemorate the heroes of the Boer War. Here's a photo of one of the many inadvertently forgotten in the celebrations.

http://www.answers.com/topic/lizzievanzyl-jpg

The first Great War was in the making for decades. Three cousins decide to have a pissing match and millions parade off to the slaughter. What madness possessed the masses? The peace treaty concluded by the victors was a peace to end all peace.

Just what was the cause of our quarrel with Lizzie van Zyl and millions of other innocents? Why the collective amnesia? The parading and flag waving and the eulogies to the fallen warriors serve white-wash these crimes. And so a majority in the western nations supported the attack on Iraq. Another 500,000 plus violent deaths. We may remember but we choose not learn because it’s not in our hearts to drop the torch.

“They will hammer their swords into plowshares …and they shall learn war no more”.
Mic 4:3.