Red/ Green/ White Poppies- Does The Colour Matter?- Merged

[niner domestic]

I'm surprized that the organizers of these Peace movements have failed to grasp (yet again) who it is that they should be directing their campaigns against.  As with the early 60s and the protest against the Vietnam War, the organizers of today's Peace rallies and marches are focusing on the individual military member as the reason for the world's discord and violence.  It didn't work in the 60s and I am assuming it is not going to present a compelling argument today. Quite simply, these present day protesters are forgetting that it is the elected politicians that make the final decision to escalate any situation into an armed conflict.  As several people have commented upon, no one wants peace more than a man or woman who has waded knee deep in the blood of their comrades and allies. 

I ask these protesters now, where were they when diplomacy was the tool in which we sought to maintain peace? Where were their voices and white poppies then? In all of the crisis and conflicts that our world has faced, where were their white poppies before a single shot/bombing/or tank rolled across a boundary after the "peace" talks failed? 

Where were they in their white poppy, critical mass at the voting polls to oust the so called war-mongering politicians? I feel rather than focusing on the political and political will, which is always a much more ardent task to effect change, these Peace movement protesters have sought to take an easier road to stake their claim for peace and that is to attack the armed forces - the very people that are in direct juxtaposition of gaining and maintaining desired peace. 

I suspect that in the months that follow Remembrance Day, we will hear little of these white poppies as they will have lost their audiences.  Sadly, even as much as Canadians are proud of their vets and fallen, they too are only willing to devote a few days a year to saying so.  As the current government has stated, November 11th, is THE day of mourning the fallen, even they will resort to business as usual come Monday when the flags no longer fly at half mast.  The peace protesters will have a hard time competing for attention to their cause with the mundane of life we Canadians enjoy thanks to the efforts and sacrifices of those who gave us peace in the first place. 

 

[GAP]

Legion takes on activists in War of the Poppies
Veterans object to peace group selling white version of famous red emblem
KATHERINE HARDING AND DAWN WALTON  From Thursday's Globe and Mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061109.wpoppies09/BNStory/National/?cid=al_gam_nletter_newsUp

EDMONTON AND CALGARY — The Royal Canadian Legion is threatening to bring out its big guns — the lawyers — in a war with peace activists over poppies.

Veterans say the activists are unlawfully selling white poppies in a fundraising drive that violates trademark rights to the scarlet poppy, which they say belongs to the Legion.

Already, an Edmonton store owned by Michael Kalmanovitch that has been selling the so-called “poppies for peace” has been shipped proof by the Legion's intellectual property lawyer that the veterans association owns the image, regardless of the flower's colour, and has been asked to stop.

“If he [Kalmanovitch] doesn't, then we will proceed with further legal action,” explained Steven Clark, the Ottawa-based remembrance co-ordinator who oversees the poppy trademark for the Legion.

“It is something that we have to make sure is safeguarded, is protected and we will take the necessary steps to make sure that it is.”

The red poppy has been Canada's symbol of remembrance since 1921 and stems from Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae's famous poem, In Flanders Fields, which speaks to the fear that the war dead will be forgotten. Canadians, and others in countries around the world, wear poppies over their hearts leading up to Remembrance Day on Nov. 11 as a pledge that the deaths of military personnel, in Canada's case 117,000 of them, have not been in vain.
More on link

 

[Edward Campbell]

I think that the white poppies are a noble idea.  I like the idea of humanity moving beyond its current obsession with violence and destruction towards a more civilized planet.
...
Imagine a world ... No more border skirmishes for control over water, no more ethnic cleansings ...  a world without oppression, without tyrants, without hatred or violence. It would have to might even be a world with out greed or hunger ...

      If wearing a white poppy would express my desire for such a world I would wear one. But it doesn’t, I feel it says something else ...

I agree, broadly, with Zell_Dietrich.  I suspect most soldiers do.

I think the good ladies behind this movement are quite media-savvy.  That's why they coordinate their campaign with Remembrance Day rather than Peace Day.  Remembrance Day gets a whole hockey-sock full of media attention - it's now Remembrance Week.  World Peace Day (or whatever it's called - proof of my point) passed unnoticed - had I seen a lady wearing a white poppy on some September (?) day it would have escaped my notice; if I see one on 11 November it will create a reaction.  That's what they're after.  We and the media and the Legion just gave them their wish.

Well done, ladies; you accomlished your aim; you have our attention.

 

[dglad]

The red poppy has been Canada's symbol of remembrance since 1921 and stems from Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae's famous poem, In Flanders Fields, which speaks to the fear that the war dead will be forgotten. Canadians, and others in countries around the world, wear poppies over their hearts leading up to Remembrance Day on Nov. 11 as a pledge that the deaths of military personnel, in Canada's case 117,000 of them, have not been in vain.

Here's an interesting fact related to the above:

Wearing a poppy on Remembrance Day to honour those who fought and died in the wartime service of Canada was first proposed in the British Commonwealth in 1921 in Port Arthur, Ontario (now part of Thunder Bay, Ontario) by Madame Anne Guerin, of France.  She subsequently travelled throughout Canada and Great Britain, and convinced both the recently formed British Legion and the Canadian Great War Veterans Association (a predecessor of the Canadian Legion) to adopt the poppy as their symbol of remembrance.
Kind of a neat connection to my hometown.   

As for white poppies...well, to those who conceived it, it's rather like masturbating in the middle of a crowded bus station.  It may give you some immediate satisfaction, but you'll probably end up paying for it in the long-term.

 

[niner domestic]

There an even bigger bun fight going on in Britain over the white poppy. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-6202625,00.html

 

[The Bread Guy]

dglad - :rofl: 
Thank you for breaking up a stressful day for me with your eloquent summary of the group's "grasp" of the issue (so to speak)....

 

[MP101]

What is this with the people wearing white poppies? Do they have any respect for veterans and soldiers here in Canada and overseas.

I just finished watching a show debating on the white poppies, and for some reason, some believe in wearing them. Don't they know that the red poppy is a symbol of military veterans?

Also, the white poppy means to end all wars. So if we all lived by this, the Nazis most likely would have taken over the world and people of the Jewish faith may of not existed up to now.

What is your opinion........

 

[geo]

MP..... the red poppy is to remember everyone that has lost his life in combat.
Remember those civilians who died in the London blitz?
The firebombing of Hamburg & Dresden?
The siege of Stalingrad & Leningrad?

War is not limited to the civilians by any stretch of the imagination.

We remember them all & say "never again"!


The white poppy is meant to look forward to the future, one without war............
trouble is, you have to start with the Red, to get to the White.......... IMHO!

 

[probum non poenitet]

Here is a story from the Globe and Mail - about one woman's exprience of Remembrance Day through three generations.

It's not about white poppy/red poppy, but I found it worth reading:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/factsandarguments

 

[MP101]

Never mind my other reply because i started my own topic about this and the quote got moved from my page to this forum. The first thing is that i did not know about this page and made my own topic about the white poppies, so disregard my first comment. Thanks

 

[Cliff]

I heard this on the radio today and had to check into it...  Sure enough:

http://edmsun.canoe.ca/News/Edmonton/2006/11/06/2253084-sun.html

Frankly, I'm speechless.

It doesn't surprise me. Next they'll be asking for a white maple leaf.

 

[Cliff]

Already, an Edmonton store owned by Michael Kalmanovitch that has been selling the so-called “poppies for peace” has been shipped proof by the Legion's intellectual property lawyer that the veterans association owns the image, regardless of the flower's colour, and has been asked to stop.

What goes around comes around and shame on Kalmanovitch for his disrespect to all those who made the ultimate sacrifice. 

 

[Thompson_JM]

after the cold rememberance day ceremony here in wainwright KAF to read something like this is unreal......  all i have to say is throat punches to them.....

some of these people take there freedom a little too much for granted.....

sheesh....

 

[3rd Horseman]

I always thought white is a symbol of cowardice. I guess its appropriate in a weird way. I have not seen one yet hopfully they respect the copy right of the Legion and stop this activity.

 

[Jacqueline]

I always thought white to be a coward color also. I have to be nice though, or else the dove of peace might s*** on me.

 

[geo]

White has been associated with "surrendering"
Yellow has been associated with "cowardly"......

Though there was the old story about the four white feathers.... Kipling? Mason?


the white feather has been partially embraced by pacifist organisations as a sign of harmlessness. During the First World War the pacifist Fenner Brockway received so many white feathers he was known to comment that he now had enough feathers to make a fan.

Some time after the war, pacifists found an alternative interpretation of the white feather as a symbol of peace. The story being that in 1775 Quakers in a Friends meeting house in Easton, New York were faced by a tribe of Indians on the war path. Rather than flee, the Quakers fell silent and waited. The Indian chief came into the meeting house and finding no weapons he declared the Quakers as friends. On leaving he took a white feather from his quiver and attached it to the door as a sign to leave the building unharmed.

The story may not be true, but in 1937 the Peace Pledge Union sold 500 white feather badges as symbols of peace.

In 1985, progressive rock band Marillion released a concept album entitled Misplaced Childhood, whose final track, White Feather, was an explicit reference to pacifist idealism.

Surprisingly the white feather doesn't appear to be associated with the dove of peace.

 

[3rd Horseman]

White has been associated with "surrendering"
Yellow has been associated with "cowardly"......

   I was also brought up that yellow was coward from the western movies..."yellow belly"..."streak of Yellow down his back" and stuff like that But then I heard a story about the white feather.

Though there was the old story about the four white feathers.... Kipling? Mason?

The white feather story as I heard it,  was about Brit ladies that would pin a white feather on able bodied men on the street as a sign they were cowards for not serving. This  as I understand it, caused the wounded soldiers recovering and now exempt from further service were issued with wounded in action badges that they wore. Other men who were judged medically unfit or vital to the war effort received other badges to were. Is their any truth to this story or is it an urban legend.

edit typo

 

[navymich]

The white feather story as I heard it,  was about Brit ladies that would pin a white feather on able bodied men on the street as a sign they were cowards for not serving. This  as I understand it, caused the wounded soldiers recovering and now exempt from further service were issued with wounded in action badges that they wore. Other men who were judged medically unfit or vital to the war effort received other badges to were. Is their any truth to this story or is it an urban legend.

http://www.ppu.org.uk/poppy/new/tx_feather.html

The White Poppy is sometimes linked with the white feather, which chauvinist women bestowed on 'slackers' in the First World War. The notion of a white feather representing cowardice goes back to the 18th century, arising from the belief that a white feather in the tail of a game bird denoted poor quality. To 'show the white feather' was therefore to be 'unmanly'.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWfeather.htm

In August 1914, Admiral Charles Fitzgerald founded the Order of the White Feather. With the support of leading writers such as Mary Ward and Emma Orczy, the organisation encouraged women to give out white feathers to young men who had not joined the British Army.

 

[Zell_Dietrich]

White has been associated with "surrendering"
Yellow has been associated with "cowardly"......

Colours have different meanings at different times,  yellow doesn't only mean cowardice it can mean other things for example

Yellow ribbons:
http://www.loc.gov/folklife/ribbons/ribbons.html

A brief overview
http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0769383.html
      - "In India, red is the symbol for a soldier"

And I hear the legion has started the formal proceedings to start civil action.  They sent a letter saying that there is a violation of copywrite infringement.  If the shop doesn't stop then further steps can be taken.  (God I love civil law - all logic goes out the window)

 

[Zell_Dietrich]

Oh I just found this

http://www.troopsribbon.com  Wheee new spins on symbols