Autistic Goblin

How far has society fallen that after a 100 years the sacred Red Poppy needs to be defended? That’s the state of affairs when I opened social media on Remembrance Day.

I had to defend the Red Poppy from white/purple poppies. The Poppy is a trademark of the Royal Canadian Legion as well as The Royal British Legion. It’s illegal to use the poppy in any form to represent Remembrance unless a licence to do so has been purchased from either Legion. It was inspired by the poem In Flanders Fields written by Lt. Col John McCrae as the poppies grew where the dead were buried.

The White Poppy is meant to be a symbol of peace as if wars will magically disappear because someone started advocating for peace only the thing is.. the white poppy doesn’t advocate at all. In fact I can’t find any programs with it where it helps Refugess or “victims of war”. To be fair one could make the argument that veterans themselves are victims of war because of the multitude of injuries they get in mind/body and spirit but they don’t seem to count.

Near as I can tell the only thing the white poppy does is make civilians feel better about themselves so that they can pat themselves on the shoulder and do squat.

Notice the difference between the white poppy and that of the red one? The Red Poppy is offering support for seniors, peer support programs, mental health and PTSD, homeless veterans..etc. While the white poppy offers NOTHING! How can it promote a culture of peace when it isn’t helping anyone deal with the aftermath of war? Take your White Poppy to places like North Korea and see how far you get.

People often forget just how bad it is in some other countries and how much freedom they have because of the blood of veterans. Those same veterans can be neurodivergent before, during or after their service. They may be undiagnosed Autistics, OCD or they may suffer from PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBIs). They often come back with physical injuries as well which makes them part of the disabled community.

So you can’t fight for disabled rights without fighting for the rights of veterans which should mean wearing the Red Poppy since it does all the advocating and actual work.

Now people have brought out the Purple poppy which did actually buy a licence from the Legion. So there’s that at least but nowhere on their page do I see actual advocacy work done for veteran animals.

Like um.. where is your actual support for veteran animals? Where is the support to help veteran animals deal with their PTSD? What about providing therapy and rehab for injuries of veteran of animals? Oh.. nothing like that just some statue and a lot of purple pins with some ambassadors…

Like seriously if you are going to pretend to support veteran animals maybe you should actually.. you know support the animals??!!

So yeah.. this was how I spent remembrance day. I did manage to watch the ceremony itself but our Prime Minister thought that school was more important for his kids than showing respect for veterans.. which kind of sums up this post doesn’t it? The utter lack of respect for our veterans. I didn’t expect much out of Trudeau since he thinks veterans with missing limbs are “asking too much”. I have never voted for the man.

The Military and thus the Veterans (when they retire) are the ones doing Search and Rescue in the deep dark spaces where civilians Search and Rescue refuse to go. It’s the Military that fill sandbags to help fight flooding. It’s the military that then helps evacuate people from flooded areas. It’s the Military that brings food, blankets and other necessary items to those that lost everything in a natural disaster. Not some stupid white poppy. So wear the Red Poppy!

It’s the military that also delivers medical supplies during a pandemic to other countries. Most civilians can’t even be bothered to put on a mask or social distance.

Don’t comment on my post when you completely miss the point. It just shows how deeply willfully ignorant you are and it will be deleted.