Poppy Fascism and why it's right to object.

With today being Remembrance Sunday, the past week or so have seen the annual return of the Poppy appeal to our daily lives. In recent years, the image and event surrounding it has become implanted into everyday life - football clubs at every level of competition across the UK have committed to a minutes silence before the game, and to wearing poppies on their shirts, actively supporting the appeal; with a few notable objectors, and television personalities are coerced into wearing the symbol on many national broadcasts.

Wigan winger McClean claimed to have
'sparked fury' through his conscientious
objection to the appeal.

Such support however, and the bile thrown at objectors such as James McClean in backlash to his refusal to wear a Poppy is now bordering on fascism. Contrary to the belief of many, the appeal does not seek to commemorate those who lost their lives in the two world wars early in the century, but to donate money to all British servicemen living or dead. Since conscription ended in 1960, this amounts to support of all those people who chose, not people who were forced, to go to war. These wars include the attempts by Britain to retain control of Northern Ireland; the Falklands; their intervention in the four Iraq wars and the war in Afghanistan on the back of Bush's 'War on Terror' speech. Through the blanket imposition of the Poppy in national culture and daily life, the appeal attempts to drum up tacit consent to the actions of these people.

This attempt to use the plight of dead soldiers families and the legacy of the holocaust to create a feeling of support for the current actions of the armed forces amounts to fascism. Promotion of support particularly for Cameron's continued support of Israel abroad and further intervention into Iraq and Syria promotes imperialist notions which Britain should be trying to get away from.

But it's about helping the soldiers and their families. On the British Legion's Poppy appeal website, the goals of the Poppy appeal include helping, 'younger veterans who need employment and housing to live on.' Why should the British people support a system wherein working age veterans, who have left the military for one reason or another, require charity to afford housing? Support of the military in Britain today: a country which despite what the media propose is under no direct threat from outside invaders, and will likely continue not to be: amounts to support of a continued imperialist approach abroad, continued intervention in places like Northern Ireland and the middle east, places where past intervention only served to make things worse, and continued support of a system which does not even attempt to care for its veterans - it expects the public to do so through charity.

It is time to take off the Poppy, and to abandon support for militaristic regimes and those who support Britain's constant intervention in issues which it cannot and has not helped solve. What do you think? Please leave your comments in the discussion below.