Originally Posted by arddunol:
“That isn't what Jon Snow said as I understand ; he objects to being told that he has to wear one on air ; they sit in a box in the make up room , so , on with the make up then the poppy and put it back in the box afetr you're done .
He said he wears one privately, as he put it .
It is on the SCD website that the policy is poppies may be worn this year from 6/11 to 14/11 IF they want .
I am ambivalent on this ; I do like to see them being worn but to insist rather goes against the whole idea of our freedom to live as we do being won in two world wars .
I do feel the the phrase " poppy Fascism " is dreadful; I see what is meant but it reduces the word to the ordinary; no one who chooses not to wear a poppy will be treated as they would have been for disobeying an edict under a Fascist regime.
And that surely is why we wear the poppies in the end , yes , as a symbol of remembrance but also a a symbol of our debt of gratitude .”
“That isn't what Jon Snow said as I understand ; he objects to being told that he has to wear one on air ; they sit in a box in the make up room , so , on with the make up then the poppy and put it back in the box afetr you're done .
He said he wears one privately, as he put it .
It is on the SCD website that the policy is poppies may be worn this year from 6/11 to 14/11 IF they want .
I am ambivalent on this ; I do like to see them being worn but to insist rather goes against the whole idea of our freedom to live as we do being won in two world wars .
I do feel the the phrase " poppy Fascism " is dreadful; I see what is meant but it reduces the word to the ordinary; no one who chooses not to wear a poppy will be treated as they would have been for disobeying an edict under a Fascist regime.
And that surely is why we wear the poppies in the end , yes , as a symbol of remembrance but also a a symbol of our debt of gratitude .”
It's a tricky one, arddunol, because people's perceptions of what it means to wear a red poppy differ. I'm afraid there have been too many instances of people using their positions of power to enforce the wearing of it. It's not just the BBC.
There has been a parallel movement to promote the wearing of a white poppy as a symbol of peace for some time. It started before WW2, I think, because IIRC a group of women peace campaigners were becoming increasingly concerned about the country wearing red poppies to commemorate the dead of WW1, while preparing to fight another war. The peaceniks wanted a symbol that would both honour the fallen and stand as a protest against any further wars.
Yet in many quarters, wearing a white poppy is seen as disrespectful towards soldiers, even when that's not what is intended. Thatcher said in Parliament that she found them 'deeply distasteful'. Yet disrespecting soldiers is not at all what was intended.
So what has this got to do with Strictly? Well, like any reality show featuring slebs, we have our own perceptions about their characters - he's smug, she's vain, he's false, she's witless - you know the sort of thing. Dancing ability is only part of why we pick up the phones and vote. Can the imagine the furore if Pamela, say, had refused to wear the red poppy last night? The papers would have made mincemeat of her and the forums would have gone wild. So it is dictatorship, albeit a relatively benign variety, and I'm afraid it is fascism as well, since the simple definition of fascism is that it is a political ideology that puts the nation's interest before the individual's.
