Sacred Soil and State-Sanctioned Slaughter.

[Longcol]

Was WW1 both an exercise in population control and also an excuse to create a league of nations, the forerunner to the united nations?

 

No - largely a huge ****-up.

 

The "Spanish Flu" pandemic in 1918 killed more people than WW1 - perhaps conspiracy theorists should start there (and get it wrong as per usual).

[Hots on]

Not really.

 

Oh, OK..........

[Hots on]

No - largely a huge ****-up.

 

The "Spanish Flu" pandemic in 1918 killed more people than WW1 - perhaps conspiracy theorists should start there (and get it wrong as per usual).

 

Why does the Spanish flu happening show that WW1 wasn't an exercise in population control?

[Longcol]

Why does the Spanish flu happening show that WW1 wasn't an exercise in population control?

 

It doesn't (and I wasn't saying it did) - but then again there is no evidence from anywhere that WW1 was an exercise in population control.

[retep]

Nonsense. World War 1 was not fought for my or anyone else's freedom.

 

That morons like you believe that lie is exactly the problem caused by the jingoistic stupidity pointed out by the OP.

 

Where do you think the UK would be if we had lost, I'd say the position Germany was in after the war, starving to death, do you think they would have lifted the blockade of goods as we did, (a year late for a few hundred thousand)

Do you think British forces would be allowed to go on their merry way o deluded one.

Do you think Germany was free after the war.

[flamingjimmy]

Where do you think the UK would be if we had lost, I'd say the position Germany was in after the war, starving to death, do you think they would have lifted the blockade of goods as we did, (a year late for a few hundred thousand)

Do you think British forces would be allowed to go on their merry way o deluded one.

Do you think Germany was free after the war.

 

Here's what you said:

 

"they did their duty so that you... can say they died for pretty much nothing"

 

I said "Nonsense. World War 1 was not fought for my or anyone else's freedom.

 

That morons like you believe that lie is exactly the problem caused by the jingoistic stupidity pointed out by the OP."

 

Perhaps you could make a response that doesn't completely move the goalposts and sticks to the original assertion of yours that I scoffed at?

[alternageek]

Mod Note:

 

Please stay civil with one another.

 

Thank you.

[Phanerothyme]

Quite apart from the pseudo-symbolic crass jingoism, it's also an unspeakably naff idea.

 

---------- Post added 01-12-2013 at 19:24 ----------

 

Rupert Brooke

The Soldier

IF I should die, think only this of me:

That there's some corner of a foreign field

That is forever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore,…

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

 

I'll take your Rupert Brooke and raise you one Wilfred Owen

Dulce Et Decorum Est

 

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

 

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

 

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

 

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

[Nagel]

Repatriating 'sacred soil' from historical battlefields and creating a whole cod ceremony around it is very reminiscent of something the Nazis would have come up with in Germany.

[Harleyman]

Considering that the flower of Britain's manhood died in the fields of Belgium it's appropriate that they should be remembered and also mourned......... not the daft old buggers who started it all