.
Lest we forget.
Remembrance Sunday this year will push the boundaries of establishment hypocrisy to new levels. It has long been an uneasy day for me, as wrapped under the camouflage of respect for the dead lies a thinly hidden propaganda agenda and the old lie:
Dulce et decorum est Pro Patria mori – “it is a sweet and fitting thing to die for your native land.”
It is right and vital that we remember those who died opposing fascism in World War II and those killed in the mincing machines of World War I.
Sadly though the establishment weaponises respect for the fallen in support of blind nationalism, the glorification of war and the public image of the powerful. That was never its intention.
Lest we forget? Artfully airbrushed for western audiences, a modern day bloodbath continues in Ukraine. The killing fields of Zaporizhzhia, Bakhmut and Avdiivka are just as horrific as World War One and British elites are directly complicit in stoking and sustaining a proxy war that Ukraine never had any hope of winning.
The UK political and media establishment has helped to:
- Scupper peace talks
- Buff false Ukrainian hopes of an easy victory
- Poured ever more weapons on to the blazing fire.
- Hidden the true horrors of this war behind war porn and tub thumping
- Lied about the ‘progress’ of the war
None of this was in service of any moral principle as both the historical context and events in Palestine show clearly. All of it was a geopolitical gambit in which the lives of 250,000+ dead and injured Ukrainians were wholly expendable. Lest we forget? For the umpteenth time working class people are being used as cannon fodder in the games of empires. We keep forgetting the true horrors of war and this underlying truth, allowing the elites to weep crocodile tears about the short con and so set up us for the long.
Lest We Forget? The UK is giving media camouflage, political cover, money and weapons in support of fascist atrocities in Gaza. On November 11th genocide enablers like Sunak and Starmer will wrap themselves in the sacrifices of those who opposed fascism and then continue to cheerlead Israeli crimes against humanity.
Can you imagine the media hoopla and thunderous political moralising if Remembrance Sunday celebrations (and they ARE largely celebrations now – not commemorations) were to be interrupted with reminders of the unfolding Holocaust in Palestine? Just pause for 60 seconds to really let the galactic hypocrisy of that sink in. The propaganda bombardment that occurs every year on Remembrance Sunday is about aspects of what we once were – not what we have become.
Lest we forget? We have totally forgotten. On Remembrance Sunday some will respect it for the right reasons and I have no quarrel with them, indeed I will join them – but many others will use it to underwrite the moral bankruptcy of today by way of cosy nostalgia and propaganda.
The red poppy this year will have a duel meaning for me – it will honour those who battled fascism and those lost in pointless wars, but it will also be stained in the hypocrisy of the psychopathic British establishment and the the blood of dead Gazan children.
Lest we forget.
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