A little respect...

[GM-MarkB]

Was in Meadowhall today...don't judge me, lol....and was sat having a coffee in the Oasis as 11am approached. The tannoy asked that we all join in 2 minutes of silence to remember the fallen etc. Have to say that everyone around me, even the kids, were pretty spot on. But.......

Dear Mr Meadowhall, wouldn't it have been a lot better if you'd turned the Muzak off during everyone elses silence ??

Just a thought...

[RobTheRover]

They were playing Erasure?

[GM-MarkB]

Sorry Rob but I don't find that funny considering the subject

[RobTheRover]

Oh come on Mark!  The post title.... no...?

Hardly disrespectful now, was it?

[Sheepskin Stu]

You should be ashamed of yourself Rob.

[RobTheRover]

If I've offended anyone then I apologise unreservedly. 

[BillyStubbsTears]

Very disappointing piece on the radio this morning.

A bunch of school kids at the Ypres Commonwealth War Grave.

One young lass, almost overcome with emotion said, "It really brings it home to you that these people gave their lives because they were British and because they were fighting for a just cause. It makes you proud to be British."

Something has clearly gone wrong in the education system if we're bringing kids up to think that WWI was a war fought in a just cause. WWII, certainly. But WWI was a senseless mass carnage, fought for no other reason than that the upper class ruling elites of UK, Germany, France, Russia and Austro-Hungary couldn't find a way to stop it, then poured lives into the battlefield once it had started. And, each country having taught it's people to despise the enemy, they found no end of volunteers to go and "do their duty". And the world that they fought for, the world of the 1920s and 30s was one that resulted in mass unemployment, poverty and degradation for the working class of UK and Europe, whilst the upper class grew richer than ever.

We should teach our kids to feel lots of things about the sacrifice of 10million European lives in WWI. Sympathy, horror, disgust, anger and admiration for the courage of men thrown into a senseless annihilation. But pride is the last thing they should feel. Lose that lesson and you are sowing the seeds of the next senseless generation of us-against-them.

[Rios]

Very disappointing piece on the radio this morning.

A bunch of school kids at the Ypres Commonwealth War Grave.

One young lass, almost overcome with emotion said, "It really brings it home to you that these people gave their lives because they were British and because they were fighting for a just cause. It makes you proud to be British."

Something has clearly gone wrong in the education system if we're bringing kids up to think that WWI was a war fought in a just cause. WWII, certainly. But WWI was a senseless mass carnage, fought for no other reason than that the upper class ruling elites of UK, Germany, France, Russia and Austro-Hungary couldn't find a way to stop it, then poured lives into the battlefield once it had started. And, each country having taught it's people to despise the enemy, they found no end of volunteers to go and "do their duty". And the world that they fought for, the world of the 1920s and 30s was one that resulted in mass unemployment, poverty and degradation for the working class of UK and Europe, whilst the upper class grew richer than ever.

We should teach our kids to feel lots of things about the sacrifice of 10million European lives in WWI. Sympathy, horror, disgust, anger and admiration for the courage of men thrown into a senseless annihilation. But pride is the last thing they should feel. Lose that lesson and you are sowing the seeds of the next senseless generation of us-against-them.

The bid question is what would Europe and in particular Germany have evolved into if WW1 hadn't happened?  Would National Socialism and Hitler had any of the traction that it did without the poverty and humiliation heaped on Germany after defeat in WW1?

[not on facebook]

Very disappointing piece on the radio this morning.

A bunch of school kids at the Ypres Commonwealth War Grave.

One young lass, almost overcome with emotion said, "It really brings it home to you that these people gave their lives because they were British and because they were fighting for a just cause. It makes you proud to be British."

Something has clearly gone wrong in the education system if we're bringing kids up to think that WWI was a war fought in a just cause. WWII, certainly. But WWI was a senseless mass carnage, fought for no other reason than that the upper class ruling elites of UK, Germany, France, Russia and Austro-Hungary couldn't find a way to stop it, then poured lives into the battlefield once it had started. And, each country having taught it's people to despise the enemy, they found no end of volunteers to go and "do their duty". And the world that they fought for, the world of the 1920s and 30s was one that resulted in mass unemployment, poverty and degradation for the working class of UK and Europe, whilst the upper class grew richer than ever.

We should teach our kids to feel lots of things about the sacrifice of 10million European lives in WWI. Sympathy, horror, disgust, anger and admiration for the courage of men thrown into a senseless annihilation. But pride is the last thing they should feel. Lose that lesson and you are sowing the seeds of the next senseless generation of us-against-them.

The bid question is what would Europe and in particular Germany have evolved into if WW1 hadn't happened?  Would National Socialism and Hitler had any of the traction that it did without the poverty and humiliation heaped on Germany after defeat in WW1?

'Halt who Goes there'

[The Red Baron]

Very disappointing piece on the radio this morning.

A bunch of school kids at the Ypres Commonwealth War Grave.

One young lass, almost overcome with emotion said, "It really brings it home to you that these people gave their lives because they were British and because they were fighting for a just cause. It makes you proud to be British."

Something has clearly gone wrong in the education system if we're bringing kids up to think that WWI was a war fought in a just cause. WWII, certainly. But WWI was a senseless mass carnage, fought for no other reason than that the upper class ruling elites of UK, Germany, France, Russia and Austro-Hungary couldn't find a way to stop it, then poured lives into the battlefield once it had started. And, each country having taught it's people to despise the enemy, they found no end of volunteers to go and "do their duty". And the world that they fought for, the world of the 1920s and 30s was one that resulted in mass unemployment, poverty and degradation for the working class of UK and Europe, whilst the upper class grew richer than ever.

We should teach our kids to feel lots of things about the sacrifice of 10million European lives in WWI. Sympathy, horror, disgust, anger and admiration for the courage of men thrown into a senseless annihilation. But pride is the last thing they should feel. Lose that lesson and you are sowing the seeds of the next senseless generation of us-against-them.

Well, that's one interpretation of the origins of WW1, and one that I subscribed to for a few years(largely because I'd been brought up on A.J.P. Taylor). However, while at university I read Fritz Fischer's "Germany's Aims in the First World War" and found it very convincing. Basically Fischer's thesis was that Kasier Wilhelm had the desire to make Germany a world power and came to realise that he could only achieve this by war, specifically with France and Britain (who controlled most of the colonial posessions in asia and africa that Germany sought.)

I apprciate that there were other countries in which a war suited the ruling elite becuase of the domestic probleme they faced at home (Austria-Hungary, Turkey and even Russia probably also fell into this category). However, Britain was reluctant to get involved and only did so because of the fear that Germany would first of all come to doninate Europe and then would involve Britain in a series of colonial wars.