Recently there has been a post on Facebook telling us not to wear a poppy because it offends some people.
Maybe I live under a rock or something because I have not heard about anyone complaining about our poppy tradition.
Then I realized that the only place I did hear about it was on these Facebook posts.
That is when I knew it was just another cyber troublemaker post.
These troublemakers like to take a whisper or a grain of truth, blow it up and shout it across the country using social media; so now what was just a whisper that would likely have died a natural death is now a healthy shout that is being heard across the country.
That grain of truth is now something totally different than what it started out to be.
They do it because they want to get people to react to the message.
They are hoping people will get all worked up about the message and write angry comments then spread it around by sharing the post.
This will get people angry at whoever the message was talking about.
It reminds me of how the school bully gets his bullying done.
It also makes me very glad that Hitler did not have this technology available to him.
One of the biggest reasons they are so successful at this is because there are still far too many people who believe everything they see on Facebook.
They think if it is on Facebook it must be true. Wrong!
Anybody can put anything they want on Facebook or social media. People need to start checking things out before hitting that share button.
The Snopes website is a good place to start. Another option is searching the well-established news sites.
When people stop spreading the troublemaker’s message he loses his weapon; his power to make trouble.
He can’t spread his message of hate unless we help him. So please stop helping him.
Okay, getting back to that poppy message; even if it does offend someone, wearing it to annoy them is not a good reason to wear the poppy.
We wear the poppy to honour and remember the men and women who fought for our freedom.
That same freedom the bully uses when he puts whatever he wants on Facebook, the freedom we use when we worship at the Church of our choice, the freedom we use to vote in the government of our choice, the freedom we use to live our lives every day.
We wear it to remember the blood that was shed to give us that freedom.
Please wear your poppy to honour these people, to remember them and to thank them.
by Lois Perepelitz
