The problem is the amount of time that has elapsed. That's another offence of the Magdalenka conspiracy: You take the poltiical power - the commies told Solidarity-led oppositon, and we (the commies) take the loot. In that way the regime holdovers wormed their way into the economy, privatisation system and govt administration at different levels. Lustration was half-heated to say the least and many regimists made it through the cracks into the police, military and special services. They have become so embedded that they are now difficult to dislodge, and therein lies the problem. Considering that the ex-commies twice had a government and twice a commie president, it'd be difficult now to hold them to account. It's something like prosecuting Kiszczak -- he deserves to be and yet his age and infirmity makes this also a humanitarian issue.
I believe when PiS returns to power the most they can do is prosecute PO-era scams and prevent new ones emerging.
Do you feel that family background is important? I'm thinking about Adam Michnik, for instance. Should he be allowed to hold a position of such great influence on the media, given his family background?
There is no collective guilt. The son of Hans>Frank (Nazi governor fo Poland) has spent his life revealing and discrediting his father's misdeeds, but there is no law compelling anyone to do so. Michnik comes from an especially unsavoury background -- father a leading member of Stalin's Comintern, mother a textbook author sovietising Polish schoolchildren in post-war Poland, and brother a desktop murderer- a stalinist prosecutor with blood on his hands, now a fugitive from justice hiding in Sweden. Michnik chose not be be another son of Hans Frank and has never been known to issue blanket condemnation of his stalinsit family. But he was raised in that climate, friends of the family were all former stalinists. None of this can legally prrevent him participating in free Poland's politicaa life, but it si good to know these facts. They explain why he is soft on communsits and buddy-buddy wth Jaruzelski and Kiszczak and down on Kukliński. And his nationalitsy explains why he thinks Hitlerr was worse than Stalin. Most ethnic Poles either beleive both were equally evil or even that the USSR was worse than the Thrid Reich.
But he was raised in that climate, friends of the family were all former stalinists. None of this can legally prrevent him participating in free Poland's politicaa life, but it si good to know these facts.
Of course it was, far too many of the present day ultra patriots used to be plain old collaborators for there to be proper lustration. Sure, now they can justify their past actions with 'I just did what I needed to do to keep my job' or 'I had to do that or I'd have been deported' but they know the truth about what they did, as do we.
Even if that is true, what does that have to do with anything? Michnik bears no responsibility for the red slime of his loved ones, but it has made him soft on commies. If that holds for Michnik, then it also holds for Kaczyński who has never been soft on commies. Where's the problem? If the Rajmund business were true, the PO hate factory would have trumpeted it loud and clear from the rooftops. Since they haven't, the materials looks suspect and tabloidised. And we can expect to see them promoted mainly by the likes of the PF's mainly expat Pole-bashers.
Why would a newspaper Editor who was jailed by a regime before he was a public figure and for fighting to destroy the regime bear any responsibility for that regime?
He bears responsibility only for being soft on communism probably due to the friends of the family he was raised among, He was buddy-buddy with the Polish Goebbels -- fellow-Jew Jerzy Urban and he called Soviet puppets Jaruzelski and Kiszczak "men of honour". He also badmouthed the first Polish officer in NATO, Col. Kukliński. That is all he's repsonsible for. Why he thinks the way he does, we can only speculate that it resutled from the milieu he grew up in, but only his shrink knows for sure. He was in thick with the KOR-ites who did not want to overthrow communism, only reform it. Only after they saw that Solidarity and the pro-independence opposition wanted no part of socialism in any size, shape or form, did they see the writing on the wall. The hypocrisy of the KOR-ties was that they got to power behind the protective cassock of the Church which lent them its premises for meetings, lectures, laternative education and clandestine printing as well as providing food, clothing and shelter when they were being hunted by the SB. But was soon as they got to power they showed their true colours and began badmouthing the Church -- literally the hand that had fed them.
What responsibility or lack thereof would he or should he bear, since he has always been a private individual (and one jailed by the regime) and does not hold public office either now or then?
He publishes a newspaper that people buy if they want to read it and don't buy if they don't want to read it.
Perhaps you think that only voices you approve of should be heard.
Michnik was very much a public figure as an activist of KOR and an MP. He became editor under false pretences, because Wałęsa appoitned him to edit the official Soldiarty daily Gazeta Wyborcza. But wily Adam soon turned it into the KOR-ite Courier mainly supporitve of his own cronies with similar post-stalinist roots. The paper had strayed so far from it was supposed to be that Wałęsa had to withdraw its right to use the Solidarity kogo on the front page. But by then he had turned the paper into a publishing corporation Agora run by his ethnic cronies and started introducing seductive supplements, gadgets, contests, how-to inserts and gifts which an unsuspecting post-communist public could not resist. With that headstart and preferential initial bankrolling, no other paper could compete. You expats can read about this if you want, but I was actually there and covering all this as it occurred.
Hey, that's how all totaliarian systems work. Amerca's PC dictatorship is neither truly stalinsit nor nazi, but people can lose their job is they are opposed to homo marriage or even dare publicly disagree with the pro-homo lobby. And most keep their mouth shut so as not to lose their job or get bypassed for promotions. Sure there are some who heroically stand up for what they believe, but to many putting food on the table, paying the rent and buying clothes for the kids are the top priorities. It's human nature.
So why would a jailed activist bear responsibility for the regime who jailed him?
He doesn't. But some people hate him because he fought against the same communist regime that they collaborated with. He is proof that one could have fought the communist regime and still do well in life.
Some people when they lack bona fide arguments put alien words in their interlocutor's mouth. Michnik was not responsible for the regime nor his parents' and brother's sins. He is responsible only for the anti-Polish nonsense written in GW. Like calling the AK an anti-Semitic organisation or labelling Col. Kukliński a traitor, calling Jaruzelski and Kiszczak "men of honour", hobnobbing with the Polish Goebbels (Urban) or badmouthing the Church which enabled the KOR-ites to survive. They played up Jedwabne but strangely enough have regularly soft-pedalled or ignored Jewish misdeeds and treachery such as the Judenräte, ghetto police and Jewish kapo incineration squads or the Jews in Soviet-annexed eastern Poland that turned Polish patriots over to the NKVD. That is just a small snippet of the GW's anti-Polish programme. And only that is Michnik responsible for, not for the Polish patriots his brother sent to their death or the young Polish minds mama Michnik tried to poison.
Again (for the second time today) you've described somebody Polish as being 'anti-Polish' simply because they don't share your own extreme political views. It really does look like you'd prefer a very different kind of totalitarian state.
Calling AK freedom-fighters anti-Semites and Soviet-trained traitors Kiszczak and Jaruzelski "men of honour" is definitely anti-Polish. Dwelling on Polish misdeeds (and such did occur) whilst whitewashing or ignoring Jewish ones (and such also occurred) is definitely anti-Polish. And constantly attacking the Polish Church which aided and abetted the KOR-ites in their time of need is definitely anti-Polish.
Some of them undoubtedly were anti-Semites and people can be men of honour when (even especially) if they have a point of view other than your own extreme one.
None of the things you've described is anti-Polish and I notice you've started using that phrase to describe any viewpoint other than your own - bizarre when criticising totalitarianism.
He is responsible only for the anti-Polish nonsense written in GW.
He would have been, if any had ever been published there, but there hasn't been, so he isn't. Michnik has always been careful about who writes for GW, which I'm told has upset some people, who even now haven't forgiven him.
Check out what a hack called Cichy wrote about the AK on the pages of GW. Or what Michnik himself wrote about Kukliński, a sterling patriot, who lost his two sons to the long arm of the Kremlin. Also GW will support any renegade priest or anyone else that tries to discredit the Church. They don't write about the massive charitable and humanitarian activities of Caritas. No, that doesn't fit their twisted agenda, But a paedophile vicar will get highlighted and receive huge play day after day. Objective, balanced journalism, eh? Maybe put some of the GW copy into google translate to find out what they're actually writing about -- now and in the past.
Kukliński, the man who went to the United States and helped an enemy of Poland with preparations against us in exchange for a few dollars.
Just think that had NATO gone to war with the Warsaw Pact, Kukliński's actions would probably have helped to bring about the demise of Poland eternally. A patriot? No. I imagine the death of his sons was compensated with bags upon bags of American cash.
America has never been an enemy of Poland, unless you subscribe toi Crow's skewed anti-NATO rants. The only enemy was the PRL regime of two-bit Soviet-trained puppets like Jaruzelski and Kiszczak. Any actions aimed at weakening or destabilising the criminal regime was a patriotic pro-Polish gesture.But I can see you prefer to mouth the Michnik line that Jaruzelski was the good guy. What was so good about him? Was it because he had Popiełuszko killed and nearly 100 others during his martial-law swoop to crush solidarity. Was it because he took part in the 1968 anti-Semitic purge, invasion of Czechoslovakia and 1970 massacre of protesting shipyard workers?
Polonius3, do You genuinely believe that the United States didn't have plans to annihilate Poland in the event of war? NATO was no friend of Poland's during the Cold War, and any conflict would have seen NATO using tactical nuclear bombs at a minimum to destroy Soviet supply lines through Poland to prevent West Germany falling in the face of the vast Warsaw Pact numerical superiority.
The same NATO had absolutely no interest in getting involved with helping Poland when Poland needed help most.
I rather think that Kukliński did it for the money. Please don't forget that in order to rise to the position of Colonel in the LWP, he would have been required to prove his loyalty to not only Poland, but also Moscow. Like Jaruzelski, you didn't rise to the top of army structures without being completely obedient to your masters. Have You also forgotten that he took part in detailed planning for the state of war?
Some people also believe that Kukliński was a double agent. It is possible.
Whether Kuklinski was a double agent or not is something that we will probably never know. What we do know is that 99.99999% of the army were completely loyal. Had their been a conflict between Warsaw Pact stated and NATO, they would have obeyed orders.
Poland is essentially a conformist society and though a regime might be disliked, that does not mean that the populace would mysteriously do the bidding of another regime thousands of miles away.
Had their been a conflict between Warsaw Pact stated and NATO
Had their been a conflict between Warsaw Pact and NATO, the Soviet-trained top brass would have been completely loyal to the Kremlin. Initially they would probably pull most of the army with them by feeding them deceptive propaganda -- imperialist forces are invading our beloved homeland! (the way Putin does), But depending on how long the conflict lasted and whether a civilian resistance movement emerged, some of the soldiers would join or desert. It also depends when this was happening. In the Internet era it would be far more difficult for the Soviet puppets to bamboozle society. Anyway, historical speculation is anyone's guess.
You've got a point. People used to say the Internet cannot be stopped or censored but China has proved them wrong. A friend revently visited China and said she could not access Google or Facebook on the local internet hookups..
A friend revently visited China and said she could not access Google or Facebook
I thought that Google and Facebook both have deals with the Chinese government what content is accessible from within the country. Has that changed recently?
Had their been a conflict between Warsaw Pact and NATO...
...Europe would have been a sea of molten glass within five minutes. Loyalty is not much worth after you've been vaporized.
