News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]


Exactly that.


Which is absolutely meaningless politically, as witnessed by the failure of "national conservatives" to get more than 1% of the vote.

Still, it's good to keep them all in one place, as it means the rest of Poland is free to enjoy themselves while they march around arm in arm in uniforms. Seriously, no wonder foreign gay men love Polish nationalists so much.

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]


I get them, which is why I understand that the march is meaningless and that the vast majority of people want nothing to do with it.

Think about it: Warsaw has well over 3m people in the metro area. Yet, even by the organisers own estimates, they only managed to get 60,000 to turn up, and that's with football ultras attending from all over Poland from their villages.

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]


Just look at these patriots!





What are they doing to make Poland better? Nothing.

By the way, how can nationalist fascists hijack something that they organise? The march is organised by Młodzież Wszechpolską and the ONR!

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]


As long as it's genuine patriotism. That means paying taxes, not dumping trash in forests, not smoking on public trains, not being drunk and aggressive on the streets, helping the less able/fortunate, volunteering, looking after vulnerable neighbours, respecting others and being a good citizen. If you claim to be a Catholic, then obviously you should be going to church and living by the rules of the church too, which include opening your door to those in need.

If Poles all behaved like that, this would be a bloody amazing place to live. Look at how nice Switzerland is, and let's not forget that they're a fiercely patriotic and proud people.

Unfortunately, the type of people in the pictures above do none of those things. They're not patriots, and never will be.

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]

Perhaps you prefer to stir up tensions with Ukranians:




It seems so, doesn't it?

The support for these groups is marginal at best, and that's despite them existing for years. Most Poles want absolutely nothing to do with them, and you only have to look at who actually turns up in Warsaw to see that these events mostly rely on getting people to turn up once every few months.

There was one demonstration against Ukrainians in Wrocław by the ONR where only 10 people turned up. That was quite amusing...

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]

I get them perfectly, which is why I understand that the event in Warsaw is not reflective of the wider society.

Perhaps this is your definition of "Poles", then?

Attacking the police in Lublin:



Or perhaps even doing the Nazi salute outside the City Hall in Wrocław:



Is that the image you want to broadcast to the world, really?

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]


I think we understand it perfectly. It seems to be expressed through drinking beer and having crap tattoos while wearing clothes with national symbols on them, while actually doing nothing to improve the lives of others.


Just ordinary, patriotic Poles:





These people have nothing in common with real Polish patriots. Why are so many people not living in Poland obsessed with trying to equate them to real Polish heroes?

For me, a real Polish patriot is the local librarian, who does a tremendous amount of community work while promoting literacy among the population. That's what we need more, not drunk idiots on the streets.

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]

You want a Muslim who called for jihad against Christians and who was responsible for building one of Europe's biggest mosques to be in charge of security in Poland?

WTF man... Bloody hell, just no, no, no.

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]


Are you saying that to be Polish, you have to like censorship and be against free speech?

That's an interesting concept.

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]


Because the Communists were also against them, that's why.

PiS supporters seem to be remarkably in tune with how things were in the good old PZPR days.

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]


The article is from last year.


What were you saying about commies banning things again?

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]


The mayor in cooperation with the police have banned it. The police are under the control of the Ministry of the Interior, so it's effectively a joint local-national government decision. As for the march in Warsaw, I'll be busy going to the parade in Poznań like always.


news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4084324.stm


Commies, you say? Well...

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]


I think there's slightly more to these two stories. There's mass sick leave in the police - 30,000 (!!!) are off on sick leave today, and the government is offering police 1000zł to work on November 11th. Opposition groups are planning to block the march in Warsaw - and if the police can't separate them/control the situation, it has the potential to turn very, very nasty.

I've read one report that a police station in Poznań (Grunwald) has been left with only one police officer today. If the situation is really that bad, I suspect the police themselves won't mind if the marches get banned.

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]


I doubt that anyone that cared enough to join the Nazi resistance would tolerate hatred towards others. Veterans of the Warsaw Uprising were vocal in their opposition to nationalists in Poland, too.

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]

Didn't we do just that with significantly more people with 500+?

I still don't understand why all the drama about it. Take them in, give them free public transport passes and a map showing how to take the first train directly to Germany and turn a blind eye to what happens next.

Estonia did exactly that - they were all "oops, we don't know what happened" and "oh dear, we seem to have lost track of them, wherever could they be?" with a straight face.

But yes, financial reasons are valid. Claiming that they're a threat to Polish culture is hardly a valid reason, though anything that threatens the idea of culture as imposed by the PZPR doesn't bother me.

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]


And you think that Bangladeshis will? Hahaha.

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]


Such drama. Polish culture must be pretty weak and unstable if they can't handle a couple of thousand immigrants.

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]


I've always thought that Poles are very quick to embrace token things like that, but not very quick at all to actually do hard work for their communities.

You'd think a "clean Poland for independence day" action would be a no-brainer, but so many people don't see anything wrong with vandalising and destroying their homeland despite claiming to love it.

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]

Just to make it clear: this is who you'd be associating yourself with:



Ah yes. The type of people who simply don't want foreigners in their country, and that includes you.



I'm sure Grandma would love to see such gothic writing being paraded around outside her window. I'm sure it wouldn't remind her at all of the damage and chaos that the Germans inflicted on her country.



Oh look, here's another example where they talk about pure blood. Did Grandma support the idea of pure blood along with other Nazi ideals, or did she join the resistance to fight against such hateful things?

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]

So your grandmother supported the resistance so that you could support the ones who support what she was against.

Shame on you. Perhaps you should consider what she would think of her grandson supporting a movement that supports racism and hatred towards minority groups.

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]


You won't find many civic-minded people on that march. They're the type of people who think that civic duty involves standing outside the local shop drinking beer.


So why on earth would you take part in a march that glorifies any form of fascism? Wouldn't it be better to take part in one of the hundreds of normal events on the 11th November without any fascist overtones? Many of the people who actually fought against the Nazis in Poland and their families are against these "nationalists", and for good reason.

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]

Isn't it impressive how this site appears to be full of people living abroad that are pushing the line of this being something that it isn't?

For so-called patriots, they seem rather eager not to pay taxes here.

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]


Mostly it's about taking amphetamines and driving around in a 20 year old BMW that you bought from Germany.

News / "It's too late for Germany" (but not for Poland) [1798]


I'd argue that it was needed, because although the Federal Republic had taken on the international commitments of East Germany, there was some logic in that the final border settlement had to be made by Germany as a whole, comparable to the Final Settlement being ratified by Germany as one. The Final Settlement did explicitly demand that Germany accept the Oder-Neisse border, but because Poland wasn't a signatory to that agreement, it made sense to establish a separate treaty with Poland.

Now, where it gets interesting legally is when you consider where the Border Treaty came from. It was clearly required by the Unification Treaty, which in turn derived its legitimacy from the Basic Law of the Federal Republic. The Basic Law in turn got its legitimacy from the Potsdam Agreements, which clearly established that the German Reich was dead and that no successor state existed.

Any claim to repatriations would hinge on an international court finding that German sovereignty continued beyond 8th May 1945. The chances of that are slim to none, especially given that the Allies consistently upheld that they were the ones responsible for the territory now known as the Federal Republic of Germany. The Flensburg Government was never internationally recognised, nor did it have the key components of sovereignty.

There's an argument that says that sovereignty only ends when all structures cease to exist - not only the loss of territory, but also actions must be taken to eliminate what existed of the state. The Allies certainly did just that.

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]

It appears that around 200m PLN has gone missing - it was earmarked for a year of events, yet nothing really happened. Textbook embezzlement, I wonder?

It's amazing that PiS didn't manage to put together a decent event. There's so many things happening all over Poland, yet it's all on local initiative and not on central government initiative. How difficult would it have been to organise a non-partisan event throughout the day in Warsaw with a large open air concert to end the day?

News / "It's too late for Germany" (but not for Poland) [1798]


It's explained here - auswaertiges-amt.de/en/aussenpolitik/themen/internatrecht/entschaedigung-node

Basically, it was the Western Allies that enacted legislation (in the Trizone as it was at the time) that forced the later Federal Republic to pay up as the legal successor to the Trizone. The deal paying Israel seems to have come about as a clear threat from the Allies - either they paid, or the Federal Republic would remain occupied. You'd have to ask the Allies why they didn't demand similar deals for other countries, though I suspect it was because they'd learnt the lesson from Versailles.

Personally, I'd like to see Poland bring a court case on the matter. It would set a nice precedent in international law as to whether a non-successor state can be liable for war reparations.

News / Polish Independence Day March in Warsaw. Is it going to be the biggest march yet? [1530]

The whole thing is turning into a PR disaster for the government. They've failed to organise any real events, no-one will come to Warsaw to meet with the government and now the media is having a field day by pointing out that plenty of undesirable people are planning on coming to Warsaw on that day.

At least Spike's given up posting pictures from other events, probably because he can't find any more images with women and children in them.

News / "It's too late for Germany" (but not for Poland) [1798]


What part of "The Federal Republic of Germany is not the successor state to the German Reich" are you struggling to comprehend?

Until you provide proof that the Federal Republic is in fact the successor state (despite Postdam, the 2+4 Agreement and the ECHR judgement), any demands are just that, demands.

You can have repatriations as soon as you provide evidence of the Federal Republic being recognised as a successor state. Until then, time to shut up.

News / "It's too late for Germany" (but not for Poland) [1798]

There's actually a solid claim for the damage done by the Russian forces in Poland between 1992-1994 - they left former Soviet bases in a terrible way, including plenty of ecological damage. Yet PiS say nothing about it, and you have to ask yourself why.

Most independent commentators seem to agree that the whole thing is a very clumsy attempt to blackmail Germany ahead of the next budget negotiations. It's not going to work, and might actually badly backfire.

News / "It's too late for Germany" (but not for Poland) [1798]


No-one cares about this 'claim', because it's obvious that it's all theatre intended for domestic consumption.

Our friend here seems remarkably unwilling to discuss the issue of Poland getting repatriations from Russia, which clearly shows that the issue is dictated by politics and not by moral argument.