Is Jarosław Kaczyński the new Lech Wałęsa?

Tusk wanted to be at centre stage and the thrust of his government's logistic efforts were directed at making that scenario come true. The presidential flight was regarded as a grudgingly accepted also-ran or side-show. Donny Boy made a disgusting spectacle of himself ostentatiously slobbering over and hugging Soviet-era KGP spy Comrade Putin at the Katyń site. Say what you want, but you'd never get either of the Kaczyński twins engaging in such a humiliating display.

Yes, I'm sure that the unelected dictator takes great care to be alone before he does his slobbering over photos of the elected dictator riding horses and wrestling bears while bare-chested.

Thanks a bunch Harry. Budweiser spilt on the keyboard when I read that :) Dell laptops obviously like Czech beer though so we're OK.
Who would care a jot, if the man wasn't so homoandeverythingelsephobic?

Lech Wałęsa is very different from Jarosław Kaczyński.

Lech Wałęsa is just a simple man. He was a worker, an electrician. He's become much more well rounded and worldy, but still a simple person at heart. He's straightforward but rational. Traditional, Catholic, likes Polish values but relatively tolerant and not a fanatic. Yup, he had his share of brainfarts, some out of stress likely, and he probably tried to say something remarkable... too hard.

Jarosław Kaczyński is irrational, cynical and scheming. Not so much intelligent as cunning. He's also ruthless ("Przez młodego wyjdziemy na starego") and makes a judgement first, then scraps the bottom of the barrel to prove them.

Another difference is how they handle criticism. Lech Wałęsa has recently become fed up about accusation that he collaborated with secret police during communist (PRL) era. To prove that he's not "Agent Bolek", he's calling for a public debate/trial with 10-15 of his most determined enemies. He wants to settle the matter by discussing with his opponents, show proofs and even previously hidden documents.

Back to Jarosław Kaczyński. He just said: "Jesteśmy atakowani za nic." (We're attacked for no reason). Complete denial. So he's sending diplomats and buying sponsored articles in Western press. Not to discuss facts, but to present his spin, blame opposition and previous government.

"A u Was biją Murzynów!" - "And you beat black men!"
That's the mentality. Not address criticism, but deflect it.

Amongst Wałęsa's pearls of wisdom was his recent statement that if the govt did not step down following a referendum, the street would forcibly eject them. Can't you just see wild-eyed Petru, Schetyna, Lis, Michnik and (of course) Delph waving blood-stained banners and leading thousands of screaming rabble in an atttack on the Winter Palace!? It'd make a great comic-book story!

I'd like to think that Jarosław Kaczyński is not such a fool that he would try and remain in power after such a referendum.

Having said that, if he tried to stay in power, the military would almost certainly remove him.

As a constituton freak you know that any referendum has to be approved by the Sejm. Fortunately that august body is now in safe hands!

Indeed. But should PiS refuse to authorise a referendum after the citizens gain enough signatures, then we would almost certainly see a tidal wave of local referendums to remove PiS from all local administrations.

However, I'm against a referendum. I want PiS to stay in power till 2019, because the amount of damage done to the country will be by then very obvious, and PiS will be gone for good.

If the KOD riffraff tried to physically remove the government, the military would be there to mow them down. At least that would be one way of eliminating the hate-filled, frustrated and resentful rabble who cannot reconcile themselves to defeat and disentitlement and continue stirring up trouble.

Your violent fantasies can be disturbing, do you often fantasize about killing your political enemies?

Military action wouldn't be even needed. Average Poles that care about independence of Poland and are a huge majority would do that instead.

The worse the better is your motto then.Let the country suffer damage, let it be smeared internationally, let all three rating agencies lower their evaluation. The main thing is that the temporaily disentitled banksters and nomenklaturists get back to the trouhg which, in your view, is their rightful place. Some patriot you are!

An excellent description of your fellow PISed-up VIPs.

You were making such progress and now.... this.

It's not the 1970s anymore but that's when all of PiS's policies might have worked a little. It's an entirely different world and JK doesn't realize it and his pathological hatred of any opposition means he'll never understand how the modern world works because he won't listen to anyone who does understand. He's an almost tragic figure, turning what should have been a great success into more domestic conflict.

Be sure, I hate a lot of how the modern world works but I also realize that it's only be recognizing what's going on (which is a lot more complex than your simplistic guff about banksters and nomenklatura) that there can be any hope of finding a better model.

Almost everything PiS does is about punishing perceived enemies, but Poland can only prosper by creating incentives for small business and not crippling them with idiotic taxes but that's all that PiS knows how to do now.

No, it is really about finally rewarding and making things up to those masses of Polłes forced to effectviely live in PRL for the past 26 years by the entitled ones, the unlustrated ones, the professional dynasties which have shut ordinary Poles out of many professions, wormed their way into the administration, judiciary and academia, culture and publishing and monopolised the media. Governments have come and gone over the past 26 years, but many of these same types have remained as deputy ministers and departmental directors and held other cushy posts. Do these types have some divine mandate to be to perpetually privileged? Why shouldn't others, those disentitled for 26 years, not enjoy some of the fruits of the transformation?

ALL WE ARE SAYING IS: GIVE PiS A CHANCE!

It won't happen even if after time PiS decisions will come out being right and good for average Pole. They don't want disentitled to live better lives nor they care about them. They care only about themselves and are frightened to lose money and privileges they're used to have through generations.

That is just demented, do you really think there's been no change (for the better) for most people since 1989? I've been here far more often than not since about 1991 and the changes are huge and have benefitted a large majority of the population. To say otherwise is ignorance or demagoguery.


Well the PZPR was filled with talented, ambitious and not very political people along with the party hacks and oppressors. It's normal that many would still flourish. To prevent anyone with a PZPR past from public office would have been a fricking disaster for Poland as a large part of the population with eany managerial talent was part of it.

As far as cooperation with the SB goes, that's another tough one to figure out. My assumption is that a lot of SB records are nonsense (that is communist pathology infected the day to day running of operations as much as everything else).


What fruits? You just said there wasn't a change over the last 26 years? Make up your mind. To the extent that it means anything it sounds like you want your side to have their turn at the trough....

There are some things that are undeniably worse and one of those is access to education (one of the very few good things in the PRL was that smart hardworking people from very humble backgrounds could get a toehold in higher education - that's largely dried up though it's better now than it was 15 years ago)


And just how are economic ideas from 40 or so years ago going to help anyone but government cronies to better lives?

Ask the Chinese.

Much better than the alternative!

I apologize for staying on topic, but why do you think Jarosław Kaczyński hates Lech Wałęsa so much ? The way I see it he tries to discredit Wałęsa and other PRL opposition activists in order to become the only true heroes of PRL. And it's not just about Wałęsa, there are other examples like "Inka".

The logical answer is the LW was involved in Solidarity and opposing the communists and JK...... wasn't, which is why he wasn't detained during martial law.

My sidewalk psychoanalysis is that JK hates himself for a lot of reasons (not doing more against the communists, sexual orientation who knows what else) and so he keeps trying to prove to himself he's the person he wants to be - his brother. And I think he's dealing with a lot of internalized guilt over Smolensk. Even his supporters said he almost cracked up in the aftermath of that.

So one way of removing the demonstrators, including people of all ages, would be to execute them. Perhaps internment in concentration camps would be less extreme. Please moderate your views. You are beginning to sound like a nazi.

When any group try to violently ovethrow a democratically elected government, the latter have the right and duty to restrain the assailants and defend public order and security against anarchy. Every democratic government in the world would react identically.

Interesting article in the Guardian

Kaczyński, leader of PiS, who has deliberately refused any public office. President Andrzej Duda and Beata Szydło, the prime minister, take their orders from him and squirm for his approval. Kaczyński is behaving like Józef Piłsudski, the brilliant but irascible prewar leader who brought Poland back to independence in 1918. He also avoided taking any office, but enforced his will on parliaments from his country house.

I think Kaczyński might be new Piłsudski,and take us back to the Poland old , those were the days...

You should really, REALLY attend a KOD protest and see for yourself! All the people I've seen were calm or smiling. In fact, if you start looking for hate-filled, frustrated, resentful faces you will find the PiS cultists. But in the last few meetins in my city counter-protesters were absent.

On the last gathering there were rainbow flags, but even they failed to spark any hatred. Here and there people were giggling, pointing and laughing.

No, it was Wałęsa and a motley collection of lustration-fearing politicians (including Kwaśniewski, Tusk, Kuroń, Pawlak, Bielecki, Moczulski) that tried to discredit the Polish patriots wanting to set the record straight in 1992 via a thorough-going vetting procesure. As a result, we've had a Polish-Polish war simmering and sporadically erupting as is the case at present ever since.

No, I mean it. The quote "Przez młodego wyjdziemy na starego" proves it. It translates to: "We'll hit the old one through the young one".

A single person accused Jarosław Wałęsa, son of the former president, of having contacts in criminal world. ABW launched investigation twice, despite very flimsy evidence (accusations by 1 person), and failed to find anything at all. That's when Jarosław Kaczyński said: "Przez młodego wyjdziemy na starego". It clearly shows his way of thinking - the goal was to discredit Lech Wałęsa, and hitting his son was just a means to it. Like, JK wanted a proof so badly that he launched a second investigation despite the first one finding nothing at all.

Unlike power-greedy PO who had 14 of the 15 TK appointees and illicitly appointed others to retain their monopoly. Jarosław Kaczyński has gone on record as saying the oppositon can have a majortiy of TK appointees. He will not demadn a majority for the ruling party. So who is the totalitarian dictator?!

This came naturally as a result of staying in power for long (8 years), and except for the last 2 judges in compliance with existing law.
In any case, PO wasn't capable of forcing a judge through on its own, it needed at the very least PSL (which was in coalition with PO). The coalition meant PO couldn't go bats**t insane.

And many of the judges were approved by PiS as well. For example Jarosław Kaczyński voted for Andrzej Rzepliński, the current head of TK.

Polonius, are you hallucinating? Who exactly is trying to violently overthrow the government? The only violence I see is in that post of yours that I objected to.

He would have to be genuinely liked by a majority of the population for that to happen, rather than being treated as a demi-god by 30% and strongly disliked by the rest.

More to the point, he's doing it because he knows fine well that his hands are theoretically clean when the time comes to repair the damage done by his puppets.