Demonstrations in Poland in defence of democracy.

Good post crow, I had many good Hungarian friends in the Uk, Nice to know that Poland still has it's old allies who are willing to step up and defend our democracy,

Sad that at times Europe attempts to undermine our democratically elected government.

well, many a dictatorship got started this way...

Jardinero "well, many a dictatorship got started this way." fair point Hitler and all that.

Talking of which Since Gaddafi and Sadam have been removed the world has gone tits up, they are trying to get rid of that fella Assad in syria.

But all said Hell would freeze over before Poland has another dictator, long live freedom long live Poland.

Which people? The same fair-minded and impartial ones who were happy to have the public domianted by pro-PO types and the TK with 14 PO appointees and 1 recommended by PiS?

Indeed. That's exactly why we're taking to the streets tomorrow.

May the rain be with you.

Thers a Polish saying: Głupich nie sieją, sami się rodzą. Since you may not have a native speaker nearby it transaltes as: Fools are not sown, they spring up on their own!

"Indeed. That's exactly why we're taking to the streets tomorrow."

out of interest how many people who are following this topic actually attend the demonstrations. can we kind of have a straw poll, I must admit from what I see there are only probably ten people (including me) who are following this (I might be wrong)

I will start, I didn't/ don't go not interested in demonstrating against the government.

Anything to put a brave face on things, eh Greggy?

Joke of the day

And on Monday following the weekend PiS will be shaking in their boots and step down so Petru can rule. LOL
And Grzegorz Schetyna has failed in his bid to have EU sanctions imposed on his own country. That would require 27-state consensus and Hungary and probably others would politely decline. The PO continue making foolds of themselves.

edited

See, you have a very simplistic view of things. It rather suits us to have PiS in power for 4 years - by the end of it, their unique form of Catholic-Socialism will be so discredited and morally bankrupt that PiS will be gone for good from the political scene.

Whether they can survive 4 years without Gowin leading a coup is another story.

Make sure that you and other kids put some warm clothes when playing outside in such a cold.

Marching for four years until everybody is blue in the face? Intersting perspective. Believe me, the novelty will soon wear off. Normal people have lives to lead and only frustrated misfits, whqckos, busy-bodies and sundry losers have nothing better to do than chant, rant and pound the pavement.

Interesting way to talk about many PiS demonstrations over the last 8 years.

Anyway, the novelty certainly won't wear off. See, Polonius, with your rabid focus on what's happening every Saturday, you're ignoring what is actually going on.

and few eggs, too.


moment when Duda announced that he works on formation of Intermarium (new Commonwealth) actually represent introduction of principles of essential freedom and real democracy in political life of Poland. After all, concept of modern day democracy has its roots in Sarmatism during Commonwealth in Poland. No need that foreigners giving lessons to Poland. On the contrary. It is Poles who gave foundations to democracy. Poles won`t fail in application of democracy. They would in fact enrich it.


looser, that Schetyna. BDW, what is position of Schetyna in this crisis?


In Serbian, it would be: Glupe ne sej, sami se radjaju.


Its all about that. To save our civilization from certain assimilation.


This attack on Poland was expected. But, Poland isn`t alone. Patriotic Poland gave preemptive signals to friends and brothers and they now doing their part. Sarmatia is awaken.


well, masks rapidly falling down. This time western Europe can`t count on Russia when it comes to subjugation of Poland. Russians now eat Polish apples despite the EU sanctions and they are calm. ;)

Madness is spoon-feeding the nation wtih the kidn of popcommercial crapola served up by the big-time foreign-owned broacasting corproations. Such programming has laso made its way into Poland's public TV and radio. Pro-Polish PiS are converting public broacasting into national media serving the Polsih nation, not foreign exploiters.

Yesterday I watched an hour of TV at my in-laws' place. I was, as ever, astonished by the low quality. I watched part of some kind of cabaret (about 1600) and it was appalling. At first I thought it was a kids' show, but the audience was made up of adults. Apart from that, the commercial breaks, full of OTC meds ads, took up about a third of the time. Why anyone would sit down and watch Polish TV as an evening's entertainment is beyond my understanding.

I did not watch Polish television unless there are some good programs from the past. Dumbing down made some audience too dumb to watch Kabaret starszych panów or even to enjoy themselves waching Sylwester Chęciński's comedies like Sami swoi.

It's no different than the BBC in Britain though really.

I'm putting my journalist's hat back on here.....this is what I think.
On one hand the new media law doesn't matter, why? Most people don't get their news from the public new channels, they watch the privately owned ones. The same goes for newspapers & radio, thankfully too.

Even though it certainly appears to be an anti-free press law, EU law won't allow the press to be gagged. And they won't be gagged becasue most of the media is privately owned.

On the other hand though, I have to say that the vast majority of Polish journalists should be utterly ashamed of themselves. In most countries they would be striking in protest over these new laws. But they're not, they're cowards, more concerned with keeping their pay cheque coming.

I honestly don't think that the new media laws will make much of a difference to how people consume media here. TVN & Polsat will remain independent. The same goes for the radio stations.

Now, of course they'll still be pushing their own bias. But all media is biased (towards their target market). With the launch of Netflix now in Poland even more people will begin the migration away from national television and continue to watch things on demand over the internet. Old media is dying a slow death and give it 5, maybe 10 years and we just won't have a monopoly of national stations anymore, they won't be needed becasue we'll all be watching what we want to watch when we want to watch it.

There will of course still be news channels. But we can already see the changes. Look at the UK, you have the BBC & Sky News news pumping out a conservative viewpoint, while Channel 4 and ITV are far more liberal. The Independent has gone totally liberal, while the Guardian has always been. The Telegraph and The Daily Fail continue to be ultra conservative. When print media was predicted to die these outlets went full out to really target their niches and they did so. Especially the Daily Mail, I think it's the most read online paper in Europe or something like that.

I really wouldn't be too pessimistic about the media laws, while private ownership is allowed then the media landscape in Poland will remain balanced, and so long as access to foreign media is allowed we'll all be able to get our media from wherever we want.

A far greater threat to democracy in Poland is the whole kerfuffle over the tribunal, and PiS have certainly won that.

Edit....I will add that I don't really watch Polish tv, other than live sport I don't really watch much tv anyway and I get almost 100% of my news from internet outlets.

Have you checked who owns that?


What makes you say PIS have won that? Right now their pseudo-President is breaking Polish law over that (and hopefully he'll find out that "I was only following orders from The Dear Leader Chairman Kaczynski" is no defence under Polish law).

That's not the issue of who owns it though. I mean Rupert Murdoch owns Sky and he's evil incarnate.
What's important is that they are independent. Doesn't matter what views they spew, the govt cannot control them. Y'know if PiS lose power and PO come back in then Polsat will be against PO, that's OK, that's their market. But at least they won't have to follow a party line, PO will be able to use PiS' law to do that in public television.


It looks to me like it nothing will be changed for 4 years. I hate saying it but I can't see PiS being outted until their time is up. Yes, the opposition are regrouping finally, but unless a snap election is called (it won't be) then PiS are going to stay where they are.

The only thing we can do as concerned citizens is attend protest and put our local representatives under pressure and let them know that we aren't happy with how things are being done.

The real failure here is democracy, how a party with such a low margin can win power is very much undemocratic.

And this BS about parties needing 5%+ that's nonsense....although I'm happy Korwin didn't get in, he still should be in parliament. This thing of having zero independent politicians is utterly, utterly ridiculous, but that's a different issue for a different time I guess. It's the same in England, 3 parties constantly, only 2 of them ever being in power. That's not democracy, it's just an illusion of democracy.

and his comrades:

the Dear Leader, Chairman Mao
the Dear Leader, Chairman Kim Jong-il
the Dear Leader, Chairman Pao
the Dear Leader, Chairman Obama
the Dear Leader, Chairman Clegg
the Dear Leader, Chairman Mao-bama
the Dear Leader, Chairman Robert Mugabe
the Dear Leader, Chairman Gates
the Dear Leader, Chairman Gupta
the Dear Leader, Chairman McDonnell

that's his full title. Don't you remember?

Citizens of what ?


Our ? You said you never voted.

Do you mean public TV or just what is on the telly in Poland? By law public broadcasters are obliged to puruse a public mission to provide quality news and cultural content. That has not been too successful thus far. Maybe PiS' national media will change things for the better. Naturally, if public TV gets too high quality, down-dumbed audiences weaned on idiotic licenced US sitcoms and "Dancing with Stars"-type spectacles will switch over to hyper-popcommercialised Polsat and TVN. That is an age-old issue mulled by cultural activists, artists and educators the world over. Should the slobs be kept in ignoance and entertained with the kind of popculture tripe they're used to or should an effort be made to improve the overall cultural and intellctual level of society?

KOD demo Wroclaw.
I doubt there were many more than 3,000 in attendance. The event lasted about an hour and seemed to be all about nothing. Chanting slogans, waving flags and not much else. Pretty much a waste of time. A small, peaceful crowd in a town square has no power to do anything.

Did they know they were defending democracy? Did you ask them?

Were the foreigners ? Did you ask them?

I believe so.


Why would I ?

Those taking part were easily recognizable as they were wearing the obligatory KOD sticker.

A good result today again. While Philip is right and that it won't change anything by itself, the most important thing is that these demonstrations keep the issue in the public eye. We've already seen how the PiS support is collapsing, and these demonstrations are keeping the events in Poland in the eye of fellow Europeans.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, we continue to work on the real projects. What you see on the streets is just the surface - it doesn't show what is really happening, which is a broad coalition against this corrupt government.

Poznań had about 3000, and the crucial thing is that numbers are growing every week. We're now beginning to get the message into the institutions that really matter - schools and universities, too.