Life / Consumer Rights & Returns in Poland [22]


Oh, I haven't thought of this... That would be cool actually...

Feedback / Polish forums members - please stop being agressive and dishonest. What a waste of potential. [48]


It does, but I read the comments of people I'm discussing with and usually I also bother to google and read stuff before I comment on sth :)


Neither me nor morvinsietform claimed that it does. We both complained about the general atmosphere on this forum, the behaviour of people on PF and the quality of the input of forum members.

Life / Consumer Rights & Returns in Poland [22]


Yes, me too.


Well, if the mouse wasn't faulty and he simply wanted a better model then I don't think PolskiCanuck should be upset with the guy at the store. There are different laws in Poland than in his country apparently and he shouldn't expect that the shop assistant will change them just for him :) (of course, I understand that PolskiCanuck probably didn't know those laws at the time).

Life / Consumer Rights & Returns in Poland [22]

What about stuff like computer monitors? I could use a new one and lately true colours on the computer screen have become important for me, I wouldn't like the screen to be too yellow or too blue so I was wondering if they would let me put, for example, two different monitors next to each other and see how they show colours... What do you think?


What a pun, kpc21 ;D

Life / Consumer Rights & Returns in Poland [22]


Judging by what PolskiCanuck wrote, the mouse wasn't faulty. He simply didn't like the mouse and wanted something better.

Feedback / Polish forums members - please stop being agressive and dishonest. What a waste of potential. [48]

You should read more, jon357, it broadens horizons and you could learn a thing or two - one is never too old to learn, we learn all our lives :)


What do you mean by that?

Feedback / Polish forums members - please stop being agressive and dishonest. What a waste of potential. [48]

Morvinsietform, you pretty much, more or less, summed up my feelings about this forum and some people here. There's a bitter and agressive atmosphere on PF and people who stay here longer often get dragged into it. There are two camps fighting with each other and this seems to be the core of this forum nowadays. It got especially ugly lately with some members trying to get each other fired in real life jobs - can you believe it? It's psychotic, I've never seen anything like this on any internet forum.


Jon357 blaming PF problems on Poland. Unbelievable.
I've never met in Poland people who would love to argue like you guys here. And in a very, very nasty way too.

I am myself tired of the atmosphere on PF, of those two gangs arguing with each other like children. I don't think this should be the core of a forum like this but it is. After pigsy was banned I decided to do sth good, sth useful for the forum and so I helped some people out with info and got involved in some normal-looking, interesting discussion in order to focus on sth normal and not on the bickering and the drama of PF but this forum somehow always puts me off in the end and I need to take brakes from it.

Of course, I don't have to be here, obviously, I've seen people here being told in the past that "if you can't take it than leave", that it's a "specific" forum for thick-skinned people, or sth of this sort. Well, and there you have it - rhinos trashing each other lol

As jon357 put it - each to their own I suppose...

Pity there's no other forum though... Maybe if women set up one it would be less aggressive? lol Dunno... :)


My impression is that those are usually trolls, or maybe rather one particular troll.

Life / Consumer Rights & Returns in Poland [22]


That's the thing, from what I've understood from PolskiCanuck's post the mouse worked and wasn't damaged, he simply wasn't satisfied with what he got for the money he paid. I don't see why the store would have to take the mouse back, especially if it was opened and used. Stores are stores and not some rental places, after all.

I know that, for example, you can return clothes bought at Biedronka (maybe at other places too, like Lidl, etc.) during 5 days due to the fact that you can't try them on in the store, only at home. This seems logical to me.

Life / Consumer Rights & Returns in Poland [22]

Was it faulty or damaged?


Do the store rules say that you can return nonfaulty product within 14 days? I think you can return a product if you change your mind about it within some period of time if you buy something on the internet, but in case of real life stores that probably depends on the store's policy...

Love / What do you like most about Polish girls? :) [120]


That's wonderful and I hope it will stay that way ;D


A "lesbian"? o_O


Yes, yes, sure, it's just, you see, I've seen many, many opinions of Western men claiming the same about Polish women vs. their own "arrogant nasty hating-men Western b1tches, etc. etc.". It seems the grass is always greener on the other side :) At least, for this "special" type of men ;D

So, I don't think I'm going to treat seriously anything a man says about women of any nationality anymore (including you, of course, sorry) lol


Oh, I'm sure it would be. But it looks like Polish women have better things to do than backbite Polish men on a foreign forum :)

Of course, I could post links in Polish about Polish men but I've been always defending Polish men on this forum and I think I'll show mercy this time too lol

Language / Ethnic backround of suffixes of Polish surnames [54]

Poleboy765, your looks don't really matter much in this case, because the origin of your surname is known and documented. Surname Kurek is related to the surname Kur, which is, as you already know, a surname of a Polish knighthood family that originated from Mazovia in medieval Poland:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurowie

Kurowie were a medieval chivalric clan from Mazovia region in Poland that gave rise to a vast heraldic family:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraldic_family

Among the surnames within this heraldic family with the same root are: Kur, Kurek, Kurski, Kurzewski, Kurak, Kurakowski, Kurowski, Kurzecki, Kurzyk, Kurzyna. Most of those families have also a common genealogical root since they have one common ancestor that bore a nickname known in Mazovia - "Kur".

The word "kur" is an old Polish word for a rooster (it's still used in some regions in Poland apparently).
You probably already know the legend explaining the origin of the surname Kur and of the coat of arms of your family: one night a knight noticed enemies approaching his king's camp and he alarmed the camp - he woke them up as a rooster wakes up everyone in the morning with his "Cock-a-doodle-doo!". In gratitude the king granted him this coat of arms.

According to an article on Wikipedia your knightly ancestors ended up in Mazovia in order to defend it from the Baltic Prussians - Konrad I of Masovia asked the first missionary bishop of Prussia, Christian of Oliva, to set up a military chivalric order that would protect the borders of his lands from the attacks of Prussian pagans and so the bishop created the Order of Dobrzyń:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Dobrzy%C5%84

The cadre of the order consisted of 14 knights-monks, some of which came from the city Basedow in Mecklenburg (a historical region in northern Germany). For this mission the knights were picked by the Duke of Mecklenburg, John I, from among knights connected to a powerful aristocratic family Hahn-Basedow:

wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Hahn

The coat of arms of this family was a Rooster. This powerful chivalric family was of Slavic origin, they came to Mecklenburg from Courland ("Kurlandia" in Polish):

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courland

Their coat of arms was called "Kur" in Poland and the members of the family were called "Kurowie" among Poles and in Silesia the coat of arms and the family was called "Kokoty" (Old Polish name for a rooster). So, the family Kokotowie are also your heraldic kin.

With time it also became the battle cry of this chivarlic formation which later became the heraldic family known as Kurowie.
This military chivarlic group was being joined during the course of time by Masovians who, in line with the custom at that time, were adopting the sign of their leader - the Rooster (Kur). Since the 1222 the ranks of the Order of Dobrzyń were being joined by Mazovian knights. The name of a village Kurów and a river Kurówka comes from the stronghold set up by the order, according to Stanisław Hr. Mieroszowski:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kur%C3%B3w

Source: pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurowie_(r%C3%B3d_rycerski)

Your surname is Kurek, but a noble family as whole is called in plural "Kurkowie".
The suffix "-ek" in Polish usually denotes a diminutive. "Kot" is a "cat" and "kotek" is a little cat. So, "kur" is a rooster, and "kurek" is a small rooster.


I don't understand - her first name is Janina and her middle name is Janinówna? What's her surname then? Janinowska? ;))


Surname "Boyer" seems to be extremely rare in Poland but it can be found:
moikrewni.pl/mapa/kompletny/boyer.html

It's more popular in Germany:
verwandt.de/karten/absolut/boyer.html

It can also be found in Switzerland, for example.
It could be German or Jewish. It reminds me of the German surname Bayer - maybe it's a variation of this surname, I really don't know.


How can you be so sure that it's Armenian? o_O


Suffix "-ys" denotes either Lithuanian roots or it means that a foreigner lived in Lithuania and his surname was Lithuaniazed ("his" because it's a male ending of a surname).

Source: pl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Aneks:J%C4%99zyk_litewski_-_rzeczownik

Genealogy / The typical Polish look, or all Eastern Europeans [656]

Poleboy765, I think that you look more Russian than Polish (maybe such looks are more common in Eastern Poland). I agree with Ziemowit - there's something "foreign" about your face (I'd say that you look "American" :)).


What kind of info are you looking for?

If you come from the nobilty then that would be the coat of arms of your family:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kur_coat_of_arms

Love / What do you like most about Polish girls? :) [120]


Hmm, wait a minute, I thought that someone who's having sex for money is called "a prostitute" or "a sex worker" and not "a slu*t".

I always thought that "a slu*t" is a word for a woman who's having sex with many men for free.
Let's look at the definitions, shall we :)

urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=slut

slut

1. a woman with the morals of a man (I particularly love this one :D)
2. Someone who provides a very needed service for the community and sleeps with everyone (...) These are great people, and without them sex crimes would definitely increase."

3. A derogatory term. Refers to a sexually promiscuous person, usually female.

I find the definition nr 5 to be the most reasonable.

You know, I've been wondering since some time why men have to be so vile when talking about women, why they have this need to degrade them in case of anything related to sex.

Redwolf, what is your problem with prostitutes? Did they do something bad to you? I would understand such venom/hate/contempt directed at a pedophile who raped a bunch of kids or a drunk driver who ran over your dog, but if it wasn't for prostitutes probably quite a few boys/men wouldn't have sex in their lifetime. So why this hate?

Did you know that many prostitutes were sexually abused during childhood? Or that many of them are actually victims of human trafficking (it often happens that "they" charge very little)? You know nothing about them, you don't know their stories, what they've been through, so I would advise you to hold your tongue.

And what if they charged more than a few euro for "licking your anus" - would that make you respect them more? lol So how much in your opinion would that be? 10 euro? 20 euro? 100? 200? A thousand?

No matter how much money they charge - they're still people with feelings (in case you forgot about that). Just like garbage collectors and cleaning ladies. Noone wants to end up as one but someone has to do their job so have some respect for your fellow human beings.

Of course, I'm not writing this only to Redwolf (the addressees probably know who they are).

I used to use the word "slu*t" too in the past, but I got wiser and became more mature and humane than this.

Almost every man is "a slu*t" but somehow they're not being called names.


I find it interesting that for quite some time Polish women weren't discussed on this forum (to my great relief lol) but suddenly after my comment in which I wrote about two intelligent, educated, successful young women who happen to be members of my family K1907 appeared who's probably a troll that frequents this forum provoking men like you to show their true colours.

And look at you - you registered on this forum only to make a misogynistic comment.


What's wrong Rumcajs, they didn't want to be "jebane" by you? lol
And the other half is what? "Dojebane chłopki"?
Sometimes I wish Polish women would come here and for a change share their thoughts about Polish men. Who knows, maybe their opinion would be that half of the "boys" (late 20'- early 30') they met are "jebane świnie"? Hopefully you would agree despite the foul language used (looks like you don't mind such language anyway)? :)

Life / Stereotypes about Polish people being stupid? [281]


Cool, thanks :)


Yes, it was published in Polish in Poland in 1936 in a Jewish newspaper called "Nasz Przegląd".
I found the book so I'll probably first read "The Promised Land" and then "The Brothers Ashkenazi" and I'll have two viewpoints covered :)

Btw, as for "The Promised Land" directed by Andrzej Wajda... Whenever I was looking for info about it on the internet it was usually accompanied by information that it was the second film adaptation of this book. The first one was done by Aleksander Hertz. I didn't pay much attention to it as I haven't heard about this Hertz guy nor about his adaptation before so I figured the film must be old or not very good. Then I started thinking about his surname... "Hertz... Hertz... What if he was Jewish?"

And so I googled him and... bingo!:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksander_Hertz

He was a Polish film director with Jewish roots :D He was also a film producer and a founder of the first Polish film studio called Sfinks. His adaptation took place in the 1920's though (the film was made in 1927) and he changed the ending.

Would they also consider him an anti-Semite and his film anti-Semitic in the West, I wonder? ;)
Unfortunately the film was lost, so we'll never find out... Pity...
But you gotta love this twist ;D Liev Schreiber could make a film about it :)


I think it probably has a lot to do with upbringing, what parts of brain are developed during childhood, what neuron connections are made at that time and then reinforced later on.

Russians love chess, ballet, ice skating and they excel at it - they send kids to classes, kids who are just a few years old are already ice skating.

My mum is a bookworm, for example, and she was often reading a lot of stuff to me when I was a kid to a point that I learned "Pchła Szachrajka" by Jan Brzechwa by heart when I was just a kid. When I was a teenager I loved to play chess with my younger female cousins and at some point the younger one started beating her father in chess and when our grandma killed a rooster for a Sunday chicken soup or if they found a dead rat somewhere they would analyse their intestines while everyone else was going like "Ewww, gross..." lol The younger one is now studying IT engineering (or sth of this sort, I don't even remember the name of her studies, it's all rocket science for me anyway lol) and the other cousin is lecturing biotechnology at a univeristy and is making some stuff for a cosmetics brand.

So I ended up having a more humanist mind (you can probably tell by the length of my posts lol) and my cousins have rather scientific minds.

I've discussed for quite some time with one chess grandmaster, a chess trainer and writer - he was the first Pole to brake the level of 2700 points in chess rating system (he was ranked number ten in the world at that time), he represents Poland at international competitions winning medals and stuff, in 2010 - 2014 he was a coach of the Polish national team... but, yeah, he's Russian ;)

Life / Stereotypes about Polish people being stupid? [281]


Yes, my point was that not only Poles complain about how they're portrayed in the West.


I've seen a documentary (probably on sth like National Geographic or Discovery Channel) about an African-American athlete who was tracking his roots and was trying to find out why African-Americans excel at sports. According to this documentary it was due to slave trade. The most fit slaves were bought, obviously, and later on... they were bred like animals... to get even more fit and stronger slaves - the best exemplars of male slaves were forced to "mate" with the best exemplars of female slaves (so, women were basically raped). Also, African-Americans in the US are apparently prone to diabetes because of the slave trade - traders were feeding slaves with high glycemic foods so they would put on weight fast and cheaply before putting them on sale.


Well, that's an interesting point but the same could be said about anything relating to Poles in any film, book, play, painting, etc.
For example, some people in Poland claimed that film "Ida" is just going to reinforce the stereotype of Poles-anti-Semites-mudering-Jews in the West and that it shouldn't get an Oscar (and some others claimed that it will reinforce a stereotype of communist-Pole-hating-Jews in Poland). The same was said by some Poles about German TV series "Our Mothers, Our Fathers". I can imagine what was said by Russians about the film "A Woman in Berlin" (about Soviet rapes in Berlin).

I could go on and on like this. It could lead to some complete absurdity... I've seen a lovely Israeli film at a Polish film channel titled "Wypełnić pustkę" (org. title: "Lemale et ha'halal") about Hasidic community in Israel. For me the film was interesting, warm and charming but I bet an anti-Semite would find something in it to hate on the Jews - after all, a young woman is pressured into a marriage and one could assume that Hasidic men are alcoholics because one of the men gets drunk at least twice lol In fact, probably one could find something negative in every Israeli film I've seen in Poland (because Jews are humans and they ain't perfect, I guess lol) and if some businessman would think that those films will make people more anti-Semitic and bought the rights to distribution of these films in Poland I wouldn't be able to watch anything made in Israel lol

So, my point is - people are different, they have different views and levels of oversensitiveness, so who is to decide what people should see and what they shouldn't see?

Should art be censored?


I would say that if the film wasn't meant to be antisemitic in the original context then that businessman was wrong.
I don't think I've seen it but I really doubt there was any ill intent on the part of Wajda, not only judging by his track record but also judging by what he said in an interview even before filming "The Promised Land":

"This special Polish-German-Jewish conglomerate of Łódź at that time is immensely interesting, it hits you with colours, diversity, customary variety of characters and behaviours. But I think that on the screen - and here I'm counting on the actors - great, rich characters will be portrayed; I'd like the viewers to be more interested in their actions than their ethnicity."

Quote source: lodz.wyborcza.pl/lodz/1,35153,19638794,zmarl-andrzej-zulawski-to-on-namowil-wajde-na-ziemie-obiecana.html

And anyway, buying out the rights to an Oscar nominated film (if it was so "anti-Semitic" then why it was nominated in the first place, right? lol) to prevent it from being shown in the cinemas seems like a very drastic step to me o_O I don't know how anti-Semitic or anti-Polish a film or a book would have to be for me to agree with something like that...


Well, at least I got someone to read a Polish book lol But will you be able to find it in Israel? What if some Polish businessman bought it out from every library in Israel because it was showing Poles as anti-Semites? ;)

In all seriousness though, those fragments that I read got me interested and since then I was planning to read it too. The film is apparently a bit different than the book though so I'll try to watch it too if I have a chance and maybe I'll report on it some day on PF.

Life / Stereotypes about Polish people being stupid? [281]

You know, long, long time ago I read an interview with Andrzej Wajda in "Wysokie Obcasy" (it means "high heels").

"Wysokie Obcasy" is Gazeta Wyborcza's women's extra - very tolerant, feministic, etc. - I'm mentioning this so you wouldn't assume it must be some nationalist rag.

Andrzej Wajda is a highly renowned film director, state decorated, four of Wajda's works were nominated for Oscars, he was also awarded an honorary Oscar, he got the Golden Lion in Venice and the Golden Bear in Berlin for lifetime achievements. He also got Palme d'Or in Cannes and César in Paris and other awards like Felix and Kyoto.

He isn't an anti-Semite. If he was, I don't think he would make a film like "Korczak" with one scene that makes me cry every time I see this film. I also doubt Steven Spielberg would write a letter to the American Academy of Motion Picture Art and Sciences in support of Wajda getting an Oscar for lifetime achievements and call "Korczak" "one of the most important European pictures about the Holocaust" if he was one. Wajda is also regarded in Poland as a film director debunking Polish national myths (Polish right-wingers don't like him as far as I've noticed).

The interview I mentioned was a set of answers to a questionnaire made by some famous philosofer or sth, it was a regular column on "Wysokie Obcasy" with famous Polish people answering questions about their childhood, their greatest successes, failures, things they were ashamed of, proud of, things like that. I don't remember what the question was about but Wajda told about why his Oscar nominated film "The Promised Land" based on a Polish novel written by a Nobel awarded writer Władysław Reymont wasn't shown in the US (maybe Wajda mentioned this as his "greatest disappointment"). He said that a Jewish businessman bought out the rights to the film and prevented it from being shown in American cinemas because he thought the film was... anti-Semitic :)

"The Promised Land" was written in 1899 and it's about three close friends and ruthless young industrialists: a Pole, a German and a Jew making business together in multicultural Łódź. I don't think I've seen the film and I've only read fragments of the book, but I've never heard about it being anti-Semitic lol The story is set in the times contemporary to the author so he obviously described the existing anti-Semitism (I remember a scene in which a male character observes or is following a Jewish woman as he fancies her and has a dilemma because he thinks it wouldn't be appropriate for someone of his stature, or whatever, to get involved with a Jewess, if I remember correctly). I think it would be difficult to write about those times and omit such things completely.

So I guess some kind of anti-Polish sentiment must have come into play or some radical oversensitiveness on the part of that Jewish businessman. Either way, all you needed was one rich guy to put down an Oscar nominated film. On the other hand probably only one Jewish director was needed, namely Steven Spielberg, to promote Andrzej Wajda to an Oscar for lifetime achievements so, in a way, justice has been done, I guess ;) However, an opportunity to promote some Polish culture was missed at that time.

I think it was probably the first time I was introduced to the notion that "Jews abroad don't like us (especially the American ones, apparently)" and that the stereotype about us is that we're anti-Semitic.

TheOther, often when I read articles about Poland/Poles at English-speaking Jewish/Israeli sites (or not even necessarily Jewish ones, sometimes it's enough that's an American one, I guess) there are a lot of comments in the spirit of "Oh, Poland is like this...", "Oh, Poles are like that...", "My grandma/mum told me they were worse than the Nazis", etc. etc. no matter what the article is about lol

I also remember reading some American article or an interview with an American or American Jew/Jewess saying that both Poles and Jews are to some extent still in denial about their mutual prejudice towards each other (the author or the person interviewed was giving examples of his own personal interactions).

There was even one Israeli on PF who wrote that "anti-Polonism" in Israel was discussed in Israeli media. I can easily believe that generally people in Israel nowadays don't know, care or think much about Poland or Poles, the same probably goes for the US or wherever. However, I think that in the past the anti-Polish sentiment could be pretty strong and probably it still is among some people of Jewish descent (it's passed down from one generation to another in some cases just like "Polish anti-Semitism") and I think it's natural, considering the long, complicated and difficult history of Jews in Poland. It isn't good, of course, but it's understandable. Maybe it will take years before it gets "out of the system" completely.

Btw, I've often seen Russians complaining about how they are portrayed in Hollywood films and that they're almost exclusively villans, but they were usually putting it down to general Western Russophobia rather than anti-Russian sentiment among Jews in Hollywood or the media, as far as I remember.

USA, Canada / Poles in America: How do you pronounce your Polish surname? [128]


Yes, there are plenty of not polonized surnames in Poland and there are plenty of polonized ones. For any Polish person born, bred and living in Poland with half a brain it's usually pretty easy to tell them apart. "Benoit" isn't polonized and people who didn't study French probably wouldn't know how to pronounce it but if it was written "Benuła" then it would be polonized and everyone would know how to pronouce it. "Blumstein" isn't polonized but "Blumsztajn" is just like "Marchiel" and "Miesojed" are polonised. I understand that maybe there are some unusual cases in which people may be confused but, as I wrote, "Marchiel" and "Miesojed" are pretty straightforward.


It doesn't matter how they were pronounced, written or spelled at a given time in history or in whatever place. They're polonized now, they're clearly spelled in the Polish way and skuridat asked how they're pronounced in Polish and not in Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian or whichever language. Since those surnames have clearly Polish spelling it's a piece of cake for a native speaker of Polish to pronounce them in Polish, imho.

USA, Canada / Poles in America: How do you pronounce your Polish surname? [128]


But skuridat's great-grand parents' surnames have Polish spelling - this is pretty obvious to me (and I'm born, bred and living in Poland), so it doesn't matter how they were pronounced (or written - Hebrew and Russian have different alphabets than Polish, after all) in their original languages. So, as I wrote, any Pole who knows Polish would know how to pronounce surnames "Marchiel" and "Miesojed" because the spelling of those surnames got "polonized".

Just like every Pole knows how to pronounce names like Gabriel, Daniel, Józef or Dawid or Iwan and Natasza or surnames like Blumsztajn (which is the polonized version of "Blumstein") or Prokofjew - despite their different origin they all have Polish spelling. I think it's pretty straightforward :)

USA, Canada / Poles in America: How do you pronounce your Polish surname? [128]


Every Pole who knows Polish would know how to pronounce those surnames because they're spelled in the Polish way.
Marchiel does look Jewish because of the suffix, but Miesojed seems Russian to me. It reminds me, for example, of the Russian name for the Samoyedic peoples indigenous to Siberia (and a breed of dogs bred by them). I would translate Miesojed as "the one eating meat".

Both surnames are rare, but they can be found in Poland judging by the maps at the moikrewni.pl site.


Marchiel - pronounce it like you would pronounce names "Gabriel" or "Daniel". If you want to be really accurate then in Polish "a" is pronounced in a bit different way than in English - it's always pronounced like in the sound "ah" ("h" is voiceless here, of course). "Ch" is pronounced as "h", but I see you already know that.

So the surname is pronounced like this: "Mahrhyel".

Miesojed - pronounce the endining of this surname just like it's pronounced in the name of the Russian breed "Samoyed". Normally I would think it should be "Mięsojed" ("mięso" means "meat" in Polish) but I googled the surname and it's always "Miesojed". "E" in Polish is pronounced as in the sound "eh" or, for example, in the word "technology". Both "i" and "j" are pronounced as "y" is in English. "O" like in the words "not", pot", etc. "D" at the end of words can be often heard as "t" and it's natural, but I would say that in this case, taking into account the Russian origin, the "d" at the end should be pronounced more like "d" than "t".

So "Miesojed" is pronounced like this: "Myehsoyehd" (with "h" being voiceless, of course).

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


Haha, that's exactly my impression of that fragment about the civic society ;)
Ironside, and what's your take on what Kaczyński said?


Exactly.


I hope that's not true, but who knows... I've been naive enough before already... :/


I'm criticising people who are convinced that if someone is criticising their beloved leader or party they can be doing that only because they are payed to do that by "wraże siły" (foreign enemies). This is the narrow-minded conviction of pro-Putin Russian nationalists and looks like it is also your and Polonius3' conviction. They simply can't comprehend that criticism of Putin and Russia can be valid. Everyone who criticises Putin or Russia is a traitor or an enemy, no matter whether it's ordinary citizens, opposition, the media, Poland or the West. Such attitude makes any discussion impossible because it makes the other side not an equal partner for such discussion.

First, I'd like you to prove that 80% of Polish press is owned by Alex Springer.
Secondly, I'd like you to tell me who was "bankrolling" TVN.

Thirdly, I'd like to say that even Agnieszka Holland criticised TVN saying they weren't entirely objective (and she said that during an interview on that station, you should see the anchor's face lol - oh, but you probably don't watch TVN or TVN24, do you? ;)). My parents at some point switched from TVN's "Fakty" to TVP1's "Wiadomości". I myself noticed somewhere around the second term of PO in power that "Wiadomości" on TVP1 has become surprisingly objective and neutral (something unheard of before, since every new government was taking over TVP pretty shamelessly, as far as I remember). That's why I was absolutely baffled by the savage agression of the elderly people when they attacked that poor TVP journalist: youtube.com/watch?v=Spa5CBzB_4I

Such "civilised" people will be setting the tone in my country now?

The fact that some TV station or a newspaper may be to some extent not objective or biased doesn't have to stem from any foreign "bankrolling" but simply from the political views of the station or newspaper - this is how it is in many democracies. Let's take CNN and Fox News, for example. Am I correct?


LOL
No, they're protesting against PiS breaking the law and constitution. The reason why KOD came into being was the Constitutional Tribunal crisis. The parliament voted for the new legislation about the CT on the 19th of November 2015. The same day a group called KOD was set up on Facebook. The first public meeting of supporters of KOD took place on 26 of November in some theater (just 200 people). On 26 of November KOD wrote an open letter to the president of Poland urging him to take the oath from the judges elected to the Constitutional Tribunal. The first manifestation in defence of the CT organised by KOD took place on the 3rd of December.

On the 19th of December the demonstrations took place in 23 cities in Poland and in front of Polish embassies and consulates abroad.


And what's wrong with that?


I don't know whether it's because I'm tired and sleepy today or because you're not making sense but I don't understand this sentence. Could you elaborate? What does it have to do with KOD demonstrations?


No, Ironside. Both PiS and PO and their supporters were attacking each other for everything and nothing, but this is different this time. No government before went as far as PiS is going.


What? lol What on Earth are you talking about? I don't like PiS, I'd rather they didn't win, obviously, but I never contested the fact that they've won a fair democratic election (unlike PiS that claimed that previous elections when they lost were rigged! lol). That's not the problem, the problem is what they started doing after they won with the CT and not only CT. I didn't have a good opinion about PiS but, honestly, it didn't cross my mind that they were going to do the stuff they're doing now. Especially that during the campaign they were posing as modern and more friendly and professional and talking about "good change" and all that bullsh1t with smiling president showing of his pretty daughter. They've only shown their true faces after the election during nighttime parliamentary sessions...


:)
As I wrote before - arguments, Ironside, arguments and not insults :)


Me - a leftie? That's a good one :D You're not even able to tell my political orientation lol Have you ever met a leftie who's a religious Catholic? I must say I haven't. Although I think there should be at least a bit of a socialist in every Christian :)

I'm a centrist - something between a liberal and a conservatist with a drop of socialist, I suppose. That's why I can be less "stupid" than people like you or jon357 who are fanatics of one political side. I can see both sides of the barricade so I would say I see more than the both of you can see individually.


I know, I know, I'm all wonderful and brilliant when I'm criticising others and my comments are hitting nails on the heads one after another but when I start criticising you or what you like (no matter whether it's you or jon357 or anyone else who can't seem to discuss like an adult) I'm suddenly "stupid", "hormonal" and my "overlong" comments are "mindless drivel" :)))

Now, could we all focus on the subject matter instead of my intelligence or lack of it, my hormones, the length of my posts (if you don't like reading, go and watch a film, nobody forces you to read it ^_^'), etc. :*


Ironside, be serious, please. I was talking about the content and I think you're intelligent enough to know that.
Your comment is an example why discussing on this forum can be such a waste of time. Instead of using some serious arguments you're wasting my time by writing stuff like this and I have to respond to such childish play.

Btw, we "kids" were learning Russian at school so I was not only able to realise that those Russians were using a different language but I was also able to read it and discuss with them in their own language (poorly, but still... ;)).


What about them? :) Tell me about them. You surely must know much about it? :)
The context was, for example: supporters of the government calling the opposition/media/protesters traitors payed by foreign forces because they were criticising the government.

Any normal person in a normal democracy recognises the right of the opposition/media/protesters to criticise the government without them being called traitors payed by foreign forces.


I'm comparing attitudes, mentality, Ironside. Those "words" express those attitudes, mentality.
For example, Putin's actions during the Ukraine crisis were comapred to the actions of Hitler, the state of mind of the Russian society was compared to the state of mind of German society in the 30's. Does that mean Putin is Hitler and Russians are Nazis? Of course not, but there are disturbing similarities, patterns, attitudes, etc. At some point after the annexation of Crimea even some Russian state backed newspaper published an article defending the actions of Hitler concerning Gdańsk bascially justifying the attack on Poland. Who could imagine such a thing considering how much Russians hate the Nazis? But at some point such schizophrenia is possible.

Just like with PiS supporters or simply right-wingers hating on Putin and Russia but acting like Putin supporters themselves.
The same with Polish government...
Of course, Putin and Russians were greatly offended when they were compared to 1930's Germany :)
PiS and some or many Poles, I don't know (including some liberal journalists on TVN as far as I've noticed lol) were also offended when PiS was accused of "putinisation" of Poland :)


You can try, but use real arguments for that and some real info and not insults, please :)


That's not what I wrote you demagogue you :) I've compared the mentality and attitudes displayed by you and Polonius3 in your comments to the mentality and attitudes of pro-Putin Russian nationalists.

I understand that you feel butt hurt by being compared to pro-Putin Russian nationalists :) But I have a felling that your reaction would be different if I compared your comments to that of pro-Orban Hunagrian nationalists :) Am I right?


I'm not some polling or research institution, Ironside :) I'm an ordinary forum user who has a right to make observations and comments and can draw conclusions based on those observations. You don't have to agree with them, I know you most probably won't :)


No, a judge shouldn't be above the law just like the president and the government shouldn't be above the law. The CT didn't brake the law. The president did by not taking an oath from the elected judges. He broke the constitution and he will face the State Tribunal after PiS will lose power.

You know, what baffles me and people I know is that PiS is behaving like there's going to be nothing after them, like there're going to be in power forever o_O

Don't they understand that the changes they make can be used against them by the party that will come to power after them? That the power they give to the state may be later on used by a party far dangerous then them? They seem to be extremely short-sighted.


Let's take a different example then if you don't get what I'm trying to say. The EU imposed sanctions on Russia (although Russia isn't even a member of the EU) for breaking the international law and the treaties Russia signed (annexation of Crimea). The EU can impose some sort of sanctions for the breaking of the Polish law and acting against the Polish constitution by the Polish government since such actions are apparently breaking the EU law and the treaties Poland signed.


So, by your logic the government has also certain rights and duties and if they fail to fulfil those (like acting according to the law and the Constituton of the country) they are no longer acting as a government but as "so called government", for the lack of a better expression? :)

You see, I'm not that stupid, am I? :D That's a double-edged sword ;)


Ironside, you don't know my opinion on the EU so don't pretend that you do. There's one thing that the West does good for sure though and knows lots about and that's democracy. They're far more experinced than we are in that department.


Oh, I don't know about that. I've heard other opinions.
And anyway, are you saying that noone can criticise any country for anything because it's not their business? Russia can't be criticized for being undemocratic, Saudi Arabia for not letting women drive cars or North Korea for keeping political prisoners in concentration camps? China for harvesting organs from Falun Gong followers kept in prisons (since they have healthy bodies everyone wants their organs, sic!)? Why can't Iran have a nuke? It's their business what they're doing in their own country, right?

You will tell me now - but they don't have democratically elected governments.
OK, but PiS wasn't elected for what it's doing now either. Every government in Poland is supposed to act according to the Constitution of Poland even if they don't like it. PiS could change the Constitution if they got enough votes but they didn't and hence they don't have the mandate to do anything against the Constitution.


Well, you would have to prove that. Feel free to do that, I learn all my life :)

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


OMG, I'm sorry Ironside, but that's a funny one, especially considering how PiS is placing their people absolutely everywhere, instead of professionals lol


I used to think the same, but I'm not so sure of it at all anymore. It's already worse than with Orban in Hungary despite the fact that he had a much bigger support and big enough majority in the parliament to change the constitution. PiS didn't get enough votes to change the constitution so they're doing stuff they shouldn't be doing according to the law.


And in the minds of the EU and the US, it seems :)


I'm looking at Russia, Poland and other countries, at history, the present day and facts. And?


Then you clearly weren't in Poland at that time. I was.


Yes, everyone is wrong and only you are correct? Eh? What is this comment? Majority of Poles don't understand politics, the West, I'm often misinformed (about what?), most Poles feel more than think, etc. - what is this bullsh1t? And you're supposed to be the patriotic Pole? lol

Ironside, am I right in thinking that you don't live in Poland?


I wish I could, but I don't have the time to do that right now (that's why I'm sitting at this late hour like an idiot to finish this and have it off my head). As I wrote there's lots to write about. Maybe one day. But I think the comparisons between pro-Putin Russians' comments and the comments that I found here are valid and important because PiS government is showing signs of non-democratic Putin-like mentality. My post was a warning where it can lead.


I would like to see that interview too but judging by what PiS is doing I wouldn't be sursprised if that was true.

Ironside, all I'm saying is - it's better to "dmuchać na zimne" than "na gorące", and it's getting too warm in Poland already...


"Łubu dubu, łubudubu, niech nam żyje Prezes naszego klubu, niech żyje nam." :D (that's a cult quote from a cult Polish comedy "Miś", for those who don't know :))

Here, I found a fragment about the civic society from that interview with Kaczyński:
wiadomosci.ngo.pl/wiadomosc/194234.html

I must say it doesn't make sense - he claims that in III RP the disident circles were against the activisation of the citizens and the way to fight this activisation was to create... a civic society lol

And what he's saying later on is:

"The idea of the civic society was 'serving' not only those fears but first of all the political interests of the disident groups which were coming - whether purely in the biographic sense or in the sense of the social environment - from real socialism. They wanted to have some kind of political vehicle, because they never managed to build a strong party. The structures of the civic society, set against the politics and the state, have become such vehicle. That civic society was supposed to be a construct completely deprived of content, based solely on the system of authorities whose views on the state were burdened with their experiences of the repression used against them by the communist state. It led to the conviction that any repressive powers of the state are evil in itself."

What a load of gibberish o_O

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


I don't know how much of press in Poland is in Axel Springer hands (care to prove those 80%?) but TVN up until recently was Polish-owned. I think it was bought before elections by some American company which I didn't like, btw, I preferred it to stay Polish at that time.

So who was "bankrolling" them?


Well then you have completely no idea why people are protesting or you're simply lying in my face, like PiS does.


How's that?


They have the right to freely speak their mind and I have the right to make observations and comparisons. I'm not telling you that you shouldn't write this or that, I'm telling you that people like you sound like Russian pro-Putin nationalists, that's all.


Ironside, it seems you can't get your head around what I'm saying.
I compared the comments of people like you to the comments of nationalistic Putin's supporters. Because they're exactly the same. Exactly the same. Do you understand?

You have the same mentality.


No, but judges from the Constitutional Tribunal have been already threatened by the all powerful minister of justice (since he's now the general prosecutor too, sic!) with legal actions.

Do you think authoritarian rule has to come all of a sudden and the situation won't be deteriorating gradually? Do you think Putin got the power he has now overnight? It took him years to turn Russians into well indoctrinated zombies. Now he can do whatever he wants.

You don't have to shoot protesters in the streets to turn a country into autocracy. Russia is a great example of that. All you need is making the right laws (everything is done "legally" then!), doing some tricks, some smoke and mirrors, and, of course, people don't get arrested for different political views but for corruption and "hate speech against the Russian nation" and stuff like that, the media aren't censored, they're just punished for popularising "terrorism", "extreme views" and other funny stuff ot they're simply bought out by "independent" business people ;)


No, Ironside. I've made logical comparisons. Read my post again, if you don't get it.


That Russian guy who commented that Kasparov looks like an ape had also no affiliation not only to the government but to any political party (as he claimed) and he was also entitled to his opinions and his "unfavourable views" about Russian democratic opposition and I was entitled to have an opinion about his opinions.


LOL Ironside, it's you who's calling people like me "damn morons, saboteurs, traitors and punks". Look in the mirror for once...


"So called opposition" - again, as If I was reading a pro-Putin Russian nationalist. There's no "so called opposition", there's only democratically elected oppostion.

I'm not calling the present government "the so called government".
The opposition has to "go"? And what's going to be left? Only PiS? lol One party system? :D


I equate your comments with comments of Putin supporters.


As far as I remember you wrote how you hate the protesters and that they should be shot or sth of this kind. I don't remember the exact words but I remember how shocked I was by what you wrote and I think delph commented on that - maybe he remembers which thread that was.


As I wrote before - any autocracy and dictatorship use this mantra (Polish commie governments included).


That's right and that's why they can be excused and we can't be excused.


And what if it's you whose clueless and not me? We can go on like this forever. Or until PiS will go even further.


Yes, yes, and they will help Russia to become yokels of the West.


You mean like Poland demanding interventions from the EU in Russia's internal affairs? lol Or when Poles wnated interventions form the West during commie times? Those traitors! lol

We're the EU, Ironside. We are a member of the EU. They can intervene in the way it's allowed by the EU law. You don't like it - make a referendum on leaving the EU.

And yes - I want them to intervene because I care about the future of Poland. Do you even live in Poland?



Haha, you are truly worth each other, you, Ironside, and you, jon357 :)
I'm sure Ironside is also convinced that in those latest posts I was just "a gobby and hormonal youngster who argues for the sake of it, making overlong posts with too much (usually inaccurate) information - and who always loses" :)

You people are so childish and petty...

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


Well, you're defending PiS in what they're doing. If I remeber well you're a Ruch Narodowy supporter which is even worse. Plus shooting protesters in the streets comment - what kind of Pole are you? That's ZOMO mentality, ffs.


Ironside, after 7 or more years of discussing with Russians and reading stuff on Russian internet I could teach many Polish journalists (and probably some Western ones too, and you too) about a thing or two and how "dramatic" they should be right now, believe me. Most Poles don't have the knowledge that I have, unfortunately, and probably don't understand the gravity of what's going on and where it could lead Poland.

And don't pretend that you don't know that I can think for myself.


Yes, Poland isn't Russia yet, it's just heading that way. It's all very comforting, indeed...


It looks like both apples and oranges are prone to going bad and rotting.


Sure, when PiS was in opposition and slandering Polish government (including accusations of being in cahoots with Russia and behind of the "assassination" of Lech Kaczyński and organisating manifestations with torches and slogans as if they were going to make a coup d'était and claiming the elections were rigged etc.) was all good and dandy and wasn't endangering anything lol

Please, Ironside, I'm not a moron. I have a brain. And I'm actually using it. And it works. I've proven it many times before on this forum.


What what what? Make some effort and use arguments with me or I shall destroy you, like many before you ;D :P


Of course nooot. When I'm criticising liberals or leftists you, Ironside, say that I "hit the nail on the head" (like when I criticised smurf in the thread "Should Poles help Germans organize protests demanding free media ?")

But when I'm criticising right-wingers that just makes me "a good carpenter" :)

You are no better than jon357, smurf or Harry. When I write what they like or I criticise whom they dislike I'm "hitting nails on the heads" but when I criticise them or sth they defend I'm treated like the greatest retard on this planet :)

Humans... lol *smh*

Btw, one journalist said on TV that Jarosław Kaczyński in one of older interviews he conducted with him said openly that civic society in Poland should be eliminated because it gets in the way of the power of the state. How do you like that, Ironside?

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

Lots of crap going on in Poland but I don't have the time (and nerves) to read PF and comment on here so I stay away, but I had a look today at a few pages on this thread and I'd like to share some observation.

PiS supporters on here sound like Putin's supporters in Russia.

Some examples:


I see Polish nationalists even adapt the way Russian nationalists speak about democratic opposition in Russia. I've already written on PF that Russians call liberals "liberasts" (либерасты) which is a portmanteau of words "liberal" and "pederast" (педераст - a derogatory term for homosexuals, used like this also in Poland).



Again - democratic opposition and protesters in Russia are called exactly the same and accused of exactly the same.


And again - people (including media) opposing Putin and his United Russia (/Kaczyński and PiS) can't possibly be doing it out of their own conviction. Someone must be behind this "bankrolling" them. Or they must be stupid sheep listening to media influenced by hostile governments (and the Jews :)).

The only difference is that according to pro-Putin Russians the opposition media are payed by USA and the West and according to PiS supporters (or nationalists among them, at least) the non pro-PiS, non-right wing media in Poland are payed by Germany (and the Jews, according to the more anti-Semitic ones lol) and nowadays, according to them, probably by the rest of the EU lol


LOL!
OMG, the disruption of normal traffic got me the most!!! :D I remember one Russian guy from Moscow, a mild supporter of Putin (as he claimed) and a vicious hater of democratic Russian opposition (he claimed they are mostly Jews and are payed by the West + commented that Garri Kasparow looks like an ape and he's not a real Russian anyway) complained on regular basis about pro-democracy and anti-Putin demonstrations that nobody wants them, nobody cares for them and they only disrupt the normal traffic in Moscow! Who cares about democracy and an authoritarian leader - people want to get to home from work, they don't want traffic jams! :O

People in Russia know their priorities, unlike those weirdos in Gayropa (and Poland, until recently :/)! :D

Btw, when my anti-Putin Russian friend came to Warsaw to sightsee she was so amazed (in a positive way) about all the demonstrations taking place in Warsaw (like, for example, families with kids and balloons on some pro-life demonstration) and small presence of friendly police - that was during PO-PSL rule.

Also, PiS supporters didn't seem too bothered about the destruction of Warsaw during the Independence marches. Oh the hypocrisy...

I remember all those comments from Russians about "the hienas waiting in line for paychecks outside the US embassy in Moscow" (about democratic opposition and protesters), that all the liberal opposition wants is to get to power and steal money as they did in the past and they want to sell Russia to the US and to the West and all the US and the West and Poland want is to put Russia on its knees or destroy it altogether. And democratic opposition in Russia, of course, is ready to get to power by the means of bloody revolution, they would do anything just to get those dollars, eh.

Bringing country from its knees is also a common rhetoric for both Russian supporters of Putin and Polish supporters of PiS.
Also, I don't know what it looks like among supporters of PiS in general, but what I've noticed here is disregard for democracy and autocratic mentality (something that usually Poles were accusing Russians of!) with all this love for II RP and Piłsudski and stuff like Polonius3 writing that Piłsudski was tired of "squabbling parliament" in one of the threads some time ago. Also I think I recall Ironside wrote something about killing people in the streets. I didn't comment on all of that but I must say that it chilled the blood in my veins and got carved in my mind, as you can see.

I just wonder when PiS will stop to pretend that they care about democracy at all. And whether their supporters care about it and to what extent.

Russians don't seem to care about it anymore. I've seen Russians calling it "**********" (дермократия - gównokracja) and democrats - "**********" (дермократы - gównokraci). According to Putin Russia has it's own original version of democracy that fits the enigmatic Russian spirit or whatever (in reality it's just an ordinary autocracy and there's nothing "special" or "original" about it) which is called "sovereign democracy" lol:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_democracy

I wonder whether also in Poland normal democracy will be considered an invention of the "degenerate West" and PiS will think of sth fitting the "unique Polish spirit" more lol

Actually, what am I saying... They're already doing that...

And of course any criticism by the West (and Poland) against transgressions against democracy and rule of law are considered to be "political" and "hostile" and an attempt to put Russia into a corner or "on its knees". We are already hearing the same from the Polish government talking in such terms about opposition and the EU.

EU/foreign governments/foreign media, etc. "interfering in internal affairs" - that's a Russian mantra (and a mantra of any autocratic regime and dictatorship, for that matter) that is becoming also a mantra of the Polish government. You really don't have to be a genius to see that. I hope EU leaders and diplomats are seeing this too and won't turn a blind eye (it seems to me that Cameron already did that in order to make a deal with Poland - shame).

According to Russians NGO's are paid by the West. Amnesty International is a Western organisation (ah, Venice Commission and its "non binding opinions" come to mind :))) and hence is "political" and lies about everything that concerns Russia (human rights violations, journalists ending up dead, war crimes, etc. - lies, lies, Western lies lol).

Putin didn't care about demonstrations (despite the fact that they were much more numerous then in Poland), demonstrations didn't seem to change much in Hungary and PiS doesn't seem to be impressed by them either.

I don't know how many people would have to come to the streets in order to make PiS change their ways. As many as during Solidarity protests during commie times?

I really don't know.

It seems to me that PiS is like Putin - it will go as far as we'll let them (and they will be lying in our faces in the meantime, just like Putin does). And since it's a democratically elected government I'm not sure what we can do about it except protesting in the streets. But there would have to be some really mass protests and I'm afraid that by the time Poles will wake up it's going to be waaay to late. PiS is doing everything much faster than Putin (this has its advantages and disadvantages). I remember arguing about the experimental law in Saint Petersburg banning "homosexual propaganda" with that Russian guy (the one who called Kasparov an ape) before the West and Madonna took any interest. When they finally did it was too late, of course.

And I'm afraid the EU may be our only hope. I hope they won't leave it be :/

You know, there was a time when I found it funny how Russian and Polish nationalists are alike (well, nationalists everywhere are alike, I guess). It was so funny because they hate each other so much.

It would be funny how PiS seems to be parroting Putin (not Orban anymore, it got too far already, I think) and hating on him at the same time if I didn't live in this country. But I do and I care about Poland and it's not funny anymore. It's scary.

It looks really bad. I can't believe this is happening in Poland. That people like those in PiS were actually born in my country. How's that possible? In Poland that fought against totalitarian regimes, against communism? So much sacrifice and for what? To be all of that thrown away after less than 30 years?? It's heartbreaking... I can't believe what's happening... :( Damn, people must have felt this way in Germany when (democratically-elected) NSDAP came to power...


Wow, this is rich coming from a PiS supporter! lol How can you people be such hypocrites? I don't get this party fanaticism. Have people lost their minds? Is this party your family, or sth? They're just politicians, ffs! And crappy ones at that! ;/

I could go on like this but don't have time atm. Maybe some day I'll even make a thread because there's lots to write about, if I have time and will and some funny things won't start happening to my computer like when I was writing about the Ukraine crisis and I wasn't able to write on the internet for months ("greetings" to "sad gentlemen" from Russia if they had anything to do with it lol). Because nowadays my mum is warning me about "sad gentlemen" from Poland spying on the internet lol :/ She's afraid I'm going to get "internowana" for writing on the internet... lol That's like the term from commie times for people who were ending up in prison for "anti-communist activity" lol I hope it won't come to this. I was laughing when she was saying that she's afraid of "those people" (PiS) before the elections... I thought she was exaggerating, but I don't think that anymore... And I'm not laughing anymore... :(

This is all depressing, to be honest... Especially considering all the sh1t that's going on in the world and with the EU and Trump in the US...

I wouldn't like to be Lathspell, the bearer of bad news again, but all of this doesn't look good... This is not 2007, people... The world has changed and Poland has changed too... The question is - how much...


*sigh*
The censored words are "sh1tocracy" and "sh1tocrats".

Genealogy / What are common Polish character traits? [417]


No, I'm discussing. The fact that I don't always agree with you doesn't mean that I'm seeking a sparring partner or whatever.


I wrote: "They (and Poles) are also (surprisingly, I guess) more respectful and... I don't know... more gentlemanlike towards women than British men, for example (at least that's my observation)."

You wrote about Irish men being more respectful towards women than Poles and I pointed out that I was writing about British men, not Irish men.


No, I think you understood me in the opposite way than my intention was... ;) But nevermind.


Lots of must have changed since the time I visited Warsaw and Wrocław the last time, because I haven't observed anything like this - not even once.


Well, then I must say I'm honestly surprised. If it was so commonplace as you write I would have notice something like this, I would think.


Atch, maybe you're simply some stunning beauty by Polish standards :D


Of course there is and it's not meaningless. Russians use the word "Westerners" all the time :) I've adopted it from them because of the West vs "Eastern Europe" divide that I see all the time on this forum and elsewhere.


Atch, you just wrote that Italy and some other countries aren't "the West" anymore, according to you. So is there something called "the West" or isn't there? Because if there is, that would mean there are also the Westerners.


As a Pole I'm usually considered by the Westerners to be an Eastern European :)


That's right, I was told in Italy, I think, that the Northerners look down on Southerners. So there's not only the division into the West and the East of Europe, but also into the North and the South. And my impression is that according to Northern Westerners the East is worse than the South in this hierarchy :) We're in the worst "category" as far as Europe is concerned, as you put it :)


Well, I'm not sure what's wrong in having a relaxed attitude towards sex. Isn't it something that liberal Western societies are proud of? Because that would be my impression from what some British men were writing here (they were complaining, for example, that Polish women are too "vanilla" and not sexually liberated enough because of their Catholic upbringing, according to them, etc. etc.).


But you made it look like it was somehow something unusual :) At least that was my impression.

Genealogy / What are common Polish character traits? [417]


I'm asking a question, Atch :) You wrote that "Russian men being Slavs would be less inclined to look down on women of another Slavic nation". That would suggest that non-Slavs would be more inclined to look down on Slavs? Why would that be? Slavs look down on other Slavs too, for various reasons lol Some Russians look down on Poles, but for different reasons than Westerners. Some Poles look down on Russians also, usually for similar reasons for which Westerners look down on Poles, funnily enough. Some Czechs look down on Poles, allegedly, because the Czechs are atheists and Poles are religious.

Everybody is looking down on somebody in this world, I'm afraid :)


No, I didn't. I wrote that there's a stereotype concerning Polish and Eastern European women in the West. Eastern European doesn't equal "Slavic".


But I didn't write about Irish men. I wrote about British men. I have nothing to say about Irish men because I haven't met any, as far as I know, and on PF they seem to be in minority.


Of course! lol
Some Westerners get married only to the exceptions to the rule among the Polish nation, it seems ;)))


What do you mean by that?


I don't generally see Polish men doing that either o_O Where did you see that?
As for the vibe - I know it, because I've experienced it myself. Not in Poland though. I've experienced it in Italy (fortunately I didn't know Italian so I didn't know what they were shouting at me lol). Polish men are nothing like this, at least where I live.


Again, I haven't observed any such a thing... Unless you mean some nasty old grandpas in some God-forgotten village then maybe you're right.

Btw, I can spot a Westerner only by the disturbing way they look at the women here in Poland. I've already written about this on PF once. A Polish guy, if he passes by a beautiful woman he turns his head once after her and that's it. In case of Western men - they gape into women as if they haven't seen a woman in their lives. The woman doesn't even have to be beautiful - which puzzles me even more. Even if a man is young and handsome and walking with and talking to a pretty girl already he would be looking for an eye contact with the woman passing by them. For me that's sleazy, tbh.


Atch, to be honest, I had an impression that you were justifying those men in a way. And that you were being "deliberately obtuse" yourself.

I think the reason "why" is pretty obvious - you gave an example yourself - Thailand.
The tables are turned, for example, in Egypt. In Egypt it's the Polish women who are sex tourists nowadays. The reason is simple - economic situation in Egypt. One Polish woman who is married to an Egyptian man and lives in Sharm el-Sheikh, a city tailored for tourists, wrote on her blog that in November this year (the bombing of that Russian airplane was a big blow for tourism) an Egyptian man approached her Polish acquaintance at the Old Market and simply asked whether she needs "a slave". This guy was so desperate because of unemployment that he was ready to do anything for some food and a roof over his head.

It's always going to be like that with poorer vs richer countries.
But some men somehow refuse to realise this and think that it's somehow a "character trait" of Polish/Slavic/Eastern European women. And that's what I'm against.


Why is that? Most of the women I wrote about were sexually harassed in the UK and only one in Italy.


Why not? Was there some tectonic break up of Europe and those countries floated somewhere else? ;)


I don't know about "relaxed" attitude towards sex, to be honest, I was too young for that.
Lately I've seen a documentary about Polish martial law refugees on TVP1 and one of them returned for a brief moment with a Western humanitarian aid convoy to Poland and she said that the poverty was terrible. I myself remember, when I was a little kid, standing in a long line after meat in "sklep mięsny" with a stamp on my hand to prove that I'm "legally" in the line lol I remember the times when it was difficult to get toilet paper :/ I even remember being angry at my dad that he didn't bring it - I was convinced that he just didn't try hard enough to get it ;/ I was just a silly kid, little did I know...

So I'm not surprised, people could be pretty desperate.

TheOther, even if people in the communist countries had a more "relaxed" attitude towards sex than their western counterparts, I think what followed after the fall of communism was probably more crucial. Economic situation in Poland was dismal. In Russia it was even worse. Poles would try to get into the West to find work, legally or illegally, and, hence, sex trafficking was rife. Polish women would end up in brothels in the West and Russian women in Turkey. Apparently, Russian female name "Natasha" is a word for a prostitute in Turkey.

Nowadays, it's mainly the Romanian women who are sex trafficked in the West, apparently, judging by what I found out by watching Euronews

There were articles, documentaries about this stuff, films - for example: "Your Name Is Justine", "Trade" with Kevin Kline and a Polish actress - I recommend the second one especially. Apparently it was based on this article:

nytimes.com/2004/01/25/magazine/the-girls-next-door.html?_r=0


I really recommend reading the article, it's long but it's quite an eye opener. I needed a week to recover after watching that film "Trade". I must say I've seen a few documentaries on this topic about different countries and the extent of evil, cruelty and filth in this world is unbelievable.

So, to sum it up, I suspect it probably has a lot to do with the sex industry, actually.


Why offensive?


I'm not sure what's your point? It's not like there weren't women prostituting themselves in communist Poland lol Of course it was a taboo for communist governments because prostitution was seen as a capitalist exploitation of women but it doesn't mean that there weren't any people ready to sell their bodies for whatever they needed.

It's just in the West prostitutes had higher expectations in the payment department, for obvious reasons, I imagine and as TheOther wrote there were many things you couldn't get without Western currency. It probably can be hard to imagine for someone born in the West, but in those times a bottle of Scotch, a box of Western ciggarattes, a pair of jeans, a vinyl with Western music or simply dollars were "something", a kind of a "holy grail" in a way ;)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_Girl_(2012_film) - Sweedish film about what was going on in the 1970s, I've watched it on AleKino! some time ago, pretty gross stuff, especially that it's based on real political scandal.

After all, it's allegedly the oldest profession in the world and it was and it is present in whatever country and under whichever political system and regime.

Genealogy / What are common Polish character traits? [417]


So you would say Westerners are likely to look down on Slavs?


Russian men have some slight fascination with Polish women sometimes, at least those who grew up in the communist times, from what I've noticed. Maybe it's because of all those Polish actresses who played in Soviet films.

They (and Poles) are also (surprisingly, I guess) more respectful and... I don't know... more gentlemanlike towards women than British men, for example (at least that's my observation).


That would be my guess, but you would have to ask those men, not me...

Btw, Atch, you're not being terribly polite by writing about my "fits" all the time, just saying... :P


Atch, I don't care why this image came into being. It's no excuse. Women shouldn't be treated like this.
One of my friends worked as a waitress and lived in a room over a restaurant in which she worked in Italy. The owner had a key to her room and one night he was trying to get inside. She had to block the door with furniture so he wouldn't get in. That was f*cking scary for her!

Genealogy / What are common Polish character traits? [417]


Atch, InPolska is one of many Westerners who settled in Poland for their Polish partners. Many of those Westerners have similar attitude towards Poland and Poles despite the fact that their partners are alive. So, I'm sorry, but I just don't buy it.


To some extent you're right but it's the Polish and Eastern European women that seem to have such "reputation" in the West. I have never seen comments like this, for example, from Russian men about Polish women and I've been discussing with Russians for years...


The difference is, though, that I'm not making sweeping, ridiculous generalisations about Western men. You wouldn't see me writing that 99% of Western men are this or that (disgusting molesting pigs, for example), despite what my friends have been through, or that 99% of people in the West or anywhere else think this or that.


I could say the same thing about the British (at least judging by those on PF) :)


Can't say I can talk about a whole generation like I know everything... Aren't you generalising a bit?


Of course, and societies and people are changing too, I guess, due to all kinds of circumstances.

Genealogy / What are common Polish character traits? [417]

That's nice of you, dolnoslask :) Maybe at some point you could try to talk him into getting some treatment...

Genealogy / What are common Polish character traits? [417]


I have no idea what this means...


Oh, I would say she does stick out among the "fighters for tolerance" with the stupidity and recklessness of her comments, to be honest.

As for Ktos and others like him - they are not fighters for tolerance, they're pretty straightforward about who they are and hence - not hypocrites (and they're usually beyond help anyway, my guess is).

In other words - I expect more from liberals and leftists in the tolerance department, from people advocating tolerance, etc. than from racist, intolerant people.


Are Westerners on PF any less "touchy" and less "quick to pick up on anything they perceive" as racist, anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, etc, though? Really?

Btw, when there was and there is such need I behaved and behave in the same way when I'm defending Russians against Poles, when I'm criticising Poles on the Polish internet. I guess that's something people here don't realise about me and hence you probably think that I'm some overly patriotic, touchy person :) I'm generally a sensitive person, not only about Poles...


No, I was dismissive of your appeal to give her a break.


OK, Atch, let's talk about something real.
Let's talk, for example, about why I'm so "extremely touchy" and so "quick to pick up" on comments about Polish women on this forum. I see you registered not long ago, so maybe you don't know what was going on this forum before. What was written here about Polish women. Things like that being prostitutes is a "character trait" of Polish women and similar stuff. I guess you would probably say that those were just some "over the top things" and that it was "all very superficial". But those men who wrote those things could be one of those men that my friends told me about.

You see, I have female Polish friends and acquaintances, my age and younger, who worked in the West and most of them experienced sexual harassment and vulgar, offensive name calling by Western men when they were over there. No, none of them were prostitutes, in case you wonder, but all of them were attractive and Polish (and most of them in the UK). So, either being sexually harassing disgusting pigs is a "character trait" of Western men or the stereotypes and prejudices about Polish women being repeated by Western men from one to another have (and not being challenged by anyone, apparently - as it often was the case on PF) made so much damage that men think there's nothing wrong in viewing and treating Polish women like that.

So, yes, it's kind of personal for me - you didn't see their eyes when they were talking about this... (and, btw, that was their only complaint about the UK and British people, they never said a bad word about either). They are lovely, modest, normal, friendly girls and women - they didn't deserve any of that.

For you it's just "comments on the internet", but for me it's a sign of something more sinister.


Atch, in all honesty, I think it's simply her "character trait". (;))


Because she won't get it. She's not the reflective type, it seems. I think she needs some shock therapy :P


Not really, I guess I've adapted a bit of Harry-like style of hammering people on their heads after years of writing on this forum. Plus I don't have the time right now to word my comments in the most careful way.


Not me.

Do you even like him? Why do you call him your "friend"?