USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]


The ones I mix with have no problem with foreigners seeing faults - it allows them to find out what we think. Likewise, they often offer interesting criticism of my own country.

USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]


And I and the other residents of Poland will do the real Polish thing and point out all the bad things.

Seems fair, I think - you can concentrate on the things that don't make a difference to our lives (like true Polonia) and we will concentrate on the things that do make a difference.


You don't have to look far to find bad things in Poland.

USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]


Wow, this is a really important argument in this discussion. I'm so impressed.

USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]


So, who was providing you with cheap oil and other exports?

It's not exactly the biggest secret that the Soviet Union poured a lot of money into the other Warsaw Pact countries - do you really think they'd have stayed Communist for long if it wasn't for the economic subsidies?

I seem to remember from one of my books that the GDR collapsed partially because the Soviet Union refused to assist anymore economically - because it couldn't afford to. Likewise, they gave up their grip on Poland easily - because they couldn't afford to keep the Red Army presence there.

USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]


Sure.

My ancestry is rather dull - as far back as I've traced (about the start of the 1800's or so), my family comes from one distinct area - North East Scotland. I'm even from there, though it seems some members of my "clan" made it to Poland in the 1600's.

So - ancestry can only be Scottish too. Rather dull and unexciting.


There's a few of us in Poznan :)

Lodz...well, I don't know anyone there, but I was there once for a training course :P

USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]

Poznan :)

USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]


Scottish. And European, definitely :)

(I definitely believe in the European dream these days - I know Brits, Hungarians, Russians, Japanese, Chinese, Canadians, Americans, French, Poles and more in Poznan - it's wonderful)

USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]

Sorry Polonius, but I think those people were cowards through and through. The real opposition was inside Poland, the ones who were willing to get killed in their fight for freedom. The ones who formed underground resistance, the ones who were willing to put up with endless harrassment in the name of freedom.

It hardly took guts to shout about Katyn from several thousand miles away, under the shield of Uncle Sam - but it damn sure took guts to talk about it in the PRL. Likewise - it's nothing for some Chicago Polish American Katyn 1940 group to go around demanding that the West apologise for it - it was another thing to be demanding this in public in the PRL.

If the Polonia are really so out of touch as to believe that they, not the Polish people themselves were the ones fighting for freedom, then no wonder they're all absolutely delusional.

Sorry, but the Poles in Poland are the ones that deserve praise, not a bunch of cowards in another continent. Let's not forget that the same Polonia either ran away from the PRL or they ran away at the start of the 2nd Republic. Hardly the work of Polish patriots, is it?

USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]


Polack, Polak, what's the difference? Polack is just the dumb American spelling anyway ;)

(anyway, in English, there's lots of words for people of foreign nationalities - Frog, Kraut, etc)

USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]


It is derogatory. It's meant to be insulting - these people are claiming to be Polish, yet it's all lip-service. How many of them actually volunteered for Polish military service, I wonder?

As a minimum - if you're claiming to be Polish, then you should change your last name to the proper Polish spelling (not some weird bastardisation) and pronounce it correctly too.


Doesn't matter - if you claim to be something, then you should be authentic rather than insulting.

I wonder how many of our Plastic Poles know the national anthem? I know it, and I'm not Polish.

USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]


Hmm - could be either, but I'd use the term more to describe those who aren't Polish, who don't speak the language, who make a big show out of doing "Polish" things and who tend to be very sensitive about Poland being criticised in anyway. They're Plastic - because - they're only Polish when it suits them. If they were forced to choose, they'd pick American. They're the ones who get upset with the term "Polak/Polack", because they're so ignorant that they don't know what it means.

It can also be used for those Poles who have lived in America so long, who have got American citizenship and who have absolutely no intention of returning - usually the ones who pretend that they've forgotten Polish and that they regard everything Polish as being inferior.

It's a PF invention I think, but it does describe them rather well.


That's why there was a significant amount of hostility towards the American Polonia interfering in the Polish Presidential election this year, then?

As I say - I'm on the ground and living here. You're not.

The thing that makes me laugh most of all is the way that the Polonia insists that they are TRUE POLES - yet many of them know -

a) nothing about the partitions
b) nothing about the difference between nationality and ethnicity (and how it's changed)
c) nothing about Poland apart from what "Busha" told them
d) nothing about being Polish
e) nothing about the likelihood of someone being 100% genetically Polish

News / Polish Lithuanian Diplomatic War? At last. [534]


The problem is that Poland doesn't want to give them citizenship. From what I gather, many of them in Lithuania and Belarus are very poor - they're not the "elite" of society. Given that Poland just got rid of lots of its underclass, it doesn't want any more!

Anyway, the Lithuanian ones can move to Poland anytime they wish - so I don't know what they're complaining about.

USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]


The divisions are already there. Just look at the Presidential Election - when America was so massively out of sync with the rest of the world, you know fine well that the people voting were American, not Polish.

Perhaps you choose to deny it, but I, as a European, have far more in common with Poland than Americans do.

USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]


Worst thing is, that seems to be their attitude - that Poland is poor, and while it's fine to come and visit (and look down at) the relatives, it's not for staying in.

Yet they claim to be proud Poles. Ugh.

USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]


But they should stop pretending that it's Polish in that case. Everyone knows Quebecois French is nothing like the French spoken in "Le Metropole" (or is it La? I forget... ).

And they absolutely should stop insisting that Busha is the Polish word for grandmother. Interestingly, the Western Ukraine word for Grandmother is "Babusha".

Oh, and the other thing that gets on my nerves - the insistence that their family came from Poland, even before the Polish State was re-established. "I'M FROM POLAND"....no mate, you really aren't.


The odd thing is why they appear to vote Kaczynski, yet idol-worship Walesa and vote Democrat. Doesn't make any sense at all!


I wish I knew. They seem to believe that Poland is some sort of utopia, myths purportrated seemingly by the grandparents. And then there's the lunatics who insist that they're from Poland, even when it seems that their grandparents/great-grandparents were actually from pre-1945 Germany!

Of course, many of them only discovered how Polish they were after 2004.

(mind you, many Jews did too...)

USA, Canada / Polack/American Polonia/Plastic Pole "culture" [568]

I think it's just the general way that they seem to think that they're Polish, but they are so completely removed from Plish life that it's not even funny. Take the whole Smolensk issue - the Polonia media was/is full of complete garbage about it - essentially regurgitated Kaczynski talk.

Then there's the way that they get offended on Poland's behalf, when Poland isn't even offended. And we won't talk about the way that they get upset when they come to Poland, because it's "morally decaying" or some such nonsense.

Adam "An-gee-ew-ski" was probably the best example of this.

News / Polish Lithuanian Diplomatic War? At last. [534]


The use of "Polack" for me is a way of saying "an exceptionally stupid Polak" :)

(wonder where it originated from?)

Love / Why do so many Polish girls dye their hair BLACK? [124]


That's because they're not Polish, but American Polonia.

Different race.

Life / Babcia or Busha - any social class difference? [359]


And this is the one big difference between the redneck American Polonia and the Polonia throughout the world - the American Polonia can't even use their own name correctly!

News / Polish in vitro treatment fully refundable - bonkers! [62]


I think most normal people see it like this - people should pay for it themselves, but it shouldn't be banned. I just hope that this is what eventually happens (same as now) - I don't think Poland can afford it, but it certainly shouldn't be banned on the account of the aforementioned spoiled old men.


I actually think they should call their bluff - the RCC isn't going to risk making an enemy out of the ruling party, are they? I suspect this whole thing is just another example of the internal battle for control within the Polish Catholic Church - you can see from the way that they dropped the mention of excommunication from the final communique.

News / Polish in vitro treatment fully refundable - bonkers! [62]

And this is exactly what I object to. If it was truthful, any deputy anywhere that supported IVF or abortion would be excommunicated - but they aren't. In fact, why isn't Komorowski excommunicated for being Commander-in-chief of the armed forces that are murdering innocents in Afghanistan?

The whole thing reeks of trying to manipulate politics for their own gain.

Anyway, what do a bunch of spoiled old men know about families?

News / Polish in vitro treatment fully refundable - bonkers! [62]


I'd say threatening people with excommunication for voting a particular way is direct interference with the workings of democracy. Era doesn't threaten to disconnect MP's who might increase corporation taxes, do they?

But you're not in Poland and don't see the day-to-day problems caused by RCC interference in Polish politics. After all, it doesn't bother you that the State lost millions of zloty due to fraud perpetrated by the Church, does it?

News / Polish in vitro treatment fully refundable - bonkers! [62]

And herein lies the problem. Instead of simply presenting the Vatican's stance on the issue, they've decided to try and bully the Sejm instead. Catholics don't need to be told that IVF is bad (everyone knows already, right?) - and they don't need to blackmail the Sejm either.

The worst thing about all of this is that if they had simply kept quiet, the odds are that the current status quo would continue. But now - all they've done is draw attention to the cause, when the political opinion would likely see IVF neither funded nor banned formally.

News / Polish in vitro treatment fully refundable - bonkers! [62]


And you don't believe that threatening excommunication to MP's isn't interfering directly with politics? We've seen examples of them doing it in the recent Presidential election, it's happening again - the Church simply cannot "let go" in Poland and allow the country to be a modern democracy - perhaps because they realise that they might have to pay back some of their ill-gotten gains.

The RCC in Poland has one huge problem - they had massive political say during the PRL, and now, they can't let go. You saw exactly the same thing in Italy, Spain, the same thing is happening in Ireland and it's starting to happen in Poland, too.

Then again, the Church was hiring ex-SB guys, so is anyone surprised?

News / Polish in vitro treatment fully refundable - bonkers! [62]


I think the problem was that some of them were getting involved, while others were quite clearly saying "It's nothing to do with us". The lack of a clear position definitely hurt them - and when they finally did adopt a clear position, it was almost universally ignored - possibly because everyone knew that they weren't unified at all.

Even the latest stand against in vitro seems to be completely divided - first we have someone threatening excommunication, but the communique from them seems to be much calmer.


Because in this case, the church has directly interfered with the workings of a modern democratic state.

News / Polish in vitro treatment fully refundable - bonkers! [62]


What a stupid, stupid move. It's direct interference in politics by the Church - who should have learnt a lesson over the recent cross crisis that people do not want the Church to get involved in politics. Sadly, they've chosen to stick their nose in again - and will end up being punished yet again. It's not an issue right now when the churches are full, but it will only mean that younger people will continue to shun the church in times to come.


For many Poles, anything non-white.

Law / Currency rates: $ € ₤ zŁ. The interrelationship. [5]

It's what the market dictates.

Law / Poland - Temporary Residence card - Karta pobytu - required documents [143]

Get it in writing from her. If she refuses to give it in writing, then you don't need me to tell you anything more.

Anyway, this situation is strange - once the visa expires, you still have an ordinary 90 day tourist period - and you shouldn't need a stamp to confirm this. What you might have to do is take a trip to a non-Schengen country to get the stamp after October 18th, but really, there should be no need to do so, because once the visa expires, you just revert to tourist status (90 days in 180).

I can tell you for a categorical fact that under Schengen law - there is no possibility of obtaining a stamp at the intra-Schengen border. The stamp doesn't actually confirm anything, it's the actual dates that count. If she wants you to get a stamp, it'll have to be a trip outside of the zone.

Or you can argue with her, but I'd recommend just following what she says.

I see you're in Wroclaw, so take a daytrip to the UK - it'll be the easiest way.

Law / Are banks from Poland safe? [42]


PKO is as safe as houses - there's absolutely no way that the Polish government would let it collapse.