Life / - Conservative Radio talk shows in Poland - [60]


Up to 23 from 19 is not significant in a country of 38 million....


a bunch of low rent hillbillies a' hootin' and a' hollerin' is not... "political"

Life / - Conservative Radio talk shows in Poland - [60]


Primarily social conservatives... in Poland left and right don't align quite the way they do in the US

US: conservatives on social issues align with extreme free market capitalism economically and social liberals want more government interaction with markets

in Poland social conservatives align with more semi-socialist ideas and social liberals are more free market oriented.

PiS are basically socially conservative socialists while PO are slightly more liberal socially and a good deal more in favor of markets.

Many Americans can't/won't believe that social and economic ideas align differently in different countries.

Life / - Conservative Radio talk shows in Poland - [60]


Thank you! Exactly right!

American talk radio is based on a particular bundle of American obsessions which don't cluster together in Poland.

Especially good point that you can't get conservatives riled up about welfare in Poland because they're the biggest recipients.

Life / - Conservative Radio talk shows in Poland - [60]


Maybe for old people. Young people (I deal with them all the time) don't watch tv or listen to radio, it's all online.

And young people in Poland are famously politically apathetic (holdover from commie times).

Life / - Conservative Radio talk shows in Poland - [60]


I doubt it, talk radio is kind of over. And the issues that motivate American conservatives won't do the same in Poland... different mind set and different priorities.

History / Recommended Poland's history books [257]


You sound like a Polish minister of culture!

I read E.E. many years ago and enjoyed it. I started Bieguni but pooped out after about 80 pages - just not my kind of thing there were some okay sections (like the section about a man searching for his wife who mysteriously disappears) but too much of it....hmmm

Language / Meaning of I-go , II-go , III-go ??? [2]


It's a grammatical ending for adjectives (genitive singular for masculine and neuter nouns), the full form is -(i)ego

Think of it as meaning 'of'

II-go (drugiego) of the second
III-go (trzeciego) of the third


Actually it doesn't..... it means "of the first course were" which doesn't make much sense without more context...

News / Polexit? Almost half of the Poles believe that Poland would be better off outside of the EU [548]


Well Slovenia and Macedonia were (by far) the wealthiest and poorest republics of Jugoslavija so that's not a great comparison (same with the annexed Baltic states vs other Soviet republics) but yes, the EU has done massively good work in eradicating poverty in member states - until it went off the neoliberal deep end in 2009 and began doing dumb stuff like enforcing austerity.

It's been a great organization but it has to deal with its internal contradictions (including either ditching the toxic euro or turning it into a real currency union with transfers).

News / Polexit? Almost half of the Poles believe that Poland would be better off outside of the EU [548]


no it doesn't, you can prioritize solidarity (and institutionalize things like currency transfers) or continue with the pantomime horse that currently operates....

USA, Canada / The proper behavior an American should show when visiting Poland [159]


There is no void, except the neoliberal need for a large pool of interchangeable disposable workers... in the US this is accomplished primarily through migration by Latinos who work for less and don't trouble their employees with unreasonable demands (like dignity or job safety or overtime).

Middle Eastern and North African migration was meant to do the same for Europe but they don't work enough (and European countries still have social safety nets so they don't have to).

The great compression (relatively low levels of inequality and higher social trust) was also a time of very low immigration.

News / Polexit? Almost half of the Poles believe that Poland would be better off outside of the EU [548]


Don't confuse me with those loons, I'm a reasonably rational critic of the very real structural flaws in the EU which have the potential to destroy it if not addressed (and they're not being addressed...)


Again, Germany is now a economic and political titan within the EU but with no popular culture that appeals across borders relative to other countries.... I enjoyed Berlin Babylon and the first season of Dark (not so sure I'm ready for more of that) but there's not much more

Oh yeah, I enjoyed Der Pass but the Austrian part of that was much more interesting than the German... (is there going to be a second season?)

I used to enjoy a fair amount of German pop music but... not so sure what's going on there now....

But K-Pop is really corrupt and horrible (in addition to being bad music it's all the worst features of late stage capitalism commodified into a smooth inhuman.... substance.... it's like a meat grinder for humans

News / Polexit? Almost half of the Poles believe that Poland would be better off outside of the EU [548]


I think the "EU Army" project was meant to help quell citizen unrest (as in France, over a year with no sign of calming) rather than outside aggression...

News / Polexit? Almost half of the Poles believe that Poland would be better off outside of the EU [548]


Very true.... by the time it was introduced, the euro was a solution to a problem that no longer seriously existed and has been nurtured as a political tool ever since because the alienated technocrats in Brussels think it will help create a common European identity... it won't because it can't because it sets economic differences in stone making real economic progress in the South impossible. The euro is a symbol of anti-solidarity between member states.

News / Polexit? Almost half of the Poles believe that Poland would be better off outside of the EU [548]


Facetious! I forgot that Germans don't do sarcasm.... Central bureaucracy if you will...

Anyhoo, look for yourself, browse through the white paper and the reflection papers (all available in German) and ask if they read like a group that can do anything beyond forming new committees....

ec.europa.eu/commission/future-europe/white-paper-future-europe/white-paper-future-europe-way-ahead_en

News / Polexit? Almost half of the Poles believe that Poland would be better off outside of the EU [548]


See? You're so colonized by neoliberalism you can't think of social positives in terms that aren't related to money!


No. The central organs have become alienated from the member sates... nothing made me more skeptical of the EU's long term chances than reading through a bunch of EU documents (related to a translation/editing gig) about proposed future development... it was all... nothing but buzzwords covering the fact that they have no idea what to do except for proposals for more bureaucracy. A healthy organization does not produce such documents.

News / Polexit? Almost half of the Poles believe that Poland would be better off outside of the EU [548]


One side (moi, to be exact) wants clarity and looks at policies (including genuinely broken and dsyfunctional policies) and the other side (russian trolls) just uses barely understood catchphrases and slings mud.

Neoliberalism is term that can be defined (roughly: the belief that the primary role of governments is to facilitate the movement of capital) and it's possible to show how the EU does that

The other is just a hyperbolic metaphor that can't be proven...


I'm not a neoliberal and I think that while economic factors are important they're not the whole story.

I meant what I wrote. As long as the positives (economic and otherwise) outweigh the negatives (economic and otherwise) then Poland should stay in. For the time being there's no reason to leave. If that changes then Poland should leave (and do so level-headedly).

News / Polexit? Almost half of the Poles believe that Poland would be better off outside of the EU [548]



It was a pretty stupid analogy.... I am extremely positive about the EU until 2008-09 when it went all in on backing private capital (ie private German banks) over social solidarity and became just another enforcer of the neoliberalism that everybody is thoroughly sick of...

I would love to see it regain its footing but it's determined to remain an unwieldy super-bureaucracy that's doomed to be torn apart by its unresolved contradictions, not this year or next but within the next 5 to 20 years for sure. Poland should remain a member as long as the positives outweigh the negatives (which will be coming).

But its no gulag (except in the rhetoric of pro-russian trolls whose only goal is to sow dissent and chaos).

News / Polexit? Almost half of the Poles believe that Poland would be better off outside of the EU [548]

Do you? In Russian, gulag referred to the system of prison camps and not a specific prison camp (though English usage has evolved toward that)

News / Polexit? Almost half of the Poles believe that Poland would be better off outside of the EU [548]


Isn't it more accurate to say that the technocrats running Brussels have made it clear?


sounds hegemonic to me (who distrusts all hegemony....)


True, there's also no special emotional commitment to the EU. Polish attitudes toward the EU are extremely... utilitarian.

News / Polexit? Almost half of the Poles believe that Poland would be better off outside of the EU [548]


I had a tantrum over the stupid quote length limit - a fully formed thought that's a word or two over the limit is not allowed, but editing it into proper length gibberish is fine.

But the questions remains about the problems of elections when governments can't actually address voter concerns because they're locked into eu structures... what's the answer? No more elections? Limiting elections to selected parties? Just letting the citizenry become ever more alienated as they're locked out of the decision making process?

News / Polexit? Almost half of the Poles believe that Poland would be better off outside of the EU [548]


That's the problem. EU governments are locked into so much policy detail by ever increasing 'integration' that elections at the national level have minimal effect (see Italy, Spain, France etc)

The whole point of the EU seems to be to take decision making power away from citizens (with no thought given to what to do when citizens start objecting to that process...)

Life / Describe Polish people in few words [13]


During the daily grind it's easy to miss how much things have changed. Last year I started talking long walks (as exercise) and seeing parts of town I hadn't seen in many years and was generally surprised at how much nicer they look than they used to... Even the worst neighborhood in town (fenced in by a river, the main railroad tracks, an semi-industrial area and a large cemetery) showed a lot of improvement.

And shopping is entirely different, the other day I accidentally started pushing someone else's cart and she just laughed as she pointed it out (I can remember when that would have led to a nasty scene).

Language / Game - guess Polish idioms/sayings in direct English translation [1756]


Surely said about such a person..

News / Scandals, conflicts, tensions, arguments - real life examples from Poland [543]


How many foreigners does JK know? It's not just language per se, but JK seems to have extraordinarily limited horizons...

Why appoint commie prosecutor and a vulgar fishwife to the TK? Because... who else does he know?

I dislike PiS because they act (collectively) like an extension of the PRL.
I dislike them because every time I try to give them the benefit of a doubt they come of with some new sleazy commie mindset plan. Every. Single. Time. They act like the PRL reborn.

"Good for them", I thought, "they've accepted that they lost the senate" (like a normal political party) and the start protesting the results and engage in an open campaign to buy a senator so they can have a functioning majority.

Stanisław "Beton" Piotrowicz loses his seat so they appoint him to the TK....
Every. Single. Time. They take the low road, morally, ethically and legally.
Every. Single. Time.

I can deal with politicans whose positions I disagree with but I loath neo-Soviet apparatchiks like PiS and its supporters.

News / Scandals, conflicts, tensions, arguments - real life examples from Poland [543]

What else does Pan Prezes know? He's never spent any serious period of time outside of Poland and AFAIK knows no foreign languages (besides maybe forgotten school Russian).

His entire frame of reference is the PRL, his idea of reform is to recreate PRL social structures with new faux ideology in line. But the model is the same, centralize as much as you can.

Where I work the PiS 'reform' has meant that rather than directly elect our director the director is appointed from above (we can indicate who we want but the person above doesn't have to follow that).

News / Scandals, conflicts, tensions, arguments - real life examples from Poland [543]

The Rule of Law continues to be replaced by Rule of Party. I don't blame the low information 500+ voters as much as those who should know better and refuse to see that PiS is largely about a return to the PRL with PiS replacing the PZPR and a few other replacements. But the betonowy nature of the beast is far too apparent to be ignored.

Law / Old Polish money banknotes - what's their value today? [415]


though usually złote or złotych (not much to be for one złoty anymore...)

Language / Game - guess Polish idioms/sayings in direct English translation [1756]


Or the ever popular "run around like a chicken with its head chopped off"...

Language / Game - guess Polish idioms/sayings in direct English translation [1756]

like a sailor? or like a truck driver?

Language / Game - guess Polish idioms/sayings in direct English translation [1756]

The middle of nowhere. Out in the boonies.