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


Yep, most of the charges against PO are baseless hysteria, but they really can be blamed for not doing more to create a non-partisan civil service, it's a non-negotiable in civilization evolution.

The problem is that it is not at all clear that the Polish public understands the importance of such institutions or would want them even if they did understand.

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


The more you write things like that the more I think you want PiS to rob Poland blind.

Life / Living like a local in Poland - What does it even mean? [30]


1. Learn the language (ignore those who say you don't need to, they are not your friends). It's hard and first and then gets very hard and then gets unbelievably hard and then starts to get easy. Most people most of the time will be able to hear past your mistakes to understand what you're saying. Also, Poland in Polish is far more interesting than in any other language.

2. Get involved, it's not too hard to find outdoor bulletin boards in older housing estates offering various types of classes or trips. Sign up for a dance class or a trip (or whatever) and start to meet people that way. Don't press it, just start showing up at places and the rest will happen.

If you can't find a bulletin board where you live, then go to some university building and there will be posters and flyers for all sorts of events and other activities.

Make any language difficulties part of the process - (in Polish) Explain that you're a foreigner and need some help, there will be some on offer.

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


This is the oldest trick in the book, accuse your enemies of what you yourself are doing. Then you can blame the negative consequences on your enemy instead of taking the blame yourself.

Take all the negative rhetoric about PiS from PO - That's a good benchmark for what PO was doing.

Take all the negative rhetoric about PO form PiS - That's a blueprint for what PiS wants to do.

Only the willfully self-deceiving can be fooled by this for long.

Life / Living like a local in Poland - What does it even mean? [30]


Ten years or so ago it was crap on a stick, but it's greatly improved both in terms of variety and quality. Produce isn't great (though better than it once was) but that's Poland more than the one chain (and light years ahead of the time when there were almost no fresh vegetables for several months of the year).

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


PiS basically did a bait and switch using Duda and Szydło to lure naive young voters with the promise of a new start only to revert back to form (and then some).

They couldn't possibly make it clearer that Duda is a figurehead who's supposed to do whatever JK tells him and that Szydło isn't even that.

I'm not sure if they'll last four years but they're burning a lot of bridges and souring a lot of young voters on the very idea of democracy. A shameful legacy is what they'll leave, I expect.

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


I'd be happy to if they just stopped breaking the law....

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

And the approach needed now is for PiS to break the law and for you to make excuses for them breaking the law apparently.

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


Actually didn't Lech Kaczyński himself speak out against a media law similar to that proposed now?

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


Apparently wanting a government to follow the law is now "deluded". That kind of says all I need to know.

Why should being democratically elected exempt a government from following the law?

I eagerly await an answer that is not an accusation of something.

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


Since when do you have ESP? I'm in favor of the protests because the ruling party is breaking the law. If PiS starts obeying the law then the protests would stop.


JK is doing that all by his lonesome.

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


Being democratically elected does not free a government to disregard the law or prohibit citizens (and other residents) from protesting them.

If a person believes in absolute iron rule by a party then yeah, the demonstrations are an abomination but for a person who believes in rule of law and democracy then they're okay.

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

Well they're part of it, for sure.

And it's generally not a good idea to vote for parties that want to "break the system" because it won't work (at most it will favor some part of the system over another) and even if it did then good people do not benefit in times of total system breakdown (see the former USSR in the 1990s).

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

Was going to start a new thread and then realized the muddle headed mods would just stick it here, so I'll start here.

Why isn't there any comment on the break between prof Jadwiga Staniszkis (eminent authority on political science) and PiS?

A longtime staunch supporter of PiS (and very outspoken critic of PO) she criticized the fledgling government of JK as an "infantile dictatorship" and said that President Duda has compromised himself as a president and a lawyer.

It kind of gives the lie to the idea that criticism of PiS's attempt to dismantle the TK is only opposed by rabid PO supporters.

Why no comment on PiS's new public enemy number one?

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


When did PO run on a platform of ridding former commies from public life? Why criticise them for not doing something that was not part of their platform? It has been a frequent hobby horse of JK though, so it's fine calling him out on his hypocrisy.

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


I'm sure that any other party using laws put in place by PiS would provoke squeals of bloody murder from Polonius. He doesn't care about rule of law, but rather rule by party, so if a party that he supports does it then it's okay! it's when someone else does that it's bad. It's very much like Kali's morality.

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


Give him time and there will be conflicts with all regional partners (and non-partners). PiS is not interested in allies it's interested in having as many enemies as possible (so that they'll never run out of scapegoats for their failed policies).

Life / Comparing Poland and Romania [108]


Well there's a slight difference - Russians are immobilized by oppression (into uneding lethargic misery) while Poles are energized by it into doomed (they hope) resistance (if they could just manage that motivation when they're not oppressed who knows where they could end up?)

Life / Comparing Poland and Romania [108]


Or they're not willing to give up their Poland-as-eternal-victim martyrology. They can't stand the idea of a Polish public that isn't under the boot of (fill in the blank).

Life / Comparing Poland and Romania [108]


Poland has done better than Romania by almost every possible metric.

One of the reasons I don't take PiS rhetoric very seriously is because I do travel in the region and see what corrupt and/or incompetent governments have done in Hungary and Romanian (for example). The socialist Gyurcsány government devastated the Hungarian economy and things are better now but still lagging behind Poland (and Hungary started ahead of Poland). Romania on the other hand emerged from communism in worse shape than Poland and then suffered from rapacious oligarchs in the Russian mold.

Comparing how much better things are in Poland now (versus how worse they've gone in some neighboring countries) makes it very hard for me to take hype about PO "corruption" seriously.

Anyone who says that Romania has coped with its communist past better than Poland has is either dishonest, an idiot, or both.

Life / Comparing Poland and Romania [108]


In Bucuresti, churches tend to be small (and dwarfed by high rises surrounding them). But the religion is alive and well (not sure about how many but those going seem to be happy with it).


Ancient history. Younger people now are far less devoted to the church than they were before compulsory religious education was introduced. The church has pushed many away in the last twenty years or so.

Also... a surprising (to me) number of students are turning to various types of protestantism (a small minority, but more than I would have guessed would go for it).

There are a lot of US backed missionary groups that don't hink of catholics as "real" Christians because they worship the Pope and Mary and not Jesus (unfair stereotype from my home region in the US). But the groups are here and getting some followers.

Food / Bologna & onions in Poland? [44]


Maybe in the desolate North...... never came across it in the South or Plains states (parts I know best). Hmmph, Yankees.... what won't they eat?

Life / Comparing Poland and Romania [108]


They don't look like slavs at street level, the Latin look definitely prevails (though body language is more slavic than latin)

IIRC in genetic terms modern Hungarians are mostly Magyarized Slavs (with some Germanic admixture).


Yeah, that's mostly the case though Bulgarian's oddball grammar (which I really like) is far more balkan than slavic, IIIRC it's the most Balkan of the Balkan languages.

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


Since when is winning an election license for carte blanc? If PiS has its way with the TK then what legal checks will there be on its exercise of power?

Or do you think winning an election is a good time for rule by party (rather than law).

News / Should Poland exit the EU immediately? [377]


It's sad that so many Poles are so addicted to defeat and oppression (and the cosy feelings of angry self-righteouness that flow from those) that they want to turn one of the greatest acocmplishments of the last hundred years into treason and defeat.....

It's okay to think that the fall of communism was a good thing, it really is (as it was). There's no need to turn into another chapter of betrayal against the long-suffereing Polish public.

Life / All Things Christmassy in Poland [332]


Carp is also the fish of choice in Hungarian fish soup. I remember having it under the bridge in Szeged (one of the iconic places it's made). Impoverished people were hanging around the edges of the outside dining tables seeing how much the foreign tourists could eat before abandoning the effort at which point they zoomed in and made short work of it.

I finished most of mine (at least it was very spicy) but the friend I was travelling with (Polish) didn't even finish a third of it.....

Life / All Things Christmassy in Poland [332]


I know that, I was reacting to Polly's claim about farm raised fish being kept in clean tanks before being sent to stores.

Apropos of nothing, the best carp I ever had was in Poland, but at a Vietnamse New Years celebration.

Life / All Things Christmassy in Poland [332]


This must be a new process, the first time I had carp in the early 90s, in a university stołówka it was a muddy mess that I couldn't finish (and generally that stołówka had very good fare for institutional food since it was all made from fresh ingredients - labor intensive probably but better tasting.

Life / All Things Christmassy in Poland [332]


I don't much like carp, but I've tried to kill catfish (popular in the US South) and those little buggers are but indestructable I still remember one that .... yikes, the memory still creeps me out.


That's to try to clean them out, carp are bottom feeders and keeping them in clear water (maybe feeding it bread) gets some of the muddy taste out of it.

People have a bucket to fish it out if they need to use the tub for something else.

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


that's pretty much it. As I said, he's a lousy administrator because, among other reasons, he's way too impatient. I remember when he was trying to build a grand coalition of the right but began by trying to asorb the fringier parties (like SO and LPR) rather than the mainstream - that's just not how it's done and so of course he failed.

Here, again, rather than bide his time, build up some confidence in the government and slowly build up power he gets in a huge wrangle over the constitution with no benefit whatsoever, alienating many of the swing voters who put his party in power and jeapordizing the longterm careers of the people who were responsible for PiS's victory (AD and BS). But I think in the final analysis he's just a user who uses others for what he can get and then discards them....

I guess better now than later (though I'm curious as to what kind of leaders AD and BS might have turned into given some independence)