Life / Polish movies with English subtitles [87]


Dubbing scripts never match subtitle scripts in any language. Subtitles have to cut from a quarter to a third of the content in dialogue (as do voiceover scripts).

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


No. You fantasized that he would. Hope is based on some kind of evidence. Absent that, you're just thinking "Wouldn't it be great if Macierewicz stopped taking those crazy pills?"

He already knows what he thinks happened and will not accept any evidence to the contrary. The oppression of Poland by Russia is his religion and religious belief is not generally vulnerable to contrary evidence.

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


Macierewicz is to PiS what Polonius3 is to the forum, he can yell all his mad roundtable stuff at the forum people and there are no consequences....

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


Yes. This. They had many flaws but the country did better under eight years of PO rule than any other post communist government.

A lot of that was EU subsidies but at least PO figures knew how to play the European game while all PiS can do is alienate other countries. PiS is like Cersei on GoT "Everyone who isn't us is an enemy".

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


That is certainly a legitimate complaint against PO (unlike the dramatic nonsense that some clutch their pearls over). I am totally on board with a de-politicized civil service and can support any party that seriously proposes that.

PiS so far is simply cronyism on steroids.

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


In other words you wanted a violent exit with some innocent people getting killed just to make sure you got the s.o.b.s?

At the time there were two options (I know it seems different now with the benefit of hindsight)

Soft landing - letting some guilty off the hook to guarantee a peaceful transition

Hard landing - blood in the streets with no guarantee of victory

Interestingly, the country with the hardest landing form communism - Romania, is not doing better than Poland (far worse, actually) and was bled dry by real oligarchs and not the fantasy cliques operating in your mind.

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


No, justic, honor, dignity and self-esteem are great values. They are also not ultimately served by retro-active legislation which degrades all those fine ideas. Had Poland followed your and JK's preferred policies it would be worse off than Romania or Bulgaria are now instead of the biggest economic success story in the region.

Again, dissatisfaction with PO was largely a function of progress (people get impatient for even more rapid progress and ruling parties tend to get lazy and bloated). Unfortunately the current government is all about the past and its decisions will not be good for the economy. If Polish people are fine with going back to 1992 living standards in order to rewrite history then.... they'll get 1992 (or 1982) living standards.

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


How much economic gain would you trade for that? It would have killed economic investment (why invest in a country where the next government might declare your actions illegal?) and killed Poland's political standing.

There was no RT "clique" there were people who were in better and worse starting positions at the end of the PRL and those who made better and worse use of their talents and the opportunities open to them. That you hate those who were successful doesn't make them a group conspiring for your failure.

And of course the part of Poland with more German influence did better than the part with more Russian influence just the same way that Germany will always economically outperform Russia.

German and German influenced values of hard work and adherence to rule of law will always beat looking for the good Tsar whether it's Putin or Kaczyński to feed you.

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


The purpose of the RT was _not_ so that Solidarity members (or former party members) could make a nice living for themselves. It was to change the system.

The sad fact is that more party members were able to think ahead while too many on the Solidarity side were still hung up on their ideas of a 1970s Scandinavian welfare state (not noticing that Scandinavians themselves had largely given up on it).

But I know lots of people with no PZPR connections who've done smashingly well post 1989 (and some former PZPR types who.... haven't). Correlation is not causation after all. The key to getting ahead post 1989 wasn't some shadowy cabal but flexibility and luck and knowhow in various combinations.


Germany had lost a war, that has nothing to do with a negotiated transfer of power.


True, but.... so? I've yet to meet a Pole who understands Marxist theory, let alone a committed communist.

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


I know you're not a fan of rule of law, but how could this have been accomplished without retro-active legislation (which would have had disastrous consequences for Poland's legitimacy in terms of attracting investment)?

Coulda woulda shoulda are the last words of a fool (as the song says)

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


The fun will be how they try to reframe the Smolensk narrative from evil Russians to an evil alliance of Tusk and Komorowski plotting against LK and trying to sabotage Polish Russian relations at the same time.

Not sure if AM will be on board for that one (though I can imagine JK going there in a heartbeat).

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


Dr Freud, your patient is holding on line two....

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


martial law

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


What particular crime is he charged with? Daylight raids are to arrest wanted criminals who've been charged. They are categorically not intended for fishing expeditions by neurotic personalities with an ideological axe to grind.

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


Oh I'm sure some posters here would be all on board with this...

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


Seems? There's no doubt now that they're all about revenge, more revenge and booty (the cash kind, not the buttock kind).

I am curious as to whether Duda and Szydło realized just how marginalized they'd be after the elections that they (and not the toxic demons kept out of public sight) won.


It's not like JK has kids and worries about their future (also see Merkel, another barren destroyer).

History / Current Polish-Russian relations.. What do the Poles think? [60]


Hate to break it to you, wroneczko*, but neither Poles nor Russians are terribly concerned about what's important to you Serbians.

Sorry 'bout dat.

*Crowie baby

History / Current Polish-Russian relations.. What do the Poles think? [60]


What has Russia ever done that Poland should trust them? Can you name just one thing? Not being on board with Merkel's mad folly or some EU policies is not nearly enough to make alignment with Russia seem like a good (or even sane) idea.

Feedback / Member warning system to prevent abuse / spam / off-topic posts [145]

BECAUSE THE CODES ARE MEANINGLESS!!!!!!

Also, enforcement seems up to the subjective judgement of the mods which makes the whole point kind of meaningless as well.

Feedback / Member warning system to prevent abuse / spam / off-topic posts [145]

a moderator impersonating me wrote


And that does no good whatsoever with no information about which posts got that designation and why. Would it be so hard to PM with a clarification? Apparently yes.

IME not a single request for clarifying information has been honored with an answer, just ambiguous and/or meaningless self-righteousness.

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


Not true at all in the case of Germany (which after 2004 insisted on keeping its labor market closed to Polish people as long as possible and wanted extensions).

Germany has been a very poor partner to new member states (not to mention Greece) and has precious little ground to stand on in calling for European solidarity and cooperation.

Sweden is a few steps away from being a failed state and I see no reason to assume that other countries wish to follow its lead.

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

No. Poland has a survival sense that is sorely lacking in places like West Germany.

If the refugees were properly vetted closer to Syria then that might be appropriate to help but the hundreds of thousands (soon to be millions) flooding in now are mostly not from countries that are entitled to refugee status and they're causing far more problems than they are worth in the places that have been foolish enough to take them in.

You might not have thought Cologne was any big deal but it's the tip of the iceberg about what's going on.

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


It would have been nice to have some distribution in the decision making process. There was none, Germany and Sweden went their own way, got in way over their head and started trying to instill guilt about other countries not helping. They might bully some other countries into compliance but there's no way Poland will feel guilty about not helping more in this case.

We all make the bed we must lie in,
And tuck ourselves into it too.
And if somebody kicks, that will be a young angry Iraqi,
And if someone gets kicked, then that will be a European woman who never knew what hit her...

(apologies to Herr Brecht)

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


any evidence for that claim besides the old 'cashiers wearing pampers' urban legend?

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


A comment from an article you linked went (roughly) L Kaczyński liquidated the heads of the armed forces near Smolensk and J Kaczyński wants to finish the job in Poland.

If I didn't know better, I might suspect that the grand master scheme of JK (and bootlicks like AM) is to return Poland to the Russian sphere of influence. Do I know better?

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


PiS supporters don't care anything about Polish farmers (who have sometimes voted for PSL instead of them). PiS supporters care about money, money, money and power (to take more money).

All the talk about koryto is pure projection. They can't imagine anyone in the public sector not wanting to raid the public coffers for all they're worth (it's what they want to do after all while spinning glib lies about repolonization or patriotism).

It's almost like a Latin American junta come to power (and so far far worse than most had feared it would be). I think Poland is going to take some huge financial hits that take it back economically at least 10 years....

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


In other words, you're a corrupt partisan who cares nothing for the Polish public as long as your enemies are hurt....

Perhaps you're hoping for an appointment you're not qualified for yourself?

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


(channeling Polonius3) You mean better! Experience and expertise are a form of theft by the KOD post RT communist elite against the True Poles who are not to blame that they don't have employable skills. They should be promoted to leadership positions so they can gain skills. Entry level positions are for corrupt PO types, PiS knows what really matters is loyalty to party and JK....

Who am I kidding? he won't address the substance of any of these at all (because they are indefensible) but simply keep invoking misdeeds by PO (without ever getting into any specific cases).

Love / Valentines Day & Polish men [130]


The term Yank to refer to Americans is deeply offensive to those of us who are not Yankees.

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


Hey, you go with what you know. If your'e a sneaky paranoid figure you see conspiracies everywhere and that's what you give priority to...

And I'm sure there are plenty of PiS cronies ready to take their place. What's military know how and experience compared to party loyalty? Nothing! That's what! (Polonius will tell you)