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 [347]


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 [347]


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 [347]


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 [347]


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)

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


Overall, yes, but I've heard at least as much anti-Euro rhetoric as pro-Euro. The continuing misery of Spain and Greece (made worse by the Euro) is not lost on many people.

it was after Merkel announced her unilateral insane plan to make German (and the rest of the EU) an open destination for anyone who could pay traffickers and say the word "asylum" that I began to hear the first real open criticism of the idea. It's still overall probably but as they say every rose has its thorn and Germany making unilateral decisions that it expects other countries to meekly follow along with is a real big thorn for most Polish people.

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


Oddly enough, for once Polly seems right (A festivus miracle?!?) The overwhelming opinion I get on the EU from Polish people of different generations and class is a generally positive attitude for the good it has done Poland but a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the neverending increasing integration that is priority number one in Brussels.

Merkel's Folly in inviting tens of millions of third world malcontents is definitely the first chink in the EU armor (and helped in eroding public confidence in PO).

Life / All Things Christmassy in Poland [347]

It looks like "Szopka bożonarodzeniowa bez żydów, arabów i uchodźców" (roughly: Christmas manger without jews, nobility or refugees).

In other words, it's a manger with some animals in it.

Language / Short Polish<->English translations [1050]


that doesn't explain robić laskę komuś? (rough: give smn a bl0wj*b)

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


Pray tell how? They want to chase foreign employers from the country and punish those with the wherewithall to be entrepreneurs, and tighten up the money supply so that everyone will hunker down to keep from losing ground. they seem to be totally uninterested in job creation....are they going to try massive state employment as in the PRL?

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


Which the TK ruled on in an entirely predictable fashion. Had PiS waited for the system to work they could be working on their program. Their priorities however are not about impleementing their program apparently.

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


In some cases, yeah, that's a far throw from a single force under Brussels control.

More importantly, no one's trying to convince the public about any of this - it's the old technocractic approach favored by the communists, the leaders roll out their plans and the masses are (conventiently) satisfied and if they're not then it's their job to shut up and appreciate how well the party is working. It's one big reason that communism failed (not the only one but a big one).


That sounds like central planning (and obsession over international rankings that are mostly hogwash). I don't know how many Finnish departments there are in Poland but three would sound about right so they can both work with and compete with each other (and competing with each other is a better goal than competing internationally). Just having one is a recipe for stagnation.

The bigger problem in Poland is that universities are too insular, one of the few (very few) good things about Bologna is that there's more movement by students between universities now (though more is needed as is movement of faculty). One Finnish department and the faculty has zero options for movement, again not healthy.

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


I'm sorry, since when has it been the job of the opposition to help the governing party's program?

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


No, it's a terrible idea the perceived need for which stems almost entirely from decisions made by leaders out of touch with their electorate.

The basic problem is that there is a political class following their own agenda with no regard for what citizens want - this is always a recipe for disaster whether it's "refugee" policy or battles over the TK.

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


Enitrely their own fault for picking a fight over the TK when none was needed. Accept three judges, appoint two and go on about their business. Was that too hard? Apparently. But please stop blaming other people for the choices made by the PiS leadership. It's unbecoming of someone who wants to be taken seriously.

The big problem is that PiS remains under the thumb of one person who is a terrible, terrible administrator (he's good at doing some other things but he's terrible at running things that require dealing with people of different opinions). What's worse, he doesn't realize he has a problem and shifts blame onto others for his own mistakes - the sure sign of a terrible boss.

This is the large problem in democracy (especially in a media age). The elections select for who's good at campaigning while the skills needed to govern effectively are mostly entirely different and not usually found in the same people.

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

Many years ago I read an offhand remark that describes some of the worst aspects of EU officialdom. The idea is they think of the project of European integration sort of like a shark, if it's not constantly moving forward it will die.

This is why they have a single response (more integration) to any particular stimulus.

The problem is that all across the continent the momentum among citizens is moving and growing in the opposite direction. This leads to one of my rules for understanding politics and the world: When the agenda of political leaders is too far away from the mood on the ground - then bad things happen. You're already starting to see this in normally staid populations turning to violence (like the Dutch recently). I don't condone violence but unless the leaders of EU countries start giving priority to what citizens want then it will just get worse (what I expect to happen). Sermonizing about fascism and calling people bad names won't work to stop it either.

If these Brussel-sprout headed idiots don't back off then the whole thing will be rejected and sooner rather than later.

Life / Comparing Poland and Romania [108]


Well in terms of music what very often happens is that music from one particular region becomes the generic folk music for the whole country, such as Andalusia in Spain or Appalachia in the US or (a region whose name I forget) in Bulgaria.

Withe the górale one problem is that there just aren't enough of them to be a good model and on the other hand they're spread over a couple of countries.

There's also the idea (according to a paper in ethnology I translated years ago) that in a lot of Poland urbanization happened more suddenly and differently than in some countries and there wasn't time enough for an idealized vision of life away from the city to develop of the type needed for a folk music to talk hold in an urban environment. Instead rural life was all too close and they wanted to distance themselves from it.

A frustrating aspect of Polish arts for me is that many people don't know what they like, they want to like what other people (esp UK US) like.