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Posts by jon357  

Joined: 15 Mar 2012 / Male ♂ 		Last Post: 5 Nov 2025
Threads: Total: 76 / Live: 25 / Archived: 51
Posts: Total: 25286 / Live: 15241 / Archived: 10045 		From: Somewhere around Barstow
Speaks Polish?: Not with my mouth full

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jon357   
18 Feb 2016
News / The dossier of TW "Bolek" - Poland's IPN assisted by police enters the home of the late general Kiszczak [306]

It has echoes of the Lista Wildstein that PIS leaked a few years ago. Half the names on the list were retired Headteachers, university lecturers etc that the SB had contacted to ask for references for new-hire staff and a great chunk of the rest were either people they'd interviewed for exit visas etc, officials from voluntary bodies like trade unions, housing co-operatives etc or just civil servants that they'd had professional contact with for mundane reasons.

But the mud still stuck and caused huge problems for some people living in small communities who were falsely branded Stasi-style collaborators.
jon357   
18 Feb 2016
News / The dossier of TW "Bolek" - Poland's IPN assisted by police enters the home of the late general Kiszczak [306]

first its not me,this undercover guy

You aren't the only crank here with that name. To quote the wonderful Carly Simon " you're so vain, you probably think this song is about you".

many people knew he was agent and crook

More that others peopl sought to smear him for their own personal and political gain

A number of such persons manage to do that to themselves here every week

Bingo.
jon357   
18 Feb 2016
News / Poland to return to Catholic tradition? [177]

ame right as some garden-variety a deodorant or dog-food maker to present their view

"Present their view" or

mpose their religious beliefs

jon357   
18 Feb 2016
News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

respected Polish statesma

Only one of those three words is accurate. He isn't respected and he certainly isn't any sort of statesman. And he hates Poland.
jon357   
18 Feb 2016
News / Poland to return to Catholic tradition? [177]

Quite. It's when religious groups try to make others follow the precepts of their religion, tell them that they can or can't conduct business on certain days, try to impose their beliefs about family planning on society as a whole that problems emerge - hence the haemorrhage of churchgoers in Poland and elsewhere.
jon357   
17 Feb 2016
News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

Don't be silly Po.

The parallel between PIS and the Soviet systems use of public office is very telling indeed. Elected leaders that aren't leaders of anything at all and a real leader who doesn't hold office except as a backbencher.
jon357   
17 Feb 2016
News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

In fact a very accurate description of his role so far, Po. Very accurate indeed...

A name? Nope. An apt description and breaks no forum rules.
jon357   
17 Feb 2016
News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

ther difference is that Szydło knows not to try and become too popular domestically.

Basically she and the dud Duda are in the same position as people who held essentially meaningless (in this situation) titles like prime minister or president back in the Soviet Union. For decades the president was Anastas Mikoyan and there were a few prime ministers however the true leader was Stalin, Krushchev etc...

Just another abuse of democracy.
jon357   
17 Feb 2016
Genealogy / Are Sorbs Polish? Does anyone know about Sorbish enthnicity? [62]

Will they ever want to learn Gaelic

That language was never spoken across the whole of modern Scotland - in fact it was only ever spoken by a minority. More people spoke Scots and Cymric.

With Sorbs, they're an interesting cultural group and very well integrated. They have language rights, schools and cultural associations. Some may well want to immerse themselves in everything that is Sorbian and others may want to assimilate completely. Most somewhere in between.
jon357   
16 Feb 2016
News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

It's normal for PiS to use the security agencies against perceived enemies.

Look at the IPN fiasco last time round and Wildstein's List.
jon357   
16 Feb 2016
News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

If you believe them that is

I do. There's know suggestion of journalistic wrongdoing by them, and PIS have a long history of misusing organs of the state for their own political ends.
jon357   
16 Feb 2016
News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

Are you trying to say that by the token of being a journalist he has been granted immunity from being investigated by the police

If you read the media, he wasn't being investigated.
jon357   
16 Feb 2016
News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

Notice how Polonius completely fails to condemn attacks on the independent media.

Screamingly obvious.

Echoes of when PIS were briefly in office before and they sent something close to a SWAT team to arrest Piotr Ikonowicz, also a vocal critic of theirs.
jon357   
16 Feb 2016
News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

So the harassment of non-PiS media has already started.

According to the media, the raid wasn't part of any ongoing investigation and just seems like harassment - almost certainly score settling by some PIS mafia person in or near Łódż, probably to do with his political role.
jon357   
16 Feb 2016
News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

His identical twin's health was such a concern at one point that there was serious discussion about the precise constitutional mechanism for removing a president from office if they are incapable of fully discharging their duties.

Jaro, being electorally toxic, doesn't hold public office apart from his parliamentary seat (having put in impotent
placeholders as president and premier) so that isn't an issue.

The significant thing is the unseemly scramble for succession among Ziobro etc.
jon357   
16 Feb 2016
News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

Much as i detest Jarosław Kaczyński, I wish him a (fairly) speedy return to health after last night's medical emergency and drama and hope that his serious health problems will be managed well.
jon357   
16 Feb 2016
News / Poland to return to Catholic tradition? [177]

As even the data from the RCC shows, practising Catholics in Poland are now a small minority

Quite. And for a certain political and cultural tendency in Poland and elsewhere this news 50% confirms their fears that even their God has forsaken them and 50% sends them into a sulking rage.
jon357   
16 Feb 2016
News / Poland to return to Catholic tradition? [177]

While those who support PiS and their whack-a-doodle policies are punished right here on earth.

It's entirely par for the course for that particular brand of ultra-conservatist churchmanship which the supporters of the PiS cult are most often exposed to: austerity right, hedonism wrong; piety right, fun wrong; old right, new wrong; suffering right and "part of God's plan", betterment wrong and "the Devil's work".
jon357   
16 Feb 2016
News / Poland to return to Catholic tradition? [177]

Nowadays we have less than 5% of the relative number of jews that we had 100 years ago, but still their traditions are more alive than never.

Here in Poland those traditions are barely a shadow of what they once were. Though fortunately they are returning slowly.

has fallen from the high fifties (percent of the population) to the low thirties

Haemorrhaging.

Already a minority sport and increasingly a rural one.
jon357   
16 Feb 2016
News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

Essentially yes, since the socialist economic model that you admire so much tends to impoverish people in every sense.

Read the article, Po. It's free of hysterical polemicising and analyses the situation in a concise, if rather too restrained, way.