News / New Nuclear Ambitions Of Belarus: cooperation with Poland in the energy deliveries to the EU countries [20]

Besides, he can hardly have good feelings for other Slavs when he is constantly dreaming of subjugating those who live in areas he views as Serbian, or glorifies those who butchered them e.g. in Srebenica. He calls upon Slavs the same way Hitler called upon Europeans in 1944... to aid in his mad agenda.

History / Royal Family still in Poland? [79]


Are you kidding? Millions of people migrated from Europe in the 18th and 19th century in order to luve in the USA, particulary from Ireland and after the failed 1848 revolution. Nowadays monarchies in Europe have been thoroughly defanged and are more or less theme-park versions of republics and thus no longer causing people to escape, but you can easily find examples of other monarchies in the world that produces refugees. Not to mention that there are also brutal dictatorships like North Korea and Syria that are all but monarchies in name which pass power along a dynasty.

News / Will America send troops to fight a Russian invasion of Baltics and/or Poland? [281]


Germany does not offer free healthcare but universal one, which interestingly was invented by bonna fide reactionary Otto von Bismarck... higer education is also free except for a few federal states that demand a modest university fee.

Never mind how universal healthcare would most likely be cheaper long term for the USA than the current system. Currently the US spends twice as much per capita than Germany for an inferior service.

News / Will America send troops to fight a Russian invasion of Baltics and/or Poland? [281]

Just look who constitutes the SPD party in the Bundestag. 1/4 of them are from the JuSos who are very much pacifists and have in the past advocated for North Stream and against the 2% aim. The leader of the SPD in the Bundestag is Mützenich, whose policy goals I already stated. Honestly, the way the SPD prevented the Bundeswehr from buying drones really infuriated me... they were not following arguments, they just wanted to score cheap points with the pacifit voters. At least the Left party is consistent with their pacifist policies. You can not send soldiers to fight and not arm them properly!

And the Green party.... well, they might be for sanctions and all, but expecting them to agree to higher defence spendings is really a joke. We all know what they will want more money for, and it won't be for the army!


Merkel was the guarantee that this would not happen. With her gone, and with Covid having ravaged our budget, I am rather pessimistic for the future.

News / Will America send troops to fight a Russian invasion of Baltics and/or Poland? [281]


I mean who is realistically going to invade them?


You are being dishonest here. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, successive governments have reduced the Bundeswehr in size, and in the 2000s there was a big consensus among the German public and government that Russia was no longer an enemy, and that we would need the army for peace keeping and nation building. That only changed in 2014, and even then Merkel and the CDU (and partly the FDP) were the only ones actually advocating for reaarmament. The SPD (with whom the CDU had to form a coalition) was especially bad in this regard. They made sure that any increase to the military budget should also be matched by an increase to the development fund budged (thus making large increases impossible), have long prevented the Bundeswehr from buying armed drones, and followed Mützenich's denuclearization agenda, which put NATOs nuclear deterrent in Germany at risk. There may be issues on which the new government might perform better than before, but Merkel's departure is bad news for the Bundeswehr and Germany's role in NATO. Obama knew that Merkel was one of the few German politicians who were not catering to the German pacifist mentality, which is why he appreciated her.

News / Will America send troops to fight a Russian invasion of Baltics and/or Poland? [281]

To be honest, what I am really concerned about is not Putin, but about the actions of his successors. Because by now we know what Putin's deal is. He wants to stay in power, and because he is unable to adress Russia's serious domestic problems, he had to build up the West as an enemy. Crimea will now be used as his great success by his propaganda machine, it will always be brought up when Russians grow discontent with falling wages and pensions and rising food prices. Putin is in the end however pragmatic enough to only take calculated risks.

We do not know what type his successor will be. A successor who will not be able to benefit in the same way from previous foreign political "successes" and who will likely be forced to face some serious domestic turbulences when Russia's long-term problems really come to the fore front. Backed into a corner and no "easy" conquest available, who knows what he will do.

Not to mention how successive American governments will be more and more occuppied with containing China, which in return will make Eastern Europe more vulnerable.

News / What should Poland do with the problem of Belarus? [1800]


Well, so much for Europe's civilization. Those new citizen do what our supposedly civilized and christian governments should be doing.

News / What should Poland do with the problem of Belarus? [1800]

Yeah, because no refugees or migrants are making it from Greece to Germany....

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]

Realistically speaking Pro choice advocates might be better off waiting a few more years, giving time the chance to reduce their opponents among the old people instead of losing a public vote on it prematurely and having to live with it for a generation or so.

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]

Yeah, it is the woman who has to go through the agony of pregnancy and labour and who ends up with all the possible health risk. While I do support more rights for fathers (especially when divorced) in general, that is a call they have rightfully no say in. Woman can not prevent a man to e.g. get a vasectomy either.

News / Abortion still under control in Poland [2986]

It is worth noting that cases like this helped in Ireland tipping the scale towards legalizing abortions.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar

It is easy to have a black-and-white view on such complex issues like abortion, but the reality is more complex and requires more flexibility in order to account for extreme cases. Otherwise you end up with women dying as we were still in the Middle Ages, or women (or even children) being forced to carry their rape baby to term.


It can be one in cases where it is necessary to save the mothers life, like cutting out a tumor, especially when the baby is dead or dying and threatens to kill the mother as well. It can also be part of the mental recovery of a raped woman.

News / Years of Poland in the EU - assessment of pros and cons [1158]

Yeah, aside from the self-inflicted immenent and long-term political and economical, the UK is doing "fine".


Poland is probably the country that benefits the most from the EU. Financially and economically it is a clear win without a downside, and in political terms the EU provides one last line of defence for Poland's democracy against the increasingly autorcratic PiS.

News / Years of Poland in the EU - assessment of pros and cons [1158]


Indeed. Everybody knows that Brexit was and is a terrible idea, but humans sadly have the tendency to double down rather than rethink their convictions. Pretty much everything the Brexiteers promised to counter the warnings of the Remainers has turned out to be wrong. "Easiest trade deal in history" "No border in Irland" "No need for much paperwork for import/export into the EU" "A quick trade deal with the USA". Of course according to their logic, this is not the result of falsw promises, but others trying to sabotage Brexit....

Life / Has feminism and lesbianism progressed in Poland? [645]

Considering how many of her adversaries within her party she overcame, that seems safe to say. Merkel has been accused of many things, but never of being a puppet of her party.


Apologies, thanks for the correction.

Life / Has feminism and lesbianism progressed in Poland? [645]

It is rather interesting to note that when it comes to women in high government offices, conservative parties in Europe have a surprsingly good effort. The Tories made Thatcher the first prominent female politician to lead a country and later had with Theresa May their second female PM. Merkel became the first woman as chancellor of Germany, with her party colleague von der Leyen becoming the first woman in charge of the European Comission. PiS gave Poland its first female PM, although she was little more than a puppet.

Life / Has feminism and lesbianism progressed in Poland? [645]

Something I find rather interesting is the portrayal of murders done by the husband/boyfriend against their wife/girlfriend. In Germany those were often euphemistically called "Beziehungsdrama" (relationship tragedy) but a few years ago the coverage of it started following an international trend and called it "femicide" instead. I was initial sceptical about this term, but after realizing how many women are murdered by their male partner, and that they were indeed ultimately killed because of their sex, it now seems appropiate.

News / Years of Poland in the EU - assessment of pros and cons [1158]

To quote Helmut Schmidt. "If you have visions, go see a doctor."

Off-Topic / Where are you from? [59]

Just a matter of time. Germans are mostly reasonable people, and once it sinks in that the fear of muslims is anything but reasonable, they will change their mind.

Polonia / Possible Green Surge in Germany [118]

Yeah, I'd rather see the money invested in more useful infrastructure.

Polonia / Possible Green Surge in Germany [118]

Yawn, nobody cares Dirk.

Off-Topic / Foreign news in Polish media [108]


But how long will this last? Both the SPD and Green party have pledged to ease restriction on asylum laws and both parties will likely end up in government. Their probable partner, the FDP, has no strong opinion on this, they however want to make it easier for qualified migrants to immigrate.

As for the AfDs' party program, it is honestly a joke. It completely leaves out complicated yet pressing issues like our pension system and is on other intentionally vague to not scare off somewhat moderatw victors. The AfD has nothing really to say except on refugees, and that point is simply no longer relevant to most voters.

Polonia / Possible Green Surge in Germany [118]

As for men and impulsivness, there are plenty of studies out there about it.

link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40473-015-0031-8

wgno.com/news/local/why-are-men-more-impulsive-tulane-brain-institute-study-hopes-to-answer-that-question/

And so on et cetera.


What I do and what men on average do has little in common. Men are statistically more likely to commit murder and rape, I have done neither, does that make the former statement invalid? I get it, we can add women to the many groups of people you despise and move on.


Well, the USA elected someone opposite with Trump and its' democracy was almost brought to its' knees as a result. Tree huggers might chain themselves on tracks, but they are not known to storm the parliament. I am far from a fan of the current Green party, but they had with Joschka Fischer one of Germany's best foreign ministers in their ranks, so who knows what they are capable in the future.

Polonia / Possible Green Surge in Germany [118]

Well, the chance for a green chancellor was there in May/June, but the thoroughly inexperienced (and some would say unqualified) Baerbock blew it. The Green party will almost inevitable be part of any coalition, but they are not going to get the chancellery.

News / Heavy fighting. Legia Warszawa brutally attacked in Croatia by pro-German fanatics saluted by local mob ! [49]


None of whom I might add had done any harm to him or Serbia. Ferdinand was completely sidelined from government since the Emperor disliked his well-known sympathies for the minorities in A/U.

News / Should Poland leave the EU institution? [147]


Merkel has done a lot of things right. Managing the Euro crisis, forging an European response to Russia's agression against the Ukraine, brokering Minsk II to name some examples.


Merkel allowed the EU to mess up the vaccination program - although the diverging demands of various countries were mostly at fault - yet she gets also credit for getting through the crisis better than any other mayor European country (or the USA for that matter) in terms of victims. And while the vaccination roleout was slower than it could have been, we are catching up to the likes of the UK who did benefit all that much from their advantage all things considered (they still had and have restrictions).

No doubt what will define Merkel's legacy is how she has dealt with the two challenges that will have the biggest impact on future generations: The survival of the EU and Climate change. If the EU survives Merkel's departure for say 30 years, then her place in the history books is assured. As for climate change, she has done more than others, but maybe not enough. That being said, most of her contemporaries will be judged harshly as well, many of them even more than her.

News / Should Poland leave the EU institution? [147]

Looks like the Spectator is still salty that all its predictions about the imminwnt demise of the EU during the Eurocrisis and later after Brexit have again and again by frustrated by Merkel. No doubt there is also some jealousy that she is Europes' most impreasive politician of this generation while the UK (and the conservative party) has only produced failures and mediocrities.

History / Why Was D-Day So Significant for Poland ? [266]


No, because there were no independent polls in Nazi Germany and the regime had obviously no intention on casting doubts on the German resolve for war. We have however many Gestapo reports that inform us about the mood at social gatherings and at bars, and they are overwhelmingly pessimistic. Germans knew from their experience in WWI that there would inevitably huge suffering for both soldiers and civilians.

History / Why Was D-Day So Significant for Poland ? [266]


The acquisitions maybe, but we know that most Germans were unhappy about the outbreak of the war, as many Gestapo informers noted.

History / Why Was D-Day So Significant for Poland ? [266]


And commited a genocide within that short time frame. Though admittedly the Nazis were later even more "efficient" in that regard. It is good that we finally acknowledged this and settled this issue with rather paltry amount of money.


Well, the Soviet Union did not exclusively consist of Russians, most of the fighting was done in what is now Belarus and the Ukraine, and in terms of percentage both people suffered higher losses than ethnic Russians. Many Ukrainians are in fact annoyed that the suffering and triumph is often solely attributed to the Russians.

Besides, nobody calls the Weimar Republic German Reich, even contemporaries rarely did. Nazi Germany or the Nazis is and perfectly valid description.

History / Why Was D-Day So Significant for Poland ? [266]

And that is the estimsted based on the inflated numbers given by the GDR. By 1989 a citizen of the GDR earned officially 1/3 of his counterpart in West, though in reality it was more like 1/5.