Study / Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies. [1006]


feel free to reference my considered response... or just ignore it if you prefer..... (fuming.... I do and do for this forum and what thanks do I get?)

Study / Various education and school issues in Poland. Opinions, stories, controversies. [1006]


the US has always had conflicting ideas about education. Part of this is related to the frontier experience (which had a tremendous effect on creating general American cultural norms).

On the one hand there is respect for education and recognition of how necessary it is for societal improvement, and on the other hand on the frontier formal qualifications matter less than practical skills...

This is why in contexts where Europeans talk about 'qualifications' (usually meaning documents confirming completion of courses Americans traditionally like to talk about skills, practical abilities gained through direct experience.

Also, since the neoliberal Reagan revolution of 1980... public education has been the target of the crazy rightwing (who think education should be privatized as much as possible) and the tool by which the crazy leftwing wants to fundamentally change society... both approaches are catastrophic for education and have resulted in the ever lowering opinion of education and educaters...

Crime and racial discriminbation are not really factors here beyond the uncomfortable fact that not all sectors of American society respect education which causes increasing racial achievement gaps (blacks largely gave up on education in the 1990s, hispanics have never been convinced about its importance and Asians, if such a thing is possible, have too much respect for education).

History / Crazy 1990s in Poland - transition from communism to capitalism - stories [111]

In 1992 I bought a 20 year old compact car which cost me 1000 PLN

Are you transferring currency rates because 1992 was still the old rate, do you mean 10 million? (that's a lot for the time unless you were grinding out 30 or more private hours a week)

History / Crazy 1990s in Poland - transition from communism to capitalism - stories [111]


No. Are you illiterate? Some political systems and parties have been called 'communist' (all terrible) but communism according to the traditional definition has never existed (and never will exist most likely).

What has existed is a combination of socialism and fascism (USSR, China etc).

History / Crazy 1990s in Poland - transition from communism to capitalism - stories [111]


Technically according to the definition.... communism has never existed (since it requires the elimination of the state which has never come close to happening in any self-named 'communist' area....

again...

Socialism - the means of production are owned by the government

Communism - the means of production are owned by "the people" as the state has withered away... (never gotten close to that and basically unachievable)

Fascism - the means of production are privately owned but controlled by the militarized (whole society is militarized).

What has been called communism in practice whether the USSR or North Korea or Cambodia is a weird cross of socialism and fascism (mostly socialism economically but politically fascist with the brutal suppression of dissent that that entails).

History / Crazy 1990s in Poland - transition from communism to capitalism - stories [111]


not the topic of the thread... do you have any experiences in the period 1989-1992 or so?

Polonia / Darker side of Scandinavia - Poles treated as being worse [31]


Yes, bringing in manty immigrants who despise your culture and want to protect themselves from it.... not a great policy as Sweden has found out.

Polonia / Darker side of Scandinavia - Poles treated as being worse [31]


Which is why voters have "turned to the right"... if only one party offers something voters want for long enough then that party will eventually do well once voters want that enough too

Polonia / Darker side of Scandinavia - Poles treated as being worse [31]


That should be the decision of Swedish citizens... I can't think of any country in the world where a majority wants endless large scale immigration - but political establishments are addicted to the idea for lots of dumb reasons..... (and some sinister ones as well, but... mostly dumb reasons).

Polonia / Darker side of Scandinavia - Poles treated as being worse [31]


Entirely predictable since the mainstream parties refused to engage with real and valid voter concerns about things like immigration....

As one Swede put it, Sweden doesn't have many jobs where a new hire can get by with initial poor language skills (England and Germany are far better at that in the EU) but it is very good at trapping people into intergenerational welfare dependence

Also, the policy of multiculturalism and cultural preservation for immigrants mean most immigrant parents pass on their culture shock trauma to their children which prevents them from assimilating and being able to succeed.

Polonia / Darker side of Scandinavia - Poles treated as being worse [31]


those proposing 'multiculturalism'.... it's kind of a losing philosophy....


nothing about multiculturalism in the Constitution... and I was thinking about Scandinavia which is not bound by the US constitution

immigration needs to return to the model of assimilation... (or acquire that in the case of Scnandinavia....) if the old country was so crappy they had to leave there's no need for immigrants to try to recreate it in a new place

Polonia / Darker side of Scandinavia - Poles treated as being worse [31]


Multicultural "societies" have no "common" good... each group has its own....

Maybe should have thought about that earlier....

News / Years of Poland in the EU - assessment of pros and cons [1199]

Poland joining NATO was a preemptive defensive measure against russian aggression.

The idea is join before you need it cause russia is still the same dysfunctional violent nightmare for its neighbors that it's always been...

News / Years of Poland in the EU - assessment of pros and cons [1199]


Because Poland is in NATO... hey russia.... feelin' lucky?

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


Open borders = open crime.... the British government okay with this because it's neoliberalism 101 - keep the local population disoriented with various crises (and government policies to make the crises worse).

It's the same reason that democrats fill cities with homeless drug addicts in the US... make going outside into a dangerous chore so people can't connect and realize how you're strip mining the economy.... and republican "solutions" to the problems are not solutions at all but different divide-and-conquer strategies....

Love / There's a Polish guy I like, will he be worth it? [28]


In the words of Atrakcyjny Kazimierz

"Pokochali się, język się przydał...."

youtube.com/watch?v=FZjnfscgFXE

glossary .. pokochali się ('they fell in love" or 'they made love') język ('language' or 'tongue') przydać się ('to be useful, to be handy')

Off-Topic / Polish Misunderstanding of American Terminology [47]


someone doesn't understand the concept of "example sentence"... such ignorance is not something to be bragged about....

Off-Topic / Polish Misunderstanding of American Terminology [47]

I have the feeling it's more often used as an adjective now....

"What kind of podunk operation is this?"

History / Crazy 1990s in Poland - transition from communism to capitalism - stories [111]


I'm pretty sure I remember Mydełko Fa from 1991...

Wasn't it called muzyka chodnikowa (or podwórkowa) [sidewalk or yard music] then? (referencing pirate cassettes sold on sidewalks?)

Anyhoo, during one trip back to the states in the early 90s Mydełko Fa was the only Polish music that people I knew liked..... (I played lots of other stuff for them but this was that was the one they thought was original sounding - and these were highly educated people...).

I bought the album and my next favorite on it was "W salonie marzeń" youtube only has a version with Drozdowska but I seem to remember a version with Kondrat singin.... am I crazy?

Off-Topic / Polish Misunderstanding of American Terminology [47]


...how you lose every single argument you start?

That is pretty funny.... one might think a person would grow tired of being constantly humiliated but.... here you still are....

Now... Shoo! Afuera! Won stąd!

Off-Topic / Polish Misunderstanding of American Terminology [47]

I rarely tell people to correct something that's not a mistake..... (understatement)

Off-Topic / Polish Misunderstanding of American Terminology [47]


You told him the syntax needed to be corrected...


Virtually all human beings speak their native language (in casual situations) in casual, ambiguous ways.

When interacting with non-native speakers (or native speakers of a different variety of the same language) a little more care is called for.

Off-Topic / Polish Misunderstanding of American Terminology [47]


not quite a mistake (something a lot ot native speakers do is by definition, not a mistake) but not a sentence recommended for interactions with non-natives either

Off-Topic / Polish Misunderstanding of American Terminology [47]


He's not doing that, he's criticizing non-native speakers for having trouble understanding his garbled writing... or criticizing them for not having American intuitions about usage, which is just dumb.


yes.


...quite....

Off-Topic / Polish Misunderstanding of American Terminology [47]


People who know nothing about Poland should spend less time on internet forums devoted to discussion of that country... it's an imperfect world we live in, we have to make do....


Americans should expect everyone else to "speak their lingo"

English is pluricentric - there's no single, unified "standard English" but rather different national standards. It behooves us all (native and non-native speaker alike) to show a little common courtesy in terms of language differences.

Off-Topic / Polish Misunderstanding of American Terminology [47]


Yes and no.

In very general terms, NAmerican English is the most widely understood among native speakers. But as a foreign language in Europe, UK English predominates as the model to be learned.

Off-Topic / Polish Misunderstanding of American Terminology [47]


Why should anyone here be expected to be especially knowledgeable about American usage?

Especially why should someone who knows next to nothing about Poland have such expectations?

History / Crazy 1990s in Poland - transition from communism to capitalism - stories [111]


OF course everybody forgets that Marx (who did make some good points elsewhere) got the transition from capitalism to communism completely wrong....

Imperial russia with its predatory elite and enslaved masses and widespread poverty and ignorance was supposed to be one of the least likely countries to transition...

Marx's model of socialism was closer to the Scandinavian welfare states of the 1960s 1970s than anything actually existing in his time.

Be that as it may, even the Scandinavian welfare states were/are capitalist...

Anyhoo, the terms have traditional definitions that no one seems to care about preferring to use their own which muddles a topic that needs clarity.

Captialism - the means of production are privately owned

Socialism - the means of production are owned by the government

Communism - the means of production are owned by "the people" as the state has withered away...

Fascism - less clearly defined but 'the means of production are privately owned but controlled by the government' will do.

No pure capitalist or communist state has (or ever could) appear which means most countries have mixed systems with capitalist and socialist or fascistic elements (the exact mix changes over time and is called 'politics')

Poland went from a primarily socialist system (that allowed small scale private ownership) to a... more capitalist system.

History / Differences between Poland and Russia [78]

In today's episode of "How dysfunctional and rotten is russia?"

Apparently if you pay the FSB three thousand dollars ($3000) they'll prepare a file for you showing that they're repressing you and you can use that to apply for asylum abroad.

twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1582395690629890049

what a ridiculous excuse for a country....

History / Crazy 1990s in Poland - transition from communism to capitalism - stories [111]


What I remember is that the sidewalks on a couple of streets just became open air markets on their own - one I remember was a major street leading to a fixed open air market. Another was just a more or less random street in the downtown area with people selling every imaginable item.

Oddly, a lot of them were pretty honest. I bought a radio-cassette player to make recordings but it didn't record and I took it back the next day and he exchanged it with no problem (trying to get a refund in a state store at the time was more trouble than it was worth).

I also remember these.... trailers (usually dark orange) that were turned into early versions of food trucks.

They looked like this but not as nice...

pl.aliexpress.com/item/4001243428859.html