The BEST Guide to POLAND
Unanswered  |  Archives 
 
 
User: Guest

Posts by AdamKadmon  

Joined: 23 Apr 2010 / Male ♂ 		Last Post: 14 Aug 2014
Threads: 2
Posts: 501 		From: Poland
Speaks Polish?: Yes
Interests: History

Displayed posts: 503 / page 7 of 17
sort: Latest first   Oldest first   |
AdamKadmon   
24 Apr 2011
Life / Disco Polo - No No No No No! [95]

like I said, matter of taste. There are many good things about Poland, music is not one of them (sorry about that).

What about this piece of music?

Do you enjoy the joke?


AdamKadmon   
23 Apr 2011
History / Poland's 1945 - 1989 under communism or during socialism? [65]

Do you regard PO as communists? Were PiS?

Party distinctions are superficial ones. I believe that politicians publicly do not address any real problem; they just play the game of power and take important decisions as technocrats do - in the name of the public, for the public sake, but avoiding involving it in any decision making. They are also restricted by the international context - what is possible and what is not - and by their willingness to take a risk. The general public may be not aware of all this.
AdamKadmon   
23 Apr 2011
History / Poland's 1945 - 1989 under communism or during socialism? [65]

Buying people with bribes is the sign of a sleekit rat.

My post was kind of a provocation. Not written by me, but by a semi-literate, who tried to disgrace Jan Karski by associating him not only with Cyrankiewicz, of whom he had always a good opionion, but with much more nasty guys like Minc and Berman. Sorry for that unintentional provocation.
AdamKadmon   
23 Apr 2011
History / Poland's 1945 - 1989 under communism or during socialism? [65]

Perhaps he was just an opportunist like so many others but his iron-fist crushing of rebellion was more typical of communistic hardliners rather than mild socialists who merely strive for progressive social reform and the betterment of the proletariat.

This was a bit more complicated than most people are dare to admit today. Here you can read about direct causes: supperproductive, strike workers and piecework workers were not paid and that is why the strike began.

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poznański_Czerwiec#Przyczyny

Then as usually there was internal faction struggle for control inside the communist party and there was also Soviet intervention - the Soviet tanks from northern and western Poland were aiming to Warsaw and only the direct threat from China and Mao himself caused Soviets not to attack Warsaw, inside which battalions of workers were waiting and ready to fight against them. Cyrankiewicz and his faction were afraid that the strike was triggered by Soviets to boost the pro-soviet faction inside Polish authorities.
AdamKadmon   
23 Apr 2011
History / Poland's 1945 - 1989 under communism or during socialism? [65]

Socialism isn't oppressive in the wider sense. The rich have more taken from them and the poor often have decent social care/provisions. For real oppression, see harsh regimes like the former Bathi one in Iraq.

In that sense so-called first Solidarity was very much socialistic movement. One of the most popular Solidarity slogans in 1980 was Socialism-YES, Its distortions-NO, tho' it is now said that it was the slogan of the PRL's authorities. Glimpse into the past.
AdamKadmon   
23 Apr 2011
History / Poland's 1945 - 1989 under communism or during socialism? [65]

Grzegorz, very interesting point, do you have any sources to you as reference on the above?

In the 19th Century, the term "Social Democrat" was used as a broad catch-all for international socialists owing their basic ideological allegiance to Karl Marx or Ferdinand Lassalle. [Social democracy]]
AdamKadmon   
23 Apr 2011
Life / Poland's population growth problem [44]

In the PRL period, maternity leave was shorter. besides, at that time the government did not pay social security contributions for women on child raising leave unlike nowadays. These incentives, however, dont suffice to persuade people to enlarge their families.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6929516.stm

The best incentive:

Another irony of Communist rule in Eastern Europe was that the crushing of popular resistance under the tank tracks often ended in the maternity ward. In Hungary after the failed 1956 revolution, in Czechoslovakia after the Prague Spring in 1968 and in Poland after martial law in 1981, the birth rate rose spectacularly. It was as if the youth, frustrated in their desire for greater political freedom, took consolation in their desire for one another.
AdamKadmon   
22 Apr 2011
Language / The Polish accusative case [32]

Nad jeziorem....

NAD WODĄ WIELKA I CZYSTĄ Adam Mickiewicz

Nad wodą wielką i czystą
Stały rzędami opoki,
I woda tonią przejrzystą
Odbiła twarze ich czarne;

Nad wodą wielką i czystą
Przebiegły czarne obłoki,
I woda tonią przejrzystą
Odbiła kształty ich marne;

Nad wodą wielką i czystą
Błysnęło wzdłuż i grom ryknął,
I woda tonią przejrzystą
Odbiła światło, głos zniknął.

A woda, jak dawniej czysta,
Stoi wielka i przejrzysta.

Tę wodę widzę dokoła
I wszystko wiernie odbijam,
I dumne opoki czoła,
I błyskawice - pomijam.

Skałom trzeba stać i grozić,
Obłokom deszcze przewozić,
Błyskawicom grzmieć i ginąć,
Mnie płynąć, płynąć i płynąć -
AdamKadmon   
21 Apr 2011
News / The best Poland ever? [125]

...oooooh...another conspiracy movie...yippeh...exactly what Poland needs!

Noooo, I kindly disagree. It is not a conspiracy movie, but a movie of great wisdom. Just watch and judge my good taste.
AdamKadmon   
21 Apr 2011
News / The best Poland ever? [125]

Now that's too complicated for me... stop confusing me!

Looking for enlightement? Here goes The Commanding Heights: The Battle of Ideas - more than a healthy dosage of illumination, clarification and edification.
AdamKadmon   
21 Apr 2011
News / The best Poland ever? [125]

I didn't know you have it so bad over there

Would you believe that harnessing the unfettered greed of egotistic individuals will provide the momentum to... and so on and so forth.
AdamKadmon   
21 Apr 2011
News / The best Poland ever? [125]

Smells like socialism/communism if you ask me.

Excuse my fallible nose but to me it smells more like freedom.
AdamKadmon   
21 Apr 2011
News / The best Poland ever? [125]

they have never had it so good

Who are they? What means 'good'? How do you know that?
AdamKadmon   
21 Apr 2011
News / The best Poland ever? [125]

So...any alternatives?

Read this.

What do you think about 'the socialized enterprise'?
AdamKadmon   
21 Apr 2011
News / The best Poland ever? [125]

We have democracy but actually, if we look at it closely, the same sort of people end up running the shows and taking most of the rewards - democracy or not, it's a bit of a farce.

That is what I heard 20 years ago from ordinary people and still hear this here and there. I didn't believe in it 20 years ago, but now I think that they were just more intelligent than me.
AdamKadmon   
21 Apr 2011
News / The best Poland ever? [125]

The number of people who do not bother to vote are not excluded from society, they exclude themselves. And if they are too lazy to vote, who's fault is that?

Uneducated, ordinary people long time ago saw through the system and that is the reason why they do not vote. We have democracy but actually, if we look at it closely, the same sort of people end up running the shows and taking most of the rewards - democracy or not, it's a bit of a farce.

Poland even manages to do a damn fine job of educating people to a minimum standard.

Now about that minimum standard of education. In the last years, the percentage of young people with higher education in Poland is the highest in Europe. But those people gonna end up in GB, Germany or any other country doing at best menial jobs. Is this the reason to be complacent? A knowledgeable fool is a greater fool than an ignorant fool.
AdamKadmon   
20 Apr 2011
News / The best Poland ever? [125]

I think some people are only happy when they're moaning about something... AdamKadmon :)

I think some people are only happy when they're jubilant about something... SeanBM :(
AdamKadmon   
20 Apr 2011
News / The best Poland ever? [125]

What is "the truth"? The country is getting richer, even "poor" people are still rich in world terms - heck - Poland even manages to do a damn fine job of educating people to a minimum standard.

I do not argue with you. The election will show what is true and what is not. And those who do not bother to vote are the best indication of the number of people excluded from the society; they are the real outcasts.
AdamKadmon   
20 Apr 2011
News / The best Poland ever? [125]

The quality of life has vastly improved for the majority of the people here in Poland over the ten years I have known her.

Formal, empty, official optimism so characteristic for people like him. We live in the officially optimistic society; official optimism tries to shore up what is failing - economy (unemployment, poverty), basically everything what matters for common people. Thus official optimism feeds despair rather than hope and in addition to that conceals the truth also. The strength of the PiS opposition is that they are not false, artificial and out of this world like Mr Sikorski.
AdamKadmon   
20 Apr 2011
News / The best Poland ever? [125]

'This is the best Poland we have ever had. Learn to love it!'

I agree - it must be so from his perspective.
AdamKadmon   
20 Apr 2011
News / Donald Tusk's Government of Poland Continues to Oppress Poles [161]

A glimpse into the past:

The centrepiece of 1981 Solidarity's program was a radical vision for the huge state-run companies, which employed millions of Solidarity mem­bers, to break away from governmental control and become democratic workers' cooperatives. "The socialized enterprise," the program stated, "should be the basic organizational unit in the economy. It should be con­trolled by the workers council representing the collective and should be operatively run by the director, appointed through competition and recalled by the council."

In 1989, Henryk Wujec, one of Poland's lead­ing advocates of cooperatives, when the shock therapy of the Milton Friedman type was imposed on Poland, said: [...] cropped

books.google.pl/books?id=PwHUAq5LPOQC&printsec=frontcover&hl=pl#v=onepage&q&f=false
AdamKadmon   
19 Apr 2011
History / Why did communism in Poland fail? [180]

Why did communism in Poland fail?

To answer this question one should know what communism was/is and who were/are communists?

My answer to this question:

First, communism is fie, nasty and evil.

Second, communists are those labelled as such by CIA or similar agencies but equally fie, nasty and evil as this one.

What is your answer?
AdamKadmon   
13 Apr 2011
Language / Too many English words in the Polish language! [709]

There are some 'polish' words which sound like Polish but are in fact English. For exampleskrzydło instead of brygada
lotniczapolska.pl/Sily-Powietrzne---skrzydla-zamiast-brygad,5183

Skrzyło is so-called loan translation of the English word wing. For people unaware of this new meaning, this word is difficult to understand. If, for example, in an information programme a journalist would say that a third wing was doing exercises people would think that there is most probably a new type of airplane with tree wings and that must be an American airplane sold to the Polish Army - a new F16, of a sort, another 'failed construction'.