Poland, Too, Flirts With Fascism

[TwiceHorn 31,488]

Poland's upcoming election pits the incumbent reactionaries against democracy and civil liberty.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/13/polands-elections-are-a-crossroad-for-eu-solidarity-and-ukraine-support.html

A lot of uncanny similarities to the US.

Quote

Access to abortion services in the country has been severely restricted to a near-total ban, which polls suggest is opposed by roughly half of citizens. 

The political campaigns have seen both sides convey the election as a battle over sovereignty and identity. Migration is another core and divisive issue.

The ruling party remains widely popular, particularly in rural areas, leading many opinion polls in the run-up to the vote.

I suppose too, so does Hungary, but I wasn't paying much attention at the time.

One thing that's interesting.  I think I would usually attribute a good part of our domestic "disunity" with our diversity, which I think at least partially leads to our rather famous and unique distrust of our fellow citizens.  

Neither Poland nor Hungary "suffer much from diversity.  So maybe that's not a thing.

Another interesting thing is that both Poland and Hungary have actually lived under authoritarian rule within a decent portion of the electorate's lifetime, but I guess it was the "sOcIAliSm" that justifies their swift willingness to dispose of democracy.

[ChuckNorrisActionJeans 2,678]

3 hours ago, BeardIP said:

I've spent a lot of time in Poland. More than I care to admit. As a dirty American born and raised, the one thing that always stuck out to me was the monolith nature of Poland and Polish people. I've spent time in various cities, Warsaw being the most diverse, but in Wroclav and Krakov I don't think I've ever seen a non-white. Not even saying I've never seen a black person, but even a brown person. It was startling.

Anyways, personal anecdote don't mean much in research, I know, but that always sort of bothered me. 

Oddly enough, a significant part of the Brexit sentiment in the UK arose from all the Polish people, and other East Europeans, who had gone there to work lower-wage jobs. Guess whites gotta divide themselves against each other if that's what you've got....

[Pescado_Rojo 19,416]

3 hours ago, BeardIP said:

I've spent a lot of time in Poland. More than I care to admit. As a dirty American born and raised, the one thing that always stuck out to me was the monolith nature of Poland and Polish people. I've spent time in various cities, Warsaw being the most diverse, but in Wroclav and Krakov I don't think I've ever seen a non-white. Not even saying I've never seen a black person, but even a brown person. It was startling.

Anyways, personal anecdote don't mean much in research, I know, but that always sort of bothered me. 

I guess we have our answer...

[Chad Fuck 17,684]

8 minutes ago, ChuckNorrisActionJeans said:

Oddly enough, a significant part of the Brexit sentiment in the UK arose from all the Polish people, and other East Europeans, who had gone there to work lower-wage jobs. Guess whites gotta divide themselves against each other if that's what you've got....

Mother fucker have you HEARD of the Hundred Years War?  Or any of a 1000 other intra-whitey conflicts in Europe?  

Shit its a wonder the EU and Euro exist.  I thought that was never going to work because all these people been dividing themselves literally into little fiefdoms for millennia.

[Willfully Horn 8,017]

I’ve been listening to Terry Allen quite a bit this week. His shows with drunken frat boys celebrating as they sing along to songs like “Big Ol’ White Boys” reminds me of Hannibal Lector feeding Ray Liotta’s character his brain lining. Just chilling. Anyway, thanks for opening a door for these lyrics:

”Sitting here on the banks of the river
Looking out at the other side
Wondering if we’re ever gonna get there
Wondering why we’re never satisfied

Big ol’ white boys cross the ocean
On little bitty ships the whole world round
Got no notion of where they’re going
What they’re doing, or what they’ve found

White boys tame the mountains and the prairies
Making rules and building towns
If it’s alive, it’s better off buried
If it stands up, better knock it down

White boys
We’re not Mexicans, Blacks, or Indians
We’re white boys
We’re not Arabs, Jews, or Asians
Big white boys
Big ol' white European Caucasians
And white girls too

Sitting here on the banks of the river
Looking out at the other side
Wondering if we’re ever gonna get there
Wondering why we’re never satisfied

Big ol’ white boys fat with plunder
Satisfied, our every need
Rule the world while we get dumber
In the name of the luck, our lord, and greed”

[Hugo Stiglitz 23,367]

Reminds me of Randy Newman’s “Rednecks” 

Edited October 14, 2023 by Hugo Stiglitz

[Js1 85,353]

The opposition party has declared victory. They can form a coalition 

[DixonHur 11,317]

I don't see it as the same thing that's happening in the US.

I'm more sympathetic to the Polish wanting to keep Poland Polish.  But the US doesn't have a national ethnicity.  In practice and ideal, the US was always been a melting pot.

[G650 14,263]

This is good news, Donald Tusk did Poland a solid

[F250 28,777]

On 10/13/2023 at 3:22 PM, ChuckNorrisActionJeans said:

Oddly enough, a significant part of the Brexit sentiment in the UK arose from all the Polish people, and other East Europeans, who had gone there to work lower-wage jobs. Guess whites gotta divide themselves against each other if that's what you've got....

This reminds of the scene in Derry Girls when the Irish girl was trying to explain the complexity of the ethnic and religious conflict in Northern Ireland to Katya.

Her response was something like you are both white and have the same religion just different flavors of the same religion, it's stupid.

 

[TwiceHorn 31,488]

3 hours ago, DixonHur said:

I don't see it as the same thing that's happening in the US.

I'm more sympathetic to the Polish wanting to keep Poland Polish.  But the US doesn't have a national ethnicity.  In practice and ideal, the US was always been a melting pot.

Yeah, I get it, but then again, I don't.  Hungary is the same way, exacerbated by the fact, similar to Poland, that they have been a territorial hockey puck over the centuries.

But, nationalism like that, viewed up close, is pretty ludicrous.  Yes, they're more monolithic, but when it comes to nut-cutting time, who is actually Polish, or Hungarian?  Gonna have to take a genetic test?  Will there be ethnic cleansing?  A final solution, perhaps?

It's not "the same thing," but it bears some meaningful similarities, even if Americans have no claim to a national ethnicity or identity.

And nationalism is, as always, just a smokescreen for hatred.  That notion has a really hard time staying benign.

Edited October 16, 2023 by TwiceHorn

[DixonHur 11,317]

16 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Yeah, I get it, but then again, I don't.  Hungary is the same way, exacerbated by the fact, similar to Poland, that they have been a territorial hockey puck over the centuries.

But, nationalism like that, viewed up close, is pretty ludicrous.  Yes, they're more monolithic, but when it comes to nut-cutting time, who is actually Polish, or Hungarian?  Gonna have to take a genetic test?  Will there be ethnic cleansing?  A final solution, perhaps?

It's not "the same thing," but it bears some meaningful similarities, even if Americans have no claim to a national ethnicity or identity.

And nationalism is, as always, just a smokescreen for hatred.  That notion has a really hard time staying benign.

I get that, but I tend to look at it from a cultural perspective as opposed to a genetic one.  

I think that's the primary driver in the rise of nationalism in Europe.  

[TwiceHorn 31,488]

3 minutes ago, DixonHur said:

I get that, but I tend to look at it from a cultural perspective as opposed to a genetic one.  

I think that's the primary driver in the rise of nationalism in Europe.  

My father-in-law is Hungarian and unjustly proud of every Hungarian that ever accomplished anything (most of whom did so someplace other than Hungary).  And Hungary has the unique Magyar language, which I guess is worth preserving in some Dodo-like endangered species concern.

But what the hell is culture, anyway?  Perhaps in some academic sense you can separate culture and ethnicity, but from a political standpoint, I think it's pure rat poison, useful to demagogues and authoritarians.

[Willfully Horn 8,017]

We should carve out a piece of desert for a true and pure Polish nation. There’re deserts down under, right?

[956 Worldwide 34,715]

This is kind of a bizarre conversation that’s not super rooted in a Polish context. 
 

First, Poland was a multi-ethnic state until 1939-1945 with a Polish majority and significant Jewish, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Lithuanian, and German-speaking minorities (and some Tatars). Poland’s Jews were killed at industrial scale during the Nazi occupation by the Nazis and not the Poles.

Following the war, the Soviet Union shifted the border of Poland west and lopped off the former eastern provinces, accompanied by a massive forced population exchange until Poland was left in its current borders as a fairly monolithic state. That was forced on Poland, it wasn’t created by them, and Poland has notably not engaged in the official revanchism like you saw from Fidesz and Orban. 
 

As far as the lack of non-European diversity, that’s a pretty easy answer: Non-European diversity in the West is a legacy of the slave trade, colonialism, and most recently economic migration. Poland and all of Central Europe did not engage in African slavery and did not establish overseas colonies. Until very recently, Poland was a nation that sent economic migrants and did not receive them (although these days your Uber driver in Warsaw is likely to be Ukrainian or South Asian).
 

Kind of a tangent, but lobbing this one at the Poles is weird, as we universally agree that colonialism and slavery were bad things while the diversity they brought to western countries are good. Meanwhile the Poles and most of their neighbors didn’t have slavery, were colonized rather than colonizers, and “got” to try socialism for fifty years and as a result no one was brought or wanted to move there.
 

In any case, PiS had a strong authoritarian streak and is maybe the last genuine Catholic political force left in the world.  It’s not the same thing by a long shot in terms of supporting bad actors or even internal corruption as Orban and Fidesz although the last couple years saw a nasty assault on the judiciary.  But PiS was never a fascist movement and now they’ve lost an election to a broad coalition that will end up being centrist, with most notable changes being a less antagonistic approach to the EU and hopefully an unwinding of the judiciary reforms PiS pushed through. 

[G650 14,263]

5 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

unwinding of the judiciary reforms PiS pushed through

Numero uno.

[Brisketexan 105,152]

Many moons ago, was chatting with the late MaybeaCoordinator about his time living in gutted out, industrial central England.  Having lived in Texas and Tennessee over the years, he said that region was easily the most racist place he'd ever lived.  Super-strong anti-immigrant vibes, but as he explained, "over here, all their Mexicans are Polish."

And I mean, it's not like Poles haven't been the butt of ethnically demeaning shit for a long time....

[G650 14,263]

What's the smallest room in the world?

 

The Polack Hall of Fame

[Chad Fuck 17,684]

5 minutes ago, G650 said:

What's the smallest room in the world?

 

The Polack Hall of Fame

The smallest overall site in the National Park Service is Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial in Pennsylvania that is only 0.02 acres.

Kind of a Polish Hall of Fame.  

[956 Worldwide 34,715]

6 hours ago, G650 said:

Numero uno.

I’d add that that PiS did a lot of work to turn the public broadcaster into a partisan megaphone, and made moves to ban foreign investment into media (this even pissed off Trump’s team) in an attempt to shape the information environment. So that needs addressing. 
 

But this is an interesting development, if it holds, because it means that Central Europe has gone .500 over the past two years in a strategy of explicit cross-party cooperation to combat national populism: 

- Czech Republic: SUCESS, in 2021 the liberal and centrist-conservative opposition formed two large blocs to force national populist ANO out of office in two terms. The strange bedfellows five party government spanning liberal-progressive Pirates to right-conservative Christian Democrats has been far more effective and cohesive than anyone predicted. 
 

- Hungary: FAIL, as Orban solidly thumped a united opposition spanning the progressives to the formerly nationalist Jobbik to stay in power; Hungary’s institutions and media ecosystem are likely too far gone to present a serious electoral challenge to Orban in the foreseeable future. 
 

-Slovakia: FAIL, as a dysfunctional united opposition government coalition collapsed due to infighting and forced early elections.  The country succumbed to a tidal wave of disinformation to return the nationalist-socialist mafia party of Robert Fico to power along with pro-Russian nationalists and the social democrats in coalition. 
 

-Poland: Tentative SUCCESS, Tusk turned Civic Platform into a big-tent Civic Coalition to contest the elections and hammered out a pre-election agreement with the center-right Third Way and the progressive New Left to keep PiS out of power. Huge youth voter turnout depressed the chances of the far-right vote, which collapsed. 
 

If you are seeking patterns, the two countries least vulnerable to (or friendly to) Kremlin information operations met with success.  

[Chad Fuck 17,684]

26 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I’d add that that PiS did a lot of work to turn the public broadcaster into a partisan megaphone, and made moves to ban foreign investment into media (this even pissed off Trump’s team) in an attempt to shape the information environment. So that needs addressing. 
 

But this is an interesting development, if it holds, because it means that Central Europe has gone .500 over the past two years in a strategy of explicit cross-party cooperation to combat national populism: 

- Czech Republic: SUCESS, in 2021 the liberal and centrist-conservative opposition formed two large blocs to force national populist ANO out of office in two terms. The strange bedfellows five party government spanning liberal-progressive Pirates to right-conservative Christian Democrats has been far more effective and cohesive than anyone predicted. 
 

- Hungary: FAIL, as Orban solidly thumped a united opposition spanning the progressives to the formerly nationalist Jobbik to stay in power; Hungary’s institutions and media ecosystem are likely too far gone to present a serious electoral challenge to Orban in the foreseeable future. 
 

-Slovakia: FAIL, as a dysfunctional united opposition government coalition collapsed due to infighting and forced early elections.  The country succumbed to a tidal wave of disinformation to return the nationalist-socialist mafia party of Robert Fico to power along with pro-Russian nationalists and the social democrats in coalition. 
 

-Poland: Tentative SUCCESS, Tusk turned Civic Platform into a big-tent Civic Coalition to contest the elections and hammered out a pre-election agreement with the center-right Third Way and the progressive New Left to keep PiS out of power. Huge youth voter turnout depressed the chances of the far-right vote, which collapsed. 
 

If you are seeking patterns, the two countries least vulnerable to (or friendly to) Kremlin information operations met with success.  

I haven't followed this that closely, but I'm pretty sure Civic Coalition's main slogan was something like, "Hey, something all Poles can agree on is how much Russians suck, amirite?"

 

[G650 14,263]

5 minutes ago, Chad Fuck said:

I haven't followed this that closely, but I'm pretty sure Civic Coalition's main slogan was something like, "Hey, something all Poles can agree on is how much Russians suck, amirite?"

 

Pretty much always a winning argument in Poland.

[fattyflattie 4,639]

On 10/16/2023 at 9:38 AM, Brisketexan said:

Super-strong anti-immigrant vibes, but as he explained, "over here, all their Mexicans are Polish."

I worked for the Dutch for awhile, with some very brilliant (and racist) Dutch living here.   I was literally told once, “they are the Mexicans for us. Their ceiling is operating a shovel, maybe at best a truck”.    But they felt that way about most Americans too, so I just chalked it up to more of the “if you ain’t Dutch, you ain’t much” mentality.  

[DigglerontheHoof 21,202]

5 hours ago, fattyflattie said:

I worked for the Dutch for awhile, with some very brilliant (and racist) Dutch living here.   I was literally told once, “they are the Mexicans for us. Their ceiling is operating a shovel, maybe at best a truck”.    But they felt that way about most Americans too, so I just chalked it up to more of the “if you ain’t Dutch, you ain’t much” mentality.  

Worked for a Dutch company for about 5 years.  I found them to be humorless cunts, for the most part. 

[G650 14,263]

The Dutch are the worst.

[fattyflattie 4,639]

2 hours ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

Worked for a Dutch company for about 5 years.  I found them to be humorless cunts, for the most part. 

Yes.  And horse faced wimmenz.  No shortage of back patting either. Never could figure out how all 10 guys could each be the smartest in the room, every time. 

[bernorange 8,362]

Quote

Donald Tusk recently returned to Brussels as a “proud Pole” and a “proud European.” It is not quite clear which ascription comes first. Equally unclear is the capacity in which Mr. Tusk voyaged, for he is not yet Poland’s prime minister. Yet what is clear is that should Mr. Tusk assume the role, Poland could well see “more Paris in Warsaw,” as Mr. Tusk told President Macron of France last year — and likely not the good parts.
...
It is then little surprise that Europe has been cheered by the prospect of “Prime Minister Donald Tusk.” Of the election result, the former Belgian prime minister turned European Parliament member, Guy Verhofstadt, noted it “reinforced the EU” and was “a lesson” for the allies of Law and Justice at Brussels. Mr. Verhofstadt is among a group of German and French EU parliament members now leading the charge to amend the EU’s founding treaties.

The proposed changes, which are to be voted on during the EU’s upcoming plenary session in November, would, among other measures, eliminate member states’ veto rights in dozens of areas, including defense, taxation, and foreign policy. Warsaw or Paris, say, could then be outvoted on such matters by the EU.

Unanimity voting would be replaced with majority voting. The European Commission would be renamed the “European Executive” with its president nominated by the EU parliament and with the ability to select members along ideological lines. The parliament’s powers would be expanded, and all matters of climate and environment turned over to bureaucrats in Brussels. New “solidarity provisions” included in the EU’s treaties could yet make distribution of migrants legally mandatory.

It is unclear whether such revisions would, in their current form, win the support of European governments. ...

At minimum, the proposed reform initiative suggests EU leaders have not yet relinquished their visions of centralized control. If not now, they are likely to attempt sometime again — perhaps, so they hope, with Mr. Tusk as their linchpin.
...

https://www.nysun.com/article/donald-tusks-rise-at-warsaw-could-bolster-europes-superstate-crimping-the-independence-of-its-members-including-poland