A silent coup in Poland?

[Martinus]

I never really got the reason why PiS is so anti-German. Is it because of current political issues or just age-old resentments?

I like the blase attitude when you're talking about grievances in living human memory in which Germans killed some six million Polish citizens.

Yeah, but I don't think they care about that type of Polish citizen.

Idiot troll.

[Queequeg]

Poland is not Hungary or Russia, mind you - people here are very contrarian and freedom-loving to the point of anarchism and any attempts at authoritarianism need to be very clever to succeed.

Emmanuel Todd famously predicted that Communism would fail in Poland - the traditional family structure was nuclear egalitarian and thus the tendency towards resistance to authoritarianism.

Link?

[Martinus]

So, this is today's front page of a pro-PiS newspaper:



Headline: Germans are attacking Poland again.

[Monoriu]

Shouldn't you guys be more worried about the Russians instead of the Germans? 

[Tamas]

This is also a common Orbanist tactic: any criticism of the government from abroad is a vile assault on Hungarian freedom and sovereignty, or at the very least a deliberate insult and disrespect to the entire Hungarian nation.

As a result, the intellectual left will support these foreign criticisms, widening the gap between them and the common, nationalistic voter. The siege mentatilty will be constantly fueled by the government, creating/maintaining their own fanatical support base, all of this will diminish the power of protest demonstrations, and in time convince moderate opposition to either emigrate or stay silent.

The ONLY question mark here is if the opposition parties are inept/collaborating as the Hungarians have been. They have a short window of opportunity to draw a line in the sand as a united front, otherwise they are down for, and Poland will truly become Orbanistan Mark 2.

[Martinus]

Yeah, how it plays out in the next months will be very interesting. I admit I do not know that much about Fides's rise to power (even though Kaczynski and PiS are clearly following the same template), but wasn't Fides supported to a large degree by the middle class and had only the disarrayed leftist liberals against it?

In Poland the situation is somewhat different in that the left is indeed in disarray (there is right now no leftist party in the Parliament), which leaves PiS as the only "socialist" party in the Parliament - but socialism has never been as popular in Poland, really. The three Parliamentary opposition parties (not counting the ex-rockman's popular movement which is probably the one most friendly to PiS - but also the least ideologically pure, and is likely to disintegrate within years) are rather centre-right, and include PO (which is supported by moderately conservative middle class and enterpreneurs), Nowoczesna (which is supported mainly by urban professional middle class which is liberal on social issues but very anti-socialist) and PSL (which is supported by conservative farmers). Their opposition to PiS comes not as much from ideological differences but from being parties of aspiring and successful people (each in their own demographics) who look to the West and generally want to be a part of it.

PO also has a strong card up its sleeve - i.e. Donald Tusk, the ex-prime minister, who is currently the President of the European Council, and has been largely untarnished by the "Waitergate" (he was never taped) and (unless PiS goes all the way to do something like arrest him on some trumped up charges) has all the making of returning like a white knight to save Poland during the next elections.

[Tamas]

Yeah, how it plays out in the next months will be very interesting. I admit I do not know that much about Fides's rise to power (even though Kaczynski and PiS are clearly following the same template), but wasn't Fides supported to a large degree by the middle class and had only the disarrayed leftist liberals against it?

Initially yes but by the time they were pulling the same crap the Polish government is pulling now, they either lost that support, or triggered the loss of it.

Just me personally have known two guys who were unsuffarably proud Fidesz supporters prior to the 2010 elections (both middle-class/white collar guys). Fast forward about 2 years, and one was totally hating them, the other bitterly disillusionised

[Razgovory]

I never really got the reason why PiS is so anti-German. Is it because of current political issues or just age-old resentments?

I like the blase attitude when you're talking about grievances in living human memory in which Germans killed some six million Polish citizens.

Yeah, but I don't think they care about that type of Polish citizen.

Idiot troll.

  You seem to forget that when you post shit, I can read it.

[DGuller]

I never really got the reason why PiS is so anti-German. Is it because of current political issues or just age-old resentments?

I like the blase attitude when you're talking about grievances in living human memory in which Germans killed some six million Polish citizens.

Yeah, but I don't think they care about that type of Polish citizen.

Idiot troll.

  You seem to forget that when you post shit, I can read it.

And when you post shit, we can all read it. 

[garbon]

You can't make me read!

[Razgovory]

I'm all with the Brits on this. This is fucking disgraceful (I am not talking about killing some Hamas dude but stealing the identities of British citizens to carry out the deed). Fucking Jews think they can do anything because their American fuckbuddies will protect them.

Quote from a Polish citizen

http://languish.org/forums/index.php/topic,3755.0.html

[The Brain]

Fact: after WW2 the Poles thought there were too many Jews in Poland.

[DGuller]

I'm all with the Brits on this. This is fucking disgraceful (I am not talking about killing some Hamas dude but stealing the identities of British citizens to carry out the deed). Fucking Jews think they can do anything because their American fuckbuddies will protect them.

Quote from a Polish citizen

http://languish.org/forums/index.php/topic,3755.0.html

If we judge people by the Internet comments originating from their countries, then Americans aren't going to fare to well either.  Even on the question of antisemitism.

[Martinus]

The idiocy of Raz's statement was not his insinuation that some Poles cheered on the Holocaust, but that outside of Holocaust, Poland and Poles did not suffer under German occupation.

[The Minsky Moment]

Poland is not Hungary or Russia, mind you - people here are very contrarian and freedom-loving to the point of anarchism and any attempts at authoritarianism need to be very clever to succeed.

Emmanuel Todd famously predicted that Communism would fail in Poland - the traditional family structure was nuclear egalitarian and thus the tendency towards resistance to authoritarianism.

Link?

http://www.amazon.com/The-Final-Fall-Decomposition-Soviet/dp/0918294037