[OFF TOPIC] Politics Thread

[Monzanator 4,502]

10 minutes ago, LowerSaxony said:

 

But that is the deal when joining the EU. So, what's the reason Poland is still in when the EU money is not that important? In general, I am VERY happy with Poland being part of the EU, but what PIS does is simply bigotry. Enjoying all advantages including the EU money, at the same time seeding hatred against EU whenever it is opportune.

 

Poland simply isn't a multi-cultural country and never will be one (not in this century anyway). 98% of white population, 88% Catholics (and it doesn't matter 60% of them doesn't go to church). 

 

EU is the easy way to blame for the government's shortcomings espeically that some of these Brussels morons play the race & climate change card. That's not moving any needle in Poland. Outside of the big cities like Warsaw, Wroclaw and Gdansk nobody cares about LGBT rights or stuff like that. And you can't win any elections in Poland winning just the big cities. And that's the problem. Rural areas win the elections and Law & Justice appeases them which means it directly contradicts the EU mainstream policy of appeasing LGBT and ethnic & religious minorities.

[Olympian1010 7,976]

1 hour ago, Monzanator said:

 

Yes, my stance on inability of copying the Scandinavian system into USA is quite clear and obvious.

 

As for conservatives being responsible for all the evil in the world, how do you explain the rise of AfD in Germany directly after Angela Merkel opened the doors for millions of immigrants? As for Poland, well, our government wants a return of the authoritarian rule and it's doing whatever it can to distance themselves from the EU bureaucrates in Brussels The very same bureaucracy basically caused Brexit already.

Conservatives play to people’s fears and lack of understanding. I think there is a place for conservative politics (and there should be), but modern populist conservatism is wrong. People will always be willing to throw someone under the bus. Yesterday it was the blacks, then the Jews, and now today it’s the immigrants. I think it stems from a lack of understanding, lack of strong foundations in education, and belief in misinformation. 

[Olympian1010 7,976]

33 minutes ago, LowerSaxony said:

 

But that is the deal when joining the EU. So, what's the reason Poland is still in when the EU money is not that important? In general, I am VERY happy with Poland being part of the EU, but what PIS does is simply bigotry. Enjoying all advantages including the EU money, at the same time seeding hatred against EU whenever it is opportune.

The EU will have the same problems as the US now. Strong cultural, religious, economic, and political divides. Both will fail eventually for those same reasons (probably).

[LowerSaxony 205]

15 minutes ago, Monzanator said:

 

Poland simply isn't a multi-cultural country and never will be one (not in this century anyway). 98% of white population, 88% Catholics (and it doesn't matter 60% of them doesn't go to church). 

 

EU is the easy way to blame for the government's shortcomings espeically that some of these Brussels morons play the race & climate change card. That's not moving any needle in Poland. Outside of the big cities like Warsaw, Wroclaw and Gdansk nobody cares about LGBT rights or stuff like that. And you can't win any elections in Poland winning just the big cities. And that's the problem. Rural areas win the elections and Law & Justice appeases them which means it directly contradicts the EU mainstream policy of appeasing LGBT and ethnic & religious minorities.

Pis constantly uses the narrative of the EU that has nothing else to do than pushing gender LGBT rights. That is hilarious! Of course EU has some guidelines regarding decriminalizing and stopping discrimination of LGBT, but the complete jurisdiction regarding gay marriage etc is obliged to the states. The EU doesn't give a shit if the member states legalize gay marriage or whatever. PIS just insinuates that EU pushes the member states to do. Unbelievable.

 

And that is the answer to my question: Poland (i.e. Polish government) stays in the EU because PiS can use their well-known narratives of being the only defender of Polish home country against EU liberal LGBT multicultural bureaucrats.

[LowerSaxony 205]

17 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

The EU will have the same problems as the US now. Strong cultural, religious, economic, and political divides. Both will fail eventually for those same reasons (probably).

EU still has strong economic and political divides. At the moment, I don't see such cultural or religious divides that threaten the EU. However, economic divides are one of the biggest problems. But the problem of the EU (and that's the difference to the US) is that there are some member states which try to destroy main pillars of the EU, such as division of powers (Poland, Hungary) or telling lies to the voters. I don't see in the US that there are states who want to destroy the US or foundations of the constitution (well except of you of course regarding Californian independence )  

[Monzanator 4,502]

32 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

Conservatives play to people’s fears and lack of understanding. I think there is a place for conservative politics (and there should be), but modern populist conservatism is wrong. People will always be willing to throw someone under the bus. Yesterday it was the blacks, then the Jews, and now today it’s the immigrants. I think it stems from a lack of understanding, lack of strong foundations in education, and belief in misinformation. 

 

People do most things out of fear. Politics has simply embraced the psychology.

 

Btw, Polish Newsweek run an article last week about Finnish speaking Swedes in Finland and showed how divided that community is. Swedes living in Finland obviously want to speak Swedish in private and there's a clear divide between native Finns and Swedes. And the conclusion is Finland hates immigrants too - in this case the Swedes. And Newsweek is the chief liberal/progressive newspaper here so it's not like some conservative morons came up with such an idea to make the liberal Scandinavia look bad. There are xenophobic behaviour everywhere under the sun, not just the outdated and conservative Poland.

 

18 minutes ago, LowerSaxony said:

Pis constantly uses the narrative of the EU that has nothing else to do than pushing gender LGBT rights. That is hilarious! Of course EU has some guidelines regarding decriminalizing and stopping discrimination of LGBT, but the complete jurisdiction regarding gay marriage etc is obliged to the states. The EU doesn't give a shit if the member states legalize gay marriage or whatever. PIS just insinuates that EU pushes the member states to do. Unbelievable.

 

And that is the answer to my question: Poland (i.e. Polish government) stays in the EU because PiS can use their well-known narratives of being the only defender of Polish home country against EU liberal LGBT multicultural bureaucrats.

 

Gay marriage is still forbidden in Poland. You can't run before you learn to walk. Even the liberal Civic Platform who ruled for 8 years was too scared to push with LGBT rights since deep down they are pretty conservative.

 

You have to remember over the last 225 years Poland has enjoyed pure freedom & independence for 20 years between 1918-1939 and since 1989. So that's basically 175 years of Germany, Russia, Austria & Soviet Union telling us what to do and punishing us for keeping the Polish spirit alive. That's why it's very easy for the current government to put EU in the same category. Some damn politicians from foreign country tell us what to again. It's no coincidence Czech Republic and Hungary have a similar strong anti-EU political representative. The siege mentality is very real over here and it's something the old EU members from the West simply don't understand.

Edited February 19, 2020 by Monzanator

[LowerSaxony 205]

3 minutes ago, Monzanator said:

 

 

You have to remember over the last 225 years Poland has enjoyed pure freedom & independence for 20 years between 1918-1939 and since 1989. So that's basically 175 years of Germany, Russia, Austria & Soviet Union telling us what to do and punishing us for keeping the Polish spirit alive. That's why it's very easy for the current government to put EU in the same category. Some damn politicians from foreign country tell us what to again. It's no coincidence Czech Republic and Hungary have a similar strong anti-EU political representative. The siege mentality is very real over here and it's something the old EU members from the West simply don't understand.

 

Really, I do understand, it's just no good excuse. To a far lesser extent, we have the same in Germany with the "new" federal states, formerly GDR. The AfD (somewhere between right-wing populism and fascism light) has 25% in some of those states, while they are at 6% in some "old" federal states. I understand their problems and history, but it is no excuse to vote for Nazis.

[LowerSaxony 205]

9 minutes ago, Monzanator said:

People do most things out of fear. Politics has simply embraced the psychology.

 

Btw, Polish Newsweek run an article last week about Finnish speaking Swedes in Finland and showed how divided that community is. Swedes living in Finland obviously want to speak Swedish in private and there's a clear divide between native Finns and Swedes. And the conclusion is Finland hates immigrants too - in this case the Swedes. And Newsweek is the chief liberal/progressive newspaper here so it's not like some conservative morons came up with such an idea to make the liberal Scandinavia look bad. There are xenophobic behaviour everywhere under the sun, not just the outdated and conservative Poland

I totally agree on that and I never said it is an exclusive problem of the Polish society. However, a different thing is that there is a political party in Poland which uses this fears and actually runs the government - that is the problem.

[Monzanator 4,502]

3 minutes ago, LowerSaxony said:

 

Really, I do understand, it's just no good excuse. To a far lesser extent, we have the same in Germany with the "new" federal states, formerly GDR. The AfD (somewhere between right-wing populism and fascism light) has 25% in some of those states, while they are at 6% in some "old" federal states. I understand their problems and history, but it is no excuse to vote for Nazis.

 

Yeah, exactly the former DDR lands have the same problem though their issues only dates to post WWII. However it doesn't matter whether the excuse is valid, if someone feels like the wealthy capitalists haven't helped them enough to make up for the years of communist regime, they will turn to anyone who offers them a better future.

 

Civic Platform has dismissed millions of blue-collars who lost their jobs after the state-owned companies went belly up after 1989. A small percentage of wiseguys made enormous profit but millions of people didn't really feel their economical situation got all that better. We've waited 30 years to cash in on overthrowing the communism and it's not happening. Yeah, everyone can buy a car these days but two holiday family trips to Soelden or Canary Islands per year? Hell, that's still beyond most of Pole's economical resources. Forget Canary Islands, some parents can't afford to send their kids on the Baltic shore. I was lucky enough my father's mine funded three weeks of seaside holiday in the summer for the employers' kids like me. Now it's obviously gone.

[Monzanator 4,502]

8 minutes ago, LowerSaxony said:

I totally agree on that and I never said it is an exclusive problem of the Polish society. However, a different thing is that there is a political party in Poland which uses this fears and actually runs the government - that is the problem.

 

The problem in Poland dates back to the 90s when 1% (or even less) of our population cashed in on just about 100% of the state-owned assets in the privatisation process leaving millons of blue-collars feeling betrayed and quite frankly poor per modern standards.