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WARSAW: Poland's Ministry of Education may be an odd place to understand why national politics has been in such turmoil since the conservative Law and Justice Party led by the Kaczynski twins won the elections in October 2005.

Here, in this cavernous building that was the headquarters of the Gestapo during World War II, the deputy prime minister and education minister, Roman Giertych, has been setting out his agenda for the country. From here, Giertych's radical far right ideas have permeated even the thinking of Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, marginalizing Poland on the European scene.

Giertych, 36, wants to curb the powers of the European Union, which Poland joined in 2004. He also wants Europe to be anchored on strong, traditional conservative values because he claims that otherwise it will be overrun by Muslims.

"Europe is based on Greek culture, Roman law and Christian values," said Giertych, who is also leader of the extremely conservative League of Polish Families. "If Europe abandons these values and introduces such 'values' as abortion, marriage for homosexuals, adoption by homosexual partners, we are heading toward a catastrophe," he said in an interview. "Without religion, without the family, without people who protect those family values in Western Europe, we will be replaced by Muslims."

It is not only religion and morals that form the core of the League of Polish Families. The party has inherited anti-German and anti-Semitic views from Roman Dmowski, a staunch nationalist who played a leading role in Polish politics after 1918.

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One can support moving towards some form of proportional representation because it is more democratic. But there will always be the law of unintended consequences and a more "democratic" system doesn't necessary mean a more leftwing outcome.

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The Nazis came to power through the ballot box and Weimar Germany had a very pure form of PR!

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Hitler murdered hundreds of socialists, as well as at least a few conservatives who were key in bringing the Nazis to power. Similiarly, Mussolini had hundreds of socialists murdered by his thugs. And the 1936 German elections were anything but free and fair.

[ 27 July 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Stockholm: Name me the multi-party election in Cuba that produced a Communist majority government?

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No party, including the Cuban Communist Party, is allowed to "run" in an election in that country.

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Wow, how noble to the Cuban Communist Party to ban EVERYONE, including itself, from elctions, (while cosily holding onto power, of course!)

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
Parliamentary democracy has also never resulted in the election of Communists.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
Parliamentary democracy has also never resulted in the election of Communists.

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The people of Kerala state in India would be interested to hear that. As would the people of the former East European states where "former Communist" parties were returned to power in protest against the Western-imposed austerity programs(you know, the kind your "pro-democracy" friends will insist on imposing in Cuba).

Jebus, Stocks, somedays it sounds like you were glad Friedrich Ebert killed Rosa Luxemburg(as he did by arming the Freikorps).

Enough with the obsessive right-wing social democratic red-bashing already.

[ 27 July 2007: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
Or maybe people just don't want Communism and therefore don't vote for it.

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I think I might like your world. It sounds like a nice place.

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Between 1945 and 2005 the United States has attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements struggling against intolerable regimes... In the process, the U.S. caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair.” (Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower).

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I think I might like your world. It sounds like a nice place.

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Nice place, indeed.
10 million deaths and counting in Russia since the capitalism has stretched out its invisible hands.
California screaming' in the summer of 2000, since only privatized energy corporations couldve been trusted with the hydro grid...
Western sanctions, that triggered fratriciddal Yugoslav civil war, and killed half a million women and children in Iraq,
>>Oh wait, when it comes to killing Iraqi civilians, its a work in progress for the US of A.
Please do not disturb...

Of course, Communists could never get popular support in Western countries - thats why the CIA had to sabotage elections in Italy and Greece.

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As would the people of the former East European states where "former Communist" parties were returned to power in protest against the Western-imposed austerity programs

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You're being pretty creative here. The "former Communist" parties that have won elections in places like Hungary are well to the right of the British Labour Party, let alone the NDP and sit with the social democrats in the European parliament. All this proves is that people MIGHT be willing to vote for parties that have distant Communist roots but which have completely repudiated them.

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You're being pretty creative here. The "former Communist" parties that have won elections in places like Hungary are well to the right of the British Labour Party, let alone the NDP and sit with the social democrats in the European parliament. All this proves is that people MIGHT be willing to vote for parties that have distant Communist roots but which have completely repudiated them.

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In Republic of Moldova, a former Soviet state, the Communist Party has swept the 2001 elections by a landslide, winning 71 out of 101 seats.

The President, Vladimir Voronin, remains popular and had his party, in fact, re-elected in 2005, winning 56 seats out of 103.

When I was in Moldova a few years ago, I saw Communist graffiti galore(as well as anti-communist ones)

[ 27 July 2007: Message edited by: BetterRed ]

According to wikipedia, as soon as the Communist Party won election in Moldova, they accelerated talks to join the EU and started privatizing state owned industries and doing the bidding of the IMF.

Just because a party has the word "communist" in it's name doesn't tell me much. Once upon a time there was a party in Germany called the "National Socialist Party"!

It is probably kinda like Belarus which elects that pseudo-Communist fascistic dictator Lukaschenko.

[ 27 July 2007: Message edited by: Stockholm ]

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
I've also heard that Moldova is just about the most wretchedly poor country in Europe with bleak social conditions. Does the government of Moldova actually govern in accordance with Communist principles (apart from having a large secret policy) or is it just Communist in mame only so that the old elites from the Soviet era can retain their oligarchy?

It is kinda like Belarus which elects that pseudo-Communist fascistic dictator Lukachenko.

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Oh well, its hard to say whether the party was planning to stick close to classic communist policies.
It certainly hasnt. But that may have something to do with Colin Powell's mysterious visit in 2004, followed by visits by George Soros (the rich philanthropist/thief/liberal elitist), and several US congressmen. The Soros Soundation has a serious presence in the country, running technological scams by funding cash-strapped research and then stealing their ideas.

Either way, Voronin is no greedy oligarch. He has cut his salary by about 40 or 50 % as a symbolic gesture. His son has been rumoured to have shady business dealings, but nowhere as bad as Ukrainian orange Pres Yuschenko's family.

As for Belarus, Alexander"Pops" Lukashenko has quite autocratic ways, yet privatising robbers have been restrained and living standards also improved.
cant say that about its neighbours Poland and Ukraine.
( Aww cute, you edited your post.
Yes, Voronin apparently is in IMF's pocket right now. Just like all other East European nations, except Russia and Belarus.
His relations with Russia has been poor, while sucking up to the Eu and IMF have skyrocketed
Anyway, the largest contribution to GDP are earnings of guest workers, mostly working in Italy.
No natural resources, or seaports - so not much can be done to lift up the economy.
But CHina has also began offering loans, just to make it interesting I guess)

[ 27 July 2007: Message edited by: BetterRed ]

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(apart from having a large secret policy)

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And I assume Stockholm concedes my point about Kerala.

Also Stocks, I'm NOT a Communist, I'm a left-wing democratic socialist. It's just that, unlike you, I don't see any reason to obsessively proclaim how "anti-Red" I am just to prove my political legitimacy. Anticommunism was never sincerely about human rights, it was only about property rights. That's all the "dissidents" in Cuba, at least the ones the U.S. backs, really care about. That and putting the reactionary Church back in control of people's lives.

BTW, in Italy, one of the main reasons the Communists displayed such consistent strength in post-1945 elections was that your beloved right-wing anticommunist "social democratic" parties spent all their time denouncing those filthy reds and never actually spent a moment working for a genuinely Socialist agenda themselves. Had they actually BEEN socialist, Italy's Communists would have had little real support.

This was a major reason why the "former Communist" parties, discredited and unsocialist as they became, were able to survive in what was once Eastern Europe. Social Democrats in those countries never spoke out against Western-imposed austerity. Indeed, they fought for it and never showed any solidarity with the workers or the unemployed. Thus, voting for the "former Communists" was the only way people could vote against the program of Western arrogance.

It never needed to be that way. The "pro-Western" parties never had to immiserate their own countries populations. They could have mobilized the millions who overthrew the decayed Stalinist regimes to fight against Western Capitalist domination(which those millions didn't want any more than they'd wanted Soviet domination). But the "pro-Westerner, pro-democracy" parties didnt' give a damn about anyone but up-and-coming moneygrubber types. They were perfectly happy to leave the workers to rot.

This is why the decrepit Stalinists were able to win elections and why far-rightists also won-because those were the only options you had, if you lived in Eastern Europe and wanted to vote against the bastards who'd put you out of your job and your flat for the sole benefit of Western financiers.

But none of that mattered, so long as you had your precious bourgeois "free speech". As if free speech matters when you're too hungry to talk.

Long live democratic purity.

[ 27 July 2007: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 27 July 2007: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 28 July 2007: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

And the Russkies have managed to salt away almost $400 Billion in foreign currency reserves.

Alberta's corrupt politicos would be envious after cleaning out Heritage Fund to pay down what were the highest per capita provincial debts in Canadian history.

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I wonder what Stockholmer would say about the corrupt Russian government piling up a $113 billion dollar oil stabilization fund since its creation in just 2004 and projected worth of $141 billion USD by February ?.

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:

He would start talking about Cuba.

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