Polska Partia Pragmatyczna

[pjotr]

Dear Bonobo,

I very much respect your vote. Wether you voted left, right or centrist (center right, the mid even point center or the center left). It is your democratic right to vote who ever you want to vote; the Centrolew United Left (Zjednoczona Lewica), .Nowoczesna , Kukiz'15, Platforma Obywatelska or Razem. It is your legitimate and free choice. I learn from reading your statements, opinions, experiences as a Pole and educator of highschool pupils and university students in Kraków. You have your excellent content on this Forum and your wonderful images to illustrate that content or tell a story of their own in their sequence narrative. You are clearly critical of the new government. In the past I learned a great deal on the other Forum about Poland today and Poland in the Second half of the 20th century during the People's Republic communist dictatorship from Bunjo (Wojtek) and Adam, and Tufta and Pawian. And also of course from Jaga and Zooba. Recently I learnt more about the present situation in Poland due to contact with a Polish cousin, who speaks and writes excellent English (She is an English teacher too) and a Polish artist. My mother spoke with an old Polish friend from Warsaw who is ultra-conservative and government supporter. My mother felt her fear for foreigners and especially Muslim refugees due to her tone and the stories she told . The Warsaw friend of my mother don't want Muslim refugees to enter Poland. My clear and reliable friends in Poland assured me that the worrysome news in the quality press of the West was right in it's assumptions about the deteriorating situation in Poland. I hope you won't be brought to justice one day either. Neither I wish for you being fired, because you are not considered morally and ethically Polish enough to teach Polish pupils and students, because you do not follow the Prawo i Sprawiedliwość doctrines.



You are obviously not Patriotic enough in the standard of PiS Nationalism, you are not conservative enough, you are not rightwing Socialist Polish in the PiS sense of view enough and will be certainly not Polish Roman-Catholic enough, although you are a good Polish Roman-Catholic and a Polish Patriot. But ofcourse you have Patriotism and (another sort of Polish Ultra-Nationalist) Patriotism nowadays. The Ultra-Nationalist, anti-Western, Anti-German, Anti-Russian, Anti-Muslim and Pro-Hungarian Fidesz/Viktor Orbán Polish Patriotism of Jarosław Kaczyński's, Andrzej Sebastian Duda's and Beata Maria Szydło's Prawo i Sprawiedliwość is ofcourse the only right one today.



Platforma Obywatelska Patriotism is wrong and PiS and Solidarna Polska are clearly the enemy of the ancien régime, .Nowoczesna will be to centrist and to liberal for PiS and an electoral threat. .Nowoczesna is the enemy because it is part of Komitet Obrony Demokracji, KOD (Committee for the Defence of Democracy). The Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe (PSL) will not be good in the eyes of PiS, because it cooperated in the past with leftist enemies of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and the biggest rival Platforma Obywatelska in coaltion governments. Solidarna Polska is clearly and allie of PiS, because since 16 November 2015 Zbigniew Tadeusz Ziobro is justice minister of Poland in cabinet of Beata Szydło. From October 2005 to November 2007 Ziobro was the Minister of Justice and Public Prosecutor General. He was elected to the Sejm on September 25, 2005 in the 13th Kraków district, running on the Law and Justice list. He received over 120,000 votes in the parliamentary election, the highest percentage constituency result on a nationwide scale. Solidarna Polska was founded in 2012 by Ziobro, who then still was a Law and Justice (PiS) MEP. He led the party's conservative Catholic-nationalist faction.



Ryszard Kalisz, a left wing MP and leader of a committee investigating the suicide of an affiliated leftist politician in 2007, has recommended in a draft report that former prime minister Jarosław Kaczyński should be stand before Poland’s highest court for his role in the events that led up to the death of that Polish leftwing politician. Kalisz says in the 266-page report, published Tuesday, that the interior minister of the then conservative-led cabinet, Zbigniew Ziobro, should also stand before the State Tribunal, for breaking Poland’s Constitution during a corruption investigation involving former Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) MP and construction minister Barbara Blida.


Ryszard Kalisz, a left wing MP and leader of a committee investigating the suicide in 2007 of former Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) MP and construction minister Barbara Blida


Former Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) MP and construction minister Barbara Blida

Blida was reported to have shot herself with a pistol through the heart in her bathroom, as officers raided her home looking for evidence that allegedly implicated her in a coal mining corruption scandal in Silesia, southern Poland. Kaczyński and Ziobro of the Law and Justice party "used criminal law in the pursuit of the exclusion of large groups of citizens, creating a system of exclusion [from public life] of individuals assigned to certain groups, particularly in relation to Barbara Blida,” Kalisz writes in the report, which will be approved or amended at a meeting on 19 July. The draft report alleges that “political and ideological” forces lay behind the events that led to the suicide.



Polska Razem (center right, liberal-conservative), Kongres Nowej Prawicy of Michał Marusik, Koalicja Odnowy Rzeczypospolitej Wolność i Nadzieja KORWiN of the lunatic Janusz Korwin-Mikke, Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej, Unia Pracy and the 'New Left' Razem will all be wrong kind of Poles and the wrong kind of Polish Patriotism for Jarosław Kaczyński, Beata Szydło (Kaczyński's puppet prime-minister), Andrzej Duda, Mariusz Błaszczak (Internal Affairs), Witold Waszczykowski (Foreign Affairs) and Zbigniew Ziobro. Maybe PiS will try to bond with the rightwing rebel Paweł Kukiz who had quite some succes with his political party Kukiz'15.


Witold Waszczykowski, the Polish minister of Foreign Affairs


Mariusz Błaszczak, the Polish minister of Internal Affairs

Both Kukiz'15 and .Nowoczesna will be electoral threats to Prawo i Sprawiedliwość. In the same time .Nowoczesna can be a threat to Platforma Obywatelska. Paweł Kukiz and his Kukiz'15 are a threat to PiS (and PO) because their key postulates is "destroying particracy". And PiS and Solidarna Polska are just doing that creating a new particracy of rightwing conservative, nationalist parties who form the coalition government of PiS-Solidarna Polska.





I was joking here with a tongue in the cheek, but seriously the situation in Poland is not a situation of jokes. With a anti-Western, anti-EU, openly xenophobic, islamophobe, anti-opposition, anti-free press, anti-Trias Politica (Separatation of Powers) government who is working to divide the nation in staid of uniting it in a difficult time for Poland and Europe (with the Ukrainian crisis next door, the refugee crisis in Western- and Southern-Europe on Poland's doorstep, with increasing tensions in the Middle-east, and dropping export rates for Poland due to the economical boycott of Russia [which is disastrous for Polands agriculture sector - the farmers and the food processing industries], and now Standard & Poor has given a warning to the Polish government, which has cut the country’s rating and warned of a further downgrade. Standard & Poor has lowered Poland's long-term foreign credit rating to BBB+ from A-. It is so sad and bad that Poland has now a Lower Medium Grade as investment grade. I really wished it stayed an Upper Medium Grade, or better a High Grade or Prime. An obligor has ADEQUATE capacity to meet its financial commitments. However, adverse economic conditions or changing circumstances are more likely to lead to a weakened capacity of the obligor to meet its financial commitments.





Today I really wish and pray for a Polska Partia Pragmatyczna, PPP. A strong, moderate, centrist, Patriotic, Freedom loving, transparent, honest, technocratic, uniting force and movement which will united the pragmatic and liberal-democratic center right and center left. A party with a left wing, a centrist wing and a right wing. A party that will unite the best elements of Józef Piłsudski's legacy (moderate Sanacja elements, but not the regime's 1926-1939 oppression and lack of freedom and democracy), Centrolew ((Polish People's Party "Wyzwolenie", Polish People's Party "Piast", National Workers' Party, Polish Socialist Party, Stronnictwo Chłopskie and Polskie Stronnictwo Chrześcijańskiej Demokracji), Bund ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Jewish_Labour_Bund_in_Poland ) and Marek Edelman (Bund leader, Ghetto- and Warsaw Uprising fighter and Solidarność activist), Folkspartei (A jewish democratic party in Poland), Blok Mniejszości Narodowych (loyal, moderate and Polish minded minorities in Poland, which should have minority rights), Polish intelligentsia, moderate Polish Roman-Catholics (opposed to theocracy and ultra-nationalist Polish reactionary National-Catholicism), and mainly Polish Social-democrats without ties to the former communist regime (preferably Polish Social democrats with roots or ties with Solidarność and Komitet Obrony Robotników. People like Paweł Bartłomiej Piskorski (Mayor of Warsaw from 30 March 1999 to 14 January 2002; and former member of Unia Wolności and Stronnictwo Demokratyczne; the branch of *SD which didn't cooperated with PZPR), Bronisław Komorowski (the former president), Marek Marian Belka (b. 9 January 1952 in Łódź), Jerzy Hausner (born 6 October 1949 in Świnoujście), Bartłomiej Henryk Sienkiewicz (ur. 29 lipca 1961 w Kielcach), Danuta Hübner (born 8 April 1948) Władysław Frasyniuk (born 25 November 1954 in Wrocław; although he has retreated from active politics); Wojciech Michał Olejniczak (born 10 April 1974); Marek Stefan Borowski (born 4 January 1946 in Warsaw, Poland; ; I know about possible ties to the PZPR); Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz (born 13 September 1950 in Warsaw, Poland; I know about possible ties to the PZPR); Adam Ostolski (born 7 November 1978); Sławomir Sierakowski the head of Krytyka Polityczna; Waldemar Pawlak (born 5 September 1959) from Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe; Aleksander Kwaśniewski (born 15 November 1954; according to the English wikipedia page List of politicians in Poland the most trusted politician in Poland. Ranking nr. 1; and yes, I know he is a former communist too); Leszek Balcerowicz (born January 19, 1947 in Lipno); Marek Ludwik Pol (ur. 8 grudnia 1953 w Słupsku) from Unia Pracy (UP); Lech Wałęsa (born 29 September 1943); Mateusz Kijowski (born Dec 12, 1968 in Warsaw, Poland) founder of the Facebook group Komitet Obrony Demokracji; Marcin Święcicki (ur. 17 kwietnia 1947 w Warszawie) as a useful communist; Lidia Geringer d'Oedenberg, economist and journalist; Józef Pinior (born on 9 March 1955 in Rybnik) and the collective leadership of Razem; Aleksandra Cacha, Alicja Czubek, Jakub Danecki, Maciej Konieczny, Magdalena Malińska, Mateusz Mirys, Katarzyna Paprota, Adrian Zandberg and Marcelina Zawisza.


Mateusz Kijowski founder of the Facebook group Komitet Obrony Demokracji





Like KOR and Solidarność during the Polish People's Republic with it's one state Marxist-Leninist PZPR dictatorship and repression by the Służba Bezpieczeństwa, Milicja Obywatelska, the notorious ZOMO motorized riot troops and the Ludowe Wojsko Polskie, the Poska Partia Pragmatyczna (PPP) should unite Polish intelligentsia and workers. It should avoid mistakes the previous Polish governments made, but should use and learn from succesful elements from the cabinets of Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Jan Krzysztof Bielecki, Jan Olszewski, Waldemar Pawlak, Hanna Suchocka, Jerzy Buzek, Marek Belka, Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, Donald Tusk and maybe even the short period of Prime-minister Ewa Kopacz. It is maybe a personal tragedy and very sad for Ewa Kopacz that her government was so short lived.


Members of Komitet Obrony Robotników during the seventies



Polska Partia Pragmatyczna (PPP) should involve all segments of Polish society. It should be connected to the Polish country side (the farmers, agricultural workers and rural middle classes and working classes of rural towns and cities in the province, far away from Warsaw, Kraków and Poznań. It should unite Social-democratic (Labour) and Greenparty and Razem secular leftwing intellectuals from the Warsaw, Kraków and Poznań cultural-, media (Press) and political intelligentsia with moderate liberal and conservative Roman-Catholic (Christian-democratic) intellectuals. It should be a party rooted in Polish education and science. It should attract and consist of Polish primary school teachers, high school teachers, professors of universities and vocational universities, coaches and trainers of adult education (institutes, foundations, workshops and seminars), people who work for Research institutes (Research and Development) and Think Tanks. The Party for sure should attract and have modern ICT (Information and Communication Technology), Audio-visual, Graphic and Webdesign, marketing communication, Public relations and Social Media experts and professionals (look how Obama won the 2008 elections with a modern technological campaign with the use of social media, and good content; good ideas).



The PPP movement should be modern, but in the same time keep some traditional good Polish values. The PPP could avoid mistakes Platforma Obywatelska made in the past 8 years. But should certainly use and continue the good elements the PO governments used, implemented and carried on. The PPP should be a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week party movement, with hard working employee's, managers, activists (volunteers), professional politicians and scientists for the Party's Scientific bureau. The PPP would have to have a very strong grassroots movement with devoted democratic pragmatic Free Liberal Democratic activists. And good youth and student movements. The PPP would advocate a strong Polish democracy and would favor a political landscape with a clear right, center and left. The situation that there is no left in the Polish parliament today is very bad in my opinion. A healthy democracy has a balance between progressive leftwing and conservative rightwing political movements, a balance between supporters of Etatism (state plan economy, state socialism and a large state; Leftwing Social-democrats, leftiwng social-liberals, marxists, and communitarian Christian Democrats) and supporters of Laissez faire ( a small state who only has a few vital tasks, and a large free market; libertarians, liberal-conservatives and the rightwing of Social democracy, and rightwing liberals or Classical liberals). Platforma Obywatelska was and is clearly a Laissez faire party and government ( a mix of conservative free market christian-democrats, classical liberals -or liberal-conservatives, and some objectivist libertarians),

Examples of party scientific bureau's: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiardi_Beckman_Stichting / en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telders_Foundation

Hopefully Bonobo .Nowoczesna and Razem are the center-right and left versions of my ideal Polska Partia Pragmatyczna. I will pray, hope for and wish that .Nowoczesna will become the largest party. For me they may have all the votes of Platforma Obywatelska, votes of disappointed PiS voters, and votes from the United Left (Polish: Zjednoczona Lewica, ZL) and Razem. From the other hand I hope that [Razem will receive all the votes from Zjednoczona Lewica (the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), Your Movement (TR), Polish Socialist Party (PPS), Labour United (UP), and The Greens (PZ)) and some votes from the disappointed left wings of Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe, Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (unlikely, but everything can happen in the Polish democracy today -like in other European democracies-), Platforma Obywatelska (also unlikely, but again today everything might happen), and people who didn't voted yet. Are you compulsory to vote in Poland?

(*In 1943 SD split into two factions, one of which supported the Polish Government in Exile in London, and the second co-operated with the communist Polish Workers' Party and recognized the State Country Council as the actual parliament and the Provisional Government of National Unity as the actual government of Poland.)

Cheers,
Pieter

Sources: Polish Radio and Wikipedia

[pjotr]

Dear Bonobo,

It is very important that the opposition party wether it is .Nowoczesna, Razem or maybe a future Polska Partia Pragmatyczna (PPP) will also have the support of civil servants, enterpreneurs, engineers, police officers, Firefighters, military (professional officers, soldiers and other military personel from the airforce, navy and special forces), intelligence community, university students and professors, the Polish middle class, the Polish aristocracy, the Polish Roman-Catholic church (priests, monks, nuns, abbots [opat / abbas], bishops, cardinals, prelates [prałat in Polish], vicars [ wikariusz], deans, chaplains, deacons, Pastoral worker, catechisists -teachers of the Catechism-, and even the Pope in Rome -to have his blessings-), and the support of christian minorities (Orthodox-christians, and Polish Calvinists, Lutherans, Methodists and Baptist and Evangelical christians; their prayer and mental support can be equally important), professional sport people, and shop owners (the Polish middle class), Horeca people (Hotel, restaurants and Café's), doctors, nurses and medical specialists, lawjers, prosecutors, judges, Civil-law notaries, and former and present day high level public servants, like directors-general (general directors); the highest executive officers within a governmental, statutory, NGO, third sector or not-for-profit institutions. Poland has several former presidents, former prime-ministers, ministers of internal affiars, ministers of foreign affairs, ministers of finance, ministers of Economical Affairs, ministers of Education-, Healthcare, Defense, Justice, agriculture, Industry, innovation, technology, science and Research & Development. You need the education, experience, information, knowledge, and national and international networks of these people to succeed. With succeed I mean to defeat PiS and Solidarna Polska.

The aim is to restore the Trias Politica (Separation of Powers), the independence and the freedom of the public television and Radio chanals, and to end the Polish Constitutional Court crisis. The Polish economy must be saved and economical growth and thus development stimulated. Corruption and nepotism must be defeated and erased and more transparency and honesty and decency must be implemented in the Polish political culture, by political reforms.

This national opposition movement should restore the values and foundations of the Polish democracy and should cherish pluriformity, diversity and freedom of choice, the freedom to differ from opinion from one another, and being respected for that. Poland doesn't need a turn to the far right nor does it need to return to the far left (It's communists past in a new rightwing socialist form).

Poles are reasonable, realistic, pragmatic, moderate, ethical, decent, freedom loving, tolerant, normal, good and sane people. I am sure that a lot of people voted PiS out of frustration as a protest vote. And some of them will be shocked now now they see what the PiS and Solidarna Polska coalition government is doing.

Poles have to change this, maybe even via a political crisis when large demonstrations will bring an end to this government. If the economy is going down, the independence of the legal system is at stake and the free press will be transferred to a muzzled, Henchmen and henchwomen of the PiS/Solidarna Polska government. That is not what real democratic and freedom loving Poles want and that's why so many Poles went demonstrating in december and januari against this government.

Cheers,
Pieter

[pjotr]

Most important is that internal and external pressure will hold this PiS-Solidarna Polska government on the free and democratic track. KOD, .Nowosczesna, Razem and PO will continue to put internal pressure on this Polish government. The EU puts pressure on Poland, because it has to as a Voluntary association of member states. That member states have agreed upon a set of rules and guidelines; like transparent government, human rights, the respect of minority rights, freedom of press and expression and the separation of powers. If the EU accepts the present measures in Poland it will accept that un-democratic and unconstitutional and undemocratic laws, measures and legislation will be accepted in the territory of the EU. In that case Turkey, Russia and Belarus could become a member today.

[pjotr]

A different version of the same topic on the other Forum. I workerd hard on it yesterday evening and today.

jagahost.proboards.com/thread/18732/personal-opinion-poland?page=1&scrollTo=98160

[Bonobo]

Jan 17, 2016 22:42:49 GMT 1 pjotr said:

1
You are clearly critical of the new government.

2
My clear and reliable friends in Poland assured me that the worrysome news in the quality press of the West was right in it's assumptions about the deteriorating situation in Poland.

3
I hope you won't be brought to justice one day either. Neither I wish for you being fired, because you are not considered morally and ethically Polish enough to teach Polish pupils and students, because you do not follow the Prawo i Sprawiedliwość doctrines.

4
You are obviously not Patriotic enough in the standard of PiS Nationalism, you are not conservative enough, you are not rightwing Socialist Polish in the PiS sense of view enough and will be certainly not Polish Roman-Catholic enough, although you are a good Polish Roman-Catholic and a Polish Patriot.


5
Today I really wish and pray for a Polska Partia Pragmatyczna, PPP. A strong, moderate, centrist, Patriotic, Freedom loving, transparent, honest, technocratic, uniting force and movement which will united the pragmatic and liberal-democratic center right and center left. A party with a left wing, a centrist wing and a right wing.

1 Yes, I am afraid I am too intelligent to accept their methods and ideology.

2 Yet, the democratic vote gave them power and we must wait 4 years to change it. A revolution would be really improper.

3 I believe there are reasonable people around me, they will defend me.

4, Right, I am not. Right, I am.

5 I haven`t heard of them. But some names you mentioned belong to controvercial politicians who were at the top once and then fell down and lost importance.

[pjotr]

Dear Bo,

The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna (PPP) in point 5 does not exist. I invented it. I meant I wish that there was such sort of a party. But maybe a combination of a growing [Nowoczesna, a reformed PO and the new party Razem will deliver the necessary change in the Polish political spectrum. For now I have two or three hopes. First that Nowoczesna will grow and will prove itself as a reliable, stable, pragmatic liberal, good party with a focus on the economy, investment in innovation (Research & Development like Tufta always stated), a good education system, internal affairs, financial affairs, defending the free press and independence of the Public Broadcast Corporations.

I hope that .Nowoczesna if it manages to win in the near future will avoid the mistakes the SLD-PSL, PO-PSL and PiS-Solidarna Polska and earlier PiS-Samoobrona-Liga Polskich Rodzin (LPR) made. That it will be a transparent, open, honest, reliable, decent and well organised party movement which will be able to lead a possible coalition government. Maybe with PO and PSL, who knows?

In the same time it would be good if Platforma Obywatelska (Civic Platform) would reorganise itself, would look at itself (what went wrong) and changed it's attitude.

For the balance in the Polish politics it would be good of Razem got the leftwing and the moderate social-liberal progressive vote of the centre. It is good if the left would be represented in parliament again.

Cheers,
Pieter

[pjotr]

[Bonobo]

Jan 18, 2016 0:16:32 GMT 1 pjotr said:

Dear Bo,


The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna (PPP) in point 5 does not exist. I invented it. I meant I wish that there was such sort of a party.

Cheers,
Pieter

Aaaahh, I suspected it but finally believed it really exists!

[pjotr]

Polska Partia Pragmatyczna

PPP for me stands for Progressive, Pragmatic, Patriotic, Polish and Modern Poland. The Poland of the new generation. But also the Poland which used the wisdom, experience, talent and vision of the older generation, who experienced old (the Polish Peoples Republic and the PZPR dictatorship) and the New (present day Poland with Freedom, Democracy and Trias Politica [Separation of Powers] and a free and independent press).

Polska Partia Pragmatyczna stands for 'Internet democracy', the fair and good use of Facebook, youtube, Twitter, blogs, websites, tv ads and radio ads, well designed flyers, good and smart political marketing campaigns, professional politics, vision, hope, transparency, reform, Research & Development, innovation, self reliance, Polish self awareness and pride, a Polish Patriotism which respects the dignity of others peoples Patriotisms and respects the rights of minorities in Poland. The PPP rejects racism, discrimination on skin colour, sexual preference, sex and background, it rejects anti-semitism, islamophobia, xenophobia, chauvinism, sexism and ethnocentrism. It rejects isolationalism, narrow minded autarkic nationalism (Ruch Narodowy), rightwing populism (Kukiz'15), leftwing populism (Samoobrona Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej), and Marxism-Leninism (Communism in Poland).

My ideal Polska Partia Pragmatyczna would be a party for young and older Poles, a party for Polish Roman-Catholics, Polish atheists, Polish agnostics, Polish jews, the German minority, the Ukrainian minority, the Vietnamese minority, the Lithuanian minority and other Baltic minorities and the Belarussian minority. The PPP is an inclusive party, not an exclusive party.

In it's ideology the Polska Partia Pragmatyczna will merge classical liberalism with Catholic social teaching, Christian corporatism, Social democracy, social liberalism, elements of the old Pre-war Patriotic Polish Socialist Party – Freedom, Equality, Independence (Wolność, Równość, Niepodległość), and Centrolew, and will be more Laissez Faire oriented than Etatist. My Polska Partia Pragmatyczna will choose a Third Way inbetween Laissez Fiare and Etatism. It wants to built a Civil Society. It would like a constructive and pro-active cooperation between the government, employers and Unions for a better society like in the Dutch Polder Model.

The polder model is consensus decision-making, based on the acclaimed Dutch version of consensus-based economic and social policy making in the 1980s and 1990s.

The polder model has been described as "a pragmatic recognition of pluriformity" and "cooperation despite differences". It is thought that the Dutch politician Ina Brouwer was the first to use the term 'poldermodel', more specifically in her 1990 article Het socialisme als poldermodel? ('Socialism as polder model?'), although it is uncertain whether she coined the term or simply seems to have been the first to write it down.

It supports the pursuit of greater egalitarianism in society through action to increase the distribution of skills, capacities, and productive endowments, while rejecting income redistribution as the means to achieve this. It emphasizes commitment to balanced budgets, providing equal opportunity combined with an emphasis on personal responsibility, decentralization of government power to the lowest level possible, encouragement of public-private partnerships, improving labour supply, investment in human development, protection of social capital, and protection of the environment.

The current polder model is said to have begun with the Wassenaar Accords of 1982 when unions, employers, and government decided on a comprehensive plan to revitalise the economy involving shorter working times and less pay on the one hand, and more employment on the other. This polder model, combined with a neoliberal economic policy of privatisation and budget cuts has been held to be responsible for the Dutch economic miracle of the late 1990s.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassenaar_Agreement

An important role in this process was played by the Dutch Central Planning Bureau (CPB), originally founded by Jan Tinbergen. The CPB's policy advice since 1976, in particular with the Den Hartog and Tjan model, in favour of wage restraint, was an important argument, supportive for government and employers, that the unions could not easily counter. ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_for_Economic_Policy_Analysis )

Although the Polska Partia Pragmatyczna makes use of the christian inspired Catholic social teaching, Christian corporatism and the Communitarianism of the Israeli-American sociologist Amitai Etzioni (born Werner Falk, 4 January 1929) it is secular in it's emphasis on separation of Church and state and the idea that politics is secular. But it admids that it is inlfuenced by the ethnical, moral and social ideals of Christianity, and the Democratic socialism of Social-Democracy, and the classical liberalism of the 19th and 20th centuries in Europe.

Polska Partia Pragmatyczna would if it existed represent a Third Way in Polish politics between the quarreling Right (PiS & PO) and the crumbling Left (Zjednoczona Lewica, Razem and the non-parliamentarian radical activists in the margin). It would merg center right and center left ideas. It would support a Free Market economy, a transparent and free parliamentarian democracy. It would certainly stand for Freedom and Democracy. The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna would promote and work for more pluriformity and diversity in Poland in the political sense. For a healthy democracy the PPP believes you need a Rightwing, a Center-right, a Leftwing and a center left in Polish Politics. The Democratic Left should return in the Sejm. But the PPP will not be the promotor of the left. The left has to do it herself. The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna is the radical centerand is inbetween left and right.

The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna does not exists, but it would be good if it existed in Poland. If PPP would exist it should be a very disciplined, strict (in the positive hard working way, not in a dogmatic, orthodox or doctrinary way) and honest movement. It would be vehemently opposed to Corruption, nepotism, authoritarian tendencies in Polish politics, sectarianism, abuse of power, and isolationalist policies and measures.

If Polska Partia Pragmatyczna would exist it would work very hard to built a National Movement with local chapters, a grassrootsmovement, a youth movement, Young Pragmatists, a women organisation; Pragmatic women; an organisation for elderly people who want to make themselves useful for the country; Pragmatic Elders and local debate centers of the party. Patry members and activists will be trained in debate, political discussion, negotiations and campaigning.

In these debate clubs which will be tough Polska Partia Pragmatyczna debaters will be attacked by other PPP members who play PiS politicians and supporters, Solidarna Polska people, Ruch Narodowy people, Kukiz’15 people, people like Jerzy Urban, Bronisław Wildstein, Leszek Miller and Jarosław Kaczyński. The PPP militants and politicians must be trained through and through. In PPP training centers the Polish Parliament and the local city councils must be rebuilt in scale. PPP politicians must be trained in ethical politics, in pragmatism, in political vision, in the history of Poland, in the history of Polish political thought, in the history of all the major political ideologies and movements of left and right. For instance they have to know what Capitalism, democracy, a democratic system, communism, socialism, liberalism, conservatism, green party politics, feminism, anarchism, islamism, social-democracy (and the difference between Social-democracy, communism and leftwing socialism is), christian-democracy, nationalism, fascim, nazism are. They have to know what threatened and occupied Poland in the past and what the current internal and external threats are. They must be trained in negotiating, in mediation, in political skills, in Political action, in the daily political work (the political reality), in how the Polish democracy works.

The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna will be there for all Poles. So, no it does not hate or rejects people who voted for or are member of PiS or Solidarna Polska. PPP loves Poland, Polish culture, the Polish Roman-Catholic church and the Polish Roman-Catholic identity (eventhough it is a secular party), the presence and the history of Polish Judaism and thus Polish jews, the German community in Poland and the Ukrainian community in Poland.

Reality is the the PPP will receive the most votes and support from KOD, .Nowoczesna, Platforma Obywatelska and Razem supporters. It will be to centrist for the left and to centrist for the right, but it will attract centre right and centre left voters, like Centrolew did before the Second World War in the Thirties.

The PPP will come very close in the direction of the Purple Wim Kok Cabinets in the Netherlands in the nineties and early this century, New Labour of Tony Blair and the New Democrats of Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton managed to attract modere liberal-conservatives. The PPP will be if it will come out of Pieters brain and dream a Polish version of that. Maybe .Nowoczesna could be the Polish PPP, and maybe not? Maybe PPP is to centre left for Ryszard Petru.

Polska Partia Pragmatyczna supports the pursuit of greater egalitarianism in society through action to increase the distribution of skills, capacities, and productive endowments, while rejecting income redistribution as the means to achieve this. It emphasizes commitment to balanced budgets, providing equal opportunity combined with an emphasis on personal responsibility, decentralization of government power to the lowest level possible, encouragement of public-private partnerships, improving labour supply, investment in human development, protection of social capital, and protection of the environment.

The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna searches for a Free Polish socialism, a Polish version of Western-European Social-democracy, social-liberalism and the left wing of the European Christian-democracy. The PPP is not conservative, because it is Polish Liberal, Polish socialist, Christian social and pragmatic. It is nor Old Left nor the New Left of the Sixties and Seventies. It is a New Movement.

The Third Way has been defined as:

...Something different and distinct from liberal capitalism with its unswerving belief in the merits of the free market and democratic socialism with its demand management and obsession with the state. The Third Way is in favour of growth, entrepreneurship, enterprise and wealth creation but it is also in favour of greater social justice and it sees the state playing a major role in bringing this about. So in the words of... Anthony Giddens of the LSE the Third Way rejects top down socialism as it rejects traditional neo liberalism.

— Report from the BBC, 1999

The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna wants it's members, voters and supporters to think for themselves, and will only attract intelligent, independent and free people, because there is no party doctrine, absolute PPP truth, party discipline and a dogmatic party ideology or party orthodoxy. We are free, democratic and pragmatic people.
The PPP if it will exist will be there for the Poles, by the Poles, through the Poles, due to the Poles. It will only exist and function if Polish people, Polish voters want it to exist. The PPP wants to serve the Polish electorate and fight for more pluriformity and diversity in Polish politics. That is one of it's main tasks. To break the one sided power of the Right, with the only tool it has, Freedom of speech and freedom of expression!

Sources: Wikipedia and Pieters fantasy and thinking.

[tomek]

I am very sorry but this post I write another place, but this place is better, and I repeat it heare.

PO and PIS were ruled in Poland many yers. It is very similar always, no change, only leaders change and they want steal our money on luxurys and homes. Now it is time for fresh politics. I voted for Kukiz becase he is new, never was leader like PO or PIS. He is outside gang of old leaders, he has independence.

Read more: polandsite.proboards.com/thread/3528/protest-warsaw-ruling-party#ixzz3xh9siKTj

[pjotr]

Catholic social teaching can be an inspiration for social policies and political ideas of Roman-Catholic Polish politicians.





Catholic social teaching is the body of doctrine developed by the Catholic Church on matters of social justice, involving issues of poverty and wealth, economics, social organization and the role of the state. Its foundations are widely considered to have been laid by Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical letter Rerum novarum, which advocated economic distributism and condemned both capitalism and socialism, although its roots can be traced to the writings of Catholic thinkers such as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine of Hippo, and is also derived from concepts present in the Bible and the cultures of the ancient Near East.

According to Pope Benedict XVI, its purpose "is simply to help purify reason and to contribute, here and now, to the acknowledgment and attainment of what is just. ... [The Church] has to play her part through rational argument and she has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice ... cannot prevail and prosper", According to Pope John Paul II, its foundation "rests on the threefold cornerstones of human dignity, solidarity and subsidiarity". These concerns echo elements of Jewish law and the prophetic books of the Old Testament, and recall the teachings of Jesus Christ recorded in the New Testament, such as his declaration that "whatever you have done for one of these least brothers of Mine, you have done for Me."

Catholic social teaching is distinctive in its consistent critiques of modern social and political ideologies both of the left and of the right: liberalism, communism, feminism, atheism, socialism, fascism, capitalism, and Nazism have all been condemned, at least in their pure forms, by several popes since the late nineteenth century.

Catholic social doctrine has always tried to find an equilibrium between concern for the whole society, especially for the weakest and poorest, and respect for human liberty, including the right to private property.



History

The principles of Catholic social teaching, though in most cases far older in origin, first began to be combined together into a system in the late nineteenth century. Since then, successive popes have added to and developed the Church's body of social teaching, principally through the medium of encyclical letters.

Rerum novarum

The publication of Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum novarum in 1891 marked the beginning of the development of a recognizable body of social teaching in the Catholic Church. It dealt with persons, systems and structures, the three co-ordinates of the modern promotion of justice and peace, now established as integral to the Church's mission. In the years which followed there have been numerous encyclicals and messages on social issues; various forms of Catholic action developed in different parts of the world; and social ethics taught in schools and seminaries. To mark the 40th anniversary of Rerum novarum, Pope Pius XI issued Quadragesimo anno, which expanded on some of its themes.

Pope John XXIII



Further development came in the post-World War II period when attention turned to the problems of social and economic development and international relations. On May 15, 1961 Pope John XXIII released Mater et magistra, subtitled "Christianity and Social Progress". This encyclical expanded the Church's social doctrine to cover the relations between rich and poor nations, examining the obligation of rich countries to assist poor countries while respecting their particular cultures. It includes an examination of the threat of global economic imbalances to world peace. On April 11, 1963, Pope John expanded further on this in Pacem in terris (Latin: Peace on Earth), the first encyclical addressed to both Catholics and non-Catholics. In it, the Pope linked the establishment of world peace to the laying of a foundation consisting of proper rights and responsibilities between individuals, social groups, and states from the local to the international level. He exhorted Catholics to understand and apply the social teachings:

Once again we exhort our people to take an active part in public life, and to contribute towards the attainment of the common good of the entire human family as well as to that of their own country. They should endeavor, therefore, in the light of the Faith and with the strength of love, to ensure that the various institutions—whether economic, social, cultural or political in purpose – should be such as not to create obstacles, but rather to facilitate or render less arduous people's perfectioning of themselves both in the natural order as well as in the supernatural.

This document, issued at the height of the Cold War, also included a denunciation of the nuclear arms race and a call for strengthening the United Nations.

Second Vatican Council



The primary document from the Second Vatican Council concerning social teachings is Gaudium et spes, the "Pastoral Constitution on the Church and the Modern World", which is considered one of the chief accomplishments of the Council. Unlike earlier documents, this is an expression of all the bishops, and covers a wide range of issues of the relationship of social concerns and Christian action. At its core, the document asserts the fundamental dignity of each human being, and declares the Church's solidarity with both those who suffer, and those who would comfort the suffering:

The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the people of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ.

Other conciliar documents such as Dignitatis humanae, drafted largely by John Courtney Murray, an American Jesuit, have important applications to the social teachings of the Church on freedom today.


John Courtney Murray, an American Jesuit

Pope Paul VI



Like his predecessor, Pope Paul VI gave attention to the disparities in wealth and development between the industrialised West and the Third World in his 1967 encyclical Populorum Progressio (Latin: The Development of Peoples). It asserts that free international trade alone is not adequate to correct these disparities and supports the role of international organizations in addressing this need. Paul called on rich nations to meet their moral obligation to poor nations, pointing out the relationship between development and peace. The intention of the Church is not to take sides, but to be an advocate for basic human dignity:

There can be no progress towards the complete development of individuals without the simultaneous development of all humanity in the spirit of solidarity. Experienced in human affairs, the Church ... "seeks but a solitary goal: to carry forward the work of Christ Himself under the lead of the befriending Spirit." ... But, since the Church lives in history, she ought to "scrutinize the signs of the times and interpret them in the light of the Gospel." Sharing the noblest aspirations of men and women and suffering when she sees them not satisfied, she wishes to help them attain their full flowing, and that is why she offers all people what she possesses as her characteristic attribute: a global vision of man and of the human race.

The May 1971 apostolic letter Octogesima adveniens addressed the challenge of urbanization and urban poverty and stressed the personal responsibility of Christians to respond to injustice. For the tenth anniversary of the Second Vatican Council (October 26, 1975), Paul issued Evangelii nuntiandi (Latin: Evangelization in the Modern World). In it he asserts that combating injustice is an essential part of evangelizing modern peoples.

Pope John Paul II



John Paul II continued his predecessors' work of developing the body of Catholic social doctrine. Of particular importance were his 1981 encyclical Laborem exercens and Centesimus annus in 1991.

On one hand there is a growing moral sensitivity alert to the value of every individual as a human being without any distinction of race, nationality, religion, political opinion, or social class. On the other hand these proclamations are contradicted in practice. How can these solemn affirmations be reconciled with the widespread attacks on human life and the refusal to accept those who are weak, needy, elderly, or just conceived? These attacks go directly against respect for life; they threaten the very meaning of democratic coexistence, and our cities risk becoming societies of people who are rejected, marginalized, uprooted, and oppressed, instead of communities of "people living together."



While not endorsing any particular political agenda, the Church holds that this teaching applies in the public (political) realm, not only the private.

Laborem exercens qualifies the teaching of private ownership in relation to the common use of goods that all men, as children of God, are entitled to. The Church "has always understood this right within the broader context of the right common to all to use the goods of the whole creation: the right to private property is subordinated to the right to common use, to the fact that goods are meant for everyone." Many of these concepts are again stressed in Centesimus annus, issued on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Rerum novarum, which encompasses a critique of both socialism and unfettered capitalism. Another major milestone under Pope John Paul II's papacy occurred in 2005, with the publication of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, a work entrusted to the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

Pope Benedict XVI



Pope Benedict XVI's 2009 Encyclical Caritas in Veritate added many additional perspectives to the Social Teaching tradition, including in particular relationships with the concepts of Charity and Truth, and introduced the idea of the need for a strong "World Political Authority" to deal with humanity's most pressing challenges and problems. This idea has proven to be controversial and difficult to accept, particularly by right-of-center U.S. Catholic thinkers who are generally suspicious, or even disdainful, of supranational and international organizations, such as the United Nations. The concept was further developed in a 2011 Note issued by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace entitled "Towards reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the context of World Political Authority".

In Caritas in Veritate, Benedict also lifted up Paul VI's social encyclical Populorum Progressio, setting it as a new point of reference for Catholic social thought in the 21st century. Noted scholar Thomas D. Williams wrote that “by honoring Populorum progressio with the title of ‘the Rerum novarum of the present age,’ Benedict meant to elevate Populorum Progressio, conferring on it a paradigmatic status not dissimilar to that enjoyed by Rerum novarum throughout the twentieth century.” Williams claims that the reason for this elevation is that Populorum Progressio, “for all its real deficiencies, effected an important conceptual shift in Catholic social thinking, by moving from the worker question (with its attendant concerns of just wages, private property, working environment, and labor associations) to the broader and richer social benchmark of integral human development.”

Pope Francis



Pope Francis, in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium, explicitly affirmed “the right of states” to intervene in the economy to promote "the common good." He wrote:

While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation. Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control. A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules.

Pope Francis has warned about the "idolatry of money" and wrote:

Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system.

In his second encyclical, Laudato si, the pope lays forth a "biting critique of consumerism and irresponsible development with a plea for swift and unified global action" to combat environmental degradation and climate change.

Principles

Every commentator has their own list of key principles and documents, and there is no official ‘canon’ of principles or documents.

Human dignity

The principle of Catholic social teaching is the correct view of the human person. "Being in the image of God, the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone. He is capable of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with other persons. And he is called by grace to a covenant with his Creator, to offer him a response of faith and love that no other creature can give."

Solidarity and the common good

Solidarity is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good, not merely "vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of others" (Joseph Donders, John Paul II: The Encyclicals in Everyday Language). Solidarity, which flows from faith, is fundamental to the Christian view of social and political organization. Each person is connected to and dependent on all humanity, collectively and individually.

Charity

In Caritas in Veritate, the Catholic Church declared that "Charity is at the heart of the Church". Every responsibility and every commitment spelt out by that doctrine is derived from charity which, according to the teaching of Jesus, is the synthesis of the entire Law (Matthew 22:36-40). It gives real substance to the personal relationship with God and with neighbour; it is the principle not only of micro-relationships but with friends, family members or within small groups.[26]

The Church has chosen the concept of "charity in truth" to avoid a degeneration into sentimentality in which love becomes empty. In a culture without truth, there is a fatal risk of losing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and opinions, the word “love” is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite. Truth frees charity from the constraints of an emotionalism that deprives it of relational and social content, and of a fideism that deprives it of human and universal breathing-space. In the truth, charity reflects the personal yet public dimension of faith in God and the Bible.[27]

Subsidiarity
In the Roman Catholic Church, subsidiarity is a principle of social teaching that all social bodies exist for the sake of the individuals so that what individuals are able to do, society should not take over, and what small societies can do, larger societies should not take over.[28] So Pope Pius XI said, "It is a fundamental principle of social philosophy, fixed and unchangeable, that one should not withdraw from individuals and commit to the community what they can accomplish by their own enterprise and/or industry."

Distributism and social justice

Distributism holds that social and economic structures should promote social justice, including wide ownership of corporations and is the basis for progressive tax rates, anti-trust laws and economic cooperatives including credit unions. Rerum novarum, Quadragesimo anno, Centesimus annus and Caritas in veritate are all documents which advocate a just distribution of income and wealth.

Key themes
As with the principles above, there is no official list of key themes. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has identified these seven key themes of Catholic Social Teaching set out here. Other sources identify more or fewer key themes based on their reading of the key documents of the social magisterium.

Sanctity of human life and dignity of the person

The foundational principle of all Catholic social teachings is the sanctity of human life. Catholics believe in an inherent dignity of the human person starting from conception through to natural death. They believe that human life must be valued infinitely above material possessions. Pope John Paul II wrote and spoke extensively on the topic of the inviolability of human life and dignity in his watershed encyclical, Evangelium Vitae, (Latin for "The Gospel of Life").

Catholics oppose acts considered attacks and affronts to human life, including abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, genocide, torture, the direct and intentional targeting of noncombatants in war, and every deliberate taking of innocent human life. In the Second Vatican Council's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et spes (Latin for "Joy and Hope"), it is written that “from the moment of its conception life must be guarded with the greatest care." The Church does not oppose war in all circumstances. The Church's moral theology has generally emphasised just war theory.

In recent years, some Catholics have discouraged application of the death penalty, though even the most opposed must concede that "the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor." The Roman Catechism says of capital punishment that a

kind of lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent. The just use of this power, far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder. The end of the Commandment is the preservation and security of human life. Now the punishments inflicted by the civil authority, which are the legitimate avengers of crime, naturally tend to this end, since they give security to life by repressing outrage and violence. Hence these words of David: In the morning I put to death all the wicked of the land, that I might cut off all the workers of iniquity from the city of the Lord.

Related to the same concern of the above quotation from the Roman Catechism, the more recent Catechism of the Catholic Church also says of capital punishment (repetition of some previous text for sake of context):

The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude, presupposing full ascertainment of the identity and responsibility of the offender, recourse to the death penalty, when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.

"If, instead, bloodless means are sufficient to defend against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

"Today, in fact, given the means at the State's disposal to effectively repress crime by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it, without depriving him definitively of the possibility of redeeming himself, cases of absolute necessity for suppression of the offender 'today ... are very rare, if not practically non-existent.'[John Paul II, Evangelium vitae 56.]."
Believing men and women are made in the image and likeness of God, Catholic doctrine teaches to respect all humans based on an inherent dignity. According to John Paul II, every human person "is called to a fullness of life which far exceeds the dimensions of his earthly existence, because it consists in sharing the very life of God." Catholics oppose racism and other forms of discrimination. In 2007, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote:

Catholic teaching about the dignity of life calls us ... to prevent genocide and attacks against noncombatants; to oppose racism; and to overcome poverty and suffering. Nations are called to protect the right to life by seeking effective ways to combat evil and terror without resorting to armed conflicts except as a last resort, always seeking first to resolve disputes by peaceful means. We revere the lives of children in the womb, the lives of persons dying in war and from starvation, and indeed the lives of all human beings as children of God.

A belief in the inherent dignity of the human person also requires that basic human needs are adequately met, including food, health care, shelter, etc. Many see this as a basis for the support of the welfare state and of governmental economic policies that promote equitable distribution of income and access to essential goods and services.

Call to family, community, and participation and the pursuit of the Common Good

According to the Book of Genesis, the Lord God said: "It is not good for the man to be alone". The Catholic Church teaches that man is now not only a sacred but also a social person and that families are the first and most basic units of a society. It advocates a complementarian view of marriage, family life, and religious leadership. Full human development takes place in relationship with others. The family—based on marriage (between a man and a woman)—is the first and fundamental unit of society and is a sanctuary for the creation and nurturing of children. Together families form communities, communities a state and together all across the world each human is part of the human family. How these communities organize themselves politically, economically and socially is thus of the highest importance. Each institution must be judged by how much it enhances, or is a detriment to, the life and dignity of human persons.

Catholic Social Teaching opposes collectivist approaches such as Communism but at the same time it also rejects unrestricted laissez-faire policies and the notion that a free market automatically produces social justice. The state has a positive moral role to play as no society will achieve a just and equitable distribution of resources with a totally free market. All people have a right to participate in the economic, political, and cultural life of society and, under the principle of subsidiarity, state functions should be carried out at the lowest level that is practical.[44]A particular contribution of Catholic social teaching is a strong appreciation for the role of intermediary organizations such as labor unions, community organizations, fraternal groups and parish churches.

Rights and responsibilities; social justice

Every person has a fundamental right to life and to the necessities of life. The right to exercise religious freedom publicly and privately by individuals and institutions along with freedom of conscience need to be constantly defended. In a fundamental way, the right to free expression of religious beliefs protects all other rights.

The Church supports private property and teaches that "every man has by nature the right to possess property as his own." The right to private property is not absolute, however, and is limited by the concepts of the "universal destiny of the goods of the earth" and of the social mortgage. It is theoretically moral and just for its members to destroy property used in an evil way by others, or for the state to redistribute wealth from those who have unjustly hoarded it.

Corresponding to these rights are duties and responsibilities—to one another, to our families, and to the larger society. Rights should be understood and exercised in a moral framework rooted in the dignity of the human person and social justice. Those that have more have a greater responsibility to contribute to the common good than those who have less.

We live our lives by a subconscious philosophy of freedom and work. The encyclical Laborem exercens (1981) by Pope John Paul II, describes work as the essential key to the whole social question. The very beginning is an aspect of the human vocation. Work includes every form of action by which the world is transformed and shaped or even simply maintained by human beings. It is through work that we achieve fulfilment. So in order to fulfil ourselves we must cooperate and work together to create something good for all of us, a common good. What we call justice is that state of social harmony in which the actions of each person best serve the common good.

Freedom according to Natural Law is the empowerment of good. Being free we have responsibilities. With human relationships we have responsibilities towards each other. This is the basis of human rights. The Roman Catholic Bishops of England and Wales, in their document "The Common Good" (1996) stated that, "The study of the evolution of human rights shows that they all flow from the one fundamental right: the right to life. From this derives the right to a society which makes life more truly human: religious liberty, decent work, housing, health care, freedom of speech, education, and the right to raise and provide for a family" (section 37). Having the right to life must mean that everyone else has a responsibility towards me. To help sustain and develop my life. This gives me the right to whatever I need to accomplish without compromising the mission of others, and it lays on others the corresponding responsibility to help me. All justice is the power of God compensated solely in terms of individual relationships.

The Ten Commandments reflect the basic structure of the Natural Law insofar as it applies to humanity. The first three are the foundation for everything that follows: The Love of God, the Worship of God, the sanctity of God and the building of people around God. The other seven Commandments are to do with the love of humanity and describe the different ways in which we must serve the common good : Honor your father and mother, you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, you shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbour (Exodus 20:3–17). Our Lord Jesus Christ Summarised the Commandments with the New Commandment: "Love one another, as I have loved you" (John 13:34, 15:9–17). The mystery of Jesus is a mystery of love. Our relationship with God is not one of fear, of slavery or oppression; it is a relationship of serene trust born of a free choice motivated by love. Pope John Paul II stated that love is the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being. By his law God does not intend to coerce our will, but to set it free from everything that could compromise its authentic dignity and its full realisation. (Pope John Paul II to government leaders, 5 November 2000.)

Preferential option for the poor and vulnerable

Jesus taught that on the Day of Judgement God will ask what each of us did to help the poor and needy: "Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me." This is reflected in the Church's canon law, which states, "The Christian faithful are also obliged to promote social justice and, mindful of the precept of the Lord, to assist the poor from their own resources."

Through our words, prayers and deeds we must show solidarity with, and compassion for, the poor. When instituting public policy we must always keep the "preferential option for the poor" at the forefront of our minds. The moral test of any society is "how it treats its most vulnerable members. The poor have the most urgent moral claim on the conscience of the nation. We are called to look at public policy decisions in terms of how they affect the poor."

Pope Benedict XVI has taught that "love for widows and orphans, prisoners, and the sick and needy of every kind, is as essential as the ministry of the sacraments and preaching of the Gospel". This preferential option for the poor and vulnerable includes all who are marginalized in our nation and beyond—unborn children, persons with disabilities, the elderly and terminally ill, and victims of injustice and oppression.

Dignity of work

Society must pursue economic justice and the economy must serve people, not the other way around. Employers must not "look upon their work people as their bondsmen, but ... respect in every man his dignity as a person ennobled by Christian character." Employers contribute to the common good through the services or products they provide and by creating jobs that uphold the dignity and rights of workers.

Workers have a right to work, to earn a living wage, and to form trade unions[52] to protect their interests. All workers have a right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, and to safe working conditions. Workers also have responsibilities—to provide a fair day's work for a fair day's pay, to treat employers and co-workers with respect, and to carry out their work in ways that contribute to the common good. Workers must "fully and faithfully" perform the work they have agreed to do.

In 1933, the Catholic Worker Movement was founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. It was committed to nonviolence, voluntary poverty, prayer, and hospitality for the marginalized and poorest in Society. Today over 185 Catholic Worker communities continue to protest injustice, war, racism, and violence of all forms.

Solidarity and the universal destiny of the goods of the Earth

Pope John Paul II wrote in the 1987 encyclical Sollicitudo rei socialis, "Solidarity is undoubtedly a Christian virtue. It seeks to go beyond itself to total gratuity, forgiveness, and reconciliation. It leads to a new vision of the unity of humankind, a reflection of God's triune intimate life. ..." It is a unity that binds members of a group together.

All the peoples of the world belong to one human family. We must be our brother's keeper, though we may be separated by distance, language or culture. Jesus teaches that we must each love our neighbors as ourselves and in the parable of the Good Samaritan we see that our compassion should extend to all people. Solidarity includes the Scriptural call to welcome the stranger among us—including immigrants seeking work, a safe home, education for their children, and a decent life for their families.

Solidarity at the international level primarily concerns the Global South. For example, the Church has habitually insisted that loans be forgiven on many occasions, particularly during Jubilee years. Charity to individuals or groups must be accompanied by transforming unjust political, economic and social structures.

The world and its goods were created for the use and benefit of all of God´s creatures and any structures that impede the realization of this fundamental goal are not right. This concept ties in with those of Social Justice and of the limits to private property.

Care for God's creation

A Biblical vision of justice is much more comprehensive than civil equity; it encompasses right relationships between all members of God's creation. Stewardship of creation: The world's goods are available for humanity to use only under a "social mortgage" which carries with it the responsibility to protect the environment. The "goods of the earth" are gifts from God, and they are intended by God for the benefit of everyone. Man was given dominion over all creation as sustainer rather than as exploiter, and is commanded to be a good steward of the gifts God has given him. We cannot use and abuse the natural resources God has given us with a destructive consumer mentality.

Catholic Social Teaching recognizes that the poor are the most vulnerable to environmental impact and endure disproportional hardship when natural areas are exploited or damaged. US Bishops established an environmental justice program to assist parishes and dioceses who wanted to conduct education, outreach and advocacy about these issues. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops Environmental Justice Program (EJP)[61] calls Catholics to a deeper respect for God's creation and engages parishes in activities that deal with environmental problems, particularly as they affect the poor.

[pjotr]

Polska Partia Pragmatyczna










Where are they talking about. This discussion between these two great Poles must be interesting. Do they talk about polticis? Both are dead, but both had a great influence on Polish thinking, dissident circles and post-communist Poland.

[Bonobo]

They re talking about desire for power and exerting influence on people. Is power necessary at all? What prerogatives should it have? Stalin is mentioned as a charismatic ruler who killed people but was loved by his nation. etc etc Geremek desires for rulers who will be respected and liked by the nation not because they are cruel but pragmatic. There is a question where to find such people. It is necessary to educate youngsters so that one day good rulers may emerge in future.

[pjotr]

Dear Bonobo,

Interesting conversation between Kołakowski and Geremek. Geremek's statement about pragmatic leaders fits my PPP perspective. And to be precise and clear, the PPP has nothing to do with my initials or ego, for let's say trying to create a Pluijgerist or Pluijgerism in Poland (after my surname).

The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna could als well be called the Polish Freedom Alliance, Liberal Democratic Party, Movement for Pragmatism and Democracy (MPD), or Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy (PPFD, like the Dutch VVD). I use the name PPP (Polska Partia Pragmatyczna), because it describes my aim, advice, political dream and thesis.

I am just a foreigner, outsider, someone from abroad who is interested in Poland. Maybe I could be considered part of the Polish Diaspora or Polonia and maybe not. I am not part of a Polish Union, Foundation, movement, Political party, association, society, circle, club, group, church, nor do I have contacts with the Polish government or opposition. Part of my family is Polish and I know Polish people due to a cultural fine art background and visits to Poland in the seventies, eighties, 2004 (Kraków) and 2006 (Warszawa).

I have had contacts with Poles who are fierce Government (PiS) supporters, and against everything which is liberal or leftist. I was the guest of a lady in Warsaw (during my August 2006 visit to that city), who was Nationalist and conservative. She was and is a PiS supporter. And an old family friend of my mothers. A sophisticated, educated and upper class lady, who belonged to the the Polish elite. She detested SLD, the liberal Gazeta Wyborcza, other leftist and liberal media (newspapers, magazines, radio, television and etc.) and was anti-Western, anti-German, anti-Russian and anti-semitic. She read Rzeczpospolita.

The headquarters of the SLD in Ulica Rozbrat were close to her apartment, where I stayed during that week as a Dutch -foreign guest, and family friend-. We visited her and her husband in communist times in Warsaw in 1984. My grandparents, mother and aunt lived next to her families apartment in Mokotow before and during the war. So old acquaintances. My mother stil calls her any now and then in Warsaw from the Netherlands. She complimented my mother on her Polish - that she speaks it well after living 49 years outside Poland-.


The SLD headquarters, I passed on my way to the city centre of Warsaw in August 2006, in the opinion of my guest host (woman) the gates of hell.

She was a Contradictio in terminis, a combination of opinions and beliefs whose meanings were in conflict with one another. She detested Germany and Germans, but her oldest daughter was married to a German, and she could get along with this German gentleman very well, because he learned Polish and their bi-national kids learned to speak Polish very well. They speak Polish at home, and the daughter was as strict Roman-Catholic as her mother. It was interesting for me to stay in that National conservative, Polish Roman Catholic, fiercly patriotic (maybe I should call it nationalist). For me it was also a catch 22 situation, because in my politeness, humbleness and diplomatic being I avoided political subjects, cultural sensitive issues and Western-Europe and especially the Netherlands as a subject. She loved aspects of the West, like the conveniences of Capitalism and it's materialistic comfort, but detested it's freedom with it's decadence, hedonism and secularism. She hated secularism, Gays and Lesbians, abortion, Euthenasia, Gay Pride marches (we would never allow that in Poland to happend, that is something for the decadent and secular leftist Western-Europe. No, we don't won't gays over here) and the progressive liberalism of Western-Europe in general. She detested everything the Netherlands stood and stands for. That was a large part of my uncomfortable position as a guest of an arch-conservative Roman-Catholic and ultra-nationalistic (Endecja like) host.

I was treated well, the lady was very hospitable, and due to the old bond between our families (my family helped her family under difficult circumstances during the Second World War) the stay was pleasent as long as I or we avoided the subjects 'Politics', 'Press/Media', 'Germans', 'Russians' and 'jews'. Only once I spoke out clearly against some anti-Jewish statements of her. I didn't felt quite comfortable, because the liberal values of my secular liberal country and the West were under constant verbal attacks by her. (I had clearly different liberal and progressive political and cultural ideas and opinions than her national conservative PiS and reactionary Polish-Roman-Catholic ideas. She was also intolerant towards other christians, because the Roman-Catholic church was the only good church. The West-European Dutch Reformed Calvinist and the German and Scandinavian Lutheran churches were obviously bad or the wrong christian churches in her view. Long before the nationalist marches in Poland in September, October and November this year I heard the words; "People, Fatherland and church." Pretty similar to the words of Polish priest Father Jacek Międlar of Rzeszów who shouted ‘God, Honor, and Fatherland’ on November 11, addressed 70,000-100,000 Polish patriots at a controversial Independence Day rally in Warsaw.



The Catch 22 situation was that I was treated very hospitable, but that I didn't feel free. I couldn't be myself, due to the historical family connections. So I stayed calm and polite, and walked around in Warsaw, used the tram, bus and the lady I stayed with drove me with her car to several destinations. From a democratic, pragmatic and Freedom loving point of view I respected her right to her opinion, her feelings and her political stance. I was a visitor, and didn't felt obliged to comment on the Polish political situation and the Polish internal affairs issues as a guest and foreigner. I know more than back then.

In Warsaw thank god I also spoke with critics of the Prawo i Sprawiedliwość - Samoobrona Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej - Liga Polskich Rodzin coalition government in art galeries, on the street and in some pubs and museums. I avoided (like I always do the touristic spots), and wondered around in peoples neighbourhoods, along boulevards, roads, squares, parks and alley's. I saw the Old town and the new Modern city centre next to the Palace of Culture. Went to churches and one synagogue. Saw a lot of old and contemporary Polish fine art. And enjoyed the cities progress (since the last time I saw it in 1984 it had progressed a lot. Cleaner, modern buildings, and the grey coal and two stroke engine air and pollution had gone). I also enjoyed the stories from my guest host, about my families past and the Modern Warsaw (she showed me by car). Both her and my families past in Warsaw was connected to the Szkoła Główna Handlowa w Warszawie (The Warsaw School of Economics (SGH)). Warsaw 2006 was a learnable experience for me, because I was alone there. The last time I had been in Poland in April 2004 in Kraków had been different, because I was in Kraków with a group of Dutch, Polish and German Art Students with some art teachers from the Arnhem Art Academy. So Kraków had been a cultural, art and historical experiance, rather than a social, political and media experience. In Warsaw I was more alone, and able to watch people more carefully, Polish television at the home of my guest host, and read some English Polish news (Newsweek Poland) and talk with Polish people. Like Robert Kaplan I believe that you can only understand a society, people, and the political and economic situation of a country if you go to that country and speak with the people of that country.

To go back to Pragmatism and pragmatic politics in Poland. I believe that there must be some rapprochement between former dissident circles and former communist circles. Both PiS and PO are centre right to right and were anti-left, against the centre left, but in their rivalry couldn't form a National Coalition government like in Germany CDU-SPD. Polish pragmatism would mean that realistic, freedom loving and democratic Poles of the centre would step over their differences and create a new, strong, centrist movement, who will focus on the Polish economy, financial stability, innovation (investments in education and Research & Development), the Polish infrastructure, and creating a healthy, attractive and reliable investment climate for foreign companies and multi-nationals to invest in Poland and create Polish jobs. Next to that new Polish entrepreneurs and companies should be stimulated to enter the Polish market. A responsible Polish government should also invest in Polish jobs and good foreign relations with Polands neighbours and Western allies. Platforma Obywatelska did a tremendous job during their 8 years in government, but they also made mistakes which lead to their defeat in the 2015 elections.

Their Ordoliberal ideals (with modifications) drove the creation of the post-Communist Polish social market economy and its attendant Polish Wirtschaftswunder (German for "economic miracle"). In October 2011. Donald Tusk, with a clear pro-European agenda, became the first ever Polish Prime Minister to be reelected in post-communist Poland. In November 2010, local elections granted PO about 31 percent of the votes and PiS at 23 percent, an increase for the former and a drop for the latter compared to the 2006 elections. PO succeeded in winning four consecutive elections (a record in post-communist Poland), and Donald Tusk is left as the kingmaker. PO's dominance is also a reflection of right-wing weakness and divisions, with PiS suffering a splinter in Autumn 2010.

By the turn of the 21st century, Poland was a market-based democracy, abundant in products of all kinds and a member of both NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and the European Union (EU), allied more strongly with western Europe than with eastern Europe but, as always, squarely between them. I hope that Poland will stay connected to Western-Europe and keep it's ties with Germany and France in the Weimar Triangle and will stay a reliable and participating member of the European Union. The EU has brought and delivered so much benefits to Europe. A Common Market, stability, investments in weaker regions, which blossomed after that and became interesting trade (Import & Export) area's for other European Euregions and countries. As a European pragmatic I strongly believe in the power and succes of Euregions, because these regions (border crossing area's in several countries) generate a lot of economical progress, innovation, employment and possibilities. For instance the Euroregion Silesia and the Meuse–Rhine Euregion.







www.euroregion-silesia.eu/show_text.php?language=2&id=en-index


The Meuse–Rhine Euregion (Dutch: Euregio Maas–Rijn, French: Eurorégion Meuse–Rhin, German: Euregio Maas–Rhein, Limburgish: Euregio Maas–Rien) is a Euroregion created in 1976, with judicial status achieved in 1991. It comprises 11.000 km² and has around 3.9 million inhabitants around the city-corridor of Aachen–Maastricht–Hasselt–Liège. The seat of the region has been in Eupen, Belgium since 1 January 2007. Within a wider context, the region is part of what is called the Blue Banana European urbanisation corridor.



The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna, the Polish Freedom Alliance, Liberal Democratic Party, Movement for Pragmatism and Democracy (MPD), or Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy (PPFD), in my mediating, lenient and syncretic view should search for a method, way or political process to overcome the division, discord, schism and polarisation in the Polish Political spectrum and democratic system today.

The new Pragmatic movement should unite PO, Moderate dissident PiS members, .Nowoczesna, and centre left elements of Razem and Zjednoczona Lewica. People of Unia Wolności (UW) should form the core of the Polska Partia Pragmatyczna. With his experience with UW, PO, governing as prime-minister and his present European Union (International) experience Tusk would be a perfect leader of a Polish Freedom loving, democratic, social, liberal, Patriotic and Pragmatic Polska Partia Pragmatyczna. And next to him I see people like Ryszard Petru ( .Nowoczesna), Kamila Gasiuk-Pihowicz ( .Nowoczesna), Leszek Balcerowicz, Władysław Frasyniuk, Paweł Kobyliński ( .Nowoczesna), Grażyna Staniszewska, Zbigniew Bujak, Janusz Onyszkiewicz, Janusz Lewandowski, Ewa Kopacz, Aleksander Kwaśniewski (As a pragmatic social-democrat who has served Poland well as president), Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz and Barbara Nowacka as a representative in the PPP for the Polish left and Polish feminism.

In the case no new political movement or party arrives I will be a distant and critical supporter of Ryszard Petru's, Kamila Gasiuk-Pihowicz's and Paweł Kobyliński's .Nowoczesna. In my view .Nowoczesna represents Polish liberalism, Polish pragmatism and the Polish Centre the best. And they are Pro-European. They are realists, and I hope that they will gain votes of Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, Platforma Obywatelska, Kukiz'15, Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe, Solidarna Polska, Polska Razem, and Zjednoczona Lewica. It will be unlikely that Nowoczesna will attract people fro PiS, Solidarna Polska, or the rightwing conservative wing of Platforma Obywatelska, but .Nowoczesna could attract new voters and old liberals and democrats.

Cheers,
Pieter

[Bonobo]

Jan 23, 2016 19:16:21 GMT 1 pjotr said:

1 She was a Contradictio in terminis, a combination of opinions and beliefs whose meanings were in conflict with one another. She detested Germany and Germans, but her oldest daughter was married to a German,


2
It was interesting for me to stay in that National conservative, Polish Roman Catholic, fiercly patriotic (maybe I should call it nationalist).

3
For me it was also a catch 22 situation, because in my politeness, humbleness and diplomatic being I avoided political subjects, cultural sensitive issues and Western-Europe and especially the Netherlands as a subject.


4
I was treated well, the lady was very hospitable, and due to the old bond between our families (my family helped her family under difficult circumstances during the Second World War) the stay was pleasent as long as I or we avoided the subjects 'Politics', 'Press/Media', 'Germans', 'Russians' and 'jews'. Only once I spoke out clearly against some anti-Jewish statements of her. I didn't felt quite comfortable, because the liberal values of my secular liberal country and the West were under constant verbal attacks by her. (I had clearly different liberal and progressive political and cultural ideas and opinions than her national conservative PiS and reactionary Polish-Roman-Catholic ideas. She was also intolerant towards other christians, because the Roman-Catholic church was the only good church. The West-European Dutch Reformed Calvinist and the German and Scandinavian Lutheran churches were obviously bad or the wrong christian churches in her view. Long before the nationalist marches in Poland in September, October and November this year I heard the words; "People, Fatherland and church."

5
To go back to Pragmatism and pragmatic politics in Poland. I believe that there must be some rapprochement between former dissident circles and former communist circles. Both PiS and PO are centre right to right and were anti-left, against the centre left, but in their rivalry couldn't form a National Coalition government like in Germany CDU-SPD.

6
Polish pragmatism would mean that realistic, freedom loving and democratic Poles of the centre would step over their differences and create a new, strong, centrist movement, who will focus on the Polish economy, financial stability, innovation (investments in education and Research & Development), the Polish infrastructure, and creating a healthy, attractive and reliable investment climate for foreign companies and multi-nationals to invest in Poland and create Polish jobs. Next to that new Polish entrepreneurs and companies should be stimulated to enter the Polish market. A responsible Polish government should also invest in Polish jobs and good foreign relations with Polands neighbours and Western allies. Platforma Obywatelska did a tremendous job during their 8 years in government, but they also made mistakes which lead to their defeat in the 2015 elections.

1 A little paranoic, indeed.

2 Wasn`t it the home of our newest poster, Polishprideson? Just asking.

3 Poor you. That`s that fate of true gentlemen.

4 Very narrow-minded lady. Well, there are such people everywhere and you can`t reason with them at all.

5 Impossible with current leaders. Ech of them will say Yes, let`s unite but will add: under MY leadership. Too many strong types, alpha males, to achieve compromise.

6 That`s the ideal situation but two or three decades must pass and we need to educate more and better. This is my role - to raise future generations who won`t spoil this country for their private games.

[pjotr]

1 Yes, she was a little bit paranoïc, she had some conspiracy theory madness. That the jews controlled everything in Poland. The press/media, politics, the economy, the financial market, the internet, telephone lines, and maybe the authorities too. Despite that she was a supporter of the new the Prawo i Sprawiedliwość - Samoobrona Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej - Liga Polskich Rodzin coalition government. There was a war going on in Lebanon back then. When we watched the news she said, do you see what these vicious jews are doing to these poor Lebanese civilians. There were a lot of civilian casualties due to Israeli bombardments of Southern-Lebanon where it was engaged in a war with the Shia-Muslim Hezbollah movement. Hezbollah won the war and by the way fired a lot of rockets into Israel. She didn't mentioned a about that. Jews in Poland and Israel were the bad guys. Jews were responsible for all bad things that happen. They control Poland and the world.

2 No, it wasn`t the home of our newest poster, Polishprideson. They probably share some of the same views, but she was more extreme than what he wrote over here. The similarity is that both have far right, Polish nationalist, Solidarna Polska, Endecja and the rightwing of PiS points of view. I don't know Polishprideson Bo!

3 Yeah, that`s the fate of a moderate, centre left, pragmatic, liberal and tolerant person, who is always interested in the views of others. Even if they contrast his own views, are political incorrect, far right, intolerant and extreme. The Warsaw lady and Polishprideson remind me of Geert Wilders and the Flemish Filip Dewinter. The only difference is that they are Polish and that Geert Wilders isn't particulary fond of Poles, Poland and Central- and Eastern-Europe in general.

4 Yes, she was a very annoying narrow-minded lady. I despised her hatred of Germans, Jews and Russians and her primitive anti-Western ideas. I didn't like her fundamentalist exaggerated pathetic Roman-Catholicism. Bo, you are very right, there are such people everywhere and you can`t reason with them at all. I couldn`t reason with her at all in Warsaw in August 2006. I only objected and resisted her fierce anti-semitism when it became to radical or extreme. I will always object to and reject anti-semitism, racism, discrimination and ethnic labelling. We can be critical about the influx of refugees, and say, that maybe there are to much for one place or country to shelter them. But to say that they are filth, an infectious desease or trash like some Hungarian, Polish and Dutch people did is unaccaptable.



5 That is sad and bad for Polands economy and the political stability of Poland. Maybe Polish women should take over Polish politics. Women are often good organisers and they are often more pragmatic than men, more social and practical driven and used to take care of group interests (the organising talent of a mother, female businesswoman, and former Polish female ministers, state secretaries, prime-ministers and company owners)

6 You are probably right. So we must be patient and work on the change of society via education, culture, family life and the social circles of friends, colleagues and sport. Your role as a teacher is very, very important. Also, because learning English is very important for Poles on the European and world market and for being able to study and work abroad for short term or long term periods. The future of Poland depends on the education, and upbringing of new generations of Poles.

[pjotr]

An example of a pragmatic party is the Dutch D66 party. This is a very important speech for the Dutch Democrats, which are pragmatists, but also for Poles, because the message of Howard Dean to this Dutch audience is about the importance of the European Union. Poland is part of the EU too.



I was part of this youth movement of the D66 party, Jonge Democraten (Young Democrats) in Arnhem.

In Amsterdam I was a member of the liberal youth movement of the VVD party, JOVD (Youth Organisation for Freedom and Democracy).

In the late nineties I became a member of the Dutch Labour party, PvdA,because I liked the pragmatic, Third Way, and Purple Coalition (Dutch Labour Party PvdA, VVD and D66). I went to a labour course for local politics in the Arnhem city council and later I got political training from the National Labour party organisation in Utrecht. In that training (for months on saturdays) I learned how to organise political meetings, convincing people to vote for Labour, how to deal with angry and aggressive and racist voters during party and election meetings. And I learned about propaganda, political merchandize, internal affairs (in the Dutch context), housing, social security, political marketing, communication and Public Relations, Social-democratic ideology (and the other ideologies of the Dutch political parties) and I participated in a difficult debating course. Other young labour activists played conservatives, nationalists, racist populists, christian politicians and radical left opponents (Socialist party and Greenleft) who attacked me. My role was to defend and propagate Labour policies, the Labour political party program and why people should vote Labour. In the JOVD they did the same. You had to be confident and self aware and very well prepared to be able to survive the political attacks and the sharp rhetorical skills of these fellow party boys or girls, men or women. Later I was a political radio journalist for the local radio and tv station in Arnhem and I went to the city council every Monday evening, sometimes until deep in the night (early Tuesday morning if debates or inquiries took a long time in the council). I interviewed councilmembers of all the political parties and the aldermen, alderwomen and mayor of the city. Occasionaly I interviewed national politicians like Geert Wilders when he visited Arnhem. I interviewed Wilders once, and other times I interviewed Labour (PvdA), and VVD ministers, and campaign leaders of the other political parties, like Alexander Pechthold of the pragmatic, liberal democratic D66.

I was part of the pragmatic rightwing of the Labour party and close to D66 and the VVD, with who I had experience as a student (JD/JOVD), and quit the party somewhere in the late nineties, because I wasn't Labour or Social-democratic enough. I was more like e Free Democrat and felt close to the ideas of the Pre-War VDB, the Free thinking Democratic League, which merged with the former Social-Democratic SDAP into the new PvdA (Labour party) in 1946.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_(government)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-thinking_Democratic_League
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrats_66
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Democrats_(Netherlands)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_Organisation_Freedom_and_Democracy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Party_(Netherlands)

[pjotr]

Polska Partia Pragmatyczna



The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna, the Polish Freedom Alliance, Liberal Democratic Party, Movement for Pragmatism and Democracy (MPD), or Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy (PPFD) is not against ideology, not opposed to parties who have ideological fundaments and ideological politics. But in it's realistic, practical and thus pragmatic ideas, decision making and implementing policies and measures the Polska Partia Pragmatyczna would be more guided and motivated by practical than ideological motivations. What works in reality by practical thinking and action is more important than ideological dogmatism, doctrine and orthodoxy.

The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna will investigate the Polish reality of today and the Polish political history of the Polish Peoples Republic and the Interbellum period (1919-1939). The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna wants to know what elements of that Pre-War Poland and the Polish Peoples Republic are still present in Poland today and in the same time wants to know what exactly happened between 1989 and Januari 2016. What is the political, economical, financial, social-cultural, demographic, geographic, European, International, regional (Visgrad group, Weimar Triangle, and bilateral relationship of Poland with it's direct neighbours), Industrial, educational (education system), technological (Information Communication Technology; Internet, telecommunucation, automatization), agricultural, legal (justice), state of innovation (progress, transformation and reform) and human rights situation in Poland? What is good, what is to mediocre and what is bad or terrible in Poland (corruption, nepotism, crime, injustice or neglect of certain sectors?).

The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna is focussed on today, Modernism, contemporary political thought and reality. The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna wants Poland to be part of the core and heart of Europe. Historically the Polska Partia Pragmatyczna believes that Poland belongs to or is directly connected to Western-Europe and Southern-Europe due to it's Roman-Catholic faith, culture, spirituality and political connection to the Roman-Catholic world. Poland has a special relationship with the Vatican, and Poles will feel more at home in Roman-Catholic countries than in Eastern-Orthodox, Protestant or Muslim nations. For instance in my Netherlands it is easier for Poles to work and live in the Roman-Catholic Southern-Netherlands (North-Brabant and Limburg) than in the Protestant Calvinist and secular North.


Polish people in North-Brabant, the South of the Netherlands during the European Championship

The fall of Great Moravia made room for the expansion of the Czech or Bohemian state, which likewise incorporated some of the Polish lands. The founder of the Přemyslid dynasty, Prince Bořivoj was baptized by Methodius in the Slavic rite during the later part of the 9th century and settled in Prague. His son and successor Spytihněv was baptized in Regensburg in the Latin rite, which marks the early stage of East Frankish/German influence, destined to be decisive in Bohemian affairs. Borivoj's grandson Prince Wenceslaus, the future Czech martyr and patron saint, was killed, probably in 935, by his brother Boleslaus. Boleslaus I solidified the power of the Prague princes and most likely dominated the Lesser Poland's Vistulans and Lendians tribes and at least parts of Silesia.


Christianization of Poland



The education of Polish society was a goal of rulers as early as the 12th century, and Polish nobility became one of the most educated groups in Europe. The library catalogue of the Cathedral Chapter of Kraków dating back to 1110 shows that in the early 12th-century Polish intellectuals had access to European literature.

Casimir III realized that the nation needed a class of educated people, especially lawyers, who could codify the country's laws and administer the courts and offices. His efforts to found an institution of higher learning in Poland were finally rewarded when Pope Urban V granted him permission to open the University of Kraków.


Casimir the Great

Poland also became a destination for German, Flemish and to a lesser extent Scottish, Danish and Walloon migrants. The Jewish community also began to settle and flourish in Poland during this era; the same applies in smaller number to Armenians.

Due to the past of the Hanseatic League, the Polish–Lithuanian union, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, German- (Saxonian-), Czech- and Swedish kings Poland was influenced by European rulers and interests (which were often not in the interest of the Polish nation, people at all, but in the interest of Magnata, who detested a strong Polish king and therefor choose weak leaders or leaders who could serve their particular individualistic interests), the German Burgher (citizens of the Polish cities and towns, who played a role there as arts & crafts people, and competitors to Polish Jews and Polish Roman-Catholics) and Italian architects, painters and advisors, Dutch and Flemish settlers and Bohemian (Czech) nobility (because sometimes Polish kings and magnats married Czech wives). Later during the Partitions of Poland the Prussian-, Russian-, and Habsburg Austrian occupiers influenced Poland. Polish refugee migrants moved to Paris (France), Berlin (and other German cities) and London (England) or the USA (in which Poles fought during the American revolution).



During the Great Emigration an immigration of political elites from Poland from 1831–1870, particularly after the November Uprising and January Uprising, took place to Paris, France. Since the end of the 18th century, a major role in Polish political life was played by people who carried out their activities outside the country as emigres. Because of this emigration of political elites, much of the political and ideological activity of the Polish intelligentsia during the 18th and 19th centuries was done outside of the lands of partitioned Poland. Most of those political émigrés were based in France, seen by the Poles - freshly influenced by Napoleon - as the bastion of liberty in Europe.


Frédéric Chopin

It was during that era that some of the greatest Polish–French personalities lived, such as the composer Frédéric Chopin or the scientist Maria Sklodowska-Curie (Marie Curie). Poland today still is an observer in the Organisation internationale de la francophonie, an international organization representing countries and regions where French is the first ("mother") or customary language; and/or where a significant proportion of the population are francophones (French speakers); and/or where there is a notable affiliation with French culture.


Maria Sklodowska-Curie

Liberalism in Poland

Liberalism in Poland gained on significance during Polish Renaissance, unfortunately it lost its followers in the era of counterreformation, which in Poland was not free of violence. Since then, it remained a minor political force.

Unfortunately Liberalism in Poland is often connected with conservative politics and is reduced to economic policy. Classical liberals, liberal both on social and economic issues, exist in Poland in dispersed small groups. The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna believes that Polish liberalism should be an independent Third Political force inbetween Polish conservatism and Polish Social-democracy (socialism). It would be good if Polish liberalism could be disconnected from the Roman-Catholic confessional conservatism of most Polish conservatives. Polish liberalism should be secular, pragmatic and progressive.

The Polish nation, culture, language, genes/dna, history and presence is not only linked to Poland only. There are about 60 million Poles in the world today. About 37,394,000 Poles in Poland and the rest outside Poland. The largest group of ethnic Poles outside Poland are the 10 million Polish Americans in the USA.

During and after the Second World War a lot of Poles left Poland and settled in France, Great Britain, the USA, Australia, South-Africa and Canada. Poles are spread over the world and Poles always returned to Poland. The Polish expats or immigrants took their experiences and lives from abroad back to Poland and add their skills, talents, professions and energy in the Poland they returned too. Ofcourse that Poland was different than the Poland they left or their parents left.

So the Polska Partia Pragmatyczna will look at the past, at the present and at the future of Poland. The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna will look at all political parties and movements from Poland and study them. The PPP will take the best, realistic and practical elements out of all the Polish ideologies which are usefull for Poland. And it will add it's own new elements to the Polish political spectrum.

The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna will also look at foreign political parties and movements and learn from them. But the people of the PPP will also realise that the political reality is different than for instance the political situation in Germany, the Czech republic, Slovakia, the Ukraine, the Russian Federation, Belarus and Lithuania. The Polish reality and the political history of Poland is slightly different than the political situation in those countries today and in the past. In sociological, psychological, intellectual, anthropological (the workings of societies around the world, and the working of various social classes in Poland -working class, middle class, high class - -nouveau and ancienne riche-, the majority and minorities in Poland), religious (the huge influence of the Roman-Catholic church, the clergy and Roman-Catholic education in Poland), financial-economical and philosophical and cultural sense. The academic intelligentsia class of Polish intellectuals and the Polish working class and farmers are stronger than in other European nations. Other European nations have less cities with universities and educational institutions than Poland. Other nations have less farmers, and less Industries and Industrial workers than Poland. The contrast between the large cities and the rural country is larger in Poland than in other European nations. PiS has rural support and PO mainly in Warsaw and probably Kraków too.

The roots of the Polska Partia Pragmatyczna lie in the Democratic Clubs, which were opposed to authoritarian and nationalistic tendencies in the Second Republic of Poland between the two world wars (1919–1939). The first Club was founded in Warsaw in September 1937, and by 1938 there were Clubs in all major urban centres, with active participation of the co-founders of Polish independence, whose primary objective was ensuring a fully democratic political system in Poland. The national founding convention of the Alliance of Democrats was held on 15 April 1939. The Declaration of Policy included such issues as improvement of the national economy, a development plan to raise the level of education, and modernisation of the armed forces. Mieczysław Michałowicz, a member of the Senate, was appointed the first party leader of the Alliance.


Mikołaj Kwaśniewski

During World War II, a significant number of Alliance members were involved in the anti-Nazi Polish underground. It was partly due to their initiative that Żegota, the Council for Aid to Jews, was founded in 1942 as well as the Social Organisation for Self-Defence. The Alliance of Democrats, along with other political and social organisations, set up the Association of Democrats, which then entered the Council of National Unity, the Polish Underground State Parliament. So the Polska Partia Pragmatyczna has roots in the Pre-war and war time Stronnictwo Demokratyczne ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_of_Democrats_(Poland) ), the fraction which supported the Polish Government in Exile in London. Not the "satellite" Stronnictwo Demokratyczne party of the communist Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) regime in the People's Republic of Poland. Even so, the party managed to sustain its non-Marxist orientation. So, again to make myself clear, I mean the Pre-war Stronnictwo Demokratyczne with it's roots in the Democratic Clubs which existed during the Interbellum (1919-1939)



And the Polska Partia Pragmatyczna indeed has roots in the democratic, Post-communist movements of former Solidarność dissidents:
Kongres Liberalno-Demokratyczny ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Democratic_Congress ), Unia Demokratyczna ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Union_(Poland) ), Unia Wolności ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Union_(Poland) ), and Platforma Obywatelska( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civic_Platform ) and Partia Demokratyczna – demokraci.pl ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_%E2%80%93_demokraci.pl )








demokraci.pl/

[pjotr]

Polska Partia Pragmatyczna



The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna if it existed would be a party founded on American and European Pragmatic philosophical principles, liberal philosophy, traditionally being a strong supporter of 'free markets' promoting political, economic liberalism, libertarianism, classical liberalism, cultural liberalism, but also (in contrast to this) committed to the idea of the welfare state.

The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna would have loose ties with other Polish liberal organisations and together they would form the neutral pillar (or general pillar of liberals, democrats, pragmatists, moderate liberal-conservatives and Centrolew Polish social-democrats).

The PPP is a party or movement of "free-minded" or "free-thinking" people. It is a democratic party with an internal democratic party structure and with democratic party elections. The party has a national branch, a regional (Provincial branch) and local branches on village, urban agglomeration, town and city muncipality level. Next to that the party will have a European branch and an international branch for the Polish Diaspora (Polonia). So there will be for instance PPP branches in New York, Chicago, Detroit, Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris and London.

The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna favors a social market economy, a social and economic system combining free market capitalism which supports private enterprise, alongside social policies which establish both fair competition within the market and a welfare state.

The Continental European social market economy in the sense of coordinated market economies rely more heavily on non-market forms of interaction in the coordination of their relationships with other actors. They considered 5 spheres in which firms must develop relationships with others:

1. Industrial relations - Companies have to coordinate with their workers, trade unions and other employers over wage and productivity. CMEs generally have a higher level of membership in trade unions and employers organizations and bargaining over wages tends to happen at the industry, sectoral or national level. Conversely in LMEs workers and employers are often less organized and wage negotiations take place at the company level.

2. vocational training and education - In CMEs workers tend to have specific skills that are tied to the firm or the industry their working in. In LMEs workers have more general skills that easily can be used to work at other companies.

3. corporate governance - Firms in CMEs rely more on patient capital, i.e. capital that doesn't totally depend on financial openness and short term return on investment. LMEs tend to rely more heavily on public information about finances and short-term capital, such as stockmarkets.

4. Inter-firm relations - Inter-firm relations in CMEs tend to be more collaborative, while inter-firm relations in LMEs are more competitive and arms-length.

5. Relations with employees - In CMEs managers often have to cooperate with employees to reach major decisions, while in LMEs there is often a more adverserial relation between management and employee in which managers are the prime decision-makers.

In contrast with Prawo i Sprawiedliwość the Polska Partia Pragmatyczna is against state intervention in the economy within market economy bounds. Like Prawo i Sprawiedliwość the Polska Partia Pragmatyczna supports a state-guaranteed minimum social safety net.

The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna is in favor of a continuation of the privatisation of all the state companies. But it believes that the state may have a strategic share is some companies deemed to be of strategic importance for the country. The state can earn money with strategic investments and thus pockets of shares. But the state should not inlfuence the economy by it's economical interests. The state can earn money with investments and infrastructural projects, and investing in it's education system (good public primary schools, good high schools, good universities and vocational universities and technological institutes. The government should invest in Research and Development). The state should sell all state companies. And the state should only erect new state companies if they are profitable, innovative and if they can survive on the free market. The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna is against old fashionate state industries or bureaucratic and unprofitable state companies which are kept alive by state subsidies. Poland has to get rid of those state industries and companies.

Like Platforma Obywatelska Polska Partia Pragmatyczna is in favor of the privatisation of the remaining public sectors of Polish economy, direct elections of mayors and regional governors, the first-past-the-post electoral system instead of proportional representation, labor law reform, independence over monetary policy by the National Bank of Poland, a 15% flat-rate income tax, and the decentralisation of the state. In contrast with the Platforma Obywatelska and Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, Polska Partia Pragmatyczna will not hamper the privatisations of state enterprises.

In it's classical liberal and libertarian view on economics the Polska Partia Pragmatyczna believes that the state should be very little involved in the economy. The state should only invest in the economy in the sense of investing in good infrastructure, because no other party or entity in the economy will invest in infrastructure. And ofcourse the state has to maintain an education system, a minimal level of social security, health care and the national defense of the country.

The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna follows a Third Way in between Laissez Faire Liberalism and Etatist Social democracy. The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna is in favor of a good Public Media system with an independent National Broadcast Corporation with Public television, Public Radio (Radio Poland) and websites and blogs. It is in favor of the Trias Politica (Separation of Powers) system, and therefor believes that the appointment of liberal and conservative judges of the Constitutional court should be dealt with by the Sejm (the Polish parliament), and that a that court should be a representation of the Polish people and society. The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna believes that the state authorities are chosen by the people in democratic elections and that therefor the elected officials and parliamentarians should only adress political issues. Politicians, parliamentarians, ministers, state secretaries, prime-ministers and presidents should be only involved with the tasks of the ministries and various departments of the Polish state. They should stay out of the legal system completely and also should refrain from interfearing in Polish peoples private lives like political preferences, religious affiliations and cultural identities.

The State (authorities/government), Voivodeships (Provinces), Powiats (counties or districts), and gminas (communes or municipalities) should be ruled by elected politicians, and controled and monitored by elected politicians also in the Sejm, sejmik województwa, rada powiatu, rada miasta and dzielnica councils.

The supreme law in Poland is the Constitution of Poland. Poland is a civil law legal jurisdiction and has a civil code, the Civil Code of Poland. The Polish parliament creates legislation (law) and is made up of the 'Senate' (upper house) and 'the Sejm' (lower house).

The various courts of the Polish legal system should be the business of judges, the Public Prosecution Service (Prokuratura) and lawjers who defend their clients. Politics and church influences should stay out of the courts and legal cases. Politics should not interfear in the religious sphere, and should not judge the church or religious minorities. Ad the church should stay out of political affairs. So, no Father Jacek Międlar of Rzeszów adressing a Nationalist crowd. He should stay in his church and refrain from political comments and leadership. In cases of war or dictatorship that is different.

The case of Jerzy Popiełuszko (14 September 1947 – 19 October 1984) the Polish Roman Catholic priest who became associated with the opposition Solidarity trade union in communist Poland is different than Father Jacek Międlar of Rzeszów. The Polish Roman-Catholic Church should say to Międlar, don't get involved in politics. You are a priest who has to take care of his congregation, your community. It is not your task to adress thousands of demonstrators as if you are a political leader. You are a priest and not a political leader. Do the job the church and God has created you for. Serve the people of your congregation. There is enough work for a priest to do there.

The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna is a secular, progressive and patriotic Polish political party which believes in the separation of Church and state. It realises that the majority of the Poles is Roman-Catholic, but still it opposes the influence of clerics in political parties, in city councils, provincial parliaments and the national parliament and the government.

The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna is also against a total political screened and Pro-government workforce of civil servants. It believes that civil servants of all political colours should be allowed to keep their job and work for a government which is not their political colour. Like the Dutch coalition government of VVD and PvdA. There are civil servants with a christian democratic CDA, or social liberal D66, socialist party SP, GreenLeft, ChristianUnion or even PVV affiliation. They work for ministers or state secretaries of a different colour. They may disagree with the political colour of their boss and the policies and measures of the government they serve, but they have to follow the instructions and carry out government policies and government plans. Later they may serve ministers or state secretaries of their own political preference if their party wins the election and becomes part of the new Government. The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna opposes the cleansing of ministries, departments and public media and press from people with a different political affiliation and colour.

Cheers,
Pieter

[Bonobo]

Jan 24, 2016 1:53:04 GMT 1 pjotr said:

The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna is also against a total political screened and Pro-government workforce of civil servants. It believes that civil servants of all political colours should be allowed to keep their job and work for a government which is not their political colour. Like the Dutch coalition government of VVD and PvdA. There are civil servants with a christian democratic CDA, or social liberal D66, socialist party SP, GreenLeft, ChristianUnion or even PVV affiliation. They work for ministers or state secretaries of a different colour. They may disagree with the political colour of their boss and the policies and measures of the government they serve, but they have to follow the instructions and carry out government policies and government plans. Later they may serve ministers or state secretaries of their own political preference if their party wins the election and becomes part of the new Government. The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna opposes the cleansing of ministries, departments and public media and press from people with a different political affiliation and colour.

Cheers,
Pieter

This is very important because the current situation resembles a banana republic where the head of the state designates his family and mates from his clan to major positions. I hope one day Poland achieves better standards.

[pjotr]

Jan 24, 2016 20:44:51 GMT 1 Bonobo said:

Jan 24, 2016 1:53:04 GMT 1 pjotr said:

The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna is also against a total political screened and Pro-government workforce of civil servants. It believes that civil servants of all political colours should be allowed to keep their job and work for a government which is not their political colour. Like the Dutch coalition government of VVD and PvdA. There are civil servants with a christian democratic CDA, or social liberal D66, socialist party SP, GreenLeft, ChristianUnion or even PVV affiliation. They work for ministers or state secretaries of a different colour. They may disagree with the political colour of their boss and the policies and measures of the government they serve, but they have to follow the instructions and carry out government policies and government plans. Later they may serve ministers or state secretaries of their own political preference if their party wins the election and becomes part of the new Government. The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna opposes the cleansing of ministries, departments and public media and press from people with a different political affiliation and colour.

Cheers,
Pieter

This is very important because the current situation resembles a banana republic where the head of the state designates his family and mates from his clan to major positions. I hope one day Poland achieves better standards.

Dear Bo,

Yes, it is. I hope that pressure from the united Polish opposition, independent journalists, the Polish intelligentsia (writers, poets, artists, philosophers, sociologists, thinkers and independent film makers and opinion makers), Polish university students, critical skilled Polish workers, employee's from private firms and all Poles who doesn't support this government, plus pressure from the EU, other European countries, politicians and Unions will stop this development. I fear though that Poland will receive support from Hungary, and other less democratic European nations, and from rightwing nationalist and populist political parties in Europe who dislike EU influence, Brussels, the refugees, Muslim migrants and the leftwing and liberal press, politicians and governments as much as the Polish PiS-Solidarna Polska coalition government does!

I wonder if this Populistic and Nationalistic Polish government will change it's attitude towards Russia on the long term, if it could make a front with Hungary and Russia. Politicians and especially the politicians of this Polish government are opportunists and became crazy of the power they got. Now they will do anything to change the political system and situation in the four years that they will govern. They will try to change the government ministries and presidential palace in the four years they will govern in Warsaw, they will change the regional powers of the Provincial authorities and they will change the local muncipal rule in cities and towns. Everywhere they will try to put their henchmen, their puppets. Creating their rightwing Polish Catholic socialist Nationalist system of power. A New Sanacja regime with Hungarian Orban Fidesh elements, Putinist elements and Dmowski's Endecja elements. Okay I am sombre about the situation. I hope that you freedom loving and real Polish Patriots will defend the Polish Democracy and keep resisting this regime.

Cheers,
Pieter

[pjotr]

Jan 24, 2016 20:44:51 GMT 1 Bonobo said:

Jan 24, 2016 1:53:04 GMT 1 pjotr said:

The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna is also against a total political screened and Pro-government workforce of civil servants. It believes that civil servants of all political colours should be allowed to keep their job and work for a government which is not their political colour. Like the Dutch coalition government of VVD and PvdA. There are civil servants with a christian democratic CDA, or social liberal D66, socialist party SP, GreenLeft, ChristianUnion or even PVV affiliation. They work for ministers or state secretaries of a different colour. They may disagree with the political colour of their boss and the policies and measures of the government they serve, but they have to follow the instructions and carry out government policies and government plans. Later they may serve ministers or state secretaries of their own political preference if their party wins the election and becomes part of the new Government. The Polska Partia Pragmatyczna opposes the cleansing of ministries, departments and public media and press from people with a different political affiliation and colour.

Cheers,
Pieter

This is very important because the current situation resembles a banana republic where the head of the state designates his family and mates from his clan to major positions. I hope one day Poland achieves better standards.

[Bonobo]

Jan 24, 2016 23:32:20 GMT 1 pjotr said:

I wonder if this Populistic and Nationalistic Polish government will change it's attitude towards Russia on the long term,
Cheers,
Pieter

They already had a meeting to discuss problems. Without positive results, but the very fact they met is symbolic. Former government boycotted Russia for its involvement in Ukraine. PiS seems really like Endecja - cold towards Germany, warmer to Russia.

[pjotr]

Roman Dmowski



Roman Stanisław Dmowski (9 August 1864 – 2 January 1939) was a Polish politician, statesman, and co-founder and chief ideologue of the right-wing National Democracy ("ND": in Polish, "Endecja") political movement. He saw the aggressive Germanization of Polish territories controlled by the German Empire as the major threat to Polish culture and therefore advocated a degree of accommodation with another power that had partitioned Poland, the Russian Empire. He favored the re-establishment of Polish independence by nonviolent means, and supported policies favorable to the Polish middle class. During World War I, in Paris, through his Polish National Committee he was a prominent spokesman, to the Allies, for Polish aspirations. He was a principal figure instrumental in the postwar restoration of Poland's independent existence.



Dmowski never wielded official political power, except for a brief period in 1923 as minister of foreign affairs. Nevertheless, he was one of the most influential Polish ideologues and politicians of his time. A controversial personality all his life and since, Dmowski believed that only a Polish-speaking Roman Catholic could be a good Pole; his thinking marginalized other minorities (Polish Jews, the German and Ukrainian minorities), and he was vocally anti-semitic. In 1926 he attempted to emulate Italian fascism. He remains the prototype of Polish right-wing nationalism and has been called "the father of Polish nationalism." Throughout most of his life, he was the chief opponent of the Polish military and political leader Józef Piłsudski and of the latter's vision of Poland as a multinational federation.


Benito Mussolini (29 July 1883 – 28 April 1945) the founder of the far right ideology fascism and the leader of the National Fascist Party, ruling the country as Prime Minister from 1922 until his ousting in 1943, was a source of inspiration to Roman Dmowski. In 1926 Dmowski attempted to emulate Italian fascism. It was the year of the Coup 'd Etat which brought Józef Piłsudski's Sanacja regime to power, which would rule Poland from 1926 until 1939.

In April 1893 Dmowski co-founded the National League (Liga Narodowa), and became its first leader.

Liga Narodowa



The National League (Polish: Liga Narodowa) was a conspirational Polish organization active in all three partitions. It was founded in April 1893 from the transformed Polish League. National League was the first organization of the nascent National Democracy movement. Its main ideologues were Roman Dmowski, Jan Ludwik Popławski and Zygmunt Balicki.

Its goals were formation of modern Polish nation and regaining of Polish statehood in the long run. It supported the idea of solidarity of all social classes in order to strengthen the national idea. The National League, organizing mostly young intelligentsia, aimed at mobilizing Polish youth and awakening Polish peasants to take active part in public life. The organization was opposed to the idea of class struggle and the activities of national minorities in Poland. It published the Przegląd Wszechpolski (The All-Poland Review) and Polak (The Pole) newspapers in Lwów.

After Poland regained its independence in 1918, the National League remained active and supported newly created National Democratic political parties. In 1928 it was disbanded and incorporated into the structures of the National Party.

Zygmunt Balicki



Zygmunt Balicki (30 December 1858, Lublin - 12 September 1916, Saint Petersburg) was a Polish sociologist, publicist and one of the first leading thinkers of the modern Polish nationalism in the late 19th century under the foreign Partitions of Poland.

Balicki's book Egoizm narodowy wobec etyki (National Egoism and Ethics) published first in 1903 was one of the central texts of nascent National Democratic movement. Balicki argued that the individual should fuse spiritually with his society and adopt its desires and goals as his own. He rejected altruism, ideals and ethics of the romantic literature as "abstract" and "naive". Together with Roman Dmowski he founded the National League and the National-Democratic Party.

Endecja



In 1897, he co-founded the National-Democratic Party (Stronnictwo Narodowo-Demokratyczne or "Endecja"). The Endecja was to serve as a political party, a lobby group and an underground organization that would unite Poles who espoused Dmowski's views into a disciplined and committed political group. In 1899, Dmowski founded the Society for National Educationas an ancillary group. From 1898 to 1900, he resided in both France and Britain, and travelled to Brazil. In 1901 he took up residence in Kraków, then part of the Austrian partition of Poland.[9] In 1903 he published a book, Myśli nowoczesnego Polaka (Thoughts of a Modern Pole), one of the first if not the first nationalist manifesto in European history.


Endecja members march during a political meeting of the National Democrats during the thirties

Endecja support for Czarist Imperial Russia

In 1905, Dmowski moved to Warsaw, back in the Russian partition of Poland, where he continued to play a growing role in the Endecja faction. During the Russian Revolution of 1905, Dmowski favoured co-operation with the Imperial Russian authorities and welcomed Nicholas II's October Manifesto of 1905 as a stepping stone on the road towards renewed Polish autonomy. During the revolt in Łódź in June 1905, the Endeks, acting under Dmowski's orders, opposed the uprising led by Piłsudski's Polish Socialist Party (PPS). During the course of the "June Days," as the Łódź uprising is known, a miniature civil war raged between Endecja and the PPS.

In light of what he regarded as Russian cultural inferiority, Dmowski felt that a strong Russia was more acceptable than a strong Germany. In Dmowski's view, the Russian policy of Russification would not succeed in subjugating the Poles, while the Germans would be far more successful with their Germanisation policies. He explained those views in his book Niemcy, Rosja i kwestia Polska (Germany, Russia and the Polish Cause), published in 1908.

This was not a universally popular attitude, and in 1909 Dmowski resigned his deputy mandate to focus on an internal political struggle within Endecja. Dmowski lost the election to the Fourth Duma in 1912 to a socialist politician, Eugeniusz Jagiełło from the Polish Socialist Party – Left, who won with the support of the Jewish vote. Dmowski viewed this as a personal insult; in exchange he organized a successful boycott of Jewish businesses throughout much of Poland.

World War I

Dmowski's pro-Russian and anti-German propaganda succeeded in frustrating Piłsudski's plans of causing an anti-Russian uprising, and bolstered his position as an important Polish political figure on the international scene, especially with the Triple Entente.

Theorist of nationalism



From his early student years, Dmowski was opposed to socialism and suspicious of federalism; he desired Polish independence and a strong Polish state, and saw socialism and conciliatory federalist policies as prioritizing an international idea over the national one. Over the years he became an influential European nationalist thinker.

Dmowski had a scientist's background and thus and preferred logic and reason over emotion and passion. He once told famous pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski that music was "mere noise" (Comment Pieter: This is one of the many reasons why I dislike Dmowski. Other reasons are his anti-semitism, Ultra Nationalism and Pro-Russian stance). Dmowski felt very strongly that Poles should abandon what he considered to be foolish romantic nationalism and useless gestures of defiance and should instead work hard at becoming businessmen and scientists. Dmowski was very much influenced by Social Darwinist theories, then popular in the Western world, and saw life as a merciless struggle between "strong" nations who dominated and "weak" nations who were dominated.

Italian Fascism as role model



Dmowski admired Italian fascism. In the summer of 1926 Dmowski wrote a series of article admiring Mussolini and the Italian fascist model, and helped organize the Camp of Great Poland (OWP), a broad anti-Sanacja front modeled on Italian fascism that was known for its anti-Jewish rhetoric and violence.


Emblem of the Italian National Fascist Party

Anti-semitism and anti-Germanism


A pre-war Polish anti-semitic cartoon of a jew who stabs a Polish peasent in the back

Dmowski often communicated his belief in a "international Jewish conspiracy" aimed against Poland. In his essay "Żydzi wobec wojny" (Jews on the War) written about World War One, Dmowski claimed that Zionism was only a cloak to disguise the Jewish ambition to rule the world. Dmowski asserted that once a Jewish state was established in Palestine, this would serve as a nucleus for the Jewish take-over of the world. In the same essay, Dmowski accused the Jews of being Poland's most dangerous enemy and of working hand in hand with the Germans to dismember Poland again. Dmowski believed that the 3,000,000 Polish Jews were far too numerous to be absorbed, and assimilated into the Polish Catholic culture.

Dmowski had advocated emigration of the entire Jewish population of Poland as the solution to what he regarded as Poland's "Jewish problem", and over time came to argue for increasing harsh measures against the Jewish minority, though he never explicitly suggested killing Jews. He opposed physical violence, arguing for the boycotts of Jewish businesses instead, later supplemented with their separation in the cultural area (through polices such as numerus clausus). Dmowski made anti-Semitism a central element in Endecja's radical nationalist outlook. Endecja's crusade against Jewish cultural values gained mounting intensity in antisemitism of the 1930s, but there were no major pogroms or violent attacks on the Jews in Poland until the German Nazis occupied Poland and made it their mission in 1939–44.


A monument found desecrated with anti-Semitic graffiti at a Jewish cemetery in Wysokie Mazowieckie

For Dmowski, one of Poland's principal problems was that not enough Polish-speaking Catholics were middle-class, while too many ethnic Germans and Jews were. To remedy this perceived problem, he envisioned a policy of confiscating the wealth of Jews and ethnic Germans and redistributing it to Polish Catholics. Dmowski was never able to have this program passed into law by the Sejm, but the National Democrats did frequently organize "Buy Polish" boycott campaigns against German and Jewish shops. The first of Dmowski's anti-semitic boycotts occurred in 1912 when he attempted to organize a total boycott of Jewish businesses in Warsaw as "punishment" for the defeat of some Endecja candidates in the elections for the Duma, which Dmowski blamed on Warsaw's Jewish population. Throughout his life, Dmowski associated Jews with Germans as Poland's principal enemies; the origins of this identification stemmed from Dmowski's deep anger over the forcible "Germanization" policies carried out by the German government against its Polish minority during the Imperial period, and over the fact that most Jews living in the disputed German/Polish territories had chosen to assimilate into German culture, not Polish culture. In Dmowski's opinion Jewish community was not attracted to the cause of Polish independence and was likely to ally itself with potential enemies of Polish state if it would benefit their status.

Dmowski was also a vocal opponent of the free masonry as well as of feminism. (And Jews, Polish socialists, Federalists, the German minority in Poland and Centrolew people are opponents of this PiS-Solidarna Polska government which is rooted in Endecja, Piłsudski's Sanacja regime and the Hungarian Vicor Orbans Fidesz party and government and maybe some PZPR elements -inspired by former communist members of his party and maybe government-)


Anti-semitic Polish cartoon

[Bonobo]

Jan 25, 2016 0:13:52 GMT 1 pjotr said:

therefore advocated a degree of accommodation with another power that had partitioned Poland, the Russian Empire.

If not for that issue with the air crash, they would be good friends now.

[pjotr]

Jan 25, 2016 1:22:30 GMT 1 Bonobo said:

Jan 25, 2016 0:13:52 GMT 1 pjotr said:

therefore advocated a degree of accommodation with another power that had partitioned Poland, the Russian Empire.

If not for that issue with the air crash, they would be good friends now.

Dear Bonobo,

And if the Russians have nothing to do with the crash? What if it was technical failure and maybe human failure? A combination of nervous Polish pilots and a Polish president who put pressure on them? What if the Russians cooperated well with the Polish authorities and investigators, and old Polish anti-Russian sentiments and conspiracy theories and paranoia were at play?

So, if it was/is just a very, very tragic, sad, dramatic and terrible accident which killed the Polish president and his wife, top state officials, and politicians of rightwing and leftwing Polish political parties. Could Poland establish good ties with Russia and restore the Polish trade relations with Russia and maybe could play a mediating, diplomatic and thus multi-lateral role in the Ukrainian crisis?

Could you imagine a Polish-Hungarian-Russian alliance, in which Poland plays a dualistic game of Transatlantic partnership with the USA in NATO and in the same time having close relationships with Moscow and thus Putin and Medvedev. A United front of three parties; United Russia, PiS and Fidesz?

Cheers,
Pieter

P.S.- I think about Wojciech Witold Jaruzelski (6 July 1923 – 25 May 2014), who for the Polish communists came from the wrong family background, because he came from a szlachta family, and not from a propper working class or peasent background -which was better in the PZPR-. Dispite the fact that Jaruzelski's father died in 1942 from dysentery in Siberia and he performed forced labour in the Karaganda coal mines in Kazakhstan. And despite the fact that during his labour work he was stricken with snow blindness and suffered permanent damage to his eyes as well as his back, he cooperated with the Sovjets, was trained by them and became part of the Stalinist Polish Peoples Army and surved the Peoples Republic until he was an old man in 1989. Will Jarosław Aleksander Kaczyński (born 18 June 1949) be a principial, ethical and moral man or will he be an opportunistic, power hungry and selfish man, who today will not have the competition of his brother and other powerful figures in his Prawo i Sprawiedliwość party. What kind of man is Jarosław Kaczyński? Would he benefit from an alliance with Orban and Putin? And how would the EU, the USA, Great-Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Czech Republic, Slowakia, Ukraine, the Baltic states, Georgia, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Belarus, Austria, Switzerland, Croatia and Slovenia react to that. Ofcourse the Pro-Russian Serbia, Montenegro and Greece would welcome such a step and alliance.

[Bonobo]

Jan 25, 2016 3:20:18 GMT 1 pjotr said:

1 And if the Russians have nothing to do with the crash? What if it was technical failure and maybe human failure? A combination of nervous Polish pilots and a Polish president who put pressure on them? What if the Russians cooperated well with the Polish authorities and investigators, and old Polish anti-Russian sentiments and conspiracy theories and paranoia were at play?

2 Could Poland establish good ties with Russia and restore the Polish trade relations with Russia and maybe could play a mediating, diplomatic and thus multi-lateral role in the Ukrainian crisis?

3 Could you imagine a Polish-Hungarian-Russian alliance, in which Poland plays a dualistic game of Transatlantic partnership with the USA in NATO and in the same time having close relationships with Moscow and thus Putin and Medvedev. A United front of three parties; United Russia, PiS and Fidesz?

Cheers,
Pieter

[/i][/quote]

1 Yes.

2 Russia doesn`t need Poland. More, Poland is considered an enemy. But, it could turn into a friend or at least a temporary ally on one major condition - withdrawal from EU and NATO. Current anti- EU phobia of PiS is like honey on the hearts of Russian government who have always tried to break the European unity, especially when it comes to recent sanctions. Poland conflicted with EU is a big present for Russians.

3 Not really. Poland won`t stop supporting Ukraine, it is too important for us, we talked about it.