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Post by tufta on Mar 11, 2009 9:42:43 GMT 1
THE economic crisis is still unfolding across the ex-communist world. Amid the genuine worries about jobs and savings are some other concerns—less substantial, but more toxic.
The biggest is resentment of the outside world’s neglect and ignorance. How can western commentators lump Slovenia together with Tajikistan as “ex-communist countries”? Why do people confuse Poland’s sound public finances with Ukraine’s catastrophic ones? Why do the frugal Czechs with their solid banking system get lumped together with spendthrift Hungarians? Why does nobody give the countries any moral or political credit for what they have achieved? If any west European country faced the kind of jarring adjustment now being experienced in, say, Latvia, it would expect political upheavals.
continued www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13226652
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tomek
Nursery kid
Posts: 256 
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Post by tomek on Mar 11, 2009 19:31:19 GMT 1
I don`t know about Ukrainia, coz I have no interesting to this.
Polish peoples are afraid, yes, jobless is not funny and firms fire workers.
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Post by locopolaco on Mar 12, 2009 16:04:36 GMT 1
slovenia and tajikistan ARE ex-communist countries. just like others lump all of the west together.. it is not a personal thing
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Post by tufta on Mar 13, 2009 19:06:58 GMT 1
slovenia and tajikistan ARE ex-communist countries. just like others lump all of the west together.. it is not a personal thing Yes you are right. But 'west' is neutral. We don't call western Europe 'postnazi countries', or the USA the 'postslavery country' ;D  |
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Post by Bonobo on Sept 3, 2009 20:28:49 GMT 1
US snubs Poland over WW II ceremony?
thenews.pl
26.08.2009
UPDATE - Five days before the commemoration ceremony of the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II in Poland, Washington has yet to announce who is going to represent the US administration.
Polish officials had been led to believe the US would be represented by Vice-President Joe Biden or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But Prime Minister Donald Tusk seems to have lost all hope that the Obama administration will be sending a high-level official to the ceremony - to be attended by Chancellor Merkel, Prime Minister Putin and other heads of government and state at Gdansk - on September 1.
Talking to reporters after a cabinet session, Tuesday, PM Tusk said: `Some countries are not sending high-level delegations. This is true of the United States as well.'
Andrzej Przewoznik, Head of the Council for the Protection of the Memory of Struggle and Martyrdom, who is in charge of the organization of the commemoration ceremony, has said: `All foreign delegations have informed us who is to lead their delegations. The United States is the only exception. I am astonished," he said.
Long way from Washington to Gdansk
A government spokesman, Wednesday, tried to play down the importance of a high level delegation from the US being present at the celebrations.
"I would not attach a great importance to the fact that one country will not be represented by a member of the current administration, " said Slawomir Nowak, head of the prime minister's office told TOK FM radio.
"We should not fall into Polish complexes because on this issue. There is a very long way from Washington to Poland," Nowak said.
He added, however, that because of the low level of the US delegation, none of the American guests will be asked to make a speech, as was originally planned.
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Post by valpomike on Sept 3, 2009 22:33:59 GMT 1
Again, this is the leadership that many picked, I did not, and want them out.
Mike
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uncltim
Just born
I oppose most nonsense.
Posts: 73
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Post by uncltim on Sept 3, 2009 23:57:32 GMT 1
My governments lack of respect to Poland in this issue is an embarrassment to me. Please accept my apologies.
-Tim
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Post by Bonobo on Sept 11, 2009 21:09:19 GMT 1
My governments lack of respect to Poland in this issue is an embarrassment to me. Please accept my apologies. -Tim Tim, it is OK, I am not offended. I just report the news. I don`t care who the US government send to Poland. It can be a prince, king, post office worker or alien. It is all the same to me. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D So, stop worrying about it. ;D ;D ;D ;D One more example:
Lest We Forget…That Pat Buchanan is a Lunatic
Oregon Commentator
9/5/09
Today marks the anniversary of the day that Germany invaded Poland in 1939, setting off the Second World War in Europe.
The leading light of the "paleo-conservative " movement, Pat Buchanan, evidently saw fit to commemorate this day by writing an article entitled "Did Hitler Want War?"
The thing's barely worth reading, and relies on a… novel understanding of history, to say the least, blaming the war on a "junta" of Polish generals and a Western plot to "punish" Hitler for Munich. Oh, and Hitler "let the British go" at Dunkirk, demonstrating his ultimately peaceful intentions. In short, this is the diary of an insane person.
Of course, jaw-dropping World War Two revisionism is nothing new for Buchanan, who's been pimping the "Hitler was misunderstood! " line for a few years now. Who knows? Maybe Pacifica Forum will invite him and David Irving to campus for a joint lecture about the Second World War one of these days. Hell, get the "Nakba = genocide" crowd out there for support and the UO can have itself a nice little orgy of Jew-hating historical revisionism.
Realclearpolitics has evidently deleted Buchanan's article from their site. If, for whatever bizarre reason, you wish to subject yourself to "Did Hitler Want War?", you can now find it at . antiwar.com/ buchanan/ 2009/08/31/ did-hitler- want-war/ (along with, fittingly, Stormfront, etc. — which should tell you a lot about both Pat Buchanan and the people who run "Antiwar.com" ).
************ ********* ********* ********* *********
Here's Buchanan's controversial article from MSNBC's web site:
Did Hitler Want War?
by Patrick J. Buchanan
September 01, 2009
On Sept. 1, 1939, 70 years ago, the German Army crossed the Polish frontier. On Sept. 3, Britain declared war.
Six years later, 50 million Christians and Jews had perished. Britain was broken and bankrupt, Germany a smoldering ruin. Europe had served as the site of the most murderous combat known to man, and civilians had suffered worse horrors than the soldiers.
By May 1945, Red Army hordes occupied all the great capitals of Central Europe: Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Berlin. A hundred million Christians were under the heel of the most barbarous tyranny in history: the Bolshevik regime of the greatest terrorist of them all, Joseph Stalin.
What cause could justify such sacrifices?
The German-Polish war had come out of a quarrel over a town the size of Ocean City, Md., in summer. Danzig, 95 percent German, had been severed from Germany at Versailles in violation of Woodrow Wilson's principle of self-determination. Even British leaders thought Danzig should be returned.
Why did Warsaw not negotiate with Berlin, which was hinting at an offer of compensatory territory in Slovakia? Because the Poles had a war guarantee from Britain that, should Germany attack, Britain and her empire would come to Poland's rescue.
But why would Britain hand an unsolicited war guarantee to a junta of Polish colonels, giving them the power to drag Britain into a second war with the most powerful nation in Europe?
Was Danzig worth a war? Unlike the 7 million Hong Kongese whom the British surrendered to Beijing, who didn't want to go, the Danzigers were clamoring to return to Germany.
Comes the response: The war guarantee was not about Danzig, or even about Poland. It was about the moral and strategic imperative "to stop Hitler" after he showed, by tearing up the Munich pact and Czechoslovakia with it, that he was out to conquer the world. And this Nazi beast could not be allowed to do that.
If true, a fair point. Americans, after all, were prepared to use atom bombs to keep the Red Army from the Channel. But where is the evidence that Adolf Hitler, whose victims as of March 1939 were a fraction of Gen. Pinochet's, or Fidel Castro's, was out to conquer the world?
After Munich in 1938, Czechoslovakia did indeed crumble and come apart. Yet consider what became of its parts.
The Sudeten Germans were returned to German rule, as they wished. Poland had annexed the tiny disputed region of Teschen, where thousands of Poles lived. Hungary's ancestral lands in the south of Slovakia had been returned to her. The Slovaks had their full independence guaranteed by Germany. As for the Czechs, they came to Berlin for the same deal as the Slovaks, but Hitler insisted they accept a protectorate.
Now one may despise what was done, but how did this partition of Czechoslovakia manifest a Hitlerian drive for world conquest?
Comes the reply: If Britain had not given the war guarantee and gone to war, after Czechoslovakia would have come Poland's turn, then Russia's, then France's, then Britain's, then the United States.
We would all be speaking German now.
But if Hitler was out to conquer the world – Britain, Africa, the Middle East, the United States, Canada, South America, India, Asia, Australia – why did he spend three years building that hugely expensive Siegfried Line to protect Germany from France? Why did he start the war with no surface fleet, no troop transports, and only 29 oceangoing submarines? How do you conquer the world with a navy that can't get out of the Baltic Sea?
If Hitler wanted the world, why did he not build strategic bombers, instead of two-engine Dorniers and Heinkels that could not even reach Britain from Germany?
Why did he let the British army go at Dunkirk?
Why did he offer the British peace, twice, after Poland fell, and again after France fell?
Why, when Paris fell, did Hitler not demand the French fleet, as the Allies demanded and got the Kaiser's fleet? Why did he not demand bases in French-controlled Syria to attack Suez? Why did he beg Benito Mussolini not to attack Greece?
Because Hitler wanted to end the war in 1940, almost two years before the trains began to roll to the camps.
Hitler had never wanted war with Poland, but an alliance with Poland such as he had with Francisco Franco's Spain, Mussolini's Italy, Miklos Horthy's Hungary, and Father Jozef Tiso's Slovakia.
Indeed, why would he want war when, by 1939, he was surrounded by allied, friendly, or neutral neighbors, save France? And he had written off Alsace, because reconquering Alsace meant war with France, and that meant war with Britain, whose empire he admired and whom he had always sought as an ally.
As of March 1939, Hitler did not even have a border with Russia. How then could he invade Russia?
Winston Churchill was right when he called it "The Unnecessary War" – the war that may yet prove the mortal blow to our civilization. |
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Post by Bonobo on Aug 31, 2010 13:42:05 GMT 1
A member of Polishforums wrote:
But it's hard to find out about any of this from within the US. I believe there is still an amazing amount of residual prejudice in the West toward Eastern Europe. When I first travelled to Prague ten years ago I half expected to find a dark, sooty village under a cloudy sky, overlooked by a castle on a stark hill ruled by Vampires with peasants toiling miserably in the mud. I was a little bit surprised to see a stunningly beautiful city full of striking women, excellent beer and amazing architecture. I thought I was open-minded for an American but it struck me how much I had been subject to propaganda myself, why is this so little known about in the Western media? But it reminded me of my own town in that sense.
I have come to the conclusion lately that there is too much cultural prejudice in the West, and too little understanding of Eastern European languages, to find out much of anything about the intriguing history I've seen glimpses of, especially in these areas where German and Polish (and Dutch, and Swedish, and Lithuanian, and Estonian, and Czech etc.) culture are so mixed together in such complex ways.
I'm hoping people here will forgive my ignorance, perhaps my misguided zeal, and Yank status, and help me gain some insight into this part of the world of beautiful women and wild rivers and ancient cities, and many mysteries.
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Post by Bonobo on Feb 24, 2013 0:37:26 GMT 1
It seems American leaders were not too good at Geography class
Joe Biden in 'Poland is Portugal' gaffe
05.02.2013 10:46
The United State's vice-president Joe Biden has confused Portugal with Poland during a speech in Munich.
US Vice President Joe Biden (L) and his wife Jill Biden (R) exit Air Force Two as they land at Orly airport as part of Joe Biden's first official visit to Paris, France, 03 February: photo - EPA/JACQUES BRINON
Biden, currently on a tour of Europe, appeared to believe that Poland was in the eurozone at the Munich Security Conference at the weekend.
“We have seen positive steps recently to address the eurozone crisis, with the European Central Bank pledging to stand behind countries willing to launch reforms, and with Greece, Ireland, Poland, Spain and Italy all taking important steps to put their economies on a sounder path,” Biden said, reports the Daily Telegraph (UK).
The US vice-president mistook Poland for Portugal, which has been going through a severe finance crisis.
The gaffe has been subsequently corrected in the official transcript of the speech.
Poland is not a member of the eurozone but the government has said it intends to apply for membership and to adopt the single currency by 2017 |
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Post by jeanne on Feb 24, 2013 0:47:57 GMT 1
It seems American leaders were not too good at Geography class
Joe Biden in 'Poland is Portugal' gaffe
05.02.2013 10:46
The United State's vice-president Joe Biden has confused Portugal with Poland during a speech in Munich.
US Vice President Joe Biden (L) and his wife Jill Biden (R) exit Air Force Two as they land at Orly airport as part of Joe Biden's first official visit to Paris, France, 03 February: photo - EPA/JACQUES BRINON
Biden, currently on a tour of Europe, appeared to believe that Poland was in the eurozone at the Munich Security Conference at the weekend.
“We have seen positive steps recently to address the eurozone crisis, with the European Central Bank pledging to stand behind countries willing to launch reforms, and with Greece, Ireland, Poland, Spain and Italy all taking important steps to put their economies on a sounder path,” Biden said, reports the Daily Telegraph (UK).
The US vice-president mistook Poland for Portugal, which has been going through a severe finance crisis.
The gaffe has been subsequently corrected in the official transcript of the speech.
Poland is not a member of the eurozone but the government has said it intends to apply for membership and to adopt the single currency by 2017Joe Biden has a reputation amongst the U.S. media for being generally confused anyway.  |
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Post by pjotr on Feb 24, 2013 1:06:37 GMT 1
Bo, Everyone can make a mistake and for our pour American friends Europe is very complicated with all these different kinds of cultures, languages, ethnic groups, regions, languages and alliances. Why do these Europeans make it so difficult for us, can't they just have the Unites States of Europe, with one government and one capital, just like us? ;D Poland and Portugal are both Roman-Catholic, both traditional countries and both have suffered from dictatorships. We don't have to be so precise and difficult for our American friends, that the first dictatorship was Communist and the second a Fascist militairy regime doesn't matter. Slav or Latin, Portugese or Polish, Northern or Southern-European? Who cares, both countries start with a P. And they are both European. ;D ;D ;D P.S.- In California, LA, I met a nice American lady from Washington D.C. (East-coast). She asked me: " Where are you coming from?" My reply: " I am from the Netherlands." Her reply: " Oh, I love Holland, Copenhagen is such a wonderful city." I stayed polite, because I met her for a short moment at a busstop in Hollywood. I thought: " I love Copenhagen too (I have been there twice, 1992/1994), I wish I could speak Danish fluently, because I like the Danish people. (my two Danish friends there)." ;D ;D ;D  |
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Post by Bonobo on Feb 24, 2013 1:21:52 GMT 1
Joe Biden has a reputation amongst the U.S. media for being generally confused anyway. Similarly to G. W Bush? Or that vice president whose name I forgot? His name appeared in a popular computer game in early 1990s (Railway Tycoon) at the bottom of the Hall of Fame list.... when your final result in the game was poor, you were ranked as him..... Bo, Everyone can make a mistake and for our pour American friends Europe is very complicated with all these different kinds of cultures, languages, ethnic groups, regions, languages and alliances. Why do these European make it so difficult for us, can't they just have the Unites States of Europe, with one government and one capital, just like us? ;D Danish people. [/i] (my two Danish friends there)." ;D ;D ;D [/quote] Exactly!! Slav or Latin, Portugese or Polish, Northern or Southern-European? Who cares, both countries start with a P. And they are both European. ;D ;D ;D Danish people. [/i] (my two Danish friends there)." ;D ;D ;D [/quote] We are lucky anyway. Slovakia and Slovenia have much bigger problem with their identification in the world. They feel so bad about it that they even run special info campaings. |
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Post by jeanne on Feb 24, 2013 1:50:05 GMT 1
Joe Biden has a reputation amongst the U.S. media for being generally confused anyway. Similarly to G. W Bush? Kind of, but since he's a Democrat, the media is not quite as nasty to him as they were to GWB, who is a Republican. They just kind of chuckle at Biden; they don't vilify him! |
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Post by pjotr on Feb 24, 2013 3:53:54 GMT 1
We are lucky anyway. Slovakia and Slovenia have much bigger problem with their identification in the world. They feel so bad about it that they even run special info campaings. Bo, Another question, can these Western-Slavs and Southern-slavs get along with eachother. It is funny I already thought earlier about the problem that these two Slav countries have similar sounding names, both start with Slov.. Slovenia is closer to Austria and therefor maybe more influenced by the Austrians, while the Slovaks were for a long time under Hungarian wing. Maybe that's why they didn't treat their Hungarian minority not so well. Cheers, Pieter |
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