Parallels between Polish Solidarity 1989 and American Tea Parties 2009

http://redhotright.blogspot.com/ ^ | 2009-09-05 | redhotright

[redhotright]

Twenty years ago, the Solidarity movement in Poland played a key role in overthrowing the communist regime that was then ruling the country. My wife was living in Poland during that time and tells me that there are some interesting parallels between events then and the Tea Party movement in America today.

For one thing, the Solidarity movement was not limited to the labor union shipyard workers in Gdansk, but was a large grassroots movement that went way beyond labor unions and shipyards to touch just about every corner of Polish society. Today in America, the Tea Party movement, although characterized as "astroturf", is not being led by any one individual. In fact, I think that it is better that it stays this way so that no one person or organization tries to shape or focus it according to their preferences because then it would die.

Another comparison relates to political party affiliation. Although there is a specific Solidarity political party in Poland, the 1980 and 1989 movements were supported by Poles no matter their political preferences. Proof of this is the fact that following the period where the Solidarity ruled briefly in Poland, the political landscape immediately fractured into dozens of competing parties with often divergent interests. Today's Tea Party movement is also not confined to just "right wing radicals" or just Republicans, but is supported by people from all political persuasions who are concerned about the loss of freedom in America. My guess is that once the American government has been shown its place, the different groups making up the Tea Party movement will also go their separate ways, often with competing interests.

Curiously, today, because of its labor union foundations, Solidarity is no longer considered an major player in Polish politics, and as a labor union tends to favor more left-leaning policies.

In fact the critical element of the failure of Communism in Poland is that communism traditionally works very close with labor unions, and once the polish communists lost the support of the labor unions, they had no one else to hold them up. In the end, because the movement was much more than just the labor unions, the Poles took the country much further to the right than Solidarity had originally intended.

Both the Solidarity movement (and today's Tea Party movement) gained such strong support because the average Joe (or Jerzy) on the street was fed up with too much government spending, waste, fraud, and corruption at the national government level specifically, as well as over similar patterns of government beaurocratic leviathanism at local government levels. They were not opposed to specific individuals in the government (either Jaruzelski or Obama), but to the way most politicians no longer represented the people and were acting in their own self interests.

In addition, the opposition in both cases is directed not only against big government way off somewhere else, but also to government interference in the daily lives of average individuals. Communism and all forms of totalitiarianism tend to do that. So both movements were born of the constant struggle between the people and their government: the politicians got a taste of power and kept wanting more and more until the people were fed up with the constant petty interfering in their lives. Americans probably had a much lower tolerance for interference because of a very strong sense of individualism and freedom, but the feeling exists in all people.

And this is the core of what drove both groups: in 20/20 hindsight of experience the Polish people saw that a communist takeover of Poland was destructive and dangerous to the point that the government became the enemy of the people; while the American Tea Parties are hoping that the United States will not have to learn the same hard lesson. Both the Poles and the Americans love freedom. Poland ended up having to pay a very high price to get it, like America did back in 1776. But will Americans have to pay a high price for freedom again in 2009?

Solidarity won in Poland in 1989 and I hope that the Tea Parties will win in 2009. God Bless America.

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

[paudio]

I am a bit skeptical comparing today's tea party with solidarnosc. I understand the importance of both, but the contexts are different, and they call for different strategies. Soldarnosc happened in a society where communism has reached its full-blown form and people have seen its problems and dangers. 0bama's government is still in its efforts to form communist-style government so most people haven't seen the dangers yet. Given these different contexts, using Solidarnosc metaphor might be a bit overkill and contra-productive.

Using examples from society on the way to facism or communism are better, IMO.

[Stayfree]

But still, sir, lessons can be learned from those who have already suffered communism and have concerns about Obamaism!!!!