Posted on 11/01/2010 8:17:50 AM PDT by Kaslin
At a fundraising event in Illinois, the old Solidarity union leader and former Polish president showed he had lost none of his passion for freedom fighting.
Less than a week before Tuesday’s midterm elections, Illinois conservatives welcomed an unlikely ally. Legendary Polish Solidarity leader, Lech Walesa, appeared in downtown Chicago last Thursday at a fundraising event organized by citizen watchdog group For the Good of Illinois. The former Polish president, trade-union organizer, and Nobel Prize laureate came rhetorically armed with a new Solidarity rallying-cry for Illinoisans yearning for new leadership.
Before 300 conservative leaders and activists on Thursday, Walesa dourly remarked that while the U.S. leads the world militarily and economically, in many ways it no longer leads the world “morally and politically.” “Sometimes when we look up to the only superpower in the world,“ Walesa lamented, “we have some doubt whether the United States really wants to continue being the superpower.” He still referred to the stars and stripes, however, as the “last best hope for the world.” Walesa should know.
He endured years of persecution at the hands of Poland’s communist capo, and was a founder of the trade-union movement Solidarity in the early 1980s. The movement (“Solidarność” in Polish) swelled to become a broad-based anti-Soviet social crusade in Poland, ultimately propelling the Iron Curtain’s collapse and Poland’s first free elections since before World War II (Walesa subsequently became Poland’s president in the newly re-established office).
Given that history, the old freedom fighter didn’t mince words when it came to criticizing America’s current course. Through a translator, Walesa’s remarks were decidedly grim at times, and at other times surprisingly self-deprecating. In a comprehensive, seemingly stream-of-conscious address, Walesa shared his freedom-fighting experience while also providing warnings of the absence of American leadership on the world stage. He also cautioned against China’s political and economic expansion. Responding to the notion that the U.S. was no longer interested in retaining its superpower status, he jokingly offered that Poland was ready to take the baton.
(A short, QuickTime video of the speech by Welesa)
Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady sat next to Welesa during the lunch-in fundraiser (though buffered by a translator), and addressed the naturally friendly audience. Arguing that the current state government is “ruled” by “secrecy,” and marked by wastefulness and corruption, Brady tied Welesa’s struggle in the 80s to that of conservatives today. Without notes, the state senator from Bloomington (Illinois) appeared confident and optimistic days before the election. Brady is currently four points ahead of his Democratic opponent, Governor Pat Quinn, in a recent Chicago Tribune poll.
GOP candidate Bill Brady (L), Polish translator, and Lech Walesa (R)
Governor Quinn, who had accepted an invitation to speak, notified event coordinators hours before that he was unable to appear. Alas, he had surprised organizers when he accepted their invitation in the first place. It would have been an awkward scene had the governor honored his commitment. Due to the event organizers’ conservative bona fides (and because the group exclusively supports GOP candidates this cycle), Quinn’s appearance may have validated the notion that Walesa’s struggles in the 80s were comparable to that of conservatives in Illinois. The event’s strong rhetorical connection between the two was not lost on the audience.
During a question and answer session, Walesa was predictably asked to provide his opinion as to Illinois’s reputation for corruption and government expansion by Democrats. Ever the statesman, Walesa refused to take the political bait, and his answer reflected his unwillingness to verbally jump into the fray.
Walesa is not a regular fixture on the American political circuit. In fact, his vocal endorsement for Adam Andrzejewski in the gubernatorial Republican primary was the first for an American office-seeker (Andrzejewski is now founder and CEO of For the Good of Illinois). During a January 2009 trip to Chicago for Andrzejewski, Walesa surprised onlookers in an interview when he decried that the U.S. was moving in the direction of socialism with its bank bailouts and bulging social welfare programs.
Walesa’s visit underscores the weight that Illinois conservatives are placing on these midterm elections. Analogizing Soviet tyranny to the current onslaught of liberal big-governance was no stretch for the conservative crowd. Walesa — whose name is mentioned alongside Thatcher, Reagan, and Pope John Paul II as delivering the knockout punch to Soviet communism — departed by urging the crowd to “elect well,” a thinly veiled offer of good tidings to an audience hoping for change this election season. Never known for outwardly taking partisan sides in the U.S., Walesa’s very presence at the decidedly conservative fundraiser told the story.
Because Walesa is the enemy not a friend of America...
The Polish people were blessed to have had him as their President. He is truly a great man
NOWHERE TO HIDE
7 MINUTE VIDEO ON OUR CURRENT MESS.
If America – the IDEA – is to be saved, it’s up to US to save her.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqw7kXG0kxU
Since Sep 28, 2010
It's time for the Viking kitten to strike
Fool.
Oh so you post how long I have been a member what does that have to do with my argument?
This man is as much as a fan of liberty in America as Gorbachev.
Instead of attacking me why dont you do a little more research and then we can have a real debate.
Also, why do we have to elevate foreigners as leaders of liberty in America?
If he is such a freedom fighter why does he not help his people in Poland against the ever increasing Russian influence?
I look to our founding fathers. constitution and millions of young Americans in uniform as inspiration to motivate me to help turn this nation back around.
Sorry I dont need foreigners directing our way especially those who have such a questionable past as Walesa.
The fool is one who knows not of what he speaks; that my friend is you.
I can only hope that you defend American conservatives the same way you defend this man as a patriot to liberty in America.
If so I will give you a pass....
I suggest you crawl back under your rock from where you crawled out from, Troll
Thats what I thought just another liberal who attacks but never can debate the issues...
In New Lies for Old, Anatoliy Golitsyn charged that Solidarity was “suppressed” in 1981 (though not completely) as a maneuver to convince the West that it was an authentic opponent of the hard-line regime headed by Prime Minister Wojciech Jaruzelski. Golitsyn predicted (in 1984) that eventually “it may be expected that a coalition government will be formed [it was], comprising representatives of the communist party [there were many], of a revived Solidarity movement [after it was re-legalized], and of the church. A few so-called liberals might also be included [some were].”
During a series of “round table” negotiations between Solidarity and the ruling Communist government in March 1989, an agreement was reached on major political reform. Early in the negotiations, Walesa agreed to let the Communists have 65 percent of the Sejm (lower house of parliament) seats in the new government. With Walesa’s blessing, Jaruzelski, his supposed tormenter of less than a decade earlier, was elected president by parliament. Jaruzelski bowed out after Walesa was elected to succeed him in December 1990.
He wrote this before the solidarity movement took hold.
Facts vs Attacks....
No thanks, just get lost and we'll call it even.
I dont sit down to tyranny and those who wish to do harm to America it makes me even more hungry to defend her..
You must be schooled in Alinsky since you were the one calling names and which may explain why you are defending a communist sympathizer.
IBTZ!
Dittos!!!
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