Posted on 08/18/2005 12:58:20 PM PDT by lizol
Polish ex-communists embrace Solidarity legacy 2005-08-18 16:00
By Wojciech Moskwa WARSAW, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Poland's ruling leftists, desperate to escape a drubbing at next month's polls, are seeking to shake off their ex-communist stigma by embracing the myth of the Solidarity movement that toppled communism.
With domestic media focused on this month's 25th anniversary of Solidarity strikes and the election campaign heating up, the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) launched a campaign retrospectively backing demands of protesting shipyard workers in 1980.
In the advertisements, the SLD's young leaders say they would have supported Solidarity if they had been old enough. "We were only six-years-old then ... We didn't have a chance to back these demands," said the SLD leaders, appointed in a last ditch effort in June to disassociate the party with former communists embroiled in sleaze scandals.
"The 'walls have fallen' but divisions between the rich and poor, the satiated and the hungry and those with jobs and the unemployed remain standing."
Local television networks and newspapers run daily reminders of the "Polish August", when shipyard workers in Gdansk stood up to an oppressive communist regime and Solidarity became the first free trade union behind the Iron Curtain.
The campaign was harshly criticised by former dissidents and the resurgent centre-right, itself rooted in the Solidarity movement and tipped to unseat the SLD in the Sept. 25 election.
"The communists never got over losing (to Solidarity) and now they hope that their young leaders will save them by calling on the legacy of the Polish August," Solidarity founder and former President Lech Walesa told daily Gazeta Wyborcza.
Sociologists say the SLD's campaign also shows that the main dividing line across Polish politics since the 1989 democratic revolution -- on which side of the barricade politicians stood in the volatile 1980s -- was becoming blurred. "The Solidarity anniversary will probably not make any big impact on opinion polls as the Solidarity myth is becoming part of Poles' collective memory, not that of a particular political force," said Jacek Raciborski, sociologist at Warsaw university.
These SOB's simply have no shame!
No, they don't. So how long before Hillary! starts reminding us she was a "Goldwater Girl" ?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.