Posted on 12/04/2005 10:34:44 AM PST by lizol
Conservative Poland Roils European Union
International Herald Tribune Published: December 4, 2005 By GRAHAM BOWLEY
BRUSSELS - When Polish members of the European Parliament placed an anti-abortion display in a parliamentary corridor in Strasbourg, France, recently, Ana Gomes, a Socialist legislator from Portugal, felt compelled to act, she said.
The display showed children in a concentration camp, linking abortion and Nazi crimes. "We found this deeply offensive," Ms. Gomes said. "We tried to remove it." A loud scuffle ensued as she and the Poles traded insults before the display was bundled away by Parliament guards.
But the matter does not end there. It was the latest skirmish in what some here see as an incipient culture war in the heart of Europe, a clash of values that has intensified since countries from Central and Eastern Europe that are experiencing an increase in the influence of the Roman Catholic Church joined the European Union last year.
In the 732-seat European Parliament, and more widely in the European Union, the clash extends beyond abortion to issues like women's rights and homosexuality.
"New groups have come in from Poland, the Czech Republic, Latvia, and Catholicism is certainly becoming a very angry voice against what it sees as a liberal E.U.," said Michael Cashman, 54, a European Parliament member from Britain who has campaigned for gay rights. "On women's rights and gay equality, we are fighting battles that we thought we had won years ago."
With a population of 40 million, Poland is the biggest of the 10 states that joined the European Union last year. It is still uncertain, 19 months later, how Poland, a formerly Communist and overwhelmingly Catholic nation, will fit in with the other members on issues from foreign policy to economic management.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
It was Stalin himself, who said once - "Imposing
Communism on Poland was like trying to saddle a cow."
Ignorance seems to be your forte.
Making up history as you go along.
LOL.
It was Stalin himself, who said once - "Imposing
Communism on Poland was like trying to saddle a cow."
Speaking as a Pollack, third-generation in this country, there is much compatibility between the Polish and the Russian religious communities, especially the White Russians that fled Russia during the Revolution of 1917 to settle here. Where I'm from the community is approximately half Catholic, half Orthodox, and almost all Slav. Some of my best friends are Orthodox Russians, and though we can still get into the heated arguments over various topics, we are united by one thing... our dislike of Protestants...
I drank more than a few bottles, especially in secondary school.
Great photos! Out of great suffering comes great holiness. Thank God Poland is holding onto its Catholic heritage in the face of European decadence.
That's good to here. I was there in the early '90s and Warsaw was drab, Soviet, concreteblockland.
OK, but that liquid thing, which you drank can be hardly called "wine" - as far as I can figure out what it was :-)))
Ahh yes, the wonders of "Socialist" architecture.
That's why I wrote Polish wine. Wine and Polish wine are two very different things.
and though we can still get into the heated arguments over various topics, we are united by one thing... our dislike of Protestants...
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LOL I hope not all Protestants....
You need to keep in mind that the Russian people suffered untold millions of deaths during the Marxist Leninist era, many millions more than Poland.
With that in mind, you must distinguish between Soviet Communism and the Russian people. Many many communist apparachiks were not even Russian!
I've heard some people rave about Wyborowa vodka. It used to be available in any well-stocked liquor stock and a bit more expensive than Smirnov. May want to check it out.
Yes, I think it has changed considerably since your visit, although you can certainly still find the dreary Soviet-era buildings all around. But now there are designer clothing stores and jewelry stores and some high-end restaurants. It is still relatively poor by Western European standards, but they have clearly made some breakthroughs and there is an emerging business class that is making serious money. In fact, in Gdansk they have an exhibit which consists of a replica of a shortage-riddled Communist-era shop, just so the younger ones will know what it was like in the not very distant past. It was indeed a bleak setting.
1. Stalin was by no means the first Russian to try to put a saddle on the Polish cow. Long line of tsars preceded him in that effort, with equally ill-fitting results.
2. If the saddle being shaken off is to be attributed to one man, it would be John Paul II.
Stalin wasn't a Russian.
The victory of Roanld Reagan was the main impetus to the downfill of Communism.
You have two out of two wrong.
Half of SS was not even German.
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