
I survived the Warsaw ghetto. Here are the lessons I’d like to pass on - TheAlchemist
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/05/survived-warsaw-ghetto-wartime-lessons-extremism-europe
======
nkoren
"Finally, do not ever imagine that your world cannot collapse, as ours did."

This.

People like to imagine that there is some kind of corrective force to history,
some invisible hand that will, inevitably, push things into balance and
restore normality.

There is not. Many times in history -- for many peoples, nations, and
civilisations -- the world has ended. That is a completely normal thing to
happen, albeit extremely unpleasant and very often lethal for those involved.

Things are not different this time. If civilisation survives, it will be
because people have laboured with great difficulty and courage to _make_ it
survive. It has always been thus, and always will be.

Do not take it for granted.

(Edit: unclear language.)

~~~
jm__87
On the flipside, worrying that the world could collapse at any moment is not a
way to live. If things are going to collapse, there is likely nothing you can
do as an individual to stop it from happening, so why worry about it. As far
as I can think of, all you can reasonably do as an individual to prevent this
outcome is try to vote for decent political candidates and do your best to be
good to the people around you. These are things that decent, responsible
people do to begin with. I don't see how I could use this lesson in any other
possible way.

~~~
toasterlovin
> If things are going to collapse, there is likely nothing you can do as an
> individual to stop it from happening, so why worry about it.

Because there are some incredibly easy, low cost things you can do to increase
your odds of surviving a collapse. Most people aren’t prepared to survive 2
weeks without a grocery store and electricity.

~~~
jm__87
> Because there are some incredibly easy, low cost things you can do to
> increase your odds of surviving a collapse.

Seriously? Even if you had extra food and water to last years, you're totally
screwed as soon as people around you who have run out find out that you're
hoarding all that. No matter what you had to prepare, if enough people get
together they can always come and take it from you.

~~~
toasterlovin
The key phrase here is "increase your odds"

If you don't have several days worth of water then you are well and truly
fucked no matter what you do. If you do have several days worth of water then
your odds of surviving just went way up, even if they still aren't great. The
same logic applies to having food, first aid supplies, guns, etc.

------
lixtra
> If disaster comes, you will find that all the myths you once cherished are
> of no use to you.

This spring I visited Notre Dame in Paris. I saw four soldiers patroling the
street, spread out a few meters apart from each other, one finger close to the
triger, barrel pointing to the ground. Reminded me of a patrol in a vietnam
movie.

A similar scene I saw last year in Italy altough the soldiers were much more
relaxed.

In Bern, Switzerland the Christmas market was protected by huge concrete
blocks wrapped in gift paper.

This may be all security theatre. Or the times are really changing.

I found "On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century" a good read
(the lessons, not the comment). I depends on us simple citizens to carry and
defend civilization and avoid disaster.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
Back in the 1970s, during the heyday of far-left terrorist groups, it was
quite common for foreign tourists to be shocked at soldiers patrolling with
guns in Germany or Italy. There may have been a lull in such things in the
following decades, but what you saw is not particularly unprecedented
historically and I wouldn’t be too concerned.

~~~
zwaps
Soldiers, patrolling with guns, in Germany... Are you sure?

~~~
mmPzf
To add some context, the German constitution states that the German military
may not operate within German borders (with some exceptions, e.g. disaster
relief during natural disasters). Seeing armed soldiers would be very out of
the ordinary.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
I do not mean soldiers _sensu stricto_ (German army) but Bundepolizei with
heavy weaponry.

------
botverse
EDIT

Seen the backlash I’m getting with the comment, would like to clarify that
what sparked it was this sentence:

> "No nation has a monopoly on virtue – something that many people, including
> many of my fellow Israeli citizens, still struggle to understand."

Where the author seems to hint to consider all that follows himself.

TIDE

Very powerful message. I would really want to know what Aronson thinks about
the situation in Israel with the Palestinians. Of course not to compare the
fate of the Jewish people during the savage years of the Holocaust with this
of the Palestinians. But Israel seems to have forgotten the humanity of the
Palestinians, striping them from their human rights, or passing laws that
could affect the rights of Israeli minorities [0].

Obviously condemning the actions of terrorists, atrocities committed against
the people of Israel by Palestinians, and that deserving it’s own discussion,
just pointing out that because the number of dead Palestinian people is
relevant enough and the author who fought for and lives in Israel, was
speaking of when countries do dehumanize people and was hoping that in this
case there would be voices in Israel that could disagree with the current
situation.

[0] -
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Law:_Israel_as_the_Nat...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Law:_Israel_as_the_Nation-
State_of_the_Jewish_People)

~~~
edanm
No offense intended (really!), but you're talking about a very complicated
situation, which it appears that you don't really understand fully.

> But Israel seems to have forgotten the humanity of the Palestinians,
> striping them from their human rights, or passing laws that could affect the
> rights of Israeli minorities [0].

The situation of the Palestinians is terrible, IMO. But there is simply no
simple solution that anyone has for how to solve it. Sure, some Israelis are
terrible people, and are racist, etc, as are many Americans, Europeans, etc.
But as a whole, the reason the Palestinian situation continues is partly
because no one really has a good answer to how to solve it! It's probably also
partly because Israel has more power right now, and the feeling is that the
longer the situation continues, the better for Israel, so why not let it drag
out? But if there _were_ a decent solution, many people in Israel would push
very hard to implement it. The truth is, most Israelis just don't know what to
do anymore (and solutions _have_ been tried before, negotiations have
happened).

And btw, the new law that you talk about isn't really going to affect
Palestinians so much as minority citizens of Israel (and it probably won't
actually affect them either, it's more a symbolic thing I think).

> just pointing out that because the number of dead Palestinian people is
> relevant enough and the author who fought for and lives in Israel, was
> speaking of when countries do dehumanize people and was hoping that in this
> case there would be voices in Israel that could disagree with the current
> situation.

If you think there aren't voices in Israel who disagree with the current
situation, you're very wrong. Unfortunately, as I said, many people have
"given up", or at least have no idea what to do anymore.

~~~
botverse
No offence taken.

> But there is simply no simple solution that anyone has for how to solve it.

I think the problem can be less complicated if there is a sincere open
conversation around it.

Let's put some context. In 1948 lots of people were dispossessed of their land
and properties, this is still a very controversial thing that is very
difficult to talk about. Just go to Jaffa in Israel and ask any Israeli person
living in an Arab looking house how their family got to own it and you will
realise how of a taboo subject this is. Of course there is no reparations or
right of return in the pipeline of the talks.

So the first step to solve a problem is realising of it's existence. Instead,
Israel seems to continue putting pressure onto the Palestinians with the
appropriation of more land and the creation of more settlements [0].

[0] - [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-
east-45276555](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-45276555)

~~~
edanm
> I think the problem can be less complicated if there is a sincere open
> conversation around it.

While I wish that was true, I don't think it is.

For one thing, I don't think the subject is nearly as taboo as you imagine -
Israelis love to talk politics, after all!

However I think that most Israelis would disagree with your characterization
of what happened in '48\. The (I think typical) view is that the UN decided to
split Israel into two states, one for Jews and one for Palestinians. However,
the Arab countries urged the Palestinians to leave Israel, as they were
preparing to attack Israel. They attacked, Israel won, and ended up with _all_
the original land, with most of the Palestinians having fled to neighboring
countries in the meantime. Israel didn't really do anything wrong - it simply
won a war, which would likely have ended up with Israel destroyed if it had
lost. Reparations wouldn't really make sense in that view. (That summary is
basically my view of the history as I understand it, so assume the summary
would probably be told differently by someone with a different opinion.)

The other issue with your statement is that even with open conversation around
this issue wouldn't really change anything. At the end of the day, the right
of return is something that simply can't be granted, not if Israel wants to
remain a Jewish country, which is the entire reason it was founded (and in my
view, in light of the historical precedents, a totally valid and moral
reason). And Israelis simply don't trust the Palestinians with having a state
right next to it - which probably doesn't matter much, since Palestinians
don't appear to accept such a solution either.

So simply saying "well let's just talk about it and it will work out" is
ignoring the fact that, no, there probably _isn 't_ a solution right now that
both sides will find acceptable, unfortunately, and the structural forces of
the situation are probably such that nothing will change anyway (e.g. as I
said, Israel being in power and thinking it's probably better to delay action
on this as much as possible, Hamas being in power in Gaza and preferring to
keep the situation mostly as is).

~~~
Udik
> The (I think typical) view is that the UN decided to split Israel into two
> states, one for Jews and one for Palestinians. However, the Arab countries
> urged the Palestinians to leave Israel, as they were preparing to attack
> Israel.

Haha. No. The UN decided to split _Palestine_ in two states, giving half of it
to the Jews. Of course the Jews had everything to gain from this partition and
the Palestinians everything to lose, since they were the sole owners of the
place. Of course they rejected the partition and there was a war, but the
Palestinians have been actively _expelled_ by the Israeli army. In fact, 200
thousand of them had already fled their villages _before_ Israel's declaration
of independence, to escape from violence- episodes like that of Deir Yassin,
where a Jewish commando massacred the inhabitants of a Palestinian village-
women and children included-, throwing grenades inside the houses. It was a
proper ethnic cleansing operation.

> Israel didn't really do anything wrong

No, as far as ethnic cleansing goes, Israel didn't do anything wrong.

> At the end of the day, the right of return is something that simply can't be
> granted, not if Israel wants to remain a Jewish country

I agree with this. However, I also think that the right of return is mostly
aspirational, and given good will on Israel's part, the issue could be just
ignored long enough until it's not an issue anymore. By good will on Israel's
part, I mean: establish a border once and for all (on the green line), abandon
all settlements beyond that border, either renounce completely to Jerusalem
east or share the undivided capital with a Palestinian state, completely
remove the blockade of Gaza (and create a wide corridor between Gaza and the
West Bank). Stop opposing the creation of a Palestinian state, and contribute
to it with aids and reparations (that would make up for the right of return).

You'll say: this is a lot to ask from Israel. And it is, because Israel is
currently enjoying great profits from its illegal and immoral actions, and
there will be no end to the conflict until it decides to abide to
international law and moral standards.

~~~
edanm
> Haha. No. The UN decided to split _Palestine_ in two states, giving half of
> it to the Jews.

You're right of course, I misspoke, it wasn't yet Israel.

> Of course the Jews had everything to gain from this partition and the
> Palestinians everything to lose, since they were the sole owners of the
> place.

I'm not sure that's true - the territory was under British control, then was
given over to the UN.

> Of course they rejected the partition and there was a war, but the
> Palestinians have been actively expelled by the Israeli army. In fact, 200
> thousand of them had already fled their villages before Israel's declaration
> of independence, to escape from violence- episodes like that of Deir Yassin,
> where a Jewish commando massacred the inhabitants of a Palestinian village-
> women and children included-, throwing grenades inside the houses. It was a
> proper ethnic cleansing operation.

Look, this is, to say the least, disputed. I'm not going to say I know any
more than you about this - and I think even the most pro-Israeli version of
events would still leave a lot of Israelis looking pretty bad (Deir Yassin
being one obvious and horrific example). Many of the more pro-Israeli
historians will point out the calls from Arab leaders for Palestinians to
flee, the pretty clear reasoning that if the Arab countries had won the war,
most likely Israel would have been largely exterminated, given even more
reason for the Palestinians to flee, etc. I don't either of us can know for
sure just how much of the Palestinians fleeing was because of Israeli actions,
real fear, imagined fear, or what.

Still, even after all this - is what happened so unprecedented by historical
standards that leaves most people singling out Israel as a particularly
immoral country? I mean, barely 3 years earlier WW2 had ended, in which
_millions_ were killed, in bombing of civilian populations, in the use of
nuclear weapons, and in many other ways. Do you consider Germany to be an
immoral country today because of what they did during WW2? Or England, the
States, Japan? What bothers me is the (seeming) double standard, where people
consider Israel to be so much worse, for doing so much less than almost any
other country. The main reason we're still talking about this is because there
are a lot of vested interests in keeping the Palestinian population in their
terrible situation (including Israeli interests, but not only!). The birth of
Israeli was _far_ less terrible than many contemporary episodes (e.g. the
situation in Syria, in which the death toll was sometimes as high as 10k per
day iirc; not to say that this is the bar I set for Israel).

> By good will on Israel's part, I mean: establish a border once and for all
> (on the green line), abandon all settlements beyond that border, either
> renounce completely to Jerusalem east or share the undivided capital with a
> Palestinian state, completely remove the blockade of Gaza (and create a wide
> corridor between Gaza and the West Bank) [...] You'll say: this is a lot to
> ask from Israel. And it is, because Israel is currently enjoying great
> profits from its illegal and immoral actions [...]

First a minor point - the blockage isn't Israel's alone. It's also Egypt's.

Secondly - I personally agree with a lot of your points and wish Israel
behaved differently. E.g. I think the settlements are terrible. I understand
why many people support them from a real-politick perspective (and of course
some support them from a religious/"greater Israel" perspective too). Many
Israelis _don 't_ support the settlements, but the right has been in power
here for a long time.

Still, you're ignoring the main issue for people like me - most of what you
ask puts Israel at great risk. Splitting our capital, helping create a
Palestinian state that's right on our border - it's pretty hard to do with a
population of people who appear to be pretty hell-bent on killing us. Of
course not all Palestinians would really want the destruction of Israel, and
of course a big part of the reason they continue to attack Israel is because
of their terrible situation, largely caused by Israel itself. That's the
unfortunate reality we have to contend with - would _you_ agree to put a bunch
of people who are currently constantly trying to kill you, right on your
border, and give them total freedom?

Again, I'm not saying (nor have I ever said) that the situation is good - I
think it's terrible. I just said that there are no simple good solutions here
- and it's _not_ just a matter of "Israel needs to sacrifice" \- not when the
sacrifice is opening up Israel to people who might kill 10s and even 100s of
thousands of people.

Btw, just to give one example - Hamas is constantly smuggling in things
through the border, and using funds given to aid Palestinians, in order to do
things like build tunnels into Israel, to allow them to perform terror attacks
on Israelis (usually - go in and kill a bunch of civilians). Under this
circumstance - which is the reality right now - do you really not see why
Israelis are reluctant to open up the borders _more_? It's pretty obvious that
doing so will directly result in more Israelis being killed. Do I think steps
like this must happen to bring about peace? Yes. But that doesn't make it
easier to take these steps.

~~~
Udik
> the territory was under British control, then was given over to the UN.

It doesn't really matter who had control of it. Ireland wasn't any less of the
Irish people when it was controlled by England, or Poland less Polish when it
was controlled by the Nazis. The Palestinians lived there, therefore it was
their land.

> the pretty clear reasoning that if the Arab countries had won the war, most
> likely Israel would have been largely exterminated

You don't "exterminate" a country, you exterminate people. And I don't think
the idea of the war was to exterminate the Jews, but to get back the country
to their legitimate owners.

> Do you consider Germany to be an immoral country today because of what they
> did during WW2?

No. I consider Israel immoral _today_ because of what it is doing _today_.
Germany did unspeakable things, but it suffered all the consequences, and has
paid to the last cent, and there is practically no relationship between what
the country is today and what it was 70 years ago.

> What bothers me is the (seeming) double standard, where people consider
> Israel to be so much worse, for doing so much less than almost any other
> country.

I find it almost sweet that Jews seek their normalcy by trying to catch up on
all the horrid stuff that other countries did before we could call them
civilised by the modern standards. Jokes apart, what bothers me as a European
observer is not only, and maybe not mainly, the substance of what Israel is
doing. In your comment you mention Syria- and there are a lot of conflicts,
ethnic cleansing and genocides going on in the world. What really bothers me
is both the fact that Israel is a western country, and the level of support it
gets from other western countries. There's a lot of people that get caught
red-handed stealing, big deal; it's a completely different thing if it's a
family member that gets caught, and then keeps insisting, beyond any
plausibility, that he wasn't in fact stealing, that the purse was _disputed_.
Pure chutzpah. I hope this expresses well my feelings.

> the blockage isn't Israel's alone. It's also Egypt's.

I'm not sure about this, but I believe that Egypt does it to appease Israel-
what other reasons would it have for the blockade otherwise?

> Many Israelis don't support the settlements, but the right has been in power
> here for a long time.

The settlements are the occupation of somebody else's land to settle your own
civilian population in it. This is not just any political disagreement. It's
_utterly unacceptable_. You should storm the parliament and the government
until every single Israeli has been relocated inside the borders. How many
people living in a settlement you know? How easy is to choose to do it because
it's probably cheaper than renting of buying in Israel?

> it's pretty hard to do with a population of people who appear to be pretty
> hell-bent on killing us

We were talking about de-humanising the enemy in order to better kill it.
There it is. Palestinians are not hell-bent on killing you, they're rightly
enraged for what you're doing to them. Stop doing it now, be cooperative, and
their rage will fade. But of course it's much better to proclaim, as Israel
does, that you'll be taking and taking until the Palestinians will stop hating
you. Which is of course, never.

------
horsecaptin
I've been a member of some minority almost all my life. On more than one
occasion I've been a refugee, a tourist, an immigrant, a high scoring student,
the new person.

My rules for success as a minority.

\- If you are the minority, never forget this. Ever.

\- Don't congregate in a manner that excludes the majority.

\- Sure, be proud of who you are and where you come from, but remember that
the majority are also proud and they have far superior numbers. So, be sure to
operate in a manner that does not offend their pride: include them in your
celebrations and be there for them in their time of mourning.

\- Be useful. Find ways to be useful.

\- Set your goals to be the best example of not just the minority that you
belong to but the majority as well.

I've found that whenever a minority breaks one of these rules, they do so at
their own peril. They needn't break any laws to gain the scorn of the
majority.

------
phonz
I agree that the current generation has lost the lesson of World War Two: that
war is never a good option. I personally believe that part of the success of
the us post ww2, and part of the really nice culture we had (sans racism etc)
is because a huge number of men walking around knew what the end result of
violence is. Nowadays, men are very quick to get puffy and to provoke
conflicts. They are fools. If someone forced all those belligerent idiots to
hide in a fox-hole and watch their buddy’s head explode a few feet away, and
all the rest, for months and months, they wouldn’t walk around acting like
tough guys.

I have seen the most profound violence imaginable, the worst you might see in
a war. It has done nothing else than to make me an adamant pacifist. I can not
articulate it correctly — all I can say is that at a certain level, violence
does things to your mind that you didn’t know about. It’s just not comparable
with human existence.

~~~
philwelch
> I agree that the current generation has lost the lesson of World War Two:
> that war is never a good option.

That is the exact opposite of the lesson of World War Two. The notion that war
is not a good option and should be avoided by any means necessary is why it
took six years and millions of lives to put Hitler down instead of what it
would have taken to stop him before he finished building his war machine.

The “pacifists” of World War II were the traitors and collaborators who stood
by and did nothing, other than surrender their armies and homelands and offer
aid and comfort, as Hitler butchered an entire continent and murdered tens of
millions of innocents.

~~~
prmph
> The “pacifists” of World War II were the traitors and collaborators who
> stood by and did nothing, other than surrender their armies and homelands
> and offer aid and comfort, as Hitler butchered an entire continent and
> murdered tens of millions of innocents.

You know, the Germans said something similar about jewish "traitors" who
supposedly caused their defeat in WW1, and this contributed to the build up to
the atrocities of WW2.

"That war is never a good option" is precisely the lesson of war, forget about
who are supposedly the good guys vs the bad guys. The countries that comprised
the allied forces in WW2 have waged aggressive, unjustified wars themselves
since then. Are you saying such aggression is the result of them having
learned the right lessons from WW2? (i.e., to not be pacifist?)

~~~
philwelch
The point I have to make here was made far more effectively by Orwell in 1945,
so I’ll just quote him:

> The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are
> simply humanitarians who object to the taking of life and prefer not to
> follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of
> intellectual pacifists whose real though unadmitted motive appears to be
> hatred of western democracy and admiration of totalitarianism. Pacifist
> propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the
> other, but if one looks closely at the writings of younger intellectual
> pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial
> disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United
> States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only
> violence used in defence of the western countries. The Russians, unlike the
> British, are not blamed for defending themselves by warlike means, and
> indeed all pacifist propaganda of this type avoids mention of Russia or
> China. It is not claimed, again, that the Indians should abjure violence in
> their struggle against the British. Pacifist literature abounds with
> equivocal remarks which, if they mean anything, appear to mean that
> statesmen of the type of Hitler are preferable to those of the type of
> Churchill, and that violence is perhaps excusable if it is violent enough.
> After the fall of France, the French pacifists, faced by a real choice which
> their English colleagues have not had to make, mostly went over to the
> Nazis, and in England there appears to have been some small overlap of
> membership between the Peace Pledge Union and the Blackshirts. Pacifist
> writers have written in praise of Carlyle, one of the intellectual fathers
> of Fascism. All in all it is difficult not to feel that pacifism, as it
> appears among a section of the intelligentsia, is secretly inspired by an
> admiration for power and successful cruelty. The mistake was made of pinning
> this emotion to Hitler, but it could easily be retransferred.

[https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-
foundation/orwel...](https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-
foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/notes-on-nationalism/)

------
obblekk
Although I broadly agree with the author that we should remember the past, I
am sad that his tone suggests we are doomed to forget it.

~~~
isodude
Forgetting is a double edged sword, but one needed for us to live in the
present. Living in the future or the past is what really opens up for hatred
and fear. Unless something acts as a reminder how bad it really was, it will
become fairy tales eventually.. "it couldn't have been that bad right?". But
it shouldn't hinder us for trying to make it better in the future.

Edit: It's up to us all to prove the author wrong, it makes me sad when I talk
to people that try really hard to wrap everything in lies to make themselves
feel better. Maybe the starting point that dooms is when parents/states tries
to smooth over horrible events.

~~~
philwelch
It's hard to remember the lessons without remembering how we learned them, but
it happens sometimes. The founding ideals of the modern world rose from the
ashes of the Thirty Years War, and they stuck around pretty well even after
that war passed from living memory.

Sadly, the lessons learned from the 20th century didn't even seem to survive
that long. If anything, the very ideas that the 20th century utterly
discredited are poised to overturn even the Enlightenment.

~~~
isodude
Back then we were relying on tales told from grandparents, or for that matter
trades learnt from parents, it seems now that much i dissolved by mega
industries or common databases/search indexes. Like we used to remember phone
numbers but now it's not needed. Wikipedia can hold all the bad memories so we
don't need to.

From an energy conservation perspective it's great. But how far should we let
it go?

------
ksdale
I took a class in college that only covered genocide, and if there is one
single lesson I took away from that, it is that all of the worst atrocities in
the history of the world grow out of a seed of convincing people that there
are other people out there who are (for whatever reason) less than them and
should be defeated. If those people are less than us, then the normal rules of
decency surely don't apply and we should do all we can to win.

In the time since I took that class, I've made a giant effort to never
attribute what I believe are wrong opinions or bad behavior to some inherent
trait. No matter how reprehensible I think someone's opinion, I try to
remember that they are a human and deserve decency. That doesn't mean we
shouldn't fight for things we believe are right, but the second we start
believing that we are fighting monsters, we become willing to do monstrous
things.

In the US, there seems to be a growing urge to attribute most political
opposition to some sort of ingrained difference and it seems impossible that
this attribution could ever lead to any sort of resolution short of armed
conflict.

~~~
late2part
_one single lesson I took away from that, it is that all of the worst
atrocities in the history of the world grow out of a seed of convincing people
that there are other people out there who are (for whatever reason) less than
them_

Isn't that what most Police espouse? That there is a 'blue line' and they
judge who is good and who is less than good?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_blue_line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_blue_line)

~~~
ksdale
I don't think there's a conflict between being realistic about the fact that
some people will do bad things and the belief that we can still be
compassionate toward those people.

Obviously the main problem I'm talking about is more about when you decide a
priori that whole groups of people will definitely do bad things and are
therefore worthy of bad treatment regardless of whether they have actually
done anything, but I think there are lots of police entities out there that
carry out their duties professionally and compassionately.

------
Udik
I know only one western country that in the last 50 years has shut a million
people in a hermetically sealed ghetto; that installs its own civilian
population in some other people's land, that shoots those who protest with
live bullets, killing hundreds and injuring tens of thousands; and dehumanizes
its victims every day with a "it's us or them" narrative. And it's not in
Europe. Actually, it's Aronson's country, Israel.

I think that good lessons are valuable in themselves, wherever they might come
from. But even to this there is a limit. Lecturing modern Poland on fairness
and the lessons of the past while not even mentioning what your own country is
doing is just shameless.

~~~
c_hawkthorne
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Sarajevo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Sarajevo)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trnopolje_camp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trnopolje_camp)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars)

~~~
Udik
> I know only one western country that in the last 50 years has shut a million
> people in a hermetically sealed ghetto...

You're right: I should have added: ...and that it's happily getting away with
it, receiving applause, economic aid and unwavering support by the same
powerful countries that like to warn about the lessons of history.

------
baud147258
> My country and much of the continent was destroyed by lies

Just like the mountains of lies in our current globally-owned media is
destroying our current civilization.

------
tomohawk
> do not underestimate the destructive power of lies

When people are unwilling to hold fast to truth, that is when terrible things
happen. When someone tells a lie, for example, "the reason you don't have a
job and things are bad is because of those Jews". Or, "those Jews are not
human - we have to protect ourselves". That is when people who would not
normally do bad things do bad things. They can believe they are saving their
country from destruction by sub-humans. They can believe that they are in fact
performing a heroic action.

Some of the labeling heard today seems to be coming close to this, and with
terrible consequences. People are losing their jobs, their careers, their
ability to express their views, and their ability to practice their religious
beliefs - all for the "greater good". Instead of respecting a person's
inalienable rights - because they are a human that always deserves this
respect - some people are telling themselves that it is OK to disrespect
others to achieve some utopian state. This is the biggest lie.

~~~
yesenadam
Do you know the difference between a _lie_ and a _falsehood_?

I think it does a _lot_ of damage in the world, people labelling things as
_lies_ when they merely think they're not true. It's very inflammatory.
"That's a lie!" says not only "That's not true" but "and you know it". Which
often is itself not true. Thus you could be accused of lying yourself.

Very often people are lied to in the media[0], then adopt false beliefs, which
they then repeat - but they're not lying when they do so, they believe these
things.

It poisons communication when this word 'lies' is thrown around loosely.
People disagree about a lot of things. It usually doesn't mean they're lying
about it. Usually you have no idea whether people you don't know are lying or
saying false things they believe. How could you know that with certainty.

It's not even possible for a sentence to be a lie, in the way you seem to
believe. A sentence uttered by a person, yes, but detach it as you did from
any speaker, and it can only be true or false. A _lie_ requires specific
knowledge in the mind of the particular person uttering the sentence.

[0]Whoops - see, I even did it myself. I don't know if that's right.

~~~
didibus
What's the use you see for the distinction? In practicality?

~~~
yesenadam
Well, that's a strange question. It's mostly how people talk to each other -
we don't ordinarily hear e.g.

 _Teacher:_ What's 8+9? _Tommy:_ Uh..11. _Teacher:_ No, that's a lie!

It seems that particularly in heated political contexts, people enjoy calling
false statements _lies_ , and don't notice or care that what they're
themselves saying isn't true. The end justifies the means, anything that
scores points in the fight is good, even the same or worse than what you're
accusing the other guy of doing.

~~~
didibus
But in the context of this article, I don't think it matters if people truly
believe in the madness, or if they purposely put themselves behind it. You
still end up with atrocities.

Say Nazis weren't lied too, say all the way up, people really just had these
false impressions.

You make decisions that affect others, you're responsible for them. If you
made a mistake, used falsehoods as your basis for the decisions, and did
atrocious things, or, you did them willingly, I don't know. They're both bad.

If thinking it's a lie pushes you to validate the truthfulness of your
knowledge, then so be it. Even if you weren't lied to. It's all about that
constant active search for the truth, and a certain amount of challenging what
you hear, criticizing the so called facts, and looking a little harder.

Tommy should know better. If he goes on living with that false belief of
numbers, he's a threat to society. He'll make wrong choices, miscalculation,
and his judgment can't be trusted. The same as if he was a liar.

We should teach people this responsibility. You have to put in the effort to
rid yourself of falsehoods and be a truth seeker.

Also, most people should be able to judge their confidence in their knowledge.
A lot of people end up doing things even though if they spent a few minutes
thinking about it, they would know that they're not sure about this. Yet they
do it anyway. That's getting pretty close to a lie.

~~~
yesenadam
(Sorry, I didn't read the article.) Well, I find that point of
view....extremely strange. Yes, people make mistakes, get things wrong. You
can't learn without making mistakes. One definition of an expert is "Someone
who's made all the mistakes there is to make, in a very narrow field." Lying
is a whole other thing. If you don't know that, I'm not sure what to say to
you. It's as if I'd said "You shouldn't correct children when they make
mistakes". I think there must be some misunderstanding, because I literally
can't believe you can't see the difference, or think it means nothing.

~~~
didibus
I think you should read the article, I'm talking in relation to it, and
children is absolutly a terrible analogy for what I'm talking about.

I know its not the same thing. But I don't see how it matters to the article.

The article is about how falsehoods and lies can cause fear and lead to chaos
(amongst other things). Such as what happened in world war 2, where countries
turned against each others and targeted Jews.

In that sense, I don't think it matters, you believe Jews are responsible for
all your problems and up to get you, so you go commit genocide against them.
Does it matter if that idea was a lie or a falsehood? What if Hitler truly
believed it? Okay, its a falsehood. So what? He just made a mistake? Everyone
makes mistakes?

That's my point. How could all this happen? Suddenly, a falsehood or a lie
turned rogue, doesn't matter, but somehow everyone has these ideas, and the
whole world starts to act irrationally.

You're a politician, you need to validate your claims before claiming them.
You should fact check, have a confidence ratio, justify yourself. You can't
just go: "oh sorry, I guess it was false, I just didn't know" after you've
already rallied, propagated and enacted laws and decree based on it. But it
seems you're trying to claim that spreading falsehoods as a politician isn't
as bad as spreading lies. Like if spreading falsehoods was okay. I don't think
it is. It's just as bad, and can, and has, lead to great historical atrocities
in the past.

------
Pica_soO
I do no longer think that people actually learn from history. They do so if
they percieve to gain a advantage from that, but the advantage of something
"normal" like peace and prosperity in europe, is only visible in hindsight.

I think, people must be vaccinated against radicalism, again and again, by
experiencing the outcomes for themselves.

If you are discriminated and robbed in your favorite online game, for no other
reason then who you are or your name- without any success when appealing to
the "state", you begin to understand what it is like to have been a jew in
europe.

Another difficult fact remains- only the prosperity of the past and the
nuclear weapons kept these dark tides at bay.

The politics, the memorials and the activism did & do nothing.

~~~
dougmwne
I hope you're wrong. Truly, redicliously incorrect. I fear you're right, or at
least that you need to have a family member who was hurt by war to appreciate
peace. I think the world's current swerve towards extremeism might be caused
by the WW2 generation passing away and their children moving into retirement.
Maybe in just one more generation we'll have all forgotten the horror and be
ready for round 3.

~~~
GW150914
Well if that’s true the learning curve will be so steep as to resemble a
cliff. I’m not usually a nuclear war alarmist, given that all players stand to
lose, but which country capable of world war will lose gracefully without
nuking someone? China? Russia? The USA? UK? It’s a bit long in the tooth, but
I think Einstein was right.

 _I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War
IV will be fought with sticks and stones._

~~~
dougmwne
Something I find interesting about WW1 was that it was preceded by a long
period of general peace. During that period, we had been in the steep part of
the industrial revolution's S-curve. Modern nation states had been solidifying
their centralized power. The world was globalized and war was unthinkable.

Once war broke out, the participating governments seemed shocked at their new
found power to wage total war, through their industrial economies, their
rapidly expanding populations, and their amplified political power.

If such an unthinkable war were to break out today, our knowledge of our
destructive capability is 70 years out of date. Who knows what atrocities we
might accomplish.

~~~
icebraining
War wasn't that unthinkable:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-
Japanese_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War)

They already feature such typical WW1 elements like machine guns, barbed wire,
and frontal assaults on entrenched enemy positions (with the associated
carnage).

~~~
int_19h
Something on the scale of WW1 was considered unthinkable by many even so. And
they had good reasons to believe it, because if you looked at the numbers, it
simply didn't make sense - even in the best case, the material gains for the
victors would be dwarfed by economic losses, mostly because of how involved
international trade was between all the potential opponents.

There was a book, published 5 yeas before WW1, that argued that exact point.
It wasn't obscure, either.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion)

These days, I hear very similar points - "China doesn't need a war with US,
because US is its biggest export market", or, say, "Europe doesn't need a war
with Russia, because it depends on Russian gas"...

------
pier25
It seems the author is conveniently forgetting the atrocities Israel is
committing.

~~~
JabavuAdams
To conclude that requires a very selective reading of the article, as he
explicitly talks about his own country.

~~~
Udik
Explicitly certainly not. It only mentions Israel in a very passing reference:
"No nation has a monopoly on virtue – something that many people, including
many of my fellow Israeli citizens, still struggle to understand." Way too
little.

------
expertentipp
Referencing modern Poland is uncalled for. At this moment this voice is
becoming just another one in a dirty political quarrel. History is still being
studied in Poland, no worries Mr. Aronson and Guardian.

~~~
ajuc
Modern Poland is going the nationalist populism way. The article is very much
called for, and it is needed.

We have a government that builds its ideology on the notion that Poland was
always innocent and heroic, Poles were always the victims, we should be proud
of our country, anybody who says otherwise is a traitor, leftist, marxist, or
other kind of undesirable.

They build their support on historic resentment towards Germans (because WW2
but also because now they are leftists and want to put terrorists in our
country), EU in general (because they are leftist and lie to us, they only
give us money to abuse us, we would be better off outside), Jews (because they
are lying that Poles were killing them and helping Germans in WW2, because
they want our money from reperations, because they are behind every leftist
conspiracy ever). Among the enemies of the people are also private media,
NGOs, ecologists, liberal and socialist governments anywhere, liberal media.
Whoever criticizes any particular thing government did becomes a part of
conspiracy, and then it suffices to show that this guy is in any way connected
to any previously ostracized group - and you can safely ignore whatever (s)he
says.

There's this paranoia that people abroad say "polish death camps" and think
that death camps were created by Poles. So they post every single mention in
foreign media of the term, and there's public outrage.

There was a stupid law recently introduced that was punishing "blaming Polish
nation or state for Holocaust or other crimes against humanity". It was
unconstutitional obviously, but constutitional tribunal isn't working anymore.
It was also stupid, because there were crimes against humanity done by Poles
(although on small scale).

It was introduced, predictably Israel, USA, and others protested - government
used it as a way to portrait everybody opposing this law as a traitor paid by
Jews. That was the rhethoric. And USA obviously is only protesting because
Israel forces them to (because government at once tries to show USA as an
alternative to EU which is the big devil according to them, and to show that
USA when it criticizes Poland is the enemy too). It's funny how they
contradict themselves sometimes.

For like half a year the law was suspended, and government blamed everything
evil on Jews for opposing it. There was a huge antisemitic campaign in the
media, both traditional (public TV, radio, etc), and social media. People were
posting every single story from WW2 where a Jew did something bad (because
that makes Poles collaborating with Germans ok somehow :) ).

There was a 50 anniversary of 1968 expulsion of Jews from Poland by communist
regime. Somehow, despite current government dislike of communists - they
managed to make it look like 1968 was bad, but Jews had it coming.

USA blocked all high-level meetings between our governments, and that was the
end of that. Government backpedaled, law was canceled. But the propaganda
remains.

It sometimes feels like I'm in 1930s. Have you ever listened to Michałkiewicz
or Grzegorz Braun? People like that always were there, but they were
marginalized. Nowaydays their rethoric is repeated by prime minister and
public TV.

It's terrifying to see my own parents buying into this crap. People who were
always teaching me to be tolerant, not to believe government when it shows
"these people are your enemy". Now they are repeating the same shit that is in
TVP. Every few months there's new public enemy - from ecologists, through
"homolobby", european courts, NGOs, private media, Jews, France, Israel, USA,
Germany, Ireland. Everybody out there is just waiting to destroy our pure,
innocent Poland.

That is bullshit, and the fact that people are buying into this is scary as
hell. I will manage, I'm working in IT. I can go abroad and live well. But I'm
also a patriot, and I don't want to move. And I'm very pessimistic about the
general direction Poland took recently. It ends with isolated, marginalized
Poland outside of EU. And that in turn ends with Poland going the Belarus way
- as a "proudly independent" vassal state of Russia. I would very much want to
be mistaken, but we're so far hitting every point on the checklist.

~~~
dexen
I've read your post twice, just to be sure I didn't overlook an "/s" marker, a
wink emoji or something. It strikes me as a narrow view taken to extreme -
entire vision of our country built up from referencing criticisms and verbal
sparring. Political horse-trading, and back-and-forth doesn't a nation-state
make.

That is neither substantive matter, nor the actual state of the country.
Please, have a look around with me; consider multiple factors:

The economy's doing well, the country is not pushing towards Russia - neither
economically nor geopolitically; instead we've diversified trade and
geopolitics; see the recent adventures with China. The political process is
chugging along as it ought to, there's plurality of voices in the media and it
seems to be growing. The political and economic protests & demonstrations are
well attended and mostly well behaved. We've even managed to hold our own
against EU's meddling in our internal politics, during recent changes to the
judiciary. Oh, and we're one of the very few states in Europe that managed to
weather the migrant crisis. Meanwhile we host - no, scratch that, we gainfully
employ and well integrate with - a vibrant community of war refugees from our
neighbor, the Ukraine.

If there's one thing I still seriously worry about, it's the retirement
pension system. Frankly, I plan on avoiding relying on that.

Hey, we've on a better trajectory than our western neighbors, and we've made a
few friends along the way. Cheers!

~~~
ajuc
Economy has nothing to do with national propaganda spreading xenophobia and
calling all opposition - traitors. 3rd Reich had much better economy than
Weimar Republic (if not very sustainable). Besides - Poland is one of the few
countries in EU that haven't had budget surplus in last few years despite the
economic boom in EU.

> the country is not pushing towards Russia

Look at any independent rating regarding media freedom, rule of law,
tolerance. We are changing towards Russia.

> we've diversified trade and geopolitics

yeah, from being "friends" with EU and USA we changed to what exactly? China
isn't our ally, we're doing business, like we did before. Meanwhile we're
completely marginalized in EU, and have no bargaining power in relations with
USA (which was pretty well showcased during that crisis with stupid Holocaust
law). Even if PIS doesn't want us to exit EU - it constantly portraits EU as
the worst threat to Poland. Such propaganda may easily end with Poland leaving
EU - see Cameron debacle. PIS is feeding extreme right to marginalize liberal
opposition, same as Fides did in Hungary with Jobbik. Then PIS remains the
"lesser evil". This is a very risky strategy, and is already hurting Poland.

> there's plurality of voices in the media and it seems to be growing

[https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-
press/2017/poland](https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2017/poland)

> Poland’s status declined from Free to Partly Free due to government
> intolerance toward independent or critical reporting, excessive political
> interference in the affairs of public media, and restrictions on speech
> regarding Polish history and identity, which have collectively contributed
> to increased self-censorship and polarization.

Government openly talks about nationalization of foreign owned media. That's
the plurality you speak of?

> We've even managed to hold our own against EU's meddling in our internal
> politics, during recent changes to the judiciary

Or, if you aren't brainwashed - we managed to destroy independent judiciary
and still remain in EU (for now). Great job.

> Oh, and we're one of the very few states in Europe that managed to weather
> the migrant crisis

The rest of the European countries seem to exist as well. Maybe try to travel
more :)

> war refugees from our neighbor, the Ukraine

These are war refuges like the +- 2 000 000 of Poles in UK, Ireland, Germany
are war refuges. So - not at all. They are economic migrants, and benefit
Poland much more than we benefit them. Still a good thing, but changes
nothing.

~~~
dexen
>Besides - Poland is one of the few countries in EU that haven't had budget
surplus in last few years despite the economic boom in EU.

Money remained in the private economy rather than in the central budget? Is
that your point here?

>>>marginalized Poland outside of EU. And that in turn ends with Poland (...)
- as a "proudly independent" vassal state of Russia.

>Look at any independent rating regarding media freedom, rule of law,
tolerance. We are changing towards Russia.

Shifted goalposts. Of course we need to exit EU before the EU crashes. Good
thing we haven't switched to euro yet, and we're building a competing block in
the form of V4 _and_ external trade ties. Nobody here trusts Russia enough to
go join their block; certainly we remember _history_ and _current events_ in
there.

As for "low freedom, rule of law, tolerance" \- that's why I noted the
government pays attention and reacts to peaceful citizen protests, while not
heeding to EU's (and other external actors') pressure too much. That's how
it's supposed to be ran in regard to internal politics. Facts over words, and
if you still prefer the ratings ratings over observable reality, I have a
bundle of 2006-vintage, AAA-rated mortgage-backed securities to sell to you.

>government intolerance toward independent or critical reporting

>excessive political interference in the affairs of public media

Public media are the minority of media. Every government packs KRRiT. The
previous team wasn't any more neutral, it just was speaking in other tone.
Which is the whole point of the OP - "is language representative of actual
socio-political changes?" Wake me up when the nationalization gets any
traction in the society.

>and restrictions on speech regarding Polish history and identity

Holocaust lies were prohibited in Germany and other countries well before in
Poland. We're catching up in that regard, if anything.

>increased self-censorship and polarization

There's no discussion of police monitoring, nor of straight up delegalization
of whole political party in Poland, again unlike certain western countries. We
still seem to hold higher plurality standards, and for that we suffer from the
Popper's paradox of tolerance towards intolerance to certain political
options, as witnessed in this discussion.

>> We've even managed to hold our own against EU's meddling in our internal
politics, during recent changes to the judiciary

>Or, if you aren't brainwashed - we managed to destroy independent judiciary
and still remain in EU (for now). Great job.

Not a great job; I was disappointed in how it was rushed and kind of botched.
Nonetheless, the point of protecting internal politics from foreign meddling
still stands. Contrast that with, for example, Italy and Greece.

>The rest of the European countries seem to exist as well. Maybe try to travel
more :)

With much weakened political scenes and societies split along partisan lines;
with low trust and dialogues in the nation, and towards immigrants; with
Chemnitz and all that. Meanwhile here in Poland we trade with the immigrants
just fine, and when that one immigrant was attacked, it was huge shock to
everybody, decried widely, and stayed in the news for several cycles.

>> war refugees from our neighbor, the Ukraine

>economic refugees (...) Still a good thing, but changes nothing.

It's an observable fact that we and them integrate just fine. While opinions
peddled online would have you believe we are some sort of xenophobes by
default.

Have a nice day, ajuc; I'm off to buy a coffee from Nadia at the Żabka.

~~~
ajuc
> Money remained in the private economy rather than in the central budget? Is
> that your point here?

My point was that Polish government is using nationalistic propaganda, and I'm
pretty sure I was clear. Regarding economy (which is an offtopic you started)
my point is, that the government increased spending to buy votes to the point
that even at the peak of global economic boom we can't balance the budget. How
will it work when the boom will inevitably end? It is not sustainable,
especially not in the face of demographic crisis (and contrary to the
propaganda 500+ isn't going to help - Poland still has negative net change of
population, and it's getting worse).

But economy worries me less than the government playing with fire and
supporting antiliberal, nationalist, xenophobic propaganda. Because economy
you can fix in a few years. Fucked up society you're stuck with for decades.

> we're building a competing block in the form of V4 and external trade ties

V4 votes differently than Poland on vast majority of sessions in EU
parliament. Any sort of V4 or "intermarrum" alliance as an alternative to EU
or NATO is a pipedream. We have few common interests, potential candidates
have no reason to ally us except on immigrants crisis, and even then we have
little to offer them. And if we forced them to choose Poland or EU they will
choose EU every time.

> The previous team [of public media] wasn't any more neutral

Demonstrably false.
[https://i.imgur.com/NkSbLtm.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/NkSbLtm.jpg) Also with
more details (but different period)
[https://www.wykop.pl/wpis/22910245/pamietacie-zapewne-te-
akc...](https://www.wykop.pl/wpis/22910245/pamietacie-zapewne-te-akcje-po-tym-
gdy-w-tvp-zamaz/)

There was never such a biased public media in Poland since communism fell.
Data says so, it's not subjective.

> Wake me up when the nationalization gets any traction in the society.

PIS supporters generally agree with the proposition to buy foreign owned media
(and even some Polish independent media) by national companies. Government can
do it very cheaply - making laws that make private media in Poland
unprofitable, buying the media cheaply, then reversing the law. That's how
Hungary did it.

> Holocaust lies were prohibited in Germany and other countries well before in
> Poland

The problem is - Poland tried to prohibit some Holocaust truths as well. Also
it's funny how even government admitted it was bad, and you're still defending
it. More Catholic than the pope :)

> We still seem to hold higher plurality standards

No we don't. If you think we do please show data confirming it.

> [western EU survived immigration crisis] with much weakened political scenes
> and societies split along partisan lines

Just like Poland, then? And we had no crisis to blame this on, just Jarek
playing with fire.

> with low trust and dialogues in the nation

Poland consistently scores worse than western Europe (especially than
Scandinavian countries) on rankings about trust in society and trust in public
institutions. For example
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282817518_Social_an...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282817518_Social_and_political_trust_in_Europe)

> Meanwhile here in Poland we trade with the immigrants just fine

"3rd Reich integrated Austrian immigrants well, therefore they weren't
xenophobic."

~~~
dexen
>Poland still has negative net change of population, and it's getting worse

I'll buy a vacation house on the cheap/s. Also, try convincing the greens that
it's a bad thing. Also, try convincing anybody that with growing population
we'd _somehow_ save our pension system. Or maybe we'll invite some immigrants
from compatible cultures to work with us and integrate into the society. Oh
well.

>the government playing with fire and supporting antiliberal, nationalist,
xenophobic propaganda

Says the online panic. Liberalism is upheld, with pluralism; it's the "single
political option or bust" mentality that gets rightfully criticized.
Nationalism is what people want; you don't have to agree, but that's the price
of living in democracy. Transferring that warm fuzzy feeling to the whole
federal state of EU doesn't make it better or worse; it's just that -
transferring it. "Xenophobic", nope; it's not "us vs them", it's "some ideas
and cultures are specific threat by refusing to integrate, all others are
welcome". Come on, don't you see the foreigners around you at work, at the
mall, in the schools? Don't you have any immigrants in your social circles?

>V4 votes differently than Poland on vast majority of sessions in EU
parliament.

Whole EU is made of countries with different economic and geopolitical
interests, votes split and join all the time, and we manage a working
consensus. You've just put forth example of the process working as expected,
not of some sort of roadblock. What's the alternative - complete unity of
opinions under one leadership? We've been there just a few decades ago, we
don't want a repeat of that. Let's keep discussing and trying for the best
option. That's how progress is made.

>Any sort of V4 or "intermarrum" alliance as an alternative to (...) NATO is a
pipedream.

Wouldn't make geopolitical sense either. NATO is our best bet and we will
stick with it, especially given the recently re-floated ideas of EU-ran
army[1], which would effectively be an anty-brexit "police" stationed all over
the EU. With no moderating influence from USofA, unlike NATO. As for V4 being
an alternative to EU - I don't know. Maybe, hopefully. Better to make friends
than to keep betting on one option that looks increasingly shaky. Especially
as EU has this ugly habit of buying our allegiance with structural funds
pumped into our economy, making us feel dependent on them.

>[stats about public media] You show proportional representation in the
_public_ media of the governing fraction - back then, PO-PiS coalition, right
now, PiS government. You made a point the public media reflecting the
political reality. I naturally agree with you and chalk that down as system
working as expected. Watch it change once the leading political fraction - as
it always did. Worth repeating that _Public media are the minority of media_
in here; the majority of viewership and readership are the private ones.

>The problem is - Poland tried to prohibit some Holocaust truths as well.

Was that fixed? Great, process works as expected. Ask for a lot, bargain some,
settle on what you really wanted. Politics 101.

>and you're still defending it

I didn't, and never will. I value freedom of speech above state-enforced
truth. I am unhappy with legislating what is the official truth. The whole
point of my post was that we're on a better trajectory than other countries.
Not perfect, better. Reliable process grounded in our centuries-long
democratic traditions[3] over centrally-managed perfection.

>> We still seem to hold higher plurality standards

>No we don't. If you think we do please show data confirming it.

We're having productive discussions across political aisles. We scream a lot,
protest in Warsaw a lot, and continue to run the country. {edit}What we don't
do is "don't talk to those people; deplatform those people; don't hire those
people". For neither political, nor national/cultural factors of "those
people". Which is a real problem in the internet-outrage-mob fueled
countries{/edit} The political scene covers almost full left-to-right
spectrum, and it is expected to swing the other way in an election cycle or
two. We don't import antisemites en mass, and the immigrants here don't close
up into enclaves; instead they live, work and play among us, speaking our
language and marrying locally.

The most popular subjects among my politically-active friends are healthcare,
pension system, and internet freedoms. Those aren't left-right, or
nationalist-internationalist subjects; those are economic bargains we want to
tweak and improve. Or, hopefully, overhaul. EU and immigration are somewhat
distant subjects exactly because we managed to minimize the impact.[2]
{edit}We appreciate GDPR and open market and other goodies from EU in the same
sitting we criticize immigration quotas and umpteenth copyright extension and
other hare-brained ideas.{/edit}

> Poland consistently scores worse than western Europe (especially than
> Scandinavian countries)

Is your data showing Germany (re:Chemnitz) as unified and highly trusting
their four-time PM? Is your data showing the french happy about soldiers
patrolling the streets of Paris? Are the greeks and spanish trusting the
government to run it efficiently and stand up to EU when proper to protect
their interest? Are your sources glossing over the growing antisemitism in the
west? Also, funny you should mention Scandinavia. How's that Swedish
experiment with humanitarian superpower going? Please page me when our
government issues civilians with leaflets on civil defense preparations. For
now, concern dismissed with prejudice, due to biased sourcing.

> [Godwin's law]

Godwin's law.

\--

[1] [https://www.politico.eu/article/emmanuel-macron-angela-
merke...](https://www.politico.eu/article/emmanuel-macron-angela-merkel-
endorses-eu-military-plan/)

[2] I think a lot of people here gave up on the idea of government-ran highway
system. Sad.

[3] an enjoyable read at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17781330](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17781330)

~~~
ajuc
You continue to change the subject and skip inconvenient questions. When I ask
for data behind your assumptions you just don't answer. When I provide data to
support my assumptions you laugh it off basing on anecdotal evidence and start
another offtopic. Yet, in the end you confirmed my point:

> Nationalism is what people want

Precisely. And it's because (among other things) government is actively
working to make them want it. And it's a very bad idea, which was the whole
point of the original article we discuss here. So mentioning Poland was
totally justified.

With that settled I'm done with this discussion. I dislike talking with people
jumping on 1000 tangentially related points when they can't answer it. It's a
cheap and timewasting tactic.

~~~
dexen
I understand you don't like nationalism. Tough. Substituting its staunchly
opposing ideology of _internationalism_ doesn't help at all, from historical
perspective.

As for _> [changing subject, skipping questions, jumping on 1000 tangents]_, I
opened up with the very reason: "It strikes me as a narrow view taken to
extreme". I then went on to show that the broad socio-political processes work
well in our country. Sure, there are some kooky outcomes here and there. We
will fix them in democratic way.

Economics is of utmost importance; as long as voters perceive it as going
well, they don't go for extremism promising a "quick & easy fix" that of
course is neither.

