I was under the impression that most of the people that were working as judges during the Soviet occupation are now dead or retired..?
It's nice to think that the fall of Communism automatically led to the wholesale liquidation of the Communist establishment, but that's fabular, and after you think about it, quite a silly thing to expect. It would be disastrous to simply remove them without having prepared to replace them. When a certain establishment had been running the state for half a century, with all its ties and knowledge and competencies, you couldn't just expel them all just like that. They and they alone have been running the state for almost 50 years! (Especially given that the pre-War elites were either exterminated by the Nazis and the Soviets, or fled the country, or whatever, but outsiders unless they joined the ranks of the People's Republic).
So, unless you manage this transition somehow with the end goal of reducing if not disrupting the continuation of that corrupt establishment[0], an establishment known for profiting for its own selfish gains[1] and trained by Moscow to function as essentially colonial puppets of foreign interest, you still have a problem.
[0] Not everyone in that establishment was corrupt, of course.
[1] Hence the actual way in which state assets were privatized, often for funny money to foreign owners, sometimes for liquidation and removing domestic sources of competition, and in ways where former party apparatchiks and the like profited from their sale.
I'm not Polish so I don't know the situation exactly, but it's also been 30 years. I live in Poland and I see nothing even remotely resembling communism (besides the ugly Soviet buildings they haven't demolished yet). I think the government is using this as a scapegoat to push their agenda, but that's just an impression.
It is incredibly naive to think that a regime change somehow means all of the social and status networks just magically change. That is as silly as believing that a change in President == a change in bureaucracy.
I dream of living in Poland, or Czechia, someday. I know it isn't perfect, but it seems honest.
More like "far center, a little to the left", with a twist for religion and nationalism. It doesn't have that much with being pro capitalism.
W.r.t. aliens, that's nonsense. Even the article mentions Ukrainian immigration. For the record, Poland took in what were effectively ~1 million Ukrainian refugees and immigrants because of, you know, that war still being waged by Russia that the West keeps forgetting about. Germany and other Western countries didn't take in any Ukrainians. Poland refused to take in migrants during the migrant crisis for a number of reasons, including: refusal to acquiesce to Merkel's dictates after having she had utterly bungled that affair (most migrants aren't even Syrian refugees); migrants who had arrived in Poland and elsewhere eventually left and moved to Germany or Sweden anyway; Poland is largely homogeneous and having witnessed cultural-religious friction in the West decided not to subject itself to that experiment esp. given the precarious geopolitical place the country occupies; Poland diverts significant funds to efforts on Syrian soil to help Syrians on the ground; Poland is already in the Schengen zone and so what's this business with no aliens?
> perfectly willing to break the rule of law for the good of society
The current judiciary is full of law-breaking and less than savory people with ties to the old Communist establishment. That whole affair with the Tribunal (a Communist invention instituted by Jaruzelski during martial law to protect Communists, basically) is more complex. Every party had put its own candidates in and the previous ruling party, the Civic Platform, just before office, had exploited incoherent and unsatisfiable laws to create a situation that could only be resolved it seems the way it had been. Needless to say, it is far more complex than the way you claim it is. There is a general problem with Polish laws looking like Swiss cheese and issues with the Polish constitution. And even if it were the case that the rule of law was being violated for "the good of society", then perhaps there's a problem with the system if it needs to be violated to make necessary changes?
> They gave everyone with more than one child free money.
Not everyone agrees with that policy, but what is so wrong with it that you had to mention it as if it were an evil thing? The goal is to help slow or counteract the negative birth rate of the country. Europe in general is facing serious demographic issues. "Importing" large numbers of people from totally different cultures is not a great solution (see Germany, France).
> They also call everything 'national' instead of 'public'.
No, they don't. And when they do, so what? That's how state-owned institutions and programs are often labelled in Poland and elsewhere outside the US. The National Theatre, the Polish National Opera, the National Institute of Remembrance. What a silly grievance.
> They think that the EU is a hindrance and an enemy, as if Putin didn't exist (that the part I can't understand the most.)
They don't have issues with the European Union as such. They have issues with some ways the EU operates today and the way it relates to the countries of the former Eastern bloc. And who do you think makes up a good chunk of "Poland's owners" in this article? Hint: they're on the other side of "the river" and they own 80% of the Polish media. The current party, if you'll recall, signed the Lisbon Treaty in 2007. And w.r.t., Putin, Poland, and this party, are more keenly aware of the threat Putin poses than anyone, hence being one of very few countries actually meeting NATO defense quotas, hence trying to increase NATO presence in the region, hence pushing for the Three Seas Initiative with American support, hence previous attempts at installing a missile shield. The EU has done little to counter Putin. The West shows little solidarity with the countries most threatened by Putin. For example, Germany continues to carry on with its backroom deals and gas pipelines circumventing Poland, even though it would be cheaper to run the pipeline through Poland instead of through the Baltic.
So, I really have no idea what you're talking about.
"W okresie PRL ustanowienie sądu konstytucyjnego stało się postulatem formułowanym przez wiele środowisk w okresie przełomu politycznego lat 1980–1981[2]. Powołania TK domagała się m.in. adwokatura oraz Niezależny Samorządny Związek Zawodowy „Solidarność”. "
Yes, someone does not have the idea what they are talking about, the Tribunal was established because Solidarity movement wanted it. A lot of the information you posted is at least inaccurate to high degree and can be verified easily.
> The current judiciary is full of law-breaking and less than savory people with ties to the old Communist establishment.
Can you name at least a few high profile members of judicary that would fit this description? I can name a few in PIS Kryże, Piotrowicz (you know the communist era prosecutor that now reforms law in Poland... oh the irony) - even people like Cenckiewicz the historian clearly state that they should not be there.
> And even if it were the case that the rule of law was being violated for "the good of society", then perhaps there's a problem with the system if it needs to be violated to make necessary changes.
I agree, can you point me to the parts of the laws that will improve the system for the citizens instead of currently ruling party?
Polish history is fraught with calumny and misunderstanding. Sometimes they are apathetic, anti-Semitic fools, other times they are reasonable and intelligent hosts of a hard pressed diaspora population. None of this has any bearing on the fact that the Poles are in a three-way tie for most fcked up by WWII. IMO they were hurt the most. On top of the travails of WWII they were then thrust into the Soviet sphere. I know this will seem like a reprehensible statement, but if you want to learn about a group fuked by their neighbors and shunned by the world with their history erased and their culture besmirched internationally, it is the the children of Rejtan, not Judah. Consider that both groups lost roughly the same numbers (gross total) but one group gained a Homeland as well as an upward trajectory that apparently has no ceiling while the other was doomed to the orbit of the worst political and social experiment in recorded history.
So, I say to you: before you vomit up some BS you acquired on r/postcapitalism look into the deep history of a person, place, or people when they seem to act atypically or illogically. Sometimes the history can illuminate.
If you think my remonstration is misplaced or my recounting of history sloppy or inaccurate, I'd love to carry on a deeper conversation.
... assuming I'm not shadow banned for thoughtcrimes ;)
First paragraph:
>> "Poland: reasonable strategy roiled by leftist impulses."
The current government is a far right Catholic party that has just enacted a law partly denying the Holocaust (somewhat related to this, one of their senator sparked a scandal by posting actual Nazi propaganda online), and the country may have its EU voting right suspended due to the administration's attacks against the judiciary. But yeah the most important thing is that one of their economical policy happens to be left-leaning.
On the economist Thomas Piketty:
>> "Last month, the anti-capitalist economist wrote about ..."
Piketty is left-leaning, not "anti-capitalist".
Caption of a Piketty photograph:
>> "Only academic. Until now."
Piketty has been a (prominent) advisor for politicians on the French left for at least a decade.
You go Bloomberg "News". You keep doing you.