Antigravitas posted:

I have never felt more uncomfortable online

armpit_enjoyer posted:

Donald Tusk, August 2022: "Nobody with anti-abortion views will be an opposition candidate next year"

Donald Tusk, August 2023: "We are excited to announce Roman Giertych will be one of our candidates in Świętokrzyskie"

Look at my opposition, dogg. We are never getting rid of PiS

(For context: Roman Giertych used to be the leader of a far-right party called "The League of Polish Families" and he revived the pre-war antisemitic/fascist organisation, the All-Polish Youth. He used to be the minister of education in the first PiS government, between 2005 and 2007, and his tenure is remembered primarily for the anti-LGBTQ witch hunt he conducted in the school system)

Mokotow posted:

Looks like they're trying to do something with the Giertych controversy. His daughter is being interviewed and she's guarantees that her mom and her sisters will "keep an eye on him" so we don't have to worry our pretty little heads about women's' rights.

Comte de Saint-Germain posted:

Different, but related phenomena:

I'm part of a facebook group for english speaking expats living in Warsaw. At one point we had to purge the member list and restart the group, because it was invaded by english speaking US citizens of Polish descent, living *in the US*, who joined the group to post anti-black, anti-semetic, and anti-everybody-who-doesn't-vote-PiS memes, many of which were in Polish. So it seems, at least from this experience, that there's some sort of community of US based ethnic poles who eat a steady diet of TVP (and radio maria or whatever else) in addition to whatever rascist american poo poo they consume.

goblin week posted:

Oh cool



hey who dropped this

Lichtenstein posted:

Mokotow posted:

No you see this was before COVID.

Also surprised to see Maciej Giertych, his dad, is still around.

Mildly fascinated with what he expected to happen

Mokotow posted:

Mildly fascinated with what he expected to happen

steinrokkan posted:

The same thing Americans always expect when they go abroad

That the local savages will prostrate themselves before the civilized man who is bringing gifts of wisdom and dollar

Mokotow posted:

Mildly fascinated with what he expected to happen

steinrokkan posted:

That the local savages will prostrate themselves before the civilized man who is bringing gifts of wisdom and dollar

Lichtenstein posted:

Polonia in the US is one of the worst about it, since there's a lot of really old emigration, like pre-world wars, leaving a lot of people that are really detached from anything but broad fantasies about the country...

goblin week posted:

why did so many poles emigrate to the great lakes area anyway?? it feels like everyone has a relative in Chicago or Detroit

goblin week posted:

why did so many poles emigrate to the great lakes area anyway?? it feels like everyone has a relative in Chicago or Detroit

The_Franz posted:

There was a lot of industry there, and as long as you could count to 10 and lift heavy things, there were no shortage of jobs. Way back when, It wasn't uncommon for people to go to the US to work for a few years to saving money before going back home, so, naturally, they gravitated to places with existing communities that provided a support network and where they could live without needing English (they were there temporarily, so why bother learning).

Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee and everywhere in between are still rife with ethnic churches, national halls, cultural centers, stores, butchers and so on for various groups.

quote:

Those who are sitting there, looking at hands, something else, genitals, do something productive instead. Get busy! You shouldn't be studying male genitals - you should be working. It's all a lie and a hoax. It could never, ever be true. [...] In a way, I'm flattered that you lot are sitting there for half a day, attentively staring at the genitals that you think are mine. But they're not mine. And you're doing the wrong thing. You should be working!

Machine translation posted:

BERLIN taz | Two men in cowboy hats stand on the back of a truck and play their country guitars. Every now and then, musicians stop by at the Gräfenhausen rest area near Frankfurt am Main and give a little surprise concert. They want to show their solidarity with around 100 lorry drivers from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Turkey. For more than six weeks they have been demanding their outstanding wages with a "wildcat strike". It is the longest known truckers' strike in Europe.

The protest was started by four truckers on 18 July this year. They followed up a similar strike in April at the same service station. From then on, the number of blue trucks at the site increased steadily. The drivers work for the Polish group Mazur, which includes the companies Lukmaz, Agmaz and Imperia with a fleet of around 1,000 trucks. In total, they are said to owe the drivers around half a million euros in wages. Many are waiting for two months' wages, for others it is seven or eight - and thus amounts of several thousand euros. The companies deny this and refuse to negotiate.

Since 31 August, the truck drivers have had a little more money in their pockets. The money came from an Austrian haulage company waiting for goods that drivers had loaded in Gräfenhausen. As a down payment on their outstanding wages, a representative of the company in Gräfenhausen handed over 20,000 euros in cash. In return, he received the load of a trailer. The money was divided among the 100 or so truckers on the spot, as Anna Weirich from the Fair Mobility advice centre told the taz.

For Weirich, who - when contacted by the taz - is once again at the rest stop to support the drivers, this is a first success. "We hope that other companies in the supply chain will follow suit." He says they are in talks with a number of companies. Weirich does not want to be more specific.

Then, a week later, the second success: on Thursday, 7 September, an Austrian transport company again pays out 20,000 euros in cash and receives its goods stranded in Gräfenhausen in return. "With this, another company has fulfilled its duty to take responsibility for working conditions and payments where subcontractors fail to do so," Weirich tells the taz.

On 19 August, the drivers had made public the names of companies and brands whose goods they loaded or who are involved in the supply chain as logistics companies. Among them are Porsche, Audi, VW, DHL, the furniture retailer Poco, the energy drink producer Redbull and the DIY stores Obi and Bauhaus. Ikea was also mentioned in the context.

According to the German Supply Chain Act, since January local companies have to ensure the protection of human rights and the environment in their supply chains - from the raw material to the finished sales product. Violations can be reported to the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control (Bafa). The Bafa informed the taz on request that 14 complaints had been received from January to the beginning of August. The Bafa did not want to say against which companies.

The accused companies denied cooperation with the Mazur group to the taz. Ikea stated that its supplier had ended its cooperation with Mazur at the beginning of 2023. Porsche also does not want to be in a "contractual relationship" with Mazur, nor is there "indirect commissioning by our partner companies". Volkswagen also makes similar statements for VW and Audi.

Obi and Bauhaus declare that they have forbidden their logistics service providers to pass on subcontracts to the Mazur Group. Bauhaus also states that it has "reviewed its supply chain risk management and tightened applicable transport guidelines" and now wants to review its supply chain "beyond the circle of our immediate suppliers".

Weirich is not convinced by the assurances. "That's what the clients always say," she tells the taz. It is possible that large companies have indeed lost track of their supply chain and are kept in the dark about subcontracting by their own contractual partners. "But the Supply Chain Duty of Care Act (Lieferkettensorgfaltspflichtengesetz), at the latest, makes it very clear that ignorance does not protect against responsibility.

Meanwhile, solidarity for the drivers is coming from different sides: Not only have they been visited in recent weeks by politicians from the Greens, the Left and the SPD, who promised to campaign for better laws. The SPD MEP Gaby Bischoff, among others, spoke of "modern slavery" and called for better controls within the framework of the Road Traffic Act, which should ensure that drivers who travel across borders are paid decently.

The alternative university union unter_bau from Frankfurt am Main called for donations for the drivers at the beginning of August. Most recently, the Swedish trade union Solidariska Byggare announced that it had set up a strike fund for the drivers. The aim is to collect and pay out 1,000 euros per person - about 100,000 euros.

During the first strike in April, the company owner Łukasz Mazur came with a group of thugs who threatened the strikers. The Darmstadt public prosecutor's office is investigating the incident for, among other things, particularly serious breach of the peace, bodily harm and disturbing a meeting. In August, Mazur filed a complaint against the drivers for extortion. "Whether and to what extent the accusations made are true and how the facts of the case will be legally assessed is the subject of the investigation," the public prosecutor's office told the taz. The drivers are also considering filing charges against Mazur.

Lichtenstein posted:

Yeah. Polonia in the US is one of the worst about it, since there's a lot of really old emigration, like pre-world wars, leaving a lot of people that are really detached from anything but broad fantasies about the country. There's a certain kind of brainrot that sometimes hits at 3+ generation of immigrants where you're long past concerns of fitting in the new place, they're past anyone in the family trying to teach them the language (and by extension, any cultural contact being long dormant) but they've got this heritage that can become *their thing*. Think of the Plastic Paddies, but with extra layers of solipsist detachment due to being outside of the anglosphere.

Sekenr posted:

I accidentalyy wore white-red-white today when I wen to buy cigarettes. Which under current laws is "extremism". I did not meet any cops but people stared

Mokotow posted:

Reminds me of the festival where Poles dress up as Americans.

https://mymodernmet.com/4th-of-july-larp-poland/

goblin week posted:

Oh yeah they’ve been doing blackface on that show forever

Mokotow posted:

Reminds me of the festival where Poles dress up as Americans.

https://mymodernmet.com/4th-of-july-larp-poland/

Mokotow posted:

It’s produced by Endemol, a Dutch company. They know exactly what blackface is and what they’re doing.

goblin week posted:

Oh yeah they’ve been doing blackface on that show forever

Paladinus posted:

Yeah, and not just in Poland. Russia, China, Bulgaria, Thailand, Philippines, and I'm sure many, many more that youtube never recommended to me.

Mokotow posted:

One of these situations where I read Polish news on the Guardian instead of finding out about it from the local media

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/sep/12/polish-tv-talent-show-contestants-use-blackface-for-kendrick-lamar-beyonce-performances

Doing blackface while screaming the n-word is sure a look.

Reminds me of the festival where Poles dress up as Americans.

https://mymodernmet.com/4th-of-july-larp-poland/