THE SOCIO-POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLICIES OF THE POLISH RADICAL NATIONAL CAMP ABC 1934-1939, is the title of this Polish-language work. I focus on a few major topics in my review:
The ONR’s detractors, notably the leftists and the Jews, have usually portrayed it as a form of Polish fascism, or imitation of Nazism. Nothing could be further from the truth. The ONR wanted a Poland that promoted Roman Catholic civilization, in opposition to the “two paganisms”—that of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. (p. 68).
Many years before WWII was even on the horizon, the Polish Right had completely repudiated Italian Fascism and German Nazism. For instance, an article in the 1934 SZTAFETA stressed the fact that the Polish nationalist movement wanted nothing to do with Fascism and Nazism, as both of the latter have many faults and many sins. In related publications, it was noted, already by the early-mid 1930’s, that Italian fascism had become beholden to big capitalism, and that Nazism had rejected basic Christian moral values. (p. 29).
Kawecki’s work includes section of photographs that follows p. 60. One of the photos is of the January 1938 issue of a newspaper, O.N.R.--OWIEC. It describes how wealthy Jews, such as the Fajgenbaums, are using bribes to buy their way out of military service. It also objects to Jews, in high places, that are Communists, and it faults Jews who use their influence on radio to promote untruths and to defame Poland. (Sound familiar?)
In 1934, a group of rabbis visited Cardinal Aleksander Kakowski, and called on him to condemn the ONR in sermons throughout Poland. The Polish cardinal responded that he was opposed to all excesses and violence, regardless of who engages in it. He also called attention to the Jewish insensitivity towards, and provocations directed against, Polish religious feelings and Catholic moral values. (p. 27). [Were there such courageous Polish religious leaders—today—willing to be so politically incorrect and to stand up for Poland!]
This work provides biographical information on leading ONR personages. This includes Tadeusz Gluzinski (nom de plume Henryk Rolicki), and one of his works, ZMIERZCH IZRAELA. (p. 60). Although the ONR in general, and Rolicki in particular, are usually considered very anti-Semitic, it turns out that this work was quite measured and moderate (especially for its time) in its critical analysis of Jewish conduct. Please click on, and read my English-language review, of Zmierzch Izraela - Tadeusz Gluzinski ps. Henryk Rolicki.
Now consider the infamous ghetto benches. They served to lessen the antagonisms between Polish and Jewish university students. In addition, the ghetto benches were supported not only by the likes of the ONR, but also by Jewish-student Zionist organizations. (p. 56).
The goals of radical Polish nationalists centered upon the emancipation of Poland from the centuries-old, self-perpetuating Jewish economic privileges. The policies included the short-term promotion of Polish businesses with the concomitant boycotting of Jewish economic establishments, and the long-term emigration of Jews. Otherwise, even the "extreme" Polish nationalist ideas were not monolithic. Thus, for instance, the OZN (Oboz Zjednoczenia Narodowego), unlike the ONR and SN, favored allowing the Jews to retain their political rights. (p. 83).
The boycotts of businesses were not limited to Jewish ones. German firms were also boycotted. (p. 58).
Far from engaging in the scapegoating of Jews, leading ONR thinkers realized that Poland’s economic problems went far beyond Jewish economic dominance, and were structural in nature. Various reform proposals were introduced. (pp. 74-75). This included the enhancement of industrial development in villages, which was to follow the removal of the Jews from commerce and industry. (p. 74).
The Endeks in general, and the ONR in particular, are often branded as ethnonationalists. Whatever this left-wing buzzword is supposed to mean, the situation was not that simple. The ONR ABC did call for Poland’s Ukrainians and Belorussians to become part of the Polish nation—but as “gente Ruthenus, natione Polonus”, (p. 85) clearly not a complete abandonment of prior self-identity in favor of complete Polonization. ONR thinker Wojciech Zaleski was even more moderate: He noted that Ukrainians are a nation of their own, and the Polish state must be based upon shared political ideals, and not upon shared Polish language. (p. 86).
UPDATED: Several high profile and groups have banded together to show solidarity for the OpenDocument Format (ODF), a collection of office document formats to help organizations share digital information.
The Software & Information Industry Association, IBM, Sun Microsystems and a host of other vendors and groups today announced the creation of the OpenDocument Format Alliance (ODF Alliance).
ODF allows text, spreadsheet and presentation files to work with one another even if they were created with different vendors' applications.
ODF addresses the concern that, as documents and services are migrated from paper to electronic form, governments and other public agencies may not be able to read important documents if they are not all using a common file format.
The alliance is clearly aimed at desktop software leader Microsoft. The software giant employs different formats in current versions of Office and does not support ODF and will not support it in its upcoming Office 12 release later this year.
Microsoft officials perceived the ODF Alliance as a stab at its own efforts and welcomed the competition.
"The ODF Alliance (Sun, IBM and their friends) apparently want to push ODF as an 'exclusive' standard to the detriment of all others vs. enabling choice among formats such as PDF from Adobe, Open XML, HTML and others," said Alan Yates, general manager, Information Worker Business Strategy at Microsoft, in a statement.
"Clearly choice and competition is better than arbitrary technology preferences," he continued. "Part of this confusion is clearly IBM and Sun promoting their products based on OpenOffice that have had difficulty competing in the marketplace thus far."
Yates also said that it was "great that there is competition to help customers into this new era of open, XML-based documents."
In recent months, Massachusetts and other jurisdictions around the world have embraced ODF despite the glaring lack of support from Microsoft.
This would seem to freeze out Microsoft software in Massachusetts, which plans to begin saving documents in ODF in January 2007.
Microsoft last year had an answer for ODF, submitting its Microsoft Office Open XML file format to Ecma International as an open-standard submission with the hope it will one day become an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard.
Still, the ODF Alliance claims that the lack of an open, standard document format system threatens to lock customers into a single software vendor.
Whenever I hear people say "Ah today sucks, it's all garbage and there's nothing good about it", I get the feeling we're comparing it to the past, instead of taking it on its own terms or comparing it to the still unknown (and possibly worse or even less familar) future. I'm guilty of that myself alot of the time too.
I guess it's a gut reaction, since my "home time" that I'm most comfortable with is the '80s and first half of the '90s.
No matter how cool pop culture could become or how perfect the world might be some years down the road, I'll never be a little kid in another time. I'll never wake up to the world and become aware of my surroundings, go to Elementary school or have carefree fun with my parents and family members, hear my first favorite songs or video games in any other decade. Yet on the same token, I don't want to be so wrapped in my childhood that I don't take in things I like from now either (which I'll probably be missing in 2020). I find myself even missing little mundane experiences which were no big deal as they were going on, and time passing has changed my attitude even on that stuff. Why? Nostalgia and familarity.
Sure, I'll never love 2008 the way I love 1994 or '91 or '85, but there's SOME stuff that appeals to me (besides tech) and I certainly don't across the board hate it.
The biggest thing I notice right now is obviously the fact that New Romantic Music has made a drastic comeback.... under a different name of course. EMO. The Son likes all kinds of music, but has taken a favorable step towards EMO - so I sat him down and played him some of The Cure, The Smiths, threw in some Sex Pistols, The Ramones, then finished up with Depeche Mode, New Order and Pet Shop Boys. The entire time he just sat here looking awed! He couldn't believe that the same sounds of today are from yester-year, just re-named.
Of course, he isn't into the EMO movement, per se. He is actually preferring Punk/Emo as opposed to straight up, heart wrenching EMO crap. So now I am thinking that it just might be time to get him a Johnny Rotten cd for Christmas, or something of the like. ;)
Thanks. :) I agree, there's good and bad in any time. When I think about it alot of stuff WASN'T that great (i.e. my parents separation in the mid '90s, or relatives dying) and sometimes I wasn't happy, but I guess nostalgia makes me miss everything.
It's amazing how much music that's either popular or still very well liked today (by the youth or people who weren't old enough to rememer it firsthand) is rooted in the early-mid '80s. I guess the only music people rip on is the stuff that isn't connected to any current style, like "We Built this City".
That's cool he likes alot of old-school punk. Yeah, he probably likes pop/punk which just is emo influenced now (but isn't emo technically)
Trust me, in 1987 if you listened to the Cure in podunk America, you were still a weeeeeeirdo! It was all Bon Jovi all the time!
Actually today does suck and it is full of garbage. The only thing I truly love in today's times is music not popular in North America (aka Techno and British Rock).
^ I halfway agree. In one way yeah, I tremendously miss the popular radio music from when I was a kid in the '80s and up to '93ish. The rest of the 90s were pretty cool too, so I resent that passing, especially since there doesn't seem to be as much variety now. For instance, I like catchy pop ballads and there don't seem to be many of those now (unless they're really slow and boring like "Chasing Cars"). You also don't see many older singers and bands recharting like there used to be. There's lots of artists I like who probably won't be marketed or given as much of a chance to be mainstream ever again (since it's really youth oriented now), so I agree that sucks a bit.
On the other hand, even if i don't like as much current music in the last several years (since say 2002), I don't think its fair or very open minded to lump every single thing together as crap. Just because there's SOME bad music out there doesn't mean there's not good stuff too, that's just a snobby ignorant attitude. That's not a knock on you personally, but it just seems like alot of people do that, it's a pet peeve of mine. ;)
I think that's what the problem with these types of things are, there's a tendency to compare it to the past, since there's comfort in familarity. It's easy to view it that way, but...what about?
You can't say THAT stuff isn't catchy as hell, so there's lots of good music now too. Yet I see what you mean about nostalgia too. So yeah, call me John Kerry on this topic 'cause I agree a little bit with both sides of the argument. ;D
I've been a BIG fan of the Corrs since their break back in the mid 90s, and it's more music like that I wish dominated the charts, but there's so much rap, R&B and alt rock songs that all sound the same and they get played so much, what few good songs there are today get buried
Maroon 5, Five For Fighting and Hellogoodbye are also good, and among the first American groups I've actually enjoyed listening to since the 90s. I wouldn't say I'm a big fan, but if I happen upon their music, I won't turn it away
Of the current 100 songs that are in the Canadian chart at the moment, I can only maybe see 5 or 6 that I like, which means that only 6% of today's music appeals to me. Back in the 80s, I could find almost 100%
I'm not fond of most of the music that's played today either, there are some bands I do like from this decade, but not alot in general. I definetly long for the 90s to some degree, especially since there are some songs that I don't remember much of lyrically that I really enjoyed... I can't remember their names just because of the lack of known lyrics.
Putting out a call to all parodists in Ol' Blighty. Though not a native, this is my adopted country, and I was thinking how great it would be for writers in the UK to get together to write songs that really reflect British life...not necessarily politics, but what it's like to live on this little island in the noughties.If you're a British writer, post a reply!! Cheers....Kristof
er... me- in case you hadn't realized, I post parodies as "Phil Alexander" (which surprisingly enough is my real name)
I've already done a few UK based parodies, most recently the U.K.I.P. one, but I've done quite a few on British Railways and so on ;)
Thanks Phil, Jim and Martha!! I know two of you are from London...alas, the wrong side of the river...where are you at Phil? Jim, I'll look up your page, and you as well Martha. Great to here from the British contingent..I'll be in touch. Kristof
I got that wrong, didn't I? (As well as posting it twice...doh!) Phil, you're from London, and it's Jim I need to locate!! Gotta stop licking postage stamps....
...working I hasten to add ;) When I commented in another forum about how well-run Doncaster is compared to nearly all the rest I've been in, the reply was "I suppose they have to treat their councillors well" :D