The Growing Power of Censorship and Fascism in Eastern Europe

[Crandar]

Considering how reactionary and nationalistic Eastern Europeans are, I am surprised that the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact managed to exist for so long.
The Polish government is planning a new law which forbids every statement about the participation of Poles in the atrocities of WW2.

In a few words, calling them fascists is forbidden by fascist methods. It is no secret that many Poles cooperated with the Germans, actively helping them to dispose of the Jewish communities. Eastern Europe was traditionally anti-Semitic, Poland included, although a bit less than the flagships of racism, like the Baltic states and Ukraine.

What is next? The Right Sector forbidding any mention of the Lvov pogrom, where even the Germans tried to restrain the natives from massacring too many Jews?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35581708

On a more positive note, it is guaranteed that thanks to this law, more and more people will become acquainted with the despicable role many Poles played in the Holocaust (and not only there).

[Fragony]

Look at the bright side, mainstraim media, also known as ministry of truth is quikly losing influence. The uncomfortable truth is that no nation is innocent, simply that.

[rory_20_uk]

The current narrative that the West appears to be trying to create is that everyone loves and has always loved every other group of people with only transient periods where nasty and evil people did not. Be that slavery and Eugenics in America, to Jewish pogoms or even the mass deportation of Germans at the end of WW2.

So clearly everything that challenges this - such as the truth - needs to be... updated.

We all love each other and it is such a shame that so many people need to be killed before they understand this.

[Gilrandir]

Eastern Europe was traditionally anti-Semitic, Poland included, although a bit less than the flagships of racism, like the Baltic states and Ukraine.

The latter is an arbitrary statement. Specify what requirements are neccessary to be met to qualify a country as a flagship of racism. Can we say that a country whose president, prime minister and the head of parliament are jews is racist/fascist?

[Greyblades]

I wouldnt say the holocaust was a fascistic act, as extermination isnt resricted to one political ideology; monarchists, communists, imperialists, anarchists, name one ism that isnt pacifism and I'll name you an excuse to kill the other.

Arrests for thoughtcrime on the other hand is most certainly a hallmark of fascism (and communism) though again one that it has been (and still is being) frequently adopted by those of different ideologies.

I do not believe that it is racism that motivates Poland, more likely shame and a desperate need to deny their involvment.

Personally i think the shame is all but entirely unwarranted. I am an avid opponent of trying children for the sins of their fathers and all but a few of the polish population are too young to have been involved. They are blamless of he crimes of the war but they will not be blamless of the crimes of this propsed law should it be enacted.

[Gilrandir]

I'm afraid Crandar has excessive trust to what Russian propaganda says. I have to admit, though, they are very good at it: http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debat...ainst-germany/
The Kremlin impart all the devil's qualities to Right Sector. I'm far from considering them angels, but what Crandar doesn't seem to know is that their ideological platform exploits almost exclusively anti-Russian rhetorics. Here anti-Russian means "aimed against Russia as a state", not against Russians as ethnicity. The chief spokesman of Right Sector is ethnic Russian (born in Russia), the ex-chief spokesman is Jewish. So anti-semitic character of Right Sector is no more than a myth. Which can't be said of Svoboda. And it is more historically-minded so if anyone would deny porgoms it would be Svoboda. But neither of those parties has a faction in the parliament (there is 1 deputy who represents Right Sector and half a dozen from Svoboda), so all what Crandar says is like a badly-stitched (by Moscow propagandists) stereotype which they try to imbed into the unwary minds of Western and (most importantly) Russian citizens.

[Slyspy]

Poland resents references to "the Polish death camps" which should by rights be "the Nazi death camps" and seeks to distance their country from this association. Not too unreasonable. The law does not prevent one from naming individual Poles as culpable.

[Sarmatian]

Poland resents references to "the Polish death camps" which should by rights be "the Nazi death camps" and seeks to distance their country from this association. Not too unreasonable. The law does not prevent one from naming individual Poles as culpable.

Problem is that pre-war Poland conducted organized and systematic repression of orthodox christians and jews, to name a few. It was quite the xenophobic country.

[Husar]

Other problem may be that one should not punish or even jail people for saying wrong things if it does not involve fraud or other established crimes? Otherwise I demand jail time for people who mix up there, they're and their and those who use apostrophes wrong.
Also people who say Hitler was a German.

[Gilrandir]

Otherwise I demand jail time for people who mix up there, they're and their and those who use apostrophes wrong.

Objection, your honor. I demand they be hanged.

[Slyspy]

Problem is that pre-war Poland conducted organized and systematic repression of orthodox christians and jews, to name a few. It was quite the xenophobic country.

Discussion of such is free to continue.

[Sarmatian]

Discussion of such is free to continue.

Well, it continued into ww2, which is now forbidden to mention.

[Brenus]

"Problem is that pre-war Poland conducted organized and systematic repression of orthodox christians and jews, to name a few. It was quite the xenophobic country." Even had a treaty with Nazi Germany, reason why Poland received a part of Czechoslovakia after the annexation and dismantlement of this country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German...ggression_Pact

In 1939, some French military even though that Germany attacking Poland might be a ploy to lure France in a war.

[Slyspy]

Well, it continued into ww2, which is now forbidden to mention.

Except that it isn't.

"Problem is that pre-war Poland conducted organized and systematic repression of orthodox christians and jews, to name a few. It was quite the xenophobic country." Even had a treaty with Nazi Germany, reason why Poland received a part of Czechoslovakia after the annexation and dismantlement of this country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German...ggression_Pact

In 1939, some French military even though that Germany attacking Poland might be a ploy to lure France in a war.

Did you even read the article which you linked to? And how is it relevant?

[Strike For The South]

Poland resents references to "the Polish death camps" which should by rights be "the Nazi death camps" and seeks to distance their country from this association. Not too unreasonable. The law does not prevent one from naming individual Poles as culpable.

Except most Jews were killed by the einsatzgruppen with the complicity of the Poles and other conquered peoples. Now one can appreciate the rock hard place and one has to wonder how much was willing rather than forced.

The popular narrative that somehow the NAZIs invented antisemitism in Europe is about as bad as the myth that every Frenchman was in the underground (lolololololol).

[Slyspy]

Except most Jews were killed by the einsatzgruppen with the complicity of the Poles and other conquered peoples. Now one can appreciate the rock hard place and one has to wonder how much was willing rather than forced.

The popular narrative that somehow the NAZIs invented antisemitism in Europe is about as bad as the myth that every Frenchman was in the underground (lolololololol).

There is no such popular narrative (nor any such myth). But then you just come here to troll these days. The Org is not what it once was.

[lars573]

Strike is the product of the US education system, so those myths and narratives he's talking about totally exist. Just not in Europe.....

[Myth]

Considering how reactionary and nationalistic Eastern Europeans are, I am surprised that the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact managed to exist for so long.
The Polish government is planning a new law which forbids every statement about the participation of Poles in the atrocities of WW2.

In a few words, calling them fascists is forbidden by fascist methods. It is no secret that many Poles cooperated with the Germans, actively helping them to dispose of the Jewish communities. Eastern Europe was traditionally anti-Semitic, Poland included, although a bit less than the flagships of racism, like the Baltic states and Ukraine.

What is next? The Right Sector forbidding any mention of the Lvov pogrom, where even the Germans tried to restrain the natives from massacring too many Jews?

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35581708

On a more positive note, it is guaranteed that thanks to this law, more and more people will become acquainted with the despicable role many Poles played in the Holocaust (and not only there).

So that's facist and bad, but being improsoned for denying the holocaust is democratic and OK?

Either free speech is for everyone or for no one.

[Lizardo]

The OP is full of fallacies

[Crandar]

The latter is an arbitrary statement. Specify what requirements are neccessary to be met to qualify a country as a flagship of racism. Can we say that a country whose president, prime minister and the head of parliament are jews is racist/fascist?

Yes, if that country has a history of persecuting Jews more harshly than the Nazis, during both world wars.

So that's facist and bad, but being improsoned for denying the holocaust is democratic and OK?

Both of them should be criticized.

[Gilrandir]

Yes, if that country has a history of persecuting Jews more harshly than the Nazis, during both world wars.

Again an arbitrary statement. Do you have any figures to prove that Ukrainians killed more Jews then Germans during both wars?

Moreover, a history of any kind can't qualify the MODERN country as any flagship. Ohterwise you can call modern Germany a flagship of nazism and if you dig even deeper into the Middle Ages you can stigmatize the whole of Europe as antisemitic.

[Papewaio]

So that's facist and bad, but being improsoned for denying the holocaust is democratic and OK?

Either free speech is for everyone or for no one.

So by that standard it's fine to cry fire in a theater, that every story has two equal sides, falsifying documents is ok, that slander cannot be prosecuted and lying in court is fine.

Speech even Free Speech has boundaries and costs to cross them. Holocaust deniers are not on an equal footing with Holocaust Survivers, making false claims about the death camps is not the same as living in them, falsified documents to water down the impact is not the same as a statistical comparison of names in phone books pre and post WWII, etc

Denying the Holocaust will only result in a future one, it's in the same bin as crying fire in a theatre.

[a completely inoffensive name]

So by that standard it's fine to cry fire in a theater, that every story has two equal sides, falsifying documents is ok, that slander cannot be prosecuted and lying in court is fine.

Speech even Free Speech has boundaries and costs to cross them. Holocaust deniers are not on an equal footing with Holocaust Survivers, making false claims about the death camps is not the same as living in them, falsified documents to water down the impact is not the same as a statistical comparison of names in phone books pre and post WWII, etc

Denying the Holocaust will only result in a future one, it's in the same bin as crying fire in a theatre.

People who use "fire in a theater" really disprove their own point.

Yes, you should be able to shout fire in a theater. That statement comes from Justice Oliver Holmes Jr. argument upholding the states right to imprison US citizens who openly spoke out against WW1.
Pick a better example.