-- ANIMALS UNDOUBTEDLY HAVE SOULS, IF WE DO: THEY, LIKE US, DESIRE LIFE AND FEAR DEATH - AGATA BIELIK-ROBSON IN CONVERSATION WITH EWA KALĘTA IN GW: “Animals undoubtedly have souls, if we do: they, like us, desire life and fear death. However, I don’t know what this soul is, nor do I believe in its immortality. For me, it’s the intrinsically individual form of life – my lived experience, my life and mine alone, secret and inaccessible to anyone else – which most likely passes away with our physical form. I believe animals (and perhaps plants too?) possess this vital intuition of life’s ‘me-ness’, even if they don’t achieve full consciousness of their separate selves. Life is not just a biological process described from the outside by objective science; it is also an internal process generating its own kind of auto-affectation, self-feeling. Who knows, perhaps this is the universal basis for religious teachings about the soul.” -- THE PROBLEM WITH CANCELLING IS NOT THAT IT OSTRACIZES THOSE WITH PHOBIC VIEWS, BUT THAT IT DISPLAYS A DISTURBING ZEAL IN DOING SO: IT ACTIVELY SEEKS NEW SCAPEGOATS, BECAUSE SACRIFICIAL VIOLENCE IS THE FIRST AND FOREMOST MOTIVATION HERE - AGATA BIELIK-ROBSON FURTHER WITH EWA KALĘTA: “I haven’t been on social media for six years, I only interact with real faces, not virtual avatars: I recommend this experience to everyone. Cancelling, or cancel culture, which contrary to the claims of the Polish left-wing bubble (see: Wojciech Orliński) exists and is thriving, is a phenomenon impossible outside the specific sphere of dehumanization created by the internet. The problem with cancelling is not that it ostracizes people with phobic views (which, according to Orliński, is OK), but that it displays a disturbing zeal in this regard: it actively seeks new scapegoats, because sacrificial violence is the first and foremost motivation here. Since cancelling is part of an aggressive condition of helplessness, it’s not about real agency: about acting in the real world to bring about real progressive change. Just as a helpless, enraged infant lashes out blindly at its mother, so does cancelling aggression operate: it’s pseudo-agency in a situation where the world seems so irrevocably terrible that nothing can be done about it. And the more we are in the internet world, the stronger the feeling that it is beyond salvation.” https://wyborcza.pl/magazyn/7,124059,30592938,bielik-robson-w-internecie-tej-strasznej-otchlani-szaleje.html -- WHEN REFLECTING ON THOSE EIGHT YEARS OF PiS, IT TURNS OUT THAT POLAND’S INTERNATIONAL STANDING WAS LARGELY A GUARANTEE THAT A BREAKTHROUGH COULD OCCUR IN 2023 - JAROSŁAW KUISZ IN CONVERSATION WITH ŁUKASZ LIPIŃSKI IN TYGODNIK POLITYKA: “And here I wanted to mention something that is being overlooked in our debate. When reflecting on those eight years of PiS, it turns out that Poland’s international standing was largely a guarantee that a breakthrough could occur in 2023. PiS is now producing two myths that we should not fall for. The first is that during PiS’s rule there was democracy because power was handed over. But we know that the disproportions in the campaign were so skewed that without extraordinary voter mobilization, we would have had a repeat of 2019. And the second myth of 2023 is related to the belief that Polish democracy triumphed on its own. We have a great temptation to believe this.” -- WITHOUT INDEPENDENT MEDIA, THE OPPOSITION’S VICTORY WOULD HAVE BEEN NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE, HUNGARY AND TURKEY ARE GOOD EXAMPLES OF THIS - KUISZ FURTHER WITH LIPIŃSKI: “Without independent media, the opposition’s victory would have been nearly impossible; Hungary and Turkey are good examples of this. And how did TVN survive? If it weren’t for American capital, if it weren’t for the support of the US administration, this television station would likely have been taken over. An attempt was made, after all. This would have created a domino effect, followed by radio stations, weeklies like POLITYKA, and everything else in sequence. There are other examples too. If our judiciary’s standing within the European system hadn’t served to curb all these excesses in the justice system?” https://www.polityka.pl/tygodnikpolityka/kraj/2241605,1,kaczynski-nie-byl-gotowy-na-kleske-ale-wie-co-to-znaczy-buduje-szybko-dwa-mity-nie-dajmy-sie-nabrac -- THAT IT WOULD BE TOUGH, EVERYONE EXPECTED. THAT IT WOULD BE THIS TOUGH – NOT NECESSARILY - PIOTR ZAREMBA IN RZ: “However, those considerations must be abandoned one way or another. By choosing a path not only of the most radical reckoning with PiS or cleaning up the state after them, but of personal revenge and circumventing, and at several points breaking the law, Tusk has created a new playing field. That it would be tough, everyone expected. That it would be this tough – not necessarily.” -- TUSK IS CONSCIOUSLY AIMING TO PUSH THE OPPOSITION INTO THE ROLE OF RIOTERS, ETERNAL ARSONISTS OF POLAND - ZAREMBA FURTHER IN RZ: “It seems that Tusk is consciously aiming to push the opposition into the role of rioters, eternal arsonists of Poland. This is at least an additional effect of these clashes, and perhaps their main goal. They are to be pushed beyond the margins of political normality. I can understand that Civic Platform politicians refused to speak to journalists from the government-controlled TVP, as they perceived it as co-opted. But they are now acting the same way towards reporters from the privately owned Republika. What's more, in an official party spot, they discourage advertisers from the station. This option is to wander somewhere on the borderline of symbolic legitimacy.” -- TUSK HAS REDUCED THE MULTICOLORED COALITION TO THE LEVEL OF A PENAL BATTALION - ZAREMBA FURTHER WRITES IN RZ: “One can also speak of other goals achieved incidentally by the government. KO-PO politicians spoke of a ‘smiling Poland’, but it was Szymon Hołownia who tried to be the smiling face of this coalition in the first weeks after the elections. Today, entangled in an absurd dispute over Kamiński and Wąsik’s mandates, he has been reduced to the role of a corporal. Anyone who saw his momentarily frightened face when he listened from the speaker’s chair as PiS MPs began chanting demands for the release of their colleagues knows what this is about. Tusk has reduced the multicolore d coalition to the level of a penal battalion. The leader of the Peasants’ Party, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, sees this, but his vague ideas about, for example, constitutional changes are like a mouse squeaking, trying to drown out a cyclone.” -- WE WILL LIKELY BE DEALING WITH A CONTINUALLY RISING TIDE, WITH A TENDENCY EVEN TO DEEPEN THE VICTORY OF OCTOBER 15TH - ZAREMBA FURTHER IN RZ: “At the same time, one can look at it differently. Local government elections have always gone worse for the right. The loss of some regional assemblies was to be expected one way or another (currently PiS governs or co-governs in seven out of 16 of them). We will likely be dealing with a continually rising tide, with a tendency even to deepen the victory of October 15th.” -- CONSTANT PRESSURE ON THE ACCELERATOR CAN CAUSE FATIGUE ALSO WITH TUSK AS THE ARBITER OF CONFRONTATION - ZAREMBA’S CONCLUSION IN RZ: “However, there is an additional risk in this. Constantly pressing the accelerator can cause fatigue also with Tusk as the arbiter of confrontation. Of course, media control can facilitate narrative reversal, but there is also the internet, where the thesis: ‘Tusk offers permanent spectacles because he wants to hide something from Poles’ can gain some popularity. Not immediately, but after some time.” https://www.rp.pl/plus-minus/art39714451-juz-nie-wykluczam-ze-kaczynski-wroci-do-wladzy -- IF THE LIBERAL CENTER ALLOWS ITSELF TO BE FURTHER PARALYZED BY "HIGH-MINDED" GUARDIANS OF PUBLIC MORALITY, IT IS NO LONGER ALIVE. AND WITH IT, THE LIBERAL-DEMOCRATIC WEST IS NO LONGER ALIVE - CEZARY MICHALSKI IN INTERIA: “I was destabilized and emotionally stirred by news from the BBC warning ‘virtuous’ viewers and listeners of this station (and readers of the BBC portal) that the centrist French president Emmanuel Macron has ‘worryingly veered to the right’ by introducing stricter rules to combat drug cartels, including in schools. Particularly aimed at dealing hard drugs to children. And also intensifying the fight against illegal immigration (illegal also within the framework of new, stricter EU law). Have people (journalists, ‘activists’, sometimes even less sharp politicians) who call the fight against hard drug dealers or the fight against illegal emigration a ‘dangerous right-wing turn’ truly gone mad? As it turns out, people who have an idea for life, unfortunately also public life, which boils down to the definition: ‘the liberal center should have impeccably virtuous and politically correct views and do nothing’, have also infiltrated the British media (and certainly the Polish media). The liberal center will either be capable of decisive action (including rapid response to the real fears and threats of Polish and EU citizens) or it will be absorbed by right-wing and left-wing populism. If the liberal center allows itself to be further paralyzed by “high-minded” guardians of public morality, it is no longer alive. And with it, the liberal-democratic West is no longer alive.” https://wydarzenia.interia.pl/felietony/news-czy-swoich-ochroniarzy-ma-liberalne-centrum,nId,7279657 -- PERHAPS THE FORMER DEPUTY MINISTERS OF JUSTICE WERE NOT THE BEST CANDIDATES FOR THIS PARTICULAR INVESTIGATIVE COMMITTEE. BUT EVERYTHING SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE TO ENSURE OPPOSITION MPS SAT ON IT. NEITHER THE COALITION NOR THE OPPOSITION CARED ABOUT THIS - PIOTR ZAREMBA IN INTERIA. -- JAROSŁAW GOWIN'S TESTIMONY BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON THE ENVELOPE ELECTIONS WAS ANTICIPATED TO BE SENSATIONAL. INSTEAD, IT WAS BARELY NOTICED - ZAREMBA FURTHER: “Politicians from the coalition parties clearly do not want to contend with opposition MPs and their alternative interpretation of events. This will detract a lot from the spectacle, but let’s not kid ourselves: given the drama of today’s clashes over the understanding and circumvention of the law, these committees stand no chance of becoming an interesting spectacle followed by the public. Jarosław Gowin’s testimony before the committee on the envelope elections was anticipated to be sensational. Instead, it was barely noticed, given the drama of the dispute over the revocation of mandates and the imprisonment of MPs Kamiński and Wąsik. The issue is not the drama of the spectacle, but the final conclusions. These can be written even more easily in the absence of the opposition and without much audience attention.” -- IT IS POSSIBLE THAT THE RIGHT WILL GET USED TO ITS STATUS: DEPUTIES OF THE SECOND CATEGORY - ZAREMBA FURTHER IN INTERIA: “But I also have the impression that PiS itself has accepted its absence from this committee more easily than other blows that the current majority is not sparing it. It is possible that the shortness of the bench decided this: it has over 190 MPs, but few who would be able to grasp this subject matter. It is also possible that the right is getting used to its status: deputies of the second category.” https://wydarzenia.interia.pl/felietony/news-komisja-w-sprawie-pegasusa-bez-opozycji-czyli-ulomna,nId,7279364 -- DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT MUST ALSO BE AWARE THAT THE PROTECTION PERIOD HAS ENDED. JOURNALISTS ARE THERE TO WATCH THE GOVERNMENT, NOT THE OPPOSITION - CEZARY ŁAZAREWICZ IN CONVERSATION WITH MIŁADA JĘDRYSIK IN OKO.PRESS: “Democratic government must also be aware that the protection period has ended. Journalists are there to watch the government, not the opposition. I once wrote about Justice Minister Andrzej Czuma. It turned out that a bailiff was pursuing him in Chicago for unpaid debts. I had no doubt that it needed to be written about, and I would have had doubts if he were an ordinary MP. However, the Minister of Justice must be as transparent as glass.” -- IN GENERAL, IT IS DIFFICULT, BUT IT IS ESPECIALLY DIFFICULT TO BE A REPORTER, TO SCRAPE THE VERDIGRIS OFF MONUMENTS AND CHECK WHAT IS BENEATH THEM, BECAUSE THE EXPECTATION IS THAT WE WILL SIMPLY ERECT MONUMENTS - CEZARY ŁAZAREWICZ IN CONVERSATION WITH MIŁADA JĘDRYSIK - FRAGMENT: “Miłada Jędrysik, OKO.press: If I say ‘truth’, what is your first association? Cezary Łazarewicz: That nobody cares about it. - Why? - Because we have learned to live in lies and in glorious celebration. Ask people who wrote biographies of someone famous while their family was still alive or while they were alive. It’s about glorification. Nobody is interested in the truth except readers. That’s why it is so difficult in Poland. - Is it difficult to write, to be a reporter, or is it difficult in general? - It is difficult in general, but it is especially difficult to be a reporter, to scrape the verdigris off monuments and check what is beneath them, because the expectation is that we will simply erect monuments. https://oko.press/prawda-zdrapac-sniedz-z-pomnika-wywiad -- SLIM CHANCES FOR PiS TO RETURN TO POWER - BOGUSŁAW CHRABOTA IN RZ: “What will happen to PiS? I predict an inevitable division. The populist right will split (as has often happened in Polish political history) into a radical wing and a moderate remainder striving for coalition. And it is this remainder, whose leadership is difficult to determine today, that may play a truly significant role in Polish politics. The right-wing voter will not disappear. Poland will not evolve overnight to push traditional conservatism to the margins. This natural electorate will seek its representation, and it will certainly not be solely PiS. A significant portion of this voter group may be engaged by the increasingly strong – if it survives – Third Way.” https://www.rp.pl/plus-minus/art39714501-boguslaw-chrabota-marne-szanse-pis-na-powrot-do-wladzy -- AFTER THE ELECTIONS, PiS IS SLIGHTLY WEAKENING, AND KO IS GAINING A BIT - AGNIESZKA KUBLIK IN GW: “Both these matters can influence party standings. But even without them, a trend is already visible in recent polls. After the elections, PiS is slightly weakening, and KO is gaining a bit. As a result, the standings of both groups are already very close.” -- WE ARE OBSERVING A PROCESS OF LOSS OF CONTROL OVER THE NARRATIVE IN PiS. THE ELECTORATE HAS BEEN LEFT TO ITS OWN DEVICES - PROF. ANDRZEJ RYCHARD QUOTED BY AGNIESZKA KUBLIK IN GW: “Prof. Andrzej Rychard, head of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences: – This information, along with other revelations unfavorable to PiS, may make an impression on them. We are observing a process of loss of control over the narrative in PiS. The electorate has been left to its own devices, as evidenced by research showing that one-third of PiS voters do not know who is responsible for the mess with Kamiński and Wąsik. Donald Tusk’s government’s effectiveness is growing, Jarosław Kaczyński’s leadership is weakening. And effectiveness was very important for PiS voters. Today, the ruling camp is effective; Kaczyński is not.” https://wyborcza.pl/7,75398,30611918,pis-stracil-kontrole-narzucania-narracji-i-labnie-w-sondazach.html -- THE ASPIRATIONS OF POLES HAVE CHANGED, ESPECIALLY THOSE OF THE CENTRAL GROUP OF CITIZENS WHO DECIDE ELECTION OUTCOMES; POLAND HAS CAUGHT UP WITH THE WEST - MACIEJ STRZEMBOSZ IN RZ: “But the most important problem for Donald Tusk’s government is something else. The aspirations of Poles have changed, especially those of the central group of citizens who decide election outcomes by voting for one main camp or the other. Previously, it was primarily a matter of catching up with the standard of living in Western Europe. That is why nobody minded hitching the Polish economy like a wagon to the German train. But times have changed. As strange as it may sound – Poland has caught up with the West. Indeed, there are richer countries in the West, but there are increasingly more poorer ones, and according to some British forecasts, in 2030 GDP per capita in Poland will be higher than in Great Britain.” https://www.rp.pl/opinie-polityczno-spoleczne/art39719881-maciej-strzembosz-aspiracje-polakow-czyli-czego-nie-rozumie-donald-tusk -- THE PROBLEM WITH THE LAST MANAGEMENT OF THE DRAMATIC THEATRE WAS NOT AN EXCESS OF IDEOLOGY, BUT A LACK OF ABILITY TO TRANSLATE THAT IDEOLOGY INTO MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES THAT WOULD BUILD A DEMOCRATIC AND EQUAL COMMUNITY - MICHAŁ ZADARA IN KRYTYKA POLITYCZNA: “Warsaw deserves an inclusive, democratic, and ecological theater. Such a goal cannot be achieved through dictatorship. (...) Monika Strzępka’s team took power at the theater through a transparent, democratic procedure, with enormous public support, in agreement with the authorities managing the theater. Within two seasons, the theater management transformed from an egalitarian collective into an authoritarian monocracy, causing institutional dysfunction and hurting the people who co-created it.” -- PRACTICES IN THE THEATER BECAME A DENIAL OF THE DECLARED IDEOLOGY – LIKE WAGING WAR IN THE NAME OF PEACE - ZADARA FURTHER IN KRYTYKA: “The theater then entered a phase of deception: violence occurred in an institution that declared itself anti-violence. Practices in the theater became a denial of the declared ideology – like waging war in the name of peace. This phase of deception ended in December, when an alignment occurred between autocratic practices and autocratic ideology. The Facebook statement of December 18, 2023, was a denial of the program from 2022. The coup at Dramatyczny was completed when Monika Strzępka dissolved the Dramatyczny Collective, the deliberative body that was to guarantee democratic processes.” https://krytykapolityczna.pl/kultura/teatr/polityczna-historia-drobnego-lecz-znaczacego-przewrotu/ -- ON SUNDAY, THE 6TH ANNIVERSARY OF LIDIA OSTROWSKA’S DEATH. -- BIRTHDAYS: Jerzy Niewodniczański, Henryk Goryszewski, Marcin Romanowski, Anna Witkowska. SUNDAY: Paweł Arndt, Stanisław Handzlik.