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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHe's Meeting With Lech Walesa? What???.....
Lech Wałęsa is a Polish politician, trade-union organizer, and human-rights activist. He co-founded Solidarity (Solidarność, the Soviet bloc's first independent trade union, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, and served as President of Poland between 1990 and 1995.
Wałęsa was an electrician by trade, with no higher education. Soon after beginning work at the Gdańsk (then, "Lenin" Shipyards, he became a trade-union activist. For this he was persecuted by the Polish communist government, placed under surveillance, fired in 1976, and arrested several times.
In August 1980 he was instrumental in negotiations that led to the ground-breaking Gdańsk Agreement between striking workers and the government, and he became a co-founder of the Solidarity trade-union movement. Arrested again after martial law was imposed and Solidarity was outlawed, upon release he continued his activism and was prominent in the establishment of the 1989 Round Table Agreement that led to semi-free parliamentary elections in June 1989 and to a Solidarity-led government.
Interesting that Mitt is going to meet with Walesa. Walesa is about 180 degrees opposite of Rmoney. Why would Rmoney want to meet with a guy that became a trade-union activist and co-founder of the trade-union movement? Don't the Repugs want to diminish the role of trade unions here in the U.S.? It just doesn't make much sense to me that this is the person he wants to meet with in Poland - unless Rmoney's minders didn't do their homework and don't realize what the issue was that boosted Walesa into international prominence.
It is going to be interesting to watch Rmoney's comments about Walesa and hear what he has to say about him. Seems to me that Walesa is contrary to all that the Repugs stand for. It just doesn't make much sense to me.
cali
(114,904 posts)and he sadly is not 180 degrees opposite of Romney- at least not on some issues:
<snip>
On 15 April 2010, during a civil trial brought by Wałęsa against former fellow activist Krzysztof Wyszkowski over the collaboration allegations, a retired MO and Służba Bezpieczeństwa officer appeared in court and confirmed the fact of Wałęsa's collaboration in a sworn testimony.[49] The officer, Janusz Stachowiak, was in charge of keeping documentation on Wałęsa from December 1970 to 1974 (which shows these documents were not fabricated later), although never met him in person. He stated that Wałęsa was convinced to cooperate by SB Capt. Henryk Rapczyński and SB Capt. Edward Graczyk, after a two-hour interrogation, albeit without the use of threats, and signed an agreement to keep his cooperation with SB in secret.[50] The officers asked him to "calm down" the atmosphere in the shipyard after protests were bloodily suppressed. Wałęsa kept meeting regularly with the secret police, reportedly receiving substantial sums of money,[50] but after about 4 months he started to "withdraw" (although it was not until June 1976 when he was unregistered, because of his "reluctance to cooperate" .
Previously, in 2008, Capt. Edward Graczyk (long thought to be deceased and as such not summoned to testify in the 2000 trial) was interrogated by the IPN about his contacts with Wałęsa[51] and subsequently interviewed by Gazeta Wyborcza.[52] In the interview, which somewhat contradicts his earlier testimony, Graczyk recounted Wałęsa's cooperation, but denied his own actions had been "recruitment" of an agent. He also denied giving money to Wałęsa. The other of the two officers, Capt. Henryk Rapczyński, was never interrogated.
On December 22, 2011, it was reported that the Polish National Remembrance Institute had determined that communist secret security had forged documents in the 1980s that suggested Walesa was their agent.[53]
Views
Wałęsa is a devout Roman Catholic[10] and a staunch opponent of abortion, and has said that he would rather have resigned the presidency twenty times than sign into law a bill permitting abortion in Poland.[54] In an interview for Polish television in 2012, Wałęsa said that, as a Catholic, he opposes in vitro fertilization and homosexual "marriage," adding that if his son were a homosexual he would pray for him to stop going down the wrong road.[55]
<snip>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lech_Walesa#Later_years
who knows if Walesa was actually an informant but he's been paid to endorse candidates recently, and he's admitted to that. He's virulently anti-choice and against equal rights for GLBT folks.
Tom Ripley
(4,945 posts)sweetloukillbot
(11,439 posts)I vaguely recall him making a statement comparing Occupy to the Solidarity movement, then taking it back when he found out that occupy was a left-wing movement.
Remember, Walesa gained prominence as an anti-communist during the Reagan years. I'm not too familiar with his politics, but I'm not surprised if he's right-wing.
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)obamanut2012
(26,348 posts)Homophobic, anti Semitic, religious zealot...
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)and then Mitt will imply that that is what he will do for the USA. He'll imply that Walesa would hate ACA, etc. It won't make any sense if you really think about it. We aren't supposed to think about it -- just see a little guy who beat the big bad guy standing next to Mitt.
A second item, you wrote:
"an electrician by trade, with no higher education"
The reason a trade union can shut down a country is because they have critical knowledge and skills that the country needs hourly. If Walesa had been say an anthropologist who organized all the other professors and researchers to strike it would not have had the impact or the leverage that Solidarnosc had.
Maybe one of the reasons that our standard of living is in decay is that we have bought this idea that every kids MUST got to COLLEGE. It may not be what most people think of as "higher education" but handling 200 Amps of electrical current isn't child's play. Wiring a building safely is a test of math, creativity and contracting skills and failing the "test" could cost you your life.
Becoming an electrician allowed Walesa to free himself and his country from communism but it works against fascism too. Not even Romney could outsource electricians.
nanabugg
(2,198 posts)here at home...Air Traffic Controllers and others. The GOP has no shame.
doohnibor
(97 posts)Doesn't say much for one's intellect. I think Poles finally had Walesa figured out by the 2000 election, when he ended up with only 1.4% of the vote.
Roselma
(540 posts)Lech Walesa: Obama Is No Reagan
by TWB Posted on May 27, 2011
Lech Walesa, a recent recipient of the Ronald Reagan Centennial Award, has decided that he will not meet Obama on his trip to Poland. According to Polish TV via The Telegraph, Walesa said, Its difficult to tell journalists what youd like to say to the president of a superpower. This time I wont tell him, I wont meet him, it doesnt suit me.
ananda
(29,045 posts)How Romney's brain contorts and twists inside
and something really stupid comes out of his
mouth as a result.
reformist2
(9,841 posts)They think Obama is Carter. High oil prices, problems with Iran. Even hinting that Russia is getting aggressive again and needs to be contained. They never make the final absurd leap of comparing Romney to Reagan.
rug
(82,333 posts)salin
(48,955 posts)material to the comics.
Your post almost made me spew my sip of coffee as a chuckled so hard.