Sunday, January 23, 2011
Poland and Polish Hippies
Hippies in America and other Western countries are artistic, entrepreneur type of people that have emerged from the bohemian and beatnik American culture scenes. They have been a kind of check-valve or regulator for the democratic system by using the liberties given to the people through the Constitution and other civil rights that were just words on paper until demonstrators demanded them to come into life.
At one time, I mistook the Polish Solidarity movement for such a movement and used to compare it to the hippie movement. As it turned out, the Solidarity movement was not a libertarian movement at all but a revolutionary socialist worker's union movement that decided to over-through the legal government. Change of political system in Poland took place at a round table where former communists and Solidarity leaders (many of whom may have been KGB agents) agreed to rule the country together. Hence to put it in a general way, the former KGB system remained and the authority's autocratic tendencies to control all sectors of the country's life; including civil liberties and private people's lives to some degree. Solidarity was a Catholic-Socialistic labor union's movement that was formed to demonstrate against low wages, oppression of the dominating in the country Catholic Church and demanded other freedoms... More freedom came to the country with its Nato and EU memberships.
The Poles are just learning about freedom and have difficulty in giving up old ways of thinking and doing things. Now the Middle Ages style, backwards Polish Catholic Church (a different form of Catholicism then we know) has become the oppressor and former Communists and KGB agents are making millions in various business ventures or just living the good life. So, you see. We are simultaneously living in two different universes. American Hippies were kids from good homes that loved their country and decided to make it a better place through the democratic system that was given to them. That's the main difference between us and the so called Polish, Russian etc. hippies. I'm an American hippie. Polish Hippy is my American nickname given to me by hippies in America after I passed a test... Because to become a recognized hippie one had to pass a test in those days because hippies were an underground movement.
At one time, I mistook the Polish Solidarity movement for such a movement and used to compare it to the hippie movement. As it turned out, the Solidarity movement was not a libertarian movement at all but a revolutionary socialist worker's union movement that decided to over-through the legal government. Change of political system in Poland took place at a round table where former communists and Solidarity leaders (many of whom may have been KGB agents) agreed to rule the country together. Hence to put it in a general way, the former KGB system remained and the authority's autocratic tendencies to control all sectors of the country's life; including civil liberties and private people's lives to some degree. Solidarity was a Catholic-Socialistic labor union's movement that was formed to demonstrate against low wages, oppression of the dominating in the country Catholic Church and demanded other freedoms... More freedom came to the country with its Nato and EU memberships.
The Poles are just learning about freedom and have difficulty in giving up old ways of thinking and doing things. Now the Middle Ages style, backwards Polish Catholic Church (a different form of Catholicism then we know) has become the oppressor and former Communists and KGB agents are making millions in various business ventures or just living the good life. So, you see. We are simultaneously living in two different universes. American Hippies were kids from good homes that loved their country and decided to make it a better place through the democratic system that was given to them. That's the main difference between us and the so called Polish, Russian etc. hippies. I'm an American hippie. Polish Hippy is my American nickname given to me by hippies in America after I passed a test... Because to become a recognized hippie one had to pass a test in those days because hippies were an underground movement.
Labels: '60s, 1960s revolution, american culture, beat generation, christianity, communism, freedom, hippie, hippies, hippy, human rights, liberty, poland, polish, protest, solidarity movement, Warsaw
¶ 1/23/2011 11:13:00 AM
