Some Polish Americans are having a hard time coming to terms with the election of Bronislaw Komorowski as President of the Republic of Poland. Having been Acting President since the tragic plane crash of April 10, he was elected by the citizenry on July 4 and will be inaugurated in his own right as President in August, 2010.

We thought the days of the witch-hunters was almost over in Polonia, but it lingers on. The extreme right-wingers refer to the incoming President as a communist or, at least, a sympathizer. The epithets are still applied to anyone with whom they don’t agree. These are the same sorts who cannot accept Barack Obama as President of the United States. Being Black does not seem to be Obama’s problem, but being liberal and supporting real democracy makes him anathema. The same reasoning applies to Komorowski. If you do not bow to the outdated notions of conservatism, well, you must be a commie. Somehow, it makes sense to those opponents who have convinced themselves that beating the other side to absolute submission by any means elevates them to the pinnacle of democracy. Weird, but it seems they actually believe it.

It has taken me a long time to say it openly, although I’ve been thinking it for a long time, but ultra-conservatives are a bit goofy and a lot deluded. Examine them sufficiently and you will find their extreme beliefs to be founded on false notions of history, a misunderstanding of the basic tenets of democracy, a confusion of the relative positions of church and state, and, of course, a mistrust of the people. The latter notion follows from the conceit that only they can know the truth. Paradoxically, the truth would make them free, but they do not want to displace their own deeply entrenched ideology with anything else, regardless of how sensible or reasonable.

Getting back to President-Elect Komorowski himself and his supposedly communist background. The truth is that he acted with the democratic opposition during the communist regime as an underground publisher. He was sent to prison in 1979 along with other members of the Movement in Defense of Human and Civil Rights. Them in 1980-81, he worked in Solidarity’s Center of Social Investigation. During the same period, he signed the founding declaration of the Clubs in Service of Independence. Much of the foregoing led to him be interned under martial law. It should not come as a surprise, then, that he taught at a seminary from 1981-89.

Yes, that’s the guy the Jaroslaw Kaczynski supporters call a "commie."

POLKA PERCEPTIONS

There are basically three groups of opinions about polka music. One group holds up their noses, suggesting that unless its Chopin, Moniuszko, or one of those guys, it can’t be good. Another thinks it’s passé, an old musical form not relevant to the 21st century. The third just says it’s a heck of a lot fun.

I’m unabashedly with the third group. Polka music is fun and it sounds great. If you are breathing and devoid of one of the aforementioned prejudices, you will admit that it makes you smile, tap your feet and, if you know the words, sing out loud. Yeah, it’s a heck of a lot of fun and, unless the rules changed when I wasn’t looking, there is nothing wrong with having harmless fun.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against the classical composers. I refer to persons like Chopin and Moniuszko, though, simply as "guys," not in disrespect, but they are simply just that … not gods, but human. Some of those classical guys even wrote polkas, although usually not the kind that are very exciting.

The truth is that those who consider themselves too sophisticated for polkas, actually are not. The true sophisticate would appreciate every form of music, from that of the masters to rock. It is all a form of expression and the real music lover would savor the variations in each. Snobs are boring, anyway. (You can exclude rap, of course, because if that is music, decayed garbage is art. On the other hand, if obscenity is your thing, you might be allowed to accept it as a low form of poetry, but not music, please.)

It is mainly the young who think of polka music as woefully out of date. That is just another form of snobbery, which differs only from the more senior form by reason of the offender’s age. They perceive jumping around to rock music as fun and, although slightly older than dirt, I share their enthusiasm for rock, from classic to the variety of contemporary forms. Nevertheless, youths apparently fail to realize that polka not only allows you to move your body in spectacular and innovative ways, but actually permits you to touch your partner while dancing.

Whoa, maybe that’s the problem … a youthful fear of actually interacting with another human, rather than existing in one’s "own space." Well, kids, get over it. Despite the singularity taught to us by our modern forms of communication, you’re going to have to relate directly to the rest of humanity somewhere along the line or find this a very dreary world. Believe me, youngsters, interacting can be pretty cool … and I’m sure you know what I mean.

And, one of the awesome things about polka music is that there are so many forms. Naturally, there are the numerous nationality types, such as German or Slovenian, but there are a great many variations just within the Polish genre, which might certainly be argued to be the largest of all the forms. It ranges from the traditional, early forms, to Honky and Push, and there are new styles in the making. Today’s polka bands are experimenting with mixtures of other musical styles. If country-western has rockabilly, we have polkarock and polkabilly, and more, and I’m not kidding about that. You name it and the long list of talented polka musicians will try it. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but polka music is far from static, it continues to evolve.

Alright, it is pretty clear by now that I’m into polka music (as well as all other musical forms.) Maybe it’s because I have a good ear or maybe just because I love the happy, fun sound. Whatever the reason, I sincerely invite the "snobs" on both sides of the spectrum, from the senior sophisticates to the suspicious young. As they say, "Try it, you’ll like it."

The best part is that polka people are non-judgmental. You can join the dancers at a polka event and no one will pick you apart for using the wrong steps or moving your body in an incorrect way. You might even invent a new style … that’s fine, too. Or, join in the ever-growing numbers who just enjoy standing in front of the band, exactly as at a rock concert, hearing the great sounds and cheering on their favorite musicians.

As was observed above, polka music is a heck of a lot of fun. You are more than welcome to join in.

JUST A MISTAKE?

Polish Americans have been complaining about descriptions such as "Polish concentration camps" and "Polish death camps" for years now. At first we assumed these were just mistakes made by the uninformed, confused or simply ignorant. Later, we began to get concerned and suspect that there just might be some animosity involved.

Today, I have less doubt. Surely, anyone who writes about "Polish" concentration or death camps is either a bigot or a moron. Considering that reporters and columnists are generally well educated and reasonably intelligent, I would vote for "bigot," except that it is too simple an explanation and does reach to the roots of the problem.

Recently an article in the widely circulated Parade magazine referred to concentration camps and the ghetto in Warsaw as being Polish. Well, three should no longer be any need to explain that they may have been situated in Poland, but characterizing them as Polish is a major historical error. There is no excuse for any educated person not knowing that these places were created and managed by the Germans. On an equal par is hiding the true identity of the perpetrators by constantly referring to them as "Nazis." Described only as Nazis, the uninformed reader, particularly the young not familiar with the history of World War II, might easily assume them to be Polish. That is misinformation by misdirection.

Mistakes or purposeful? Again, it is difficult to believe that it is merely error. Just sloppy reporting? If so, it is still inexcusable and would not be tolerated by editors in any other situations.

The Parade article was written by a gentleman named Blumenthal. It may not be politically correct to mention that this writer has a typically Jewish name, but it is factual. The point is made here only because the description of German camps and ghettos as Polish is too often made by Jewish writers. Poles have ignored stating this because we do not want to be equally guilty of the bigotry apparently evidenced by those authors. Ignoring the truth, however, does not help to rectify a wrongful situation. Sometimes, regardless of how hard it may be, reality must be faced head on.

There are reasons why Jewish writers may tend to think of German crimes on Polish soil to be actually the work of Poles. Those motivations may not bestow total innocence upon the writers, but they do account somewhat for the incorrect descriptions.

To some extent, the reason may be seen as "hereditary," not in the physical, but the psychological, sense. Young Jews were often taught that the transgressions were Polish, either by intentional falsehoods or by carelessly defined statements. Polish guilt is, therefore, deeply ingrained in some persons from their youth and difficult to correct even by education and investigation. It is not easy to erase the lessons taught on the knee of one’s grandfather.

German Jews, such as those with Germanic names like Blumenthal, considered themselves superior to Slavic Jews, just as other Germans claimed superiority over all Slavs. There has always been a love-hate relationship between German Jews and other Germans, so it was not difficult to ascribe the offenses within Polish borders to the residents rather than the German occupiers. Recall the difficult truth that Jews initially refused to believe that the German population could commit atrocities against them and resisted leaving what they considered to also be their fatherland.

The foregoing is explored here primarily as a part of the difficult task of perfecting Polish-Jewish relations. If some Jews have inaccurately described the events of WWII, some Poles have also incorrectly portrayed the history of Jews in Poland. Both sides have to discard old concepts and look anew at each other, and their mutual history. Only then will false statements disappear.

A LACK OF PURITY

A professor from Poland recently denigrated a Polish American leader, revered by most, but even grudgingly respected by those who held him in somewhat less esteem. It is an incident reminiscent of the spurious claims made by the infamous U.S. Senator Joe McCarthy in the 1950s. More about that a little later, but first some background about a process known as "lustration."

In ancient times lustration referred to purification rites of the Greeks and Romans. Today, it has come to mean policies aimed at limiting the participation of former communists, particularly those who were informers for the secret police, in other words a kind of political purifying.

The first lustration legislation was passed by the Polish Parliament in 1992, but was declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Tribunal, a judicial body similar to the Supreme Court in the U.S. After a few other efforts, a new law was adopted in 1996. The Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) was given some key powers over the process and exercise of lustration Again, though, key articles of the law were found to be unconstitutional in 2007. Today, the whole thing is in question and some observers feel the secret police files should simply be opened to the public and let the chips fall where they may. Others think the release of all of the personal and confidential information contained in the files would cause unacceptable harm to innocent people.

While lustration in Poland is somewhat of a dormant issue, there are those in the United States, particularly on the West Coast, who contend that communist agents remain active here and that lustration should be adopted in Polonia. Their favorite initial source of information is the so-called Wildstein List, named for Bronislaw Wildstein, a reporter who secretly copied the information from the national archives. It contains the names of some 162,617 individuals who are believed to have worked for the Polish intelligence services. However, it also includes persons who the secret police wanted to recruit, but were never successful in that effort.

Naturally, this lustration process has some innate faults. Even a cursory examination of the Wildstein List reveals that it includes many common names, giving rise to errors in solid identification. Others were persons from whom it was hoped information could be obtained. Likewise, the security or secret police are known to have contrived some reports, mostly for the purpose of their own aggrandizement and promotion.

In California, accusations against a Polonian leader, hotly contested until this day, ultimately drove him from his positions and completely out of the state. Others less prominent have allegedly suffered similar indignities.

And now to the current situation. In its vetting inquiries about Polonia, Dr. Slawomir Cenckiewicz climbed to the top of the list of accusers, proclaiming a bombshell at a press conference dedicated to Stephen Korbonski, author of books about the Polish experience in WWII. Cenckiewicz announced that the IPN has found two documents indicating that Edward J. Moskal, the longtime President of the Polish National Alliance (PNA) and the Polish American Congress (PAC), who deceased five years ago, was a contact for Polish intelligence, which at that time was under control of the Soviets. Many observers believe that Cenckiewicz failed in his investigation approach and, in fact, his claims left a deep scar on his prior achievements regarding the subject of collaboration with Polish Communist authorities in Poland. The documents submitted by Cenckiewicz simply did not show anything which would actually indicate any activity for the communists by Moskal.

Nevertheless, the harm was done. Circulated immediately by Polish press agencies in releases about the conference, an article immediately appeared on March 25, 2010, in Rzeczpospolita [The Republic], a major newspaper. It was eagerly repeated by other parts of the media as a sensational story.

There are no kind words with which to describe the "revelation" by Cenckiewicz. He is a fool and the accusation is absurd.

I attempt to refrain from becoming personal in my editorial writing, but it is impossible in this situation. As then Director of Public Relations for the Polish National Alliance, I worked and socialized closely with Edward J. Moskal for almost a decade, even traveling to Poland with him after the nation won its freedom. It would be difficult to find a greater and more dedicated American and Pole than he was.

Edward Moskal, a WWII U.S. Army veteran, struggled long and hard for the causes of both the United States and Poland. For his efforts, he was honored on numerous occasions by government and church in both nations. Among his greatest accomplishments was his fight for the inclusion of Poland in NATO, an endeavor in which I remain proud to have worked under his leadership. It was a political battle that certainly did not please the communists, whom he detested.

Although there are those who disagreed with President Moskal’s methods, his opinions or his tendency toward hyperbole, even they would never question his loyalty and patriotism. The suggestion by Cenckiewicz is a sin of the most dire kind. He is in serious need of "purification."

Edward J. Moskal, by his life and his deeds, deserves to be recalled as a great and patriotic Polish American.

HEALTHY HEALTHCARE

It seems as though it has been going on forever and the discussion, including the rather nasty disagreements, about healthcare reform continue. Everyone agrees that the U.S. healthcare insurance system is broken, but very few agree on the repairs.

In this country, some presidents, primarily Democrats, have been trying to fix the cracks for years. President Clinton tried and failed. President Obama has found it to be a Herculean task and his effort has seriously affected his approval rating. Let’s face it; this is a thorny issue, not made easier by the fear tactics employed by the rightwing.

If it is any consolation, it is not a simple matter in Poland, either. The current coalition, led by the Civic Platform (PO) party, is having its efforts at reform hampered, as well, although the group’s solutions are quite different from the American situation.

While the Obama Administration is attempting to solve problems with a governmental solution, Donald Tusk’s government is trying to bring more market-based reform into the system.

The U.S. spends more on healthcare than any other nation, but millions of Americans do not have even basic care. While the right does its best to scare the citizenry away from meaningful change in that regard, public programs such as Medicare and Medicaid have exceptionally high satisfaction rates from its users.

The Polish situation is almost the reverse. Poland spends less on healthcare than almost any nation in Europe, but manages to cover everyone. Unfortunately, though, it has a swollen bureaucracy, mediocre use of equipment and poor management.

When we observe other fields of general public interest, it is clear that a good mixture of public and private institutions, and solutions, work best. A leading Polish magazine recently came to exactly that same conclusion, pointing to education as a good example. So, asked the editors, why not adopt a similar philosophy when it comes to healthcare?

Despite screams from the oppositions, it is clear upon fair inspection, that both Tusk and Obama are each simply trying to accelerate the move toward private-public cooperation, rather than promoting a revolutionary change from one method to the other. Complete transformation to a private system in Poland is impossible and a overall switch to a public program is vastly unpopular in the U.S. The leaders of both countries are certainly wise enough to recognize those realities.

The Polish answer to the healthcare dilemma may well be that private companies should take over the management of many more public hospitals. Noting the obvious inability of private insurers to meet the needs of every member of the U.S. population, some sort of public solution must be adopted. For differing problems there are different answers, but both the U.S. and the Polish difficulties can be alleviated by devising acceptable levels of participation by private and public entities.

No plan will ever be totally satisfactory to everyone, but serious predicaments can give rise to a serious acceptance of compromise. We must hope that the citizenry, and the politicians, in each country have the wisdom and goodwill to adopt a suitable degree of conciliation. After all, your health may depend on it.

REMEMBER THE PHOENIX

Everyone has sometime or other heard the story of the Phoenix, the bird that is reduced to ashes, but from which a new creature is reborn anew to live again. Although there may be some ashes for Polonia in the latest of the Illinois elections, there is also hope for rebirth.

It is common to hear that Chicago has the second largest Polish population, outdistanced only by Warsaw. It is just as usual to observe that as many Poles as there may be in the Windy City, it has had very little political power in recent years.

There are various reasons for Polonia’s political decline in Illinois, but not least among them is that Polish Americans have simply failed to enter the field. Obviously, you cannot win a race if you do not run. There was some forward movement in that regard, however, this year. More Poles became actively involved in the races for public office, and important spots at that, than we have seen in quite some time.