LEWACTWO Egregious Example Minkenberg

The Radical Right in Eastern Europe: Democracy Under Siege?, by Michael Minkenberg. 2017

Tells Us More About Far-Left Ideology Than About the “Radical Right” Bogeyman in Eastern Europe

The author gets one thing right as he admits that, “In the research on the radical right, definitions of right-wing radicalism vary widely and terminology remains contested.” (p. 12). And no wonder: the “radical right” is very much a scarecrow, including to Poland’s homegrown LEWACTWO.

Minkenberg manages to repeat all the standard slogans from leftspeak. They are even tabulated for accusatory purposes. (p. 15). Thus, we read about the obligatory racism, ethnocentrism, xenophobia, nativism, religiocentrism (fundamentalism), heterophobia (homophobia), and (what else?) anti-Semitism. (p. 15).

CONSIDER THE SOURCES

An idea of the shoddy quality of this book is its reliance on Rafal Pankowski for much of the mis-information about Poland. Pankowski is a onetime anarchist, and radical leftist, that has been inflated, by the leftmedia, into some kind of authority on “Polish intolerance”. Minkenberg also cites Brian Porter Szucs, another leftist, as an authority on Poland.

IS POLAND A SOVEREIGN NATION OR NOT?

The author makes a revealing comment as he uses the words “Independence March” in quotes. (p. 95). It is obvious that the author either cannot conceive of Poland as an independent nation, or is deeply hostile to the fact that she is one.

Evidently, Minkenberg thinks that Poland is some kind of tinkertoy that exists for the manipulative pleasures of cultural Marxists, or that she is some kind of dumping ground for Third World immigrants. She is neither. Good fences make good neighbors! And whatever happened to self-determination of peoples? Not in the left-wing imagination.

The author brings up Poland and (what else?) anti-Semitism. He repeats this stock complaint, “No matter how small the Jewish population, the anti-Semitic view is that Jews are over-represented in various political, economic, and cultural elite positions…” (p. 85). Anti-Semitic? Really? The over-representation of Jews is an easily-verifiable fact. (Whether it is good, bad, or neither, is a separate question.) Minkenberg then drags-in the negative publicity surrounding George Soros (p. 85), as if people are supposed to be too dumb to notice what George Soros has been doing.

Minkenberg (p. 2) repeats the stock accusation against PiS and the judiciary. What he doesn’t tell the reader is the fact that the Polish judiciary has long been very corrupt, self-perpetuating, and unresponsive to valid reform.

SELECTIVE INDIGNATION

The author brings up political violence—if it comes from the right. (p. 95). He is predictably silent about left-wing violence, notably from the antifascist fascists—the ANTIFA.

FASCIST! FASCIST! FASCIST!

The media has, especially in recent years, been routinely slandering Polish patriots as fascists and neo-Nazis. Minkenberg, at first, seems more careful in affixing the label of “fascist” or “neo-Nazi” to groups that are not to the liking of the left-wing elite in western countries.

But then, author Michael Minkenberg would have us believe that the RUCH NARODOWE, in Poland, is fascist. (p. 74). Against such nonsense, and for the truth about the RUCH NARODOWE, read their Polish-language manifesto, at ruchnarodowe.net, under “Program”. See also my detailed English-language review of the RUCH NARODOWE manifesto: