BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?

Subject: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: GUEST,Mr Bumble
Date: 13 Dec 03 - 09:17 PM

The Poles wrecked the EU Costitution by rejecting the offer to donate Council votes - as every other big member state has already done. They say that Poland should keep this voting power to protect the small member states.

1
When did the EU become a warzone where the big states stomp the little and
2
If Poland really believes this should not the rest of the community reject them until they learn the meaning of the word Union?

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Dec 03 - 09:49 PM

They don't make those kind of thicko "Polish" jokes in this country that I've ever heard, they make them about the Irish. Rubbish in both cases, and only rarely funny.

As I understood it, the Germans and the French were trying to rat on a deal which the Poles had been given at the time they were negotiating entry.

The Polish government wouldn't have had the authority to go along with the proposals - they were part of the settlement that was approved by the Poles in a referendum only a little time ago.

"...should not the rest of the community reject them until they learn the meaning of the word Union?" Well, they've got one of those on the other side of the Atlantic - and they have made a point of guaranteeing the same number of Senators for little states as for big states. Basically, as I understand it, this is intended in order to stop big states stomping little states.

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Dec 03 - 09:57 PM

Poles are brave,smart, and for the most part very smart. Fuck Europe! stay independant.

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Dec 03 - 10:01 PM

And, being brave and smart, they recently voted to join the European Union, and can be expected to make it better than it would be without them.

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: Hrothgar
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 03:51 AM

It's just that their diplomatis skills need more Polish.

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: Ebbie
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 04:00 AM

Why is Spain not mentioned?

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: Mr Red
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 04:28 AM

Cork v Kerrymen, Kerrymen v Cork, French v Belgians, NZ v OZ, Latvians v Russians, Ukranians v Russians, Lithuanian's v Russians, and yes I would bet Poles v Russians. Only in the Black country do we have ourselves (Enoch & Eli) as the but of the jokes.

If we didn't want their opinions why did we invite them in? Spot the idiocy there!

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: Neighmond
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 06:47 AM

Only TWO Polish Jokes...

Everything else is TRUE!!!

No, really, if Poland ought to govern themselves as they see fit.

Chaz

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 04:15 PM

I suppose it's possible that the dim Poles who emigrated went to America and the bright ones went anywhere else?

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: musicmick
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 04:36 PM

I have noticed that we so rarely here about Polish folk singers. Is this an oversight, a dastardly slur or, perhaps, a cultural aversion to unamplified instruments. Are there Poles within our ranks who, for reasons of their own, remain in cognito? Do they resent the dearth of polka bands on festival lineups? Do Polish music fans go to Dublin clubs for "a bit of the krako"?

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Dec 03 - 06:22 PM

Aparantly, musicmic, the Poles love shanties. Stan Huwgill is revered as St Stanislaw!

To understand Poles however you realy need to understand Poland. In the last 500 years or so it has changed it's boundries so often it is amazing that anything lasts at all. There were times when it belonged to Russia, Germany and Sweden. There were times when it only existed for a few square miles around Warsaw! All and sundry have layed claim to it's lands and have forcibly tried to prove their claims. Through it all Poland has survived.

Yes there are jokes in the UK about the Irish as there are in the US about the Poles. As McG said they are not funny. They do show however that people are jelous of both nations, who have survived incredible odds and still won.

Mind you, to put things in perspective, my Dad still makes jokes about people from Moscow. And his Dad was a Russian orthodox priest!

What do you call a Muscovite in a suit?

The accused...

Ah well. What goes around comes around.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: musicmick
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 12:57 AM

Ah, Dave, my gnomish friend, Polish jokes are merely standard "fool town" stories and, probably for the historical reasons you gave, in European tradition, the Poles are streotyped as the fools. In Ireland, the jokes are told about citizens of Cork. In England, they use the town of Gotham. Jews in the Pale of Settlement told tales of the "Wise Men of Chelm". Here, in the USA, we tell "Dumb" stories about Southerners (in fact, I've seen more than a few "Redneck" jokes in Mudcat threads). Generally, stereotyping is employed to denegrate folks who live nearbye but are different from ourselves. I suppose there are those, even among enlightened folk like us, who accept those traditional streotypes as accurate. That is, they think that Poles are fools, Italians are cowards, Irishmen are drunkards, Mexicans are lazy, and Jews are money grubbing cheats. There are also those in our number who know that a "Fool Story" is just that and identifying the fool by his residense or nationality is no more than a tool of convenience. We may even know that the Scots and the English drink more than the Irish but they have a better press.

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: mooman
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 04:46 AM

As I understand it, McGrath is right and the French and Germans were trying to rat on a formula negotiated at the time of the proposed entry of Poland and upon which it had a referendum.

I happen to think the Poles are correct on this. As usual with the EU, everything that ought to have been sorted out through the lengthy accdession phas becomes a last minute crisis due to bully states trying to change the rule to suit themselves.

On the jokes front I abhor racist jokes and behaviour of any type (I was rather flamed a while back on another (musical) thread, by someone who should have known better, for saying this). Perhaps I am quite sensitive to this issue as I have Irish parentage and Irish nationality and passport, but grew up in London and sound like any other Londoner to all intents and purposes. This put me in the firing line over the years of many rather nasty anti-Irish jokes and comments by people who didn't know I was Irish, which naturally I felt compelled to stand up to, even leaving one organization (quite some time ago now admittedly and perhaps things have changed since then) because of its "institutional racism". I've now been in Belgium about 12 and a half years. Here there is no anti-Irishness or Englishness but there is still an unfortunate underlying racism about certain groups. Seems the same the world over as some have remarked above.

My best friend is Polish, I work with several Poles, and I personally have never met the stereotypical Pole of the "Polish joke".

Peace,

moo

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: Mr Red
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 08:07 AM

Well now I should be shot down in flames for this but what is the consensus on bodhran jokes?

AND might I point out that I have never seen a Polish bodhran (Bodhran polish - yes) but I rather fear the Irish gene is somewhat rampant in the genus.

I claim diplomatic immunity here as my two are from Wales (made by a Welsh lass) & Bristol (made by an ex-pat German)

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: Wotcha
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 12:25 PM

Went to Warsaw this summer and had a marvelous time with my Polish hosts. On the street, if one bursts into spontaneous song, you'll get an appreciative crowd ... they like folk music (especially chanteys in land-locked Warsaw) and understand the resonance even if they don't understand the words ... try visiting the Vistula River on a summer evening.

Cheers,

Brian

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 01:30 PM

"...in European tradition, the Poles are stereotyped as the fools." Not in European tradition, so far as I know. Perhaps in Germany (I guess at random), but that'd be a localised matter.

In England anyway, the stereotype of Poles is more of being romantic, recklessly brave and intellectual - an amalgum of Chopin, and of fighter Pilots and Polish Cavalry charging tanks in the war. No more accurate than any other sterotype, but different from the one Americans seem to have.

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: M.Ted
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 01:47 PM

Polkas are not Polish folk music--

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 01:57 PM

You do have Polish polkas - but most Polish folk music isn't polkas. And most time you hear a polka it's more likely to be German or Irish. (Quite often when it's an Irish polka it isn't actually a polka at all.)

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 15 Dec 03 - 02:13 PM

In Germany, the Poles are not portrayed as fools (our target for fools jokes are Co-Germans). They are portrayed as thieves (in 'racist' jokes).

One prejudice is as silly as the other and tells more about the frame of mind of those telling these jokes than about the target group.

I just tell it to show you how random these prejudices select one particular group as a target.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: musicmick
Date: 16 Dec 03 - 02:17 AM

I have often thought that we need a designated group to be the unoffendable objects of ethnic jokes. How about the Klingons? They're nasty, hated and fictitious. A little to esoteric? How about the Visogoths? They're barbaric, unsanitary and extinct. You say you'd like something a little more contemporary? How about Communists? They are defeated, devalued and in disarray.
Well, I guess we'll have to stick it to the traditional targets, lawyers, Rednecks and men.

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 16 Dec 03 - 06:49 AM

I suppose it's possible that the dim Poles who emigrated went to America and the bright ones went anywhere else? (McGrath)

They don't make those kind of thicko "Polish" jokes in this country that I've ever heard, they make them about the Irish. (McGrath)

I added two and two and burst out laughing. Was it self irony or an unvoluntary joke?

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Dec 03 - 05:20 PM

The first sentence is ironic or possibly sardonic, Wolfgang. The second is statement of straightforward fact.

Some comedians tried to set a fashion for switching the thicko jokes to refer to Sun readers, as being a self-selected group who chose to read a tabloid paper that more or less matched the stereotype.

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Dec 03 - 11:47 PM

Polish jokes say Poles are dirty. WRONG WRONG WRONG! There are a lot of Polish Americans here in Pittsburgh. They are the worst goddamned neat freaks who ever scrubbed a rug. They make Germans look like slobs. I swear there is a sign on the Polish Border that says, Welcome to Poland, Please Wipe Your Feet, and somewhere in Warsaw there's a shrine to Our Lady of Perpetual Cleanser.

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: Joe_F
Date: 17 Dec 03 - 07:01 PM

Well, the Poles have their own jokes about the rest of us humans, and the ones I've heard are pretty funny:

Q. What is the purpose of the USSR?
A. It is a buffer state between Poland and China.

Q. If Russia and Germany once again attacked Poland, which front would you choose to fight on?
A. The eastern front. Business before pleasure.

The USSR built a monument to Chopin, so of course the Polish ambassador was invited to the unveiling. When the drape is lifted, it reveals a sculpture of a man with a little pointy beard. The ambassador leans over to the man next to him and whispers, "But this is not Chopin!" "Of course not!" replies the Russian, "It is Lenin *listening* to Chopin."

When Napoleon marched on Moscow, he wore a red shirt, so that in case he was wounded, his soldiers would not notice. When Hitler marched on Moscow, he wore brown pants.

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 18 Dec 03 - 03:57 AM

I sometimes think that the real purpose of the nationalistic stereotype jokes is to stop us plebians from realising that we're all the same.
John

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Dec 03 - 06:20 AM

Sopmetimes they are quite good jokes that would be better detached from the setting of national or regional stereotypes - because we aren't the same, and can laugh at our differences. But the differences don't run between nations but through families.

When we hear the jokes as being about Cousin Fred, or Aunty Doreen, rather than about a stereotypical mean Scot or Essex girl we can laugh at themif they are funny without feeling mean about all the generous Scots we know are there, or the reserved Essex girls.

Subject: RE: BS: Poland .... are all the jokes true?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Dec 03 - 06:21 AM

Sopmetimes they are quite good jokes that would be better detached from the setting of national or regional stereotypes - because we aren't the same, and can laugh at our differences. But the differences don't run between nations but through families.

When we hear the jokes as being about Cousin Fred, or Aunty Doreen, rather than about a stereotypical mean Scot or randy Essex girl we can laugh at them, if they are funny, without feeling mean about all the generous Scots we know are there, or the reserved Essex girls.