Oct. 13 at At AP: Lech Walesa, ‘Legendary Freedom Leader’; Now: 'Lech Who?'
On October 13, Monika Scislowska of the Associated Press reported that a "legendary freedom leader ... says he supports the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York that protests corporate greed," and that "that he is planning either a visit or a letter to the protesters." That leader would be Poland's former President Lech Walesa.
On Friday, October 21, at 5:01 p.m., Adam Andrzejewski at BigGovernment.com (HT Smitty at The Other McCain) reported that "Based on our discussion and intervention, President Walesa is not going to get involved with the OWS." The AP's follow-up story is after the jump:
That's right, a search on Walesa's last name at the Associated Press's main site returns nothing. A Google News search on [Walesa "Associated Press"] (typed exactly as indicated between brackets) returns nothing less than four days old.
Andrzejewski at BigGov elaborates:
We suspected that the European news media had filtered out accurate information about the genesis of Occupy Wall Street (OWS).
When Walesa’s comments hit the AP wire last week, my team immediately reached out to our Polish contacts. We made the point that the political themes of Occupy Wall Street may have started out with some of the principles that we share, but OWS themes were rapidly being morphed into anti-freedom and anti-liberty messages. At the core is the want for a big, powerful central government to dominate the lives of individual citizens.
Using biggovernment.com plus other news sources, rapidly we painted an accurate picture of the groups training, leading, and organizing the “movement.” The movement is organized by anarchists, Code Pink, the American Communist movement, jihadists, anti-Israel, socialist, and anti- free enterprise interests. OWS folks are politically to the left of President Barack Obama.
At the Lech Walesa Institute Foundation in Warsaw, they were thankful to receive this information.
Based on our discussion and intervention, President Walesa is not going to get involved with the OWS. He is not comfortable with the “organizations” behind the movement. It was not a difficult discussion.
The lifetime of good work exercised by President Walesa has lifted people around the world fighting tyranny. Through the Lech Walesa Institute Foundation in Warsaw, Walesa has supported freedom and liberty around the world. As a man primarily responsible for vanquishing communism in Poland, Walesa has a personal bent toward helping the underdog and the downtrodden.
So it's news at the Associated Press when Walesa jumps on board the "Occupy" train, but not when he figures out that he was misled, and jumps off.
Oh look! There's Pete "I still call myself a communist" Seeger! At the AP via Cristian Salazar, he's just a "folk music legend."
The bias could not be more obvious.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
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Comments
You mean Lech Walesa actually
Submitted by killa37 on Sun, 10/23/2011 - 2:23pm.
You mean Lech Walesa actually figured out, and knows, what the whole OWS bowel movement is, and who is behind it??? And the MSM doesn't...........or won't admit it??? Or the Democrats don't..........or won't admit it?? Or even.........yes, some Republicans????
Lech Walesa did the right thing.
Submitted by drsamherman on Sun, 10/23/2011 - 2:31pm.
For those of us old enough to remember the huge "Solidarnosc" banners at the Gdansk shipyards being carried by thousands of brave Polish workers fed-up with the failed Communist police state, Lech Walesa became a symbol of anti-communism at the very brink of Reagan's showdown with the likes of Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and later Gorbachev. Considering how anti-capitalist the OWS movement is, it is difficult to see how Lech Walesa could have anything to do with them after digging into their movement a bit more. Since it seems they don't even know who Lech Walesa is, that says a lot about their education into history past the Vietnam era.
waiting to hear....
Submitted by Rackie on Sun, 10/23/2011 - 2:43pm.
"Tear down these tents"
The very Idea of Lech Walesa
Submitted by ThePickle on Sun, 10/23/2011 - 2:47pm.
The very Idea of Lech Walesa joining the OWS in protest would NEVER have occurred if the MSM had been truthfully and fully reporting the news. Instead they have obfuscated the image of the OWS as righteously indignant protesters just wanting to "get back to work".
The truth may be that a few protesters, decrying the existing economy and what they viewed as Wall street excesses, started the whole OWS brouhaha, but the fact remains that this is no longer the message that is being broadcast by any news outlet with a modicum of journalistic integrity. The message we see on You Tube and on the Conservative websites and news outlets shows the seething, vicious and darkly antisemitic, anti-capitalist heart and soul of the movement as it exists today.
The longer these idiots march up and down the main streets of everyday America the more people will see the truth about the "protesters" and rightly, be repulsed by their vulgarity, their lack of respect for private property as well as the law, their lack of hygiene and most importantly their lack of appreciation for the freedoms of this Country, whose very founding documents protected with the blood of citizen soldiers and patriots alike, their God given right to spew their hate and vitriol without interference of the very far reaching and all powerful Central Government they seek to establish.
Worthless POS's one and all.
knew it
Submitted by dzejk113 on Sun, 10/23/2011 - 2:54pm.
I knew Wałęsa wouldn't support those hippies once he learned what they were really about. Despite all those ridiculous jokes, they're really smart over there in Poland.
This is just the latest
Submitted by celator on Sun, 10/23/2011 - 3:03pm.
This is just the latest example of how the AP makes up the "news" as they go along. This time they are in the tank for the anti-capitalist movement generated in liberal arts college classrooms, and pushed along by the union leadership, the Soros media conglomerate, the degenerate Hollywood crowd, the lefty radicals in the WH and Congress. The revolution continues. Lech would never, ever support the OWS.
Lech
Submitted by Unsane on Sun, 10/23/2011 - 4:48pm.
I watched this guy take down some other fool intellectually (who probably is himself an OWS protestor) at a speech given by him at Trinity University 10 years ago. I don't think Lech Walesa, a guy who spent time in a slam under the Communists, is going to hang out with them. If he were to, I'd imagine he'd give them a cold, hard dose of reality.
By the way, if you can ever catch a lecture by Lech Walesa, DO IT. He may only speak Polish but he is an awesome speaker.
"CONSUMED DEMOCRACY RETURNS A SOCIALIST REGIME" - Slayer, "Fictional Reality", from Divine Intervention (1994)
I have a lot of respect for
Submitted by jessieH on Mon, 10/24/2011 - 10:47am.
I have a lot of respect for Lech Walesa. I knew, when I read the headline, that the AP had lied.
Way to go Lech
Submitted by hmcsfmf on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 7:37pm.
What does it say about the MSM that a prominent freedom and liberty leader had no clue about who the OWS really is. Way to go Poland even though the helicopter with ejection seats didn't work out you still gave us Lech and an awesome pope too.
wait....there's more
Submitted by dzejk113 on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 9:34pm.
They gave us more than that you know. Nicolaus Copernicus, the father of modern astronomy, who if he was still alive today would write his name Mikołaj Kopernik. Casimir Pulaski and Thaddeus Kościuszko, who fought with the Patriots during the Revolution, and Pulaski died fighting for America's freedom. Marie Curie, who was originally Maria Skłodowska, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. It was Polish mathematicians that broke the Enigma code used by German U-boats. That helicopter with ejection seats sounds like just another one of those ridiculous jokes I mentioned above, I've heard alot of them but not all.
But wait, there's more!
Submitted by Unsane on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 10:40pm.
What, no mention of Joseph Conrad or Chopin? Or that other one of the anti-Communist leaders of the 1980s, Karol Wotjyla?
"CONSUMED DEMOCRACY RETURNS A SOCIALIST REGIME" - Slayer, "Fictional Reality", from Divine Intervention (1994)
I was just trying to give a
Submitted by dzejk113 on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 11:08pm.
I was just trying to give a sample, there's LOTS more, I can't name them all. And hmcsfmf already mentioned the pope, just didn't use either of his names.
Mirth
Submitted by Unsane on Tue, 10/25/2011 - 11:40pm.
I know. :o) I'm just engaging in a bit of mirth to pass the time in a long night...
"CONSUMED DEMOCRACY RETURNS A SOCIALIST REGIME" - Slayer, "Fictional Reality", from Divine Intervention (1994)
Aha
Submitted by dzejk113 on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 12:13am.
I can't fault you for that . . . is that why you misspelled the pope's last name? for mirth? ;)
Memory FAIL
Submitted by Unsane on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 12:40pm.
No...that's because I stared at the screen for three minutes trying to remember how it was spelled. Guess I remembered wrong. :o)
"CONSUMED DEMOCRACY RETURNS A SOCIALIST REGIME" - Slayer, "Fictional Reality", from Divine Intervention (1994)
it's those pesky Polish names
Submitted by dzejk113 on Wed, 10/26/2011 - 10:16pm.
yeah, Polish names will do that to you . . . I've been around Polish names my whole life and I'm pretty good at them, and I tend to be real picky about getting them right since I have one of myself ;) and the pope's name, before he became the pope, was spelled (with proper Polish letters) Wojtyła. you were very very close, just had the letters mixed up a little :)