[August]

Originally Posted by CCIP

Rehabilitation from what? Are you suggesting that being born to a particular nationality or family means you have to be "rehabilitated" or apologize for what other people chose to do?

Not at all. What I am suggesting is that societies do not shake memories of the past as easily and quickly as some here would have it and that some understanding of that is in order.

And let's not forget, if you dig far enough, things are not entirely clean on any side of history. Poland - like any other country - has plenty of skeletons in its closet. I'm not suggesting digging any of them up, of course, because that's shallow and petty. Just like attacking someone who offers a perspective that disagrees with yours, but has always been able to rationally discuss it, concede points, look for evidence, and otherwise behave as an exemplary forum member, is shallow and petty.

So you think what I wrote was an attack? Since when is a willingness to understand someone elses point of view an attack?

Likewise, I can't claim to speak for a nation or group in particular, but it strikes me as rather vapid to constantly get on the soapbox and proclaim victimhood for the sake of shutting down everybody else. Who made you the ambassador of all the victims of Russian imperialism and what are things going to look like if every one of us decides to randomly become the victimhood ambassador of their persecuted group?

Hyperbole much CCIP? Are you trying to tell me that we should not be allowed to even sympathize with a (formally) persecuted group? Certainly sounds like it to me. How tired are your arms from stretching my simple statement into such a grandiose statement as that?

Being Russian/Ukrainian/German/Finnish in almost equal parts in my heritage, am I, for example, supposed to be in a constant state of demanding apologies from myself to myself? Or maybe we should just shut the forums down before one of our native American members (and I know there's been a few) declares every discussion of US politics to be offensive since it legitimizes the illegal annexation of native lands?

I'm not going to be bullied by you or anyone else CCIP. There's a lot about Kranzes posts that I don't agree with but I'm not going to criticize a Poles wariness of Germans or Russians. FWIW neither would I criticize a Dakota or Apaches wariness of making treaties with the US Federal government either even though it's been many generations since Wounded Knee. If I read your opinion right though you'd say that's shallow and petty right?