Well, Poland was inspired to adopt a democratic constitution in 1791 and the speed with which its neighbors invaded probably shows that they cared about the spread of democracy too in a more negative way. But yes, that wasn't as significant as the French Revolution.
Ironic that the Poles set themselves back by electing their new right-hardline leader, who immediately moved in to take control over the national television, don't you think?
The elected official in question actually saw no problem with that. To make matters even "better", he is stuck to communist regime / fascist methodology of tightly controlling television and radio... in the age when everybody is on the Internet... awesome!
I know of another guy, over in Turkey, who works the same way... Ataturk would be turning over in his grave if he saw what that other guy is doing in the country he founded.
Anyway, when is Poland holding the referendum on leaving the european union?
Sorry, but you are very misinformed about current events in Poland, as well as the broader geopolitical context. The current party has for the most part used methods that have been employed by every government in Poland since 1989. Purging the national media is standard practice (please see what the previous party did, or the numerous shocking scandals it was involved in). Worth noting is that Polish media are owned (~80%) by German media conglomerates Bauer and Axel Springer which means that the mainstream media are largely pro-German. That is a far more worrying state of affairs than the recent tradition of purges and political jiggery-pokery. I won't get into all of the details, but Poland faces numerous challenges that the Western media never discuss, leaving Westerners horribly misinformed about what's actually happening or why it's happening. What Chomsky calls neoimperialism is very much a factor.
> Ataturk would be turning over in his grave if he saw what that other guy is doing in the country he founded.
Well Atatürk was not exactly a saint, for example I've just learnt the history of İzmir, which had a large Greek population who had been living there for generation and was relocated to Greece after the Greco-Turkish war.
Some of the events around the revolution and the subsequent foundation of the Turkish Republic would now be considered ethnic cleansing now. And the man is still worshipped in Turkey (at least in parts of the country that don't have an AKP majority). In İzmir there is even a Mount-Rushmore-like statue with his face.
This is not to say that Erdoǧan is better, far from it. But Turkey is a complicated country with a complicated history and talking about Kemalists vs Islamists as if they were good guys vs bad guys is a bit simplistic.
