At 70, Lech Walesa Can Look Back On An Enduring Legacy

[bananas]

http://www.rferl.org/content/walesa-70-legacy/25120886.html

At 70, Lech Walesa Can Look Back On An Enduring Legacy

By Rikard Jozwiak
September 28, 2013

He had scaled the wall several times before, but this time it was more than just a worker evading the authorities. It was the first giant leap towards freedom for the countries in Central and Eastern Europe.

It was the morning of August 14, 1980, and Lech Walesa had just joined his fellow strikers at the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk.

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It was an electrician -- with no higher education -- who had triggered what came to be seen as one of the key events leading to the downfall of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe.

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Walesa was born 70 years ago on September 29, 1943, in the small village of Popowo between Warsaw and Gdansk.

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In 1970, he was one of the co-organizers of an illegal strike at the shipyard. It ended in failure and 30 dead workers but it also galvanized Walesa.

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12 photos with the story.

Happy Birthday to Lech Walesa!

[BillyRibs]

1. To a Union Brother!

Happy Birthday! May you be buried in a coffin made from a 100 year old oak tree, that I myself will plant tomorrow! That's if I remember.

[Bluenorthwest]

2. Walesa is a Romney supporter and raging bigot, here's how I remember Lech:

Walesa said in a television interview on Friday that he believes gays have no right to sit on the front benches in Parliament and, if represented at all, should sit in the back, "and even behind a wall."

"They have to know that they are a minority and must adjust to smaller things. And not rise to the greatest heights, the greatest hours, the greatest provocations, spoiling things for the others and taking (what they want) from the majority," he told the private broadcaster TVN during a discussion of gay rights.

"I don't agree to this and I will never agree to it."

"A minority should not impose itself on the majority," Walesa said.
http://www.towleroad.com/2013/03/nobel-peace-prize-winner-lech-walesa-wants-gays-behind-a-wall.html

[Archae]

3. Add anti-Semite to the list.

Walesa called a political opponent a "crypto-Jew."

"Lech Walesa, former leader of the anti-Communist Solidarity trade union movement, invoked anti-Jewish stereotypes while campaigning for the Polish presidency in the 1990s"

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2001/fall/reawakening-the-beast/extremism-across-