I am prepared to accept the position I don’t understand what people are doing when they engage with or practice what you I have labelled as voodoo and superstition.
IMHO the people who practice it don’t understand what they are doing, so how can I?
I agree, it is perfectly understandable that they vote for Thaksin, but that does not mean that Thaksin is the right prime minister. It’s all a matter of circumstances, knowledge and education.
Thaksin could have been so good, but what a disappontment he was.
If he is such a friend of the rural poor, why set up a British Virgin Island company and avoid paying tax?
You asked what else should Thaksin does as prime minister?:
1. Ok have a war on drugs, but do not encourage or allow extra-judicial killings
2. Do not use an iron fist to inflame the problems in the muslim south.
3. Pay proper taxes and work to eliminate corruption everywhere, not selectively.
4. Do not promote your friends to powerful positions
5. Do not split the country by playing off rural against urban in a dangerous game.
6. Conduct your personal business affairs with integrity, and do not use your elected position to help those businesses.
That’s just a start. You should note that I do not think that all Thaksins pilicies were bad, and I do not place much credence in many of Sondhi’s criticisms of Thaksin.
I’m trying to understand the thought processes of a Thaksin (TRT) voter (assuming that vote buying does NOT come into the equation) :
2001 Election – OK, he is super rich, but lets give him a go
2005 Election – He’s done some good things for us, but also there have been some problem areas – extra-judicial killings, Tak Bai etc – thats in the past, so OK still support him
2006 Election – He’s split the country, used legal loopholes to avoid paying tax on billions , moving his people into powerful positions etc
Now here is where I start to have difficulty understanding why someone would continue to support Thaksin – there is ample evidence that he does not have the best interests of the country and it’s people at heart – he is in it for personal greed, ego, power etc
Are your personal circumstances so dire, that you would prefer to ignore all the problems and potentially split the country and continue to support Thaksin?
Post coup – what thought processes must be involved for a voter to still support Thaksin today?
I can come up with two:
1. Thaksin helped me, and that’s all I care about (IMHO maybe some education would be needed here, because that person might also vote for Hitler)
2. Thaksin helped me, and I don’t like it how those people in the city are rich and we are still poor (IMHO a little more education would help here, because Thaksin has clearly shown with the Temasek deal where his heart really lies)
Anyone care to offer a few more reasons to still support Thaksin?
Nirut, Andrew, Pundit, Frustrated etc – here is your chance.
Of course, all of the above analysis might change if ‘vote buying’ does really exist, because then it just comes down to who has the deeper pockets.
Thanks Ross, there is a large literature on the hydrological functions of forest. I am very familiar with Nipon’s work. While there is considerable uncertainty there are, I think, three key points that emerge from the literature:
1. Forests are large water users. Forest clearing will increase annual stream flow given the reduction in evapo-transpiration (ET) following clearing.
2. The effect of forest clearing on dry season water flow is more uncertain, given that this is determined by the balance between the impact of reduced ET and the impact of possible reduction in soil infiltration.
3. Forest planting is likely to reduce dry season flow given that the short-term and medium term impact in terms of increased ET is likely to greatly outweigh slight (and slow) improvements in infiltration.
I have written about these issues at length in ‘Forests and water in northern Thailand” Chiang Mai University Journal 1(3). Available at:
It has been a few years since I have travelled in Burma, so please bring me up to speed by filling me in with the on the ground details of Burma so my middle class understanding can be improved.
Hiwever, I would request that you keep the colonialist, neo-colonialst, and paternalist cant to a minium. Aiontay is my Kiowa name, and if I need someone to tell me about paternalism or colonialism, I’ve got plenty of family and friends (some decidely not middle class) to tell me all about it without the moralizing, academic jargon. On second thought, go ahead. Watching someone so obiviously wrapped up in western paternalistic discourse denouncing western paternalism is always good for a laugh.
Not sure if long-necked ethnic group is Karen. I suppose they are “Padaung”. They migrated from Burma where they are largely called as “Padaung”, a related ethnic group of Karenni, known in Burma as Kayar.
Mainstream Karens (namely Pao Karens and Sagaw Karens), Karenni, Padaung, Kayan, etc are recognized as coming from one ethnic family. Most refer to all these groups as Karen. Such recognization creates problems because whenever we talk about Karen, our attention gets to mainstream Karens. That’s why we don’t see much research on other ethnic groups. We need to de-homogenize it in order to pay equal attention to all different groups whose interests are different from that of mainstream Karens.
Saddly, Thailand doesn’t want Burmese refugees, but it has prepetuated long necked tradition so that they can attract tourists and makes millions of money each year.
Hobby, good point, what makes anyone think that any of these constitute a reason not to vote for Thaksin if you are a rural farmer…at what point does one or two dodgy corporate deals, human rights, and the occassional spate of extrajudicial killings and violence in the south matter to someone who grew up in Isan under Sarit or whose parents did,when extrajudicial killings were all the craze and now when muslim extremists are being said to be the scourge of the civilised world…what else should Thaksin, a Primeminister, do in his position?
Hobby for a non-academic you are certainly committed to your ideas. The relationship between colonialism and what you were saying, that I made, is that your ideas have their history in colonialism and that you mentioned that you were concerned with how other’s were being irrational with their “blind faith”, unlike you and not just in Thailand, could be taken from the annals of a colonial bureaucrat writing of non-European people and their practices…your “opinion on global matters” by the way was in fact a “concern…not limited to Thailand”, subtle but important difference.
Blind faith and superstition have nothing to do with what you were discussing, that was your interpretation of the phenomena/practices under consideration. An interpretation that reflects how you think such practices must be limited to the superstitious minds of people of irrational faith…an interpretation that originates in colonialism…to think that there is one truth and anyone who doesn’t share it with you is blindly believing in something irrationally is pretty much as ethnocentric as a person can get.
This is not about being politically correct and using appropriate language for the sake of it. I am not making a rejoinder based on feeling slighted/offended or in order ot set myself up as some kind of speech police. The language and interpretation behind it, that you used is/was ethnocentric, meaning to be of the opinion that one’s own beliefs, practices, culture etc are superior to others…
revenge may well be rational (depending on who and where you are) but escalation of a situation not universally avoided…in fact in terms of Cambodia revenge is rational and is undertaken in such a way as to eliminate escalation by not only killing the perpetrator of the incident requiring revenge as a response but his/her kin ensuring no one is around to escalate have alook at Alexander Cohen’s journal article “A Head for an Eye” where he discusses this cultural logic of disproportionate revenge.
The alternative position of course to the ethnocentrism that you (and many others on this site) fall back on, is to recognise that you don’t understand what people are doing when they engage with or practice what you have labelled as voodoo and superstition and if you are genuinely interested, as your “concern” would have me believe (hope), then try reading the book I recommended and if interested others on the topic…
General Sonthi’s coup was inevitable to prevent bloodshed. Thaksin Shinawatra clearly intended to cling on to power despite his flawed mandate . Thaksin had demonstrated before that he was capable of provoking his rural followers to confront the urbans and blood on the streets meant national emergency by which to justify his own coup. Thaksin Shinawatra was intent on doing a Ferdinand Marcos on Thailand to evade scrutiny into his abuses, corruption and illgotten wealth.
And the Thais themselves, in the end, set their own path to their particular democracy, Thai style. The path to democracy is a learning process. The democratic aspirations are generally the same: freedom, representation, a government of the people and for the people for every country. Each country would endeavor to emulate models from the more developed countries like USA or UK to adapt to their culture and circumstances. But the learning process never stops and the determination to weed out obstacles to the democratic path never wavers.
Because that determination will always be tested, sometimes dearly. Because there will always be monsters along the way who would derail that path because certain basic democracy tenets of freedom of speech, checks & balances, transparency and accountability, and basic freedom of equal opportunity to all, would obstruct monsters who are invariably corrupt, obsessed with absolute power and intolerant of criticisms. The monster had to be slain to redirect the country back to the democratic path and ideals. At critical times when a monster had to be slain, democracy had to be dearly paid for in blood.
Dearly paid for in blood: Thanom and Suchinda.
Had General Sonthi not thwarted Thaksin Shinawatra on Sept. 19/2006, ‘dearly paid for in blood’ would have horrifically been visited upon Thailand by that monster Thaksin Shinawatra, like Thanom and Suchinda before him.
You did a fairly good job outlining the problems with the Thaksin government (muslim south human rights abuses, extra-judicial killings during the war on drugs, legal manipilations to avoid paying tax etc) – and yet he was not voted out.
You have already answered the question regarding the need to educate the rural masses.
“It’s the same objective that makes development more sustainable and add the better stronger risk management and add more importance to things like governance and quality of life, those kind of things will be introduced” I just understand that those things that he mentioned never existed in Thailand before this coup and the junta who runs the country just only acquired these ideas and introduce them into Thailand after they robbed the power from us. Previous governments, senior civil servants, senior military staffs including most if not all of the Junta members and supporters who controlled public policies of this country were all stupid. Only the junta members have gained enlightenment after they are in power by guns and tanks which they try to protect by the same means.
Sondhi Limthonkul not pro-democracy the true color of him is pro-dictator .He can do every thing for benefit of himself. He use his media to destrol the politician who not give the thing he want.
In Thailand ,you better not believe in medias ,especially newspapers. Almost all of them support janta dictator and not respect to the majority vote of Thai people.
acting honestly certainly will ensure a limited amount of wealth in Thailand but so will being already poor and in massive debt with out any sign of let up as those who could make a substantial difference to the situation are effectively saying “let them eat cake” …the author of these words of course getting their just desert…
We cover a lot of Shinawatra sins these past few weeks: voodoo and Khmer black magic religion of Thaksin, Thaksin extrajudicial murders, Shinawatra tax evasions. Patiwat we still have not covered INSIDER TRADING of the Shinawatra/AIS shares by the Shinawatra family and in-laws.
Patiwat – you are overly simplifying the issue.
Of course there is no capital gains tax when individuals sell listed stock, but you have to look further than that transaction, and look to the transaction between AmpleRich and the Thaksin children.
I’m not an expert in Thai tax laws, but would there have been any tax payable if AmpleRich sold direct to Temasek?
Was there a scheme to avoid tax?
And I suppose you see nothing wrong with the use of a British Virgin Islands company by the Thaksin family?
Sets a good example doesn’t he.
Vichai, I think you’re misunderstanding things. Ruangkrai raised a ruckus months before the 30 September income tax deadline. He was not demanding that the Shinawatras pay their income taxes – he was demanding they pay capital gains tax. But, as anyone who has ever bought and sold stocks on the SET can tell you, Thailand has no capital gains tax.
The fact that he insisted on overpaying is quite puzzling. But the Revenue Department’s willingness to accept an overpayment is not.
I think it would be better for the military to focus on Thaksin’s alleged misdeeds during the Drug War or his alleged vandalism of the Erawan Shrine. If proven, those allegations could destroy his reputation forever. If the military focuses too much on the capital gains tax issue, other investors will start wondering whether their capital gains will be taxed along with the Shinawatras’. And if people start withdrawing their investments in the stock market, that will be very bad for the economy.
Only the truly right wing care HOW something is said, the non-fascist is concerned more with content, Vichai…alternatively the non-native speaker wishes to present a facade of “siwilai” that requires visible effort…say to point out other’s limitations…?
If the theory I am using is Dr Andrew Walker’s then I am guilty of a “thought crime”. As we have played patty cake on numerous occassions Vichai…a policy that says “just what you need economy” doesn’t have any road plan for THOSE WHO DON’T HAVE ENOUGH nor does it account for the international dimensions of what constitutes “enough”, rather it is conveniently limited to the architect’s own notions and as is evident under the present dictatorship what constitutes enough is strangely moral and seems to me to be more about establishing a new order of elite control…if yo don’t agree then sue me.
Funston: another bunch of crap that “this coup was different”. Just because some aging, glossy-eyed and tired liberals like Thirayut, Kraisak and Khien went along doesn’t make it any different than all the other pro monarchy coups: I bet each time you could find some “democracy advocate” saying,”‘well, things were getting chaotic and impossible and so its for the better”.
They call for “rule of law” but won’t fight for it over the long term through courts and elections. How can you establish rule of law if every time you have a coup which suspends the rule of law and sends you back to zero? How can you advance rule of law if you don’t work at it, and just give up and ask the military to destroy rule of law?
Funston is ridiculous: the military could not have just amended the existing constitution because the existing constitution made it illegal to overthrow the government and the constitution. You have to eliminate rule of law to have a coup.
And that’s why every coup is the same, whatever the public view. Indeed, coups are mostly bloodless because the army agitprop operations help create chaos and push the public against the government. Who was putting all that crap out on the internet and other media that Taksin was plotting to overthrow the monarchy? That wasn’t a handful of silly cranks.
Different coup indeed. Only thing different is it seems to have snowed a few more Oz academics.
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Thai capital to shift (it’s in the stars)!
I am prepared to accept the position I don’t understand what people are doing when they engage with or practice what you I have labelled as voodoo and superstition.
IMHO the people who practice it don’t understand what they are doing, so how can I?
New Mandala in the press
I agree, it is perfectly understandable that they vote for Thaksin, but that does not mean that Thaksin is the right prime minister. It’s all a matter of circumstances, knowledge and education.
Thaksin could have been so good, but what a disappontment he was.
If he is such a friend of the rural poor, why set up a British Virgin Island company and avoid paying tax?
You asked what else should Thaksin does as prime minister?:
1. Ok have a war on drugs, but do not encourage or allow extra-judicial killings
2. Do not use an iron fist to inflame the problems in the muslim south.
3. Pay proper taxes and work to eliminate corruption everywhere, not selectively.
4. Do not promote your friends to powerful positions
5. Do not split the country by playing off rural against urban in a dangerous game.
6. Conduct your personal business affairs with integrity, and do not use your elected position to help those businesses.
That’s just a start. You should note that I do not think that all Thaksins pilicies were bad, and I do not place much credence in many of Sondhi’s criticisms of Thaksin.
I’m trying to understand the thought processes of a Thaksin (TRT) voter (assuming that vote buying does NOT come into the equation) :
2001 Election – OK, he is super rich, but lets give him a go
2005 Election – He’s done some good things for us, but also there have been some problem areas – extra-judicial killings, Tak Bai etc – thats in the past, so OK still support him
2006 Election – He’s split the country, used legal loopholes to avoid paying tax on billions , moving his people into powerful positions etc
Now here is where I start to have difficulty understanding why someone would continue to support Thaksin – there is ample evidence that he does not have the best interests of the country and it’s people at heart – he is in it for personal greed, ego, power etc
Are your personal circumstances so dire, that you would prefer to ignore all the problems and potentially split the country and continue to support Thaksin?
Post coup – what thought processes must be involved for a voter to still support Thaksin today?
I can come up with two:
1. Thaksin helped me, and that’s all I care about (IMHO maybe some education would be needed here, because that person might also vote for Hitler)
2. Thaksin helped me, and I don’t like it how those people in the city are rich and we are still poor (IMHO a little more education would help here, because Thaksin has clearly shown with the Temasek deal where his heart really lies)
Anyone care to offer a few more reasons to still support Thaksin?
Nirut, Andrew, Pundit, Frustrated etc – here is your chance.
Of course, all of the above analysis might change if ‘vote buying’ does really exist, because then it just comes down to who has the deeper pockets.
Rewarding and regulating the upland poor
Thanks Ross, there is a large literature on the hydrological functions of forest. I am very familiar with Nipon’s work. While there is considerable uncertainty there are, I think, three key points that emerge from the literature:
1. Forests are large water users. Forest clearing will increase annual stream flow given the reduction in evapo-transpiration (ET) following clearing.
2. The effect of forest clearing on dry season water flow is more uncertain, given that this is determined by the balance between the impact of reduced ET and the impact of possible reduction in soil infiltration.
3. Forest planting is likely to reduce dry season flow given that the short-term and medium term impact in terms of increased ET is likely to greatly outweigh slight (and slow) improvements in infiltration.
I have written about these issues at length in ‘Forests and water in northern Thailand” Chiang Mai University Journal 1(3). Available at:
http://cmuj.chiangmai.ac.th/full/2002/sep2002-2f.pdf
Burma boycott – some questions about “avoided tourism”
Tim,
It has been a few years since I have travelled in Burma, so please bring me up to speed by filling me in with the on the ground details of Burma so my middle class understanding can be improved.
Hiwever, I would request that you keep the colonialist, neo-colonialst, and paternalist cant to a minium. Aiontay is my Kiowa name, and if I need someone to tell me about paternalism or colonialism, I’ve got plenty of family and friends (some decidely not middle class) to tell me all about it without the moralizing, academic jargon. On second thought, go ahead. Watching someone so obiviously wrapped up in western paternalistic discourse denouncing western paternalism is always good for a laugh.
New Mandala award for insensitivity
Not sure if long-necked ethnic group is Karen. I suppose they are “Padaung”. They migrated from Burma where they are largely called as “Padaung”, a related ethnic group of Karenni, known in Burma as Kayar.
Mainstream Karens (namely Pao Karens and Sagaw Karens), Karenni, Padaung, Kayan, etc are recognized as coming from one ethnic family. Most refer to all these groups as Karen. Such recognization creates problems because whenever we talk about Karen, our attention gets to mainstream Karens. That’s why we don’t see much research on other ethnic groups. We need to de-homogenize it in order to pay equal attention to all different groups whose interests are different from that of mainstream Karens.
Saddly, Thailand doesn’t want Burmese refugees, but it has prepetuated long necked tradition so that they can attract tourists and makes millions of money each year.
New Mandala in the press
Hobby, good point, what makes anyone think that any of these constitute a reason not to vote for Thaksin if you are a rural farmer…at what point does one or two dodgy corporate deals, human rights, and the occassional spate of extrajudicial killings and violence in the south matter to someone who grew up in Isan under Sarit or whose parents did,when extrajudicial killings were all the craze and now when muslim extremists are being said to be the scourge of the civilised world…what else should Thaksin, a Primeminister, do in his position?
Thai capital to shift (it’s in the stars)!
Hobby for a non-academic you are certainly committed to your ideas. The relationship between colonialism and what you were saying, that I made, is that your ideas have their history in colonialism and that you mentioned that you were concerned with how other’s were being irrational with their “blind faith”, unlike you and not just in Thailand, could be taken from the annals of a colonial bureaucrat writing of non-European people and their practices…your “opinion on global matters” by the way was in fact a “concern…not limited to Thailand”, subtle but important difference.
Blind faith and superstition have nothing to do with what you were discussing, that was your interpretation of the phenomena/practices under consideration. An interpretation that reflects how you think such practices must be limited to the superstitious minds of people of irrational faith…an interpretation that originates in colonialism…to think that there is one truth and anyone who doesn’t share it with you is blindly believing in something irrationally is pretty much as ethnocentric as a person can get.
This is not about being politically correct and using appropriate language for the sake of it. I am not making a rejoinder based on feeling slighted/offended or in order ot set myself up as some kind of speech police. The language and interpretation behind it, that you used is/was ethnocentric, meaning to be of the opinion that one’s own beliefs, practices, culture etc are superior to others…
revenge may well be rational (depending on who and where you are) but escalation of a situation not universally avoided…in fact in terms of Cambodia revenge is rational and is undertaken in such a way as to eliminate escalation by not only killing the perpetrator of the incident requiring revenge as a response but his/her kin ensuring no one is around to escalate have alook at Alexander Cohen’s journal article “A Head for an Eye” where he discusses this cultural logic of disproportionate revenge.
The alternative position of course to the ethnocentrism that you (and many others on this site) fall back on, is to recognise that you don’t understand what people are doing when they engage with or practice what you have labelled as voodoo and superstition and if you are genuinely interested, as your “concern” would have me believe (hope), then try reading the book I recommended and if interested others on the topic…
Rewarding and regulating the upland poor
Andrew,
See
Nipon Tangtham The Hydrological Roles of Forests In Thailand
Published in TDRI Quarterly Review
Vol. 9 No. 3 September 1994, pp. 27-32 -on the web.
and the work done by CSIRO[Paul Redell and others] in North Queensland on the hydrology of tropical forests-brief summary on the web.
New Mandala in the press
General Sonthi’s coup was inevitable to prevent bloodshed. Thaksin Shinawatra clearly intended to cling on to power despite his flawed mandate . Thaksin had demonstrated before that he was capable of provoking his rural followers to confront the urbans and blood on the streets meant national emergency by which to justify his own coup. Thaksin Shinawatra was intent on doing a Ferdinand Marcos on Thailand to evade scrutiny into his abuses, corruption and illgotten wealth.
And the Thais themselves, in the end, set their own path to their particular democracy, Thai style. The path to democracy is a learning process. The democratic aspirations are generally the same: freedom, representation, a government of the people and for the people for every country. Each country would endeavor to emulate models from the more developed countries like USA or UK to adapt to their culture and circumstances. But the learning process never stops and the determination to weed out obstacles to the democratic path never wavers.
Because that determination will always be tested, sometimes dearly. Because there will always be monsters along the way who would derail that path because certain basic democracy tenets of freedom of speech, checks & balances, transparency and accountability, and basic freedom of equal opportunity to all, would obstruct monsters who are invariably corrupt, obsessed with absolute power and intolerant of criticisms. The monster had to be slain to redirect the country back to the democratic path and ideals. At critical times when a monster had to be slain, democracy had to be dearly paid for in blood.
Dearly paid for in blood: Thanom and Suchinda.
Had General Sonthi not thwarted Thaksin Shinawatra on Sept. 19/2006, ‘dearly paid for in blood’ would have horrifically been visited upon Thailand by that monster Thaksin Shinawatra, like Thanom and Suchinda before him.
New Mandala in the press
Andrew, I suggest you re-read your article again.
You did a fairly good job outlining the problems with the Thaksin government (muslim south human rights abuses, extra-judicial killings during the war on drugs, legal manipilations to avoid paying tax etc) – and yet he was not voted out.
You have already answered the question regarding the need to educate the rural masses.
Sufficiency economy clarification
Andrew Walker: are Ant and Frustrated your disciples? Have you been teaching these two poor blokes your convoluted English style?
Why can’t people write straight simple understandable properly spelled English these days?
Sufficiency economy clarification
“It’s the same objective that makes development more sustainable and add the better stronger risk management and add more importance to things like governance and quality of life, those kind of things will be introduced” I just understand that those things that he mentioned never existed in Thailand before this coup and the junta who runs the country just only acquired these ideas and introduce them into Thailand after they robbed the power from us. Previous governments, senior civil servants, senior military staffs including most if not all of the Junta members and supporters who controlled public policies of this country were all stupid. Only the junta members have gained enlightenment after they are in power by guns and tanks which they try to protect by the same means.
Recent Australian perspectives on the coup
I agree with polo ‘s comment.
New Mandala in the press
Sondhi Limthonkul not pro-democracy the true color of him is pro-dictator .He can do every thing for benefit of himself. He use his media to destrol the politician who not give the thing he want.
In Thailand ,you better not believe in medias ,especially newspapers. Almost all of them support janta dictator and not respect to the majority vote of Thai people.
Sufficiency economy clarification
acting honestly certainly will ensure a limited amount of wealth in Thailand but so will being already poor and in massive debt with out any sign of let up as those who could make a substantial difference to the situation are effectively saying “let them eat cake” …the author of these words of course getting their just desert…
Extending the life of the junta
We cover a lot of Shinawatra sins these past few weeks: voodoo and Khmer black magic religion of Thaksin, Thaksin extrajudicial murders, Shinawatra tax evasions. Patiwat we still have not covered INSIDER TRADING of the Shinawatra/AIS shares by the Shinawatra family and in-laws.
But it is Sunday today so let’s take a break.
Extending the life of the junta
Patiwat – you are overly simplifying the issue.
Of course there is no capital gains tax when individuals sell listed stock, but you have to look further than that transaction, and look to the transaction between AmpleRich and the Thaksin children.
I’m not an expert in Thai tax laws, but would there have been any tax payable if AmpleRich sold direct to Temasek?
Was there a scheme to avoid tax?
And I suppose you see nothing wrong with the use of a British Virgin Islands company by the Thaksin family?
Sets a good example doesn’t he.
Extending the life of the junta
Vichai, I think you’re misunderstanding things. Ruangkrai raised a ruckus months before the 30 September income tax deadline. He was not demanding that the Shinawatras pay their income taxes – he was demanding they pay capital gains tax. But, as anyone who has ever bought and sold stocks on the SET can tell you, Thailand has no capital gains tax.
The fact that he insisted on overpaying is quite puzzling. But the Revenue Department’s willingness to accept an overpayment is not.
I think it would be better for the military to focus on Thaksin’s alleged misdeeds during the Drug War or his alleged vandalism of the Erawan Shrine. If proven, those allegations could destroy his reputation forever. If the military focuses too much on the capital gains tax issue, other investors will start wondering whether their capital gains will be taxed along with the Shinawatras’. And if people start withdrawing their investments in the stock market, that will be very bad for the economy.
Sufficiency economy clarification
Only the truly right wing care HOW something is said, the non-fascist is concerned more with content, Vichai…alternatively the non-native speaker wishes to present a facade of “siwilai” that requires visible effort…say to point out other’s limitations…?
If the theory I am using is Dr Andrew Walker’s then I am guilty of a “thought crime”. As we have played patty cake on numerous occassions Vichai…a policy that says “just what you need economy” doesn’t have any road plan for THOSE WHO DON’T HAVE ENOUGH nor does it account for the international dimensions of what constitutes “enough”, rather it is conveniently limited to the architect’s own notions and as is evident under the present dictatorship what constitutes enough is strangely moral and seems to me to be more about establishing a new order of elite control…if yo don’t agree then sue me.
Recent Australian perspectives on the coup
Funston: another bunch of crap that “this coup was different”. Just because some aging, glossy-eyed and tired liberals like Thirayut, Kraisak and Khien went along doesn’t make it any different than all the other pro monarchy coups: I bet each time you could find some “democracy advocate” saying,”‘well, things were getting chaotic and impossible and so its for the better”.
They call for “rule of law” but won’t fight for it over the long term through courts and elections. How can you establish rule of law if every time you have a coup which suspends the rule of law and sends you back to zero? How can you advance rule of law if you don’t work at it, and just give up and ask the military to destroy rule of law?
Funston is ridiculous: the military could not have just amended the existing constitution because the existing constitution made it illegal to overthrow the government and the constitution. You have to eliminate rule of law to have a coup.
And that’s why every coup is the same, whatever the public view. Indeed, coups are mostly bloodless because the army agitprop operations help create chaos and push the public against the government. Who was putting all that crap out on the internet and other media that Taksin was plotting to overthrow the monarchy? That wasn’t a handful of silly cranks.
Different coup indeed. Only thing different is it seems to have snowed a few more Oz academics.