A fluent narrative, yet short of the mark. Polarization is part of the solution, not the problem. The direction people in this country have been led throughout the years has been one of obedience and unquestioned loyalty. Now that people are starting to think for themselves for real, they are divisive and polarized!
Sorry, this snake oil won’t sell.
Restoration of the rule of law? There is a very poor track record here about the law overall, form way back when to now.
Those who write it and those who are repressed by it are polarized not because of color of shirt but because their basic beliefs, and their willingness to practice what they preach, is different.
Maratjp #2 Instead of pushing aajaan Somsak forward as your prophet or just as likely your martyr, I propose you step up and be the hero. This guy did it in Libya and live to tell the tale.
Can you consider that the good aajaan may have other battle plans or even maybe just a family he must consider. You may mean well but that post comes across like the fevered imaginings of an armchair warrior.
The lady doth protest too much. Nothing personal, my dear, like it seems to you.
a) Military dictatorship as an institution is important not just Than Shwe, since when he’s gone either from a palace coup or from really stepping down or from plain old age, we’ll more than likely end up with a Than Shwe Mk II just as he is a Ne Win Mk II with even fewer scruples than his mentor and father figure.
b) Leaders have a crucial role to play. That’s why the focus is rightly on Than Shwe and ASSK whether you personally approve of it or not.
c) Whether a person is evil or not is debatable, what is certainly manifest is the insatiable greed at the expense of a nation that remains stunted and repressed for an inordinate length of time, and his determination to cling on to power so he can continue to wreak havoc like no natural disaster could do to millions of people whose extreme misfortune it is to be ruled by a ruthless despot in a relentless pursuit of power and wealth.
d) Only a chauvinist would think criticism and condemnation of the military dictatorship embodied by Than Shwe in its current incarnation in Burma to be unpatriotic and tantamount to indignities of self flagellating and denigration of a whole race on account of hatred for one man in Myanmar. Hatred does not come in to it. This hell on earth of military misrule must go.
Pratchathai.com’s adresses doesn’t work in BKK using True.
Blocked:
An access to such information has been temporarily ceased
due to the order of the Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES)
under the authority of emergency decree B.E 2548 (A.D. 2005).
So I suspect the YouTube clip might get blocked as well soon enough
Good. The LM-ers are inexorably crossing the line of reasonable strategic restraint and picking on harder targets, to their peril. Somsak will now produce more and more writing and more and more academics will be pushed to either back him on principle or reveal their own cowardice on the issue of academic freedom.
Da Torpedo was, bless her heart, not a marketable poster child. Nor was Giles the Republican. Somsak, despite his Communist past, will serve the cause much better.
Post and Nation are both following the story, and Thai Rath might well follow suit since they’ve decided to market to the red side of things. This story won’t be easily suppressed.
Time to make a stand. You have status as a Thai scholar and you now must spend this capital. It’s time to speak up and put forth a new vision for Thailand that’s neither red or yellow, just simply the way forward in the modern world. You need to write now sit down and hash out a speech encompassing all the Thailand is and could be bringing together the themes of change and rebirth so essential to the development of Thailand. You need to discuss that now is the time to finish what Pridi Panomyong couldn’t: a real Constitutional Democracy. You need to speak about how Thailand doesn’t belong to one man, but the people, and that the status of the monarchy is in their hands alone, not the King’s, nor his family, nor a small clique of generals. You need to speak about the arrogance of the throne implicating themselves in all aspects of the lives of Thais for the past 60 years and then demanding that Thai citizens have no right to criticize them.
Thailand is on the precipice and you can be a prophet.
First of all, I would like to congratulate Prof. Somsak to his unintimidated and refreshing approach.
Other people would have grown older, Prof. Somsak appears so much younger now.
Thanks to Nick Nostitz for his clear words and detailed review of Shawn Crispin’s erratic “analysis”.
This guy has obviously a big problem with Thaksin since he was thrown out of the county for reporting about differences between the PM and the “Institution” some 9 years ago.
It looked like a prelude of things to come and should have “enlightened” him in some way, but everytime I read some stuff from this guy his personal dislikes comes so obviously through that it is hard to take his revelations seriously.
One of his last erratic assumptions shortly after the airport occupation was that TS is finished now and will sink into oblivion
First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
– Pastor Martin Niemoller
Martin Niemöller was a German pastor and theologian. Niemöller was an anti-Communist and supported Hitler’s rise to power at first. But when Hitler insisted on the supremacy of the state over religion, Niemöller became disillusioned. He became the leader of a group of German clergymen opposed to Hitler. Unlike Niemöller, they gave in to the Nazis’ threats. In 1937 he was arrested and eventually confined in the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps. His crime was “not being enthusiastic enough about the Nazi movement.”
The problem we are seeing, including the bullying of Professor Somsak, is not in the misuse of the LM law, but rather in having an LM at all. Looking around the world, one has to come to the conclusion that LM laws are past their sell-by dates. There are other ways of protecting individuals from wrongful libels and slanders, including possibly privacy laws.
Your personal vitriolic truism against Than Shwe is always safe @ New Mandala.
Aside from refraining from expounding on the resulting indignities of self flagellating and denigration of a whole race on account of hatred for one man in Myanmar, let me pose you these questions:
When did Than Shwe become the present embodiment of evil that you are desribing?
Was it b/f 1988 or after 1988?
What factors influence him to arrive @ present point of realizing he can get away with anything?
These are plain and yet important historical mile stones for Myanmar.
For he is after all the poster boy for the SPDC that has dragged Myanmar to this quagmire over 3 decades, therefore making his point of transformation important.
If you can state unequivocally, with proof that Than Shwe transformation from, back water illiterate paranoid, to present defiance monster nonetheless, cunning is absolutely his own evil inspired undertaking, as opposed to responding and reacting to the useless careless approach of the west, I shall concede your advocacy of Myanmar solution is to get rid of Than Shwe with extreme prejudice.
Otherwise we need to move on from fixation on Than Shwe, anyone person, party, organization etc to changing our focus on the citizenry.
I await your answer if this is allowed to be printed.
Do, please enlist Mr B. Roger help or quote him as well as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Turnell & Vicary or any other similar minded sources you may find, if you wish.
Seeing that I’m being told off for not answering I will in this case although a bit more research on your part would have made it unnecessary. So:
I presume buying votes “to protect the monarchy” is OK in England?
I don’t understand the point you are making. How do you know my views on the UK monarchy or any monarchy come to think of it?
btw, thanks for explaining why you are in a panic to destroy those striving for democracy
David who are you talking about? The UDD? Puea Thai? Surachai? Thaksin? Giles? Chalerm? Sanoh? Chavalit?
having pinned your colours to the military/royalist mast you are now fearful you will be deported if a democratic government is elected in Thailand
Of course that would mean you could find lots of examples of me writing pro-royalist, pro-military, pro-PAD comments. Please go ahead and point them out. All I can think of off the top of my head is comments that the PAD had been the most successful extra-parliamentary opposition having been partly responsible for the removal of three governments and a sneaking admiration I sometimes display for Chamlong over his stand in 1992 and as Bangkok Governor. For his crazier ideas I have to go along with the Bangkok electorate which could not accept him last time he ran.
I suggest a democratic government will, by definition, be much more tolerant of diverse views even such as yours than the current insecure military/feudal dictatorship
Tolerance was in rather short supply during the Thaksin years. No worries he said yesterday that he now realizes that he was too hard in the south. Mind you he also said yesterday that he would clear up the drug problem in a year, and we know what that means.
Also what a strange military/feudal dictatorship this is since we are about to have an election.
witness for example the patient to and fro conversation with you by many of the regulars on this blog
And?
do you find such tolerance of diverse views on pad and army/government run fora?
Oh! I have no idea. But Andrew and Nich do say this forum is open to different views. Funny enough I don’t feel so much a contrarian since some of the more left leaning contributors are seeing the UDD and Thaksin turning their backs on those who have supported them since 2007.
But Les, in that thread you seemed so much more angry. For example: “To take the politician’s money is demeaning in the same way as a girl having to prostitute herself. To encourage the act is the same as pimping. To say that it is anything other than wrong is just showing how superior those who are encouraging it feel towards the peasants. Anything that attacks a man’s self-pride is bad and should only be done in the most dire circumstances.”
And you did say this: “Now as for pork-barrel politics also being vote buying, you are of course correct.”
Ralph sorry for my enforced absence for the last two days. Having been released (not from prison) I will try and catch up. What does make me very angry is when the intellectuals try to find reasons to support vote-buying in the north and northeast. When challenged as to where else it would be OK to have vote-buying there doesn’t seem to be any answers.
Now it’s hard to support pork-barrel politics, whether it’s what the Democrats are promising or the wonderful future that Thaksin promised yesterday. As I have said before the silver lining in Thaksin’s populist policies is that it has forced the other politicians to at least attempt to offer the public something more. Maybe it’s better raising the minimum wage, Thaksin says to 300 Baht a day, than see the money going someone’s crony.
If we were really going deeper I guess we would have to define the various levels of corruption in politics. Even if we just took the US as example we would span from the worse in Tammany Hall to Huey Long’s populism to modern day senators and their personal payoff bits on bills. About the only thing that can be said in favour of what Thaksin started and Abhisit is continuing is that the payoff is usually to everybody, not just those that vote for the gift giver.
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Abhisit’s last chance
A fluent narrative, yet short of the mark. Polarization is part of the solution, not the problem. The direction people in this country have been led throughout the years has been one of obedience and unquestioned loyalty. Now that people are starting to think for themselves for real, they are divisive and polarized!
Sorry, this snake oil won’t sell.
Restoration of the rule of law? There is a very poor track record here about the law overall, form way back when to now.
Those who write it and those who are repressed by it are polarized not because of color of shirt but because their basic beliefs, and their willingness to practice what they preach, is different.
Intimidation of Somsak Jeamteerasakul
Maratjp #2 Instead of pushing aajaan Somsak forward as your prophet or just as likely your martyr, I propose you step up and be the hero. This guy did it in Libya and live to tell the tale.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9TvMXRa0Nw&feature=player_embedded
Can you consider that the good aajaan may have other battle plans or even maybe just a family he must consider. You may mean well but that post comes across like the fevered imaginings of an armchair warrior.
New war in Kachin State?
plan B
The lady doth protest too much. Nothing personal, my dear, like it seems to you.
a) Military dictatorship as an institution is important not just Than Shwe, since when he’s gone either from a palace coup or from really stepping down or from plain old age, we’ll more than likely end up with a Than Shwe Mk II just as he is a Ne Win Mk II with even fewer scruples than his mentor and father figure.
b) Leaders have a crucial role to play. That’s why the focus is rightly on Than Shwe and ASSK whether you personally approve of it or not.
c) Whether a person is evil or not is debatable, what is certainly manifest is the insatiable greed at the expense of a nation that remains stunted and repressed for an inordinate length of time, and his determination to cling on to power so he can continue to wreak havoc like no natural disaster could do to millions of people whose extreme misfortune it is to be ruled by a ruthless despot in a relentless pursuit of power and wealth.
d) Only a chauvinist would think criticism and condemnation of the military dictatorship embodied by Than Shwe in its current incarnation in Burma to be unpatriotic and tantamount to indignities of self flagellating and denigration of a whole race on account of hatred for one man in Myanmar. Hatred does not come in to it. This hell on earth of military misrule must go.
Intimidation of Somsak Jeamteerasakul
Pratchathai.com’s adresses doesn’t work in BKK using True.
Blocked:
An access to such information has been temporarily ceased
due to the order of the Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES)
under the authority of emergency decree B.E 2548 (A.D. 2005).
So I suspect the YouTube clip might get blocked as well soon enough
Intimidation of Somsak Jeamteerasakul
Good. The LM-ers are inexorably crossing the line of reasonable strategic restraint and picking on harder targets, to their peril. Somsak will now produce more and more writing and more and more academics will be pushed to either back him on principle or reveal their own cowardice on the issue of academic freedom.
Da Torpedo was, bless her heart, not a marketable poster child. Nor was Giles the Republican. Somsak, despite his Communist past, will serve the cause much better.
Post and Nation are both following the story, and Thai Rath might well follow suit since they’ve decided to market to the red side of things. This story won’t be easily suppressed.
The walls are cracking.
(Somsak is coloring his hair, surely?)
Intimidation of Somsak Jeamteerasakul
Somsak Jeamteersakul,
Time to make a stand. You have status as a Thai scholar and you now must spend this capital. It’s time to speak up and put forth a new vision for Thailand that’s neither red or yellow, just simply the way forward in the modern world. You need to write now sit down and hash out a speech encompassing all the Thailand is and could be bringing together the themes of change and rebirth so essential to the development of Thailand. You need to discuss that now is the time to finish what Pridi Panomyong couldn’t: a real Constitutional Democracy. You need to speak about how Thailand doesn’t belong to one man, but the people, and that the status of the monarchy is in their hands alone, not the King’s, nor his family, nor a small clique of generals. You need to speak about the arrogance of the throne implicating themselves in all aspects of the lives of Thais for the past 60 years and then demanding that Thai citizens have no right to criticize them.
Thailand is on the precipice and you can be a prophet.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Intimidation of Somsak Jeamteerasakul
First of all, I would like to congratulate Prof. Somsak to his unintimidated and refreshing approach.
Other people would have grown older, Prof. Somsak appears so much younger now.
Thai monarchy and Wikileaks
Thanks to Nick Nostitz for his clear words and detailed review of Shawn Crispin’s erratic “analysis”.
This guy has obviously a big problem with Thaksin since he was thrown out of the county for reporting about differences between the PM and the “Institution” some 9 years ago.
It looked like a prelude of things to come and should have “enlightened” him in some way, but everytime I read some stuff from this guy his personal dislikes comes so obviously through that it is hard to take his revelations seriously.
One of his last erratic assumptions shortly after the airport occupation was that TS is finished now and will sink into oblivion
The Devil’s Discus – in Thai
MaratJP 150
First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
– Pastor Martin Niemoller
Martin Niemöller was a German pastor and theologian. Niemöller was an anti-Communist and supported Hitler’s rise to power at first. But when Hitler insisted on the supremacy of the state over religion, Niemöller became disillusioned. He became the leader of a group of German clergymen opposed to Hitler. Unlike Niemöller, they gave in to the Nazis’ threats. In 1937 he was arrested and eventually confined in the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps. His crime was “not being enthusiastic enough about the Nazi movement.”
A beginners’ guide to Bangkok Noir
Tim Footman’s CNNGo piece on the Chris Coles’ Bangkok Noir paintings, show and book:
http://www.cnngo.com/bangkok/play/review-dark-art-chris-coles-998036
Pavin on lese majeste
Octavian – 17
I think Luecha Na Malai was saying that in a sarcastic way, dont get too work up.
The Devil’s Discus – in Thai
The problem we are seeing, including the bullying of Professor Somsak, is not in the misuse of the LM law, but rather in having an LM at all. Looking around the world, one has to come to the conclusion that LM laws are past their sell-by dates. There are other ways of protecting individuals from wrongful libels and slanders, including possibly privacy laws.
New war in Kachin State?
Ko Moe Aung #12
Your personal vitriolic truism against Than Shwe is always safe @ New Mandala.
Aside from refraining from expounding on the resulting indignities of self flagellating and denigration of a whole race on account of hatred for one man in Myanmar, let me pose you these questions:
When did Than Shwe become the present embodiment of evil that you are desribing?
Was it b/f 1988 or after 1988?
What factors influence him to arrive @ present point of realizing he can get away with anything?
These are plain and yet important historical mile stones for Myanmar.
For he is after all the poster boy for the SPDC that has dragged Myanmar to this quagmire over 3 decades, therefore making his point of transformation important.
If you can state unequivocally, with proof that Than Shwe transformation from, back water illiterate paranoid, to present defiance monster nonetheless, cunning is absolutely his own evil inspired undertaking, as opposed to responding and reacting to the useless careless approach of the west, I shall concede your advocacy of Myanmar solution is to get rid of Than Shwe with extreme prejudice.
Otherwise we need to move on from fixation on Than Shwe, anyone person, party, organization etc to changing our focus on the citizenry.
I await your answer if this is allowed to be printed.
Do, please enlist Mr B. Roger help or quote him as well as Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Turnell & Vicary or any other similar minded sources you may find, if you wish.
Pavin on lese majeste
Belated postscript to my c13…..
I saw one comment raising the question of whether the blackout was actually a rehearsal for a coup prevention operation.
Welcome to Amazing Thailand – a topsey-turvey situation if ever there was one.
I think I need to watch that “Seven Days in May” movie again.
New war in Kachin State?
Al Jazeera presented this short video a few days ago on the Myitsone Dam, which NM readers might find interesting.
A beginners’ guide to Bangkok Noir
Link to April 22, 2o11, Bangkok Post article about Chris Coles’ Bangkok Noir paintings and NAVIGATING THE BANGKOK NOIR book by Suranand Vejjajiva…….
http://goo.gl/e8A9d
Thai monarchy and Wikileaks
David Brown – 53
Seeing that I’m being told off for not answering I will in this case although a bit more research on your part would have made it unnecessary. So:
I presume buying votes “to protect the monarchy” is OK in England?
I don’t understand the point you are making. How do you know my views on the UK monarchy or any monarchy come to think of it?
btw, thanks for explaining why you are in a panic to destroy those striving for democracy
David who are you talking about? The UDD? Puea Thai? Surachai? Thaksin? Giles? Chalerm? Sanoh? Chavalit?
having pinned your colours to the military/royalist mast you are now fearful you will be deported if a democratic government is elected in Thailand
Of course that would mean you could find lots of examples of me writing pro-royalist, pro-military, pro-PAD comments. Please go ahead and point them out. All I can think of off the top of my head is comments that the PAD had been the most successful extra-parliamentary opposition having been partly responsible for the removal of three governments and a sneaking admiration I sometimes display for Chamlong over his stand in 1992 and as Bangkok Governor. For his crazier ideas I have to go along with the Bangkok electorate which could not accept him last time he ran.
I suggest a democratic government will, by definition, be much more tolerant of diverse views even such as yours than the current insecure military/feudal dictatorship
Tolerance was in rather short supply during the Thaksin years. No worries he said yesterday that he now realizes that he was too hard in the south. Mind you he also said yesterday that he would clear up the drug problem in a year, and we know what that means.
Also what a strange military/feudal dictatorship this is since we are about to have an election.
witness for example the patient to and fro conversation with you by many of the regulars on this blog
And?
do you find such tolerance of diverse views on pad and army/government run fora?
Oh! I have no idea. But Andrew and Nich do say this forum is open to different views. Funny enough I don’t feel so much a contrarian since some of the more left leaning contributors are seeing the UDD and Thaksin turning their backs on those who have supported them since 2007.
Thai monarchy and Wikileaks
Ralph Kramden – 54
But Les, in that thread you seemed so much more angry. For example: “To take the politician’s money is demeaning in the same way as a girl having to prostitute herself. To encourage the act is the same as pimping. To say that it is anything other than wrong is just showing how superior those who are encouraging it feel towards the peasants. Anything that attacks a man’s self-pride is bad and should only be done in the most dire circumstances.”
And you did say this: “Now as for pork-barrel politics also being vote buying, you are of course correct.”
Ralph sorry for my enforced absence for the last two days. Having been released (not from prison) I will try and catch up. What does make me very angry is when the intellectuals try to find reasons to support vote-buying in the north and northeast. When challenged as to where else it would be OK to have vote-buying there doesn’t seem to be any answers.
Now it’s hard to support pork-barrel politics, whether it’s what the Democrats are promising or the wonderful future that Thaksin promised yesterday. As I have said before the silver lining in Thaksin’s populist policies is that it has forced the other politicians to at least attempt to offer the public something more. Maybe it’s better raising the minimum wage, Thaksin says to 300 Baht a day, than see the money going someone’s crony.
If we were really going deeper I guess we would have to define the various levels of corruption in politics. Even if we just took the US as example we would span from the worse in Tammany Hall to Huey Long’s populism to modern day senators and their personal payoff bits on bills. About the only thing that can be said in favour of what Thaksin started and Abhisit is continuing is that the payoff is usually to everybody, not just those that vote for the gift giver.
The Devil’s Discus – in Thai
Somsak Jeamteerasakul, Thailand needs more than anything right now, courage. Man stands strongest when he stands alone. Your time has come…
The Devil’s Discus – in Thai
Readers here should be aware that one of our own, Ajarn Somsak Jeamteerasakul, has been accused, not charged with, lese majeste. Aj. Somsak spoke at length before a seminar against the lese majeste laws at Thammasat U on December 10. I myself became of the 112 charter signers. A press conference is being held today in his defence.
http://www.prachatai3.info/english/node/2436
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2011/04/24/national/Shock-cver-lese-majeste-charge-against-Thammasat-h-30153798.html
Who’s next?