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The Kachins do not want war. Unlike UWSA, China’s proxy army in Burma, they cannot retreat into China. So they are preparing for a big and bloody fight.
The Myitsone Dam is their red-line.

Where’d you see the video, Darren?

KIO has given weapons to just about every man, woman and child. Current KIO troop strength is 10,000. An additional 20,000 in the armed militia.
The Chinese do not understand how much the Kachins hate construction of the Myitsone Dam.

Ralph Kramden #49

LesAbbey

I presume buying votes “to protect the monarchy” is OK in England?

btw, thanks for explaining why you are in a panic to destroy those striving for democracy

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

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

witness for example the patient to and fro conversation with you by many of the regulars on this blog

do you find such tolerance of diverse views on pad and army/government run fora?

Ralph Kramden – 49

Thanks Ralph for finding one and I will try to answer, and thanks again for pulling out the thread where I made the following comment:

Myself Christoffer, I was much heartened by the Andrew Marshall article, even though he is not pro-government, in that he could just remind people that there is more to the recent political clashes than just parroted propaganda phrases.

So my non-answer to your question. I see I had no more comments on the thread after your comment after possibly over-commenting before. Now there could be many reasons for that, including not all my comments make it through the moderating system. In this particular case I can’t remember why and maybe it was just that I didn’t answer, but I will do so now.

So just out of curiosity LesAbbey, what do you make of the billions of baht the current government has served up with an election approaching?

I feel it’s a shame that politicians practice short term policies as vote-winners. We can see it now with the diesel price which we all know is going to rise within days after the election. We see it Western countries as well. It’s the belief in politicians that the public is there to be bought off by throwing a few sweets about. The only way to fight this is if the public learns not to fall for it. I’m not sure when or if this will ever happen. The defense of this practice against comparing it with vote-buying is that it’s out in the open and not illegal whereas vote-buying is something of the night.

It is interesting to learn about the perspectives of foreigners living in Thailand as an expat, so allow me to go off topic a little.

Regarding Thaksin, I started out feeling indifferent about him. As a Thai who has moved out of Thailand ages ago (and has no intention to go back to live and work here), I know there are a lot of things wrong about my country of birth, and I had in the past thought Thailand would never progress anywhere. Yet after four-five years of him being in office, I could clearly notice that the image of Thailand (from a Thai person who lives overseas) gradually changed in a better way under Thaksin’s government. Thus I started to develop some liking to him. Of course, this liking has now faded, after I realised about the horrific Tak Bai incident and the southern insurgency, with which his government largely added fuel into the flame. Thus, my feelings towards him now are kind of neutral, being that I neither like or hate him. However, I would not have any objections if he is elected as a leader again, if this is what the majority of Thai people want (though I won’t be voting for him of course).

Regarding the elites, on the other hand (this includes those Privy Council members as well as the Monarchy), I started out liking all of them. We Thais are taught to love and respect the Royals since little, after all. This feeling of deep appreciation and respect, rooted into most Thais (including myself), are something the elites have carefully planned. This resulted in me believing that they are actually great people. I have, in the past years, heard about the event of 1976 massacre, mysterious death of King Ananda, naked pictures of certain Royal members, or that there is a critical book called ‘The King Never Smiles’, but I did not take much attention of them. I never really bothered to do any research about those matters. To be honest, I did not even suspect that there was some ‘invisible hands’ behind the 2006 PAD protests and the September 2006 coup.

I guess the event which was the turning point for me is the infamous attendance to the PAD funeral by the Queen. And not just me, many of my friends were shocked. This, followed by the daring seizure of BKK airport, caused me to be more rational when I hear news about the elites. I then started not to believe any news I hear from Thailand at first sight, and started to do more research, reading books and materials which the Thai government forbids Thais to read (thank god I live overseas, so getting those materials were never a problem for me). Then I realised why some ‘enlightened’ Thais call Thailand Tor-Lae-Land р╕Хр╕нр╣Бр╕лр╕ер╣Бр╕ер╕Щр╕Фр╣М (Land of BS).

But even after my (rather slow) ‘enlightenment’, I still wished Thailand could remain to have Monarchy, albeit the reform is necessary to make the structure becomes akin to those of British Commonwealth Countries, Benelux, or Scandinavian countries. I then realised that my hope is impossible, because the problem lies with the Monarchy; they do not want to reform themselves. Moreover, they are ready to do anything to destroy or even kill people who want them to reform themselves. The ridiculous use of lese majeste in the past year, as well as the elites’ incitement for the brainwashed to ‘witch-hunt’ other ‘enlightened’ Thais to expose, destroy, alienate, or even imprison them, are (at least to me) disgusting beyond belief.

Thus for me I can now honestly say that I don’t really care about the Thai Monarchy any longer. However it will be interesting to see what would happen to them in the future….many of my farang friends who know about the BSness in Thailand are also interested to see what’d happen in the future.

Andrew Marshall – 45

I give up. I wonder if you would be so open about who you are and what your job entails and what projects you are working on LesAbbey. I’d say I have been remarkably transparent. One tip though: if you want a question answered, you are more likely to get a straight answer if you ask it straight and try to avoid too much condescension.

I apologise if it seemed I was being condescending. I didn’t think I was attempting to do that. I had a simple question which was about the timing of the release of Wikileaks cables which seems to have been taken the wrong way. If you have time read back through comments and see if that fairly simple question was there from the beginning. Maybe you were upset about something else. Along the way, sticking my head above the parapet, seems to have drawn out a couple of regulars who want to settle old scores, although I’m not sure quite what those scores are.

Hiding behind a pseudonym is not something I plan on changing in the near future. For better or worse Thailand is my home and I have lived here for longer than anywhere else including my country of birth, but my right to continue to stay here, as with most other expats, is tenuous at best. I still think the return of Thaksin is quite likely and if there is a royal succession also, Thailand could well have the perfect storm.

By the way there were two simple answers to my question. Either what you did in giving your plan on releasing the cables or telling me to mind my own business. It didn’t really need anything else. All the flouncing ‘I give up’s’ and so on don’t really help that much. Then again as Ralph says, everyone to their own style.

Ralph Kramden – 46

Les asks much but seldom provides answers to questions to him.

As with my answer to SteveCM send me examples and I will try and answer them.

Mr Marshall,

I know that you are busy, but I am sure many Thais would like to see the Wikileaks cables about five matters:

1) The massacre on 6 October 1976.
2) The Red Shirts crackdown last year.
3) Who burned Central World last year? (Many people still believe the Red Shirts did it, but after I saw those pictures of many army officers seizing CTW Building, I have changed my opinion)
4) The mysterious death of Saudi diplomats/Saudi royals who travelled to Thailand to investigate about the Blue Diamond.
5) King Ananda’s death.

I realise Wikileak cables which had been leaked may not contain some matters which happened decades ago (such as #1, #4, and #5), but if they do, many Thais would be interested to see them. At least they then can have an opportunity to judge those evidences in front of them by themselves and choose whether or not they should believe it.

I wish I could ask about the wikileaks regarding the Blue Diamond. However, that cable has been released, and it still had not answered this question conclusively.

@John W#42, as stated in my disclaimer (post#19), I hardly do any Thai language readings these days. What little contemporary materials that I come across I find to be either carelessly written, hard to grasp or just plainly unimpressive. As I was never a serious reader even back in the days, I’m afraid I’m not qualified to give you any recommendations. Sorry.

I find it slightly funny to discuss only the lese majeste law as a political weapon. The case of Thailand and, to a lesser degree Malaysia, shows that in a society characterized by extreme power differentials and an elite deeply entrenched politically, economically and as well culturally, the law will always be manipulated and used as a political instrument to maintain power. For its cultural legitimization the elite has to maintain that firstly they provide continuity of society in terms of “just” rule, secondly that national unity can only be maintained by the elite, and finally that they are the best educated, knowledgeable and experienced leaders, so the people should trust and rely on them. Like mother and father, they know best what is good for all. Here, the famous middle classes that are supposed to push democratization forward come in.
Kaiser wrote: “The sad case in Thailand is that the rise of the middle class hasn’t brought about a rise of a class interested in democratic reform and social equality. They are instead simply interested in maintaining their social superiority over the despised farmers. And that means cheering as they are shot in the streets.” This is only a small part of the matter. For the middle classes to feel close to the elite is at least as relevant. To feel close to the elite means that they do actually believe all the strange ideologies, because this makes them feel good and provides “identity”. An identity that Nietsche described nicely as “slave mentality”. Thus, rather then pushing for democratization, they prefer to maintain an authoritarian patronage kind of style, with them as “head” slaves.