LesAbbey, many of the cables are procedural and of limited wider interest. I’d estimate about 50 percent. Many others just recount events without adding significant value. I will share every cable used in my article (probably several hundred) and I also plan to make every other cable that I consider substantive available. I will still be accused of cherry picking, bad faith and who knows what else by all sides. But my intention is to behave in a way that shows integrity and will still be seen to have integrity not just in two months but also in two years and twenty years when all the cables will have long been in the public domain. Rather than just dump all the substantive cables onto the internet now, I consider it responsible to first write a very substantial analysis of what we have learned from the totality of the Bangkok and Chiang Mai cables. So that is what I am doing.
Citing Senadin, she said PKR was leading by 1,000 odd-votes during the last ballot counting in Miri City Stadium when suddenly a blackout “conveniently occurred”.
The blackout, she said, lasted an hour during which time the Election Commission (EC) continued counting.
“Suddenly they brought in ‘postal’ votes at an illegally late hour and SUPP was declared ‘winners’ with a slim 58-vote majority.
“The EC also announced 158 spoiled votes favouring PKR. The commission refused a recount despite the fact that there was a clear case for it,” she said.
Quite clearly Nostitz’s Australian-Thaksinite-Red-Helsinki-Khmer-Soros-Republican-German traits will always surface, even inadvertently.
There is no end to his wickedness.
It is also obvious to anyone that in the following link the Germans were clearly paid off, in full, by the Australian-Thaksinite-Red-Helsinki-Khmer-Soros-Republican conspiracy. Anyone who denies it is even more guilty of being in the evil doers’ grip.
I’ve reach an epiphany on this lese majeste charge on the reds. You see, they never ever gave out names other than Prem at red rallies. Certainly not on stage. For the Monarchy to be insulted, the accuser actually agrees that the institute is what the reds has been implying. The ones behind everything.
Since the charge is being used widely, it means that the general conclusion must be the same. For 112 can/should be invoke when the institute is involved.
And there we have it, the evidence of Thais are certainly united in agreement, but only acted according to the side they’re on.
I think they are absolutely mighty as they have shown below…
Can’t be sure if your tongue is firmly in your cheek writing that but, in any case, while I certainly thought the front and centre display of heavy weapons (as deployed in April/May 2010) was a tad heavy-handed I rather preferred the Bangkok Post’s picture at http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/security/232725/show-of-strength-to-protect-monarchy
I wouldn’t go so far as to ascribe the downpour to karma – but I suspect some of those caught in it may be wondering if it was.
It appears to outsiders that the expansion of les majeste has that effect. I don’t see it among the Thai people: Few Thais are critical of this law and only a few academics dare even privately draw a connection between the law and the monarchy. Artists don’t do it. The poor stand up to sing the royal anthem. Rank and file middle class don’t seem to care in private, but are obedient in order to keep their jobs. So: no, there is no hint of any backfire from the les majeste law. It is rampaging through society unhindered.
Pavin buys into the narrative that the issue is the monarchy being used as a political weapon.
The reality is that it’s just another SE Asian elite going after their political rivals not with political debate but the the legal system as an undemocratic hammer. If it wasn’t lese-majeste they’d be using defamation, or conspiracy or some other law for the same purpose.
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.
Such a social system absent the ability to raise everyone into the middle classes (ie Singapore) provides a constant spur to bottom up revolutionary movements.
The posts in this thread simply do not establish any casual links to anything from anything. So much is being claimed to be caused by one causal factor – script.
The Vietnamese didn’t go from one alphabet to another; they went from characters (Chinese-based) to an alphabet. Full use of romanization Vietnamese wasn’t completed until the French forced it in 20th century. And the cultural differences between Theravada SEA and Vietnam go back ages. The French complained about the ‘lazy’ Indianized Khmer and brought in Vietnamese to do the office work etc before Romanization.
Romanization made the Vietnamese literate and readers? Are the Japanese and Chinese illiterate societies today? Were they in the past? If so why? And the Koreans?
How are the literacy and reading rates in all of Central and South America and Africa? The all have been forced to use roman alphabets and spaces between words. Central and South America even speak European languages. How have oppressive governments faired there?
Classical Greek and Latin used scriptura continua so most of the Greek and Roman philosophers using it. Wasn’t democracy conceived using scriptura continua? What about the Christian philosophers before11th century? Socrates didn’t like writing, so I suppose he was not promoting reading either.
How about all the Hindu and Buddhist philosophy and wisdom written in Bramhi, Nagari, Devanagari etc scripts all using scriptura continua. Word spacing is relatively modern in Indian scripts and one might just as easily argue triggered a decline in philosophical thought.
All evidence (according to Richard Gombrich) points to writing being almost unused in India at the Buddha time and that the Buddha probably couldn’t read.
Was scriptura continua discontinued because the elites wanted to free the oppressed people in Europe? Oppressive governments lasted in Europe centuries after scriptura continua was stopped. And the ‘Dark Ages’ rolled along quit nicely too for a while. Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union both used spaces between words (but two different scripts). Shall we argue that Nazi Germany was less oppressive because it used the roman script while the Soviet Union used a Greek-based script?
Why the desire to make it a roman alphabet, just reform the Thai script. Should we make the Russians, Serbs, Bulgarians, Greeks go roman too? Why not make Europe use a reformed Thai script or Arab script. Why does everyone always have to change to suit the roman West?
Maybe there is nothing interesting for some of you to read written by Thais because you actually do not like Thai culture or understand Thai thinking. Rather you like Western culture and understand it.
Just because you love reading doesn’t mean the Thais have to.
The people writing on this post all are using roman alphabet and have spaces between the words, but their argumentation is frequently neither logical nor factual. And it is frequently pejorative and insulting.
I end by saying that you can change the Thai script and writing system in any way you want, but this I can guarantee, it will not help you understand Thai thought in the least.
QUOTE:(Political Prisoners in Thailand – 20 April 2011):”The message is clear. The establishment is not going to allow Puea Thai to govern the country!
Jon (Ungpakorn) says the constitution must be reworked, the judiciary depoliticized, an end to appointed senate seats, the need for the supposedly independent institutions to be truly independent and not the lackeys of the regime, as they are now. Significantly, echoing calls made in 1932, he argues for a truly constitutional monarchy.
A few years ago this list would have seemed like liberal reformism; now it seems downright revolutionary.”
That’s correct. These are all tools of the state used for stamping out the sovereignty of the nation.
The establishment and the military will steal the next election by whatever means – judicially or extra-judicially – it deems necessary to maintain the status quo. That’s assuming an election does indeed get to take place and is not superseded by the formation a military sanctioned ‘unity government’ or in a worse case scenario another coup. The military is pressing hard for the implementation of a ‘unity government’ which will presumably do away with the need for general elections for many years to come.
The military wants to do away with democratic principles and the constitutional rights of ordinary Thai citizens to exercise their hard-earned democratic rights. Talk about monopolizing the freedom of all Thais and striping away true democratic principles.
The establishment have now virtually extinguished the flame of freedom and free expression in Thailand – political or otherwise – no matter what Abhisit and Suthep may say – such is their intent on rolling back democratic values and reigning-in and imprisoning any who dare to speak up and challenge and question the authoritarian dictatorship – the elites and the military – that really rule and govern the country.
This stiffling of democracy and freedom will inevitably bring the giants to their knees and people the world over will witness yet another revolution – this time in Thailand. There is now very little difference between the colour revolutions taking place in the Middle East and the one long overdue in Thailand. Thailand shares all the contributory factors of brutal and ruthless repression that also exist in those countries. And the doing away of the final vestiges of what a true constitutional democracy should be will be the final nails in the coffin. The next few months – and years – will provide ample evidence that this is so.
And no matter how these unfolding events are defined and labelled: revolt – uprising – mutiny – insurgency – putsch – or sedition – ultimately the result will be the same. The restoration of a true democracy and a fully and properly fuctioning judiciary – legislature and government.
Hello Andrew, those questions I asked in comment #18 were meant seriously and not as a dig or any sort of criticism. I would be thankful if you could answer. Good luck with your article.
If only poor Vichai, were Vichy and living in France in 1940, he would not have to live in such a continual state of frustration and angst at all those who are so uninformed and stupid as to attack the “Status Quo” & the people who love so much to dress up in pretty costumes. Orders could be given with the full confidence that they would be carried out, no one would be speaking out of turn, everyone would be very respectful to all those above them and his world be be orderly, serene and sabai……..
He has become a saintly mirage that promises all kinds of goodies and can do no wrong to his Northern and Isaan supporters, whereas sthey might eventually have grown weary of his corruption and brutality, if he had stayed in power all the while.
That also can be said to the Southern parton of the democrat voter, if you really flip trough some pages in Khow Sod or Matichon you will noticed that some of the villagers from the South are protesting to get the compensation money for the last year flooding. 377 votes was what Thaksin get for staying in office for 4 years you think he will get any less vote just by staying longer you should really look into history of how that actually turns out. Furthermore, I’m pretty sure that the people from the North and NE are more weary of the elites’ (note that I’m not mentioning anyone neme) corruped and brutality than what they get from Thaksin.
What have they done to protect the monarchy? MP Jutuphon Bhombhan’s speech at the Red Shirt gathering asked why the Royal Guard shot the protesters. What’s wrong with that? Is that insulting to the monarch?
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Pavin on lese majeste
All things shall pass…
Thai monarchy and Wikileaks
LesAbbey, many of the cables are procedural and of limited wider interest. I’d estimate about 50 percent. Many others just recount events without adding significant value. I will share every cable used in my article (probably several hundred) and I also plan to make every other cable that I consider substantive available. I will still be accused of cherry picking, bad faith and who knows what else by all sides. But my intention is to behave in a way that shows integrity and will still be seen to have integrity not just in two months but also in two years and twenty years when all the cables will have long been in the public domain. Rather than just dump all the substantive cables onto the internet now, I consider it responsible to first write a very substantial analysis of what we have learned from the totality of the Bangkok and Chiang Mai cables. So that is what I am doing.
Australia should send electoral observers to Malaysia
Thai monarchy and Wikileaks
Esther,
Quite clearly Nostitz’s Australian-Thaksinite-Red-Helsinki-Khmer-Soros-Republican-German traits will always surface, even inadvertently.
There is no end to his wickedness.
It is also obvious to anyone that in the following link the Germans were clearly paid off, in full, by the Australian-Thaksinite-Red-Helsinki-Khmer-Soros-Republican conspiracy. Anyone who denies it is even more guilty of being in the evil doers’ grip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BNkO9l318o&feature=fvsr
Pavin on lese majeste
I’ve reach an epiphany on this lese majeste charge on the reds. You see, they never ever gave out names other than Prem at red rallies. Certainly not on stage. For the Monarchy to be insulted, the accuser actually agrees that the institute is what the reds has been implying. The ones behind everything.
Since the charge is being used widely, it means that the general conclusion must be the same. For 112 can/should be invoke when the institute is involved.
And there we have it, the evidence of Thais are certainly united in agreement, but only acted according to the side they’re on.
Pavin on lese majeste
c3
I think they are absolutely mighty as they have shown below…
Can’t be sure if your tongue is firmly in your cheek writing that but, in any case, while I certainly thought the front and centre display of heavy weapons (as deployed in April/May 2010) was a tad heavy-handed I rather preferred the Bangkok Post’s picture at http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/security/232725/show-of-strength-to-protect-monarchy
I wouldn’t go so far as to ascribe the downpour to karma – but I suspect some of those caught in it may be wondering if it was.
Pavin on lese majeste
It appears to outsiders that the expansion of les majeste has that effect. I don’t see it among the Thai people: Few Thais are critical of this law and only a few academics dare even privately draw a connection between the law and the monarchy. Artists don’t do it. The poor stand up to sing the royal anthem. Rank and file middle class don’t seem to care in private, but are obedient in order to keep their jobs. So: no, there is no hint of any backfire from the les majeste law. It is rampaging through society unhindered.
Pavin on lese majeste
Pavin buys into the narrative that the issue is the monarchy being used as a political weapon.
The reality is that it’s just another SE Asian elite going after their political rivals not with political debate but the the legal system as an undemocratic hammer. If it wasn’t lese-majeste they’d be using defamation, or conspiracy or some other law for the same purpose.
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.
Such a social system absent the ability to raise everyone into the middle classes (ie Singapore) provides a constant spur to bottom up revolutionary movements.
Reforming Thai language structure
The posts in this thread simply do not establish any casual links to anything from anything. So much is being claimed to be caused by one causal factor – script.
The Vietnamese didn’t go from one alphabet to another; they went from characters (Chinese-based) to an alphabet. Full use of romanization Vietnamese wasn’t completed until the French forced it in 20th century. And the cultural differences between Theravada SEA and Vietnam go back ages. The French complained about the ‘lazy’ Indianized Khmer and brought in Vietnamese to do the office work etc before Romanization.
Romanization made the Vietnamese literate and readers? Are the Japanese and Chinese illiterate societies today? Were they in the past? If so why? And the Koreans?
How are the literacy and reading rates in all of Central and South America and Africa? The all have been forced to use roman alphabets and spaces between words. Central and South America even speak European languages. How have oppressive governments faired there?
Classical Greek and Latin used scriptura continua so most of the Greek and Roman philosophers using it. Wasn’t democracy conceived using scriptura continua? What about the Christian philosophers before11th century? Socrates didn’t like writing, so I suppose he was not promoting reading either.
How about all the Hindu and Buddhist philosophy and wisdom written in Bramhi, Nagari, Devanagari etc scripts all using scriptura continua. Word spacing is relatively modern in Indian scripts and one might just as easily argue triggered a decline in philosophical thought.
All evidence (according to Richard Gombrich) points to writing being almost unused in India at the Buddha time and that the Buddha probably couldn’t read.
Was scriptura continua discontinued because the elites wanted to free the oppressed people in Europe? Oppressive governments lasted in Europe centuries after scriptura continua was stopped. And the ‘Dark Ages’ rolled along quit nicely too for a while. Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union both used spaces between words (but two different scripts). Shall we argue that Nazi Germany was less oppressive because it used the roman script while the Soviet Union used a Greek-based script?
Why the desire to make it a roman alphabet, just reform the Thai script. Should we make the Russians, Serbs, Bulgarians, Greeks go roman too? Why not make Europe use a reformed Thai script or Arab script. Why does everyone always have to change to suit the roman West?
Maybe there is nothing interesting for some of you to read written by Thais because you actually do not like Thai culture or understand Thai thinking. Rather you like Western culture and understand it.
Just because you love reading doesn’t mean the Thais have to.
The people writing on this post all are using roman alphabet and have spaces between the words, but their argumentation is frequently neither logical nor factual. And it is frequently pejorative and insulting.
I end by saying that you can change the Thai script and writing system in any way you want, but this I can guarantee, it will not help you understand Thai thought in the least.
Pavin on lese majeste
QUOTE:(Political Prisoners in Thailand – 20 April 2011):”The message is clear. The establishment is not going to allow Puea Thai to govern the country!
Jon (Ungpakorn) says the constitution must be reworked, the judiciary depoliticized, an end to appointed senate seats, the need for the supposedly independent institutions to be truly independent and not the lackeys of the regime, as they are now. Significantly, echoing calls made in 1932, he argues for a truly constitutional monarchy.
A few years ago this list would have seemed like liberal reformism; now it seems downright revolutionary.”
That’s correct. These are all tools of the state used for stamping out the sovereignty of the nation.
The establishment and the military will steal the next election by whatever means – judicially or extra-judicially – it deems necessary to maintain the status quo. That’s assuming an election does indeed get to take place and is not superseded by the formation a military sanctioned ‘unity government’ or in a worse case scenario another coup. The military is pressing hard for the implementation of a ‘unity government’ which will presumably do away with the need for general elections for many years to come.
The military wants to do away with democratic principles and the constitutional rights of ordinary Thai citizens to exercise their hard-earned democratic rights. Talk about monopolizing the freedom of all Thais and striping away true democratic principles.
The establishment have now virtually extinguished the flame of freedom and free expression in Thailand – political or otherwise – no matter what Abhisit and Suthep may say – such is their intent on rolling back democratic values and reigning-in and imprisoning any who dare to speak up and challenge and question the authoritarian dictatorship – the elites and the military – that really rule and govern the country.
This stiffling of democracy and freedom will inevitably bring the giants to their knees and people the world over will witness yet another revolution – this time in Thailand. There is now very little difference between the colour revolutions taking place in the Middle East and the one long overdue in Thailand. Thailand shares all the contributory factors of brutal and ruthless repression that also exist in those countries. And the doing away of the final vestiges of what a true constitutional democracy should be will be the final nails in the coffin. The next few months – and years – will provide ample evidence that this is so.
And no matter how these unfolding events are defined and labelled: revolt – uprising – mutiny – insurgency – putsch – or sedition – ultimately the result will be the same. The restoration of a true democracy and a fully and properly fuctioning judiciary – legislature and government.
Pavin on lese majeste
@ HMMM
“The Thai army is incompetent countering the insurgency in the South – why should anyone expect them to be more competent in protecting the Monarchy?”
I think they are absolutely mighty as they have shown below :
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2011/04/19/national/Military-show-of-force-to-uphold-monarchy-30153417.html
Nostitz reports on a Bangkok stand-off
It would indeed be good to have more than a claim that a blacklist exists. This is an big claim and should be substantiated.
Thai monarchy and Wikileaks
Andrew Marshall – 16
Hello Andrew, those questions I asked in comment #18 were meant seriously and not as a dig or any sort of criticism. I would be thankful if you could answer. Good luck with your article.
Has anybody else noticed…
Don’t forget Google’s n-gram viewer, which allows you to plot interesting charts this:
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=Thaksin%2CBhumibol%2CSirindhorn%2CVajiralongkorn%2CSirikit&year_start=1945&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3
Note that the corpus is a random selection of English language books.
Thai monarchy and Wikileaks
Nick Nostitz. I’ve been hunting for your e-mail. This makes it easier. Please send me a private e-mail to [email protected]
It’s related to the subject under discussion here.
An outdated way of choosing a leader!!
If only poor Vichai, were Vichy and living in France in 1940, he would not have to live in such a continual state of frustration and angst at all those who are so uninformed and stupid as to attack the “Status Quo” & the people who love so much to dress up in pretty costumes. Orders could be given with the full confidence that they would be carried out, no one would be speaking out of turn, everyone would be very respectful to all those above them and his world be be orderly, serene and sabai……..
Will Thailand’s elections be fair?
Portman – 44
He has become a saintly mirage that promises all kinds of goodies and can do no wrong to his Northern and Isaan supporters, whereas sthey might eventually have grown weary of his corruption and brutality, if he had stayed in power all the while.
That also can be said to the Southern parton of the democrat voter, if you really flip trough some pages in Khow Sod or Matichon you will noticed that some of the villagers from the South are protesting to get the compensation money for the last year flooding. 377 votes was what Thaksin get for staying in office for 4 years you think he will get any less vote just by staying longer you should really look into history of how that actually turns out. Furthermore, I’m pretty sure that the people from the North and NE are more weary of the elites’ (note that I’m not mentioning anyone neme) corruped and brutality than what they get from Thaksin.
Thai monarchy and Wikileaks
OMG, is that an LM comment underneath the video of Germany trashing England…………..
Pavin on lese majeste
Thai Army?
What have they done to protect the monarchy? MP Jutuphon Bhombhan’s speech at the Red Shirt gathering asked why the Royal Guard shot the protesters. What’s wrong with that? Is that insulting to the monarch?
They never look at the mirror.
Thai monarchy and Wikileaks
You two Andrews – while having your quirky tribal squabbles on the islands off the German coast, watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uF_wpcZxTM
🙂