It was not the fault of the democratic governments, as you seem to imply, that these soldiers were imprisoned:
I didn’t intend to imply that if that’s what I did. If anything the implication was that they could move from hero to villain very quickly.
You really need to do more homework re. both.
I suspect, as with my supposed implication, you are trying to set up a straw man. My homework may be shoddy and my memory may be compromised, but are you saying that the outcome in both Philippines and Portugal didn’t need the participation of these young Turks?
I was fortunate to spend parts of 1973 and 1974 in Lisbon and managed to partake in the Carnation Revolution, although my sobriety at the time was seriously impaired and celebrate is probably a better term than partake. The young officers of the MFA were probably looking for more than the returning politicians were willing to give, but I suspect that is something we can see in various places including the Philippines.
Talking of which, the Philippines, and yes I worked around most of the SE Asian countries at the time, does suffer from that Asian disease of dynastic politics. But is that better than a dictatorship? Certainly, but it would be good to see these family and clan power relationships disappear from the region.
I can’t access the data. Anyway your argument make sense. RPI is basically the inflation as experienced in rural areas, which means comparing Crop PPI/RPI should give a better indicator on the development of farmers standard of living.
To make the model even more accurate, increases in productivity needs be taken into account as well. A study by McKinsey on the chicken industry in 2003, concluded that even though it’s a great success, its productivity is only 10% compared to the US. This gap should narrow as Thailand is adopting more technology and best practices.
It is very misleading to label Stephen Duthy as an `Environmental Scientist`, as Foreign Correspondent did. He was not speaking as a neutral party. Instead, he is presently employed as the Integrated Management System Coordinator for the Nam Theun 2 Power Company.
Instead of providing justifications for dam projects in the Mekong Basin, he should have been talking about is why NT2 has miserably failed to prevent the people and environment along the Xebangfai River from being badly damaged by the company that is paying his salary.
“That the new army chief has brought up the monarchy appears to indicate internal challenges that he has not elaborated. And by doing so, Gen Prayuth, like many of his backers, may have unnecessarily drawn a line in the sand and defined the fault line of Thai politics around the monarchy.”
Actually I don’t know much about the people involve in Krue Sae since I think its really not the man on the top fault, well, not entirely. There are certainly many cover up in the case and I do firmly believe many high ranking officer is to be blame, and yes Panlop is the one who order the crackdown and for some reason Thaksin took the blame.
Les Abbey #41 :
1)”Maybe he could have been a bit like General Spinola was to the younger officers in Lisbon in 1974. Then again a few of those young officers eventually ended up in prison under the democratic governments that followed the end of fascism in Portugal.”
2) “Come to think of it, didn’t some of the younger Philippino army officers who helped overthrow Marcos eventually end up in prison under Mrs. Aquino.”
You really need to do more homework re. both.
I was in Portugal, six months before Spinola’s coup – it was a place of special interest to me, since I had grown up during my teens in Dar-es-Salaam, just around the corner from Dr. Eduardo Mondlane’s house.
He was leader of the Frelimo guerillas fighting against Portuguese colonial control of Mozambique.
It was obvious when I visited Portugal, in summer of 1973, that something big was about to happen. Much like Thailand today.
I was also in the Philippines, two times in ’86, when it was also obvious something big was going to happen as Marcos ended.
The soldiers you mention, in both cases, who were jailed, were those who tried to de-stabilise more democratic governments.
It was not the fault of the democratic governments, as you seem to imply, that these soldiers were imprisoned :
it was the fault of the rebel soldiers themselves – that they could NOT accept the new reformed, more democratic order.
This sentence simultaneously oversells Thaksin’s threat to the monarchy and undersells his actual corruption.
Thaksin has always been part of the elite all along, the system is corrupted so do people in the system. The only problem with Thaksin is that he is representing the progressive force within the elite who has always been holding a conservative value and that Thaksin has awaken the political awareness within the grass root population. In a way, comparing to Animal Farm, Thaksin had turn the sheep into Murial goat and Benjamin donkey and that is the threat to the establishment.
I would not compare the crop PPI with the manufacturing PPI, but rather with the rural price index.
This would help us answer the question “are the prices farmers receive for their products growing faster than the price of the goods and services they buy?” A positive answer means that the purchasing power of farmers should be increasing.
Well, it turns out the pattern looks a lot like your chart (though slightly less dramatic: the “terms of trade” only double since the early 2000s).
Leah Hoyt #10. Maybe or maybe not. Prayuth has yet to prove his competence at the level to which he has just been promoted. How shall he be judged; by serving the Thai nation or by simply doing the will of the amart who have installed him?
Judged by this second test, Anupong surely performed reasonably creditably. He set up the deal that ousted PPP/Puea Thai and installed the “Democrat”-led government and got away comparatively lightly with the crackdown of the UDD rally – at least from the viewpoint of his masters in the amart. That he achieved nothing worthwhile in the south was sadly of only secondary importance to them. He may yet find his own “level of incompetence” if, as been suggested , he soon takes on some role in government.
“Both men were central to the 2006 coup that ousted tycoon-turned-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who is hailed by the Reds for his policies for the masses but seen by the establishment as corrupt and a threat to the monarchy.” –AFP
Newswires do have to keep it short, but so much truth gets lost in brevity. This sentence simultaneously oversells Thaksin’s threat to the monarchy and undersells his actual corruption.
How about:
“…but seen by the establishment as a competitor to their corruption and portrayed as an enemy to the monarchy.”
This thread looks like sifting through the entrails. Like most of what has happened in recent years, it might be fun but it it won’t change anything. The sad truth is that there is NO force here capable of joined-up political thinking. Whatever objectives they set out with, they always lose the plot through either too much horseplay or a perverse interest in seeing other people suffer. The local elite are a sickly and inbred lot, but they are still very capable of railroading ordinary people’s aspirations down blind alleys.
This sort of stuff is about as effective as dummy policemen. The elite must be laughing all the way to the bank when they see such futile displacement activities. Doodlers do not generally inherit the earth. Instead they go to art college, from which they might (if lucky?) end up drafting the big shots’ baked bean cans.
Ugh and more ugh, is all I can say. Perhaps Chalerm Yubamrung, one of the Reddest among the Reds, has a 100% appreciation of what Red art represents – past, present or future.
I do not begrudge people for their preferences in art . . . it’s is their ‘thing’ after all. Sam Deedes (#15) seem content on any graffiti at any wall desperate for a glint of Red art (e.g ‘Red till-dead’ messages if they stay legible long enough for some photo shoot) . . .
Tarrin (#14) seeks solutions, while Sam Deedes (#15) will now scour every graffiti scratched on some city walls to divine Red messages or Red art. Oh well . . . encouraging Red vandalism I guess is tolerable; versus arson or worse, I mean.
“I am ready to govern my subordinates fairly and will strive to develop the army to be prepared to maintain Thailand’s sovereignty and protect the monarchy”
Yes. I have a question.
Q. …protect the monarchy – against whom?
I only ask because the answer appears to be ‘against the Thai people.
Which is a problem, because in a real democracy, it is the people who decide whether or not they want a monarchy at all, not some over-promoted Peter-principle army wallah who would be better to pend his time asking ahy the Thai army keeps getting its ass kicked when it goes up against people better prepared than unarmed civilians.
I think Prayut could do with some testosterone reduction therapy, and a small reminder that it’s a mistake to take yourself too seriously.
FWIW, imho I firmly believe that the monarchy in Thailand is already finished and will completely die when the incumbent does. And it did it to itself by failing to constrain the arrogance and impunity that members of the Thai amartya habitually display..
Hence the most unbelievable panic on the part of those who have hitched their wagons to the royal carriage. Including brother Prayut.
MattB: You’re asking for “Red works of art that appeal aesthetically and intellectually”. How do you know they don’t appeal in this way to the audience they are intended for? They were produced in the heat of the struggle, not in an artist’s studio on a peaceful hilltop somewhere.
You use the phrase “Thai people need to be reminded…”. I respectfully suggest this reveals a patronising mindset and whether or not the works of art appeal to you aesthetically and intellectually is, quite frankly, irrelevant.
michael says: “At last, I thought, Thai art which is connected to social ideas!” I think you do the Thai art scene a bit of a disservice here, michael and I think that since you have previously shown your appreciation of the Patravadi Theatre in Bangkok you are aware that your statement is unnecessarily limiting. Anyone who follows the “Pink Man” series by photographer Manit Sriwanichpoom will know what I mean. The Thai art scene has been bubbling under with social relevance for some time.
Lastly, thank you Thomas Hoy for setting this up. You have convinced me we should all be carrying cameras to record any such artistic evidence, such as graffiti, however small, for posterity before the authorities swoop to remove it.
The hateful “Together We Can” is a knock off of Obama’s “Yes We Can” and reveals how an elite, bankrupt of ideas, can swiftly appropriate a message and subvert it for its own ends.
Make no mistake, the Thai elite are very sophisticated moulders of messages. The latest example of what Thomas Hoy calls “the constant dehumanizing depiction of the redshirts as a mindless zombie army” is to be seen outside the gutted Central World department store. In HUGE letters on a hoarding in front of the rebuilding effort is the statement “WE MISS YOU”
A moment’s thought jerks us back from empathising with the families of those slain at Rachaprasong to the chilling realisation that the message is directed at an empty building! Human rights for the all too populous effete class here means nothing more than the freedom to shop.
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Sanitising Thai political history
Chris Beale – 52
It was not the fault of the democratic governments, as you seem to imply, that these soldiers were imprisoned:
I didn’t intend to imply that if that’s what I did. If anything the implication was that they could move from hero to villain very quickly.
You really need to do more homework re. both.
I suspect, as with my supposed implication, you are trying to set up a straw man. My homework may be shoddy and my memory may be compromised, but are you saying that the outcome in both Philippines and Portugal didn’t need the participation of these young Turks?
I was fortunate to spend parts of 1973 and 1974 in Lisbon and managed to partake in the Carnation Revolution, although my sobriety at the time was seriously impaired and celebrate is probably a better term than partake. The young officers of the MFA were probably looking for more than the returning politicians were willing to give, but I suspect that is something we can see in various places including the Philippines.
Talking of which, the Philippines, and yes I worked around most of the SE Asian countries at the time, does suffer from that Asian disease of dynastic politics. But is that better than a dictatorship? Certainly, but it would be good to see these family and clan power relationships disappear from the region.
Producer prices and Thaksin’s economic good fortune
@Frederico Gil Sander
I can’t access the data. Anyway your argument make sense. RPI is basically the inflation as experienced in rural areas, which means comparing Crop PPI/RPI should give a better indicator on the development of farmers standard of living.
To make the model even more accurate, increases in productivity needs be taken into account as well. A study by McKinsey on the chicken industry in 2003, concluded that even though it’s a great success, its productivity is only 10% compared to the US. This gap should narrow as Thailand is adopting more technology and best practices.
“The Amazon of Asia” – Laos and the Mekong on ABC TV
It is very misleading to label Stephen Duthy as an `Environmental Scientist`, as Foreign Correspondent did. He was not speaking as a neutral party. Instead, he is presently employed as the Integrated Management System Coordinator for the Nam Theun 2 Power Company.
Instead of providing justifications for dam projects in the Mekong Basin, he should have been talking about is why NT2 has miserably failed to prevent the people and environment along the Xebangfai River from being badly damaged by the company that is paying his salary.
General Prayut on his new job
Interesting piece on Prayuth by Thitinan in today’s Bangkok Post.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/199699/meaning-and-implications-of-general-rise
“That the new army chief has brought up the monarchy appears to indicate internal challenges that he has not elaborated. And by doing so, Gen Prayuth, like many of his backers, may have unnecessarily drawn a line in the sand and defined the fault line of Thai politics around the monarchy.”
Sanitising Thai political history
LesAbbey – 51
Actually I don’t know much about the people involve in Krue Sae since I think its really not the man on the top fault, well, not entirely. There are certainly many cover up in the case and I do firmly believe many high ranking officer is to be blame, and yes Panlop is the one who order the crackdown and for some reason Thaksin took the blame.
General Prayut on his new job
Thitinan has an interesting piece in the Bangkok Post on the meteoric rise of General Prayuth…..
http://goo.gl/dkZi
Sanitising Thai political history
Les Abbey #41 :
1)”Maybe he could have been a bit like General Spinola was to the younger officers in Lisbon in 1974. Then again a few of those young officers eventually ended up in prison under the democratic governments that followed the end of fascism in Portugal.”
2) “Come to think of it, didn’t some of the younger Philippino army officers who helped overthrow Marcos eventually end up in prison under Mrs. Aquino.”
You really need to do more homework re. both.
I was in Portugal, six months before Spinola’s coup – it was a place of special interest to me, since I had grown up during my teens in Dar-es-Salaam, just around the corner from Dr. Eduardo Mondlane’s house.
He was leader of the Frelimo guerillas fighting against Portuguese colonial control of Mozambique.
It was obvious when I visited Portugal, in summer of 1973, that something big was about to happen. Much like Thailand today.
I was also in the Philippines, two times in ’86, when it was also obvious something big was going to happen as Marcos ended.
The soldiers you mention, in both cases, who were jailed, were those who tried to de-stabilise more democratic governments.
It was not the fault of the democratic governments, as you seem to imply, that these soldiers were imprisoned :
it was the fault of the rebel soldiers themselves – that they could NOT accept the new reformed, more democratic order.
Producer prices and Thaksin’s economic good fortune
@Christoffer Larsson
You can get the rural price index from the Ministry of Commerce website: http://www.price.moc.go.th/en/content1.aspx?cid=50.
The PPI can also be obtained from the MoC’s website (http://www.price.moc.go.th/en/content1.aspx?cid=3) though the data starts in 1995; I had to use a similar series from a commercial database to go back to 1986.
Producer prices and Thaksin’s economic good fortune
@Frederico Gil Sander
From where do you get the data for the rural price index?
General Prayut on his new job
WLH – 11
This sentence simultaneously oversells Thaksin’s threat to the monarchy and undersells his actual corruption.
Thaksin has always been part of the elite all along, the system is corrupted so do people in the system. The only problem with Thaksin is that he is representing the progressive force within the elite who has always been holding a conservative value and that Thaksin has awaken the political awareness within the grass root population. In a way, comparing to Animal Farm, Thaksin had turn the sheep into Murial goat and Benjamin donkey and that is the threat to the establishment.
Producer prices and Thaksin’s economic good fortune
I would not compare the crop PPI with the manufacturing PPI, but rather with the rural price index.
This would help us answer the question “are the prices farmers receive for their products growing faster than the price of the goods and services they buy?” A positive answer means that the purchasing power of farmers should be increasing.
Well, it turns out the pattern looks a lot like your chart (though slightly less dramatic: the “terms of trade” only double since the early 2000s).
General Prayut on his new job
Leah Hoyt #10. Maybe or maybe not. Prayuth has yet to prove his competence at the level to which he has just been promoted. How shall he be judged; by serving the Thai nation or by simply doing the will of the amart who have installed him?
Judged by this second test, Anupong surely performed reasonably creditably. He set up the deal that ousted PPP/Puea Thai and installed the “Democrat”-led government and got away comparatively lightly with the crackdown of the UDD rally – at least from the viewpoint of his masters in the amart. That he achieved nothing worthwhile in the south was sadly of only secondary importance to them. He may yet find his own “level of incompetence” if, as been suggested , he soon takes on some role in government.
General Prayut on his new job
“Both men were central to the 2006 coup that ousted tycoon-turned-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who is hailed by the Reds for his policies for the masses but seen by the establishment as corrupt and a threat to the monarchy.” –AFP
Newswires do have to keep it short, but so much truth gets lost in brevity. This sentence simultaneously oversells Thaksin’s threat to the monarchy and undersells his actual corruption.
How about:
“…but seen by the establishment as a competitor to their corruption and portrayed as an enemy to the monarchy.”
Red art: Democracy Monument April 12 2010
This thread looks like sifting through the entrails. Like most of what has happened in recent years, it might be fun but it it won’t change anything. The sad truth is that there is NO force here capable of joined-up political thinking. Whatever objectives they set out with, they always lose the plot through either too much horseplay or a perverse interest in seeing other people suffer. The local elite are a sickly and inbred lot, but they are still very capable of railroading ordinary people’s aspirations down blind alleys.
This sort of stuff is about as effective as dummy policemen. The elite must be laughing all the way to the bank when they see such futile displacement activities. Doodlers do not generally inherit the earth. Instead they go to art college, from which they might (if lucky?) end up drafting the big shots’ baked bean cans.
Red art: Democracy Monument April 12 2010
” . . . The future of Puea Thai does not depend on its political and economic policies. It depends on Thaksin. We can’t ignore this fact.” – a Chalerm Yubamrung response to a Post reporter (http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/199516/chalerm-sees-tough-road-ahead-for-party)
Ugh and more ugh, is all I can say. Perhaps Chalerm Yubamrung, one of the Reddest among the Reds, has a 100% appreciation of what Red art represents – past, present or future.
Red art: Democracy Monument April 12 2010
I do not begrudge people for their preferences in art . . . it’s is their ‘thing’ after all. Sam Deedes (#15) seem content on any graffiti at any wall desperate for a glint of Red art (e.g ‘Red till-dead’ messages if they stay legible long enough for some photo shoot) . . .
Tarrin (#14) seeks solutions, while Sam Deedes (#15) will now scour every graffiti scratched on some city walls to divine Red messages or Red art. Oh well . . . encouraging Red vandalism I guess is tolerable; versus arson or worse, I mean.
General Prayut on his new job
Actually, Prayuth may be the only soldier currently in the Thai army, to whom you can not apply the Peter Principal. But that is a technicality.
General Prayut on his new job
“I am ready to govern my subordinates fairly and will strive to develop the army to be prepared to maintain Thailand’s sovereignty and protect the monarchy”
Yes. I have a question.
Q. …protect the monarchy – against whom?
I only ask because the answer appears to be ‘against the Thai people.
Which is a problem, because in a real democracy, it is the people who decide whether or not they want a monarchy at all, not some over-promoted Peter-principle army wallah who would be better to pend his time asking ahy the Thai army keeps getting its ass kicked when it goes up against people better prepared than unarmed civilians.
I think Prayut could do with some testosterone reduction therapy, and a small reminder that it’s a mistake to take yourself too seriously.
FWIW, imho I firmly believe that the monarchy in Thailand is already finished and will completely die when the incumbent does. And it did it to itself by failing to constrain the arrogance and impunity that members of the Thai amartya habitually display..
Hence the most unbelievable panic on the part of those who have hitched their wagons to the royal carriage. Including brother Prayut.
Can Malaysia trust Najib?
Yes Alan,
It is shocking to see how Najib is able to lie so blatantly.
Here are several other articles that also makes the same argument: Najib cannot be trusted!
1. The Nutgraph – Who is Najib Razak?
2. EngageMalaysia – Don’t trust Najib
3. Asia Sentinel – Najib’s pastoral picture
Red art: Democracy Monument April 12 2010
Wow! Where to start?
MattB: You’re asking for “Red works of art that appeal aesthetically and intellectually”. How do you know they don’t appeal in this way to the audience they are intended for? They were produced in the heat of the struggle, not in an artist’s studio on a peaceful hilltop somewhere.
You use the phrase “Thai people need to be reminded…”. I respectfully suggest this reveals a patronising mindset and whether or not the works of art appeal to you aesthetically and intellectually is, quite frankly, irrelevant.
michael says: “At last, I thought, Thai art which is connected to social ideas!” I think you do the Thai art scene a bit of a disservice here, michael and I think that since you have previously shown your appreciation of the Patravadi Theatre in Bangkok you are aware that your statement is unnecessarily limiting. Anyone who follows the “Pink Man” series by photographer Manit Sriwanichpoom will know what I mean. The Thai art scene has been bubbling under with social relevance for some time.
Lastly, thank you Thomas Hoy for setting this up. You have convinced me we should all be carrying cameras to record any such artistic evidence, such as graffiti, however small, for posterity before the authorities swoop to remove it.
The hateful “Together We Can” is a knock off of Obama’s “Yes We Can” and reveals how an elite, bankrupt of ideas, can swiftly appropriate a message and subvert it for its own ends.
Make no mistake, the Thai elite are very sophisticated moulders of messages. The latest example of what Thomas Hoy calls “the constant dehumanizing depiction of the redshirts as a mindless zombie army” is to be seen outside the gutted Central World department store. In HUGE letters on a hoarding in front of the rebuilding effort is the statement “WE MISS YOU”
A moment’s thought jerks us back from empathising with the families of those slain at Rachaprasong to the chilling realisation that the message is directed at an empty building! Human rights for the all too populous effete class here means nothing more than the freedom to shop.