What that Dutch journalist says about Polenghi exactly is:
“He died on almost the same spot where I got hit. One Canadian freelance journalist seems to have been wounded on the same spot and at the same time too”
Maybe be Polenghi was shot by the military, but the Dutch guy doesn’t claim he actually saw it, only that he died on the same spot, and that could be an important difference as the Canadian journalist he also mentions was wounded by a grenade blast together with some soldiers.
According to Maas story Polenghi should have been shot in the back, too, as they were running away from the soldiers. I recall everyone says he’s been shot in the stomach. Maybe he was facing the soldiers and raising his camera with a long telephoto lense, maybe he was shot by someone from the red side.
There need to be answers to these basic questions to start blaming anyone.
Couldn’t agree more but present laws forbid verbalisation of the thought crime and I have the Prime Directive to consider!
Anyhoo IMHO LM is not about personalities it’s about preservation of oligarchies and the military, police judiciary and sundry other institutions are neck deep in that.
From a western liberal perspective they are corrupt, inept, and averse to change or development. The alternative forces arrayed are corrupt, possibly less inept and up for limited change and development as it suits their purpose. Little to choose from for the guy sweeping the street but maybe a glimmer of hope of change in the latter.
There are dangers in choosing change also that may not be apparent till it’s too late and thats the yellowshirts fear. Better the deity you know…
There is little evidence that he [Aung San] did not begin the process of what some refer to as the ethnic cleansing of the Karen people.
Are you suggesting that a lack of evidence supports a claim that Aung San initiated a process of ethnic cleansing against the Karen?
WWII saw intercommunal Karen-Burma riots in the Irrawaddy Delta between civilians from neighbouring villages. This violence was the result of a variety of factors. The violence included Karen (and later KNDO) attacks against ethnic Burman civilians, as well as vice verse. There were also efforts by some Burma Independence Army leaders to halt this communal violence (such as Bo Mo Kyo’s Peace Declaration). These riots have had the tragic effect of fueling six decades of disastrous civil war. Claiming that Aung San (whose wife was Karen) initiated a process of ethnic cleansing against the Karen pays scant respect to these facts and undermines reconciliation efforts based on a balanced reading of history.
Chris: I was simply saying that there are facts available, so why not use them. Adding to the pot of grand allegations. e.g. “England’s Queen Elizabeth owns more land, and so do many other very rich people, not all of them royals” is a claim we cannot verify because we simply don’t know the total holdings of the Thai monarch, family and associated companies, foundations and so on. Likewise, we your claim that the
“Sultan of Brunei owns large slices of the most expensive real estate in London. By the VALUE of the land he owns, the Sultan of Brunei could be considered to own more land than Bumiphol” also can’t be verified for the same reason. We also have no knowledge (at least I haven’t seen it) of the Thai royals overseas holdings.
Pad Boy, just like Amsterdam, is hell bent on arguing the obvious until cows come home, that’s not what I want to do, however, and perhaps, I committed the mistake Somtow mentioned in his blog – engage the shyster on his own terms. You might win every battle but the war will already be lost, by conceding the validity of shyster’s arguments.
I liked that Sometow’s poetic metaphor, too: “a novelist must use invention to reach a truthful conclusion … whereas a lawyer may well use truth to get to a conclusion that is pure invention”
Public figure who has influence in the society, politic, and economic should be able to be criticize. The logic of “if its your father” is not going to hold any ground here because not all of everyone’s dad is a public figure. Furthermore If one’s dad is to be a public figure then he/she should be ready for public criticize, much like Parnthongtae has to endure his dad’s daily bashing.
If the record from a dutch journalist who was a few meters away from Polenghi during the event is enough as an environmental evidence for you then, by all mean. http://www.freemedia.at/singleview/5032/
Interesting thoughts on terminology and the agenda behind its use.
Don’t you think the term neocons also tends to be used interchangeably with those who push forward the neoliberal agenda? They are mostly the same kind of people. Margaret Thatcher was a great champion of neoliberalism in ‘rolling back the state’ which led to the coining of the term Thatcherism perhaps less deservedly than Ronald Reagan who could only boast Reagonomics but no ism.
Not surprisingly though since the liberals and the conservatives became almost indistinguishable like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, as Gore Vidal famously put it “We have two parties in America, both right wing.” And what’s the difference between the neocons and the liberal hawks any way?
Extrapolate all this to the Third World with its patron client relationships from village to state level. Their leaders for their own economic and political difficulties see it as a panacea, and globalisation a godsend opportunity they must grab with both hands. The gospel according to the Blessed Margaret and the Gipper has spread like a virus.
It’s a one size fits all formula. The more authoritarian the regime the easier it is to push through the agenda. Hence seemingly strange bedfellows with the West such as China and Vietnam happily went down the state corporatist path as revealed to the world before by the shining example of Nazi Germany. Burma’s generals are fast learners of the same prevailing school in that sense.
The irony often overlooked in a twisted sort of reverse psychology is that the very rolling back of the state is carried out with great conviction by the very powers vested in the state through the agency of both the elected and unelected executive in office, to widespread applause by those captains of private enterprise who stand to gain at the expense of the public as the state makes a wholesale retreat from the provision of public services and utilities .
In the Third World scenario the state is all the more powerful with no proper checks and balances, no organised labour of significant clout, and quite a few are de facto one party states. Asset stripping and firesales of public property to a crony business class can go virtually unopposed. Joint state and private enterprises also enjoy a nurturing environment with a finger in every pie to the virtual exclusion of the grassroot small and middling businesses with not a level playing field in sight.
We have just witnessed leaders of the developed Western world bending over backwards to rescue the banks just ‘too big to fail’. There cannot even be oversight or any kind of scrutiny or accountability over the tax payer’s money generously used by the state to bail these bankers out from out of the black hole they’d created themselves through their own reckless greed. Profits accrue to the so called wealth creators and job providers whereas losses are socialised – the IMF prescribes the same old bitter medicine of austerity measures with the same predictable outcome seen before since the 60s in every Third World capital affected in the form of street protests and bloody crackdowns, but allowing the capitalist system to survive , leaner and meaner, able to fight another day.
Now the chickens are coming home to roost. Ordinary folks in the developed Western world are set to pay the price for their leaders’ mistakes and greed in the same austerity measures. One cannot even afford to have any sense of schadenfreude.
How do we counter this? Only popular struggle in the form of mass movements and mass action has a real chance of fixing the pendulum stuck at one extreme. Elitist remedies only tinker and tweak with the structural problem even if some of their members with a bit more social conscience might start thinking outside the box of neoliberal consensus. Just as the neoliberal onslaught shows no sign of abating, the undercurrent of popular struggle continues the world over.
I am proud of the author for having the courage to speak up on the matter. There is no evidence that Aung San was not a brutal killer. There is little evidence that he did not begin the process of what some refer to as the ethnic cleansing of the Karen people.
Because of Aung San’s public efforts to unite Burma and Ethnic Burma, and because of time’s passing with the self-sacrifice of Daw Suu – it is difficult for the Western mind (I am a Westerner) to be open to the realities of what likely happened as opposed to what we would like to have happened when reading Burmese history. The unspeakable crimes of the junta distort the realities of war.
We look at Burma and like to think there is a point where the distortion began and where it would end. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Thanks for the report. I just have a quick question about the following line:
“Unfortunately, the written Lao which accompanied English in the conference program included pre-revolutionary spelling, which no doubt served to marginalise the few Lao participants in attendance.”
What sorts of pre-revolutionary forms were used? Are we talking about forms which vary as simply as р╗Ар║бр║Н and р╗Ар║бр║▒р║Н, р║лр║е and р║лр║╝, and the omission of a short vowel, i.e., р║░, and its inclusion, or were there older forms used that had the potential to actually affect comprehension. Is it the symbolic effect of using this older spelling that would “marginalize” the Lao participants or would these participants actually be unable to read these older forms? Weren’t most or all of the papers spoken?
Thanks
The last time there was a full, free and fair election in Thailand, with a legally constructed constitution was in 2005.
The Democrats were absolutely destroyed in this vote.
Even in 2007 they barely mustered over 150 MPs.
So, it’s not a fantasy to assume Abhisit and the Dems lack support.
It is, as evidenced by the last 4 elections, stretching all the way back to 2001, the cold hard stark reality that gnaws away at The Dems and is the only reason why Abhisit has not called an election. He knows they will lose.
Please carry on with your baseless, fact free and completely random comments. They’d be quite amusing if 90 people hadn’t recently died on the streets of the capital to protect an unelected and unelectable clique.
Thank you for putting it in its historical and regional context. Nationalist feeling was at its zenith in Burma at the time, and the Socialist government of U Nu decided to stay out of the British Commonwealth and subsequently embraced the Bandung Conference of non-aligned states. Later even Ne Win would have nothing to do with SEATO given the hand of the CIA in the KMT invasion of eastern Burma. Relations with Mao’s China improved further after signing the five principles for peaceful coexistence and later the border demarcation treaty.
The leadership split within the AFPFL (Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League) was not over political philosophy as all of them were left wing, but over more practical matters , the principal bone of contention being the defense agreement where a British military mission would remain for three years after independence, in addition to undertaking full compensation for British business concerns, in particular the BOC (Burmah Oil Company).
The communists, even though they had been in the forefront of the national liberation struggle, were not the dominant group unlike in Vietnam or Malaya. They got thrown out from the AFPFL, whose first general secretary was the chairman of the CPB Thakin Than Tun, by Aung San (who was the CPB’s first secretary general as Hla Oo pointed out, though not common knowledge in independent Burma for obvious reasons) and the Socialists who later seized control of the country after Aung San and his cabinet were assassinated a few months before independence.
Like you said that’s the past. However, your next premise for all to work together is easier said than done. It’s all very well in the Western liberal setup, but if you really understand Burma, you will find that we have a further uphill struggle.
Whereas in the developed Western world they have managed to tone down the class divisions and the inevitable struggle by means of continual liberal reforms that go hand in hand with economic and technological advances, the struggle is so much sharper and acute in countries like Burma and not at all helped by blatant exploitation and repression going hand in hand with an ever widening gap between the ruling class and the rest.
Polarisation of society and increasing conflict with no desire for genuine political solutions on the part of the powerful become a lethal formula, and there seems no way out except through popular struggle no matter what it takes and how long it takes. We live and struggle in hope. The people will win through in the end.
Tarrin 10
As you well know they don’t draw a line. Tho to be fair to 9denyzofisarn – how would you feel if someone “accademically criticized your parents?”
Of course our parents will not always be with us. What accademic criticism will come forth in the next era?
n.b Check the notthenation.com report on the new national anthem video allegedly playing in BKK SF cinemas…..Wicked!
Aside from the responses that some of you mentioned, the government has reacted with other interesting statements.
Democrat Party spokesman Buranut argues that the “black paper” damages the nation, the monarchy, and the Thai people (http://www.thairath.co.th/content/pol/98821). He also accused the writers of LM because of a passage on p. 20, saying that the paper states that the king knew in advance of the coup (http://dailynews.co.th/newstartpage/index.cfm?page=content&categoryId=8&contentID=80594). That is false. The paper cites the king’s own words on the 2006 election and makes no inference about the king’s knowledge or intentions.
In the Thai Rath article discussed above, aside from calling Amsterdam “farang ta nam kao” Thepthai also said that he was hired to “destroy Thailand” (because CRES is Thailand, as we all know: http://www.thairath.co.th/content/pol/98831)
The only statement Abhisit made on the paper (that I could find) echoes Suthep and Thepthai, saying it’s a shame that a Thai person hired a foreigner to damage Thailand (http://www.komchadluek.net/detail/20100723/67606/67606.html) He says that the paper is nothing to pay attention to, as it is written by a foreigner with a “famous reputation” hired by Thaksin.
The response to the paper from the government consists ENTIRELY of personal attacks, racial slurs, innuendo, threats, and slander. The one place where someone associated with the government addresses the content of the paper (and not the race or the motives of the people who published it) he makes an allegation that a crime has been committed based on something that isn’t even in there. If that’s not slander, I don’t know what is.
Whether or not Abhisit said it is irrelevant. Abhisit is the head of the Democrat Party and the government. If he lets slanderous comments made by people whose job it is to speak for the party or the government stand, there can be no question that the statements reflect the government’s or the party’s position.
sad to see that once again the poseur known as “StanG” has hijacked an otherwise informative thread and turned it into nonsense….maybe time for this thread to be brought to a dignified end………
R.N.England #5 re :
“Yes, Chris Beale (4) you are right to compare the Chartists’ important role in the struggle for universal suffrage in Britain with the Red cause in Thailand.
Even the Irish rebellions against English colonialism could be compared with the struggle of Isaan people against Bangkok colonialism,
However I doubt many Isaan people want their region to become another poor, landlocked, independent, Laos. They just want a Bangkok régime that is less oppressive.”
I completely agree – but if Isaan people continue being disenfranchised,
EXCLUDED rather than INCLUDED as Andrew Walker advocates and I support, what choice are they going to have ?
Dude, look, despite your slightly odd and obsessive denial of simple basic facts, it’s as clear as day the evidence is there. You just choose to ignore it because it doesn’t fit the myths you’ve chosen to adopt and believe in, even as they crumble to dust before your very eyes. But no matter.
It is very very very clear that Amsterdam brings up Thepthai’s previous conduct and Abhisit’s treatment of it, as a way to reveal that the Thai PM’s spokesperson is a bit of a liability. It is also clear from that example, that when Abhisit does feel Thepthai steps out of line that he will intervene and tell him to shut up.
He didn’t do that this time.
Which clearly infers that Abhisit was happy with what his spokesperson said.
Are you also unaware of the role of a “spokesperson”? Let me explain. Basically it does what is says on the tin – it is a person who speaks on behalf of a third party. In this instance Thepthai speaks for Abhisit, so therefore, Thepthai’s comments speak for Abhisit (am I really having to explain this to a grown adult?).
Furthermore, my view is that using someone’s race to denigrate them is a slur that is racial (that’s called logic Stan). But maybe it’s a “Thai-style slur” so it’s not a real slur?
I think Thepthai goes on to make various completely spurious LM accusations as does Buranat in another article but I can’t find a link to them.
So, as there is more than one that’s plural.
Or maybe it’s a Thai-style plural that operates according to the same mysterious rules you chose to use and so doesn’t count? A bit like the source that mysteriously appeared but wasn’t in the correct language for StanG so was no longer a source?
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Press conference on the death of Fabio Polenghi
What that Dutch journalist says about Polenghi exactly is:
“He died on almost the same spot where I got hit. One Canadian freelance journalist seems to have been wounded on the same spot and at the same time too”
Maybe be Polenghi was shot by the military, but the Dutch guy doesn’t claim he actually saw it, only that he died on the same spot, and that could be an important difference as the Canadian journalist he also mentions was wounded by a grenade blast together with some soldiers.
According to Maas story Polenghi should have been shot in the back, too, as they were running away from the soldiers. I recall everyone says he’s been shot in the stomach. Maybe he was facing the soldiers and raising his camera with a long telephoto lense, maybe he was shot by someone from the red side.
There need to be answers to these basic questions to start blaming anyone.
The logic of lese majeste
Couldn’t agree more but present laws forbid verbalisation of the thought crime and I have the Prime Directive to consider!
Anyhoo IMHO LM is not about personalities it’s about preservation of oligarchies and the military, police judiciary and sundry other institutions are neck deep in that.
From a western liberal perspective they are corrupt, inept, and averse to change or development. The alternative forces arrayed are corrupt, possibly less inept and up for limited change and development as it suits their purpose. Little to choose from for the guy sweeping the street but maybe a glimmer of hope of change in the latter.
There are dangers in choosing change also that may not be apparent till it’s too late and thats the yellowshirts fear. Better the deity you know…
Burma in Limbo, Part 1
NM Reader, you said:
Are you suggesting that a lack of evidence supports a claim that Aung San initiated a process of ethnic cleansing against the Karen?
WWII saw intercommunal Karen-Burma riots in the Irrawaddy Delta between civilians from neighbouring villages. This violence was the result of a variety of factors. The violence included Karen (and later KNDO) attacks against ethnic Burman civilians, as well as vice verse. There were also efforts by some Burma Independence Army leaders to halt this communal violence (such as Bo Mo Kyo’s Peace Declaration). These riots have had the tragic effect of fueling six decades of disastrous civil war. Claiming that Aung San (whose wife was Karen) initiated a process of ethnic cleansing against the Karen pays scant respect to these facts and undermines reconciliation efforts based on a balanced reading of history.
Thailand in Crisis – Episode 5
Chris: I was simply saying that there are facts available, so why not use them. Adding to the pot of grand allegations. e.g. “England’s Queen Elizabeth owns more land, and so do many other very rich people, not all of them royals” is a claim we cannot verify because we simply don’t know the total holdings of the Thai monarch, family and associated companies, foundations and so on. Likewise, we your claim that the
“Sultan of Brunei owns large slices of the most expensive real estate in London. By the VALUE of the land he owns, the Sultan of Brunei could be considered to own more land than Bumiphol” also can’t be verified for the same reason. We also have no knowledge (at least I haven’t seen it) of the Thai royals overseas holdings.
“The Bangkok Massacres: A call for accountability”
Chris,
You got post numbers wrong, or at least they look wrong when I view the comments.
I wasn’t trying to answer you in my previous entry anyway.
Here’s a Somtow’s take on Amsterdam:
http://www.somtow.org/2010/07/dont-shoot-shyster.html
Pad Boy, just like Amsterdam, is hell bent on arguing the obvious until cows come home, that’s not what I want to do, however, and perhaps, I committed the mistake Somtow mentioned in his blog – engage the shyster on his own terms. You might win every battle but the war will already be lost, by conceding the validity of shyster’s arguments.
I liked that Sometow’s poetic metaphor, too: “a novelist must use invention to reach a truthful conclusion … whereas a lawyer may well use truth to get to a conclusion that is pure invention”
The logic of lese majeste
Billy Budd – 14
Public figure who has influence in the society, politic, and economic should be able to be criticize. The logic of “if its your father” is not going to hold any ground here because not all of everyone’s dad is a public figure. Furthermore If one’s dad is to be a public figure then he/she should be ready for public criticize, much like Parnthongtae has to endure his dad’s daily bashing.
Press conference on the death of Fabio Polenghi
Billy Budd – 7
If the record from a dutch journalist who was a few meters away from Polenghi during the event is enough as an environmental evidence for you then, by all mean. http://www.freemedia.at/singleview/5032/
The neoliberal bogeyman of Cambodia
Eva Seriche
Interesting thoughts on terminology and the agenda behind its use.
Don’t you think the term neocons also tends to be used interchangeably with those who push forward the neoliberal agenda? They are mostly the same kind of people. Margaret Thatcher was a great champion of neoliberalism in ‘rolling back the state’ which led to the coining of the term Thatcherism perhaps less deservedly than Ronald Reagan who could only boast Reagonomics but no ism.
Not surprisingly though since the liberals and the conservatives became almost indistinguishable like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, as Gore Vidal famously put it “We have two parties in America, both right wing.” And what’s the difference between the neocons and the liberal hawks any way?
Extrapolate all this to the Third World with its patron client relationships from village to state level. Their leaders for their own economic and political difficulties see it as a panacea, and globalisation a godsend opportunity they must grab with both hands. The gospel according to the Blessed Margaret and the Gipper has spread like a virus.
It’s a one size fits all formula. The more authoritarian the regime the easier it is to push through the agenda. Hence seemingly strange bedfellows with the West such as China and Vietnam happily went down the state corporatist path as revealed to the world before by the shining example of Nazi Germany. Burma’s generals are fast learners of the same prevailing school in that sense.
The irony often overlooked in a twisted sort of reverse psychology is that the very rolling back of the state is carried out with great conviction by the very powers vested in the state through the agency of both the elected and unelected executive in office, to widespread applause by those captains of private enterprise who stand to gain at the expense of the public as the state makes a wholesale retreat from the provision of public services and utilities .
In the Third World scenario the state is all the more powerful with no proper checks and balances, no organised labour of significant clout, and quite a few are de facto one party states. Asset stripping and firesales of public property to a crony business class can go virtually unopposed. Joint state and private enterprises also enjoy a nurturing environment with a finger in every pie to the virtual exclusion of the grassroot small and middling businesses with not a level playing field in sight.
We have just witnessed leaders of the developed Western world bending over backwards to rescue the banks just ‘too big to fail’. There cannot even be oversight or any kind of scrutiny or accountability over the tax payer’s money generously used by the state to bail these bankers out from out of the black hole they’d created themselves through their own reckless greed. Profits accrue to the so called wealth creators and job providers whereas losses are socialised – the IMF prescribes the same old bitter medicine of austerity measures with the same predictable outcome seen before since the 60s in every Third World capital affected in the form of street protests and bloody crackdowns, but allowing the capitalist system to survive , leaner and meaner, able to fight another day.
Now the chickens are coming home to roost. Ordinary folks in the developed Western world are set to pay the price for their leaders’ mistakes and greed in the same austerity measures. One cannot even afford to have any sense of schadenfreude.
How do we counter this? Only popular struggle in the form of mass movements and mass action has a real chance of fixing the pendulum stuck at one extreme. Elitist remedies only tinker and tweak with the structural problem even if some of their members with a bit more social conscience might start thinking outside the box of neoliberal consensus. Just as the neoliberal onslaught shows no sign of abating, the undercurrent of popular struggle continues the world over.
Burma in Limbo, Part 1
Am I reading Hla Oo, Shelby Tucker, or Mika Rolly?
Burma in Limbo, Part 1
I am proud of the author for having the courage to speak up on the matter. There is no evidence that Aung San was not a brutal killer. There is little evidence that he did not begin the process of what some refer to as the ethnic cleansing of the Karen people.
Because of Aung San’s public efforts to unite Burma and Ethnic Burma, and because of time’s passing with the self-sacrifice of Daw Suu – it is difficult for the Western mind (I am a Westerner) to be open to the realities of what likely happened as opposed to what we would like to have happened when reading Burmese history. The unspeakable crimes of the junta distort the realities of war.
We look at Burma and like to think there is a point where the distortion began and where it would end. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Thank you to the author
Lao studies conference 2010: the fascination of the marginal
Thanks for the report. I just have a quick question about the following line:
“Unfortunately, the written Lao which accompanied English in the conference program included pre-revolutionary spelling, which no doubt served to marginalise the few Lao participants in attendance.”
What sorts of pre-revolutionary forms were used? Are we talking about forms which vary as simply as р╗Ар║бр║Н and р╗Ар║бр║▒р║Н, р║лр║е and р║лр║╝, and the omission of a short vowel, i.e., р║░, and its inclusion, or were there older forms used that had the potential to actually affect comprehension. Is it the symbolic effect of using this older spelling that would “marginalize” the Lao participants or would these participants actually be unable to read these older forms? Weren’t most or all of the papers spoken?
Thanks
Bangkok Constituency 6: judgement day
Simon, StanG
The last time there was a full, free and fair election in Thailand, with a legally constructed constitution was in 2005.
The Democrats were absolutely destroyed in this vote.
Even in 2007 they barely mustered over 150 MPs.
So, it’s not a fantasy to assume Abhisit and the Dems lack support.
It is, as evidenced by the last 4 elections, stretching all the way back to 2001, the cold hard stark reality that gnaws away at The Dems and is the only reason why Abhisit has not called an election. He knows they will lose.
Please carry on with your baseless, fact free and completely random comments. They’d be quite amusing if 90 people hadn’t recently died on the streets of the capital to protect an unelected and unelectable clique.
Burma in Limbo, Part 1
Suzie Wong
Thank you for putting it in its historical and regional context. Nationalist feeling was at its zenith in Burma at the time, and the Socialist government of U Nu decided to stay out of the British Commonwealth and subsequently embraced the Bandung Conference of non-aligned states. Later even Ne Win would have nothing to do with SEATO given the hand of the CIA in the KMT invasion of eastern Burma. Relations with Mao’s China improved further after signing the five principles for peaceful coexistence and later the border demarcation treaty.
The leadership split within the AFPFL (Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League) was not over political philosophy as all of them were left wing, but over more practical matters , the principal bone of contention being the defense agreement where a British military mission would remain for three years after independence, in addition to undertaking full compensation for British business concerns, in particular the BOC (Burmah Oil Company).
The communists, even though they had been in the forefront of the national liberation struggle, were not the dominant group unlike in Vietnam or Malaya. They got thrown out from the AFPFL, whose first general secretary was the chairman of the CPB Thakin Than Tun, by Aung San (who was the CPB’s first secretary general as Hla Oo pointed out, though not common knowledge in independent Burma for obvious reasons) and the Socialists who later seized control of the country after Aung San and his cabinet were assassinated a few months before independence.
Like you said that’s the past. However, your next premise for all to work together is easier said than done. It’s all very well in the Western liberal setup, but if you really understand Burma, you will find that we have a further uphill struggle.
Whereas in the developed Western world they have managed to tone down the class divisions and the inevitable struggle by means of continual liberal reforms that go hand in hand with economic and technological advances, the struggle is so much sharper and acute in countries like Burma and not at all helped by blatant exploitation and repression going hand in hand with an ever widening gap between the ruling class and the rest.
Polarisation of society and increasing conflict with no desire for genuine political solutions on the part of the powerful become a lethal formula, and there seems no way out except through popular struggle no matter what it takes and how long it takes. We live and struggle in hope. The people will win through in the end.
The logic of lese majeste
Tarrin 10
As you well know they don’t draw a line. Tho to be fair to 9denyzofisarn – how would you feel if someone “accademically criticized your parents?”
Of course our parents will not always be with us. What accademic criticism will come forth in the next era?
n.b Check the notthenation.com report on the new national anthem video allegedly playing in BKK SF cinemas…..Wicked!
“The Bangkok Massacres: A call for accountability”
Aside from the responses that some of you mentioned, the government has reacted with other interesting statements.
Democrat Party spokesman Buranut argues that the “black paper” damages the nation, the monarchy, and the Thai people (http://www.thairath.co.th/content/pol/98821). He also accused the writers of LM because of a passage on p. 20, saying that the paper states that the king knew in advance of the coup (http://dailynews.co.th/newstartpage/index.cfm?page=content&categoryId=8&contentID=80594). That is false. The paper cites the king’s own words on the 2006 election and makes no inference about the king’s knowledge or intentions.
In the Thai Rath article discussed above, aside from calling Amsterdam “farang ta nam kao” Thepthai also said that he was hired to “destroy Thailand” (because CRES is Thailand, as we all know: http://www.thairath.co.th/content/pol/98831)
Along the same lines, Suthep claims that it’s a shame that Thaksin has hired Amsterdam to “damage Thailand” (http://www.thairath.co.th/content/pol/98935).
The only statement Abhisit made on the paper (that I could find) echoes Suthep and Thepthai, saying it’s a shame that a Thai person hired a foreigner to damage Thailand (http://www.komchadluek.net/detail/20100723/67606/67606.html) He says that the paper is nothing to pay attention to, as it is written by a foreigner with a “famous reputation” hired by Thaksin.
The response to the paper from the government consists ENTIRELY of personal attacks, racial slurs, innuendo, threats, and slander. The one place where someone associated with the government addresses the content of the paper (and not the race or the motives of the people who published it) he makes an allegation that a crime has been committed based on something that isn’t even in there. If that’s not slander, I don’t know what is.
Whether or not Abhisit said it is irrelevant. Abhisit is the head of the Democrat Party and the government. If he lets slanderous comments made by people whose job it is to speak for the party or the government stand, there can be no question that the statements reflect the government’s or the party’s position.
“The Bangkok Massacres: A call for accountability”
sad to see that once again the poseur known as “StanG” has hijacked an otherwise informative thread and turned it into nonsense….maybe time for this thread to be brought to a dignified end………
Press conference on the death of Fabio Polenghi
Peter 6
please share your evidence for this allegation as it is of great importance in the matter being discussed
From the archives: Silcock with reference to Queen Sirikit
R.N.England #5 re :
“Yes, Chris Beale (4) you are right to compare the Chartists’ important role in the struggle for universal suffrage in Britain with the Red cause in Thailand.
Even the Irish rebellions against English colonialism could be compared with the struggle of Isaan people against Bangkok colonialism,
However I doubt many Isaan people want their region to become another poor, landlocked, independent, Laos. They just want a Bangkok régime that is less oppressive.”
I completely agree – but if Isaan people continue being disenfranchised,
EXCLUDED rather than INCLUDED as Andrew Walker advocates and I support, what choice are they going to have ?
“The Bangkok Massacres: A call for accountability”
StanG
Dude, look, despite your slightly odd and obsessive denial of simple basic facts, it’s as clear as day the evidence is there. You just choose to ignore it because it doesn’t fit the myths you’ve chosen to adopt and believe in, even as they crumble to dust before your very eyes. But no matter.
It is very very very clear that Amsterdam brings up Thepthai’s previous conduct and Abhisit’s treatment of it, as a way to reveal that the Thai PM’s spokesperson is a bit of a liability. It is also clear from that example, that when Abhisit does feel Thepthai steps out of line that he will intervene and tell him to shut up.
He didn’t do that this time.
Which clearly infers that Abhisit was happy with what his spokesperson said.
Are you also unaware of the role of a “spokesperson”? Let me explain. Basically it does what is says on the tin – it is a person who speaks on behalf of a third party. In this instance Thepthai speaks for Abhisit, so therefore, Thepthai’s comments speak for Abhisit (am I really having to explain this to a grown adult?).
Furthermore, my view is that using someone’s race to denigrate them is a slur that is racial (that’s called logic Stan). But maybe it’s a “Thai-style slur” so it’s not a real slur?
I think Thepthai goes on to make various completely spurious LM accusations as does Buranat in another article but I can’t find a link to them.
So, as there is more than one that’s plural.
Or maybe it’s a Thai-style plural that operates according to the same mysterious rules you chose to use and so doesn’t count? A bit like the source that mysteriously appeared but wasn’t in the correct language for StanG so was no longer a source?
“The Bangkok Massacres: A call for accountability”
StanG #76 :
that’s hardly a credible reply to what I asked in post#75.
Looks like you have n’t yet recovered from your binge drinking weekend bender !