Kan we expect:
– Post october 1976 with Thanin Kraiwichiens bookburning-
– Thailibananaland with a big touch of the Great Leader Kim at the center of the universe.
– Bigger logotype on every textbooks and facebooks that says …
Thanks for all the report. The truth is the truth. Only the one who pretend to be blind and chosse what to hear will not perceive the truth. The cres set up a group called underground team and use it to crack down the red shirts. They call this strategy as people crash with people or mob v.s. mob.
There are also social crisis as well the person who think they are king loyalty and love their country BUT inside their hearts are enjoy counting the dead red body or encouging each other to shoot the dead red body. I will give you example page
The above page firstly aimed to shoot all red and then after major storm from red people into the page they change the wall a little bit to enjoy counting for the dead body. But inside the page are encouraging people to buy gun and commit an underground crime.
Here is another example page; encourage people kill people page;
JohnH. I think this overly cynical attitude is not helpful in understanding the implications and impacts of government budget measures. Sure, there is corruption. But there is also clear evidence that over the past 40 years or so government spending has played an important part in promoting development and raising standards of living. So, while not being blind to the reality of corruption lets not use that as an excuse to avoid some more detailed analysis of the merits or otherwise of various budget measures.
“Funny, those intolerant Christians have frequently been working assimilation of the hill tribes, even if the hill tribes didn’t necessarily want it.”
Please provide some example. The Karen are a majority-Buddhist tribe with several tribal divisions. Christianity was introduced into the Karen by British and American colonialists..both indirectly (through the Mon during British colonial wars and occupation) and directly (American Baptist Mission). By converting people to Christianity, you CREATE refugees and destroy native cultures.
So, basically we are in for yet another year of misused and misspent public money simply to keep the fat cats fat and the people in their place, the gutter.
What worries me is the complete lack of accountability, or any real mechanism to prevent this wholesale corruption from happening.
I am also looking forward to another year of media disinterest and apathy on the subject of corruption, the small guys with legitimate local needs being bullied into submission or worse and more news items of brain dead ‘hi-so’s and top stars ‘ getting free air time to ponce about on TV while advertising their latest pathetic business venture.
I don’t think there’s such a way to see where the spending goes. Once the fund transferred to local authorities, they do it for “internal affair”. Only on “paper” that you will see the figure. Would the people be allowed to see those papers? The people don’t even know if the project is really exist.
For example, a Sub District Administration ask for, say a million. They got a million for a project, say, decorating the road to a temple. The list of expense would be like; 10% goes for labor, 30% buying new plants, and etc. Suppose I keep only 1% to my team, I would write down that 1% as “supporting role of the official in charge”. When some curious guy on street wants to know what that mean, who will answer him?
For the MP, I think they got 1 million each annually for each district where he is the rep. Don’t really know if it is still be there.
Even they really do something. They would put a sign “This building is courtesy from Mr.Athita who provide the national budget to all of our community”. You will see it every where. The “Strong Thailand” project, put Abhisit’s face on it as a trademark. Or, face of Minister of Interior, from Bhumjai Thai Party.
Tarrin @#5
Yes, true. For example, student uniform, yes it is free, but you need to buy new one every year because of the low quality of fabric. You wear for a month, it’s torn. The uniform may cost only 50 Baht, but in the paper, it may say “100 Baht”. Where is another 50?
Also for the book, they may just keep printing “new edition”.
And how about if I want my kid to go a private school? I need to pay some kind of entrance fee, to support the school, etc. Or, even in a government support school, if you don’t have enough “power” or pass some kind of test, you would need to find another school.
Another example that I found, police officer is supposed to carry a hand gun, right? But this handgun, if you want, you buy using your money. There’s no budget for that.
Poorly livings for those lower ranks officials, not only in the force but all. They live in a 20 year old flat, 5 x 5 m. room (any one remember M-79 hit at Lumphini Police Station and the resident flat?). A public servant may wish to own a car, or a house, he must loan from some kind of co-op (where they cut your salary off 5-10%), and you pay them back monthly by cutting your salary off (again)).
I found another interesting records about the 2011 Annual Budget.
Let me put some figure here so we all would have better understanding. Any correction is welcomed in case I might be wrong because I’m not familiar with the financial terms.
(1). The Bill proposal is 2 trillion (let’s make it some number, say 20 Baht).
(2). This 20 Baht, is the expenses.
(3). We have 15.30 Baht in pocket (from tax payer or whatever the government has). Thus, we need 4.70 Baht and it’s the biggest figure in history.
(4). How could we get 4.7? We loan. The more we loan, the more we are in debt.
(5). The government makes only 0.32 Baht to pay back the loan debt.
(6). 80% of 20 Baht (say 16 Baht), is the “regular expense”, i.e., buying stuffs, etc.
(7). Investment budget is 1.3 Baht (let’s say Mega Projects).
(8). “General Purpose Budget” is set to 2.6 Baht, 2nd after the Education Ministry.
(9). Defense got 1.7 Baht (8% of total budget, NM did well). That’s mean, every paid tax 100 Baht, it goes 8 Baht to the Defense, whereas, the Agriculture (from different Party, I think), got only 0.7 Baht (despite the farmers, etc, are largest population, though they pay less tax. Some of them who has income lower than 100,000 Baht annually, is tax exempt. This policy was originally made by Thaksin’s Administration as one of his “Populist Policy” blamed by the Democrat and his rivals).
(10). Public Debt is 33.8 Baht which is 50% of GDP.
(11). A new-born Thai child is in debt for 60,000 Baht (rounded number).
And after this, who would help paying back? The Democrat will be dissolved? The Democrat will be the Opposition and the Pua Thai would be government? Whose responsibility?
Also, let me tell NM readers a bit. What would they use for the expense? Some example,
(1). Defense, buy new weapons.
(2). Agriculture, dig canal for irrigation system, crop price insurance,
(3). Education, re-write new history book, claiming Thaksin is enemy of state. Red shirt movement is Thailand’s darkness.
(4). Health, replace the flag post at 100,000 Baht each.
(5). Communication, construct new run-way for the airport (but contractor must be my ally). Fix the road in rural area (again, because last year we did only half mile).
(6). Foreign Affair, go hunt Thaksin with First Class flight and 5-star hotel aboard.
etc. Most of them, I would say, unthinkable expenses. And you know what, at the end, if the budget you ask for is still remaining, say 100 Baht, you won’t give back to the Central, you have to spend all, otherwise next year budget will be cut.
The fires were caused by people who have chosen to take their arguments to the street when they should be heard in Parliament by governments representatives elected by the people without interference from coups, courts, corruption payments, and military brokered backroom deals that deprive them of getting that proper representation.
Both side have been involved in the offenses. That is why the way out is for all sides to agree that this method is a mess and that all sides need to step back from the abyss of fascism and agree to embrace or at least accept as legitimate, whatever democratically elected government comes to place after the next election and if they don’t like it to use traditional democratic methods towards replacing in at the next election.
AND AN ELECTION NEEDS TO BE SOON!!! Before the end of the year. Preferably within the next three months.
That would help at reconciliation.
Maybe Thais will learn from this experience that while democracy is not a perfect form of government it is still the best one around.
Until that happens, don’t count on us Americans or our government to embrace either side.
Suzie Wong: I assume you know that Amsterdam is Thaksin’s current lawyer, and this “article” is written for the purpose of supporting Thaksin. There’s nothing wrong with that; just understand what the source is and what his agenda is. You once cited Not The Nation as a source, so I think you need to be more observant about your sources.
By the way, on the free education scheme, its actually far from being “free” in a sense, the government still requited you to pay 10,000 baht initially, and after finish your high school, they will pay back 300 baht. Furthermore, the uniform and books are still cost as much as before.
Sonthi’s suggestion is absurd. Aside from the obvious obliteration of a democratic society and constitutional monarchy resulting from the suggestion being carried out, Sonthi utterly failed to take into account the King’s poor health at the moment. What if the unspeakable happens before the reforms could be completed or before the power could be returned to the democratic institutions and the heir presumptive takes over while absolute power is still vested in the king?
I’m no expert but there are any number of possible launching locations. 6-ish meters to the left of the Rama VI statue, is one of them, and also Chulalongkorn hospital. Do we know they were fired from only one location? There could have been more than on or tow operatives involved. There’s also the old Robinson’s building on the corner of Silom there, that car park, and the Dusit Thani hotel is also a possible for the BTS station hit.
But to the point. Just because nitrate traces were found on the 8th floor of the hospital, doesn’t mean they were government soldiers who launched the M-79’s. Many reds, it was known, often slept there and used the hospitals’ toilets.
It’s not that difficult to walk in there, (not dressed in red – or black – of course) conceal an M-79 launcher in a jacket (they’re not bazookers or RPG launchers), go up the stairs, go into the women’s toilets, lock the door and launch a grenade. Or indeed for the evidence to be planted there after wards.
Or even, why – when the UDD stormed the hospital to search it – they didn’t discover the damage to the room and the nitrate traces – surely that would have helped feed their propaganda machine.
I also can’t see the political advantage to Abhisit/Suthep for government soldiers to launch M-79’s into yellow supporters and commuters that night. In order to precipitate a crack down?
But that ‘crack down’ didn’t happen until mid-May! I don’t think it was on Abhisit’s agenda to have more bloody mayhem around him – it’s far too politically dangerous – & it seems this is exactly what he was trying to avoid. Hence his reluctance to forcibly disperse them & the road map proposal that soon followed etc etc.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone know who owns the Dusit Thani Hotel?? Strange how that took a direct hit from 3 RPGs on the 17th May.
I suppose that was also government soldiers dressed in black who launched those from Lumpini park
When this Thai translation was first made available I emailed it to a Thai friend of mine. She read it, then told me at the time all the reasons why the report was inaccurate.
Tonight I showed her the government message saying that a site was blocked. I asked her to translate it for me, which she did reasonably well. I asked her to speculate on why I wasn’t allowed to read the site. She explained that the site contained info that was dangerous to Thailand — basically pleading national security.
I closed the message about the site being blocked, then opened the email I had sent her last month providing the link to the Nick Nostitz article translated to Thai. I clicked on the link and let the “blocked” message pop up on the screen.
I asked her why she thought her government didn’t want her to read this story.
She’s college-educated and able to form meaningful opinions, but she tends to drink the kool aid dished up by the government-palace-yellow shirt groups. This was probably the first time I have ever been able to make any headway in explaining to her how the Thai government controls her access to information.
She and I have very different points of view on Thai politics. I stressed to her today that I’m not trying to say that her ideas are wrong, but that she’s forming opinions based on only half the story.
As I said already, this was the first time I have seen any acceptance of this possibility in her eyes.
Thanks for the original link to the story, the later link to the Thai translation, and the heads-up that the site had been blocked. It offered me the opportunity to show a friend how the information she was hearing was carefully controlled, and how the government she supports does not seem to trust her to make up her own mind if she is allowed access to a full range of opinions.
You have enabled a the small steps that may be the beginning of a long journey of greater awareness for one Thai person, who may use her greater awareness to sway the opinions of many of her friends.
Such small steps may seem insignificant, but I believe that they are integral to the full development of a society. NM and Nick Nostitz, each in their own way, may well have contributed significantly to casting light into the dark places of Thai politics.
I am not sure where you got this kind of information. You have to be very insider. It seems like you made a negative comment on Thaksin. But no, you didn’t. You are supporting him, a crook.
Do you know how bad of the budget allocation when Thaksin came into the power? He once said that he would divert more budget to the provinces that supported his party. Why didn’t you mention about this? Don’t you know about this?
You said “To buy hi-tech weapons to murder innocent people?”. Whom do you mean by “innocent people”? Did you meant red-shirt militia? Check this out and don’t live in a nutshell:
Remember, Thaksin once was in charge of the military crackdown on the Muslim protestors in Tak Bai, Narathiwas. Do you remember how many people died? SEVENTY-EIGHT people died in less than a day. Those are truly innocent THAI people and peaceful protesters, not the ones in Bangkok recently.
@Andrew Walker
I know you are one of those political scientists who are always trying to conclude everything from the limited information and absurd theories,i.e., generalizing things from one or two empirical evidences (out of tons of them). You try to claim in your web page that you have been working in Thailand for many years in order to gain respects on what you say about Thailand. I was born and lived in Thailand for more than 30 years (until 2006). I never claimed that I know the best about my country.
Get back to your article. What kind of message are you trying to send? Why don’t you compare this kind of budget allocation with those of Thaksin? Are you brave to do that? I know you are a political scientist and may not know how to analyze in economics. But well, you have a lot of economists at ANY, try to ask some of them. That might help. I will be waiting and see if you can do it.
One more thing I want to say here, we (Thai people) are trying to make the things better, please don’t make them worse by analyzing anything based on your absurd theories. I don’t mind to see your ACADEMIC views but not reckless political views.
For example, instead of paying more attention and trying to link the recent situations in Bangkok with the defence budget, why don’t you say something about the budget on education? Is it a good thing to have more budget on education? You are in the Australian educational sector (which relies on the international students’ money). You should know it well. Try to do the things you know. People will respect you.
The expenditure on education is pretty amazing. I can only hope that it actually results in some value.
243 million baht on ‘national reconciliation’ is something of an understatement, this figure should probably also take into account the sudden interest in funding various ‘rural support’ policies in areas of the country that don’t like the government.
So the money is in and on its way to the various ministries.
What next?
As no pet topics are allowed, I’ll not so cleverly rephrase my usual assertion that corrupt officials will skim of a chunk of this thus leaving the disadvataged even more so.
Here goes:
Does parliament (do select committees) scrutinise public spending to ensure it is free of any underhand dealings, kickbacks etc. If so, how does the process work and where can we, the public, see it?
Or put another way, now that the budget has been set, how does the government go about explaining its ‘on the ground’ use to the average man in the street or the countryside.
And finally, do MP’s still get part of the budget for use in their own constituencies and thus ‘repay’ the people who voted for them in the first place?
(I imagine that before being elected, prospective MP’s do make various promises, such as new hospitals, schools, roads, business zones/ opportunities etc. to attract the voters before an election, as part of their ideological policy platform. They do do this, don’t they?)
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Is 2 trillion baht populist enough?
Many of the textbooks for prathom 1-6 now have on their covers the slogan “Khunnatham nam khwamru” – Virtue before/proceeds knowledge.
Reading this article and together with herr propaganda master to drive for power to the monarchy and no election for at least 3 years.
http://www.newmandala.org/2010/05/30/sondhi-return-parliamentary-powers-to-the-king/
Kan we expect:
– Post october 1976 with Thanin Kraiwichiens bookburning-
– Thailibananaland with a big touch of the Great Leader Kim at the center of the universe.
– Bigger logotype on every textbooks and facebooks that says …
Thailand’s reddest and bloodiest month
Thanks for all the report. The truth is the truth. Only the one who pretend to be blind and chosse what to hear will not perceive the truth. The cres set up a group called underground team and use it to crack down the red shirts. They call this strategy as people crash with people or mob v.s. mob.
There are also social crisis as well the person who think they are king loyalty and love their country BUT inside their hearts are enjoy counting the dead red body or encouging each other to shoot the dead red body. I will give you example page
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=124235684269135&ref=mf
The above page firstly aimed to shoot all red and then after major storm from red people into the page they change the wall a little bit to enjoy counting for the dead body. But inside the page are encouraging people to buy gun and commit an underground crime.
Here is another example page; encourage people kill people page;
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=124235684269135&topic=120
Surely, it’s just a coincidence
Update, 3BB has blocked the page…..
Werewolf – one person will go about that spread awareness to another 10, 10 to 100, 100 to 1,000, let me assured you it is not insignificant.
Is 2 trillion baht populist enough?
JohnH. I think this overly cynical attitude is not helpful in understanding the implications and impacts of government budget measures. Sure, there is corruption. But there is also clear evidence that over the past 40 years or so government spending has played an important part in promoting development and raising standards of living. So, while not being blind to the reality of corruption lets not use that as an excuse to avoid some more detailed analysis of the merits or otherwise of various budget measures.
Confronting Karen homophobia in Burma
“Funny, those intolerant Christians have frequently been working assimilation of the hill tribes, even if the hill tribes didn’t necessarily want it.”
Please provide some example. The Karen are a majority-Buddhist tribe with several tribal divisions. Christianity was introduced into the Karen by British and American colonialists..both indirectly (through the Mon during British colonial wars and occupation) and directly (American Baptist Mission). By converting people to Christianity, you CREATE refugees and destroy native cultures.
Is 2 trillion baht populist enough?
Thanks Athita,
So, basically we are in for yet another year of misused and misspent public money simply to keep the fat cats fat and the people in their place, the gutter.
What worries me is the complete lack of accountability, or any real mechanism to prevent this wholesale corruption from happening.
I am also looking forward to another year of media disinterest and apathy on the subject of corruption, the small guys with legitimate local needs being bullied into submission or worse and more news items of brain dead ‘hi-so’s and top stars ‘ getting free air time to ponce about on TV while advertising their latest pathetic business venture.
(Note to self: Why do I bother writing this?)
Is 2 trillion baht populist enough?
JohnH @ #4
I don’t think there’s such a way to see where the spending goes. Once the fund transferred to local authorities, they do it for “internal affair”. Only on “paper” that you will see the figure. Would the people be allowed to see those papers? The people don’t even know if the project is really exist.
For example, a Sub District Administration ask for, say a million. They got a million for a project, say, decorating the road to a temple. The list of expense would be like; 10% goes for labor, 30% buying new plants, and etc. Suppose I keep only 1% to my team, I would write down that 1% as “supporting role of the official in charge”. When some curious guy on street wants to know what that mean, who will answer him?
For the MP, I think they got 1 million each annually for each district where he is the rep. Don’t really know if it is still be there.
Even they really do something. They would put a sign “This building is courtesy from Mr.Athita who provide the national budget to all of our community”. You will see it every where. The “Strong Thailand” project, put Abhisit’s face on it as a trademark. Or, face of Minister of Interior, from Bhumjai Thai Party.
Tarrin @#5
Yes, true. For example, student uniform, yes it is free, but you need to buy new one every year because of the low quality of fabric. You wear for a month, it’s torn. The uniform may cost only 50 Baht, but in the paper, it may say “100 Baht”. Where is another 50?
Also for the book, they may just keep printing “new edition”.
And how about if I want my kid to go a private school? I need to pay some kind of entrance fee, to support the school, etc. Or, even in a government support school, if you don’t have enough “power” or pass some kind of test, you would need to find another school.
Another example that I found, police officer is supposed to carry a hand gun, right? But this handgun, if you want, you buy using your money. There’s no budget for that.
Poorly livings for those lower ranks officials, not only in the force but all. They live in a 20 year old flat, 5 x 5 m. room (any one remember M-79 hit at Lumphini Police Station and the resident flat?). A public servant may wish to own a car, or a house, he must loan from some kind of co-op (where they cut your salary off 5-10%), and you pay them back monthly by cutting your salary off (again)).
That’s actually happening in Thailand.
Is 2 trillion baht populist enough?
I found another interesting records about the 2011 Annual Budget.
Let me put some figure here so we all would have better understanding. Any correction is welcomed in case I might be wrong because I’m not familiar with the financial terms.
(1). The Bill proposal is 2 trillion (let’s make it some number, say 20 Baht).
(2). This 20 Baht, is the expenses.
(3). We have 15.30 Baht in pocket (from tax payer or whatever the government has). Thus, we need 4.70 Baht and it’s the biggest figure in history.
(4). How could we get 4.7? We loan. The more we loan, the more we are in debt.
(5). The government makes only 0.32 Baht to pay back the loan debt.
(6). 80% of 20 Baht (say 16 Baht), is the “regular expense”, i.e., buying stuffs, etc.
(7). Investment budget is 1.3 Baht (let’s say Mega Projects).
(8). “General Purpose Budget” is set to 2.6 Baht, 2nd after the Education Ministry.
(9). Defense got 1.7 Baht (8% of total budget, NM did well). That’s mean, every paid tax 100 Baht, it goes 8 Baht to the Defense, whereas, the Agriculture (from different Party, I think), got only 0.7 Baht (despite the farmers, etc, are largest population, though they pay less tax. Some of them who has income lower than 100,000 Baht annually, is tax exempt. This policy was originally made by Thaksin’s Administration as one of his “Populist Policy” blamed by the Democrat and his rivals).
(10). Public Debt is 33.8 Baht which is 50% of GDP.
(11). A new-born Thai child is in debt for 60,000 Baht (rounded number).
And after this, who would help paying back? The Democrat will be dissolved? The Democrat will be the Opposition and the Pua Thai would be government? Whose responsibility?
Also, let me tell NM readers a bit. What would they use for the expense? Some example,
(1). Defense, buy new weapons.
(2). Agriculture, dig canal for irrigation system, crop price insurance,
(3). Education, re-write new history book, claiming Thaksin is enemy of state. Red shirt movement is Thailand’s darkness.
(4). Health, replace the flag post at 100,000 Baht each.
(5). Communication, construct new run-way for the airport (but contractor must be my ally). Fix the road in rural area (again, because last year we did only half mile).
(6). Foreign Affair, go hunt Thaksin with First Class flight and 5-star hotel aboard.
etc. Most of them, I would say, unthinkable expenses. And you know what, at the end, if the budget you ask for is still remaining, say 100 Baht, you won’t give back to the Central, you have to spend all, otherwise next year budget will be cut.
That’s the way it is.
Strategic alignment: Thailand and the US
The fires were caused by people who have chosen to take their arguments to the street when they should be heard in Parliament by governments representatives elected by the people without interference from coups, courts, corruption payments, and military brokered backroom deals that deprive them of getting that proper representation.
Both side have been involved in the offenses. That is why the way out is for all sides to agree that this method is a mess and that all sides need to step back from the abyss of fascism and agree to embrace or at least accept as legitimate, whatever democratically elected government comes to place after the next election and if they don’t like it to use traditional democratic methods towards replacing in at the next election.
AND AN ELECTION NEEDS TO BE SOON!!! Before the end of the year. Preferably within the next three months.
That would help at reconciliation.
Maybe Thais will learn from this experience that while democracy is not a perfect form of government it is still the best one around.
Until that happens, don’t count on us Americans or our government to embrace either side.
Surely, it’s just a coincidence
Blocked by
Maxnet, Internet Service Provider, Bangkok
The web proxy server has detected a problem.
Details…
Web Site Address http://www.newmandala.org/2010/05/16/nick-nostitz-in-the-killing-zone/
Warning Message Network read error
Thailand’s terrorists
Suzie Wong: I assume you know that Amsterdam is Thaksin’s current lawyer, and this “article” is written for the purpose of supporting Thaksin. There’s nothing wrong with that; just understand what the source is and what his agenda is. You once cited Not The Nation as a source, so I think you need to be more observant about your sources.
Is 2 trillion baht populist enough?
By the way, on the free education scheme, its actually far from being “free” in a sense, the government still requited you to pay 10,000 baht initially, and after finish your high school, they will pay back 300 baht. Furthermore, the uniform and books are still cost as much as before.
Sondhi – return parliamentary powers to the king
Sonthi’s suggestion is absurd. Aside from the obvious obliteration of a democratic society and constitutional monarchy resulting from the suggestion being carried out, Sonthi utterly failed to take into account the King’s poor health at the moment. What if the unspeakable happens before the reforms could be completed or before the power could be returned to the democratic institutions and the heir presumptive takes over while absolute power is still vested in the king?
Nick Nostitz in the killing zone
doyle2499 # 266.
http://www.thailandoutlook.tv/tan/ViewData.aspx?DataID=1028735
(published a the day after your link was).
I’m no expert but there are any number of possible launching locations. 6-ish meters to the left of the Rama VI statue, is one of them, and also Chulalongkorn hospital. Do we know they were fired from only one location? There could have been more than on or tow operatives involved. There’s also the old Robinson’s building on the corner of Silom there, that car park, and the Dusit Thani hotel is also a possible for the BTS station hit.
But to the point. Just because nitrate traces were found on the 8th floor of the hospital, doesn’t mean they were government soldiers who launched the M-79’s. Many reds, it was known, often slept there and used the hospitals’ toilets.
It’s not that difficult to walk in there, (not dressed in red – or black – of course) conceal an M-79 launcher in a jacket (they’re not bazookers or RPG launchers), go up the stairs, go into the women’s toilets, lock the door and launch a grenade. Or indeed for the evidence to be planted there after wards.
Or even, why – when the UDD stormed the hospital to search it – they didn’t discover the damage to the room and the nitrate traces – surely that would have helped feed their propaganda machine.
I also can’t see the political advantage to Abhisit/Suthep for government soldiers to launch M-79’s into yellow supporters and commuters that night. In order to precipitate a crack down?
But that ‘crack down’ didn’t happen until mid-May! I don’t think it was on Abhisit’s agenda to have more bloody mayhem around him – it’s far too politically dangerous – & it seems this is exactly what he was trying to avoid. Hence his reluctance to forcibly disperse them & the road map proposal that soon followed etc etc.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone know who owns the Dusit Thani Hotel?? Strange how that took a direct hit from 3 RPGs on the 17th May.
I suppose that was also government soldiers dressed in black who launched those from Lumpini park
Surely, it’s just a coincidence
The video of part of the incident described by Nick Nostitz remains available:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVLHnBsTl9s
Surely, it’s just a coincidence
When this Thai translation was first made available I emailed it to a Thai friend of mine. She read it, then told me at the time all the reasons why the report was inaccurate.
Tonight I showed her the government message saying that a site was blocked. I asked her to translate it for me, which she did reasonably well. I asked her to speculate on why I wasn’t allowed to read the site. She explained that the site contained info that was dangerous to Thailand — basically pleading national security.
I closed the message about the site being blocked, then opened the email I had sent her last month providing the link to the Nick Nostitz article translated to Thai. I clicked on the link and let the “blocked” message pop up on the screen.
I asked her why she thought her government didn’t want her to read this story.
She’s college-educated and able to form meaningful opinions, but she tends to drink the kool aid dished up by the government-palace-yellow shirt groups. This was probably the first time I have ever been able to make any headway in explaining to her how the Thai government controls her access to information.
She and I have very different points of view on Thai politics. I stressed to her today that I’m not trying to say that her ideas are wrong, but that she’s forming opinions based on only half the story.
As I said already, this was the first time I have seen any acceptance of this possibility in her eyes.
Thanks for the original link to the story, the later link to the Thai translation, and the heads-up that the site had been blocked. It offered me the opportunity to show a friend how the information she was hearing was carefully controlled, and how the government she supports does not seem to trust her to make up her own mind if she is allowed access to a full range of opinions.
You have enabled a the small steps that may be the beginning of a long journey of greater awareness for one Thai person, who may use her greater awareness to sway the opinions of many of her friends.
Such small steps may seem insignificant, but I believe that they are integral to the full development of a society. NM and Nick Nostitz, each in their own way, may well have contributed significantly to casting light into the dark places of Thai politics.
Thanks again.
Is 2 trillion baht populist enough?
@Athita
I am not sure where you got this kind of information. You have to be very insider. It seems like you made a negative comment on Thaksin. But no, you didn’t. You are supporting him, a crook.
Do you know how bad of the budget allocation when Thaksin came into the power? He once said that he would divert more budget to the provinces that supported his party. Why didn’t you mention about this? Don’t you know about this?
You said “To buy hi-tech weapons to murder innocent people?”. Whom do you mean by “innocent people”? Did you meant red-shirt militia? Check this out and don’t live in a nutshell:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VKxau-eMdc&feature=youtu.be
Remember, Thaksin once was in charge of the military crackdown on the Muslim protestors in Tak Bai, Narathiwas. Do you remember how many people died? SEVENTY-EIGHT people died in less than a day. Those are truly innocent THAI people and peaceful protesters, not the ones in Bangkok recently.
@Andrew Walker
I know you are one of those political scientists who are always trying to conclude everything from the limited information and absurd theories,i.e., generalizing things from one or two empirical evidences (out of tons of them). You try to claim in your web page that you have been working in Thailand for many years in order to gain respects on what you say about Thailand. I was born and lived in Thailand for more than 30 years (until 2006). I never claimed that I know the best about my country.
Get back to your article. What kind of message are you trying to send? Why don’t you compare this kind of budget allocation with those of Thaksin? Are you brave to do that? I know you are a political scientist and may not know how to analyze in economics. But well, you have a lot of economists at ANY, try to ask some of them. That might help. I will be waiting and see if you can do it.
One more thing I want to say here, we (Thai people) are trying to make the things better, please don’t make them worse by analyzing anything based on your absurd theories. I don’t mind to see your ACADEMIC views but not reckless political views.
For example, instead of paying more attention and trying to link the recent situations in Bangkok with the defence budget, why don’t you say something about the budget on education? Is it a good thing to have more budget on education? You are in the Australian educational sector (which relies on the international students’ money). You should know it well. Try to do the things you know. People will respect you.
Surely, it’s just a coincidence
I am on TRUE high-speed and can still get Nick’s post and the comments.
The original Why King V Will… is blocked.
Is 2 trillion baht populist enough?
The expenditure on education is pretty amazing. I can only hope that it actually results in some value.
243 million baht on ‘national reconciliation’ is something of an understatement, this figure should probably also take into account the sudden interest in funding various ‘rural support’ policies in areas of the country that don’t like the government.
Is 2 trillion baht populist enough?
So the money is in and on its way to the various ministries.
What next?
As no pet topics are allowed, I’ll not so cleverly rephrase my usual assertion that corrupt officials will skim of a chunk of this thus leaving the disadvataged even more so.
Here goes:
Does parliament (do select committees) scrutinise public spending to ensure it is free of any underhand dealings, kickbacks etc. If so, how does the process work and where can we, the public, see it?
Or put another way, now that the budget has been set, how does the government go about explaining its ‘on the ground’ use to the average man in the street or the countryside.
And finally, do MP’s still get part of the budget for use in their own constituencies and thus ‘repay’ the people who voted for them in the first place?
(I imagine that before being elected, prospective MP’s do make various promises, such as new hospitals, schools, roads, business zones/ opportunities etc. to attract the voters before an election, as part of their ideological policy platform. They do do this, don’t they?)