If you were to meet Tom Bleming in person, you would find him to be quite an engaging conversationalist, with an excellent recollect.
I have read both of his books. In those two books, he opens up and shows you the scars, the fear, the tears and the triumph of who he really is.
A poignant true life story of an unsung hero, that walks unassumingly amongst us here in Lusk, Wyoming where he lives.
Most people live by the three monkeys……..Hear no, see no and tell no evil.
Thomas Bleming has the courage and conviction, to tell the truth as he lived it. If that makes some of you feel hurt or uncomfortable then you better get a life.
I know that Tom will continue on with his work in/for the ause of freedom, no matter where that journey may take him.
Fropper: See the book “The NGO Way: Perspectives and Experiences from Thailand,” Edited by Shinichi Shigetomi, Kasian Tejapira and Apichart Thongyou, published in 2004 by The Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization. It includes an essay on “The Thai Monarchy and Non-governmental Organisations,” co-authored by Fah Diew Kan’s Thanapol Eawsakul.
I would like to thank Mr. Hartcher for his wonderful article. I wish The Sydney Morning Herald publish more of this article to inform the world of the truth that is huanting Thailand for the last four years. Thailand is becoming a fear state. We have no more freedom of expressions. More and more people were arrested for their comments. In order to protect the royal family who is behind all these messes, the present government and the army deploy a stiff lese majeste law of up to 15 years in prison for those who criticize the royal famil. People who were jailed with this sentence were beaten up by guards. They were forced to wear chains on their legs at all time.
“The Queen, My Lord, is dead.”‘
“She should have died hereafter. There would have been a time for such a word. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace to the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools ways to their dustry death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets . . . . It’s a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing!”
Kudos to the Geelong Advertiser, or Addy as it is known to us locals. Unfortunately they have now reached their quota of one interesting article per year!
Leif’s (Comment 1 ) typically adroit turn of phrase in reference to the operation of violence in the “protection” of agriculture resonates with the main analytical thrust of his (2005) monograph about collaborative “relations” between the Yao of Thailand and that state. I therefore draw on ethnograqphy from the draft manuscript of my forthcoming book to make the point that since the mid-1950s Pulangka’s military “protectors” have not only been footsoldiers and in the service to the Royal Thai Army. Consider the following excerpt from 33 quarto pages of notes about my first day of fieldwork in Pulangka on 18 May, 1966.
“…..A posse of fully uniformed and superbly mounted KMT cavaliers had suddenly appeared in the village before the sun had set on my arrival there only hours before when my B-P Police escort had immediately left on foot. The Taiwanese officers rudely ignored me but cross -examined the village headman in Phutonghwa about my intentions and with direct allusions to my ‘Digger’s’ hat …..”
Even more unexpected was the appearance of their commander’s “wife” at my door the following dawn with orders written in Chinese for her to chop wood for me plus “cook (my) dinner until a date subject to further orders”. I had no option but to accept these arrangements through which I was “to pay for her work and upkeep by leaving cash with the village headman” according to his translation. He for his part was regularly to supply her according to her need with pellets of opium which he would cut out of a quota that was accumulating in readiness for the KMT’s collection. As a result I had certainly … “felt more ‘protected’ than otherwise would have been the case when during the months to come I needed to trek from one swidden to another with only my dog as a companion and along jungle trails that were often littered with fresh manure from horses which Yao later said were not their tiny ponies….” .
Jean- Philippe’s (Comment 2 ) insightful but geographically particularistic questions about my photos require answers which force me to seek bibliographic assistance from him and/ or any other NM subscribers who can direct me to academic and/or media mention of ” ……Mae Wong National Park, where Kesmanee “reported” massive illegal logging following evictions?….”
For the same reason, I also depend on others (and will also be grateful to them) for details about the location of that report and access to it because my present living and working circumstances do not allow me to do the “leg-work” myself in search for these documents.
Could someone expalain who or what the NGO Prof. Ji was referring to and how it’s been financed?
May I also express my love and admiration for Susie Wong’s comments? They get my vote every time.
^ It sounds like you don’t know very much about Thailand. Indeed, you haven’t even yet figured out that both the currently self-nominated ‘only’ options are demons. The only possible exit at this moment looks like yet another dead end. I have yet to see any real strategy, well-thought out plan or bravery in local politics. And Jo Public doesn’t know how to acheive a victory for itself, unless led by the nose.
Suharto was overthrown in a people’s uprising that caught many by surprise. It was the kind of movement that the Thai red shirts — please don’t blindly label them ”pro-Thaksin” — were leading. They reds were trying to overturn the rule of elites, but they failed. The Indonesians succeeded.
“More oddly still, some foreign commentators, including The Economist, have helped exacerbate further speculation, conveniently casting roles to the King who is constrained, among others, by his constitutional and moral position, to refute those claims. By law, the Thai monarchy is not involved in politics and is non-partisan; in practice the King himself has taken great care that it is so, exercising his duties and prerogatives within the bounds of the Constitution”
It’s well written,
It’s correct. I love it, love it, love it.
a very interesting issue is the use of the terms King and Palace (and in other articles: Monarchy and Privy Council) each of which carries its own history and emotional content in the minds of Thais and those that are attuned to Thailand and its political history.
I suspect Peter Hartcher could be well is aware of the history of the the King but most Thai people, even if they might agree with Peter, would prefer to blame the monarchy in general or the influence of the Privy Council and other members of the Royal Family and let the King himself fade peacefully.
we could believe that the King probably agrees with the current actions by the military and the elites but imho it is likely that the driving forces are the Privy Council headed by Prem, the Queen and her “loyal military servants” and the Prince wishing to be King, in that order.
democratically elect a government that replaces the Privy Council of retired military officers with civilians and all will be well in Thailand.
Ajarn Somsak: Is that an actual quote from the Chang Noi piece? I think you need to differentiate between denialists and those who don’t mention the monarchy (with LM laws in Thailand, surely you understand the reasons for the later).
look! this is a “Maze”.When we are getting close to an exit,there is always a demon who chase us back to the very start.But i guess this time ,the Thais will fight the demon to death.What they need is the strategy and well organized plan and of course the brave heart.
I guess Giles is saying that prior to the 2006 coup it was OK to be anti-Thaskin. Afterwards they were supporting reactionary royalist forces. It would be so better if they had turned their support to a reactionary pro-Thaksin movement.
I do wonder what Giles was looking for. Was it something similar to a Maoist Nepalese peasant movement or even the earlier Khmer Rouge one. Whatever it must have been so tempting to use Thaksin finance and PR companies to build this movement, in his mind anyway.
Did Lenin or Trotsky ever envisage such a method or would they have called it adventurism. Still Giles won’t have to suffer as he’s out of the country.
Local NGOs most certainly DO have a tendency to become entirely self-serving. And surely that is the point about almost all ‘social movements’ here. They almost always get hijacked by the parasitic red & yellow shirts of Thai society.
Susie Wong: “The Red Shirt Movement represents the poor and the thirst for freedom and democracy”.
But the Thaksin thing has a higher priority for them, and the poor are just people they cynically manipulate without actually listening to them. This is a power struggle that will deliver nothing to the average Sompomg, since it was initiated by bourgeouis who are far more interested in their own personal stake in the hiso pig trough.
Susie. Where are the Communists & socialists in all this? Banned by both sides, of course. We can’t have people messing up the cosy poo-yai system of parasitism by talking REAL politics. Political movements here always end up being hijacked by the poo-yais.
This article appears in Bangkok Pundit today. It reflects similar opinion as Ji’s.
“The Sydney Morning Herald’s International Editor, Peter Hartcher, has an op-ed entitled “Thailand turns into Indonesia – and vice versa”
Today we see an extraordinary role reversal. Thailand is now a wreck, suffering a constitutional crisis, emergency rule and an investment strike.
Indonesia, on the other hand, is stable and tolerant under a mature and clean president, with better growth prospects than any of the states in the region. The US think tank Freedom House has designated Indonesia for the first time as the only fully free and democratic country in South-East Asia.
The essential difference is that Indonesian power elites universally respect the legitimising power of democracy. The Thais have not.”
The Red Shirt Movement represents the poor and the thirst for freedom and democracy, I agree with Professor Ji Ungpakorn’s insights. The Red Shirts’ has its historical evolution from the Northeast where the land was dried and infertile for agriculture and the North where opium, heroine were grown as cash crops. In the past, young girls from these two regions would migrate to Bangkok to work as domestic servants or prostitutes. When people from these regions begin to take their future into their hand, real leaders would be happy to see this progress. In my opinion, I think Prof. Ji sees popular participation as a positive evolution that would lead to aggregate modernization of the country as a whole. In other words, the Red Shirt Movement is a development process toward state building and democratization.
Whereas the evolution of NGO in Siam since 1980s has nothing to do with modernization process but has everything to do with the Great Powers’ geo-strategic objectives of the Asia-Pacific Theatre. Thus the behavior of NGO in Siam must be interpreted in terms of politics. The search for understanding the NGO in Siam outside international politics is doomed to frustration. The issue is there are no one in Siam and in the Asia-Pacific region that has the knowledge of the linkage between the second image (domestic politics) and the first image (international politics) of the post-Cold War world especially at the Grand Strategy level. As a result, the analysis has been focused on domestic politics, political economy, anthropology, any analysis from strategic standpoints would be discarded because lacking of strategic knowledge.
It is easier to intervene into the domestic politics of other country with “non-state actors” like NGO to mobilize the mass for one’s strategic objective. Siam is the heartland of mainland Southeast Asia, the control of Bangkok and the South would provide any Great Powers geo-strategic advantage in particular the Sea Power domination. Since the 19th and the 20th century, Navy has been the decisive factor in the outcome of the Great Powers rivalry, as such the 21st century will continue to be the same.
The NGO in Siam joined hand with PAD and the Democratic Party to keep the status quo and against any change which is very different from NGO in other countries. Professor Ji Ungpakorn has put forward the issue that is important but I think the analysis about the NGOs in Siam has to go deeper and broader to encompass the strategic issue in order to understand why they mobilize the middle class against change when most middle class in other countries support change.
“Take the issue of Abhisit saying he was in the car when it is was supposedly attacked at Pattaya: it was shown at the Red Shirt gathering yesterday with new video evidence that this was fabricated”
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Volunteering to fight in Burma
If you were to meet Tom Bleming in person, you would find him to be quite an engaging conversationalist, with an excellent recollect.
I have read both of his books. In those two books, he opens up and shows you the scars, the fear, the tears and the triumph of who he really is.
A poignant true life story of an unsung hero, that walks unassumingly amongst us here in Lusk, Wyoming where he lives.
Most people live by the three monkeys……..Hear no, see no and tell no evil.
Thomas Bleming has the courage and conviction, to tell the truth as he lived it. If that makes some of you feel hurt or uncomfortable then you better get a life.
I know that Tom will continue on with his work in/for the ause of freedom, no matter where that journey may take him.
NGO disgrace
Fropper: See the book “The NGO Way: Perspectives and Experiences from Thailand,” Edited by Shinichi Shigetomi, Kasian Tejapira and Apichart Thongyou, published in 2004 by The Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization. It includes an essay on “The Thai Monarchy and Non-governmental Organisations,” co-authored by Fah Diew Kan’s Thanapol Eawsakul.
“The decision to send the army … came from the royal palace”
I would like to thank Mr. Hartcher for his wonderful article. I wish The Sydney Morning Herald publish more of this article to inform the world of the truth that is huanting Thailand for the last four years. Thailand is becoming a fear state. We have no more freedom of expressions. More and more people were arrested for their comments. In order to protect the royal family who is behind all these messes, the present government and the army deploy a stiff lese majeste law of up to 15 years in prison for those who criticize the royal famil. People who were jailed with this sentence were beaten up by guards. They were forced to wear chains on their legs at all time.
Thailand’s royal sub-plot thickens
“The Queen, My Lord, is dead.”‘
“She should have died hereafter. There would have been a time for such a word. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace to the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools ways to their dustry death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets . . . . It’s a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing!”
Karen at an Aussie Rules match
Kudos to the Geelong Advertiser, or Addy as it is known to us locals. Unfortunately they have now reached their quota of one interesting article per year!
The violent suppression of opium cultivation
Another comment from Doug Miles:
Leif’s (Comment 1 ) typically adroit turn of phrase in reference to the operation of violence in the “protection” of agriculture resonates with the main analytical thrust of his (2005) monograph about collaborative “relations” between the Yao of Thailand and that state. I therefore draw on ethnograqphy from the draft manuscript of my forthcoming book to make the point that since the mid-1950s Pulangka’s military “protectors” have not only been footsoldiers and in the service to the Royal Thai Army. Consider the following excerpt from 33 quarto pages of notes about my first day of fieldwork in Pulangka on 18 May, 1966.
“…..A posse of fully uniformed and superbly mounted KMT cavaliers had suddenly appeared in the village before the sun had set on my arrival there only hours before when my B-P Police escort had immediately left on foot. The Taiwanese officers rudely ignored me but cross -examined the village headman in Phutonghwa about my intentions and with direct allusions to my ‘Digger’s’ hat …..”
Even more unexpected was the appearance of their commander’s “wife” at my door the following dawn with orders written in Chinese for her to chop wood for me plus “cook (my) dinner until a date subject to further orders”. I had no option but to accept these arrangements through which I was “to pay for her work and upkeep by leaving cash with the village headman” according to his translation. He for his part was regularly to supply her according to her need with pellets of opium which he would cut out of a quota that was accumulating in readiness for the KMT’s collection. As a result I had certainly … “felt more ‘protected’ than otherwise would have been the case when during the months to come I needed to trek from one swidden to another with only my dog as a companion and along jungle trails that were often littered with fresh manure from horses which Yao later said were not their tiny ponies….” .
Jean- Philippe’s (Comment 2 ) insightful but geographically particularistic questions about my photos require answers which force me to seek bibliographic assistance from him and/ or any other NM subscribers who can direct me to academic and/or media mention of ” ……Mae Wong National Park, where Kesmanee “reported” massive illegal logging following evictions?….”
For the same reason, I also depend on others (and will also be grateful to them) for details about the location of that report and access to it because my present living and working circumstances do not allow me to do the “leg-work” myself in search for these documents.
“The decision to send the army … came from the royal palace”
The only question is whether the Ambassador will deny the article’s claims immediately, or whether he will get confirmation from the palace first. 🙂
NGO disgrace
Sorry about the stupid request I made earlier. I went back and read the full text of Prof. Ji and it did explain some questions.
NGO disgrace
Could someone expalain who or what the NGO Prof. Ji was referring to and how it’s been financed?
May I also express my love and admiration for Susie Wong’s comments? They get my vote every time.
“The decision to send the army … came from the royal palace”
^ It sounds like you don’t know very much about Thailand. Indeed, you haven’t even yet figured out that both the currently self-nominated ‘only’ options are demons. The only possible exit at this moment looks like yet another dead end. I have yet to see any real strategy, well-thought out plan or bravery in local politics. And Jo Public doesn’t know how to acheive a victory for itself, unless led by the nose.
“The decision to send the army … came from the royal palace”
Suharto was overthrown in a people’s uprising that caught many by surprise. It was the kind of movement that the Thai red shirts — please don’t blindly label them ”pro-Thaksin” — were leading. They reds were trying to overturn the rule of elites, but they failed. The Indonesians succeeded.
“…the Thai monarchy is not involved…”
“More oddly still, some foreign commentators, including The Economist, have helped exacerbate further speculation, conveniently casting roles to the King who is constrained, among others, by his constitutional and moral position, to refute those claims. By law, the Thai monarchy is not involved in politics and is non-partisan; in practice the King himself has taken great care that it is so, exercising his duties and prerogatives within the bounds of the Constitution”
It’s well written,
It’s correct. I love it, love it, love it.
“The decision to send the army … came from the royal palace”
a very interesting issue is the use of the terms King and Palace (and in other articles: Monarchy and Privy Council) each of which carries its own history and emotional content in the minds of Thais and those that are attuned to Thailand and its political history.
I suspect Peter Hartcher could be well is aware of the history of the the King but most Thai people, even if they might agree with Peter, would prefer to blame the monarchy in general or the influence of the Privy Council and other members of the Royal Family and let the King himself fade peacefully.
we could believe that the King probably agrees with the current actions by the military and the elites but imho it is likely that the driving forces are the Privy Council headed by Prem, the Queen and her “loyal military servants” and the Prince wishing to be King, in that order.
democratically elect a government that replaces the Privy Council of retired military officers with civilians and all will be well in Thailand.
“…the Thai monarchy is not involved…”
Ajarn Somsak: Is that an actual quote from the Chang Noi piece? I think you need to differentiate between denialists and those who don’t mention the monarchy (with LM laws in Thailand, surely you understand the reasons for the later).
“The decision to send the army … came from the royal palace”
look! this is a “Maze”.When we are getting close to an exit,there is always a demon who chase us back to the very start.But i guess this time ,the Thais will fight the demon to death.What they need is the strategy and well organized plan and of course the brave heart.
NGO disgrace
I guess Giles is saying that prior to the 2006 coup it was OK to be anti-Thaskin. Afterwards they were supporting reactionary royalist forces. It would be so better if they had turned their support to a reactionary pro-Thaksin movement.
I do wonder what Giles was looking for. Was it something similar to a Maoist Nepalese peasant movement or even the earlier Khmer Rouge one. Whatever it must have been so tempting to use Thaksin finance and PR companies to build this movement, in his mind anyway.
Did Lenin or Trotsky ever envisage such a method or would they have called it adventurism. Still Giles won’t have to suffer as he’s out of the country.
NGO disgrace
Local NGOs most certainly DO have a tendency to become entirely self-serving. And surely that is the point about almost all ‘social movements’ here. They almost always get hijacked by the parasitic red & yellow shirts of Thai society.
Susie Wong: “The Red Shirt Movement represents the poor and the thirst for freedom and democracy”.
But the Thaksin thing has a higher priority for them, and the poor are just people they cynically manipulate without actually listening to them. This is a power struggle that will deliver nothing to the average Sompomg, since it was initiated by bourgeouis who are far more interested in their own personal stake in the hiso pig trough.
Susie. Where are the Communists & socialists in all this? Banned by both sides, of course. We can’t have people messing up the cosy poo-yai system of parasitism by talking REAL politics. Political movements here always end up being hijacked by the poo-yais.
NGO disgrace
This article appears in Bangkok Pundit today. It reflects similar opinion as Ji’s.
“The Sydney Morning Herald’s International Editor, Peter Hartcher, has an op-ed entitled “Thailand turns into Indonesia – and vice versa”
Today we see an extraordinary role reversal. Thailand is now a wreck, suffering a constitutional crisis, emergency rule and an investment strike.
Indonesia, on the other hand, is stable and tolerant under a mature and clean president, with better growth prospects than any of the states in the region. The US think tank Freedom House has designated Indonesia for the first time as the only fully free and democratic country in South-East Asia.
The essential difference is that Indonesian power elites universally respect the legitimising power of democracy. The Thais have not.”
NGO disgrace
The Red Shirt Movement represents the poor and the thirst for freedom and democracy, I agree with Professor Ji Ungpakorn’s insights. The Red Shirts’ has its historical evolution from the Northeast where the land was dried and infertile for agriculture and the North where opium, heroine were grown as cash crops. In the past, young girls from these two regions would migrate to Bangkok to work as domestic servants or prostitutes. When people from these regions begin to take their future into their hand, real leaders would be happy to see this progress. In my opinion, I think Prof. Ji sees popular participation as a positive evolution that would lead to aggregate modernization of the country as a whole. In other words, the Red Shirt Movement is a development process toward state building and democratization.
Whereas the evolution of NGO in Siam since 1980s has nothing to do with modernization process but has everything to do with the Great Powers’ geo-strategic objectives of the Asia-Pacific Theatre. Thus the behavior of NGO in Siam must be interpreted in terms of politics. The search for understanding the NGO in Siam outside international politics is doomed to frustration. The issue is there are no one in Siam and in the Asia-Pacific region that has the knowledge of the linkage between the second image (domestic politics) and the first image (international politics) of the post-Cold War world especially at the Grand Strategy level. As a result, the analysis has been focused on domestic politics, political economy, anthropology, any analysis from strategic standpoints would be discarded because lacking of strategic knowledge.
It is easier to intervene into the domestic politics of other country with “non-state actors” like NGO to mobilize the mass for one’s strategic objective. Siam is the heartland of mainland Southeast Asia, the control of Bangkok and the South would provide any Great Powers geo-strategic advantage in particular the Sea Power domination. Since the 19th and the 20th century, Navy has been the decisive factor in the outcome of the Great Powers rivalry, as such the 21st century will continue to be the same.
The NGO in Siam joined hand with PAD and the Democratic Party to keep the status quo and against any change which is very different from NGO in other countries. Professor Ji Ungpakorn has put forward the issue that is important but I think the analysis about the NGOs in Siam has to go deeper and broader to encompass the strategic issue in order to understand why they mobilize the middle class against change when most middle class in other countries support change.
Red faces: Unconvincing psych-ops
@ Jim Taylor, c.68
“Take the issue of Abhisit saying he was in the car when it is was supposedly attacked at Pattaya: it was shown at the Red Shirt gathering yesterday with new video evidence that this was fabricated”
ching lor?