For those readers who are still supporters of the PAD (Sondhi’s bunch of lunatics) please take a trip to Nepal. (sorry, you will have to take a train to malaysia and fly from there)
Nepal used to be a beutiful country, full of hope, now it is a desparate country with its people in despair. People unknown, ok, maybe not so unknown saw it fit to use mob rule to get their own way. This animal, once release, has a way of going out of control.
The result after 10 years or so – go see for yourself
Same old bickering. This is what happen when history were not taught and learn, it repeat itself.-
Yellow: “We are loyal. We protect the Country, Buddhism, and Monarchy. Those other guys are Commies and try to overthrow the monarchy.”
Red: “No, we are mo loyal. Those guys are not the real presenter. Mwa, wa wa!”
…but indeed this time could be different because of the “Let them eat cake” moment…
Advice to foreigners still at Bangkok airport – get out of there. The next act of the PAD will be hostage taking. Sorry NM, shouldn’t be here but do not want to see more innocent get caught up in Sondhi hellish scheme
Thank you for directing those interested in the development of the current Thai crisis and exploring the historical sociopolitical contexts that have fomented such a distressing state of affairs. My question for you is this: Why has there been no public or editorial backlash toward the hatefully driven racist PAD rhetoric against Thais of Khmer and Lao ancestry. I don’t see how this could still be acceptable for the ostensibly educated society that i guess is already discredited by their legitimizing of the fascist aims and values of Sonthi’s movement. Is this reigniting any lingering resentment among leaders in the North and Northeast and others in the academic community who were victimized by zealous royalist/nationalist/xenophobes that prosecuted the extraordinarily repressive anti-communist campaigns of the 1970’s? Hopefully the army is not so monolithic that it can prosecute General Anupong’s war of ommision against the state. If so, I hope those military leaders less prejudiced against democracy and their brothers in the north and isaan when the junta-appointed courts systematically destroy their civil rights through their ‘decisions’ that have not already been ‘made’. Having already institutionalized the PAD’s incivilities through preordained judicial determinism and the practical declaration of a rule of law subject to selective enforcement, will the disenfranchised really be willing or able to fade away into the feudal dystopia that seems to be the dark course the courts have chosen?
Thank you for affording me at least a template on which to ramble,
On the other hand, there is the pathetic effort by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) correspondent which has thus far wholly failed to provide an analysis of the PAD’s motivation; thus, those Australians with just a passing interest in the situation in Thailand are misled into believing that the PAD are indeed fighting for democracy.
Thanks Srithanonchai , much appreciated. So many of these people, who consider themselves public intellectuals, have shown a capacity for anything but intellectual discourse. Actually, what he writes is, in places, a threat rather than an exhortation to PAD supporters. If one had time, one could easily come up with the 10 threats posed by a PAD victory and compare the two. I don’t have time, but let’s try a couple:
1) A society where the monarchy is the only symbol of loyalty.
2) A political system dominated by a conservative elite.
3) All protests, peaceful or not, suppressed (PAD has shown no capacity for allowing alternative voices).
4) A civil society movement completely disarticulated from “the people”.
5) Political dissent suppressed (see item 4) and opponents harassed and hunted down.
and so on.
Hla Oo: the race thing has been raised a few times – see earlier threads here and at Bangkok Pundit. Good point to raise again. But remember that non all the rural folks are PPP/TRT. Look South.
The regularity of leadership change in Thailand is so frequent that it would be extremely naive to think that the current players are firebrands of democracy. Again, what is the definition of democracy to a Thai? Constitutional Democracy is the term that is used and it’s something that is still quite nebulous. Like many things, it can be used to represent the interests fitting the people in charge at any instance/period of stewardship.
What is the meaning of democracy to any of you?
Just to bring an example to the table, and you can find many parallelisms to it in Thailand as well, the Dutch proposed dyke systems back in the 19th century in Indonesia but these were not completed for various reasons during their sovereignty and still up till today the country is crippled from serious (1m) flooding after rains. A democratically-elected government without the financial muscle to pull of a serious public project for the good of the international image of the country? It is a loud secret that the reason this, among a multitude of things, has happened because of corruption.
Like the term lese majeste, the term corruption is a term that is thrown about too loosely. It is both an insult to the morals as it is to the legality of being. Not many things are injurious legally and morally; not even lese majeste. Is paying a fee to expedite a service corruption? In the Western mind, if it’s stated and accepted, no; but here, anything expedited, eased through, made comfortable, is tinged with corruption. What do you know about real corruption? You speak about it like you know it. If you know “corruption,” you’ll know that it is the fabric of the way that we live and, as with anything in ostentatious doses, a poison that renders us. It doesn’t matter who you are or your station in society. You would have tasted corruption, enjoyed its benefits. Yet in egregious circumstances, it becomes unpalatable (or perhaps you’re on the the receiving end of it).
So consider what is said about the PAD. I do not know them, do not like or dislike them (but veering toward the latter), but what I do know is that what they are doing is injurious to the country. Their goal is carnal and not at all of a Buddhist nature: depose of the people in power. The means are unimportant.
Even if you accept that–this is not much to accept because history has taught us even more difficult life-sacrificing lessons–you’d have to ask yourself if the PAD is a government that will function as you think. You put total loss foremost before cutting loss. I don’t know the leadership of the PAD–and do not judge their character–but do you think that the hordes that are mustered there are gathered there legally? through their own means for almost the last 2 years? doing nothing of constructive effort?
I am the tax-payer and the bread winner for this country. The PAD have an agenda but no clear way to achieve it. This is a two-year siege gone nowhere, imposing attrition by the 0.1% of the population on the entire nation. We can at least laugh and take relief because at real dollar values, the SET is worth peanuts; before or after the cessation of the worldwide crisis. But in one of the hugest growth years worldwide in 2007, Thailand was the big boy with the small tool.
The PAD has turned out to represent undeliverable, untranslatable, unknowledgeable, unclear ambitions and aims. How more lawful are their methods, compared to vote buying, the bane and seeming root of this problem? You know all the events and are much better versed than me; I’m busy paying for street cleanup and lost opportunity.
Idle abuse? Not like your “Are you sure you have your head screwed on straight this morning Giles?”?
I asked whether ASTV (talk about own mythology!) was a credible source on whether the PAD was peaceable, or whether people should believe their own eyes.
I’m not demanding that you agree with me, I’m asking you to acknowledge certain basic facts _ and I think it’s fair to describe them as that _ and take the argument from there.
But on the bigger picture, it seems to be it just may boil down to whether one believes the PAD cure is worse than the Thaksin disease. To put it in simplest terms.
I don’t really think you are a dope, apologies for that, like you (I assume) I find the current situation stressful, and sometimes let emotion get the better of me.
But I still think you are a curmudgeon. A well-informed and articulate curmudgeon.
Please keep writing. Dialogue is more useful than monologue.
To add some perspective, here is a perhaps not that balanced piece.
In Phuchatkan (now renamed ASTVPhuchatkan) of November 26, 2008, Chermsak Pinthong, a former Thammasat lecturer and anti-Thaksin senator, and now a major PAD ideologue, published a programmatic article headlined “Thailand must not lose – the PAD must not lose!”
Chermsak listed ten reasons.
1) If the individual citizens protesting under the banner of PAD returned home to continue with their private lives, they would live in Thailand only as dwellers, but not any longer as the owners of the country, who could express themselves and take part in determining the direction of Thailand.
2) The executive and legislative powers of Thailand would be subjected more clearly and even bolder than previously under the Thaksin regime. This system did not care about legitimacy and correctness. It would do everything to win elections, such as cheating, vote buying, and buying of MPs. Afterwards, they would use state power solely for the benefit of one person or one group, because they would argue that the people had given them absolute power via the election.
3) The Thaksin regime would also try everything to control and interfere with the judiciary, for example by passing laws that would not permit the courts to try cases concerning Thaksin and his clique. The courts would lose their independence and could not dispense justice for the common good.
4) Under the Thaksin regime, the independent organizations will not be able to perform their accountability role. These organizations and the courts will not any longer be able to apply the law to politicians of the Thaksin regime. Even worse, they would be used to further the interests of those in power.
5) The military and the civil service will be divided and encroached upon. Good and capable people will not any longer be rewarded, while those who serve the Thaksin regime will progress.
6) People’s sector politics will be weak. It will be destroyed so that it will not be able to act in order to put demands on and control the state power of the politicians. If the Thaksin regime returns to take total control of Thailand, it will try everything to destroy its enemies, so that they will not be able to raise and act against it again. This will include the destruction of the PAD’s “intellectual weapons of the people,” namely ASTV, some sectors of the community radio network, and the Internet. The Thaksin regime had learned how important these modern means of communications were for the power of the PAD.
7) Peaceful protests will be devalued. The PAD had always protested peacefully and never used violence. If such peaceful means cannot succeed in making evil politicians come to their senses and show responsibility, then future protests might chose violent means, including assassinations, to be successful. [One remembers that, a few weeks ago, and in the same paper, Chai-anan Samudavanija had suggested that some elements of the PAD, if success was not forthcoming, might go underground, identify corrupt politicians, and assassinate them. Later, Chai-anand suggested at a seminar that 4-5 politicians should be executed as examples for the others. Since Chermsak repeats this line of thinking, one might assume that such ideas are common among PAD leaders.]
8) People in the North and the Northeast will continue to be mere tools for politicians to get into power. They will not act like sovereign owners of power with human dignity, but easily be swayed by populist policies.
9) The Thai political system will be a democracy of only a few families.
10) The monarchy will become a mere symbol without any significance in society, while leading families of the Thaksin regime will lift their status to the same level.
The defeat of the PAD will mean the defeat of Thailand! Therefore, the PAD must not lose, because Thailand must not lose!
The time has come for the Thai people, both within and outside the PAD network, to come out and join hands to fight against the Thaksin regime!
jonfernquest has been shown to be misinformed so many times at NM that he hardly warrants attention. His support for PAD seems to be based on some weird idea that Thaksin and his mob are leftists. But I do love his comment comparing PAD to Red Guards. On that he is absolutely right (assuming that I have read the slightly delirious and punctuated comment correctly).
“I thought jonfernquest was just a curmudgeon, but now I have to wonder if he is a dope or visually impaired. ”
Hope that was cathartic Amber Waves, seems exactly like the “idle abuse” barred from this forum, but definitely keeping with the ridiculous one-sided approach of Giles and his fans to events. Systematically avoid mentioning or talking about what you disagree with. Cite only half of the evidence with maximum emotional hyperbole, demand that everyone agree with you rather than persuade (quite like PAD in this respect), Lumping everything from anti-Thaksin, anti-monarchy, anti-PAD, together…and ending up creating your own mythology…grenades lobbed into PAD camps. That is violence. I don’t see it being talked about here. The notion that you could support the red shirts and not have Thaksin come back is also ridiculous and right now the notion that Thaksin could come back seems crazy, and objectively speaking, whether you like it or not, whether it makes you upset or not, in the face of political lethargy (kaan meuang naa beua, 90% of everyone I talk to) PAD is playing a pivotal role in ensuring just this, that Thaksin does not come back, or is nominee proxy brother in law, much as Mao’s red guards once did (for Marx lovers like Giles).
That fellow was still being mentioned in early 90s along the border. If you read Spanish, the website below has a piece done in 2005 by Jon Lee Anderson that, near the bottom, which discusses his Japanese acquaintance from Kawmoora. Evidently, he now advises on computer action games for a major company.
Giles knows what’s happening here: a move toward a silent coup. The army chief has just told the rotestors to clear out but also told the government to hold new elections. And he denies this is a coup. Just who will be the next leader will be interesting.
I thought jonfernquest was just a curmudgeon, but now I have to wonder if he is a dope or visually impaired. To cite “The latest from ASTV” is the flip side of citing “the latest from Thaksin.”
Do you actually read, watch or listen to The Manager/PAD propaganda machine? Somsak yesterday denied that the people who were shooting at the Redshirts were from the PAD. Tell it to the TPBS cameraman who risked his life to film the incident, and was later threatened by them.
There are both film and witnesses’ accounts that show the PAD has used guns on earlier occasions as well.
And this from People’s Alliance for Democracy Announcement 26/2008: “…Armed with only the plastic hand clappers, the PAD protesters have marched to various key locations including Parliament, Finance ministry, the Metropolitan Police Bureau and the government’s temporary seat at Don Muang Airport…”
Is that true? Isn’t that called the “big lie” technique?
Why assume the grenades were not a PAD provocation? They are pragmatic above anything, aren’t they? Isn’t that clear?
BTW, they don’t share your high opinion of Nidhi, who has been savaged from the PAD stage and in Manager, with the website comments piling on vile personal attacks.
Students of the Nidhi and Charnvit schools _ Thailand’s most respected historians _ don’t share your laissez-faire attitude towards the PAD shenanigans, whatever they feel about Thaksin.
And what about the DAAD guy they beat to death on Sept. 2? Are you upset that justice hasn’t been done in that case?
PAD violent? Yes. And they set the tone when their masked thugs burst into NBT on Aug. 26.
If Thanong is the bald-headed Nation editor with a wild crown of frizzy black hair, I believe I sat through one of his guest lectures years ago at Chula university (May 06).
The talk was an apocalyptic forecast for Thai politics for 2006, and it was interesting enough and probably even predicted the last coup. But, the brightest detail I recall was being distracted by how frazzled and utterly stressed-out he appeared.
After the lecture, my professor explained that this infamous rebel-editor sort of always has that “i’m about to jump out of a window” demeanor about him. This is more than sensational media. I feel like it’s a fillip for violence of any kind…
As a bystander, I wonder about other bystanders (e.g. students). I can’t blame university students for their apparent lack of awareness and engagement of these issues. The Bangkok youth with whom I’ve spoken are either too jaded or just too frightened to attempt to open the paper.
Jon Lee Anderson’s decade-long, intercontinental efforts towards the completion of the work Guerrillas: Journeys In the Insurgent World produced a fair amount of first person accounts of the Karen’s secession campaign. Of particular interest (though the entire book is fascinating) to this community are the passages in which Anderson writes of a Japanese sniper who regularly takes contracts from the Karen. I seem to remember something about his tours being based on time rather than specific targets, i.e. he would fly to Thailand and be escorted into Kawthoolei and released on his own to do his “work” for a few weeks at a time, and then fly back to Japan to relax. I wonder what’s become of the man…
This excellent article almost foresaw the current political turmoil in Bangkok!
One thing no experts so far air their opinion about is the distinct racial hue of this long running political dispute in Thailand. They used to say Bangkok is Thailand and Thailand is Bangkok, and Bangkok is Chinese and Thais are the peasants.
In last few years the rural Thai majority have re-taken their country back by the one-man-one-vote democratic process and, now the Chinese immigrants minority in Bangkok are using violence to take back that ancestral right of indigenous Thais.
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PAD back to form
For those readers who are still supporters of the PAD (Sondhi’s bunch of lunatics) please take a trip to Nepal. (sorry, you will have to take a train to malaysia and fly from there)
Nepal used to be a beutiful country, full of hope, now it is a desparate country with its people in despair. People unknown, ok, maybe not so unknown saw it fit to use mob rule to get their own way. This animal, once release, has a way of going out of control.
The result after 10 years or so – go see for yourself
Too late for royal intervention?
Same old bickering. This is what happen when history were not taught and learn, it repeat itself.-
Yellow: “We are loyal. We protect the Country, Buddhism, and Monarchy. Those other guys are Commies and try to overthrow the monarchy.”
Red: “No, we are mo loyal. Those guys are not the real presenter. Mwa, wa wa!”
…but indeed this time could be different because of the “Let them eat cake” moment…
Too late for royal intervention?
Advice to foreigners still at Bangkok airport – get out of there. The next act of the PAD will be hostage taking. Sorry NM, shouldn’t be here but do not want to see more innocent get caught up in Sondhi hellish scheme
“The upper classes are revolting…”
Tony Loader is absolutely right. The SE Asia correspondent for the ABC is a disgrace. Her reports show no understanding and no analysis.
“The upper classes are revolting…”
Mr. Farrelly,
Thank you for directing those interested in the development of the current Thai crisis and exploring the historical sociopolitical contexts that have fomented such a distressing state of affairs. My question for you is this: Why has there been no public or editorial backlash toward the hatefully driven racist PAD rhetoric against Thais of Khmer and Lao ancestry. I don’t see how this could still be acceptable for the ostensibly educated society that i guess is already discredited by their legitimizing of the fascist aims and values of Sonthi’s movement. Is this reigniting any lingering resentment among leaders in the North and Northeast and others in the academic community who were victimized by zealous royalist/nationalist/xenophobes that prosecuted the extraordinarily repressive anti-communist campaigns of the 1970’s? Hopefully the army is not so monolithic that it can prosecute General Anupong’s war of ommision against the state. If so, I hope those military leaders less prejudiced against democracy and their brothers in the north and isaan when the junta-appointed courts systematically destroy their civil rights through their ‘decisions’ that have not already been ‘made’. Having already institutionalized the PAD’s incivilities through preordained judicial determinism and the practical declaration of a rule of law subject to selective enforcement, will the disenfranchised really be willing or able to fade away into the feudal dystopia that seems to be the dark course the courts have chosen?
Thank you for affording me at least a template on which to ramble,
Max
“The upper classes are revolting…”
On the other hand, there is the pathetic effort by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) correspondent which has thus far wholly failed to provide an analysis of the PAD’s motivation; thus, those Australians with just a passing interest in the situation in Thailand are misled into believing that the PAD are indeed fighting for democracy.
I would have expected much better from my ABC.
Shawn Crispin’s analysis of Thai politics today
Thanks Srithanonchai , much appreciated. So many of these people, who consider themselves public intellectuals, have shown a capacity for anything but intellectual discourse. Actually, what he writes is, in places, a threat rather than an exhortation to PAD supporters. If one had time, one could easily come up with the 10 threats posed by a PAD victory and compare the two. I don’t have time, but let’s try a couple:
1) A society where the monarchy is the only symbol of loyalty.
2) A political system dominated by a conservative elite.
3) All protests, peaceful or not, suppressed (PAD has shown no capacity for allowing alternative voices).
4) A civil society movement completely disarticulated from “the people”.
5) Political dissent suppressed (see item 4) and opponents harassed and hunted down.
and so on.
New Mandala in the press
Hla Oo: the race thing has been raised a few times – see earlier threads here and at Bangkok Pundit. Good point to raise again. But remember that non all the rural folks are PPP/TRT. Look South.
The beginning of the end for PAD?
@Frank/Sidh
The regularity of leadership change in Thailand is so frequent that it would be extremely naive to think that the current players are firebrands of democracy. Again, what is the definition of democracy to a Thai? Constitutional Democracy is the term that is used and it’s something that is still quite nebulous. Like many things, it can be used to represent the interests fitting the people in charge at any instance/period of stewardship.
What is the meaning of democracy to any of you?
Just to bring an example to the table, and you can find many parallelisms to it in Thailand as well, the Dutch proposed dyke systems back in the 19th century in Indonesia but these were not completed for various reasons during their sovereignty and still up till today the country is crippled from serious (1m) flooding after rains. A democratically-elected government without the financial muscle to pull of a serious public project for the good of the international image of the country? It is a loud secret that the reason this, among a multitude of things, has happened because of corruption.
Like the term lese majeste, the term corruption is a term that is thrown about too loosely. It is both an insult to the morals as it is to the legality of being. Not many things are injurious legally and morally; not even lese majeste. Is paying a fee to expedite a service corruption? In the Western mind, if it’s stated and accepted, no; but here, anything expedited, eased through, made comfortable, is tinged with corruption. What do you know about real corruption? You speak about it like you know it. If you know “corruption,” you’ll know that it is the fabric of the way that we live and, as with anything in ostentatious doses, a poison that renders us. It doesn’t matter who you are or your station in society. You would have tasted corruption, enjoyed its benefits. Yet in egregious circumstances, it becomes unpalatable (or perhaps you’re on the the receiving end of it).
So consider what is said about the PAD. I do not know them, do not like or dislike them (but veering toward the latter), but what I do know is that what they are doing is injurious to the country. Their goal is carnal and not at all of a Buddhist nature: depose of the people in power. The means are unimportant.
Even if you accept that–this is not much to accept because history has taught us even more difficult life-sacrificing lessons–you’d have to ask yourself if the PAD is a government that will function as you think. You put total loss foremost before cutting loss. I don’t know the leadership of the PAD–and do not judge their character–but do you think that the hordes that are mustered there are gathered there legally? through their own means for almost the last 2 years? doing nothing of constructive effort?
I am the tax-payer and the bread winner for this country. The PAD have an agenda but no clear way to achieve it. This is a two-year siege gone nowhere, imposing attrition by the 0.1% of the population on the entire nation. We can at least laugh and take relief because at real dollar values, the SET is worth peanuts; before or after the cessation of the worldwide crisis. But in one of the hugest growth years worldwide in 2007, Thailand was the big boy with the small tool.
The PAD has turned out to represent undeliverable, untranslatable, unknowledgeable, unclear ambitions and aims. How more lawful are their methods, compared to vote buying, the bane and seeming root of this problem? You know all the events and are much better versed than me; I’m busy paying for street cleanup and lost opportunity.
PAD back to form
jf:
What? (BTW, conciliatory words at end)
Idle abuse? Not like your “Are you sure you have your head screwed on straight this morning Giles?”?
I asked whether ASTV (talk about own mythology!) was a credible source on whether the PAD was peaceable, or whether people should believe their own eyes.
I’m not demanding that you agree with me, I’m asking you to acknowledge certain basic facts _ and I think it’s fair to describe them as that _ and take the argument from there.
But on the bigger picture, it seems to be it just may boil down to whether one believes the PAD cure is worse than the Thaksin disease. To put it in simplest terms.
I don’t really think you are a dope, apologies for that, like you (I assume) I find the current situation stressful, and sometimes let emotion get the better of me.
But I still think you are a curmudgeon. A well-informed and articulate curmudgeon.
Please keep writing. Dialogue is more useful than monologue.
Shawn Crispin’s analysis of Thai politics today
To add some perspective, here is a perhaps not that balanced piece.
In Phuchatkan (now renamed ASTVPhuchatkan) of November 26, 2008, Chermsak Pinthong, a former Thammasat lecturer and anti-Thaksin senator, and now a major PAD ideologue, published a programmatic article headlined “Thailand must not lose – the PAD must not lose!”
Chermsak listed ten reasons.
1) If the individual citizens protesting under the banner of PAD returned home to continue with their private lives, they would live in Thailand only as dwellers, but not any longer as the owners of the country, who could express themselves and take part in determining the direction of Thailand.
2) The executive and legislative powers of Thailand would be subjected more clearly and even bolder than previously under the Thaksin regime. This system did not care about legitimacy and correctness. It would do everything to win elections, such as cheating, vote buying, and buying of MPs. Afterwards, they would use state power solely for the benefit of one person or one group, because they would argue that the people had given them absolute power via the election.
3) The Thaksin regime would also try everything to control and interfere with the judiciary, for example by passing laws that would not permit the courts to try cases concerning Thaksin and his clique. The courts would lose their independence and could not dispense justice for the common good.
4) Under the Thaksin regime, the independent organizations will not be able to perform their accountability role. These organizations and the courts will not any longer be able to apply the law to politicians of the Thaksin regime. Even worse, they would be used to further the interests of those in power.
5) The military and the civil service will be divided and encroached upon. Good and capable people will not any longer be rewarded, while those who serve the Thaksin regime will progress.
6) People’s sector politics will be weak. It will be destroyed so that it will not be able to act in order to put demands on and control the state power of the politicians. If the Thaksin regime returns to take total control of Thailand, it will try everything to destroy its enemies, so that they will not be able to raise and act against it again. This will include the destruction of the PAD’s “intellectual weapons of the people,” namely ASTV, some sectors of the community radio network, and the Internet. The Thaksin regime had learned how important these modern means of communications were for the power of the PAD.
7) Peaceful protests will be devalued. The PAD had always protested peacefully and never used violence. If such peaceful means cannot succeed in making evil politicians come to their senses and show responsibility, then future protests might chose violent means, including assassinations, to be successful. [One remembers that, a few weeks ago, and in the same paper, Chai-anan Samudavanija had suggested that some elements of the PAD, if success was not forthcoming, might go underground, identify corrupt politicians, and assassinate them. Later, Chai-anand suggested at a seminar that 4-5 politicians should be executed as examples for the others. Since Chermsak repeats this line of thinking, one might assume that such ideas are common among PAD leaders.]
8) People in the North and the Northeast will continue to be mere tools for politicians to get into power. They will not act like sovereign owners of power with human dignity, but easily be swayed by populist policies.
9) The Thai political system will be a democracy of only a few families.
10) The monarchy will become a mere symbol without any significance in society, while leading families of the Thaksin regime will lift their status to the same level.
The defeat of the PAD will mean the defeat of Thailand! Therefore, the PAD must not lose, because Thailand must not lose!
The time has come for the Thai people, both within and outside the PAD network, to come out and join hands to fight against the Thaksin regime!
PAD back to form
jonfernquest has been shown to be misinformed so many times at NM that he hardly warrants attention. His support for PAD seems to be based on some weird idea that Thaksin and his mob are leftists. But I do love his comment comparing PAD to Red Guards. On that he is absolutely right (assuming that I have read the slightly delirious and punctuated comment correctly).
PAD back to form
“I thought jonfernquest was just a curmudgeon, but now I have to wonder if he is a dope or visually impaired. ”
Hope that was cathartic Amber Waves, seems exactly like the “idle abuse” barred from this forum, but definitely keeping with the ridiculous one-sided approach of Giles and his fans to events. Systematically avoid mentioning or talking about what you disagree with. Cite only half of the evidence with maximum emotional hyperbole, demand that everyone agree with you rather than persuade (quite like PAD in this respect), Lumping everything from anti-Thaksin, anti-monarchy, anti-PAD, together…and ending up creating your own mythology…grenades lobbed into PAD camps. That is violence. I don’t see it being talked about here. The notion that you could support the red shirts and not have Thaksin come back is also ridiculous and right now the notion that Thaksin could come back seems crazy, and objectively speaking, whether you like it or not, whether it makes you upset or not, in the face of political lethargy (kaan meuang naa beua, 90% of everyone I talk to) PAD is playing a pivotal role in ensuring just this, that Thaksin does not come back, or is nominee proxy brother in law, much as Mao’s red guards once did (for Marx lovers like Giles).
Volunteering to fight in Burma
That fellow was still being mentioned in early 90s along the border. If you read Spanish, the website below has a piece done in 2005 by Jon Lee Anderson that, near the bottom, which discusses his Japanese acquaintance from Kawmoora. Evidently, he now advises on computer action games for a major company.
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/opinion/panga/cae/facilidad/elpepiopi/20050817elpepiopi_6/Tes/
PAD back to form
Giles knows what’s happening here: a move toward a silent coup. The army chief has just told the rotestors to clear out but also told the government to hold new elections. And he denies this is a coup. Just who will be the next leader will be interesting.
PAD back to form
I thought jonfernquest was just a curmudgeon, but now I have to wonder if he is a dope or visually impaired. To cite “The latest from ASTV” is the flip side of citing “the latest from Thaksin.”
Do you actually read, watch or listen to The Manager/PAD propaganda machine? Somsak yesterday denied that the people who were shooting at the Redshirts were from the PAD. Tell it to the TPBS cameraman who risked his life to film the incident, and was later threatened by them.
There are both film and witnesses’ accounts that show the PAD has used guns on earlier occasions as well.
And this from People’s Alliance for Democracy Announcement 26/2008: “…Armed with only the plastic hand clappers, the PAD protesters have marched to various key locations including Parliament, Finance ministry, the Metropolitan Police Bureau and the government’s temporary seat at Don Muang Airport…”
Is that true? Isn’t that called the “big lie” technique?
Why assume the grenades were not a PAD provocation? They are pragmatic above anything, aren’t they? Isn’t that clear?
BTW, they don’t share your high opinion of Nidhi, who has been savaged from the PAD stage and in Manager, with the website comments piling on vile personal attacks.
Students of the Nidhi and Charnvit schools _ Thailand’s most respected historians _ don’t share your laissez-faire attitude towards the PAD shenanigans, whatever they feel about Thaksin.
And what about the DAAD guy they beat to death on Sept. 2? Are you upset that justice hasn’t been done in that case?
PAD violent? Yes. And they set the tone when their masked thugs burst into NBT on Aug. 26.
Volunteering to fight in Burma
dear readers ,here you can get information about all political prisoners
http://www.aappb.org/
Thanong’s perspective on the future
Is “civil warmongering” the right phrase?
If Thanong is the bald-headed Nation editor with a wild crown of frizzy black hair, I believe I sat through one of his guest lectures years ago at Chula university (May 06).
The talk was an apocalyptic forecast for Thai politics for 2006, and it was interesting enough and probably even predicted the last coup. But, the brightest detail I recall was being distracted by how frazzled and utterly stressed-out he appeared.
After the lecture, my professor explained that this infamous rebel-editor sort of always has that “i’m about to jump out of a window” demeanor about him. This is more than sensational media. I feel like it’s a fillip for violence of any kind…
As a bystander, I wonder about other bystanders (e.g. students). I can’t blame university students for their apparent lack of awareness and engagement of these issues. The Bangkok youth with whom I’ve spoken are either too jaded or just too frightened to attempt to open the paper.
Volunteering to fight in Burma
Jon Lee Anderson’s decade-long, intercontinental efforts towards the completion of the work Guerrillas: Journeys In the Insurgent World produced a fair amount of first person accounts of the Karen’s secession campaign. Of particular interest (though the entire book is fascinating) to this community are the passages in which Anderson writes of a Japanese sniper who regularly takes contracts from the Karen. I seem to remember something about his tours being based on time rather than specific targets, i.e. he would fly to Thailand and be escorted into Kawthoolei and released on his own to do his “work” for a few weeks at a time, and then fly back to Japan to relax. I wonder what’s become of the man…
Hope that helps
New Mandala in the press
This excellent article almost foresaw the current political turmoil in Bangkok!
One thing no experts so far air their opinion about is the distinct racial hue of this long running political dispute in Thailand. They used to say Bangkok is Thailand and Thailand is Bangkok, and Bangkok is Chinese and Thais are the peasants.
In last few years the rural Thai majority have re-taken their country back by the one-man-one-vote democratic process and, now the Chinese immigrants minority in Bangkok are using violence to take back that ancestral right of indigenous Thais.