The Governor of Jakarta is doing the best given its limited authority. He can’t stop people from deforestation of the catchment areas in West Java, which is the biggest reason why there is flooding in Jakarta.
Let’s face it, Jakarta is built on a flood plain, and without drainage canals there will be flooding. Without the regular maintenance of drainage canals and rivers there will be flooding. And the increased sediment brought by deforestation in the upper catchment area clogs up the canals and rivers. Even if Puncak was pristine those canals still have to be maintained.
Widening the river and building the inspection roads on both sides of the river, will allow dredging machines easy access. During the Dutch period, all the drainage canals in Jakarta had inspection roads, but since independence squatters have built over them.
I’m not sure why R N England thinks he is being misrepresented. In his comment he stated that “Constitutional monarchy is a fraud”. Period. No ifs and buts, no qualifications. His meaning seems clear enough to me.
In all the dates he rather impressively lists, in only the last one was the British monarchy anywhere close to what we would currently define as Constitutional, but he does show that the relationship between the British people and the monarchy has evolved over time, and that process will no doubt continue.
I wouldn’t presume to speak for monarchies elsewhere in the world, including Australia and Thailand, but in Britain we have enough information to make up our own minds about whether or not our monarchy is a fraud. If and when we do so decide, then, and only then, will it be a fact!
Pridi was inspired by a left wing authoritarian position and b.pibilsongkram by a fascist one. Combined they dared reduce the monarchy. They thought the people were ready to follow that. Such sense of readiness has its roots in a positive assessment of how far the political culture had evolved since 1782 and the Rattanakosin coup. B. Seems to have shifted back to a domesticated and glorified monarchy position after global fascism went underground in 1945. He saved Thai fascism through a compromise with public sentiment. Conservative Buddhist monks were elevated to spread the message and noone again spoke of the Thummayud Party.
I am being misrepresented here. My post did not state, as an undisputed fact, that constitutional monarchy is a fraud. It contained key reasons as to why that should be so.
Thailand has a long history of popular submission to monarchy. I call it crawling. The Thais are learning to walk upright and are being whipped back down again by the last dregs of that superficially civilised, but fundamentally thuggish system.
The British people are pioneers in learning to walk upright, but the process is unfinished. The historical evolution of British bipedalism can be summed up in a string of dates, all of them commemorating heroic attempts to get the monarch off their backs: 1215, 1620, 1649, 1688, 1776 and 1834-35. The last is not so familiar: it was the last time a British monarch attempted to appoint a government against parliamentary majority.
In attempting to make sense of history, we are trying to establish matters of fact. These stand or fall according to the evidence, which we are required to produce. They are not matters one can expect to solve by popular vote. Popular opinion in Australia favours a republican model in which a separately elected president could become involved in a conflict with an elected parliament. Informed republicans have put the whole thing on the back burner because that could produce a worse outcome than a little bit of crawling.
As long as the monarchial system still exists in Thailand, the royal words (р╕гр╕▓р╕Кр╕▓р╕ир╕▒р╕Юр╕Чр╣М)are expected to be used when addressing or referring to members of the royal family. This form of language distinguishes between royally heaven and laymen’s hell!
Pinpoint article.I may well be out of the loop on the very latest springbok rumours, and if I’ve got this right at all, what I have a always found curious and puzzling – and yet barely mentioned – was the Thai guy, who was briefly arrested and had ‘apparently’ said on FB that there was a warning – a sit up and wake up possibility of a bombing of real note. After a few hours they let him go….nothing to see her folks, move along.
Ok, fine. Perfectly innocent. A nobody. Just an attention seeking time waster. But among this sigh inducing confusion and bloated rumour – and assuming that guy wasn’t talking bullshit – I reckon he’s best lead they have.
That is one of the main problems that this country is struggling with. One thing is that the distinction is lacking, but even worse is the fact that the concept seems to be alien to most of the population. Add to that the fact that a large part of the population, those who live and work in agricultural communities (around 40%), has hardly been represented in the parliament at all. If my memory serves me right, it actually went down from around 2 to around 1% when Thaksin won his first election in 2001.
The fourth estate? Isn’t that the press? I guess some representatives of that profession give the impression of coming from Cuckooland, but don’t you think it’s a bit of a generalisation to claim that all of them are 😉
The causes of floods are NOT primarily due to the riverside communities. Widening the river will not change the increasing flood waters that are coming down from an increasingly urban catchment area. Floods has much more to do with the change of land surfaces in the entire catchment instead of these people. The belief that the people living there are causing the floods is completely inaccurate. Flooding can’t be reduced without a spatial plan for the entire catchment. This is just a piecemeal attempt that targets a relatively powerless group of people.
Shame on the Jakarta government!
Check out the cambodian childrens fund CCF and the analysis on http://cambodia440.blogspot.com/ and you get the confirmation that yes, it’s not unlikely the NGO often are in bed with the gov.
The Cambodian Gov. can be critizised for many things. Regulating the NGO sector has been attempted and swarted since more than 20 years with the support of the US Gov. which left all diplomatic protocol asside and got directly involved in Cambodia’s Law Process. Since 2008 there were 3 major consultations with a large number of mostly foreign funded NGO. Never was it enough for them to let the Law actually pass. Now we write August 2015 and finally the Law has even been signed by the King. Many Expats here see the NGO as Poverty Pimps or even Leeches clogging up the Streets with their big SUV. Many of the NGO have Regime Change Agendas and some are used as a way of laundering money.
Here are 2 links that show you enough what’s really going on on the ground here and what the western media likes to ignore entirely.
Jorgen: anyone who still believes there are ‘three distinct estates’ in Thailand, or indeed have ever been for any length of time, is actually living in a FOURTH called CUCKOOLAND.
This is being performed exactly like police investigations in Thailand have always been performed, under military governments as well as democratically elected governments. Would you expect a democratically elected prime minister in a real democracy to interfere or be responsible for a police investigation? Of course not. That’s not how parliamentarism works. There are three estates, remember?
This is one of the things that have always been lacking in Thai “democracy”. Prime ministers and other politicians have interfered in police work and other areas that are none of their business, undermining democracy as well as the investigation. A competent, uncorrupt police force would have helped of course, but alas…
There are quite a lot of studies that show how the inhabitants can cope with negative ecological conditions of their habitat based on self-organisation. The main problem is eviction due to raising land prices and possibilities of profitable use of the land. Quite often this is facilitated by development projects that aim at improving living conditions! Here we have an interesting argumentation that de-politices urban development: Their are “natural” conditions (or technical if we take traffic etc. into account), and the planners have nice instruments to solve these problems through new technologies. That the final result is quite different from what was intended is common. However, one can argue that people are not evicted because some would like to make profits, but to improve their living conditions!
The questions raised already in the sentieth “Whose city” is more current then ever!
ISN’T EVERYONE OVERTHINKING THIS UTTER TRAGEDY QUITE A BIT? IS IT REALY THAT COMPLICATED? Look, you take a bunch of popularly, duly elected governments and then proceed to kick them out by stripping them of their mandates — first on ‘cooking show’ rules and then cooked up technicalities –, then take out the NEXT elected government at the point of a gun. Meantime, sure, rechristen all voters as ‘peasants’ and ‘buffalos — BUT — allow them to occupy the Golden Mile for a few months so they see, feel, TOUCH their ‘democratic power’. Then — surprise! –take their power back! Ratatatat Tattat tat tat! Kick them back to their miserable FARMS! Now you chuck in mostly ‘nominated’ MP’s, judges, appoint your own Electoral ‘Fairness’ overseers, and then dilute the so called ‘constitutions’ to successive serial soap operettas. Next? Throw up into the darkening skies the control of $40 bil on a ‘first come first served’ basis, and postpone ANOTHER promised election yet again — you BELIEVING THIS?!! — to be launched ‘After The UNNAMED IMMINENT Event’. Now, promise to launch yet another ‘constitution’ with no input for, by or of the people who have to live by it. If folks want to know WHEN it will be introduced? Tell them it will be AFTER that next, postponed, election. — Ready now? Not yet, my friends! — Now juice up this ‘smokin’ hot’ cocktail by opening up Pandora’s farken SUITCASE, releasing its instant internet connections to the rest of the world — where the stories that the populace has LIVED BY for decades are suddenly shown up to be pathetic MYTHS. Okaaaaaaay! NOW you are ready! —– and NOW something happens? Yes. So, here’s what will happen: SOMEONE’S GONNA GET MIGHTY FARKEN PI**ED OFF !!!!!!! …………. And now, evidently, SOMEbody is …… And I bet they live right around YOUR hood. (‘Southern insurgents’? My A*&$SE!)
Any readers track Patani terrorism? Can you tell me if any of their militant groups have a record of co-ordinating attacks with important dates in their calendar? Noted that the Erawan attack coincides with the 61st anniversary week of the disappearance of Patani leader H.Sulong. tnx
Facebook 
Twitter 
Soundcloud 
Youtube 
Rss
Floods and forced evictions in Jakarta
The Governor of Jakarta is doing the best given its limited authority. He can’t stop people from deforestation of the catchment areas in West Java, which is the biggest reason why there is flooding in Jakarta.
Let’s face it, Jakarta is built on a flood plain, and without drainage canals there will be flooding. Without the regular maintenance of drainage canals and rivers there will be flooding. And the increased sediment brought by deforestation in the upper catchment area clogs up the canals and rivers. Even if Puncak was pristine those canals still have to be maintained.
Widening the river and building the inspection roads on both sides of the river, will allow dredging machines easy access. During the Dutch period, all the drainage canals in Jakarta had inspection roads, but since independence squatters have built over them.
Thai junta turning tragedy to farce
It is grimly looking like terror is winning in Thsiland. Ghost of Samai must be grinning from hell.
Lèse-majesté today
I’m not sure why R N England thinks he is being misrepresented. In his comment he stated that “Constitutional monarchy is a fraud”. Period. No ifs and buts, no qualifications. His meaning seems clear enough to me.
In all the dates he rather impressively lists, in only the last one was the British monarchy anywhere close to what we would currently define as Constitutional, but he does show that the relationship between the British people and the monarchy has evolved over time, and that process will no doubt continue.
I wouldn’t presume to speak for monarchies elsewhere in the world, including Australia and Thailand, but in Britain we have enough information to make up our own minds about whether or not our monarchy is a fraud. If and when we do so decide, then, and only then, will it be a fact!
Thai junta turning tragedy to farce
Pridi was inspired by a left wing authoritarian position and b.pibilsongkram by a fascist one. Combined they dared reduce the monarchy. They thought the people were ready to follow that. Such sense of readiness has its roots in a positive assessment of how far the political culture had evolved since 1782 and the Rattanakosin coup. B. Seems to have shifted back to a domesticated and glorified monarchy position after global fascism went underground in 1945. He saved Thai fascism through a compromise with public sentiment. Conservative Buddhist monks were elevated to spread the message and noone again spoke of the Thummayud Party.
Cambodia’s four letter word: NGOs
We in Burma welcome that.
Lèse-majesté today
I am being misrepresented here. My post did not state, as an undisputed fact, that constitutional monarchy is a fraud. It contained key reasons as to why that should be so.
Thailand has a long history of popular submission to monarchy. I call it crawling. The Thais are learning to walk upright and are being whipped back down again by the last dregs of that superficially civilised, but fundamentally thuggish system.
The British people are pioneers in learning to walk upright, but the process is unfinished. The historical evolution of British bipedalism can be summed up in a string of dates, all of them commemorating heroic attempts to get the monarch off their backs: 1215, 1620, 1649, 1688, 1776 and 1834-35. The last is not so familiar: it was the last time a British monarch attempted to appoint a government against parliamentary majority.
In attempting to make sense of history, we are trying to establish matters of fact. These stand or fall according to the evidence, which we are required to produce. They are not matters one can expect to solve by popular vote. Popular opinion in Australia favours a republican model in which a separately elected president could become involved in a conflict with an elected parliament. Informed republicans have put the whole thing on the back burner because that could produce a worse outcome than a little bit of crawling.
Thai elitism and hierarchy
As long as the monarchial system still exists in Thailand, the royal words (р╕гр╕▓р╕Кр╕▓р╕ир╕▒р╕Юр╕Чр╣М)are expected to be used when addressing or referring to members of the royal family. This form of language distinguishes between royally heaven and laymen’s hell!
Thai junta turning tragedy to farce
Pinpoint article.I may well be out of the loop on the very latest springbok rumours, and if I’ve got this right at all, what I have a always found curious and puzzling – and yet barely mentioned – was the Thai guy, who was briefly arrested and had ‘apparently’ said on FB that there was a warning – a sit up and wake up possibility of a bombing of real note. After a few hours they let him go….nothing to see her folks, move along.
Ok, fine. Perfectly innocent. A nobody. Just an attention seeking time waster. But among this sigh inducing confusion and bloated rumour – and assuming that guy wasn’t talking bullshit – I reckon he’s best lead they have.
Thai junta turning tragedy to farce
That is one of the main problems that this country is struggling with. One thing is that the distinction is lacking, but even worse is the fact that the concept seems to be alien to most of the population. Add to that the fact that a large part of the population, those who live and work in agricultural communities (around 40%), has hardly been represented in the parliament at all. If my memory serves me right, it actually went down from around 2 to around 1% when Thaksin won his first election in 2001.
The fourth estate? Isn’t that the press? I guess some representatives of that profession give the impression of coming from Cuckooland, but don’t you think it’s a bit of a generalisation to claim that all of them are 😉
Floods and forced evictions in Jakarta
The causes of floods are NOT primarily due to the riverside communities. Widening the river will not change the increasing flood waters that are coming down from an increasingly urban catchment area. Floods has much more to do with the change of land surfaces in the entire catchment instead of these people. The belief that the people living there are causing the floods is completely inaccurate. Flooding can’t be reduced without a spatial plan for the entire catchment. This is just a piecemeal attempt that targets a relatively powerless group of people.
Shame on the Jakarta government!
Cambodia’s four letter word: NGOs
Check out the cambodian childrens fund CCF and the analysis on http://cambodia440.blogspot.com/ and you get the confirmation that yes, it’s not unlikely the NGO often are in bed with the gov.
Cambodia’s four letter word: NGOs
The Cambodian Gov. can be critizised for many things. Regulating the NGO sector has been attempted and swarted since more than 20 years with the support of the US Gov. which left all diplomatic protocol asside and got directly involved in Cambodia’s Law Process. Since 2008 there were 3 major consultations with a large number of mostly foreign funded NGO. Never was it enough for them to let the Law actually pass. Now we write August 2015 and finally the Law has even been signed by the King. Many Expats here see the NGO as Poverty Pimps or even Leeches clogging up the Streets with their big SUV. Many of the NGO have Regime Change Agendas and some are used as a way of laundering money.
Here are 2 links that show you enough what’s really going on on the ground here and what the western media likes to ignore entirely.
http://www.kampotbuildersguide.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=405
http://cambodia440.blogspot.com/
With more than 5.200 NGO residing in Cambodia the Government here simply followed suit what other countries found necessary, too.
Thai junta turning tragedy to farce
Jorgen: anyone who still believes there are ‘three distinct estates’ in Thailand, or indeed have ever been for any length of time, is actually living in a FOURTH called CUCKOOLAND.
Thai junta turning tragedy to farce
This is being performed exactly like police investigations in Thailand have always been performed, under military governments as well as democratically elected governments. Would you expect a democratically elected prime minister in a real democracy to interfere or be responsible for a police investigation? Of course not. That’s not how parliamentarism works. There are three estates, remember?
This is one of the things that have always been lacking in Thai “democracy”. Prime ministers and other politicians have interfered in police work and other areas that are none of their business, undermining democracy as well as the investigation. A competent, uncorrupt police force would have helped of course, but alas…
Lèse-majesté today
Agricultural subsidies are nearly half of the EU budget. Most of these go to large farms and companies. (for the distribution se f.e.http://farmsubsidy.openspending.org/GB/2013/) The british monarchy is one of the largest land owners. In 2008 about half a million went to her farm in Sandringham. (http://www.cafebabel.co.uk/politics/article/cap-the-queen-farms-on-eu-money.html) and there are quite a few more farms!
Floods and forced evictions in Jakarta
There are quite a lot of studies that show how the inhabitants can cope with negative ecological conditions of their habitat based on self-organisation. The main problem is eviction due to raising land prices and possibilities of profitable use of the land. Quite often this is facilitated by development projects that aim at improving living conditions! Here we have an interesting argumentation that de-politices urban development: Their are “natural” conditions (or technical if we take traffic etc. into account), and the planners have nice instruments to solve these problems through new technologies. That the final result is quite different from what was intended is common. However, one can argue that people are not evicted because some would like to make profits, but to improve their living conditions!
The questions raised already in the sentieth “Whose city” is more current then ever!
Thai junta turning tragedy to farce
[…] Fonte: New Mandala, August 21, 2015 […]
Thai junta turning tragedy to farce
ISN’T EVERYONE OVERTHINKING THIS UTTER TRAGEDY QUITE A BIT? IS IT REALY THAT COMPLICATED? Look, you take a bunch of popularly, duly elected governments and then proceed to kick them out by stripping them of their mandates — first on ‘cooking show’ rules and then cooked up technicalities –, then take out the NEXT elected government at the point of a gun. Meantime, sure, rechristen all voters as ‘peasants’ and ‘buffalos — BUT — allow them to occupy the Golden Mile for a few months so they see, feel, TOUCH their ‘democratic power’. Then — surprise! –take their power back! Ratatatat Tattat tat tat! Kick them back to their miserable FARMS! Now you chuck in mostly ‘nominated’ MP’s, judges, appoint your own Electoral ‘Fairness’ overseers, and then dilute the so called ‘constitutions’ to successive serial soap operettas. Next? Throw up into the darkening skies the control of $40 bil on a ‘first come first served’ basis, and postpone ANOTHER promised election yet again — you BELIEVING THIS?!! — to be launched ‘After The UNNAMED IMMINENT Event’. Now, promise to launch yet another ‘constitution’ with no input for, by or of the people who have to live by it. If folks want to know WHEN it will be introduced? Tell them it will be AFTER that next, postponed, election. — Ready now? Not yet, my friends! — Now juice up this ‘smokin’ hot’ cocktail by opening up Pandora’s farken SUITCASE, releasing its instant internet connections to the rest of the world — where the stories that the populace has LIVED BY for decades are suddenly shown up to be pathetic MYTHS. Okaaaaaaay! NOW you are ready! —– and NOW something happens? Yes. So, here’s what will happen: SOMEONE’S GONNA GET MIGHTY FARKEN PI**ED OFF !!!!!!! …………. And now, evidently, SOMEbody is …… And I bet they live right around YOUR hood. (‘Southern insurgents’? My A*&$SE!)
Thai junta turning tragedy to farce
[…] Great shit on the Junta's epic fail in regards to the bombing: Thai junta turning tragedy to farce […]
Thai junta turning tragedy to farce
Any readers track Patani terrorism? Can you tell me if any of their militant groups have a record of co-ordinating attacks with important dates in their calendar? Noted that the Erawan attack coincides with the 61st anniversary week of the disappearance of Patani leader H.Sulong. tnx