I have one further thought!
The population of BKK is c.11.5 million people
Were you add to that the populations of the S/W/E regions..yes I know population is not the same as eligible voters..the population count would rise to c. 30 million. The population of the N and NE is c.35 million.
That presents an electoral uphill battle for BKK in spite of its wealth.
I find it quite amusing that the avaricious drive to grab land in the North, the North East and the South in earlier times has come home to haunt the Thai ‘elite’
The ‘blues’ have made no effort to ‘infiltrate’ let alone persuade voters outside of Bangkok and the South that they have anything to offer them. Even Democrats/Republicans/Tories/Labour in the US/UK make an effort to put up a platform and manifesto. There appears, in ‘yellow..now transformed into tri-color’ camps, to be a wholly unfounded belief that past oligarchies and patronages will secure an ‘authoritarian’ ‘royalist’ and obeisant people in the future. One must wonder why the ‘South’ apparently supports Suthep. OK there were and are unpleasant legacies of Thaksin’s period of office in the deep south. The negligence of past patrimonial regimes in enhancing the lives of those in the so-called periphery is coming home to roost. Never mind the Chiang Mai plutocracy; one day we will get a PM from Roi-Et or Mukdahan!
Nick is there any word as to who was in that car and why they would be so angry with the person? Tweets came out after the incident saying that it was a PDRC supporter dropping bombs out of his window. In the video there seems to be a small dog in the car?
And any idea who all of those shooters separate from others were. One on a motorcycle, one in a blue jacket next to a telephone booth, and so on. Aside from the two main groups shooting there appeared to be others involved.
Your pictures told a thousand words, those words were very clear. Thank you for your efforts in being there and recording events impartially. I commend you for your bravery.
” .. One side has the courts on their side and use them as political weapons ..” – Prune
Baloney! If we take the Rice Pledge Program and the Thai courts, after due deliberations, find PM Yingluck guilty of gross mismanagement and negligence that led to: (a) Thailand’s eminent rice industry nearly gutted; (b) rampant unchecked graft and corruption; (c) staggering billions of bahts of losses thru ruinous market interventions/manipulations; (d) devastating adverse economic harm inflicted to hundreds of thousands of rice farmers livelihoods; etc etc. Would Prune’s Red Shirt bias supplant his/her better judgment, that indeed Yingluck as PM and Chairwoman of the Rice Policy Committee had been grossly and criminally negligent. And thus Yingluck deserves to be impeached from PM’s office; plus a number of Yingluck ministers have to be criminally tried for their active roles in the rampant graft rampant at Yingluck regime’s rice program?
The Yingluck’s government Rice Program is TOP SECRET, and only heaven (or maybe the devil) knows why? No transparency, no accounting, no audits, no reports …. When economic losses of the Rice Program are being estimated as accounting to as much as 3.5% of GDP, and the ongoing government still refusing TO BE ACCOUNTABLE, is certainly NOT democractic and I suspect, also unconstitutional.
No I didn’t. It was the protesters at the police block, which, if you read my story, were the Red Shirt/Pro-election protesters. The PDRC protesters were 200 meters away.
Please pay attention what i write before posting.
No Pulitzers for this one. Could somebody do some editing for the last sentence of the first paragraph? It’s a sloppy ungrammatical mass that ruins the credibility of the article.
I have been reading and trying to piece together a framework of understanding for what is going on. You may find something cohesive in the following!:
William J. Gedney the great linguistic scholar who worked primarily on Tai-Kradai languages was of the opinion that there were some 80 functioning languages in Thailand. In the places where I live no-one much speaks standard Thai: In Chiang Mai they speak Phasa Nuea, Lanna, Kam Mueang, or even Thai Yuan, In Issan they speak Lao, Phu Thai and Yor. In Phuket they speak Chaiya dialect..and then there is Chinese!
One other way of looking at the fragile composition of Thailand is to read Siam Mapped :
A History of the Geobody of a Nation
by Thongchai Winickakul
where he explores how the tenuous entity that is Thailand was created, by maps and force.
It is hardly any wonder that the ‘centre cannot hold’ : though I doubt the ‘red shirts’ can be described as ‘the rough beast slouching to Bangkok to be born’!
It might also be helpful if the rigorous system of social control that Thailand operates through the ID card and the ‘Tabian Ban’ might be looked at in the electoral context http://thailand.prd.go.th/view_news.php?id=2788&a=2
The Bangkok vote might look quite different were it not for the Tabian Ban rule!
If you read on you might begin to think that : maybe some kind of regional policy, federalism, devolution is the way forward. ??
Anyone with stamina might read on
FPIF Articles
Mostly not wonderful. Walden Bello the best
What Do Thailand, Ukraine, Belgium, and Egypt Have in Common? Dysfunctional Democracies
When the losing party in an election resorts to extra-legal measures, democracy is threatened and secession may follow.
By Keith K C Hui,
Thailand’s Deep Divide
Thailand’s anti-corruption protesters appear to have lost faith in the key tenet of representative democracy: rule by people or parties elected by the majority of citizens.
By Walden Bello,
Thailand’s Protests and the Global Economy
As the economies of Southeast Asia integrate, Thailand’s social divide is as stark as ever.
By Layne Hartsell
Also in Asia Times
New Mandala much better
Middle class rage threatens democracy
BY
MARC SAXER, http://www.newmandala.org/2014/01/21/middle-class-rage-threatens-democracy/
Thailand’s 3D Conflict
BY VEERAYOOTH KANCHOOCHAT http://www.newmandala.org/2014/02/06/thailands-3d-conflict/
Thailand’s ‘Days of our Strife’
JOHN BLAXLAND http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/news-events/all-stories/thailands-days-our-strife#.UvRi9mKSznh
Thailand’s electorate deserves respect
BY
ANDREW WALKER http://www.newmandala.org/2014/01/31/thailands-electorate-deserves-respect/
Probably the best book on Bangkok is
Bangkok: Place, Practice and Representation (Asia’s Transformations/Asia’s Great Cities)
By
MARC ASKEW
I have been struck, intermittently by some of the following:
Proxy Government.
Well there are and have been plenty of proxy governments, particularly those operating in monarchies.
Elites, Establishment,..
While the notion of establishments, whether or not synonymous with a ‘ruling class’ if rooted in some historical contexts is easy to grasp I have yet to encounter any accurate description or representation of Thailand’s Elites. If one followed C.Wright Mills it would include individuals with power ascribed to :
Age. Leaders average about 60 years of age. The heads of foundations, law, education, and civic organizations average around 62 years of age. Government-sector members about 56 years old
Gender..Mostly men?
Ethnicity . An interesting concept in Thailand given the wide variety, power and dispersion of ‘ethnic’ groups.
Education
Nearly all leaders are college-educated . In the US almost half having advanced degrees and about 54 percent of the big-business leaders and 42 percent of the government elite are graduates of just 12 heavily endowed, prestigious universities. The composition of bodies like the Election Commission and the National Anti Corruption Commission?
Social Clubs: Golf? Etc!
Here you would clearly add the Police and the Military
So that is hardly going to be a description of ‘rural’ Thailand
Bukharin would have liked Thailand. I think he said:” state power is nothing but an entrepreneurs’ company of tremendous power” which would happily feed those who believe in a kleptocracy!
Democracy and Buddhism
Are they compatible?? I would like to know. Do ideas and ideologies of the moral self and immoral individuals rather than those which propose systems and institutions of transparent propriety have greater weight here? Is there a belief that populism is immoral, and thus far powerless, in conflict with a notion that benign oligarchic and patrimonial neglect is moral?
Thence may derive the expression of a desire for the institutionalisation of conflict resolutions systems rather than an ad hominem approach?
Middle classes.
Marc Saxer makes it clear he is really talking about the Bangkok middle class..see Askew, too-but as others have pointed out there is not only a middle class in
Possibly every Jangwat, but a meritocratic and plutocratic middle class.
However the notion of a ‘Moral Geography’ which has been scoffed at by some as being a smoke screen for a ‘Power Geography’ has some merit if you believe that the moral/Thai ethnic centre of Thailand is Bangkok while the outlying provinces harbour non-Thais innumerable.
Where is the “thumbs down” for articles when you need it?
He does make some valid points, but in general this sounds like a toned down version of an article that could be published without problems in “The Nation”.
For once I will only point to the fact, that the “war on drugs” (or “war against crime” as the author calls it), wasn’t really Thaksin’s idea, it started in December 2002 with a certain birthday speech (and Thaksin’s approach was supported one year later at the 2003 speech).
Most other points can put into perspective by reading the “A response to Vanina Sucharitkul” article (better the slightly more detailed Facebook version) on this side.
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Middle class rage threatens democracy
I have one further thought!
The population of BKK is c.11.5 million people
Were you add to that the populations of the S/W/E regions..yes I know population is not the same as eligible voters..the population count would rise to c. 30 million. The population of the N and NE is c.35 million.
That presents an electoral uphill battle for BKK in spite of its wealth.
I find it quite amusing that the avaricious drive to grab land in the North, the North East and the South in earlier times has come home to haunt the Thai ‘elite’
The Laksi gunfight
Great work as usual Nick – don’t listen to that jerk
The Laksi gunfight
Great work as always Nick. Glad you’re safe and well.
Thailand’s election: 2 February 2014
“Being in opposition is like starving yourself to death.” Banharn Silpa-archa
The Laksi gunfight
I for one would contribute to a fund for Nick to buy a periscope camera or anything else he needs to keep coming up with these amazing stories.
Do we know who was in the silver car or why it was attacked? (Sorry if I missed this elsewhere).
The weakness of the Thai royalists
The ‘blues’ have made no effort to ‘infiltrate’ let alone persuade voters outside of Bangkok and the South that they have anything to offer them. Even Democrats/Republicans/Tories/Labour in the US/UK make an effort to put up a platform and manifesto. There appears, in ‘yellow..now transformed into tri-color’ camps, to be a wholly unfounded belief that past oligarchies and patronages will secure an ‘authoritarian’ ‘royalist’ and obeisant people in the future. One must wonder why the ‘South’ apparently supports Suthep. OK there were and are unpleasant legacies of Thaksin’s period of office in the deep south. The negligence of past patrimonial regimes in enhancing the lives of those in the so-called periphery is coming home to roost. Never mind the Chiang Mai plutocracy; one day we will get a PM from Roi-Et or Mukdahan!
The Laksi gunfight
Nick is there any word as to who was in that car and why they would be so angry with the person? Tweets came out after the incident saying that it was a PDRC supporter dropping bombs out of his window. In the video there seems to be a small dog in the car?
And any idea who all of those shooters separate from others were. One on a motorcycle, one in a blue jacket next to a telephone booth, and so on. Aside from the two main groups shooting there appeared to be others involved.
The Laksi gunfight
Your pictures told a thousand words, those words were very clear. Thank you for your efforts in being there and recording events impartially. I commend you for your bravery.
Thailand’s election: 2 February 2014
” .. One side has the courts on their side and use them as political weapons ..” – Prune
Baloney! If we take the Rice Pledge Program and the Thai courts, after due deliberations, find PM Yingluck guilty of gross mismanagement and negligence that led to: (a) Thailand’s eminent rice industry nearly gutted; (b) rampant unchecked graft and corruption; (c) staggering billions of bahts of losses thru ruinous market interventions/manipulations; (d) devastating adverse economic harm inflicted to hundreds of thousands of rice farmers livelihoods; etc etc. Would Prune’s Red Shirt bias supplant his/her better judgment, that indeed Yingluck as PM and Chairwoman of the Rice Policy Committee had been grossly and criminally negligent. And thus Yingluck deserves to be impeached from PM’s office; plus a number of Yingluck ministers have to be criminally tried for their active roles in the rampant graft rampant at Yingluck regime’s rice program?
The Yingluck’s government Rice Program is TOP SECRET, and only heaven (or maybe the devil) knows why? No transparency, no accounting, no audits, no reports …. When economic losses of the Rice Program are being estimated as accounting to as much as 3.5% of GDP, and the ongoing government still refusing TO BE ACCOUNTABLE, is certainly NOT democractic and I suspect, also unconstitutional.
The Laksi gunfight
That is (more or less) what he says.
The Laksi gunfight
My sincere apologies for having been born as a Kraut an not as a native English speaker.
The Laksi gunfight
No I didn’t. It was the protesters at the police block, which, if you read my story, were the Red Shirt/Pro-election protesters. The PDRC protesters were 200 meters away.
Please pay attention what i write before posting.
The Laksi gunfight
No Pulitzers for this one. Could somebody do some editing for the last sentence of the first paragraph? It’s a sloppy ungrammatical mass that ruins the credibility of the article.
The Laksi gunfight
Thanks Nick, another great effort.
The Laksi gunfight
You got it wrong. The ones beating the car are the pro-governmet Red Shirts led by Ko Tee
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/thailand/10606562/Thai-red-shirts-leader-says-Its-time-to-get-rid-of-the-elite.html
The weakness of the Thai royalists
….but…but….Thaksin…Buffalo!…Vote Buying!…but…but…Proxy….The Regime!…
Thailand’s ‘Days of our Strife’
I have been reading and trying to piece together a framework of understanding for what is going on. You may find something cohesive in the following!:
William J. Gedney the great linguistic scholar who worked primarily on Tai-Kradai languages was of the opinion that there were some 80 functioning languages in Thailand. In the places where I live no-one much speaks standard Thai: In Chiang Mai they speak Phasa Nuea, Lanna, Kam Mueang, or even Thai Yuan, In Issan they speak Lao, Phu Thai and Yor. In Phuket they speak Chaiya dialect..and then there is Chinese!
One other way of looking at the fragile composition of Thailand is to read Siam Mapped :
A History of the Geobody of a Nation
by Thongchai Winickakul
where he explores how the tenuous entity that is Thailand was created, by maps and force.
It is hardly any wonder that the ‘centre cannot hold’ : though I doubt the ‘red shirts’ can be described as ‘the rough beast slouching to Bangkok to be born’!
It might also be helpful if the rigorous system of social control that Thailand operates through the ID card and the ‘Tabian Ban’ might be looked at in the electoral context
http://thailand.prd.go.th/view_news.php?id=2788&a=2
The Bangkok vote might look quite different were it not for the Tabian Ban rule!
If you read on you might begin to think that : maybe some kind of regional policy, federalism, devolution is the way forward. ??
Anyone with stamina might read on
FPIF Articles
Mostly not wonderful. Walden Bello the best
What Do Thailand, Ukraine, Belgium, and Egypt Have in Common? Dysfunctional Democracies
When the losing party in an election resorts to extra-legal measures, democracy is threatened and secession may follow.
By Keith K C Hui,
Thailand’s Deep Divide
Thailand’s anti-corruption protesters appear to have lost faith in the key tenet of representative democracy: rule by people or parties elected by the majority of citizens.
By Walden Bello,
Thailand’s Protests and the Global Economy
As the economies of Southeast Asia integrate, Thailand’s social divide is as stark as ever.
By Layne Hartsell
Also in Asia Times
New Mandala much better
Middle class rage threatens democracy
BY
MARC SAXER,
http://www.newmandala.org/2014/01/21/middle-class-rage-threatens-democracy/
Thailand’s 3D Conflict
BY VEERAYOOTH KANCHOOCHAT
http://www.newmandala.org/2014/02/06/thailands-3d-conflict/
Thailand’s ‘Days of our Strife’
JOHN BLAXLAND
http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/news-events/all-stories/thailands-days-our-strife#.UvRi9mKSznh
Thailand’s electorate deserves respect
BY
ANDREW WALKER
http://www.newmandala.org/2014/01/31/thailands-electorate-deserves-respect/
Probably the best book on Bangkok is
Bangkok: Place, Practice and Representation (Asia’s Transformations/Asia’s Great Cities)
By
MARC ASKEW
I have been struck, intermittently by some of the following:
Proxy Government.
Well there are and have been plenty of proxy governments, particularly those operating in monarchies.
Elites, Establishment,..
While the notion of establishments, whether or not synonymous with a ‘ruling class’ if rooted in some historical contexts is easy to grasp I have yet to encounter any accurate description or representation of Thailand’s Elites. If one followed C.Wright Mills it would include individuals with power ascribed to :
Age. Leaders average about 60 years of age. The heads of foundations, law, education, and civic organizations average around 62 years of age. Government-sector members about 56 years old
Gender..Mostly men?
Ethnicity . An interesting concept in Thailand given the wide variety, power and dispersion of ‘ethnic’ groups.
Education
Nearly all leaders are college-educated . In the US almost half having advanced degrees and about 54 percent of the big-business leaders and 42 percent of the government elite are graduates of just 12 heavily endowed, prestigious universities. The composition of bodies like the Election Commission and the National Anti Corruption Commission?
Social Clubs: Golf? Etc!
Here you would clearly add the Police and the Military
So that is hardly going to be a description of ‘rural’ Thailand
Bukharin would have liked Thailand. I think he said:” state power is nothing but an entrepreneurs’ company of tremendous power” which would happily feed those who believe in a kleptocracy!
Democracy and Buddhism
Are they compatible?? I would like to know. Do ideas and ideologies of the moral self and immoral individuals rather than those which propose systems and institutions of transparent propriety have greater weight here? Is there a belief that populism is immoral, and thus far powerless, in conflict with a notion that benign oligarchic and patrimonial neglect is moral?
Thence may derive the expression of a desire for the institutionalisation of conflict resolutions systems rather than an ad hominem approach?
Middle classes.
Marc Saxer makes it clear he is really talking about the Bangkok middle class..see Askew, too-but as others have pointed out there is not only a middle class in
Possibly every Jangwat, but a meritocratic and plutocratic middle class.
However the notion of a ‘Moral Geography’ which has been scoffed at by some as being a smoke screen for a ‘Power Geography’ has some merit if you believe that the moral/Thai ethnic centre of Thailand is Bangkok while the outlying provinces harbour non-Thais innumerable.
Thailand’s ‘Days of our Strife’
When “Peter Cohen” is in your corner, citing LKY, you know you are in a very particular corner.
Thailand’s ‘Days of our Strife’
So, I guess your are all for military dictatorship? Finding the so called “good people” in the Democrat camp has an even slimmer chance than SETI.
Thailand’s ‘Days of our Strife’
Where is the “thumbs down” for articles when you need it?
He does make some valid points, but in general this sounds like a toned down version of an article that could be published without problems in “The Nation”.
For once I will only point to the fact, that the “war on drugs” (or “war against crime” as the author calls it), wasn’t really Thaksin’s idea, it started in December 2002 with a certain birthday speech (and Thaksin’s approach was supported one year later at the 2003 speech).
Most other points can put into perspective by reading the “A response to Vanina Sucharitkul” article (better the slightly more detailed Facebook version) on this side.