Balance and impartiality? Which planet are you from? All truth is partial and partisan. Thai politics is all about defining friend and enemy and an exceptional State denying peoples sovereignty
Dear “Gray Area”,
I do not get your point why you continously emphasize a distinction between the “street level”, as you call it – and whatever it may be, and academics. Actually, several people on new mandala lived in Southeast Asian countries and frequently interacted with local people. Moreover, if we want to shed light on the question how to make sense of Thailands political turmoil, your creation of camps (“street level” vs. academics) does not help anyone here, but is a waste of energy.
Last but not least, Apivat has not a PhD yet, nor is he a political scientist. That explains his rather amateuresque juxtaposition of different levels of analysis, as Jake Emmot and I have previously remarked.
I can assure you I am not making up the fact that the Thai monarch controls all this wealth. You don’t need to take my word for it, it is a subject that has been usefully discussed in several New Mandala conversations in recent years. This one is probably the best place to start.
“Why would it be necessary for Thaksin during his rule to give million of Bahts of ‘gifts’ to the Crown Prince according to Wikileaks?” – Well, if I really need to spell it out, it’s because Vajiralongkorn is not the reigning monarch so controls none of the money at the moment. That’s the whole point.
The biggest reason for the rift between Thaksin and the royalist establishment after Thai Rak Thai took power was that Bhumibol was trying to control his son by restricting his income, and Thaksin enabled Vajiralongkorn to circumvent this. All of this is discussed in detail in my article “р╕Бр╕ер╕╡р╕вр╕╕р╕Д“, and reading it would also disabuse you of the bizarre notion that I am pro-Thaksin. I don’t know of any other article by any journalist that has provided more evidence of Thaksin’s culpability for the deadly violence of April/May 2010 (including the death of my Reuters colleague Hiro Muramoto) and anybody who has any familiarity with my work knows I am scathing about him. But because I am even more scathing about the traditional establishment and its war on democracy, people who can only understand events in Thailand via a simplistic goodies-versus-baddies narrative seem to have formed the misimpression that I support Thaksin. I don’t. But I support the right of Thailand’s people to choose their prime minister at the ballot box. Even when they vote for people I don’t like.
This is getting increasingly weird. I really have no power to delete any posts on New Mandala. I’m not a moderator. I’m sure Andrew or Nich would be happy to confirm this. I just comment here from time to time.
Your understanding of my resignation from Reuters appears just as deficient as your grasp of the New Mandala comments system. But I think it’s best not to respond further because you seem slightly unbalanced, to put it politely. I took a quick look at your Facebook and Twitter, and saw that you repeatedly apologize for messages sent in your name, claiming you have been “hacked”. The rather odd outbursts aimed at me here seem to be a similar phenomen. Clearly you have some kind of problem, and I hope you manage to sort it out. I will bow out of this discussion now. Happy New Year.
And continuing on with the Thaksin ‘gifts’ that could have amounted to hundreds of millions of Baht … what was that Wikileaks story again?
“When the Ambassador asked how the issue would be resolved, noting first that it was widely known that Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn was pushing for Police General Jumpol Manmai over PM Abhisit’s choice of Police General Prateep Tunprasert… Niphon shifted uncomfortably and initially replied merely that he knew who “his choice” was (note: Jumpol). When the Ambassador asked whether a third choice compromise candidate might be the solution, Niphon agreed that it might be a possibility, though he repeated that “his choice” was the correct choice, adding that he believed the matter should have concluded long ago. When the Ambassador inquired whether the Crown Prince’s direct intervention in the Police Chief selection process had implications for public perceptions of the role of the monarchy in governance, Niphon suggested that it did. Niphon acknowledged that the perceived intervention was unhelpful both for the Crown Prince and the monarchy. [09BANGKOK2455] Torn between his role working for Abhisit and his loyalty to the crown prince, Niphon eventually resigned from the government. In later cables, John offers an explanation for the prince’s support of Jumpol: Deputy Police Commander Chumpol reportedly served for many years as then PM Thaksin’s bagman, delivering funds skimmed from lottery proceeds to the Crown Prince and his staff; more recently, Chumpol is alleged to have been the conduit for Thaksin to “gift” a $9 million villa in Phuket to the Crown Prince. [09BANGKOK2967] The crown prince’s willingness to launch an intervention in Thai politics that undermined a prime minister backed by the establishment, caused his oldest friend to resign from a senior post in the Democrat Party, and implied continued dubious financial links with Thaksin, has filled Thailand’s royalist old guard with foreboding.”
Thaksin skimming from the National Lottery to gift the Crown Prince millions of dollars?? And with the Deputy Police Chief too as bagman!
I wonder if Thaksin’s sister Yingluck too, has already started skimming/stealing from the National Lottery?
btw remember Arisman Pongruangrong, the Red Shirt terrorist leader, who urged his Red followers to carry incendiary plastic bottles laden with petrol during the year 2010 violent rallies? His wife was flaunting a Facebook intimate photo of her beside a brand new spanking Red Ferrari! What do Thai terrorists earn these days I must wonder ….
Not welcome by whom? By the yellow shirts and Democrats, who have been robbing Thailand blind until Thaksin and TRT came along?
OR
am I missing something, like you guys do not consider that the poorer Thais need to be considered? The serfs have been woken up, there is no putting them back to sleep.. better get used to it.
[…] to the ground as part of a concerted effort to rearrange the state’s ethnic composition.[2] Violent clashes can be blamed on culprits from both the minority Muslim and the majority Rakhine […]
Mr. Andrew MacGregor Marshall, the indefatigable defender of the Thaksin faith, says: ” …The $1.8 billion confiscated from Thaksin is mere peanuts compared to the $50 billion plus that the Thai monarch controls, once you include Crown Property Bureau assets and private Chakri/Mahidol wealth.”
That is a staggering sum by any measure. But I must wonder about the truth of ” … the Thai monarch controls …”, because if this is/was the case, why would it be necessary for Thaksin during his rule to give million of Bahts of ‘gifts’ to the Crown Prince according to Wikileaks?
My description of the Thaksin ‘slaves’ stand and it is not simplistic .. it is a simple truth. The Peau Thai Party is a joke … servants to Thaksin, Potjaman and the Shinawatra.
If they really are doing all this to sabotage the succession then the CP’s alleged hatred of them seems well justified.
(and most sensible people should also have similar contempt for those who would throw democracy under a bus just to protect their own interests)
You are fooling no-one Marshall. You’ve been checking all my posts but rose to the bait on the last one by not deleting it. As I knew you would. I know why Reuters got rid of you because I was at the leaving party to which you were not invited. Your Wiki profile and comments on facebook and here are a joke. No serious academic or writer has time for your biased and bi-polar views. New Mandala needs more free speech. It has lost credibility by regurgitating your rants. You are a lunatic and troll.
ASSK is no more a creation of the West than the Burmese regime is a proxy of the Chinese. That’s not to say the support they get is insubstantial.
No need for a conspiracy when you have a convergence of interests. And right now Western and regime interests are coming together. Unsurprisingly ASSK is being used as well as sidelined by both.
QUOTE Why can’t a PhD man like Apivat Hanvongse get to the simple truth of the matter? UNQUOTE
He’s probably way overqualified to understand the mud, blood and gore of politics. Geniuses aren’t exactly well-qualified to work effectively with us mere dumb-arse mortals. That’s pretty much the same problem most local PMs, political parties and elite factions have. They get so enamored with their own ability to manipulate the common herd (in the short to medium term), that they fail to realise that they are getting completely out of their depth in the longer-term.
To paraphrase the words of a certain unmentionable juvenile delinquent know-it-all do-nothing of local high-standing, “you ain’t seen nothing yet”. At the time he said it, it would undoubtedly have been better rendered as, “I ain’t seen nothing yet”. Well now, he is undoubtedly beginning to see something. And this is just the start of Thailand’s problems. It will only get worse, but I doubt that you will ever really know it in either your internal gated isolation or your external self-imposed exile.
You don’t exactly have to have a PhD to observe that almost all politically-ambitious locals are short-term boy wonders and long-term cynical old fool failures. Their long-term mistake is always to think that their initial outstanding success in petty business turns them into some sort of godlike masters of the fine art of social control. In a more socially-cohesive country (such as Switzerland), such amateurish personnel management strategies might actually partially stand some chance of working. But in a scofflaw country such as this, boy wonder nearly always eventually finds out that the local population is way too maverick to be herded by a bunch of inexperienced and unskilled cowboys. It is usually at this point that boy wonder gives up all his fantasy world illusions of trying to make this country a better place, and diverts all his real energy to ripping-off the exchequer for the sake of his own team.
Samak, Chalerm, Sanoh, Chatchai, Chavalit and a cast of dozens of other doddering senile idiots have all ended up hugely rich and essentially useless.
It probably wouldn’t be any exaggeration to say that this is the long-term fate of over 95% of politically-ambitious locals.
Early instant success in life is actually something that most affluent locals can easily afford to buy for their children. Unfortunately, one doesn’t really learn by NOT making mistakes early in life. You can buy short-term success, but you have to suffer some real early setbacks if you are ever to work effectively in the long-term with a ‘fickle’ electorate.
Nomi (2.1.2.2) implicitly answered your question: “I would say your writing style is rather agressive and most confucius-based asians may consider it confrontational”
In “Confucius-based” confusing Asian societies (but perhaps also at Columbia University?) you don’t talk about the tigers and the elephants in the room. You talk about the mosquitoes and the fleas (hovering around the tigers and the elephants!)
Indeed, Andrew Walker is on record as calling me a “virulent anti-royal fundamentalist” while Nich Farrelly dismissed р╕Бр╕ер╕╡р╕вр╕╕р╕Д as “typically wordy”.
And neither of them ever click ‘like’ on my baby photos on Facebook.
I wish they would swallow my views, but the pair of them are annoyingly recalcitrant. Very annoying.
The $1.8 billion confiscated from Thaksin is mere peanuts compared to the $50 billion plus that the Thai monarch controls, once you include Crown Property Bureau assets and private Chakri/Mahidol wealth.
That is why the Thai establishment is desperate to sabotage the succession of Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn – who hates them – and engineer the selection of a more pliable alternative monarch when Bhumibol dies.
So yes, there is an important financial element to this conflict. But not in the way you set out in your comment.
Your description of Pheu Thai as “Thaksin slaves” also suggests a rather simplistic view of contemporary Thai politics. You may think you understand “the simple truth of the matter” but your comment suggests otherwise.
I’m slightly baffled by these comments, but for the record I have no “power within New Mandala” and no connection with the moderators. I just join the discussion here sometimes, because New Mandala hosts some very interesting and enlightening conversations about Thai politics and the monarchy. The main problem – in common with most popular online forums – is that conversations often get drowned out by trolls and lunatics. This is why I don’t contribute as often as I used to. Cheers.
The core of ongoing Thailand conflict is financial: the US$1.8 billion ill-gotten Thaksin wealth seizure as a result of Thailand Supreme Court ruling.
It is financial, it is greed and it is still a big slap to the faces of every Shinawatra clan. PM Yingluck’s share of that seizure is some Baht 900 billion, is why she and her gang of PT Party Thaksin slaves, went all out for the amnesty bill fiasco of Year 2013.
Why can’t a PhD man like Apivat Hanvongse get to the simple truth of the matter?
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How to understand Thailand’s conflict
Balance and impartiality? Which planet are you from? All truth is partial and partisan. Thai politics is all about defining friend and enemy and an exceptional State denying peoples sovereignty
How to understand Thailand’s conflict
Yes, I can confirm that Andrew MacGregor Marshall has no role as moderator (or anything else) on New Mandala. AW
How to understand Thailand’s conflict
Dear “Gray Area”,
I do not get your point why you continously emphasize a distinction between the “street level”, as you call it – and whatever it may be, and academics. Actually, several people on new mandala lived in Southeast Asian countries and frequently interacted with local people. Moreover, if we want to shed light on the question how to make sense of Thailands political turmoil, your creation of camps (“street level” vs. academics) does not help anyone here, but is a waste of energy.
Last but not least, Apivat has not a PhD yet, nor is he a political scientist. That explains his rather amateuresque juxtaposition of different levels of analysis, as Jake Emmot and I have previously remarked.
How to understand Thailand’s conflict
I can assure you I am not making up the fact that the Thai monarch controls all this wealth. You don’t need to take my word for it, it is a subject that has been usefully discussed in several New Mandala conversations in recent years. This one is probably the best place to start.
“Why would it be necessary for Thaksin during his rule to give million of Bahts of ‘gifts’ to the Crown Prince according to Wikileaks?” – Well, if I really need to spell it out, it’s because Vajiralongkorn is not the reigning monarch so controls none of the money at the moment. That’s the whole point.
The biggest reason for the rift between Thaksin and the royalist establishment after Thai Rak Thai took power was that Bhumibol was trying to control his son by restricting his income, and Thaksin enabled Vajiralongkorn to circumvent this. All of this is discussed in detail in my article “р╕Бр╕ер╕╡р╕вр╕╕р╕Д“, and reading it would also disabuse you of the bizarre notion that I am pro-Thaksin. I don’t know of any other article by any journalist that has provided more evidence of Thaksin’s culpability for the deadly violence of April/May 2010 (including the death of my Reuters colleague Hiro Muramoto) and anybody who has any familiarity with my work knows I am scathing about him. But because I am even more scathing about the traditional establishment and its war on democracy, people who can only understand events in Thailand via a simplistic goodies-versus-baddies narrative seem to have formed the misimpression that I support Thaksin. I don’t. But I support the right of Thailand’s people to choose their prime minister at the ballot box. Even when they vote for people I don’t like.
How to understand Thailand’s conflict
This is getting increasingly weird. I really have no power to delete any posts on New Mandala. I’m not a moderator. I’m sure Andrew or Nich would be happy to confirm this. I just comment here from time to time.
Your understanding of my resignation from Reuters appears just as deficient as your grasp of the New Mandala comments system. But I think it’s best not to respond further because you seem slightly unbalanced, to put it politely. I took a quick look at your Facebook and Twitter, and saw that you repeatedly apologize for messages sent in your name, claiming you have been “hacked”. The rather odd outbursts aimed at me here seem to be a similar phenomen. Clearly you have some kind of problem, and I hope you manage to sort it out. I will bow out of this discussion now. Happy New Year.
How to understand Thailand’s conflict
And continuing on with the Thaksin ‘gifts’ that could have amounted to hundreds of millions of Baht … what was that Wikileaks story again?
“When the Ambassador asked how the issue would be resolved, noting first that it was widely known that Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn was pushing for Police General Jumpol Manmai over PM Abhisit’s choice of Police General Prateep Tunprasert… Niphon shifted uncomfortably and initially replied merely that he knew who “his choice” was (note: Jumpol). When the Ambassador asked whether a third choice compromise candidate might be the solution, Niphon agreed that it might be a possibility, though he repeated that “his choice” was the correct choice, adding that he believed the matter should have concluded long ago. When the Ambassador inquired whether the Crown Prince’s direct intervention in the Police Chief selection process had implications for public perceptions of the role of the monarchy in governance, Niphon suggested that it did. Niphon acknowledged that the perceived intervention was unhelpful both for the Crown Prince and the monarchy. [09BANGKOK2455] Torn between his role working for Abhisit and his loyalty to the crown prince, Niphon eventually resigned from the government. In later cables, John offers an explanation for the prince’s support of Jumpol: Deputy Police Commander Chumpol reportedly served for many years as then PM Thaksin’s bagman, delivering funds skimmed from lottery proceeds to the Crown Prince and his staff; more recently, Chumpol is alleged to have been the conduit for Thaksin to “gift” a $9 million villa in Phuket to the Crown Prince. [09BANGKOK2967] The crown prince’s willingness to launch an intervention in Thai politics that undermined a prime minister backed by the establishment, caused his oldest friend to resign from a senior post in the Democrat Party, and implied continued dubious financial links with Thaksin, has filled Thailand’s royalist old guard with foreboding.”
(http://wikileaks.org/Thailand-s-Moment-of-Truth-Part.html)
Thaksin skimming from the National Lottery to gift the Crown Prince millions of dollars?? And with the Deputy Police Chief too as bagman!
I wonder if Thaksin’s sister Yingluck too, has already started skimming/stealing from the National Lottery?
btw remember Arisman Pongruangrong, the Red Shirt terrorist leader, who urged his Red followers to carry incendiary plastic bottles laden with petrol during the year 2010 violent rallies? His wife was flaunting a Facebook intimate photo of her beside a brand new spanking Red Ferrari! What do Thai terrorists earn these days I must wonder ….
How to understand Thailand’s conflict
Not welcome by whom? By the yellow shirts and Democrats, who have been robbing Thailand blind until Thaksin and TRT came along?
OR
am I missing something, like you guys do not consider that the poorer Thais need to be considered? The serfs have been woken up, there is no putting them back to sleep.. better get used to it.
Beyond bigotry: Unravelling ethnic violence in Rakhine
[…] to the ground as part of a concerted effort to rearrange the state’s ethnic composition.[2] Violent clashes can be blamed on culprits from both the minority Muslim and the majority Rakhine […]
How to understand Thailand’s conflict
Mr. Andrew MacGregor Marshall, the indefatigable defender of the Thaksin faith, says: ” …The $1.8 billion confiscated from Thaksin is mere peanuts compared to the $50 billion plus that the Thai monarch controls, once you include Crown Property Bureau assets and private Chakri/Mahidol wealth.”
That is a staggering sum by any measure. But I must wonder about the truth of ” … the Thai monarch controls …”, because if this is/was the case, why would it be necessary for Thaksin during his rule to give million of Bahts of ‘gifts’ to the Crown Prince according to Wikileaks?
My description of the Thaksin ‘slaves’ stand and it is not simplistic .. it is a simple truth. The Peau Thai Party is a joke … servants to Thaksin, Potjaman and the Shinawatra.
How to understand Thailand’s conflict
If they really are doing all this to sabotage the succession then the CP’s alleged hatred of them seems well justified.
(and most sensible people should also have similar contempt for those who would throw democracy under a bus just to protect their own interests)
How to understand Thailand’s conflict
You are fooling no-one Marshall. You’ve been checking all my posts but rose to the bait on the last one by not deleting it. As I knew you would. I know why Reuters got rid of you because I was at the leaving party to which you were not invited. Your Wiki profile and comments on facebook and here are a joke. No serious academic or writer has time for your biased and bi-polar views. New Mandala needs more free speech. It has lost credibility by regurgitating your rants. You are a lunatic and troll.
Beyond bigotry: Unravelling ethnic violence in Rakhine
ASSK is no more a creation of the West than the Burmese regime is a proxy of the Chinese. That’s not to say the support they get is insubstantial.
No need for a conspiracy when you have a convergence of interests. And right now Western and regime interests are coming together. Unsurprisingly ASSK is being used as well as sidelined by both.
Seen most of it, thanks Ohn.
How to understand Thailand’s conflict
QUOTE Why can’t a PhD man like Apivat Hanvongse get to the simple truth of the matter? UNQUOTE
He’s probably way overqualified to understand the mud, blood and gore of politics. Geniuses aren’t exactly well-qualified to work effectively with us mere dumb-arse mortals. That’s pretty much the same problem most local PMs, political parties and elite factions have. They get so enamored with their own ability to manipulate the common herd (in the short to medium term), that they fail to realise that they are getting completely out of their depth in the longer-term.
To paraphrase the words of a certain unmentionable juvenile delinquent know-it-all do-nothing of local high-standing, “you ain’t seen nothing yet”. At the time he said it, it would undoubtedly have been better rendered as, “I ain’t seen nothing yet”. Well now, he is undoubtedly beginning to see something. And this is just the start of Thailand’s problems. It will only get worse, but I doubt that you will ever really know it in either your internal gated isolation or your external self-imposed exile.
You don’t exactly have to have a PhD to observe that almost all politically-ambitious locals are short-term boy wonders and long-term cynical old fool failures. Their long-term mistake is always to think that their initial outstanding success in petty business turns them into some sort of godlike masters of the fine art of social control. In a more socially-cohesive country (such as Switzerland), such amateurish personnel management strategies might actually partially stand some chance of working. But in a scofflaw country such as this, boy wonder nearly always eventually finds out that the local population is way too maverick to be herded by a bunch of inexperienced and unskilled cowboys. It is usually at this point that boy wonder gives up all his fantasy world illusions of trying to make this country a better place, and diverts all his real energy to ripping-off the exchequer for the sake of his own team.
Samak, Chalerm, Sanoh, Chatchai, Chavalit and a cast of dozens of other doddering senile idiots have all ended up hugely rich and essentially useless.
It probably wouldn’t be any exaggeration to say that this is the long-term fate of over 95% of politically-ambitious locals.
Early instant success in life is actually something that most affluent locals can easily afford to buy for their children. Unfortunately, one doesn’t really learn by NOT making mistakes early in life. You can buy short-term success, but you have to suffer some real early setbacks if you are ever to work effectively in the long-term with a ‘fickle’ electorate.
How to understand Thailand’s conflict
Nomi (2.1.2.2) implicitly answered your question:
“I would say your writing style is rather agressive and most confucius-based asians may consider it confrontational”
In “Confucius-based” confusing Asian societies (but perhaps also at Columbia University?) you don’t talk about the tigers and the elephants in the room. You talk about the mosquitoes and the fleas (hovering around the tigers and the elephants!)
New Mandala’s top posts in 2013
Indeed, Andrew Walker is on record as calling me a “virulent anti-royal fundamentalist” while Nich Farrelly dismissed р╕Бр╕ер╕╡р╕вр╕╕р╕Д as “typically wordy”.
And neither of them ever click ‘like’ on my baby photos on Facebook.
I wish they would swallow my views, but the pair of them are annoyingly recalcitrant. Very annoying.
Happy New Year everyone.
How to understand Thailand’s conflict
Sorry my error. It should read: “PM Yingluck’s share of that seizure is some Baht 900 million (not billion) …”.
By any measure, Yingluck carried a heavy conflict of interest with that abominable amnesty bill tailored to benefit Thaksin & sister.
Yingluck is tainted like her brother. Her credibility is blown … she should resign because she is no longer welcome to be a legitimate Thai PM.
How to understand Thailand’s conflict
The $1.8 billion confiscated from Thaksin is mere peanuts compared to the $50 billion plus that the Thai monarch controls, once you include Crown Property Bureau assets and private Chakri/Mahidol wealth.
That is why the Thai establishment is desperate to sabotage the succession of Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn – who hates them – and engineer the selection of a more pliable alternative monarch when Bhumibol dies.
So yes, there is an important financial element to this conflict. But not in the way you set out in your comment.
Your description of Pheu Thai as “Thaksin slaves” also suggests a rather simplistic view of contemporary Thai politics. You may think you understand “the simple truth of the matter” but your comment suggests otherwise.
Best wishes.
How to understand Thailand’s conflict
I’m slightly baffled by these comments, but for the record I have no “power within New Mandala” and no connection with the moderators. I just join the discussion here sometimes, because New Mandala hosts some very interesting and enlightening conversations about Thai politics and the monarchy. The main problem – in common with most popular online forums – is that conversations often get drowned out by trolls and lunatics. This is why I don’t contribute as often as I used to. Cheers.
How to understand Thailand’s conflict
The core of ongoing Thailand conflict is financial: the US$1.8 billion ill-gotten Thaksin wealth seizure as a result of Thailand Supreme Court ruling.
It is financial, it is greed and it is still a big slap to the faces of every Shinawatra clan. PM Yingluck’s share of that seizure is some Baht 900 billion, is why she and her gang of PT Party Thaksin slaves, went all out for the amnesty bill fiasco of Year 2013.
Why can’t a PhD man like Apivat Hanvongse get to the simple truth of the matter?
Non-government actors advancing democracy in Malaysia
Must be the poorest written defence of UMNO ever.
Please note that UMNO is slowly driving Malaysia towards a N. Korean system muddled with Talibanism albeit with elections.
1. Allowing Govt religious bodies to dictate “law” and the imposition of such “law” on all citizens. (Taliban)
2. Accusing all and sundry of wanting to illegally over throwing the Govt AND arresting them under some nonsensical law. (N. Korea)
That’s just a couple of example..and it is already enough to make UMNO indefensible.