weka

In fact f*** it. Nf is not worth a reply.

The struggle continues comrades, and no I wouldn't want the reds to become some rabidly communist movement either, although it is obvious that many of their leaders are very left of centre.

I really wish them good luck, this country actually needs a group with some kind of principle, socially and economically, beyond getting pork for their locality and skimming 30% for themselves.  Politics needs balance to move with the swings and situations present in a country at any time, and maybe the reds can develop to become  the balance to the other parties over time.  

It is good that over time Thaksin does become just a stepping stone in the history of the country.

I have pretty much stopped posting anything about politics in any of the forums lately because it has just become a slagging match between people who are blind to positions of the other side. Everything is just seen in black or white (or red and yellow)

The political position of the PAD was about the most undemocratic proposal offered by any group in recent memory based on a total lack of respect for anyone who didn’t have the “proper education” and publically wanting to deny them the ability to have any say in their own government. Blocking the airport and taking over Government House and trashing it are things they should pay for in full under the law.

I also have no respect for some of their leaders, who I remember well from 1992, who knew they would not get resolution of their legitimate issues unless people died. People forget or don’t know about things like the hijacked fuel tankers, with people on top carrying Molotov cocktails, driving into the soldiers to get exactly the response they got.

As for the reds, they will never have my sympathy or support unless they publicly man up and admit that they share a great deal of the responsibility for loss of life and damage to the city. Their actions in Pattaya and Bangkok were disgraceful.

I strongly agree with some of the stated goals of the red movement. It is high time that everyone in the country has a fair say about how it is run and that the “little people” have rights too. The rather large Thai side of my family had a number of staunch red shirt supporters. Most of them have now abandoned the reds as they recognized they were being used as cannon fodder by one man. They still seek a vision of the country that they thought the reds represented but are now trying to find hope for the future elsewhere.

Phiphidon, just a simple question - were you actually in Bangkok during the time if the riots?

I only ask because you talk like somebody who has sourced all of his facts from the western media. I remember watching the BBC world report about it and they presented it in a way that the Red Shirts were revolutionaries standing up to an oppressive government. They revelled in those signs saying "we are not terrorists, we are peaceful protestors". And yet, that very day Bangkok was being engulfed in the fumes of hundreds of tyres burning at heavily armed check points and there were grenades regularly being shot at civilians who had nothing to do with any of this. The western media reported a very twisted version of what I experienced at the time, and to what I saw the video footage of in the Thai news everyday.

There seems to be a very different viewpoint from people who were actually here and saw some of the riots first hand and had their life affected for one month, compared to the red shirt sympathisers on this forum who spout quotes from the UK Guardian of all sources.

gand, on 2012-05-20 14:26:24, said:

As well as this, before the riots Abhisit held a live televised sit down meeting with 3 of the red shirt leaders to try and find a resolution before it escalated - regardless of the talks offered the same red shirt leaders started the riots the next day. They were not forced into starting the riots when they did but they had already bused in thousands of peasants from all over the country to be a paid flock of sheep to send to the slaughter for them.

Before the clampdown the red shirts were offered their demands and they were offered elections within 6 months (which is what they said they were rioting for) - they immediately changed their demands so the riots and subsequent clampdown could continue and intensify. There was never going to be any negotiation or early end to the riots, the plan all along was to burn Bangkok and kill as many people from both sides as possible and try to blame it all on the other side, which is why they were as provocative and offensive as they were while the army were holding back.

Proof of intent of the riots shown in these two videos filmed 4 months before them;



The red shirt leaders encouraged all the rioters to fight until death and they said they all intended to die there too, but as soon as the army got within shooting distance of them they threw up their hands and surrendered like the cowards they really were. If the red supporters were really there for the movement why do they still support these red shirt leaders who blatantly lied and sacrificed them all during the riots? It's probably because the only thing they actually care about is getting paid to turn up and going to a party with free food and drink.

Corrupt thugs and liars, that's all they really are. It was never (and still isn't) anything to do with any democracy or trying to help any underprivileged Thais. It's all about the cause of one man who would sacrifice his own people and burn down his own country just to get his way.

How anybody, let alone supposedly non-biased non-naive expats, cannot see what really happened is beyond me.

rixalex, on 2012-05-20 12:00:54, said:

Not delusional, just typical of any expat who supports the Red Shirts. They only pick and choose the same 3 defenses for the last two years but when presented with solid evidence that proves the Red Shirts were in the wrong, such as video of Red Shirts and Black Security firing at the army and civvies first, then they stop answering altogether and move onto another thread to recycle the 3 arguments all over again.

How any expat with a brain can defend the Red Shirts after living here during the riots and subsequent events is delusional though.

phiphidon, on 2012-05-17 23:36:34, said:

The big joke...and it is a big sad joke, is the entire redturd movement (no pun intended). Manipulated by a convicted criminal, (even if you don't recognize as legitimate those who convicted him, you know dam_n well he was guilty of fraud,corruption and plundering the nation whose best interest he was supposed to be looking after) who wouldn't walk across the road to piss in their ear if what little brains they have were on fire.
And for what?...Those at the bottom of that food chain are only in it for a small short-lived handout that will do nothing of lasting substance to improve their quality of life. Those further up the chain covet the power to be corrupt as the one who manipulates them albeit on a smaller scale. Mingleing in their midst are dumb plow animals masquerading as foot-soldiers more than happy to foment violence regardless of the consequences that include destroying lives, lively-hoods, personal property and the general well-being of their fellow countrymen.....I wouldn't give a pinch of dried owl shit for the whole bunch of them or some on this site....the arm-chair anarchist and faithful followers of the religion of "anti". Anti-govt., anti-establishment, anti-anything that keeps them searching for meaning in their incomplete personalities, incomplete thought process and perpetually misguided lives.

From speaking to people down here, I get the impression that the machinations of the Shin family aren't appreciated in the south.  The reds are considered employees.
I take this incident as a message to them to keep their mess out of the south.

whybother, on 2012-05-07 09:35:21, said:

Neither side is blameless in the issue of education.  The first thing the army did after the coup was write itself an enormous budget increase.  

http://www.atimes.co...a/LB26Ae01.html

Improving education is a non stop priority, and changes today will take 20 years to feed through the system.

I saw my son's "social' test, for 11 year olds and there genuinely was a multiple answer question "What should you do if you meet a pooyai on the street?", one of the answers to which was 'give an appropriate "wai"".  All rather sad really.  I don't presume that this part of the curriculum was cooked up in the last 9 months, and we have all heard about the questions in the Uni entrance exam.  

It is precisely the untouchable technocrats within the system who are perpetuating some kind of social engineering on society who need to be shaken up and accept that harking back to some golden age is a nonsense.  Thainess has become a noose around the neck of every student in the country.  Every country has some kind of issues with its education system, but whilst other countries in the region are continuing apace to produce world class engineers, mathematicians, or scientists, Thailand is wasting its school time to make sure that people know the order of society and wai each other according to their position.

It is precisely this fear of change, or rebelliousness or freedom of thought that will continue to hold back the creativity and inspiration of Thailand's youth who are the future of the country.  Of course I don't want anarchy, but building inspiration among young minds by definition needs so acceptance that the youth of today will inevitably see the world differently from the middle aged.  The world waits for no one.

creck, on 2012-05-06 16:57:31, said:

It is plain to see that when an accurate picture cannot be remembered from 2 years ago how History can in fact be re written so that it bears no resemblance to actual events.

The Army had taken a very low key and measured response, then the militia element of the Reds started. Civilians were being shot, by armed reds, grenades were being thrown and RPG's used, not by the Army but by the Reds. Government buildings were stormed and key telecommunications establishments were shut down. Human blood was poured on the streets that had even been taken from Children, and a hospital was stormed and occupied causing the evacuation of hundreds of elderly sick patients, and the hospitals inability to function any further. On the stage, key Red leaders were calling for the murder of soldiers, they were telling the reds to kill the Thai soldiers 'run them over with your trucks, then it is only a traffic crime' stated one loathsome individual who now holds government office!

The protests could have been peaceful, but sadly it was a decision of the red leaders to mix in the armed militia and 'black shirts' with the mainly elderly female crowds. Now why did they do that? The red leaders needed a massacre, and they engineered it. The militia opened fire on the soldiers, having had the red leadership incite the crowd to murder. Grenades were thrown and panic ensued, soldiers were being killed and they had every single right to return fire that day. The blackshirts were firing from positions embedded in the crowds and many witnesses saw the black shirts shooting fellow 'red shirts' first to really get the stampede going. Now this is all prior to the burning of Bangkok.

Please tell me what you would expect to be a defensive or retaliatory measure if the events described above had occurred in London or New York? The truth is it would never have got that far because horse mounted police and riot control police would have hospitalized hundreds of protestors well before hand along with inevitable deaths. the Red Leadership got EXACTLY what they were wanting and had engineered, and that single event has put them in power. As for the Army soldiers, if you had a mob running at you with 9mm handguns, shotguns, rifles, grenades and RPG's what would you do? Would you take a stick to a gunfight? I don't think so. The Army had a duty to protect this nation, the Government, it's people and the Monarchy and with a stampeding mob who for days had been incited on stage by leaders to murder and kill soldiers what would you do as a young soldier with that lot running at you and shooting at you?

Lets be crystal clear on this, it was not a one day event, if anything Abhisit was too soft with the protestors and allowed them to cripple a city for three weeks. If he should have been sacked for anything it was that but NOT for allowing the military to defend the laws and rights of this nation. One day it will all come out in the wash how the red leadership engineered the massacre of its own people in order to sway public opinion.

jayboy, on 2012-05-06 12:14:24, said:

I think the main problem was that this election did not quality as 'democratic' - ie: giving people a free and fair choice having run the policies, arguments and a way forward for the nation before the electorate. From the PTP side there were no policies, simply 'bribes' that appealed to the lowest common denominator. And off course those 'bribes' are now proving difficult to pay out because they were not thought-through policies. They were simply spur of the moment ideas that came from the big boss. There was no costing involved and no cost-benefit analysis - they were simply that, BRIBES! When you are offering this to the downtrodden lumpenproletariat  in this country, they think that this is what politics is about. Thaksin, as smart as ever, recognised that this was they way to go. It is sad for the misled population who deserve better than this. They need policies that will improve the everyday lives of people such as better treatment at work and a better education system. They need politics that discourages graft, that offer better health services and that give people opportunities for a better life. It will take some time for Thaksin's ill-considered bribes to come to fruition and by the time they do so most of them will be meaningless, or in the case of the Rice Mortgage scheme, highly damaging to the economy. The whole think is typical of the Thai attitude. Everything is done for short-term gain, nothing is done to safeguard the future and at the end of the day this type of scary politics emanates from one person and one person only as he continues to manipulate 50% of the population for his own greedy and selfish ends. To me this is so transparent that even a child could understand what is happening. They may well have an electoral mandate but this kind of mandate is really not acceptable in any democracy.

hyperdimension, on 2012-05-04 15:58:40, said:

I'll stand in while he's away at the Hitler Youth camp.

This is a politically motivated story pushed by the criminally negligent editorial staff of the world's worst coupist newspaper. Inflation was much higher under the Dems inferior economic management and had the army not illegally coupist thrown coupist the democraticaly coupist government out, we would all be living in Nirvana right now.

phiphidon, on 2012-05-01 11:20:32, said:

More to the point, PTP regularly and blatantly has involved a banned politician (Thaksin) in their campaigning for which they should be disbanded. Why hasn't the election commission referred this to the court? Could it be that they consider it better to ignore transgressions than to play into the hands of Thaksin and throw the country once more into civil strife?

Red democracy to many of us approaches mob rule.

anterian, on 2012-04-23 16:14:08, said:

As to me, I support true democracy, which means I lean more to PT than the Dems

That guy who told Democracy is just a tool to get power.
That party that cheated EVERY election they attended and got already twice disbanded for it?
That party that spoke about a one party list system, integrating all parties including the Democrats (who did not agree).

That is some sarcastic joke, right?

Suradit69, on 2012-04-23 14:57:06, said:

He was trying to screw you, not the owner of the cab.  The owners don't care how much the drivers make on the meter which they know can easily be fiddled.  They charge them a flat rate per day.  The Revenue Department also taxes them at a flat rate per vehicle at a declining rate based on its age.   They know any accounts presented would be fraudulent but make an allowance for repairs and and days off the road for older vehicles.  

This practice of asking for a flat off meter fare is reserved for tourists, except in times of crisis like when the BTS is suspended due to terrorist activity sponsored by local billionaires.  If you speak comprehensible Thai to the driver, he will almost never ask for a fixed fare.  He will gaze in the middle distance for a bit and refuse to take you at all instead.  The latter is marginally preferable to being treating like a moron.

By accepting a fixed fare like that, even if you think it is reasonable, you only encourage cabbies to try to cheat other tourists.  You should just ask him to switch on the meter and, if he fails to comply, waive him on.