rheinwiese

tlansford, on Yesterday, 00:30 , said:

I think you are mistaking my comment about the state of democracy here for a partisan argument about my politics. I don't have a vote here & I'm as happy to criticise any party if they are breaching laws that protect normal citizens and the stability of the nation. Thailand does not & has never had a fully functioning democracy. I felt that there were hopeful green-shoots signs a few times over the years, but now I think we can start talking about autocracy under this regime.
I meant that all the pieces are here for a democracy, freedom of information and communication between citizens using print and digital, a voting system, police force, votes for women, etc. Why it is fledgling is because it is lawless and unregulated & the democratic process is currently hamstrung by this criminal leviathan who keeps surfacing from the depths to take bites out of the social fund.
I used the word fledgling democracy as it is commonly used, to describe the "baby steps" of a democracy that is yet to find its stable footing and walk on. The UK is not a perfect nation, but their long-established democracy and leaders are  legally accountable and closely monitored by independant agencies. In the UK terminally ill people are not left out in the street to die, because of the NHS which protects the poor along democratic principles. Closing the NHS would be political suicide for anyone in a democracy, but for a dictator it would be a mere signature over his morning coffee.
This is the best hope & raison d'etre of democracy, it is not just about having a vote, it is literally the process of accountability, leaders have to stay within an acceptable radius of behaviour to get re-elected & to not get imprisoned. Democracy combined with free media is a social tool for normal people to keep the leaders on a choker-leash. Thailand does not have democracy for this reason.
This regime / familial crime oligarchy are basically wasting national funds and crucial time, to pass laws that pardon their friends, families and hired thugs for all crimes committed, while shelving the important & essential infrastructure-building work, but can still find time to fly overseas and whip-up a spicy salad for photo-shoots.

jaapfries, on 2012-05-27 07:53:23, said:

Thanks for the compliment, I don't really see any literary connection between me & any writers of the past. I'm not an eloquent writer, and for another fact I know about a hundred times less facts & figures about Thailand than most TV forumers do.
I just read the Thai news headlines here in the morning, read the responses & post something if I feel compelled to, then go back to my work elsewhere. Most of the time when I'm reading about Thaksin & this current pseudo-government. I feel only a deep sense of sorrow & a sort of numb horror. I've been visiting Thailand since 1976, I own property here & have many Thai friends who I love dearly & consider to be my only remaining family. They are working-class Bangkok people & it breaks my heart truly to see them being scammed constantly by this and earlier regimes. I see this voiding-law & return of Thaksin as a bleak  and desperate chapter in this nations history.
I was told once that every person / nation has to hit absolute rock bottom before they bounce back and start working every day to succeed & to only move forward positively. The example I was given was drug addicts, who will never break the habit until they seriously O.D. and wake up in hospital after coma, and swear "never again" & genuinely mean it. They have to reach that complete breakdown-state before they change. This applies to countries too. I felt Thailand had hit rock bottom many times in the past, most recently in 2010 with the red-mob, and a rich fugitive setting up poor farmers as sacrificial pawns in a hideous chess game. In late 09 I actually felt that even though Thailand needed a lot of work to clean up the system, it was starting to head in the right direction very slowly. In 2010 during the "burn Bangkok to the ground" redmob speeches, the blood tipping onto the gates etc. I knew that the "rock bottom" years were still ahead. Thailand has not hit rock bottom yet, and so it has not had the system-shock that will make it wake up & walk into the 21st century clear-headedly as a law-abiding & well-regulated meritocracy. I think that maybe the next decade will be the crashing-to-the-floor stage, followed by the bouncing-back. Its impossible to tell when and how because so many people at the higher echelons are playing the game by their own rules, its impossible to know the outcome until it happens IMO. But anyone can see that overturning the Supreme Court's guilty verdict on Thaksin just because he considers himself above the law, is a completely different system to democracy, it is a regression to criminal oligarchy and might-is-right.

Time Traveller, on 2012-05-27 00:20:53, said:

What you say about Thaksin was true 12 years ago. I was talking about today. I notice you skip over the part about the resistance Abhist had to put up within his coalition. Also the terrorism he had to combat. If you think he was wrong just look at how Syria is doing it. He did it in as humane away as the red shirts would let him.

Thaksin In his time he did do some good things but he was in a time of world economics success. And he had the power behind him. If he had used all that power for the betterment of Thailand instead of lining his pockets. He would not have been thrown out. He had very little resistance his undoing is the same that he has now and will not allow him to ever return. EGO actually I think he might fear a bullet is here with his name on it.

What has he done for Thailand lately over 90 dead as a result of his ego. 10 months back in power and the poor red shirts have not one thing to show for it other than the money they got for the Bangkok insurrection and the money they got for voting for him.

Get into 2012 The red shirts have no body to lead them. As I said the Dem's are not a possibility because of the crap they were fed. You criticize me for calling them uneducated what do you think the leaders were calling them when they had to set up a school to teach them what democracy is. Or do you think as I do brainwash them into believing the only true democracy was doing it there way.

Yes the red shirts only happened after the coup but they were all ready in the wings. just waiting for the other two Thaksin led governments to fall on their face. Where they could then try to bring their leader back with illegal means. Or are you saying invasion of hospitals is legal? That is a yes or no question.

Interesting how you equate uneducated with a lower class. As far as I am concerned they just know less than me because I had 12 and a half years of real schooling where if you failed you did not move on to the next grade. It is just a fact not a measurement of class. They were completely happy with the parliamentary system until it didn't work for them. Then all of a sudden they have to have democracy instead. Why did they not change over to democracy when they had the power why wait until they no longer have the power?

A guilty person who is wasting this much money, time, and human lives, just to clear his own tarnished name, is  an arrogant and unrepentant wastrel.  A guilty person who commits these actions at state-level in a poor developing-world nation that is socially and economically fragile at this time, is an uncaring despot.
He could have walked away with his stolen money & lived out his days in the type of luxury that most people can not even dream of, yet he hovers vulture-like over this nation, fermenting divisions, unbalancing people's lives, and uprooting the first green shoots of a fledgling democracy.

Those BIG cheques, did they win them from some sort of competition? or lucky draw? Absolutely ridiculous!!!

And the big giant cheques, who are these people, Happy Gilmore?
How embarrasing for both the victims and the government.
And why is the victim waiing him? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

Don't we all stand in total awe sometimes looking at this country and wondering how everything still somehow works despite all the turmoil and idiotic things coming up on a daily (or should I better say hourly) basis?

Police will crackdown, Thailand will become a hub, a politician will vow to something or another.

jayboy, on 2012-05-06 11:56:25, said:

It's interesting to me that in the case of the coup, despite all the things Thaksin was getting up to when it happened, despite all the check and balances that had been eroded, despite all the cronyism and nepotism, despite all the law changing for personal benefit, despite all the corruption, despite all the law suits being slapped about, despite all the interference in justice and in the media, despite the extra judicial killing of thousands, you remained firm in your belief that democracy was sacrosanct and to not respect it, as the coup did, might short term solve the problems Thaksin was creating, but long term would create more. An admirable position which though i fully understood, i feared because as evidenced in other countries in this region, once a total stranglehold on power is established by one family, it can take many years, sometimes many generations, for the country to be released from their grip, and in that time, the damage can be immeasurable. Worth it in the end you say. Perhaps so, if it is not your family personally suffering.

Now, moving on to the case of the red shirts, there seems to be quite a contrast in your level of devotion to sticking with democracy. I strongly prefer the democratic route you say. Or to put it another way, there may be times when undemocratic methods may be necessary, for the greater good perhaps? Well yes, that is a familiar argument to me. Perhaps the difference is only in when we feel it justified.

What the red shirts attempted whilst Abhisit was in power was to cut short his term by force, by violence, by intimidation. It wasn't democratic. In many ways it was much like a coup attempt. If they had respect for democracy, they would have said, "ok, we don't like the way that Abhisit came to power, but we will respect the democratic principles we preach, and will demonstrate this not by taking to the streets with arms and burning things down, but by trying to get him removed within the law and via the courts, and if this fails, we will simply campaign hard and make sure he is not re-elected at the next election".

One of the few honourable and most honest Thai's that is involved with the governance of what could be an awesome country.
Comparing the morals and values of Abhisit against Thaksin or any many of the Shinwatra's is like chalk and cheese.

hmmm more jobs for the boys to cosolidate control and increase Thaksins power.

Yunla, on 2012-04-19 07:08:17, said:

What a superb post by someone who truly understands the issues.

Populist promises have almost always been the springboard for dictatorships. Part of the problem is the PTP policies are only window-dressing & nobody actually knows what their long-term agenda and policies are.
They are the living emodiment of the English "jam tomorrow" folk-saying ; "well kids, you know its just dry bread today but there'll be jam tomorrow". This is also the type of 'faith in the future' message has been used by many dictators through the centuries. Stick with us, even though your lives are going down the drain, we promise the future will be great. everything will be okay when Thaksin gets back, or maybe in the time of  his son's rule, or  his grandson, great-grandson.
PTP run the country on a skeleton-crew basis, ticking only the mandatory boxes and avoiding everything else. IMO their energies are devoted behind the scenes to installing a permanent familial oligarchy.
I would guess the next step will be to give all poor people a free colour TV, & by coincidence  people will be  watching red-government propaganda on the free TVs along with brain-meltingly bad soap operas and game shows. That wouldn't be so bad if the Govt actually made people's lives better (as promised).
The mistakes made pre-flood & post-flood which were shockingly inept, were brushed aside by the regime as unimportant, but the flood exposed the government-level complete lack of robust quick-thinking which are the trademarks of competent leadership. It also raised the question of what they consider important. Even the request to have a state of emergency during the worst floods for over 50 years, was rebuffed by Yingluck along partisan and control-freak lines.
All the meaningful pre-election promises by PTP  have failed to appear even in start-up phase, except for a few stragglers that emerged blinking into the light & feeling all alone.
People in the opposition are very concerned that the country they love is being hijacked, and in the worst case scenario the groundwork for a dynastic oligarchy is being laid-out. The feeling among many international observers is that the worst is yet to come & Thai peoples future is one of being industrially-fleeced & exploited & deceived.

Thailand, on 2012-03-27 10:41:31, said:

I have to agree with 'Thailand', I don't think there will be flooding like last year.  Nope this year it is going to be severe drought for eight more months.  Nothing will grow, the poor farmers will have dust to cultivate and will become poorer, the price of food will rise, and the poor will become poorer.  And Thailand will still be without a proper water management plan, but one or more politicians will manage to fill their pockets with tea money from all the purported water management plans designed by the Thai experts and constructed by the skilled Thai workers.  When it does flood again, it will be proven by nature, the water management plans will fail because of poor design and construction.  There will be lots of talk about impropriety and corruption and investigations will ensue ... after months of finger pointing they will come to the conclusion 'we choose the wrong experts and construction contractors last time, this time we will do a better job'.  The whole cycle will repeat itself.