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Elections do not equal democracy.

The government must listen to the people and look after their interests, too.

Social contracts like "we steal as much as we want but we'll also throw enough your way to keep you happy" do not equal democracy either. They do that in Saudi Arabia and other oil rich Middle East countries.

Democracy is also inclusive - winner takes all attitude is not democracy, like pandering to the majority of population but completely tramping upon interests of minority.

And the way Thai elections are won and their "acceptable" rules of fight - democracy shouldn't even be mentioned.

This topic duplicates another thread on the same story.

The govt has all the rights to question MCOT motives broadcasting this interview as pro-Thaksin movement prepares for their next round of anti-government protests.

To me it seems like a clear propaganda piece dressed up as "interview". Honest journalist would have asked a lot more probing and challenging questions.

Without seeing it or reading transcript it's difficult to judge, but my impression is that the interview was just a promotional piece for Thaksin.

No difficult questions, no probing, no follow ups, no mention of calls for people's revolution, for example, and why his kids have left the country while he was asking reds to bring THEIR kids to the fight.

Just because it was done in a interview format doesn't mean it as an honest journalistic effort. The govt has all the rights to ask why the state media is used to promote Thaksin in the run up to the scheduled anti-government offensive (Sept 19 demo).

All stories about clever voters aside, candidates wouldn't be wasting money if it didn't work.

There are MANY other less than legal ways to sway the voters and direct handing out money is probably not even the most effective.

As to the details of his conviction, they were slightly shady, to say the least. Land that was bought over the price the Chuan government has fixed, from an agency that was declared for the sake of the judgement as state agency, wich though in a previous case was declared a private entity, and therefore exempt from the law that forbids politicians to buy assets from state agencies.

1. Thai courts are NOT obliged to follow precedents

2. That previous case was about trying to get the govt to repay FIDF debts

3. The point of whether FIDF was a state agency covered by this specific article under which Thaksin was tried was decided with overwhelming majority whereas the conviction itself was 5-4 split.

The party dissolution came through a coup introduced law. The '97 constitution said nothing about party dissolution in such a case.

You are mistaken here.

TRT dissolution was the punishment recommended by the very first investigating panel appointed by the EC, it was in May 2006, long before the coup.

Thai At Heart

I think there will be virtually no obligation on the defendants to "prove" anything. They can just shut up if they want to and do nothing. The obligation to prove illegal activity under the "National Security" and defamation law will lie entirely with the prosecution. I would doubt that the prosecution can even prove that there was any malicious intent in sending the email to a couple of friends.

Prosecution doesn't have to prove malicious intent, they have illegal action - spreading false information - that clearly falls under the Computer Act.

Guys can plead ignorance in their defense but I doubt it will get very far in court - checking authenticity of that clip was their responsibility as "publishers". Imagine a traditional media outlet getting hands on the clip first - the journalist and the editors would have full legal responsibility for its content and "we didn't know it was doctored" defense argument would be totally absurd. Computer Act simply extends this kind of responsibility to people who post stuff on the Internet.

Justanother....

This constitution has tremendous weaknesses, which all result in a step back to a much larger military involvement in political decision making. The constitution has been more or less a few very clear outcomes: more military control, less power for elected representatives. Instead of keeping the constitution short and easy, and to let the rest be dealt with via organic laws, we have a rather strange document, which has seen it even necessary to give retroactive amnesty to the coup makers. Sorry - but this is a constitution fit for a banana republic, and not for Thailand.

The sky is falling! The sky is falling.

I'm afraid none of this has any ground whatsoever.

There's no military control or involvement in any political decision making and the elected representatives do not have less powers, they are just under more oversight.

I'm surprised you came up with this critique without any reference to the amendment proposals. On the second thought - no, I'm not surprised, because those changes would expose your criticism as groundless.

The only more or less relevant point is demand for lawmakers to be given access to government work as advisors, or any other positions. The idiots just realized that being in parliament leaves you with boring legislative duties with no access to any funds and all the executive work is being done by someone else, and they want a piece of that pie. And we know why they want their hands on budgets - to serve the public, of course...

TRT was dissolved under provisions in 1997 constitution, there weren't any new laws retroactively applied to suddenly make it illegal. One of the deciding points in TRT case was complete inaction over the offenses - everybody knew what had happened, Chaturon testified to that, yet no one in the party thought it was wrong and anyone should be punished. So, I don't buy the argument that any of their executives were innocent - they all condoned Thammarak's transgressions, including breaking into the EC database and falsifying official records. They all just sat there and pretended nothing happened and no internal party actions were necessary.

Democrats, on the other hand, had promptly distanced themselves from the guy accused of bribing those same parties, he was fired and disowned and there were internal inquiries and party resolutions.

>>>>

On the eve of the coup there were no elections scheduled for October. That date was thrown out of the window months earlier, when the EC commissioners were busted. The new commissioners were appointed just as the coup happened, and they didn't promise any dates whatsoever when interviewed by the media. Go and check Nation's archives for that interview, if you want, it was published one or two days before the coup.

JR Texas - what is so creative about Japan or South Korea or Singapore?

Those are probably the most collectivist countries with no thinking outside the prescribed box allowed.

There is a recognizable Japanese and South Korean "creative" waves, however.

What I see is what I said in my post on the previous page - they just try to exploit someone else's creativity deeper than any competitors, including the "creative" West itself. In many ways they are already better at this than Disney that's been cashing on the same basic formula for decades.

Everybody can do that, it's not real creativity, it's just higher degrees of copycatting.

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Thailand has it's own outlook on the world to work from. The stuff they produce from their traditional arts and stories is solid good, thought not entirely in tune with the new metro-sexual world. Even if it does not become a commercial success it is still capable of capturing people's hearts and imagination as it appeals to basic human emotions, albeit form a different angle, and that's where they can exploit the "creativity".

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To the people who complain about rote learning in Thai schools - get over it. Genetically Thais must be pretty average with the average amount of creativity genes. The education system can dampen those genes development but it's not the only factor. In some ways rebelling against that school system can give the best creativity boost ever. Same thing happened in the West decades ago, didn't it?

>>>

I have no faith in West creativity at this point anymore. It's the thing of the past, creative genes have been weeded out. It's my personal opinion, based on the lack of any inspiring ideas in any field of human knowledge in the past decade or so. The creative spunk is gone. Will Asia or Thailand in particular pick it up? I don't know. At best I think they've got a healthy reaction going on. I don't know if it is sustainable.

Ding, I understand where you are coming from.

What I don't understand is why those free market remedies are proposed for Thailand now. Is it because it's kind of a hard sell at home so they look for impressionable third world countries?

Not to say that Tawp is a part of some conspiracy, but, to be honest, why is he proposing solutions that would be laughed off in the country that needs them most? Does he think that we are some gullible bunch easy to be converted or what?

After 1997 crisis Thailand has took that same free-market medicine and it is generally agreed that it wasn't a right prescription. Why is it offered again? There's a smell of snake oil salesman here.

You are confusing a private individuals right to privacy and a public servant/figures right to privacy in terms of their conduct in carrying out their public duty.

No, I'm not confusing those and it has practically nothing to do with defamation and libel you are likely to be sued for in this case. There could be an issue of disclosing classified information and in that case you are screwed because the govt had got it legally covered already and you'll need really good lawyers to wiggle out of that one.

Possessing a piece of information about a public servant that one believes to be true and disseminating it because it serves "public interest" is a very different issue to invading someone's privacy.

Of cause it is, so they'll sue you for defamation instead.

I don't think anyone of us would agree that forwarding a picture of one's spouse or girlfriend to a website constitutes the same invasion of privacy as catching a politician in a lie.

No, she'll sue for insinuating that she provides sexual services, not for putting her phone number in public domain.

In this situation, I don't think the defendants would have too much difficulty explaining that they believed it to be true and that they had no reason to believe it wasn't true.

Sure they can argue that, it's their right, as defendants. The point is that Abhisit has the right to challenge them which you seem to deny.

In this particular case, in my personal opinion, what was in that clip goes very much against ALL public records of Abhisit speaking on the issue so they would have to give a very good reason why they trusted the authenticity of that tape. It is their responsibility unless they put a huge disclaimer that the court would recognize.

If the apparently fabricated tape were genuine, you would like them to be guilty of forwarding it to someone?

The point is that your victims have all the rights to clear their names and if they think that your disclosure breaks the law in some way they can sue you to their hearts content.

In this case the guys will have to prove they believed the clip was genuine and they acted in good faith, as whistle blowers. That will be a very hard task.

The point is - as soon as you go public you become responsible for the information you publicize.

The reality is that if you post pictures of your ex girlfriend on Thai Visa, advertise that she gives the best head and give her phone number, she can sue the forum to disclose any information about you, and then sue you and she will most likely win.

Tawp, I'm not even going to read a libertarian article about virtues of the free market.

There's worldwide consensus that this current crisis was the result of trust in markets being able to monitor and correct themselves, and there's worldwide consensus that this idea needs to be buried and never touched anytime soon.

If one doesn't know that it is fake, the mere fact of transmitting it to someone can still get one into trouble.

Snap out of it - you can potentially get in trouble for publicizing anything, anywhere.

As soon as someone else gets exposed without their consent you become liable.

Don't pretend you never heard of the concept.

An audio clip that can potentially put Prime Minister out of the office and possibly in jail - and you think you somehow immune from any liability???

There are thousands of political whistleblowers all over the world day in and day out. I bet Nixon wished he had these kind of laws around in his time.

You ever wonder why Deep Throat identity was not revealed at that time, and why some still think he was a traitor?

And any wistleblower must be prepared to defend his information if challenged, and there will be no mercy if they present any fabricated evidence.

You somehow assume that freedom of speech means you can harm anyone in any way you want without any responsibility as long as it's done through words and no one can challenge you.

Where did you get this idea?

If one doesn't know that it is fake, the mere fact of transmitting it to someone can still get one into trouble.

Snap out of it - you can potentially get in trouble for publicizing anything, anywhere.

As soon as someone else gets exposed without their consent you become liable.

Don't pretend you never heard of the concept.

An audio clip that can potentially put Prime Minister out of the office and possibly in jail - and you think you somehow immune from any liability???

Abhisit is not pushing for his man to be a police chief. He doesn't have his people in the police, he never had a chance to plant any, he's been in power for less than a year.

He pushes for his choice out of seven candidates presented to him.

Anyone in the red camp could have come up with the idea, then run by the bosses, got a nod and went forward with the execution.

The fact that it somehow surfaced in a Shinawatra company makes and not anywhere else makes it very suspicious.

There's also the fact that it wasn't produced for fun, there was clearly a malicious intent. It's nice to pin it all on some lady at the bus stop, but what are the chances of her giving it to Shinawatra employees purely by accident?

Until they can produce the lady it's the same as "dog ate my homework" defense. No one cares if police investigation doesn't get anywhere - big political points have been scored already, and that's what really matters, not possible jail terms for some low ranking computer geeks.

I asked about Linux machines at the Mall Bangkapi (Bangkok) a couple of days ago - they didn't have any, and it was official Mall computer section with many different brands. I was disappointed.

The only option was one Asus notebook with "ExpressGate" - a version of Linux built into the motherboard, boots in 8 seconds to Internet access. Of course it's not a proper operating system and you only get four-five applications like FF based browser, media player, skype and pidgin, but it's still interesting.

As soon as the troops fire on the crowd Abhisit's toast.

Why? If reds look like they are going for Songkran replay many will cheer the army to shoot more of them, if Thai history is any indication.

The military will have its excuse to seize power again

Well, the military are the ones who will be firing those shots, so would be the coup against themselves?

It just doesn't make sense. The coup is impossible at this time for a lot of reasons, from 2006 experience of running the country to non-existence of any particular faction powerful enough to pull it off and with protests from both red and yellow camps in between.

Given that the police investigation has cleared SC Assets, and the government has so far not even protested - there are far more reasons that these claims are completely unreasonable.

Just because a Democrat party spokesperson has accused SC Asset (and note: no investigator has done so), only to backtrack two days after, claiming that he was "misquoted" by the media, does not mean that several posters here can go off the deep end, and ignore whatever may counter these claims.

The undisputed fact is that two SC Asset employees started an e-mail chain from their office computers. People have all the reasons to suspect the company was somehow involved, even if the police can't find any evidence and Democrat spokesman can't publicly accuse them of anything.

I mean to say that we don't need final Supreme Court verdict after all appeals have been completely exhausted to say that SC Asset was involved in this case. THere are reasons to substantiate that claim, too.

From that report published in the Naiton:

"The report said 2,819 people were killed in 2,559 murder cases between February and April in 2003. Of those killed, 1,370 were related to drug dealing, while 878 of them were not. Another 571 people were killed without apparent reason.

Some 54 people were killed in shootouts with police officers, 41 with known drug-related links but two without any known ties. Another 11 people were killed but it is not known how they were involved in the shootouts.

The overall murder rate two years before and two years after the three-month 'War on Drugs' was 454 cases a month, or a third of the number killed between February and April 2003."

I can't see 2,500+ drug killings from this report, perhaps it is wrong, or includes deaths from later on.

I can't easily say how many of those victims died as a result of drug war policy either. The surge above the average rate would give something like 1,300 deaths, in three months the statistic was compiled.

The news that the company has been cleared means very little.

First of all it means they can't find any proof of connection - internal memos, e-mails, or other employees confessions. If the order was given by phone or in person there wouldn't be any trace left anyway, so the possibility is still there.

I don't know if you noticed, but Thai Visa forum is an online discussion board, not the courtroom and we don't need proof beyond reasonable doubt.

Personally I'm gathering all the reasonable doubt that SC Asset wasn't involved and the woman at the bus stop gave the CD to Shinawtra employees by sheer luck. What are the chances.

So far there's no proof that the woman ever existed, haven't checked the latest news yet, but no one else has seen her or those CDs.

The money allegedly comes from Veera+Jatuporn+Nattawut leftovers from whatever Thaksin gives them to organise the rallies.

Tmd and Lomsak - Thaksin was elected in 2005 but dissolved the parliament in February 2006. That's when he lose "elected" status and became "caretake" Prime Minister. A couple of days after elections in April 2006 he went on national TV and said he was stepping down from politics and left the office. There was "acting caretaker" Prime Minister Chidchai who was at the helm for about six weeks.

Then Thaksin came back, uninvited.

The e-mail origin has been traced to SC Asset, the company itself has been cleared but two employees (though reportedly already fired) are still under investigation.

They are not the creators of the clip, they've been charged with dissimination only.

Nothing will probably come out of the search for mysterious woman giving out CDs at a bus stop.

Political points have been scored, time to move on for everybody, unless Chalerm goes ahead and plays the clip during TV broadcast from parliament. Apparently in such case he won't be under immunity and Dems are likely to charge him full steam.