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There is overwhelming concern about possibility of red demos inflicting damage to the country in one way or another, I bet all those people feel relieved now.

And closing the airport last December to install your own "shirt" for a PM didn't harm the nation in the least bit?

~WISteve

People are not worried about last year. Today they are worried about what's going to happen tomorrow, or next week, or October - whenever it is the reds are promising a big revolution.

Everyone will forget about it by Monday.

There's no damage to PTP or the reds or Shinawatras - they are pracitcally expected to produce false evidence every couple of months. Some sloppy record is not going to bring their reputation any lower than it already is.

The only intersting thing what impact will be there on the red believers, but their leaders can always blame it on someone else, so no damage there, too.

They couldn't block the govt house, they were free to assemble at Sanam Luang.

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Re "moral victory" - sure, when going gets tough declare victory and retreat.

There is overwhelming concern about possibility of red demos inflicting damage to the country in one way or another, I bet all those people feel relieved now.

By the way Thailand is a authoritarian police state.

Yeah, and the police are all red.

Perhaps they thought they displaying splits in the red camp and without direct Thaksin blessing the rally would be counterproductive.

Kwanchai and his Udon orks said they were not coming, maybe other provincial leaders thought it was a waste of money, too. Then there's a matter of Jakrapob vs Three Stooges split that looks too ideological for comfort.

What if Thaksin wasn't enthusiastic about a phone in for the rally he didn't want?

All that coupled with security force in place to prevent any march on the govt house, and it's better to postpone the rally then risk getting into trouble without sufficient support.

Why couldn't you just wait to see the evidence from the Dems' side first before jumping to your foregone conclusion that the pro-democracy peace-loving non-Thaksin related Red angels would never ever do this?

Because the Democrats can say a lot. The issue will be decided in a court of law...

I doubt Dems will go all the way through the court of law, though they certainly making loud noises about that.

I don't understand why posters on this board have to wait for the court decision to form their opinions about origins of this hoax. And I certainly don't understand why Abhisit needs a ruling from the court of law to prove whether he said something or not.

Why don't you apply that same standard to your own posts?

Until it is proven in the court law you can't say that elites or Prem or whoever else was behind the coup. PAD didn't occupy the airport until proven in the court of law, and it wasn't PAD guards in that videoclip of Phahonyothin shooting unless the court says so.

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Reds wanted to make the accusations public to damage Abhisit, perhaps hoping that by the time the truth will come out the rumor will be spread far and wide already. Abhisit, on the other hand, can put up SC Asset connection for everyone to see. It's on news talk shows as I type this already. Who cares if Kantana's conclusion is not legally binding on anyone.

For non-red Thailand - another nail in red coffin, for the reds - there's a chance that some of them will be offended by their leaders trying to fool them. Not sure about that, though - all the doubting infidels must have cleared out of that camp already. The rest will only strengthen their believe in Abhisit's evil.

What a cynical, red way to manipulate weak human nature!

That FCCT affair was just a reminder that western journalists do not have automatic immunity and should obey the laws of the host country.

They've been behaving like some sort of anti-monarchy/revolution club for too long, inviting one LM offender after another, and then selling their recorded speeches. Whatever they think of Thai political system, medieval or not, it's not their job to support any revolutionary movement, anywhere in the world.

And it's not North Korea or Zimbabwe, there's no unified world opinion on merits of Thai revering their King.

Hold on, there IS a unified opinion - Thailand is a Kingdom and no country or official organisation support anti-monarchy movement, except those FCCT journalists.

We all know that LM crimes are used to silence political opponents ...

No, we don't know that. Da Torpedo is no political opponent, she is a lose nutjob.

I'm not claiming that Thailand is or is not a civilized, developed, advanced society that respects free speech.

I'm only claiming that in a civilized, developed, advanced society that respects free speech, even loose nutjobs are entitled to voice their opinions.

It wasn't giving an opinion. She wasn't in a contemplative mood, pondering her own thoughts.

I think one of the original articles sited the court as saying her speech was a considered a threat.

As some said here - even some of her audience were turned off by aggressive delivery.

I have no idea what she said, and no way of finding out. But the important thing is that she must have said something bad. So I think 18 years is too lenient and they need much harsher penalties.

She based her speech on the fate of Nepalese royal family and went from there. Or maybe it was the other way around.

Sondhi was charged with LM simply for relaying what she said, these things are not repeated in public in Thailand.

Not only the Nepalese, she spoke about France with some pretty ugly details. Sondhi hold the VCD in his hand, I think that was enough (don't know if he told about what she spoke).

Just off topic:

I just for my own person, I would not like if someone speaks about hacking off my head in front of a cheering crowed......

Thanks for filling out the details, it was the Nepalese example that somehow stuck in my memory. Maybe because French history is totally lost on Thai public but Nepal was all over the news just a few years ago.

Anyway, I think we should stop here, I don't want to speak in code for what she said. I caught it here, I think, before it was removed by mods.

It was bad.

Anyone who threw their shoe at the US president in Washington would not get a prison sentence. Anyone who threw their shoe at the US president in Iraq might well get arrested and sentenced to jail. Anyone who tried throwing a shoe at a (hypothetical) Thai head of state would not live long enough to be arrested by the police.....

I have no idea what would happen to a person trying to throw anything at the US president. He'll probably live, depends on circumstances and Secret Service reaction. When it all clears out, throwing shoes might not consitute violence, and certainly not label or defamation.

In Thailand the red mobs have tried to kill Abhisit, twice, no one is in even jail so far.

The business side of football. Credit to his sharp eye for identifying and started the ball rolling for turning Man City into one of the richest club in the EPL now in serious contention for trophies. Anyway you spin it you cannot deny Khun Thaksin is a shrew business and marketing guru

If he was a real guru he wouldn't have been kicked out from "his" club and all memories of his reign removed from club grounds.

If was really shrewd he would have been running one of the biggest conglomerates in South East Asia by now instead of hopping from one wretched corner of the world to another looking for investment opportunities in some diamond mines. What next? Small arms trafficking?

That "shrewd" businessmen invested in oil and Dubai real estate when their prices were at their historic highs and suffered huge, huge losses just in a few months.

We all know that LM crimes are used to silence political opponents ...

No, we don't know that. Da Torpedo is no political opponent, she is a lose nutjob.

Australian writer was not a political opponent, and neither was the guy who uploaded cartoons on the internet.

Jakrapob might be qualified as political opponent, but it's not like LM charge has silenced him, and he hasn't been convicted yet.

So, no, I don't know of any examples of silencing political opponents.

I have no idea what she said, and no way of finding out. But the important thing is that she must have said something bad. So I think 18 years is too lenient and they need much harsher penalties.

She based her speech on the fate of Nepalese royal family and went from there. Or maybe it was the other way around.

Sondhi was charged with LM simply for relaying what she said, these things are not repeated in public in Thailand.

Lese Majeste law in LOS goes far beyond slander and libel. Obviously you do not know the system in LOS. There is a difference between criticisms and opinions AND slander and libel.

I don't know of any cases where anyone was prosecuted for simply expressing opinions or criticisms, and I think I keet a good tab on all LM offences for the past couple of years.

Accusing the Red Shirts without having clear proof is about as ugly as manufacturing the recording.

Abhisit doesn't need a clear proof that he didn't say any of those things he is accused of. He was there.

thought crimes

She wasn't just thinking, she was rallying thousands of people from a stage. She got six years, less than half maximum punishement. Unfortunately it was three times on three different occasions.

I don't see why the royal instution can't have a special anti-defamation law that covers every other Thai. One thing Abhisit mentioned - the King can't sue his own subjects, so the usual defamation laws wouldn't work.

There was a story of a woman who sued some guy for posting offensive messages about her on the Net. Every Thai has the right to protect themselves, why not Royals?

She must request the pardon first.

That dude who posted offensive cartoons and got some ten years in jail doesn't want to request one, so none is given.

Australian writer asked for pardon, Swiss graffiti "artist" asked for pardon (or was his German, don't mention the war).

I think the idea is to truly repent, not just issue "I never meant to say that" statement.

Certainly not as much vocabulary as native speakers and grammatically the speech is far from perfect, but they just don't shut up, and, a good thing, they don't pretend to sound like English or Americans - I find that extremely annoying.

A horribly long time ago when I was a Thai language student at the AUA there was an extraordinarily gifted linguist called J.Marvin Brown - one of those mysterious American Asia hands whom one presumed had a history in covert operations. I think he wrote the AUA Thai language course.He had perfect Thai,Khmer and Lao and perhaps other Asian languages under his belt.I remember one of his pieces of advice was to listen very carefully how educated Thais speak and copy their phrasing and intonation.In fact I think "mimic" was the word he used.Certainly he would have had no difficulty in a reasonably accomplished foreign student trying to sound like a Thai if learning Thai or a French man if learning French.In other words mimicry is part of being a good linguist.But where I agree with you is sharing the irritation if it's not done very well.My pet peeve are those Thai Inter stewardesses with imperfect English compounded by a travesty of an American accent.

Hmm, maybe it's ok for that extraordinary gifted person to mimic others, because he can really pull it off and back it up, but for the vast majority of Thais mimicking British/American accents is just as annoying as trying to swear in a foreign language.

I also don't like personality disorder that comes with it - accent is just one part of an image, and you are supposed to carry yourself in a certain way if you want to sound like upper class Brit or Californian. I like Thais just the way they are, thank you very much.

Jakrapob joined Thaksin only in 2003.

The original TRT strategists are rather quiet now, I have no idea who they would choose between Jakrapob and Jatuporn and co. I think they are smart enough to realise that the fight is over, TRT isn't coming back, time to put it behind and start looking into the future, and their careers in politics are over.

If they return to politics various reds will haunt them forever with all kinds of requests or accusations, and I don't think they have enough energy and power to re-create "think new, act new" party that will capture people's imagination.

Maybe one or two out of them or their new generation followers will eventually emerge as an alternative to PTP and Democrats. God knows, they might even group with PAD party and create a movement of people against politicians. New "new politics", so to speak. That kind of movement is certainly on the cards, Abhisit is the last chance to prove the "old politics" might just work, but he is alone in the sea of sharks and all those Newin inspired scams are already annoying.

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Bilingual schools, however insteresting, are off topic here, but while we are at it - I doubt that there was any research into it - it all happened so fast, driven purely by market forces and private school management. I have never seen anything like that anywhere else - there are bilingual schools all over the world, but never to try and learn a foreign language.

So far I'm impressed with the results - observing two kids porgress at one of the demonstrations schools here. Can't afford a proper International school, and don't trust the cheap ones, but kids were practically fluent by grade 3. Certainly not as much vocabulary as native speakers and grammatically the speech is far from perfect, but they just don't shut up, and, a good thing, they don't pretend to sound like English or Americans - I find that extremely annoying.

Yes, yes, it's us, out of tune farangs.

ALL Thais are completely convinced that reds were real sweet angels during Songkran.

After all, 76% of them want the govt to impose Emergency laws during this weekend red rally to protect the reds, not the government.

Yeah, right.

Bottom line - you can't have elections until reds develop tolerance.

Bottom line - you can't have elections until All Sides develop tolerance

Useful addition.

In practice, however, TRT/PPP/PTP campaigns have hardly ever been obstructed anywhere. There was some incident in Songkla in the run up to 2006 elections, but was well short of many instances of red attacks on other rallies in the North and North East.

Another bottom line - it's not PAD who are going to created disturbances during elections.

PAD has a registered party now, reds will have to let them campaign as much as they want. Can they restrain themselves? If Marshbags account of the atmosphere in Udon is correct - they are not ready for elections yet.

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Jayboy, that Pasuk/Baker book is seriously outdated when it comes to red camp development, which is normal for a book. After Songkran reds shed all pretence of being pro-democracy and focused on being Thaksin groupies instead. There are splits in leadership there but if there are any pro-democracy voices still left, the are completely drowned in celebration of Thaksin glorious personality. Various opportunists and hangers on from anit-coup to republicans who claimed that red movement was a real thing do not even squeak anymore. I'm afraid Nation's red mouth Prawit has been fired, or took extended leave, or just can't bring himself to reporting on pardon petition anymore.

In the meantime I await at least a glimmer of recognition by Marshbanks of the disgusting and racist language used about Isaan people at PAD rallies in Bangkok.

i was not aware of this , (i don't doubt it happened and i most certainly believe it would have happened)

what were some of those things they said ?

Well, you don't know what the said by Jayboy claims it's an excuse for Red's intolerance. How many of them actually heard it first hand? Or is it just a rumor spread specifically to incite hatred?

I bet no one here knows what exactly Jayboy is referring to. I don't.

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Ah, forget it, it's all PAD's fault anyway.

Have I made a fetish about elections? I don't believe so but they will need to be held in the next year or so.

I thought you advocated snap elections ever since Dems formed the coalition.

Nor do I condone intimidation or violence from whatever source.However A PAD rally in a place like Udon Thani is as provocative as a Red rally in say Songkhla - remember these are pressure groups not legitimate political parties.

Believe it or not, but even Udon has a local PAD chapter, and so does Songkla. Have reds been attacked and beaten there? Has anyone been killed, like in Chiang Mai?

Bottom line - you can't have elections until reds develop tolerance.