Plus

Oh, and didn't Thaksin once hired a PR firm to put himself into WSJ, among others?

Even if it was a couple of years ago, personall connections are still there, if he managed to win them over back then.

PAD believes they can liberate the peasantry from the yoke of "money politics".

Wouldn't it be nice?

Of course it would be better if Isanese took their fate in their own hands and worked out themselves how to improve their lot, but I wouldn't bet on it just yet.

Someone else has to save their sorry asses, they themselves expect nothing less.

There's no shortage of saviors either.

In yesterday's Nation they mentioned 200 farmers at the Commerce ministry, led by some other Thai Rice assossiation. They also quoted anonimous source saying that the protest could be organised by rice millers, not farmers.

It's one big mess. There's no unified rice policy, just adhoc measures withoug any foresight.

TRT turned its attention to Thailand's poor North East...

During their first election campaign it was not an issue at all. Isan has become their stronghold after NAP and other Isan parties were absorbed in TRT, and so Isanese keep voting for the same bosses under different flags.

In the meantine Democrat MPs managed to ensure people in their provinces prospered regardless of who was in charge in Bangkok for the past two decades.

Isanese porverty is a bed of their own making.

I don't want to speculate why they keep electing same guys over and over again. Reasons are too many and none to pleasing to their self-esteem.

Someone more idealistic might imagine that the poorer provinces voted PPP because the people there thought a PPP-led government would give them more help than a Democrat-led one

How would they know - they never had one.

And this line of reasonsing was invented only in the later years of TRT, towards 2004 elections. That was five years ago, and the gap between Democrat provinces and TRT provinces has probably only grown bigger.

Oh, and why would anyone go to Wall Street Journal to get a proper assessement of a nascent socialist party?

>>

One thing caught my eye in that article - the cliche about red areas of the country being underdeveloped at the expense of Bangkok and urban centers.

Chang Noi recently re-compiled these statistics from a bit different angle. He found that not only Bangkok, but ALL areas where people traditionally vote for Democrats have two-three times higher incomes than areas voting for NAP/TRT/PTP.

Given that Democrats had been in power for only 25% of the time in the past two decades, and during the crisis, it's difficult to blame them for distorting national policies to favour their strongholds.

Reds have beed screwed up by their own leaders, not by elites, not by the military, not by Democrats.

There's nothing new about PAD just the old old refrain of hatred of politicians and whining about the stupidity of peasants

Yeah, but nothing has ever been done. In the west they've been patching up the flawed system, in Thailand there's a chance to start something radically different.

The rally is aimed at instilling nationalism

Didn't they get the memo that only PAD rallies must be called nationalist?

Nothing was paid so far, the contract is stalled.

Yesterday there was a letter about this in the Nation and editors left a note that the emergency degree part of the judgement needs to be clarified.

academic experts don't always get it right

What about always getting it wrong?

As I said, I can't bring myself to commenting on yet another elite conspiracy theory. I don't want to waste time on yet another charge that some invisible third hand issues orders to Abhisit. That's just <deleted>.

And I'd say fuc_k the scholar who says that the army ordered Songkran crackdown and Anupong was in charge.

I'm saying that they can't buy a bunch of bloody buses. Don't care what the reasons.

Of course they can "buy a bunch of bloody buses" if they wanted to, there's no law against it, is there?

What you are arguing in favour of, is that we should close our eyes to the blatant corruption underlying this deal. Dear Plus, for years you have exposed the corruption that was happening under Thaksin, sad that just because your colour of snouts are now at the trough, you have lost your enthusiasm for honesty and decency. Just close our eyes for the sake of expediency!

I'm not condoning corruption in this deal, my point has nothing to do with it.

And no, they can't buy a bunch of bloody buses, they would have bought they a long time ago if they could.

There's no law against it, Thai state machinery just lacks capabilities.

There are too many conflicting interests - Democrats, BJT, PTP, senators, BMTA, Nesdac, public, media - they all want something different and they all pull in different directions. There's too much squabbling to get anything done.

Possibility of corruption is just one of the obstacles. The deal can be cleaned of that, but then BJT would protest. If BJT is satisfied with the prices, PTP and the media would protest and so on.

And these are structural flaws in how Thai state operates, you can possibly patch this one deal up but the structural flaw means the same problem will reappear again and again and again.

My usenext with 12 SSL connections runs at 4.2 mbps, about three times faster than giganes with 20 ssl connections, so I cancelled while I was still on trial.

Got usenetserver instead, no CC problems anymore, and so far it's just as fast. Trying to take full advantage of their trial, too.

Their unlimited package cost nearly double than my 25gb usenext, I don't think I really have a need to download that much, plus I will loose my free search and browsing options that come with usenext.

I haven't seen any adult material on free nzb sites, and browsing groups for it is a lot more fun than searching for specific titles. Usenext client has integreated one clickpreview for most filegroups, and images look like flipping pages in a regular photoalbum on the net.

How can I live without that???

You are driving 2l civic and "they" some 1.6l corollas or worse. Pickups are naturally slow off the line, too.

I'm saying that they can't buy a bunch of bloody buses. Don't care what the reasons.

>>>

I don't want to speak on behalf of the investors. Generally they are prepared for some level of corruption, as long as things move alone. Guys who wanted to sell these buses have been waiting for over a year and now we are back to square one - thirty days to study wether to buy or to lease.

I bet the bus company thinks "could somebody just take the money and make it happen?"

Companies that want to invest in mass transit rail projects can't be very happy with this endless saga either. Perhaps they also look at case studies of Germans who built Don Mueang tollway or Chinese who built Hopewell pillars.

The next argument I expect is that "Thaksin made things happen". Yes, he did. Unfortunately the way they "happened" brought his downfall, too, so that didn't work even in the mid term - he had less than five productive years before everything went south.

I think there is some of the answer in two factors -

one the cars are automatic.

In heavy traffic the manuals are the worst. It takes them forever to shift into a gear and there's always at least one car that would cut in front of them while they are moving their arms and legs.

Off the green light autos shift earlier, that's true, but that's not a big deal as everyone's auto shifts at the same time. They just don't step on gas, that's all.

Yeah, but note how all these agreements are announced by PTP members and never by democrats. In one case I the chairmen had to clarify that it was just a proposal and no agreements have been reached. Don't remember which proposal was that, though.

>>>>

I don't understand why they want the courts to get involved with yellow cards now. They have always wanted the courts to stay clear of politics. What happened now?

Curbing EC powers is not going to fly with the public, and the courts will most definintely refuse.

The court said that the militiary was acting according to rules and regulations. It's unclear if they were legally immune from any prosecution while performing their duties but chances are they were.

Why is this ruling bad and must be Thaksin is exonerated because he was so popular at the time is beyond me.

Questions like why the only person ever to sincerely apologise for Tak Bai was the evil string pulling general and not a single politician is beyond "renowed" scholar's scope of mental masturbation.

Pravit in his recent Nation opinion acknowledged that essentially some people think that military is worse than Thaksin, and some people think that Thaksin is worse than the military. It will take several evolution cycles for the renowed scholar to realise existence of that other opinion.

There's nothing worse than suffering inflicted by listening to half-baked gurus publicly exposing their ignorance.

I don't know anyone who wants to change the present system but the PAD.

Reds don't want any changes, apart from no oversight from "bureaucratic polity".

PTP don't want any changes either, just less control from independent bodies.

Democrats have to carry the flag for parliamentary system, trying to prove that it works.

Nong Pluem was very happy that PAD has decided to join the mainstream politics instead of being the voice of people on the streets.

As for the poor Im not sure they dont want representation.

Now they have political demands, but that's different from participaring in governing through representatives. At best they are consumers, not participants.

The proof is glaring in our faces - after twenty years of building parliamentary democracy, there is not a single party truly advancing their interests.

New politics idea is to tap into any nascent desire to participate that is there and give it proper channels and legitimacy circumventing "robber baron-feudal client relationship" that has subverted the hollowed OMOV principle.

Thailand in terms of representation of the poor is currently at a dead end

The underlying reason for this is that the poor don't want representation. They live in a different kind of relationship with the power - patron client, not citizen-representative.

New politics proposes new channels for those who need to be pepresented but were always subdued by feudal politics. Everyone on this board knows I support this idea, but you can only take the horse to water, you can't make it drink.

Another idea is to let them fully participate in governing on their local level, if nation size politics are beyond their interest. That was 1997 constitution had in mind.

Either way, something needs to be changed.

Thanks for Nong Pluem's link.

Interesting piece.

Note how he bashes PAD for what they COULD become in the future. Typical right wing scaremongering about communism, blast from the past.

What is interesting is that Pluem wants to run on PTP ballot next time. Flies in the face of our resident leftists as he is strictly pro-business, big bosses know the best, stop the spead of socialism type.

Just who are these people?

Just a couple of weeks ago we had this:

"Chairman of Thai Farmers Association backs Govt’s agricultural product price guarantee"

http://nntworld.prd.go.th/previewnews.php?...id=255205130006

Why are they protesting against it now?

Is it by any chance another mob for hire, possibly organised by middlemen who were the biggest beneficiaries of rice pledging?

The people will probably be willing to wait

That's why I said "the country can't wait".

I don't care about political correctness, but "people" do not always keep the big picture in their minds. Infrastructure projects like this are absolutely necessary in the rat race that is globalisation.

Current bus fleet is an eyesore that permanently fixes the image of a third world country in anybody's eyes, from investors to tourists, and it's not the third world charm that they think about.

And if the can't buy a bunch of buses, what hope there is for 200km of skytrain/mrt extentions? What kind of message does it send to companies and countries that want to participate in that?

Pattaya fiasco was a one off political failure but here we are talking about structural incompetence of Thai state.

The country can't wait.

The reality is that they have to buy the buses one way or another and this particular project can be cleaned up, if there is a will.

At some point it's either accept it or put up with another ten years on Vietnam war era buses.

BMTA licensed bus operators offered about half of the rent price, but the English media doesn't mention if it's for new buses or the ones they operate now and are ready to provide for the new scheme.

All in all it's a perfect examle how "old politics" cannot function at all when it comes to governing.

I dont have a link. Does anyone?

Couldn't find it the first time you mentioned it.

Elections by the members ?

Doesn't that make this new party considerably more-democratic than the PTP

Don't spoil the bash the PAD party.

It can't possibly be democratic because they are wicked evil monarchist ultra-nationalist fascist dictators.