wealthychef

Somehow this doesn't add up to me. What crime against tourists are prevented by limiting prostitution to Walking Street? I guess ladyboy crimes are always a thing, but that doesn't seem warranted. I feel like this is just another short-lived revenue stream idea.

Oxymoron of the week for me! Is it just me or is this just not possible?

Hold your horses there, they just got in power. You don't know anything by what a politician says, even if you like what they are saying, they lie a lot. So let's just see how it plays out before talking about demonstrations of commitments to rights etc. Personally, I believe one should not trust any politician ever. ESPECIALLY the ones you like. 99% chance they are telling you what you want to hear and will betray you 5 weeks after being in office if not earlier. Do they SOUND better? Hell yes. But so did Bernie Sanders, and now look at him.

Yes, I think this is a universal situation around the globe. I feel like workers right now need to unite against their capitalist oppressors who just want to use their labor and then throw them in a pit when they get old. This time in Thailand, it's going to be hard to go against the will of the people, but you can see they really really want to, because they have no respect as you say... it's the way of the world, baby. I think the real solution is just to eat more pizza. It makes you happy and when you're done with it you just poop it out.

I read it differently. Remember that markets buy on rumors and sell on the news. So the improvement in price from Apr 24 to present might be the market reacting to the predicted outcome of a progressive blowout. When it happened, you can see the market got ready for a disappointment and then corrected back when the results came in. That's the way I see it.

Actually, it's better than that. It's also in the platform of the new winning party apparently. Per Reuters (https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/old-rivalries-new-battle-thailand-goes-polls-2023-05-13/) <quote> Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University, said Move Forward's surge demonstrated a major shift in Thai politics. "Pheu Thai fought the wrong war. Pheu Thai fought the populism war that it already won," he said. "Move Forward takes the game to the next level with institutional reform. That's the new battleground in Thai politics." </end quote> I like the sound of that!

Let's see indeed. After watching the global Mass Formation Psychosis around CoVid measures, I'm not sure that people are less willing to accept a coup if it means their anxieties get to be pinned on a boogeyman. All the military needs is to find a Bad Guy that's sufficiently scary.

This is interesting, pardon my ignorance, but what about the current dynamic makes coups impossible or less likely moving forward?

Fair enough! Up to each individual to weigh the risk/benefits for themselves, but ultimately what will make the difference is when workers decide to work collectively together to change their conditions.

Yes, *that* crazy law. :-). Ah, I didn't realize there was that loophole. So if you only strongly imply a thing that you cannot directly say, it holds up in Thai court? I wouldn't be surprised if this is selectively enforced.

The corruption in the West seems to me of a different sort. It's more fascistic, corporate and militarized than here, where it seems more organic and mafia-like. I think they need to start by publicly calling it out loudly, but there are laws against that right?

Good point, but I say in response you have to start somewhere. Awareness is the first step. If the workers, having been informed, are unhappy with their situation, they can choose to agitate within whatever societal constraints they have to deal with. Labor is always told "sorry, you can't do that" and constantly has to take to the streets to get their rights back.

This is excellent. Workers should all share information broadly about their employment conditions. Solidarity brings power. Secrecy only helps the Overlords maintain their grip. Now other principals can negotiate their salaries by comparison. Competition for labor means wages broadly should go up the more wages are shared by workers.

Shake my head. All the people dying of alcohol-related causes, and the fixation is on marijuana. How many people have died from pot this year, compared to alcohol abuse? Alcohol is the winner hands down in terms of the deaths and damage it does to property, human health, morality, and the functioning of society. But of course the people who have never used it and know nothing of it want to ban it because they learned in church that drugs are bad, mmkay?

yes, we all know how wise and just the RTP are, universally! That's the only explanation, it must be his own fault they mistreated him. (sarcasm alert)

<sarcasm> This is shocking. I had always heard that Thai jails were very hospitable. </sarcasm>

Websites on which we log in to post our idiotic ideas might be selling them. ????

Wow, a lot of this is going around. I just got an email from another poor young lady in Nigeria who lost her suitcase and needs my help getting her back home too.

Not if your social credit score is too low. That's the whole concern and one of the *overtly stated* purposes of it, is controlling how people spend their money because allowing them that freedom makes them too hard to control. And yes, it can happen in your country too.

Even a pure democracy is undesirable in many ways. I'd say a more useful complaint is how corrupt a given government is. We need to measure this objectively, but I'd say just for one thing not allowing officials to personally financially profit from their position would be a good start.

Two things can be true at the same time. Perhaps he is very attuned and his local village is extremely apolitical and at the same time the region as a whole is more radical and populist (bully for them I say).

OK, but wouldn't it be better to decide this by voting than by some arcane technical procedure? I mean, lots of people disagree with you. Do their opinions just not count because you don't like Pheu Thai? The idea that if your opponent is bad enough it's OK to cheat them out of office is one that undermines any credible claim to democracy in my incredibly humble opinion.

I would blame the reporters who deliberately titled their article to make it seem they were going to charge 1000 ฿ when they apparently never were going to. This kind of disinformation for profit is a hallmark of our hypercapitalist times in my view. (Honestly, I'm fun at parties, I promise!)

Fair criticism! Yes, my mistake, sorry for any confusion... cheers. In my defense, the Title is still "blah blah Marijuana" so it's not really offtopic technically! If we want to get lawyerly... ;-).

Can you name a politician from any party in any country on earth to whom these questions will not equally apply, from Putin to Biden to Lula to Ping to... ? It's trivial to point out that politicians are self-serving liars. The question is, what can be done about it? I wish I knew the answer.