ianf

1 hour ago, baboon said:

I did read it and it is exactly as I described it.

You think so? How sad!

19 hours ago, baboon said:

You talk about taking a dispassionate view then launch into a lengthy phillipic against one side. Bang goes your credibility there...

If you take your blinkers off and read my post with an open minds you'll note that there is no polemic. Only facts.

16 minutes ago, southcoast said:

You say "especially when there are many hundreds of thousands of INNOCENT people fleeing actual harm in their home nations" how do you know there ALL Innocent!!! a lot of them are NOT Asylum Seekers they only come to the UK to do harm to innocent people. They don't have ID or passports so how the hell do we know who they are! Answer = WE DON'T. How about all the problems in Paris, Brussels and London., innocent people being killed. Think about it.

If she does come to the UK least she will be the ONLY Asylum Seeker in the UK that wont be claiming for "free medical, free accommodation, free food, free television, free clothing, free schooling and all the other freebies they get, the list goes on and on thus dragging the economy down even more. Its funny that they travel through 6, 7 or 8 country's to get to the UK, ever wondered why! (probably not).

Please note, this is NOT racial discrimination this is common sense, I am married to a Thai lady and I don't think you have a clue what us Brits have to pay out for, how many hoops we have to go through to get out wife/girlfriend over here, (I know its our choice) I presume that the money we pay out for this privilege goes towards the freebies that are handed out. Most politicians through out the world are corrupt so don't think she, maybe, the only one.

And finally if you think she left with out on her own then you are sadly mistaken,  she was HELPED out of the country. How the hell did she get a private jet to Singapore, not with out a lot of help. Wonder if they asked for her passport at immigration ?.

If you really worried about asylum seekers having a raw deal maybe they can stay at your place!

The sooner Thailand gets back to a democratic country instead of being run by the military the better.

That's my rant over for the day, if you disagree with my comments ( you will I know) that your problem not mine, end of.

When was Thailand ever democratic? Makes me laugh when people keep posting "Get Back to a Democratic Country" when the Government that the General dissolved was no more democratic than his. OK people "voted" for Yingluck. I accept that. But I don't accept that her Government, run as a proxy for her "brother" in Dubai, was democratic. Neither was Thaksin's. The facts speak for themselves. People have voted for dictators like Hun Sen, Mugabe and so on. And they weren't democratic either.

11 hours ago, z42 said:

Asylum. What a joke, she is guilty of at the very least criminal negligence, or looking the other way to frankly unchecked corruption by those in her party. As a UK citizen I would be disgusted if she was to be granted asylum, especially when there are many hundreds of thousands of INNOCENT people fleeing actual harm in their home nations.

Can only keep repeating that this idiotic woman is NOT THE VICTIM OF ANYTHING THAT WASN'T OF HER OWN MAKING. She is fleeing rightful criminal prosecution, and that should provide no grounds for asylum whatsoever.

 

This is bsolutely true. And those that think otherwise are victims of their own delusion. Delusion comes from a firm belief in one side or the other. If you ake a disappasionate view - ie perhaps both sides are as bad as each other - then you'd also come to the conclusion that the rice 'scheme' was initiated by her 'brother' in order to win popular votes. The worst thing about it was withdrawing the rice from the world commodities market thus forcing the price up. Hey, is it a good idea nto increase the price of the basic foodstuff for most of the world's poorest people? Those who support the Shins must think that's OK because they don't give a damn about the poor people, they are just interested in manipulating those that can bring them power and even more obscene wealth. Political Asylum? Well, the UK has bought into the lie that Thaksin has perpetuated over the years that he is a victim of an unjust political and judicial system. If you repeat a lie often enough then people will believe it. Indeed he's really a human rights abuser responsible for the extra-judicial killings of 3000+ people in an unjust war that was targeted at drug dealers but caught quite a few of his political opponents in the same net. He wasn't a democrat and neither was/is his 'sister'. He was/is a dictator furthering the cause of USA interests in SEAsia and she is his puppet. The truth is  stranger than fiction and one that cannot be denied by the Shin-ideologues that support him. Being opposed to the Shins does not mean supporting the General. The Shins may have been elected but does that mean they ran democracies? The anti-democratic nature of both Shins' time in office is pretty transparent to those who want to see it. I would be furious, but not surprised if the UK granted her asylum.

20 hours ago, Father Fintan Stack said:

Guff.

 

The 'Bitter Medicine' policies of the second Chuan Leekpai Democrat government in the 90's was to pay for the losses after the Asian financial crash and were directly aimed at the poorest regions of the country, and all the while in the late 90's the rich got richer. 

 

The poorest people in the country still remember and hate the Democrats for that, hence they remain unelectable, even today. 

 

Thaksin was so universally popular because he reversed that and recognised the needs of the rural poor, when others had just tread on them. 

Not at all. Thaksin found out that he could make a heck of a lot of personal money by exploiting the poor under the guise of "supporting" them. The Rice scheme was no differet from many of his other failed and dishonest scheme. I have no idea why rational farangs do not understand that Thaksin is a manipulative sociopath and succeeded in getting his "sister" into a big mess as well as the country. To me the whole Shin era is so transparent .....to support him is to bend to ideology instead of taking a balanced view of all the events and understanding the fundamental dishonesty that lays behind them. And before you or anyone claims that I support the military...No it's nothing to do with supporting one side or another. To take an entrenched position is to deny the facts as they are. And your understanding of the Chew on Leek Pie policies is incorrect.

Yingluck always swore that she would not run away. A bit like her so-called brother then.

4 hours ago, gummy said:

what a farce ?

 

Why?

3 hours ago, choff56 said:

Bringing global attention to the Thai repressive military junta and a very corrupt justice system. Good move Yingluck, you appear to have Prayuth in check.

But the Rice scheme was not a good move. The problem with people who firmly sit on one side or the other of the fence are blind to the facts. The rice Scam was an attempt by Thaksin to bet on the world price of rice, forcing rice prices up on the world commodity market and making million of poor peoples' basic foodstuff much more expensive. He did this, through his proxy "sister" so that the Shins would benefit from the support of the farmers. Backfired because India and Vietnam filled the gap in the world rice market and the price remained stable. Like many of Thaksin's scheme this did not work. This is the basis of this case. It has nothing to do with the General or the Dictator family. Bot are as bad as each other simply because that's the Thai way. But what Thaksin attempted to do with this commodity was an utter disgrace and the independent prosecution would have fairly judged this either to be the case or not the case. The Shins run away as usual. I'm sure the General would to. That's the way of the world. But please don't make such silly comments choff because they simply bear no relation to the facts. All they do is expose your ideological position.

45 minutes ago, kaorop said:

Yeah halloween you go man, make sure every thread you can post in is about blaming the shins for something, never mind what the thread title is ! Oh sorry forgot you already do.

Rice farmers are asking for help, because they are struggling, they referred to YL and that pledging debacle as something that did help them.....which has little to do with the corruption further up the chain...Thats what this topic IS

Read my post about what this scheme was about. I ain't kidding.

7 minutes ago, kaorop said:

Yeah halloween you go man, make sure every thread you can post in is about blaming the shins for something, never mind what the thread title is ! Oh sorry forgot you already do.

That's not necessarily true. This is an issue that can be debated without taking sides. The facts are so transparent. In fact I reckon it was a pretty dumb thing to do....don't you?

25 minutes ago, halloween said:

Forget the junta for a while, the topic is the rice scam. Why didn't they just GIVE the poor people the money? B10,000/year for the 15 million Kittirat said needed help without the messing about with rice and the corruption involved?  Cheaper, much more effective, but no agency fees for mates and fake G2G deals - where's the fun in that?

According to Loh, you're my mate. Hello?

The problem with people who take sides is that the truth is always inconvenient. Off course, this is not a question about the junta, this is about the rice 'scam' set up by Thaksin and administered by his stool pigeon, Yingluck.

It is clear, not only to me but also to many other impartial observers, that the rice pledging scheme was based in an attempt to create a world shortage of rice, thus forcing the price up. If this had happened then there would have been two outcomes:

1) Poor people the world over would have had to pay more for their staple diet

2) Thaksin would have won his 'bet' with the rice and from what I understand everyone (except those in (1) above) would have benefitted. Thaksin and his cronies through their own personal interest and the farmers who may (or may not) have been paid for their rice pledged at the higher cost.

That this did not happen is, thankfully, due to Vietnam and India who leapt into the void by increasing their exports of rice thus foiling Thaksin's attempt at bribing the farmers and in the process lining his pocket.

What also didn't happen was good management of the pledged rice. Inferior rice was shipped across the Cambodia/Laos borders and pledged at the higher price thus making a mockery of this scheme and rice was badly stored causing tonnes to rot away.

And the sting in the tail was that there was not enough money in the system to pay all the farmers: so only the farmers in Thaksin's heartlands were paid. The junta promptly found the funds to clear the debt to the farmers created by Thaksin and his incompetent 'sister'.

This is what happened. Chapter and verse. I don't care if the junta organised this scheme, I don't care if Thaksin organised it, I don't care if Uncle Tom Cobbly organised it: It stank. And whatever Thaksin's fanboys claim, they cannot escape the facts. If the Junta had organised it I would have made the same criticism of them. The whole scheme was disgusting.

14 minutes ago, Eric Loh said:

Talking about sucking the life blood from the nation, give it up for the junta government. They did lots of sucking up of the treasury reserves and left it almost empty and created the biggest budget deficit than previous government and sucked it all up for the increase in defense budget. Now that not in the military SOP rather SOP of a handful of generals. 

Hardly the issue Eric. But a neat diversion

Try the bicycle shops: Full of knock-off clothing and parts. Knock off cycle parts in particular are dangerous: I have seen wheels collapse, a frame break and in my case a seat post knowingly** sold to me by a cycling official who should know better. Very dangerous and Thailand is full of it.

**known by him but not by me.

11 hours ago, wakeupplease said:

Farmers all around the world complain about prices, but with no farmers there is no food so a compromise has to be reached hence subsidies which other countries pay there farmers but here the money just ends up in corrupt pockets including farmers but mainly the HISO.

Well, there's one farmer who fell hook, line and sinker for the Shinawatra con! Makes you laugh....well it would if it wasn't so sad

9 hours ago, Get Real said:

I am truly speechless!

Why speechless? It happens here all the time.

Quite a good rehash of a press release. But not good journalism.

2 minutes ago, Smarter Than You said:

"There has never been democracy in Thailand"

 

And look at the state it is in.

 

C'mon, say it with me ...democracy is the answer.

 

Thaksin was voted in which means he could be voted out.

 

Is a social revolution more likely to occur under a repressive and unaccountable censorship happy section 44 wielding Junta or an elected government?

Do a little critical thinking and answer that one bro.

 

 

You really don't get it. Just voting for someone doesn't mean you have democracy. People vote for Mugabe, Hun Sen and so on. Are these democratic leaders? Absolutely not. Did Thaksin head a democracy? Did Yingluck head a democracy. 100% Not in either case. Is this regime any more or any less unaccountable or repressive than Thaksin's? Same same if you ask me. But Thaksin leads in the repressive stakes with his extra-judicial killings of 3000 so-called drug dealers. And as I have already said democracy per se is not the sole answer. Most people here don't understand what democracy is anyway.....

There has never been democracy in Thailand. Democracy is underpinned by the rule of law. Never seen that here. Thaksin was an anti-democrat. A dictator in waiting, who never used the word 'democrat' until it was suggested to him by R Amsterdam. Democracy per se is not the sole answer - again you demonstrate a lack of critical thinking. A social revolution is needed and then democracy, real democracy, will grow from that. Off course, you are a red. But that only shows that ideological entrenchment of whatever colour does not allow real change to take place. Well demonstrated by your posts. My original points apply to both Thaksin's dictatorship and the military rule we have now = equally.

No I'm not wrong. If you look at the history and how the sociopathic spin tried to rewrite that history then you get closer to what happened. Indeed I saw weapons being handed to people going to the city to 'demonstrate' in a village near Chiang Mai. Why would they do that for a peaceful demo? There was a very clever spin created by the exiled one and his farang backers as part of the overall strategy. I'm not stupid and I didn't fall for it. There are plenty of pieces of evidence to prove that '90' people were absolutely not killed by the military. I've posted about this before and I'm not going into details here but I am gobsmacked that people still believe the red spin on these events. It either points to an entrenched ideological position or to a lack of analytical thinking.

45 minutes ago, Smarter Than You said:

You might want to google the events of 2010 and see what the 90 people shot dead by the military were doing.

I think impartial reasoning would point the finger at a certain political movement, egged on by an exiled politician may well have caused the majority of these deaths.

As an expat who has been here for 9 years, I see the major problems as:

1.The education system: Indeed the whole hierarchical system reinforced and learned both in the family and at school. In school the teacher is always right and you cannot question the teacher; there is no free thought, there is no creativity. It's learning in a straight jacket, learning by rote, not thinking for yourself. This applies to the family where the father, as the ehad of the house, is always right. He may be a totally dumb fool, but he cannot be questioned.  Off course this spills over into:

2. The workplace: You have learned not to question, you have learned to obey those 'above' you and do exactly as you have been told. With a lack of creativity and questioning you are not going to be an innovator. We've all see this so many times when dealing with people in restaurants or shops or Government services. Try asking for something which deviates from the one line that the employee has been taught and you'll confuse them. Not a clue. No idea how to find creative solutions. But remember you cannot question those above you which means that ......

3. Corruption is easy: I asked one high-ranking Thai if corruption has improved since the Generals took over. "Yes" he said, "It has become more expensive". Here we go at every level of society and we could all come up with countless anecdotes to reinforce our view. Try this: Outside our Moo Baan we have a nice dual carriageway with a perfect road surface. It's a connecting road about 1.5km long. I know how good the surface is because I cycle on it every day. Last week they began to dig it up ready to lay a new surface. Local traders were aghast and one even closed his restaurant and went off on holiday due to the mess created. But upon asking around about why this road has been redone when it clearly didn't need to be the answer from Thais and farangs alike was "Corruption". There was money left in the kitty, the job could be justified because people 'of higher standing' use it from time to time and if the budget wasn't spent the top three guys in the Tambon administration would lose out on a hefty payback. Or how about the shops selling wooden objects who are only allowed to operate because of the weekly payments that are made to certain officials? This is without mentioning customs import agents and officers, police and and people in Government departments.

Those who can effect real and positive change have too much to lose if they open their mouths. And besides their training from day one in the family, through school and now in the workplace, has conditioned them to accept the status quo. Bearing that in mind, I can't see change coming - not in my lifetime nor, I suspect in the lifetime of the poor kids in the local Kindergarten.

Aah the mysterious foreigner who carried out this foul deed has already left! Poppycock. The island houses a monster and the police KNOW who he is. Can someone please tell the poor girl's family not to believe the official bulls::t.

Hi: If I could possibly get some books to you, and some relevant board games, I would be happy to do so:

I have an almost complete set of Mr Men books, Charades game for young children, Harry Potter, Syory books, some non-fiction and a couple of school dictionaries.

Quite a parcel and am not sure how I can get them to you as I live in Chiang Mai and leaving for the UK for a month from 13 July. Let me know.

It may have to be next time .........

Ian

PS: My Thai wife and I have been involved in working with IDPs, and we have had Burmese refugees stay with us ......

8 hours ago, clockman said:

When you lift a stone in Thailand. Always something nasty!

A few years ago my daughter (a health official) uncovered a similar nasty event featuring an 8-year-old girl. That was in the UK. Not just Thailand.

3 hours ago, Beats56 said:

What Some people get their jollies from is way out there. Different strokes for different fokes. Just not my cup of tea.

 

 

Folks?