Eligius

On 12/25/2019 at 6:49 AM, Lungstib said:

As I understood it from a previous case, it wasn't whether what you said was true or not, it was whether your comment caused loss of business or personal status. Just a step below Lese Majeste, the truth doesn't come into it. 

Truth is strictly forbidden in 'Thai (=Free) Land', under pain of imprisonment (or worse).

Appalling. And we are about to enter the year 2020. 

In actuality, we are living 500 years back in the past ....

3 hours ago, marc651 said:

It's not looking good.  With just slightly more than 50% having a level of "sympathy", that are low numbers.  The amount of people willing to mobilize, to actually go out and protest will be much much lower. Too low.  Actually,  the young generation was absent at the rally,  apart from curious passers-by. Those who came over were 30 and mostly 40 tear olds.

 

While Thannakorn targets the youth,  unfortunately fact is that the youth is largely indifferent. The Facebook generation will not come out to the streets as long as they can continue online shopping,  gaming and chatting. Their main concern is the amount of points saved on shoppee or lazada, visiting shopping malls,  and for the rest they don't care.  Speak to some 18 to 30 year olds and try to find the rare exception.... good luck!

 

So it's looking really good for the powers that be,  in my opinion the "resistance" will be by far too low to force regime change.   Only a serious economic crash (=e.g. let's just simply say when the youth can't afford shopping any more) would create enough critical mass (and even then,  the question would be who would capitalize on this, given the ever growing lack of critical thinking skills  - it could as well be the next dictator...).

You speak a lot of truth (above), Marc651. I, too, when later looking at the faces in the crowd of Thanathorn protesters (at the BTS recently) was struck by how many of them were NOT young students (contrary to my expectations). I think that people who have been brainwashed into an addictive 'life on social media' have almost forgotten that there is a REAL world out there and that it sometimes demands risky action to protect the future of that REAL (rather than cyber) world.  Tweeting and Facebook-ing, unsupported by REAL world action, will not hack it. 

I interact with young Thais all the time, and while most don't like the junta, I find very, very, VERY few who are willing to take REAL steps to bring about its cessation (and the situation is even worse amongst highly educated and 'qualified' older Thais). I know of the immense dangers, and so I understand the reluctance. The sad truth, however, is that unless the bull is grasped by the horns, that bull will go on wrecking this beautiful land of Thailand and its lovely, ordinary Thai people forever ....

2 hours ago, Bangkok Barry said:

To adapt Greta Thunberg - "You have stolen my country. How dare you!" Okay, the youth of Thailand - do something about it. If millions upon millions of you take on the military, what will they be able to do? She wants to save the world. Now you save your country.

Bangkok Barry: it seems that you are one of the few here who agree with what I have been saying literally for years: strength lies in numbers. If, however, those numbers are displayed to be paltry - all the strength (in intensified form) will automatically be granted to the dinosaurs and they will be emboldened beyond all reckoning. Unless the Thais realise that their own power lies in their huge numbers - 'you ain't seen nothing yet' (as regards the augmented, triumphant militarist regime) ...

On 12/22/2019 at 11:04 AM, justin case said:

villa always claimed their bags are bio-degradable ...so why do they stop ?

 

MONEY

I (and others here) have been saying from the very start of this campaign of plastic-hostility (and it will get more and more extreme and all-embracing, you watch!) that the obvious thing to do is replace the plastic bags with biodegradable bags. That way no one is inconvenienced when suddenly deciding, on the spur of the moment, to do some shopping (instead of having to carry canvass bags around with one the whole time).

But Thailand is not going down the biodegradable route. Why not? As another poster here pointed out: MONEY. It is cheaper for stores simply to stop supplying bags altogether. 

So much for 'customer service' and 'customer convenience' (vanishing concepts)!

Utterly ridiculous and infantile - as well as insulting to everyone's intelligence. If you show your 'approved' little carry-with-you items (including holdalls of plastic cups, plastic spoons, plastic knives, plastic forks, plastic containers, etc., - but you MUST have your little COTTON bag with you, of course - symbol of your transcendent virtue!), then you will get two stars (or perhaps yellow triangles) for being a good little conformist. And if you amass 10 stars, you will get free entrance next time. 

Talk about moronic, patronising ideas issuing from this micro-managing (non)government ....!

I don't know about you, but I am sick and tired of all this utter mendacious drivel about 'tourist numbers'. Just pluck any ridiculous, absurdly inflated figure out of thin air, and you will be pretty much in line with the latest 'official' lie.

What gets my goat perhaps more than anything is the way we are all treated as absolute idiots who would believe all this B.S. that we are daily fed!

Here we have the most glaring, mind-blowing example not of Thai officialdom's mendacity - it is way, way beyond that - but of genuine psychopathological denial of all truth and reality.

The mismatch between the claims made by this 'person' here and the reality on the ground - minute by minute, second by second - is so stunning and so ludicrously Everestian in its proportions that one feels tempted to call in the men in the white coats ...

I won't even bother reading beyond the headline. This 'government' can - and does, routinely - conjure up figures out of thin air. Remember the 'election' 'result' ...?!

The truth-reversal utterances issuing from this meeting are beyond sick ...

33 minutes ago, 30la said:

Be careful, the head of the military is just waiting for this, the next coup will certainly be in preparation!
The next one will surely be much more brutal ...

It is said that General A. is scheduled to retire sometime around the middle of next year. It would be a marvellous, fabulous retirement gift to himself if he can do what he is itching to do so keenly - follow the grand and great Thai militarist tradition of ... launching a coup! But this time it will be really repressive (under his watch). General Prayut will seem like a liberal, in comparison!

I see that the police are going to prosecute Thanathorn over the Saturday rally for a 'breach of the law'. So, so predictable (in fact, I predicted it on Saturday!).

The Authorities are proving again and again that they are stifling every single human liberty. And they wonder why people are now protesting?!!

3 minutes ago, chainarong said:

I wish them well , however to ruffle Prayut's feathers you need hundreds of thousands not thousands on the streets.

In my (boringly reiterated) opinion: to shift the balance of power, it will take MILLIONS!

21 minutes ago, Shaunduhpostman said:

A billionaire with connections to the UN and Elon Musk. Hmm. My guttersnipe's paranoid science fiction conspiracy theory guess would be that Thanatorn is the globalist banks' smart dusting, "sustainable" planet agenda and technocrat's man. The Thai establishment is too messy, too dinosauric, anachronistic, too oblivious to hi tech,  too connected to China for this lot to get their 5g satellite monitored globalist UN 2030 agenda thing going in Thailand to the extent that they would like. So, I would not put my money on Thailand becoming more democratic should Thanatorn prevail, if what some posts on this thread has said  about his background is correct, that he is part of the Musk network and has worked with the UN previously and therefore may still be doing so. Surely there would be hope of a very  different Thailand but not a democratic Thailand as democracy is rapidly evaporating as a possibility for the whole world with the quickly ramping up  global surveillance state, the internet of things and its apparent aim of an AI monitored social credit system that will make the problem of differing opinions and dissent negligible for the elites everywhere except amongst themselves, of course. As 5g, the new internet of things network goes in place, not only is total surveillance and control  down to our eeg's and bodily proceses everywhere all the time possible but also weaponization  anytime anywhere, so perhaps the Thai police force would find themselves out of a job, and the sooner they realize this the sooner they would be fighting tooth and nail against Thanatorn. Elon Musk is playing a big role in laying the infrastructural foundations for this total surveillance state with his company making up the lion's share of the 84,000 5g satellites that are slated to be up within three years, and which has already begun and consistently ahead of schedule and getting whatever green lights they want from any who might have authority to regulate them. So I would speculate that what we are looking at with Thanatorn is an agent who is working for this particular juggernaut not a democratic Thailand but a globalist compliant Thailand, a driverless car Thailand, which Thailand probably would be better off with, heheh,  a Starlink to Neuralink satellite connected internet straight to the brain  Thailand which I doubt few Thais care one way of the other about,  though a Thailand that has cut down all of its trees and microwaved its eco-systems to make way for the signal paths, a Thailand that has made its people even more sick and unhealthy than they already are with the large upswing in electromagnetic radiation that the new 5g system blasting through the ionopshere and creating even more disruption in the weather will create. It would seem this demonstration would be the start of something like  a show down between western and Chinese proxy forces, between Huawei-China Mobile-the Communist Party and Starlink-Verizon-AT&T-Chase Manhattan Bank (or whatever bank or banks are behind the internet of things and the UN) over who gets to run the infrastructure for the Thailand sector of the one world system.

I would not totally discount what you say. When Thanathorn first burst upon the scene, seemingly from nowhere - I urged caution and a degree of scepticism (here on Thaivisa). I always keep my mind open - even to the possibilities that you moot. I hope that you are wrong about Thanathorn, and think that you probably are.

But there is only one freedom that the Thai people have to lose - and they sure as hell have lost it currently. I very much doubt that Thanathorn would be as bad as what is ruling the roost now.

But ... one never knows (even though I strongly doubt that possibility).