way2muchcoffee

You spend some time in a village ... you drink weekly on Saturdays ... the rest of your time is in France?

While I do find your story plausible, it is strictly anecdotal about your in-laws and only when you are there with them. The fact that there are many cases of methyl-alcohol poisonings annually and that the statistics of alcohol sales in Thailand is amongst the highest per-capita in the world certainly tells another story.

Lao Khao is CHEAP and kept that way for a reason ...... the reason is the marketplace

For your information, I have spent less than a week in France since 2002. And I have checked with my wife: in the village where we are (around 1000 houses) only drinking the Lao Khao for parties (Songkran, marriage....) The week end, with my in Laws I drink a couple of beers...and around us similar. Thailand is certainly less alcoholic than UK which has heavy drinking records.

In the area where we are alcohol is not in the diet. Maybe your area is different.

Perhaps your area is not representative of Thailand then Jerry. If true it would follow that your observations and the ideas arising from those observations are suspect. Then again perhaps the areas in which I have lived are equally non-representative. Who knows?

100% agree. It is better to be rule by military than rule by terrorists

So we need to arrest and jail all the RED people.

2nd questions. Do we have jail big enough to keep all the RED people?

I am glad this is not India. Else we have to call them RED Indians. I am sure the Apache, Cherokee and Kickapoo, etc would not be amused.

We don't call them red Indians in the USA. That's a Thai thing.

Maybe but you haven't understood that the 'red shirts' are not Communists - you have muddled it up - I don't think even the most die-hard, yellow coloured poster would say that Thaksin is a Communist - In fact my yellow friends cannot decide if they are Maoist or Fascist – depends on their mood I think.

Edit: Just realised that Bananas are YELLOW so maybe this post is a mataphor for giving the country away?

Ahh - so you finally admit that Thaksin is the man behind this. Your slipping CMF.

Where is Sondhi Lim? I heard he survived the shooting. Sondhi Lim seems to have disappeared, leaving poor old Chamlong doing all the hard work.

Seems he's somewhat scared:

this speech by Sondhi Lim is cited by Bangkok Pundit as an ASTV report สนธิ – แล้วก็ ช่วงนี้ก็ไปปล่อยข่าวลือว่าผมนี่ถูกสั่งยิงโดย..โดยฟ้า แล้วเขาก็ไม่รู้นะครับว่าข้างบนเขาก็รู้ว่านี่คือข่าวลือที่พวกเขาปล่อยมา แล้วใครปล่อยเขาก็รู้ ปล่อยผ่านพระองค์หนึ่งแถวๆ ยานนาวา พระองค์นั้นท่านก็ฉุนว่าเอาท่านไปเกี่ยวข้องอะไร ท่านก็โทร.ไปรายงานฟ้าเหมือนกันว่าท่านไม่เกี่ยวข้อง แล้วบอกด้วยว่าใครเป็นคนปล่อยข่าวลือ นี่คือความทุกข์ มันปิดไม่มิดหรอก เอามือปิดฟ้าได้ยังไง

Sondhi L – And at the moment there are rumours that someone in the sky ordered the hit on me. And those in a high place don’t know whether it is the rumour that they spread. And who spread it they know. It was said it was spread through one monk near the Yawana district, but that monk was angry and denied it. He telephoned me and to someone high up that he was not involved and said who was it that spread this rumour. This is is distressing. It cannot be completely concealed. How can you use your hand to cover up the sky?

Who shot Sondhi?

The only problem is , which bit of the military! Now go and read New Mandala.

Yep. That's not a bad article you are referring to cmsally. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Can't speak to the veracity of the article, but is was interesting nonetheless.

Laws? The reds don't need no stinkin' laws...

The same can be said of those that take power by military force.

The military took power by military force. Then there were elections. The rules and consequences for violation of those rules were clear. The party that came to power from those elections blatantly broke the rules. Their fault. Nobody made them do it. And they were even filmed doing it. So they were dissolved. So sorry. Try to follow election rules next time.

What is Martial Law?

Does than mean everyone has to go be before sunset?

Martial Law is like a temporary coup. The military has complete control of nearly every aspect of the state. And yes, curfews can be imposed at any time (even daytime). The streets can be cleared of all non-combatants.

Farmers have a far tougher job than shopkeeper or manager, so no doubt that the class confrontation will be at the disadvantage of the Middle class.

That's a fact. Consider the shopkeeper who wakes up at 4:00, heads to the local market for fresh stock, then runs the shop from 6:00 am to 10:00 pm. They get no days off unless they wish to close the shop. Consider the middle manager who works roughly 60-70 hours per week, 10-12 hour days with one day off per week. These folks rarely get vacation. Now consider the typical Thai rice farmer. He works hard about 4-5 months per year, perhaps every day at 10-15 hours per day - during those few months per year. The rest of the year amounts to about 1 day per week. Plenty of time off. Plenty of relaxation. Freedom to work at his own schedule. Yep. Farming is tough compared to the corporate grind.

Due to people who did only took their own interest in mind and made false, empty promises to the poor, Thailand has come to a point where something has to give. The Nation Newspaper should be the last one to point fingers. The Nation has been in the camp of coup takers and the city elite for a long long time. Instead of explaining the readers how a democracy works they encouraged the yellow shirts to take over the city. It was this mob which was called "creative" by foreign minister Kasit who encouraged the have nots to adapt to the same tactics. However, where women and children were not safe at all when the yellows were on the streets. (Never seen so many incapacitated armed guards who had completely lost it) the reds are just on the street. the very same soldiers that the Nation welcomed in order to overthrow legitimate governments are settling internal scores right now. That has nothing to do with yellow or red but with the way the army is organized and the way they pass over good people.

The Nation should set a good example and explain why Abhisit is the best man for the job. (Young, inexperienced, never seen a rice paddy, rich, spoiled, never led a village, city, province or company). The Nation should also explain why there is so much disparity in income between the rich and the poor. They should explain why the rich are hardly paying any taxes, and they should explain that Thaksin is not the only one who was not paying taxes on the sale of his imperium. Nobody does in Thailand. They should explain why it is fine for a company that filed for bankruptcy and let numerous investors and banks out there with billions of dollars in bad debt to pay the Democrat party 256 million baht.

Anarchy is the rule in Thailand for 40 years. Not one person high up feels that the laws are made for them. Politicians with murderous sons buy the judges, Politicians who occupy airports buy judges, corruption and graft is a fine art in Thailand, hardly ever committed by anyone with a red shirt, they have nothing so they get nothing and can pay or ask certainly for nothing.

On top of that the Nation should explain why they support a movement (PAD) that opposes the one man, one vote principle. The Nation is only one reason why Thailand is in a sorry state.

I agree with you. The quality of the journalism is ridiculously poor. There should be incisive and informative articles. There should be good investigative journalism. But there aren't. I can't think of any newspaper in Thailand that has proper journalists. Some of the editorials are ok, but that's about it.

BBC's Thai correspondant has just reported, (and I hope I heard right). That the government say they have evidence of a deeper plot, to overthrow the government and undermune the monarchy.

The Suthep propaganda this morning..... Red Shirt Leaders have already sued him for developing fake informations (Webfact)

The debate is going lower and lower....soon we will have all the gossips of massage parlours and brothels.....

How do you know it is propaganda? How do you know it isn't real? Is is because it doesn't fit with your view of the red shirt movement? Is it because it came from the mouth of Suthep (admittedly not a savory chap)? Is it because it was denied by the red shirt leaders (admittedly not savory chaps)? What is the evidence you have in front of you for rejecting these claims?

OK, here comes a question... it's a long one tho...

I'm getting bored with all the hot air about whether the current government is legit or not. Let's see if we can unpick what actually went on. The Thai House of Representatives is elected in a similar way to the UK House of Commons. In Thailand there are 480 seats up for grabs of which 400 are directly elected through constituencies (like in Britain) and 80 are based on proportional representation with the MPs chosen from party lists. A look at Thailand's parliament website shows that it currently lists 475 MPs. I assume this is up to date.

So the parliament is 5 MPs short of its maximum. In the UK if an MP was unseated, for whatever reason, that seat would be contested with a local election and new MP chosen as soon as practically possible. In Thailand, this would also be the case if the MP came from a constituency. If that MP had been elected via PR from a party list then that list would be consulted again and the name at the top would become the new MP. However, if that party has no more members on that list, or if that party no longer exists then no new MP would replace the one that had stepped down. This is from the new constitution and assume I've read it correctly.

So, going back to the three governments since the 2007 election, the PPP gained 233 seats, 8 short of an overall majority. Now, what I'd like to know (yes I could research this and it would take me ages!) is how many MPs have since been kicked out of parliament, from which parties and whether they were elected by their constituency or by PR?

The importance here, I think, is that when the PPP was dissolved and then regrouped as the PTP, how were many of the vacant parliamentary seats allocated, if at all? Those PPP members elected under PR could not be replaced by PTP members as they were different parties. However, if all PPP MPs who left parliament had been elected from their constituencies, then fresh MPs with the same allegiances could have been elected and regained their coalition majority and, perhaps, an Abhisit government never formed.

The implication of all this is that governments with slim majorities can be destabilised by attacking those PR-elected MPs and that banning a whole party effectively eliminates those PR-elected members without replacement.

That's the clincher for me in my own attempt at rational explanation of the perception of legitimacy. You can understand the above and for that, you are a better person than me, as I do not for one moment doubt its veracity. However, do you really expect an international audience to grasp it or if not your particular points, then those that mean this government is not slightly muddied how it sitting where it is today, i.e as the incumbent power? Unfortunately for Abhisit and his colleagues, the soundbite bought by the international audience is that this government came into power sometime after a military coup in 2006 that removed the elected prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra. It does not matter one jot about the minutiae of legitimacy that we debate endlessly with far greater or lesser knowledge - that is the bit that has stuck and will not un-stick itself. That is why the western press harp on about battles for democracy, as they do not like military coups, period. It does not matter if Abhisit is indeed the right man for the job, the least corrupted, he is forever sullied and in politics, on the world stage, that is a very difficult reputation to shed. All articles that I have read on this subject in press outside of Thailand always at some point refer to the coup and to this government taking power sometime after said coup. I do not write them but I will also not deny them. I feel that Abhisit knows this very well - educated outside of Thailand as he is and I also feel that it goes someway to explaining his inaction and indecision. He knows very well that, at present, were he to move on the protestors and there was a bloodbath (an almost certain outcome), the outcry internationally would sink this country for many many years to come. I think he also knows that this perception is unlikely to change and so he has literally nowhere else to turn. He is damned to some extent nationally if he doesn't and damned internationally if he does. As to the answer, I will let others postulate.

The argument is sound except for one very important point. The PPP knew the election rules specified in the constitution. They knew the consequences. They chose to violate them anyway, and were caught on film doing it. So their dissolution was required as per the constitution. Perhaps if they didn't want to lose their party list MPs they should not commit electoral fraud.

Are you nuts?

If he does that then any group who decides that they do not like who ever the next government is know that all they have to do is cause as much trouble and damage and acts of terrorism and they will get what the want.

Do you realise Abhisit was calling for Somchai to resign when the yellow shirts took over the airport ?

So what?

Do you realize that Somchai didn't resign despite the calls from Abhisit and many others? A call from an opposition party leader is made to benefit their party, in general. A PM must represent the entire country. Perhaps this was why Somchai believed he should not dissolve parliament, but I seriously doubt that.

I wish him the best of luck, but frankly, it sounds like he is stalling for time against pressure from both PAD and the red insurgents.

Stall for time he must. I still think a forceful dispersal at this point would incense red shirt supporters throughout the nation. Sincere and honest negotiations are the only reasonable way forward. It is now up to the red shirt leaders to realize this basic fact. If they continue in their unlawful terrorist actions they will leave the military and government no other choice but to act. So if Abhisit and Anupong are stalling then more power to them. But the time is running out for all parties. Tick tock, tick tock....

If I remember correctly the red shirts demanded the lower house dissolved in 15 days, Abhisit offered elections by the end of the year. The reds the came back with a 3 month time frame for elections and, and maybe I missed Abhisit's next offer or was it just NO. End of negotiations.

Actually it has been reported that the red shirts were including a general amnesty for all participants in April 10, and the offer was dissolution in 30 days with elections in 90 days. So they went from dissolution in 15 days to dissolution in 30 days, and a general amnesty. The government wasn't prepared to meet these requirements. Of course these negotiations took place behind closed doors so we'll never really know the details of what really was on the table.

Newin

Interesting choice. My initial response was to reject this possibly out of hand. I mean Newin? Really? But on second thought he controls a political stronghold at the mouth of Isaan. He might be the kind of person who would appeal to the rural people who largely despise the Democrats at this point. Difficult to say. I haven't been able to get a sense of how his defection from the PPP has affected his popularity. I can see the appeal of this choice amongst the power brokers, but personally I don't think I could support this man. Seems a bit of a slimeball.

Abhisit just has to swallow his pride and make way for elections.

Simple as that.

Been saying that for months.All of this could have been avoided. What is he afraid of?

Yep. All could have been avoided had the red shirts bothered to negotiate and compromise. Instead it's ultimatums, intimidation, and violence.

I wish him the best of luck, but frankly, it sounds like he is stalling for time against pressure from both PAD and the red insurgents.

Stall for time he must. I still think a forceful dispersal at this point would incense red shirt supporters throughout the nation. Sincere and honest negotiations are the only reasonable way forward. It is now up to the red shirt leaders to realize this basic fact. If they continue in their unlawful terrorist actions they will leave the military and government no other choice but to act. So if Abhisit and Anupong are stalling then more power to them. But the time is running out for all parties. Tick tock, tick tock....

The pro-government Yellows harp on about the thug-like nature of the Reds. If the Reds are indeed thugs, who created them? Are the PAD thugs? Why not? Is it because they never had time to become thugs? Is it because they got wanted they wanted within 9 days the last time they protested? The “thug” never came out in them.

The PAD benefited from a coup in 2006, and in 2008 they were able to persuade the courts to change the democratically elected government to an engineered one in just 9 days by besieging an airport. The Reds don’t want another coup and they don’t want the courts to engineer another government. That's why they are protesting! The Reds want fresh elections and they will remain on the streets until they achieve this goal.

Unlike the Yellows who don’t mind a coup or a rearrangement of parliamentary seats to favour them, the Reds just want fair elections where the MPs elected are representative of the people of the whole country. Why is this concept so difficult for the pro-government Yellows to understand?

Because the red shirts are using violence and terrorism to achieve their aims. The PAD was roundly criticized by everyone for their move at the airport. With that one action they lost most of their support and all credibility. The red shirt leaders haven't learned this lesson. The concept of elections isn't hard to understand. The means the red shirts are employing in order to achieve this are illegal and unacceptable. And because of this they too have no credibility.

This threadis a good example of how passionate is the debate, propaganda no more positive criticism: we are in the worse. How smart people like this website suppose to comprise can go down so low.... Do you realise that you are fuelling the division and aiming to the Civil war....only Anupong has some restraints as he knows his Army is as divided as the Country and if he engages his troops, there is a high probability that Unity of Army will burst and the Country will fall in the hel_l....

We suppose to be between intelligent people here and we should try to promote a third way...

You are as guilty as me and Joe and everyone else Jerrytheyoung. You continually call for dissolution. That is not the way a huge segment of the country feels. That is not a compromise in any way and only further entrenches those opposed.

The only way this can truly be solved is if the redshirts agree to negotiate with all interests including the Democrats, army, police, smaller parties, civil society groups, business groups, etc. The red shirt leaders have emphatically rejected this at every turn. They must cease all illegal demonstrations and disruptions of government in order to reduce the tension and to show their commitment to solving the problems peacefully. If they wish to continue demonstrating they need to move them to neutral ground at a location designated by the authorities.

Immediately following their cessation they must engage in talks to help move the country forward. If they fail to do this the military and police will have no choice but to move in. We all know this will cause further escalation possibly leading to a limited civil war. The onus is on the red shirt leaders. They are the ones who have the power to end this immediately, but there is no sign that they have any intention of doing so.

By the way you can get it with English translation via BPundit blog

could you provide a link for the english translation please? I've found the original article with the chart but I can't find the english translation of the chart.

It says underneath the chart or at the bottom of the article, forget now, click here for translation, or something like that. I dont think we can link to blogs on here so I wont but as he put the effort into translation mention his site as a gateway

thanks. don't i feel the fool. it was there all the time but the image on the page was small so i couldn't tell that the added blue text by BP was the english version. anyway, sorted now.

By the way you can get it with English translation via BPundit blog

could you provide a link for the english translation please? I've found the original article with the chart but I can't find the english translation of the chart.

In summary it is the view of many that :

The Nation and TAN and ASTV are now basically all the same, pure Yellow.

Can you expect anything even remotely neutral from them ? Perhaps once in a blue moon as a diversionary tactic perhaps ? This opinion article is pure Yellow nonsense, thats my opinion of it.

Perhaps they are becoming more hysterical by the day due to a large company of terrorist insurgents holding hostage the city in which make their homes through the use of violence, threat, and intimidation.

I'm amazed by the reasoning of some posters here that an army "crackdown" will solution the matter.

Unnecessary to say that these posts are all written by the PAD supporters, named the "keyboard hero's".

Everyone who has been following this evolution, knows that this in not only for Thaksin anymore but because of the dual standards.

A crackdown or dispersing the RED's will only turn the RED's to underground geurillera actions NATIONWIDE.

And they have showed already that they have the necessary manpower to do that.

I suppose that I don't need to explain the "keyboard hero's"what that would mean for Thailand.

Just look at the guerillera actions in the Muslim South and what Abhisit has managed untill now.

A few of these guerillera actions in Pattaya and in the tourist areas from Bangkok, killing a few tourists who are anyway dispensable, would leave Thailand without tourists in now time.

Imagine the economic damadge that would be to Thailand.

The RED's want to give Thaksin a last favour by allowing him to comeback and die in his motherland.

If Thaksin doesn't die in his motherland, he will me portretted by the folks in Issaan forever as a martyr of the yellows.

All Abhisit and his croonies are doing now is just creating more fuel for the RED's actions by creating every day new martyrs.

So your saying the red shirts will resort the additional widespread terrorism if there is a crackdown. Nice group of people there.

Elections should be held, but in not less than six months after the red demonstrators cease all demonstrations and disruptions to the normal functioning of the country. The red shirt leaders would also need to guarantee freedom to campaign by Democrat and Coalition Party candidates throughout the nation without harrassment of threat. A very large number of observers would also need to be in place. If these things are not accomplished before any election is held then there is no way it could be considered legitimate.

So after 7 weeks of this.....two dozen threads, thousands of posts we have come to the conclusion that........

Abhisit should dissolve parliment

A military coup would be good

The army should just kill everybody

The army should do nothing--the reds will eventually leave.

Redshirts are all just terrorists

Yellowshirts are just terrorists

All other shirts are just terrorists but could be on either side

Guys in black are terrorists but are really red terrorists.

Yellowshirts occupancy of the airport was a bad thing

Redshirts coming to BKK is a bad thing---really bad...worse than anything a yellow could do...but they are not really smart like the Yellows.

The Government is incompetent

The army and police are incompetent

The Reds (or blacks) fired first

The army fired first

Reds are all getting paid on a scale from 300 baht a day to 2000 baht a day or more...they only protest for money...not like yellows who do it for love of Thailand.

The Reds do not get paid but the yellows do.

We know for sure the army and police get paid---oh government too--and way better pay scales.

The Reds fired grenades at the train

The train driver says he saw the grenades coming from a totally different direction to where the reds were....oops just ignore that, eyewitness reports are invalid.

Farangs know things about the reds and their leaderships thoughts that they don't even know themselves...Farangs just KNOW these things....

Farangs know far more about everything in Thailand than any Thai person could possibly know... even ex bus drivers from Liverpool are highly educated in these matters.

If Farangs were running things here this would never have happened...peace and tranquility reign in all Faranglands.

Rice growers are just stupid...actually morons, idiots..and of course terrorists.

In order to know what Thailands population really wants you have to be Farang....and preferably not have spent too much time in Thailand to get confused by actually meeting a lot of Thais.

Tanks and Blackhawkes are the best way to do crowd control.

This would never happen in the USA....we would have shot all of them by day 2.

This would never happen in the UK....we know how to deal with things like this.....we negotiated a deal with the IRA...and it only required 30 years and 4,000 or so deaths...

we don't mess around.

If the reds win, Thaksin will be dictator for life...and he will kick out all foreigners.....within 30 days!!!!

Thaksin flew to Finland with 114 cases of cash....one of our members figured out how much cash you can carry in 114 large suitcases and trunks....without knowing

the the sizes of the containers, the currency, or note denominations...(This report is on another thread from a couple of days ago) Now that's talent for you.

Perhaps if we continue for another 7 weeks and another 20,000 posts at least some of us will figure out that we don't know what the hel_l we are talking about.....

Thanks for that one.

You forgot how many refugees Abhisit dumped on boats in the ocean, beaten up and to die right? Offcourse that's not in the newspapers.

Abhisit didn't dump any Rohingya. That was the Thai Navy operating under a Thaksin regime policy. As soon as Abhisit found out he put an immediate halt to that kind of activity, and it has not been repeated since.

Nice attempt at a smear.