MrMojoRisin

20 minutes ago, h90 said:

Because people wish a progress while the previous government didn't do much at all.....But I can't see that they did something evil. They just didn't do much

I don’t know, how about:

Coup

Attitude adjustment camps

Arbitrary incarcerations

Section 44 

Increased human rights abuses

Book banning

Banning groups greater than 5

Weaponisation of the legal system

Computer crimes act

Increased ISOC surveillance and intimidation

Dissolution of Future Forward

Drop in world corruption ranking

Increase in poverty rates

Etc. Etc.

16 minutes ago, h90 said:

What did they suffer? Beside lack of tourists which is not really that governments. They handled Covid badly but so did most countries. What else?

I would think that no two Thais would have had the exact same experience under 9 years of junta rule. Those that prospered will no doubt want to keep things unchanged, those that suffered would no doubt want change. What better way to understand the true state of affairs than holding a free and fair election?

The fact that the current expectation is that the vote for change is going to utterly obliterate the vote for no change, to me, quite clearly indicates a great many more Thais have suffered rather than prospered with Prayuth as PM.

6 hours ago, patman30 said:

minimum wage is never good for any economy.
they will get 712 (maybe not right now)
but prices on everything will be double what they were.

 Nonsense

4 hours ago, h90 said:

What did they suffer? Beside Covid I didn't notice any positive or negative changes

That‘s great for you.

What about the 70 million Thais.

Do they get a say?

4 hours ago, h90 said:

Why do you want to change? What is currently so bad in Thailand? What greed? Thailand has lower taxes than most other countries, better infrastructure and it is extreme easy and cheap to open a company. With all the coups and the political discussions, Thailand is doing well in life quality, far better than their neighbors, Lao, Myanmar, Cambodia. So why the need to drastic changes?

If Thailand is doing so we’ll under the current management then there should be no fear of elections.

Why do you think Pheu Thai are such overwhelming favourites to win in a landslide?

6 hours ago, zzaa09 said:

Seems to have the same effect on Farang pundits as well.....

????

Self diagnosis?

I’d usually recommend getting a second opinion, but in this case…..

1 minute ago, zzaa09 said:

A dumbed down population?

9 years of Prayuth will have that effect I suppose.

6 hours ago, sidneybear said:

Thaksin's clique remind me of the Clintons: nepotism at its most extreme. Thaksin knows he won't have long, so he'll surround himself with people who will do his bidding, i.e., raking in as much as possible, rather than offering different views and insights that might benefit the country. I suppose he's a businessman first and foremost, so we shouldn't be surprised. 

 

While we're on the Clintons, many of Thaksin's supporters remind me of Hillary Clinton: those many who disagree or hold alternative views on what might be best for Thailand are jeered at as if they were "a basket of deplorables". Politics is so very divisive these days. I can see why people like Thaksin - I used to myself because I looked at him through the lens of my western culture. But then I realised what a degenerate, soulless, and culturally barren dump the west had become, so I concluded that Thailand's conservative approach to keeping its house in order is actually a superior one.

 

Oh the irony - the right was always so wedded to free speech and rugged individualism yet here you are cheering on oppression, censorship and authoritarianism in the name of “culture”. 

????????????

13 minutes ago, zzaa09 said:

Oh dear.

Are we rewriting a slanted perspective on history and remembrance? 

I guess we’ll see on the 14th won’t we.

What would a Thaksin landslide say about his past performance?

3 hours ago, KhaoNiaw said:

So nothing to do with experience, ability or policies then. More of the same old same old Thai politics. 

Everything to do with experience, ability and policies….Thaksin’s.

You know very little about politics (globally) if you are unaware about the benefits of name recognition (Trudeau, Bush, Ghandi, Bhutto, Aquino, etc. etc.)

9 hours ago, NanLaew said:

In an apples with apples comparison, between 2010 and 2021, the median household income (PPP) in Thailand rose from $15,523 to $23,076.

 

Vietnam started from the 'back of the grid'* in 2010. So your stats are more like proof, if ever proof was needed, that socialism with a dash of populism goes a very, very long way.

 

* That means they're playing catch-up. That's how countries tend to develop.

The point in using Vietnam’s figures was to illustrate that Thailand’s “growth” over the same period was underwhelming - 48% sounds significant,  but really it isn’t because as you have just stated, starting from the back end of the grid warps the statistics (Thailand in 2010 was not as far back as Vietnam, but it was still far, far from the front end).

11 hours ago, KhaoNiaw said:

May well be. I'm expecting Pheu Thai to choose Srettha though, especially if they need to do a deal with Prawit. Srettha seems to have a lot of momentum behind him whereas even some in Pheu Thai seem to feel Thaksin's daughter is just Thaksin's daughter. 

After the election it may well be Srettha, however, there is no doubt that Paetongtarn the star attraction before the election. She is the vote winner (by proxy).

Thaksin's daughter is just Thaksin's daughter - thus her popularity.

18 minutes ago, KhaoNiaw said:

Just pointing out that he's not really a man for the poor. Famously, of course, saying that any areas that didn't vote for him wouldn't receive any development funds. Also quite open about the fact that he had little interest in furthering democracy (until he was removed undemocratically). Very much a case of distributing largesse from the centre and by doing this in the early days of his administration and focusing on funds going through village heads, kamnans etc. to get their local backing, it allowed him to get on with his own business. He undoubtedly did some good early on but it was well planned and targeted for his own benefit. Removing him in the fashion they did was a daft move.

Whatever his motivations, he made the lives of a great many neglected people much much better, this is why his daughter will be PM in two weeks.

18 minutes ago, zzaa09 said:

Actually, the vast majority are indifferent.

Pretending to have acquired any such knowledge or connections about the society is quite soulfully poor. 

Thaksin's re-election in 2005 had a 72% voter turnout.

The 28% that were not bothered to vote - are they the vast majority of indifferent individuals that you speak of?

The 2019 election had a 75% turnout - is that an increase of indifference?

19 minutes ago, KhaoNiaw said:

But some of the very poorest parts of the country never voted for Thaksin parties.

That is very true.

The south has never had much interest in Thaksin.

What is also very true, is that the bulk of Thaksin's support has always come from the poorer sectors of society (predominantly from the north and north-east).

Why is Pheu Thai the favourite to win the upcoming election?

Whom does their supporter base consist of....is it upperclass, gentrified elites?

Thaksin's most effective policies were reducing rural poverty and the introduction of universal healthcare, allowing him to gather the hitherto-neglected support of the rural poor, especially in the populous northeast.

100% of the poor don't support Thaksin - the vast majority of them do.

So what is your point?

11 minutes ago, zzaa09 said:

Hmmm....

What kind of specific and dreamy change? 

Truly.....what do the likes of PT or MF have to offer the commons? - in practice....not just rhetoric.

 

Some wiser [or cynical] folks might not be buying into such projected scenarios. 

Well, if you're slow on the uptake, I guess you'll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, why do you think the love and adoration the commoners, peasants, underclasses and downtrodden masses have for Thaksin is so so enduring?

Answer the above question and you'll have the answer to the question posed in your previous post.

1 hour ago, bannork said:

Jim, Pheua Thai have just told voters to vote strategically to prevent Prayuth's return.

In other words don't vote for Move Forward, it's a wasted vote.

I told you before, PT don't like MF who are the real deal wanting meaningful reform. 

PT don't want significant change in Thailand, just offer the peasants some crumbs and try to bring back the paymaster.

What are you going to do when Pheua Thai team up with Pravit? 

Send your credentials to the house of detention?

, 

 

 

Exactly my point. 
Pheu Thai is better than Prayuth

Move Forward is better than Pheu Thai.

Its a step by step process.

I can see PT winning this and the next election and Move Forward winning the next two after that.

Change / improvement is gradual.

Either way, the military / elites or on the outer for at least a generation.

2 hours ago, NanLaew said:

I can't speak for Bangkok but the provincial capital of Udon Thani has developed and expanded more in the past five or six years on Prayuth's watch than it ever did under the original TRT and subsequent Thaksin-led administrations.

What an extraordinary achievement, especially given the fact that two of the six years you mention were pandemic years. Prayuth must be a genius. I am curious though, given Prayuth’s outstanding success in developing Udon Thani, why is he so unpopular? I mean, you’ve made it clear that Thaksin’s meagre efforts merit no adulation yet here we are 20 years later and vast numbers of Thais worship the man as a god primarily for being the first PM to invest in rural development on a meaningful scale. Quite the quandary. Perhaps the answer lies in the lack of accuracy of your assessment of the comparative success achieved by each side of Thai politics.

Hmmm,

But 79% of the poor remain in rural areas and mainly in agricultural households. Thailand’s poverty reduction slowed from 2015 onwards with poverty increasing in 2016, 2018 and 2020, mirroring a slowing economy, stagnating farm and business incomes and the COVID-19 crisis. It finds that in 2020, the poverty rate was over 3 percentage points higher in rural areas than in urban zones and the number of rural poor outnumbered the urban poor by almost 2.3 million. The distribution of poverty has also been uneven across geographic regions with the poverty rate in the South and in the Northeast almost double the poverty rate at the national level.

1 hour ago, sidneybear said:

Oh dear, you're becoming rude again, and are reminding me of a small child shouting and stomping his feet. We could dig up numbers all day, such as this one that shows median household income (as many households above as there are below):

 

https://www.globaldata.com/data-insights/macroeconomic/median-household-income-in-thailand/#:~:text=Thailand's median household income (PPP,household income increased by 48.7%.

 

Nice result, huh?

 

Anyway, all you have to do is look around and you’ll see lots of examples of Thailand's middle class prosperity. Even towns in deepest Isaan have air conditioned malls these days, a phenomenon unheard of not so long ago. People on all walks of life are much better off than they were. Of course, inflation is a problem that disproportionately affects the poorest, but we're sadly seeing that everywhere right now, and it's causes are not Thailand's fault. 

 

More ad hominem stuff, which ignores the points I made earlier about western 'democracies' degenerating into soulless hell holes, which is why we all came to Thailand in the first place, I guess. Western liberal and left wing people don't see it this way though. They're a dogmatic lot, and many will never change their minds when faced with facts as I once myself did.

1% of the population owns 85% of the wealth - it's indefensible which is why you have opted to ignore it.

Weak!

Your stats don't tell the story you think it they do (comprehension again?).

48.7% over 11 years looks quite paltry.

How does this compare with Vietnam over the same period?

Vietnam PPP household income went from US$894 in 2010 to US$2178 in 2021.

That, my friend, is a 243% increase in the same time it took Thailand to achieve 48.7%

Thailand is underdeveloped outside of Bangkok. This is the very reason why Thaksin is so popular - he kickstarted development of the rest of the country, had he remained in power god knows how high the PPP household income would be by now - perhaps the figure would be 100% instead of just 48.7%, thanks to the anti-democracy forces we'll never know what could have been. Lets not forget, before Thaksin came along the rural poor didn't even get access to decent affordable healthcare - what does this say about your cherished traditions and culture?. The introduction of the 30 baht universal healthcare system eliminated 17,000 preventable infant deaths per year - the sort of malfeasance not seen in the west for a century was only solved by a democratically elected Thaksin a mere 20 years ago.

Why are you so afraid of letting the Thai people decide what they want for themselves and their country? If they wish to embrace aspects of western culture and economic policy who are the minority to deny them that? You don't even respect the Thai people enough to let them decide their own future, your anti-western diatribes are but a fig leaf that are all too easily seen through.

34 minutes ago, sidneybear said:

 

The bar chart you showed is misleading, as it only shows wealth distribution by the top and bottom 10%, rather what lies in between. The fact that the very rich are getting richer is a global phenomenon (and I'll even cite the Guardian here):

Comprehension ain't a strong point eh?

The bar chart shows the bottom 50% and the top 10%

What lies between?

The remaining 40% of Thais possess an astounding 12.6% of the wealth.

It doesn't take much effort to deduce that the bottom 90% of Thais hold just 14.3% of the wealth.

Compared to the USA where the top 1% own 38.5%, Thailand's top 1% own an obscene 85.7%

Thailand is right at the very top of the worst in the world for inequality... and deliberately so.

Democracy will, as much as it is possible, reduce this inequality.

Are you shocked that the meagre 1.7% that you thought the bottom 10% owned is actually the total wealth of the bottom 50%? It is disgraceful and anyone who preaches cultural values, traditions and purports to care for the Thai people, if they were genuine, would be front and centre in the fight to restore democracy.... yet here you are Thaksin, Thaksin, Thaksin. You're fooling no one but yourself.

All is all, Thailand has continued to do well, and household income has increased more rapidly since those terrible conservatives took over.

Yes, well, he may have a point. By 'progressive', I think he's looking at the west, where progressives seek to disregard and apologise for their nation's history, suppress the national religion, the subordinate the family unit in favour of the state, erasure traditions, and insist on cultural and class homogeneity that is defined by state edicts. Does that sound familiar? It's attributes of Marxism I outlined earlier, and it's a good thing if people like that are driven out. 

Nobody should be driven out. Every citizen deserves their say via their vote. Who are the conservatives to oppressively force their views, values and beliefs onto others? Who are the conservatives to deny their fellow citizens of their right to vote? More pertinently, why do Thai conservatives need to deny democracy? 

3 hours ago, sidneybear said:

There you go again, using emotional language. Your points might carry more weight if they were made politely, recognising that others don't share your opinion.

 

What would a "more developed" Thailand look like? The west? Look at the state the west is in now, with its total breakdown of family, society and culture. People are lonely, angry, divided, and are resorting to hurling insults at each other (like you do) instead of trying to reconcile their differences. I'm glad that Thailand rejects this kind of "progress". 

 

China's version of Marxism has adapted to the modern world, particularly in its embrace of making money to become more powerful. That said, various core attributes of Leninism-Marxism plainly exist in Chinese society that don't exist in Thai society, such as: the suppression of religion, the deification of political figures, the subordination of the family unit in favour of the state, the erasure of traditions, and the insistence on cultural and class homogeneity that is defined by state edicts. Moreover, business leaders are treated with suspicion in China, and are struck down if they become too powerful, 'bourgeoise' even, like Jack Ma from Ali-baba and others have been. 

 

Thai conservatism, on the other hand, very much supports religion, encourages a strong family unit, values tradition, holds successful businesspeople in high esteem, and is tolerant of cultural differences. Sure, Thailand keeps its house in order by expelling divisive and crooked oligarchs from its political system, but that's not such a bad thing if it means maintaining Thailand's traditions and social order. 

There you go again, using emotional language. Your points might carry more weight if they were made politely, recognising that others don't share your opinion.

Opinions are not automatically valid or equal. Opinions are subservient to facts (e.g. you can't have an opinion that 1 + 1 = 5). Should anti-semitic or racist opinions be treated as anything other than deplorable? How should we treat Putin's opinion that Ukraine belongs to Russia? 

What would a "more developed" Thailand look like? The west? Look at the state the west is in now, with its total breakdown of family, society and culture. People are lonely, angry, divided, and are resorting to hurling insults at each other (like you do) instead of trying to reconcile their differences. I'm glad that Thailand rejects this kind of "progress". 

A more developed Thailand would be a Thailand with less unnecessary death and suffering and more freedom, for example: developed western countries have an infant morality rate of between 2 and 3 deaths per 1000 live births whilst Thailand is over double that rate at 6.882 (2022), Thailand's poverty rate plummeted under Thaksin's leadership averaging just over 7% annual decreases, since the coups that rate of decrease has more than halved only again rising above 4% under Yingluck's government (“The increase in poverty in 2018 was widespread, occurring in all regions and 61 out of 77 provinces,” the World Bank said in a report last year), Thailand has been downgraded in global rankings from "partly free" to "not free" under the Prayuth regime reversing the previous trend, both political and individual freedoms have been severely curtailed, the suicide rate in Thailand declined by 3.6 per 100,000 under Thaksin but increased by 1.0 per 100,000 under Prayuth, Thailand has the highest income inequality in East Asia (by some measures the world), just look at what has happened since the 2006 coup in the graph below.

China's version of Marxism has adapted to the modern world, particularly in its embrace of making money to become more powerful. That said, various core attributes of Leninism-Marxism plainly exist in Chinese society that don't exist in Thai society, such as: the suppression of religion, the deification of political figures, the subordination of the family unit in favour of the state, the erasure of traditions, and the insistence on cultural and class homogeneity that is defined by state edicts. Moreover, business leaders are treated with suspicion in China, and are struck down if they become too powerful, 'bourgeoise' even, like Jack Ma from Ali-baba and others have been. 

How curious, in order for China to develop it has embraced western practices, technologies and economic policies and as a result seen remarkable progress in a very short period, yet.... you also want to claim the the west is on the verge of collapse and void of morals and decency. 

Thai conservatism, on the other hand, very much supports religion, encourages a strong family unit, values tradition, holds successful businesspeople in high esteem, and is tolerant of cultural differences. Sure, Thailand keeps its house in order by expelling divisive and crooked oligarchs from its political system, but that's not such a bad thing if it means maintaining Thailand's traditions and social order. 

The leader of Prayuth's party, UTN was recently in the news for labelling progressive Thais "nation haters" who he will "drive out of the country". What sort of dystopian nightmare are you supporting here? Who rightly gets to dictate a nations values if not its people via democracy. Thailand is one of the most unequal societies in the world - is this something worthy of being maintained or do the Thai people deserve better? 

1 hour ago, sidneybear said:

It all depends how far back you go. Thailand these days has a growing middle class and people are much better off than they were. It's achieved a lot, without losing its delightful culture and national identity. 

 

To say that there's "something wrong" with those who hold a political opinion that differs from yours is ad hominem: it epitomises a modern and degenerated state of debate that's popular in the west right now. Conservative Thais look at your viewpoint, and it's results elsewhere, and may well conclude that 'progress' is not always a good thing, as it often involves sliding backwards and downwards. We'll see manifestations of that very soon, and I welcome Thaksin and his divisive and crooked family getting kicked out again. Ditto that culturally bereft Future Forward socialist. 

 

You're also confusing conservatism with communism, so you might want to read up on the glaring differences between the two.

Thailands development has been stunted by anti democracy kleptocrats. If the middle class was growing instead of being under extreme financial pressure then Prayuth would easily win re-election. Why do you think that Prayuth is doing so poorly in the polls?

Calling out abhorrent political “opinions” is not ad hominem, it is simply stating facts.
 

Conservative Thais are entitled to their opinion and their vote - they are not entitled to silencing those opposed to them nor denying them their vote.

It is you that are confused if you think that China is communist. The CCP is more aptly described as being authoritarian and nationalistic, not surprisingly the same two terms that spring to mind when discussing the current Thai regime and its supporters.