eldar1

If you didn't got it yet....At the moment Thaksin tries to stage a coup.

You won't see ee-chalerm, you will see worse, you will see his squareness Thaksin (titel not sure, PM, President, dear leader, Dalai Lama of Thailand?)

I vote for "Dear Leader" Mao, Kim Il Jung, Kim Jung Il, Thaksin has such a nice ring to it

So the Coup in 2006 was "treason".

The Yellows were "treasonous".

Now you are getting to the root of the problem. The coup in 2006 was a treasonous act.

Yes a coup is treason

After the coup TRT was elected (or did you forget that fact?) so their was an elected government.

The yellows never openly said to harm anyone, therefore their actions are still in the civil disobedience category.

The Thaksin IV goverment stepped down after the TRT was dissolved (again). Enough MP's abandoned the TRT so that the dem's could form a majority coalition within the properly elected government.

To sum it all up:

coup + surayad governemt = illegal

Thaksin III + Thaksin IV + Abhisit I goverments = legal

Red shirts are calling to harm the legal head of state of thailand = Treason = Illegal

Does it mean KILL ?

No.

Not at all. Nobody said KILL.

So forget it, you cannot put that word into peoples mouths, no matter how much you try to distort the truth.

I did not put the words kill in there, but when you attack someone you are tryong to hurt them or kill them, either way it's wrong.

I'm sorry levelhead, the game is up, you can protest all you want but the red shirts have openly called on their followers to hurt the PM of thailand. This is treason

Treason The offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign's family

Treason is a crime, therefore the leader of UDD are criminals and the UDD is a criminal organization. No amount of spin will change that fact.

Give it up, it's over

*edit, removed my nested comment

Please show me the evidence where they say "Kill the Prime Minister"

Nobody is saying Kill Abhisit.

For anyone to try to suggest this is the case is a liar.

Jatuporn Promphan Sunday urged red-shirted protesters to rise up against the government and attack Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban as first sight.

He said there was no longer rule of law so the red-shirted people would attack the government.

He claimed that he had been arrested by the military to the Naresuan base in Prachuap Khiri Khan but red-shirted supporters in the base secured his release and sent him to the rally site at the Government House again.

Jatuporn urged red-shirted protesters to travel to Bangkok or seize provincial halls.

The Nation

Link:http://www.nationmultimedia.com/breakingnews/30100332/Jatuporn-calls-red-shirts-to-descend-on-Bangkok-to

¹at·tack Pronunciation: \ə-ˈtak\ Function:verb Etymology:Middle French attaquer, from Old Italian *estaccare to attach, from stacca stake, of Germanic origin; akin to Old English stacaDate:1562 transitive verb 1 : to set upon or work against forcefully 2 : to assail with unfriendly or bitter words <a speech attacking her political enemies> 3 : to begin to affect or to act on injuriously <plants attacked by aphids> 4 : to set to work on <attack a problem> 5 : to threaten (a piece in chess) with immediate capture

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/breakingne...-to-join-rallie

Thaksin makes phone-in, calling more to join rallies

Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra made a phone-in to the rally at the Government House at 6:30 pm, calling more people to join anti-government rallies in Bangkok.

He said it was the "golden time" now for the protesters to rise up against the government after soldiers were deployed to Bangkok streets.

He said he was ready to move into Thailand to lead the people's uprising.

The Nation

end quote

I think this is called revolution or coup???

Not sure what it's called but i do know it's bad. Any chance the government can maybe make mr t take a very very very long vaction somewhere ? I mean he is a fugitive and all

Their brothers and sisters and fighting for Democracy, are the foot solidiers really going to stop them.................

Please stop lying, the reds are not fighting for democracy, they stopped doing that yesterday when they attacked the ASEAN meeting and removed all validity of their movement today when their leaders urged them to kill abhisit and fight the government.

the red shirts are a mob, worse than the PAD who they hate.

The order goes like this: Human>Politician>Mammals>PAD>Pond Scum>UDD

Angry words were said indeed, when the red representative was arrested, but they didn't include 'KILL'. It's okay to have an opinion in these matters, but don't you think the Nation and the Post are giving this show enough spin without contributing more?

Ok, you are right the word kill was not used, but according to the nation (spin or no spin they don't print absolute lies) he did and i'm paraphrasing here, urge people to attack the PM and attack the government. Them are fightin' words to use an american phrase.

I've never agreed with the UDD but i always respected their right to demonstrate to get their way, but their latest actions took them beyond simple protestation to full fledged insurection. The attack on the ASEAN was pushing it, but in then the PAD did sieze the airport. Even though the excuse of "but they did it first" is one of the most childish to use, i thought ok ok, they might still have a point. When they urged the UDD to attack the government, be it in a fit of rage and emotion or not they crossed the line and surpassed the PAD in the depths of thuggery. I now have no more sympathy for them at all and nothing they can say or do except disperse never to be heard from again can chagne that. Somethings you just can't come back from.

But i will apologize for my outburst, just because the reds lost the plot does not mean i can.

Their brothers and sisters and fighting for Democracy, are the foot solidiers really going to stop them.................

Please stop lying, the reds are not fighting for democracy, they stopped doing that yesterday when they attacked the ASEAN meeting and removed all validity of their movement today when their leaders urged them to kill abhisit and fight the government.

the red shirts are a mob, worse than the PAD who they hate.

The order goes like this: Human>Politician>Mammals>PAD>Pond Scum>UDD

From The Nation:

Jatuporn calls red-shirts to descend on Bangkok to bring down Govt

Jatuporn Promphan Sunday urged red-shirted protesters to rise up against the government and attack Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban as first sight.

He said there was no longer rule of law so the red-shirted people would attack the government.

He claimed that he had been arrested by the military to the Naresuan base in Prachuap Khiri Khan but red-shirted supporters in the base secured his release and sent him to the rally site at the Government House again.

Jatuporn urged red-shirted protesters to travel to Bangkok or seize provincial halls.

The Nation

Time for the army to crush the red shirts now, they are no longer able to claim to be pro-democractic, they are just a mob intent on cause murder and mayhem now. The true colours of the reds are comming out now.

from DTV: Arisman + Jatuporn seize helicopter that was taking them to prison, land at redshirt mob

ROFL, who do they think they are, stallone and swarzenegger ?

From a Thai perspective, who would you fight for? Tell me about an MP who isn't corrupt. Most Thais I have spoken to, for or against, don't argue about whether Thaksin was corrupt or not. There weren't mass protests when he was prosecuted or even after the coup. The reason they aren't "against" him though, is because he gave with one hand while he was taking with the other. I think on the world stage they'd benefit greatly from his absence, but realistically, and in a Thai context, he is very important. He gives the movement a face, and he is undeniably popular with the grass roots of Thailand.

Historically, Thailand's politicians have always taken all they could with both hands. That's the signature difference between Thaksin and the rest. I have heard a lot of moderates speak of Thaksin as being a better evil than those who came before. The Thais didn't elect him because he was clean... they elected him because he was giving -something- back to the people. Abhisit and the Democrats who fought all of Thaksin's policies have been scrambling to embrace them to ingratiate themselves with the public.

Politics in Thailand are not politics in the west. This is a young democracy and for a short while seemed to be functioning remarkably well considering the status of its neighbors. I don't like the guy, personally... but I can't really argue with people when they tell me that there hasn't been anyone better.

As for the guy screaming that the red movement is pure Thaksin... I'd like to say that I know quite a lot of red supporters and some yellows as well. Several of the red supporters DID NOT vote for Thaksin, but they do understand what democracy is. They don't give a whit what happens to Thaksin. They just want a democratically elected government. On the flipside, the yellows seem to be purely motivated by their hatred of Thaksin. If you ask them about the Democrats or other MPs, they always bring up Thaksin and berate him rather than sharing discussing any positive aspects of their propped up regime.

I wish someone could get a well-spoken red and a well-spoken yellow to have a civil debate with a moderator. It would be fascinating. We here are just a bunch of farangs second guessing what's going on, but it's obvious that the rhetoric on both sides does little to reveal the truth.

You raise some valid points, but the fact remains is that thaksin is a convicted criminal and there are other politicians out there to vote on. As a movement you are only making it harder on yourself by linking yourself with such an abrasive and divisive figure, wouldn't it be better to not link with any single person or at least with a person not tainted with abuse of power convictions?

Thaksin is just not democratic so by supporting him ones does not support democracy. Neither is he perse the lesser of two evils, just because of a couple of populist policies that are not sustainable in the long term. He presents an equal threat to the democratic system that the army reprisents, countless times he has attacked the checks and balances that previous governments had implented are much resistance from army/old elites. No Democratic he is not, so by linking with him ones does not really support democracy, ones just opposes the current government, there is a difference

There go my dinner plans

They wanted prosecution of the criminals who took over the airport.

Fair enough, but logically if they want that, they will also be demanding that they themselves are prosecuted for what happened in Pattaya, right?

Exactly

Just as an aside:

What pretty much EVERYONE has ignored is that the reds' original demands had nothing to do with Thaksin. They wanted fresh democratic elections and the investigation and prosecution of the criminals who took over the airport. These are reasonable demands. Thaksin has been gone a long time without much complaint, but the unfair practices by the opposition have given old Thaksin a leg to stand on. It's easy to hate Thaksin and focus on him... but if you do, you lose the democratic perspective.

You have a fair point there Vindie - There has been a few comments from some saying bring back Thaksin, over the past two years and there was no real fuss to include him in the last election (although, I believe he did pretty much control TRT still) but I don't recall mass rallies to demand his return.

But why is it that the red shirt are always having video links with thaksin? If they truly are only pro-democracy then why associate yourself with thaksin? Thaksin is hardly the stalwart of democratic values.

Yup TOT owns all the lines, so you are stuck with them. You can change ISP however, i used to use CSloxinfo and was happy with them untill i changed apartments which only has TRUE lines, so i had to change ISP's

BBC and other international media now reporting on the Abhisit/Democrat "HYPOCRISY" of arresting a red shirt leader, but never doing anything about the yellow shirts who took over government house and shut down the international airport.

The man is looking like a complete idiot now to many people worldwide, just what the reds want him to look like. Talk about a dumb move, how can you arrest a red when not one single yellow leader has been arrested.

Say that holding the Asean summit is a test of their power, and then it fails in full view of the world.

Now arrest a red leader whilst never arresting a yellow.

If one person or group is causing severe harm to Thailand's reputation, its Abhisit and the Democrats. Give the mandate back to the people, dissolve the house and put back the 1997 constitution.

I thought TRT/Thaksin/Red shirts where the government while the PAD demonstrations and airport seizures were on. It's hard to be a hypocrite when you were in in charge the first time, and as H90 pointed out the PAD leadership has been charged with criminal misconduct by the abhisit led government.

Please when claiming something as facts post a link to back them up.

If not then just say it is your opinion ike those you posted..........

Still living in the 19th century huh? Today only a few countries oppress people by brute force. Politicians and media manipulate the public with their scare tactics way more effectively.

You mean like Australia & the UK where they banned the right to bear arms?

Go check the facts all over the web on that idea & what it achieved.

2 Links please?

Lazy lil piece of meat aren't you

I did not claim or quote supposed facts.

In any case dont bother looking here I will make it easy for you

Aussie Version

a UK version for you too........

UK version

If you really want an easy version you can just watch....... The UK warning the USA

Interesting links, the UK one was a bit better put together than the australian one, but both were interesting.

In the UK it states that there is a huge increase in violent crime (it does not specify guns related or not), now increases in crime happen all the time, mostly do to changing cultural preferences (this is stated in the article also, although in relation to murder rate). This article only asks the question if guns would have prevented such crimes in the first place. It's main reasoning is a survey among criminals in the US taht states that they are more scared of the public having guns than getting caught by the police. Wouldn't this be natural as getting caught by the police only means jail time and having a member of the public point a gun in your face means possible death. I know i'm scared at the thought that some random a-hole has a gun and is not afriad to brandy it about for no apperant reason.

The other point it makes is about the changing murder rates in the UK again it does not specify gun related, but let's assume. The murder rate is getting higher in the UK even with the ban on guns. The premise is again that having a gun would prevent these crimes. Could the murder increase also not be attributed to the chagning cultral values that led the US to have higher murder rates? UK and US culture is increasingly becoming more homogenous therefore certain aspects of each society would become similar as well.

The articles raise some valid points, but not any concrete evidence that an increase in guns means a decrease in violence. If it were really the case that weapons have so much of a detternce effect, then why the ban on nuclear weapons? doesn't the same theory hold up there aswell? I'm pretty sure that that was the main reason behind the huge stockpiling of nuclear weapons in the west and russia, the premise that M.A.D would prevent the use of them.

I have a feeling this thread is going a bit off topic and i'm partly to blame for that, so this will be my last post on the subject in this thread.

Except for the traffic jams cause by the red shirts, i've not really had any problems so far. I don't really think there will be much problems for farang in the near future. This might change if thaksin becomes PM again though, but until then i don't foresee anything that could affect the expat community

1 things though is that it seems that no matter how much things get screwed up, thai tourism never takes a hit for long. I don't know how they manage to do it, but they do

Who broke into your house knowing that you were there - and perhaps your family - and didn't give a shit!

By the way, burglars often kill people with things they find inside the house (so the police do not catch them carring a weapon).

How do you know that they knew you were there? Did they make an appointment? I'm a firm believer that most people don't want to kill another person, not because i'm such a firm believe in the humanity of people, but because the trait is more or less hardwired into us by evolution.

You don't think that a burglar checks to see if anyone is in a house that he is robbing? Talk about naive. Sometimes he calls the telephone (if he can get the number). Sometimes he rings the doorbell. Sometimes he just watches the house, but he always KNOWS. He always wants the benefit of surprise. Fuzzy headed liberal "thinking" indeed!

I must admit that i did not check the stats on this (it seems to be not worthwhile to argu with facts on this board)*, i was only speaking from my personal experience and that of my friends. I've personally(or my family) been burgled 6 times in my life. 4 times while sleeping and twice while away, speaking to friends they have been burgled while at home as well. Most of the time not everything is stolen, usually just high value electronics (tv,stereo, mobiles, etc) and any cash or jewellery lying around. Somehow it seems that not all burglars are mastermind thieves that case a place for days before they rob it, there are plenty of them the break in just for the quick cash.

*i'm not realy talking about you ulysses, more in general

... while the red shirts are trying to overthrow a legitimate government. This gives the government the right to pretty do whatever is necessary to restore peace, and after today we can expect pretty serious actions.

What are u talking about?the only legitiomate and free elected government in Thailand was TRT with Mr,toxin as PM?Everything what came after are not legitimate governments

Sorry but you need to get your facts straight. The current government is 100% legitimate. The current prime minister has been democratically elected by the Parliament.

I think what you mean is that the current government is not the one that was elected, as the P.P.P and it's coalition partners were ALL dissolved BY LAW because of vote buying.

The last legitimate and free elected government was in fact the one under the P.P.P. until the court ruling I just mentioned a couple of times.

The freely elected government was ousted by corrupt judges who would only accept that one side was buying votes when factually they were all at it! My wife identified spouses of these same judges occupying the airport, whipping up the yellow mob.

These judges also endorsed a constitution that was put to the people in such a way that if they didn't endorse it then there would be no election! In other word's, blackmailed!!

Seem's to me that corruption has been an integral part of Thai politics for many year's, so let them get on with it; after all no one see's your X before it is put in the ballot box and most of the people could do with a few Bt!!!

IIRC it was not about buying individual votes (which all parties do here) but paying entire political parties to contest seats in districts which TRT could not get 20% of the votes needed to elect an official from a district in which the official was the only candidate. If the EC actually followed up on individual vote buying, every politician in Thailand ever would be in jail or banned from politics.

I don't understand how farangs who continually talk about democracy have such a laissez faire attitude towards vote buying. Vote buying is against the core principles of democracy; hence it being an offence in western democracies.

I mostly get 90% of my advertised bandwidth in SEA and around 50% from servers in the EU and US

Never been there, i'll drop by there this week to have a look, the cuban band sounds fun. You know if they play every night or only on certain days ?

1. There is no actual contract to force the person to vote for who pays them, therefore the vote has not been bought, only promised.

2. What if Obama puts out a bunch of donuts at his town hall meetings. are those donuts a gift? what is the cash value? So giving someone $6 is unethical but giving them $6 worth of donuts is OK?

3. Its been said over and over again, ask any farang here married in Isaan that the people will take money from every candidate. Perhaps this is why every candidate participates in the practice.

4. There is still no evidence that certain candidates would not have been elected if there was no vote buying. Its all speculation.

1. This is true, there is not actual contract, although there are ways which parties will monitor what people vote for. methods include camera phones, carbon papar, or even plain corruption of election officials.

2. The free doughnuts provided don't come with a caveat that you can only have them if you vote for the person providing them.

3. So that means if a candidate does not do it then they have no hope of winning. Besides the excuse of "but everyone else does it" has never really held water has it?

4. True, there is no conclusive data that a certain candidate has won purely based on vote buying, this would also be hard to prove as the amount of factors involved is huge. What i will say is that multiple studies have pointed out that as much as 55%* of people will vote for the person how paid them the most money.

*I've read studies with the amount of people voting purely because of monetary compensation ranges from 20-55% of people that accepted bribes.

So if spending money to buy votes up front gains you a 20-55% of vote sellers, then does it not by default influence and election and thus worthwhile for certain parties. I'm not saying it's the most efficient or best way, but the fact is that it does help.

Up front vote buying does not guarantee an election win, but within a cohesive strategy it certainly has it's place.

We'll leave the implication of vote buying and it's moral and ethical implications to both the politicians and the vote sellers for another time.

I'd hate to have a tourist related business in thailand at the moment, those people must be pulling out their hair in frustration about what is happening.

anyone know an app like this that is compatible with sony ericsson phones?