7 hours ago, webfact said:

It should be an honour to be appointed to the civil service.

A bureaucracy that repeatedly aligns itself to carry on the function of government subsumed by military has no honor. It should be on the whole nonpolitical but dedicated to serving the People through their Constitution and laws. It should be the bureaucracy of the People.

Instead the Thai civil service allows itself in the whole to become a tool of the military that uses its "officialdom" to direct and appease the military as “the final arbiter in political conflict.”

https://politicalpipeline.wordpress.com/2012/05/31/the-bureaucracy-and-military-in-developing-countries/

If all of civil service shutdown in response to a military coup, how long and effective would the coup be? Instead it seems to ingratiate itself for pay raises and better benefits as the price for any honor it may have had.

 

8 hours ago, mtls2005 said:

Amazing that the senior leadership of the Junta seems to be ignoring this massive, systemic corruption issue - ok, not the only program being looted on their watch.

 

Good thing they granted themselves pre-emptive amnesty.

 

 

Huh? They're not ignoring corruption, they are at the very root of it. They are firewall protecting the handful of families that control the country, and they are well compensated for this job.

Edited March 15, 20188 yr by stephen tracy

7 hours ago, Eligius said:

How many times have I thought this (that the Thais deserve what they get) when, week after week, month after month, year after year, the junta kick the Thais in the face and insult and oppress them with their dinosaur directives (we cannot use the real word here).

The Thais largely go on taking it all. And yet - I do feel desperately sorry for them - even though much of their oppression is self-invited.

There is so much more I would love to say here - but (as you will understand) cannot. That enforced silence alone says a great deal about the nature of Thailand ...

 

 

 

Dead right! If you yourself have to self censor on a foreigner forum, imagine what it's like for Thais? People simply don't want to invite trouble or go to jail.  However, as events proved in Tunisia, it takes only one small act of bravery and defiance to spark an inferno.