Did America Make Thailand what it is today? Bloomberg seems to thinks so ....

[JimmyTheMook]

America is Godlike that all the other inferior nations aspire to be.

 

 

[StreetCowboy]

8 hours ago, JimmyTheMook said:

America is Godlike that all the other inferior nations aspire to be.

 

 

Maybe you don't have children, but I do, and when they fly the nest and say they are independent, one hopes they will do well, but still cringe at their foolish and immature mistakes.  

 

I think most British people still feel that way about the USA.  

[NanLaew]

9 hours ago, Spidey said:

The only reason the US was in Vietnam was to prevent the spread of Communism. An American obsession.

 

That didn't work out too well, did it?

I don't know. The 'dominoes' didn't exactly tumble and you and I (and most of the rest) are still here in the comparative, relative, free democracy of Thailand. Nobody I know was killed in the rush to Vietnam after the US relinquishment. Apparently for some here, it simply takes Thai Immigration to tighten up on their rules before Vietnam pops up on their short attention span radar.

[Spidey]

9 hours ago, NanLaew said:

I don't know. The 'dominoes' didn't exactly tumble and you and I (and most of the rest) are still here in the comparative, relative, free democracy of Thailand. Nobody I know was killed in the rush to Vietnam after the US relinquishment. Apparently for some here, it simply takes Thai Immigration to tighten up on their rules before Vietnam pops up on their short attention span radar.

Living in Vietnam would hold no fears for me. I have visited and the people seem more relaxed and....happy.

 

More so than Thais, the Vietnamese government must be doing something right, at least everyone wears their crash helmets!

[NanLaew]

On 12/31/2018 at 2:53 PM, marcusarelus said:

http://american_almanac.tripod.com/lkffdr.htm

Thanks for that. Very enlightening. I must have dozed through that in history but unless the history teacher was young and fashionably Trotsky-ish, maybe talking about anything that impugned the great British Empire was still off-topic in Scottish classrooms in the 1960's. I found geography much more fun though, especially the maps where warm pinkish-red that was favored for showing the extents of our empire versus the bright, signal red of the USSR's.

[marcusarelus]

On 1/2/2019 at 9:35 AM, mauGR1 said:

The larger the face, the larger the back, as the old saying goes..

Who killed and destroyed and enslaved more than the Americans ?

Love American music btw, but so many contradictions in that country.

Can we count the famines in India?  Chinese under Mao killed 30 million?  Russia under Stalin 20 million? 

French colonial atrocities in South East Asia?  Vietnam famine?   Love Chinese and Russian women BTW.

[marcusarelus]

1 hour ago, Spidey said:

Living in Vietnam would hold no fears for me. I have visited and the people seem more relaxed and....happy.

 

More so than Thais, the Vietnamese government must be doing something right, at least everyone wears their crash helmets!

Mussolini made the trains run on time.  Is an expression that refers to the alleged efficiency of totalitarian dictatorships.  I think your statement about the crash helmets is akin to trains in Fascist Italy. 

[mauGR1]

17 minutes ago, marcusarelus said:

Can we count the famines in India?  Chinese under Mao killed 30 million?  Russia under Stalin 20 million? 

French colonial atrocities in South East Asia?  Vietnam famine?   Love Chinese and Russian women BTW.

Sure, my point is simply that Americans are not better than those you cited, so pls don't claim moral superiority and stop preaching good while doing bad.

 

[NanLaew]

1 hour ago, Spidey said:

Living in Vietnam would hold no fears for me. I have visited and the people seem more relaxed and....happy.

 

More so than Thais, the Vietnamese government must be doing something right, at least everyone wears their crash helmets!

I have been working extensively in Vietnam since around 2005 and I find that like most other SE Asian populations, regardless of what anyone's government says or does, generally the people just get on with it. I don't have a happiness meter that's calibrated for either Thailand or Vietnam but the latter's joy quotient certainly starts edging up in Q1 with Tết on the near horizon, pretty much like CNY does it for the northerners. After (a previous life) working over eight years in mainland China, I always considered that despite the language difference and cultural variations, the Vietnamese were just southern Chinese. More recently, I see it more and more of a vassal state that the Chinese can easily take back if the proverbial excreta is allowed to hit the diffuser.

 

Nobody likes the shackles of colonialism and it has no place in the world but would temper my criticism by suggesting the British did a lot more for their cast-offs than the Dutch, French, Portuguese and Belgians ever did. With a few exceptions, post-war, newly independent countries that were formerly British have fared better than some of their counterparts and neighbors that had different overlords. Africa is the classic case study in that regard where former British colonies are starkly more developed than the former French and Belgian ones. They're also less manic and drive on the proper side of the road! The US's contribution to what Thailand is now is remarkable but when taken in context of all the political and diplomatic machinations of nations states that preceded the arrival of Americans, not overwhelmingly significant. However, their military presence was critical in the Vietnam era but not uniquely for Thailand.

 

PS. In my experience, Vietnamese cops, the enforcers of the bike helmet laws are probably more corrupt than their Thai counterparts, more so at the very highest levels of command.

[marcusarelus]

1 hour ago, mauGR1 said:

Sure, my point is simply that Americans are not better than those you cited, so pls don't claim moral superiority and stop preaching good while doing bad.

 

 

1 hour ago, mauGR1 said:

Sure, my point is simply that Americans are not better than those you cited, so pls don't claim moral superiority and stop preaching good while doing bad.

 

You asked, " Who killed and destroyed and enslaved more than the Americans?"  The answer is every almost everyone.  America has been involved in wars it did not slaughter it's own citizens during modern times as did the Chinese, Russians, Italians, Germans, British and so on.........

[mauGR1]

2 minutes ago, marcusarelus said:

 

You asked, " Who killed and destroyed and enslaved more than the Americans?"  The answer is every almost everyone.  America has been involved in wars it did not slaughter it's own citizens during modern times as did the Chinese, Russians, Italians, Germans, British and so on.........

... Huge trade of African slaves, extermination of the American natives, while thumping on the holy book..

Of course nobody is completely innocent in ancient and modern history, but Americans took it to a global level.

Perhaps we should go back on topic, which is about American influence on modern Thailand.

[grollies]

5 hours ago, NanLaew said:

Thanks for that. Very enlightening. I must have dozed through that in history but unless the history teacher was young and fashionably Trotsky-ish, maybe talking about anything that impugned the great British Empire was still off-topic in Scottish classrooms in the 1960's. I found geography much more fun though, especially the maps where warm pinkish-red that was favored for showing the extents of our empire versus the bright, signal red of the USSR's.

 

main-qimg-340fe8431be9499dc6a90bddca3e8ce2.webp

[grollies]

Dunno why the pic didn't load

[StreetCowboy]

10 hours ago, mauGR1 said:

... Huge trade of African slaves, extermination of the American natives, while thumping on the holy book..

Of course nobody is completely innocent in ancient and modern history, but Americans took it to a global level.

Perhaps we should go back on topic, which is about American influence on modern Thailand.

Some of us have managed to go more than two hundred years without a civil war.

 

To what extent do you think Vietnam was encouraged to tear itself apart in a vicious war by the American example, and how has that example influenced Thailand?

[mauGR1]

1 hour ago, StreetCowboy said:

Some of us have managed to go more than two hundred years without a civil war.

 

To what extent do you think Vietnam was encouraged to tear itself apart in a vicious war by the American example, and how has that example influenced Thailand?

Tbh, i am afraid i have not an intelligent answer to your intelligent question, as i don't follow political games very much.

I can just say that Thailand has got quite some economical benefits from the Americans and their military presence.

[Sattphalat]

Maybe something worth watching , some thoughts about Asian modern history. Also on the American influence in the region.

Maybe some valid points.

 https://youtu.be/PZLQ0vmxi68

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Sattphalat]

....

[LomSak27]

20 hours ago, mauGR1 said:

... Huge trade of African slaves, extermination of the American natives, while thumping on the holy book..

Of course nobody is completely innocent in ancient and modern history, but Americans took it to a global level.

Ahh The joy in finding fault. And What fun!   

 

“Huge trade of African slaves ... while thumping on the holy book..”

The trade was carried out by the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Spanish, and the Dutch Empires. Between 1525 and 1866, in the entire history of the slave trade to the New World, 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World. 10.7 million survived the dreaded Middle Passage, disembarking in North America, the Caribbean and South America. How many of these 10.7 million Africans were shipped directly to North America? Only about 388,000. a tiny percentage. 

 

As for thumping the book. Did not that British slave trader pen “Amazing Grace”?! How touching,

 

 “extermination of the American natives”.

95 per cent (or more)  of the new world native peoples were destroyed by disease’s brought over by the Europeans.

 

No better illustration than how it began with Cortez the Conquistador. He was defeated, and nearly wiped out on his first attempt. The battle of the Causeways, or ‘La Noche Triste’. A year later he returns and easily rolls the Aztecs up. In between, a smallpox epidemic decimated the population. When he entered what is now Mexico City half the population was dead. There were so many corpses that they could not be disposed of, they littered the streets. This was higher than the Black death.

 

This was well known to the early colonists of America. James Coopers "The Last of the Mohicans" is an action adventure in the sevens years war, (or the English Conquest of Canada) but its title refers to the 'fading and disappearing' of the Native tribes. This was caused by disease not war.

 

Now whenever you want to discuss Vietnam. Thailand and the US, go right ahead.   

Edited January 4, 2019 by LomSak27

[mauGR1]

32 minutes ago, LomSak27 said:

Ahh The joy in finding fault. And What fun!   

 

“Huge trade of African slaves ... while thumping on the holy book..”

The trade was carried out by the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Spanish, and the Dutch Empires. Between 1525 and 1866, in the entire history of the slave trade to the New World, 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World. 10.7 million survived the dreaded Middle Passage, disembarking in North America, the Caribbean and South America. How many of these 10.7 million Africans were shipped directly to North America? Only about 388,000. a tiny percentage. 

 

As for thumping the book. Did not that British slave trader pen “Amazing Grace”?! How touching,

 

 “extermination of the American natives”.

95 per cent (or more)  of the new world native peoples were destroyed by disease’s brought over by the Europeans.

 

No better illustration than how it began with Cortez the Conquistador. He was defeated, and nearly wiped out on his first attempt. The battle of the Causeways, or ‘La Noche Triste’. A year later he returns and easily rolls the Aztecs up. In between, a smallpox epidemic decimated the population. When he entered what is now Mexico City half the population was dead. There were so many corpses that they could not be disposed of, they littered the streets. This was higher than the Black death.

 

This was well known to the early colonists of America. James Coopers "The Last of the Mohicans" is an action adventure in the sevens years war, (or the English Conquest of Canada) but its title refers to the 'fading and disappearing' of the Native tribes. This was caused by disease not war.

 

Now whenever you want to discuss Vietnam. Thailand and the US, go right ahead.   

Fair points you make about extermination by diseases, obviously early Americans were all Europeans, including Spanish, Portuguese, English  and whatnot.

Still, to say that bad Europeans enslaved the Africans, for the good Americans to freed them, would be a strange way to read the history, don't you think ?

 

 

[LomSak27]

10 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Still, to say that bad Europeans enslaved the Africans, for the good Americans to freed them, would be a strange way to read the history, don't you think ?

It most definitely would be so  .... however as no one here has stated that, I have no clue how you came up with this ludicrous idea. Perhaps you are conducting a seance?   ????   

 

Anytime you want to discuss Vietnam. Thailand and the US, go right ahead.

Edited January 4, 2019 by LomSak27

[ChiangMaiLightning2143]

We also brought the vile culture of “tipping”
And the social and economic distortions that follow.

[JimGant]

Quote

Has the US done any good to any country, up to now? Has the US 'uplifted' any undeveloped country to the developed status?

After WWII, most of Europe was undeveloped. But the US "uplifted" Western Europe with $100 billion (in 2016 dollars) in economic assistance -- the so called Marshal Plan. Money never paid back, and which could have been used to bolster America's infrastructure -- and education system -- both of which are now hanging out to dry. But instead we paid to rebuild a part of the world that had cost us tens of thousands of American lives, for nothing -- and even today we pay the lion's share of NATO expenses -- a treaty solely for the defense of Western Europe -- and functions only as a tripwire for the US.

 

Would have been fun had Trump been in office in 1948, when the Marshal Plan would have crossed his desk for signature. A sure veto. Trump may be a buffoon -- but he certainly can recognize a leech when he sees one.

[SuperTed]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2018-08-16/how-war-made-thailand-a-tourist-destination-video?utm_source=line&utm_content=bloomberg&utm_campaign=article&utm_medium=news
 
History is so important.  We forget so easily.

Yes. Remember that before Vietnam, US armed forces supplied guns to the Thai military, while the CIA supplied guns to the Thai police. And the police and military have been at odds ever since.

At least that is what I read in a history book by some professor at Chula. I have no knowledge, opinion or interest in Thai politics.


* * *
Don’t tell me why it can’t be done; show me how it can - Jim Wright