Thai Army Says Planning Operation To Clear Protesters

[brianb1944]

Am I the only one wondering why Abhisit is handing this over to same guy who said parliament should be dissolved a few days ago?

Because he was told to, no choice.

Smart move, Army is now solely responsible for the inevitable, imminent carnage.

Edited April 17, 2010 by brianb1944

[anotherpeter]

Laws are rules that a Society gives to itself. It should be established by the majority will. If the Laws are established through Dictatorship, corruption or are twisted by a Minority, there the Laws are "unlawful" and are not respectable.

Laws should not be the decision of the strongest, but should correspond to a consensus of the Society.

It is the first step, then you have a second step: the application of the Laws: if the application is unfair, double standard, corrupted, twisted...the Laws loose credibility and are no more the Reference that they should be.

Laws are sometimes difficult to interpret,controversial, and can conduct to opposite interpretation: this makes wealthy generations of Lawyers in our Countries.

In Thailand....Laws are twisted by successive governments, unfairly applied, controversials....

Are the laws in the 1997 consititution "lawful" laws?

The red shirts are generally complaining about the use of those laws.

[Jerrytheyoung]

If there is a major crackdown as several TVF members wish, we have to look at the consequences:

- first, History shows that it just postpones the issue until the circumstances are favourable to another unrest, or the cracks we perceive in Army and Police may drive the situation to Civil war (risk not neglectible in the current circumstances)

- secondly, as underlined, in our modern times, the World is watching closely. If the crackdown finishes in another bloodbath, Thailand will be considered as Burma for the Human Rights- at least by an important number of Countries, this will induce at least a relative isolation,

- in any case, Investors will prefer to put their assets in less risky neighbouring Countries (Malaysia, Vietnam).

It is the interest of everybody, Elite as Red Shirts that everything ends in a peaceful manner.

IMHO, the Government, instead to accumulate the provocations, should cool down the situation by taking a whole set of serious measures for the stricken Northern population, defusing the situation at the roots, this will reopen the possibility of negociations with the leaders as their troops have good results. There are different ways for reopening the dialog (through MPs, Chavalit....)

It is irrelevant what the government HAS done and what the government WILL do to help the people in the N/NE.

It is especially irrelevant to the reds and their supporters. Most of them will never hear about it anyway. Red TV and radio won't be announcing anything that the government does that will help them, and surely hasn't mentioned anything that the government has already done.

The red leaders don't want their people to know what the government has done to help them. If the people knew any of that, then there would be far less support for the reds.

Your answer, I am afraid, is in line with a majority of TVF members, "Blood and Powder".

Yes the way to Peace is not easy but it worths to try it.

I am sorry but what HAS done the Government is obviously insufficient and has been announced very lately in the premises of the conflict: prices of rice, rubber, drought.... the farmers'incomes have to be supported SERIOUSLY not by cosmetic mini-measures. The development of the Country is not only Bangkok and its suburb and the toys of Army. A significant part of the Budget should be allocated to adress the issues 42% of the Population are facing....Instead the money is spoiled in Military toys.

My point is, it's irrelevant what the government have done or will do, because the reds won't accept it and won't believe it.

The red leaders only interest is to get into power. They have no plans on how to help the poor. But their supporters are blind to that.

It is a basic strategy in social conflicts (strikes for example) and well known from Unionists and HRs (human Resources Managers).

The leaders on both side have to list the claims, then evaluate the Power behind each one. In order to solve a social issue, as HR, you accept the claims that you find justified and which demobilise the "troops" of the Union(s).

The leaders have often not the same priorities than the troops, but when they are undermined because the troops have gotten what they want... the leaders have to sign the peace with the Boss.

I do not care about the leaders, I care about the People who have important and real issues, if you fix those issues, the mass of People will go home, the Leaders will have to follow because their troops are happy with the results. (From my experience of Basic training of Unionist/ HR)

Edited April 17, 2010 by Jerrytheyoung

[animatic]

it's amazing that this army can't even surround a hotel and remove some fat middle aged men from a room without incident. If the army can't protect the country against a bunch of farmers with sticks, what the heck would they do if say someone like Cambodia decided this would be a nice country to have? I wonder how many countries out there are looking at Thailand as possible fair game, seeing how helpless they really appear. Maybe the moral of the story is, image is just that, all show and no substance. Time to get it together and prove it has what it takes to protect the women and children, or maybe the women and children should do it instead?

Always better to get your facts straight. It was the police, not the army.

And many police generals hate Abhisit for mucking with their promotions for pay system.

They want him to fail to get rid of him. But I bet their just gargled their lower lips when

Anupong just became their boss...

[Donnyboy]

Smart move, Army is now solely responsible for the inevitable, imminent carnage.

any more blood still doesnt look good for the govt

[drbill]

It is very sad to see hundreds of thousands of Thai's against Thai's ....the deaths,injuries,disruption to society,etc.. If in Isreal the Mousad would have solved the problem long ago by eliminating the root cause...one still enormously wealthy individual.

[vicco]

Those pics of Mr A dangling from the cord are priceless...

[/quote

Indeed ...each time these guys make the authorities look ridiculous it is priceless. The "Special forces" teams really need to stop calling ahead to warn the "enemy" that they are on the way over.....makes for great video footage though. John Cleese could never have come up with anything that good...

[hextac]

Laws are rules that a Society gives to itself.

How does "Society" give the rules/laws to itself?

[phetaroi]

I hear this cry coming from the bowels of the Thai country people

May I recommend some Lomotil and Cipro?

[brianb1944]

Sometimes I think many people don't understand that developing countries are still developing not just due to economic and HDI factors, but because the institutions of government and the political system aren't yet strong enough to support the country's operation. The Army doesn't follow this or that side of decide to do this or that based on any kind of institutional responsibility when the sh*t hits the fan because when push comes to shove it's more a self-interested organization than an institution of the government. The same goes for everything else. The guy above mentioned that when people don't follow laws, order breaks down. Yeah, that's what all of this is about. People in democracies (particularly nascent democracies) - red, yellow, whatever - don't follow laws out of fear of consequence, they follow them because of their particular interpretation of their social contract (though no one would word it that way). They follow laws put forth by a government that they feel vested in and that represents them and that governs a society in which they generally believe themselves to be participating as members. That's why people in America or the UK or wherever will stop at a red light in the middle of the night in a deserted small town and wait for it to turn green. They don't do that because they think the cops are watching and will arrest them, they do it because it's part of the system of rules that govern a society they feel benefits them. Here, the system of government is still in flux and no one on either of the political sides (who make up large enough minorities to matter) feel that the alternatives benefit them enough to invest themselves in the other's system of government. So, instead, they protest. The yellows didn't feel that way under Thaksin's people, the reds don't feel that way under the yellows' people and in the back of everyone's mind there's always that third option that's sort of a reset button allowing everyone to escape taking responsibility for forging a functional democracy. This will go on until there's no option on the table other than creating a functional government and at that point either they will or they won't and it's the "they won't" part that spooks me. We'll see. But in the mean time trying to compare the way this society and its institutions work to back home, wherever that is, with completely out of place debates about why the Army doesn't "do its job" and why the PM or anyone else doesn't "clean this mess up" is completely misunderstanding how developing countries with weak institutions of government operate and doesn't go anywhere substantive.

Why do posters take so much space to say so little.

[humfurry]

I hear this cry coming from the bowels of the Thai country people

May I recommend some Lomotil and Cipro?

As long as I can't smell it...

[otherstuff1957]

Well, like most or maybe all of the other posters here, I don't know what is going on behind the scenes. But, like all of the other posters here, that won't stop me from speculating ad nauseum.

The police have repeatedly shown themselves to be either incompetent or pro-Redshirt or (most likely) both. So, putting the Army, which is generally viewed as anti-Redshirt, in charge of security makes a certain amount of sense. Especially after the SC Park fiasco, where the second group of police were almost certainly doing everything they could to undermine the efforts of the first group.

However, the situation is probably more complex than that. Is Abhisit putting Anupong on the spot? If Anupong was undermining Abhisit's decisions and authority, maybe pushing him into the limelight will mean that further failures will result in Anupong losing face, instead of Abhisit.

On the other hand, maybe Anupong thinks that he can genuinely do a better job than Suthep (and that's not hard to imagine!) or possibly the army is positioning itself for another coup.

I don't like or trust the Redshirt leaders. I think that most of them are just using the upcountry people and the Red movement for their own advantage, but, maybe it's time to make a move to minimize further strife. Maybe it's time to dissolve parliament and schedule new elections. If the Redshirts win (as their supports seem to be so confident of ) they will be put on the spot. They will have to come up with workable policies or else be shown to be a bunch of power-hungry hypocrites. If, on the other hand, they don't get enough votes to form a government, the Democrats will be back in power with a real mandate to continue with their current constructive policies.

[animatic]

Laws are rules that a Society gives to itself. It should be established by the majority will. If the Laws are established through Dictatorship, corruption or are twisted by a Minority, there the Laws are "unlawful" and are not respectable.

Laws should not be the decision of the strongest, but should correspond to a consensus of the Society.

It is the first step, then you have a second step: the application of the Laws: if the application is unfair, double standard, corrupted, twisted...the Laws loose credibility and are no more the Reference that they should be.

Laws are sometimes difficult to interpret,controversial, and can conduct to opposite interpretation: this makes wealthy generations of Lawyers in our Countries.

In Thailand....Laws are twisted by successive governments, unfairly applied, controversials....

Are the laws in the 1997 consititution "lawful" laws?

The red shirts are generally complaining about the use of those laws.

While screeming they want a roll back to that constitution.

Of course that rolls back laws that have made election fraud harder,

even as they have been twice nailed for 1997 laws.

The disingenuous nature of red demands, to help Puea Thai Party are

just so much blather for their corrupt paymasters. This is not about

creating a more fair and equitabler Thai opolitical system, but about giving

them BACK their advantage to rule without consideration for others or the laws.

[vicco]

Laws are rules that a Society gives to itself.

How does "Society" give the rules/laws to itself?

De we assume that "laws" are always good laws. Laws can be written and "imposed" on society by those who have the power to make them..and for the sole purpose of protecting the lawmakers.

[Donnyboy]

It is very sad to see hundreds of thousands of Thai's against Thai's ....the deaths,injuries,disruption to society,etc.. If in Isreal the Mousad would have solved the problem long ago by eliminating the root cause...one still enormously wealthy individual.

i think if that ndividual was eliminated, the protests would continue till the current govt is removed

[anotherpeter]

There's the reason, you just said it, "the ELECTION (my capitals) of Thaksin". The reason for all the trouble over the last few years is that Mr Thaksin was elected overwhelmingly by the people in a fair (as you can get in Thailand) election. The PAD encouraged the military to stage a coup causing Mr Thaksin to flee the country. After a couple of years of military rule elections were held and again the PPP were voted into power. The PAD didn't like this and started court proceedings against the PPP. In the meantime, the yellow shirts occupied the airport with no police or military intervention and said they'd remain there until the courts approved the case against the PPP. When this happened the yellow shirts gave up their occupation of the airport.

This is when the country should have called a new general election, but didn't. Instead, they lit the touch paper by handing power to the PAD and installing the unelected Mr Abhasit as prime minister. Is it any wonder that the majority of the Thai people, the voters for the PPP feel compelled to take action? They see the party they voted for displaced by the military and their man forced to flee the country; witness the yellow shirts occupy the airport with no intervention from the military or police; their party forced out of power by the judiciary and the PPP man installed as PM. They can't take it to the courts because the courts are perceived as being pro-PAD, so they assume the only course of action is to take to the streets.

Your interpretation of "fair" is questioned by a lot of Thais. The 2006 election was invalidated by the Constitution Court before the coup because it was considered unfair. Thaksin's efforts to try and overturn this decision, and his lack of efforts to run a new election in the required time frame was one of the reasons for the coup.

Also, when the PPP was disbanded, the remaining ex-PPP MPs (they were still in government) could have called an election. But they didn't.

When the PTP (where all the ex-PPP MPs went) lost the support of the smaller parties in their coalition. That is the ONLY reason they are not in government. It wasn't because of the PAD.

The Democrats with the support of the the smaller parties elected Abhisit as PM and put the Democrats into government. There was no requirement for an election then, just as there was no requirement for an election when Somchai was elected PM.

[slapout]

History is a beautiful text book of past failures and successes in the attempts for justice, of the downtrodden throughout the world. When injustices are seen/perceived at the grassroots level, that would be a good starting point. When you try to get to the head of the corrupt pack first, there is a likely chance of damage to minor players, just due to the built in safe guards that the leaders hide behind. Present human nature seems to demand immediate fulfillment of what is wanted, instead of setting down and making a long range plan to get what the movement feels they want/entitled to. No matter if you are pro government, red, yellow, or color blind you have be recognize that there are limits to what your group can change in a short time frame, thus I would start with the local leaches and as momentum is gained, work up the ladder. At present, as seems to be the past history of Thai politics, the crusading group just seems to want to step into the slots left vacant by the thieves they throw out. It would seem that a couple of PMs who were attempting to clean up the mess were so burdened with sleaze ball/corrupt people in their administration that their good intentions went for naught.

[Neurath]

Man, someone has really cranked up the music. I'm over by Ari, but I assume I'm hearing Ratchaprasong here. Good lord.

Nah, that's coming from the Army compound behind Villa - those boys have been cranking it up over the last few days.

[hextac]

Laws are rules that a Society gives to itself.

How does "Society" give the rules/laws to itself?

De we assume that "laws" are always good laws. Laws can be written and "imposed" on society by those who have the power to make them..and for the sole purpose of protecting the lawmakers.

Without getting all philosophical, No.

[Jerrytheyoung]

Laws are rules that a Society gives to itself. It should be established by the majority will. If the Laws are established through Dictatorship, corruption or are twisted by a Minority, there the Laws are "unlawful" and are not respectable.

Laws should not be the decision of the strongest, but should correspond to a consensus of the Society.

It is the first step, then you have a second step: the application of the Laws: if the application is unfair, double standard, corrupted, twisted...the Laws loose credibility and are no more the Reference that they should be.

Laws are sometimes difficult to interpret,controversial, and can conduct to opposite interpretation: this makes wealthy generations of Lawyers in our Countries.

In Thailand....Laws are twisted by successive governments, unfairly applied, controversials....

Are the laws in the 1997 consititution "lawful" laws?

The red shirts are generally complaining about the use of those laws.

While screeming they want a roll back to that constitution.

Of course that rolls back laws that have made election fraud harder,

even as they have been twice nailed for 1997 laws.

The disingenuous nature of red demands, to help Puea Thai Party are

just so much blather for their corrupt paymasters. This is not about

creating a more fair and equitabler Thai opolitical system, but about giving

them BACK their advantage to rule without consideration for others or the laws.

It is urgent that a Neutral PM takes over, cleans the mess, restores the credibility and particularly the double standard application.

[anotherpeter]

It is a basic strategy in social conflicts (strikes for example) and well known from Unionists and HRs (human Resources Managers).

The leaders on both side have to list the claims, then evaluate the Power behind each one. In order to solve a social issue, as HR, you accept the claims that you find justified and which demobilise the "troops" of the Union(s).

The leaders have often not the same priorities than the troops, but when they are undermined because the troops have gotten what they want... the leaders have to sign the peace with the Boss.

I do not care about the leaders, I care about the People who have important and real issues, if you fix those issues, the mass of People will go home, the Leaders will have to follow because their troops are happy with the results. (From my experience of Basic training of Unionist/ HR)

But if the mass of the people only ever listen to one source of information, and the governments solitions are not presented by that source, then the masses will never know that their issues are being solved. Even if any information gets through to the masses it is usually dismissed as lies and propaganda.

They have made up their minds. The government will not help them and can not help them. Any information to the contrary is ignored.

[Jerrytheyoung]

It is a basic strategy in social conflicts (strikes for example) and well known from Unionists and HRs (human Resources Managers).

The leaders on both side have to list the claims, then evaluate the Power behind each one. In order to solve a social issue, as HR, you accept the claims that you find justified and which demobilise the "troops" of the Union(s).

The leaders have often not the same priorities than the troops, but when they are undermined because the troops have gotten what they want... the leaders have to sign the peace with the Boss.

I do not care about the leaders, I care about the People who have important and real issues, if you fix those issues, the mass of People will go home, the Leaders will have to follow because their troops are happy with the results. (From my experience of Basic training of Unionist/ HR)

But if the mass of the people only ever listen to one source of information, and the governments solitions are not presented by that source, then the masses will never know that their issues are being solved. Even if any information gets through to the masses it is usually dismissed as lies and propaganda.

They have made up their minds. The government will not help them and can not help them. Any information to the contrary is ignored.

You underestimate People, most of them have no reason to take the risk to die or to be injuried. But they are condemned to death through their poor living conditions (suicides I have already described in Issan village because unable to feed the family)

PEACE is worthy to try, is not it?

But those People are fed up by lies of successive Governments (And Democrats have a long history...), they want ACTION (BUDGET) and not rhetoric only

Edited April 17, 2010 by Jerrytheyoung

[anotherpeter]

It is a basic strategy in social conflicts (strikes for example) and well known from Unionists and HRs (human Resources Managers).

The leaders on both side have to list the claims, then evaluate the Power behind each one. In order to solve a social issue, as HR, you accept the claims that you find justified and which demobilise the "troops" of the Union(s).

The leaders have often not the same priorities than the troops, but when they are undermined because the troops have gotten what they want... the leaders have to sign the peace with the Boss.

I do not care about the leaders, I care about the People who have important and real issues, if you fix those issues, the mass of People will go home, the Leaders will have to follow because their troops are happy with the results. (From my experience of Basic training of Unionist/ HR)

But if the mass of the people only ever listen to one source of information, and the governments solitions are not presented by that source, then the masses will never know that their issues are being solved. Even if any information gets through to the masses it is usually dismissed as lies and propaganda.

They have made up their minds. The government will not help them and can not help them. Any information to the contrary is ignored.

You underestimate People, most of them have no reason to take the risk to die or to be injuried. But they are condemned to death through their poor living conditions (suicides I have already described in Issan village because unable to feed the family)

PEACE is worthy to try, is not it?

It definitely is worth a try. But it needs to come from both sides.

[featography]

What might seem like an easy to do against civilians is not so easy to do against a military Red group with automatic weapons and grenades.

240 or so military people were hurt in one minute on the last charge and now the Reds are dug in and waiting.

Do you think the military men are in a hurry to charge against their own people and get killed for a government which most of them dislike?

NO

Yes, civilians with automatic weapons and grenades. those evil redshirts. The military, it was posted earlier by a sharp and intelligent contributor as yourself, was caught with anti aircraft weapons. Obviously they are aware that Taksin, the D#$%ls son, purchased fighter planes from another country, removed that country's insignias, replacing them with the Red Shirt red flag and photos of the 3 buddies, and are screaming across Bangkok's skies over and over each day waiting for the leaders to call them for battle support.

Wellllllll, everyone else is donating wild and wooly rumors and opinions, so I want contribute fear mongering too.

How am I competing???

[Neurath]

But the question remains why that wasn't done when the yellow shirts shutdown the airports for 2 weeks? i'll say one thing about the redshirts, their protests might be disruptive but they're not nearly as bad as what the yellows did-they sacked and occupied government house for months-vandalizing it in the process, and then the airport takeover which was only about 50 times more damaging to the economy then shuttering 2 malls and a few hotels.. i wonder if this has any real economic impact-Gaysrorn for example is owned by a rich family, and why Siam Paragon and Siam Discovery keep closing even though they are blocks away from the protest site and protesters(I was at Siam bts station yesterday) is beyond my comprehension. As far as the stock market- such political unrest is merely a bargain opportunity for many stocks, you can go buy some of them now and profit take as soon as the protest is ended, its just knowing the right day to buy.

Someone, maybe Dennis Ross, was talking about his time in the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations and he said Shimon Peres once told him that there were three kinds of people involved. I forget what the other two were, but the third group was "the collectors of arguments." Of course he was referring to the vocal elements on both sides who always have a definitive history of how anything they did was precipitated by the other side and who have a moral equivalence argument for every situation that shows how whatever they're charged with isn't as bad as some other thing. "Hebron!" "Deir Yassin!" Etcetera, etcetera. That's what about half of Thai Visa is like these days. Sort of an interesting break from the regular "Me missus' buffalo is sick again!" threads, though, I'll give em that.

There's absolutely no question why there wasn't a major crackdown when the yellow shirts were in charge. Everyone knows why. And as for which is worse, we'll know the answer to that when this all ends, but they're both incredibly damaging to the economy. If people want to keep this up until they can sit around the smoldering ruins of the economy going "Ya vell vhat you did vas clearly the vorst now, just look around!" then that's what they'll get. And that, of course, goes for partisans on both sides.

Nice work!

[hextac]

Neutral.

[AsiaCheese]

My point is, it's irrelevant what the government have done or will do, because the reds won't accept it and won't believe it.

The red leaders only interest is to get into power. They have no plans on how to help the poor. But their supporters are blind to that.

Great. Finally. Within thousands of lines of speculation, theories and color-bashing, the simple truth.

Does anyone think that the red clowns behind their microphones have any plan to make "things" better for the poor in the N/NE? Has any of them ever come up with a roadmap how they'll get better education going (within the entire country, at that), how they're going to shield rice farmers from greedy corporations' price pressure, how tractors and farm equipment can be bought without sending daughters to beer bars and/or knocking on loan sharks' doors? Etc. etc.

My bet is that of the red crowd in BKK's streets, there is a relatively small percentage of those who really need a voice. The rest cheer the verbal diahrrea (some being paid, some just there for "the cause"), while holding clappers in the left and nice cameras (an average office workers monthly salary's worth) in the right hand, because they have an inkling that all is not well in the country, and do the lemming thing after some populist loud-mouth parade.

The single biggest slogan/direction they've ever come up with is "more democracy". What exactly does that mean and imply? That as soon as a group of [ ] (fill in the blanks; free choice) want to get into power, they call another round of early elections? And then what? They throw all sorts of concepts into the "democracy" kettle, as if that were the wonder drug for social equality and what-not.

Let's face it: every single country I can think of has a thin slice of rich people at the top who divide the majority of the country's wealth between them. Then comes a fatter slice of people, mostly in bigger cities, who are anywhere between doing okay and scraping by, but still make a halfway reasonable living. Then comes the fattest slice, and those are the poor, oppressed, working their @sses off (or not), never going anywhere lot. That's hardly a Thailand thing, it's an universal dog-eats-dog reality, where invariably the little dog holds a very short end of the stick.

Yes, the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. Everywhere. And if anyone thinks that the battle cries in BKK have any other goal than to grab power (pretty much as an end-all in itself), you're delusional. Can you see the red hot-heads forming a government and ruling a country? I can't. Can you distinguish anything from their constant babble that would lead to anything better for those who would need it? I can't.

Abhisit has received a lot of bashing (he's making mistakes like everyone else, and yes, he's from a rich family -- so what?), but I vaguely remember him having made a point of getting better education underway, for example. He's not putting asphalt on a stretch of road through a village or organizing loans that from the start never have a chance of being paid back, ever. I personally think that he's a guy with a lot of integrity and for once someone who really could do something for the country. What a bloody shame he's being thrown off the track by a bunch of anarchists who are backed by a criminal on the run...

[jucel]

a balanced article on the thai conundrum

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opini...o-1225854709804

Edited April 17, 2010 by jucel

[BKjohn]

They have made up their minds. The government will not help them and can not help them. Any information to the contrary is ignored.

You underestimate People, most of them have no reason to take the risk to die or to be injuried. But they are condemned to death through their poor living conditions (suicides I have already described in Issan village because unable to feed the family)

PEACE is worthy to try, is not it?

But those People are fed up by lies of successive Governments (And Democrats have a long history...), they want ACTION (BUDGET) and not rhetoric only

You take the cake with your dribble

last time I looked there was no famine in Thailand and never has been I know a lot of people from Isaan who work and make decent money, more than able to feed their family. Yes, there are some lazy bums who rather take ja baa and than top themselves blaming everybody else but not themselves of course.

The only reason the reds have to be here is for the leaders to jump on Takki's wagon and they hope for huge rewards - than there are the other gangsters who are making money and enjoy to riot (like the leaders) and the rest have got no clue as to what is really going on but get fed and paid as well. Mind you, most of them have already left and what is left is every thug from Isaan who is here to have a bit of war

[BKjohn]

My point is, it's irrelevant what the government have done or will do, because the reds won't accept it and won't believe it.

The red leaders only interest is to get into power. They have no plans on how to help the poor. But their supporters are blind to that.

Great. Finally. Within thousands of lines of speculation, theories and color-bashing, the simple truth.

Does anyone think that the red clowns behind their microphones have any plan to make "things" better for the poor in the N/NE? Has any of them ever come up with a roadmap how they'll get better education going (within the entire country, at that), how they're going to shield rice farmers from greedy corporations' price pressure, how tractors and farm equipment can be bought without sending daughters to beer bars and/or knocking on loan sharks' doors? Etc. etc.

My bet is that of the red crowd in BKK's streets, there is a relatively small percentage of those who really need a voice. The rest cheer the verbal diahrrea (some being paid, some just there for "the cause"), while holding clappers in the left and nice cameras (an average office workers monthly salary's worth) in the right hand, because they have an inkling that all is not well in the country, and do the lemming thing after some populist loud-mouth parade.

The single biggest slogan/direction they've ever come up with is "more democracy". What exactly does that mean and imply? That as soon as a group of [ ] (fill in the blanks; free choice) want to get into power, they call another round of early elections? And then what? They throw all sorts of concepts into the "democracy" kettle, as if that were the wonder drug for social equality and what-not.

Let's face it: every single country I can think of has a thin slice of rich people at the top who divide the majority of the country's wealth between them. Then comes a fatter slice of people, mostly in bigger cities, who are anywhere between doing okay and scraping by, but still make a halfway reasonable living. Then comes the fattest slice, and those are the poor, oppressed, working their @sses off (or not), never going anywhere lot. That's hardly a Thailand thing, it's an universal dog-eats-dog reality, where invariably the little dog holds a very short end of the stick.

Yes, the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. Everywhere. And if anyone thinks that the battle cries in BKK have any other goal than to grab power (pretty much as an end-all in itself), you're delusional. Can you see the red hot-heads forming a government and ruling a country? I can't. Can you distinguish anything from their constant babble that would lead to anything better for those who would need it? I can't.

Abhisit has received a lot of bashing (he's making mistakes like everyone else, and yes, he's from a rich family -- so what?), but I vaguely remember him having made a point of getting better education underway, for example. He's not putting asphalt on a stretch of road through a village or organizing loans that from the start never have a chance of being paid back, ever. I personally think that he's a guy with a lot of integrity and for once someone who really could do something for the country. What a bloody shame he's being thrown off the track by a bunch of anarchists who are backed by a criminal on the run...

great post