Open Letter To Red-Shirt Leader Dr Weng Tojirakarn

[asiawatcher]

with the Dems facing their own bans from politics, where do you stand,

Where i stand is exactly where i stood regarding the PPP being disbanded. If they have done wrong and the Thai judiciary says so, they must be punished and must accept their punishment.

I'm more interested to know where the reds stand on this. They have continually mocked and questioned the ruling that went against them. I want to know how consistant they will be with their beliefs about courts and kangaroos.

Absolutely. I fully expect to see the reds standing up and screaming about double standards when the Democrats get dissolved the same way they did when it was the PPP on the hot seat. After all, the courts are terribly biased. I mean, the multi hour judgement they read out against Thaksin was clearly all simply made up. None of that could possibly have been true. Thaksin was clearly an innocent angel who did nothing wrong and should be allowed to continue raping and pillaging the country no matter how much damage he did.

Please. The current court is actually extraordinarily fair. Nothing like the court that existed in 2001 when Thaksin managed to bribe his way to a not guilty verdict by the slimest of margins and through extraordinarily questionable legal opinions. But I guess the reds would say the courts were fair back then.

Until people start respecting the rule of law, nothing else matters. And the current court does respect the rule of law. This annoys the red shirts no end, as they are more corrupt than anybody else and usually wind up on the wrong side of this precedent.

If the reds want real democracy, they should start by not paying the police on the side of the road for their traffic violations. All the sicknesses that led to this conflict originate from there and grow their way into bigger and nastier problems. As long as anyone in Thailand thinks this kind of behavior is acceptable, there can never be true democracy.

A new election will not cure what ills Thailand. Only a change in attitude that would slowly eliminate the patronage society over time. A change that the red paymasters are terrified to let happen. Funny that the Bangkok middle class, who are the most independent and critical of the patronage society, are also the ones who are most staunchly opposed to the red shirts. Makes you wonder who is really fighting for democracy in this battle, and who is fighting for continued tyranny.

The red shirts have lost all credibility. Just go home while you still have some face to save.

They have had their chance to go home but they have no face left at all. So now they may as well stay, seek the consequences of their actions. The prize being a bullet for 500Baht a day.

[Netfan]

The reds have reasonable policies and justification for their policies,

Let's be hearing them then.

Hmmmm, let me think .....

Well, there is this policy called democracy for starters, which you may not have heard of. It's a system, quite common around the free world, whereby people get the opportunity to elect their leaders, who are then allowed to govern them without intervention by the army. This same system would also give Abhisit the opportunity to come out of this mess as a hero. He could call an election, defeat the reds peacefully at the ballt box, making them lose face completely. Such a victory would propel him overnight from lame duck to statesman like status in Thailand and around the world. The reds asked for an election accusing him of being undemocratic, he held one, and beat them at their own game!

All Abhisit has to do is get elected to turn things around. Now, why might he be afraid to hold an election? Could it be that people won't vote for him, and that he is afraid to lose his job?

Ok, a few facts - Abhisit has been elected to Parliament 7 times. (How many times was Thaksin elected to Parliament?) Abhisit was appointed PM by elected MP's (do a quick search for "parliamentary democracy" to learn how it works, the people do not vote directly for a PM) - same as Thaksin, Samak and Somchai (and Chuan....)- were they "illegal"? Can't have double standards. Now, how about the rest of those reasonable policies the reds have lined up?

[noahvail]

The reds have reasonable policies and justification for their policies,

Let's be hearing them then.

Hmmmm, let me think .....

Well, there is this policy called democracy for starters, which you may not have heard of. It's a system, quite common around the free world, whereby people get the opportunity to elect their leaders, who are then allowed to govern them without intervention by the army. This same system would also give Abhisit the opportunity to come out of this mess as a hero. He could call an election, defeat the reds peacefully at the ballt box, making them lose face completely. Such a victory would propel him overnight from lame duck to statesman like status in Thailand and around the world. The reds asked for an election accusing him of being undemocratic, he held one, and beat them at their own game!

All Abhisit has to do is get elected to turn things around. Now, why might he be afraid to hold an election? Could it be that people won't vote for him, and that he is afraid to lose his job?

Perhaps you missed this article from AFP, posted on yesterday's forum. Pay close attention to the last sentence:

The Reds accuse the current government of being elitist and undemocratic, because it came to power on the back of a parliamentary vote that followed a controversial court decision ousting Thaksin's allies from power.

But diplomats note Abhisit's ascent to power was within the constitution.

And with close diplomatic and economic ties at stake in a region home to military-ruled Myanmar as well as communist Vietnam and Laos, Thailand's allies seem unlikely to do anything to upset the current administration.

"World governments still consider Thailand a relative beacon of democracy in the region, so if we let them down what hope is there for all the other Asian allies," said the European diplomat.

http://redirect.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.afp.com%2Fafpcom%2Fen' target="_blank">

So, according to a career diplomat, who no doubt knows the difference between democracy, oligarchy, dictatorship, etc. Thailand is "a relative beacon of democracy in the region..."

One step at a time: Thailand has democracy now.

Next step: Thailand is a beacon of democracy in the region.

So yes, we've heard of democracy, we know it when we see it. So do the foreign diplomats. And Thailand has it.

But you say we don't???

Or is it that from time to time the army has found it necessary for the stability of the country to remove certain people, and a certain person, who are in office illegally? Thailand's democracy has no monopoly on this, either.

Do you have any more wonderful pronouncements as to what enlightened policies that the reds are promulgating?