Thai Opposition Lawmakers Blame PM Abhisit For CentralWorld Fire

[animatic]

doubled post deleted

Edited March 19, 2011 by animatic

[Pi Sek]

One way to legally obtain a firearm license here is to own a gold/jewellery shop... there are plenty in CentralWorld, I think (not a favourite hang-out place of mine, so can't really say - but I'd imagine so).

I was under the impression that the armed chaps in uniform who seem permanently stationed at gold shops were in fact policemen who the gold shop owners had to pay the local police station to have sit at their place all day - much in the same way you can pay to have the police come by your property periodically to check all is well, and sign a bit of paper in a box on the wall.

I realise that, but that doesn't change the fact that "one way to legally obtain a firearm license here is to own a gold/jewellery shop". I don't think many owners will defend their shop if under attack when an off-duty cop can do it for you for a salary, but the fact remains that most gold shop owners have guns licensed for use in the protection of their wares and property (and, by extension, his staff can use them too under given circumstances).

My post was solely in answer to the first part of your post #53, that security guards from the shops could have been equipped with firearms legally. Personally I'd agree with the second part of the same post that I can't see employees lining up outside CTW against thousands of Red Shirts baying for blood and, even if they did, I would doubt their effectiveness.

[Pi Sek]

I am not supporting either Red or Yellow. I think both are misguided by people who are only out for their own personal gain. But for those who continue to believe the PAD was "non-violent", there are a number of videos on Youtube to show otherwise.

<list snipped>

All of this information is readily available to anyone who wants to take the time to check it out.

As I said, I support neither group, but for those who persist in claiming PAD was non-violent, please wake up and smell the coffee.

Most only think PAD was significantly LESS violent, not totally non-violent.

<snip>

The PAD certainly had violent elements but, as you point out, this element has been dwarfed from the extremely violent actions of some demonstrators last year.

[rixalex]

One way to legally obtain a firearm license here is to own a gold/jewellery shop... there are plenty in CentralWorld, I think (not a favourite hang-out place of mine, so can't really say - but I'd imagine so).

I was under the impression that the armed chaps in uniform who seem permanently stationed at gold shops were in fact policemen who the gold shop owners had to pay the local police station to have sit at their place all day - much in the same way you can pay to have the police come by your property periodically to check all is well, and sign a bit of paper in a box on the wall.

I realise that, but that doesn't change the fact that "one way to legally obtain a firearm license here is to own a gold/jewellery shop". I don't think many owners will defend their shop if under attack when an off-duty cop can do it for you for a salary, but the fact remains that most gold shop owners have guns licensed for use in the protection of their wares and property (and, by extension, his staff can use them too under given circumstances).

My post was solely in answer to the first part of your post #53, that security guards from the shops could have been equipped with firearms legally. Personally I'd agree with the second part of the same post that I can't see employees lining up outside CTW against thousands of Red Shirts baying for blood and, even if they did, I would doubt their effectiveness.

Point taken. Agreed.

[jdinasia]

The PAD certainly had violent elements but, as you point out, this element has been dwarfed from the extremely violent actions of some demonstrators last year.

And in 2009, and in 2008 and in 2007 ,,,,,

[Just1Voice]

I am not supporting either Red or Yellow. I think both are misguided by people who are only out for their own personal gain. But for those who continue to believe the PAD was "non-violent", there are a number of videos on Youtube to show otherwise.

a - When PAD occupied Gvt House, the first thing they did was erect barricades and arm themselves with anything/everything the could get their hands on to use as a weapon. Since when do "peaceful protesters" do that?

b - two PAD on the back of a flat bed truck. One holds up a picture of HM while another shoots indiscriminately into the surrounding crowd with a pistol.

c - a number of PAD pull a taxi driver out of his cab, and while one man holds a large knife to the man's throat while he is on his knees, the others beat him.

d - PAD indiscriminately, and deliberately setting fire of a number of motorbikes parked at the curb.

e - And let's not forget the PAD member who blew himself up in a car loaded with explosives.

f - or the man who ran over and killed a policeman, but who received a suspended sentence from the court who said he only did it because he was "upset" and therefore he didn't mean to.

g - when they occupied the airport the PAD goons attacked police, taking some as prisoners and beating them before they finally released them.

h - they shot up police vehicles, smashed the windows and slashed the tires.

All of this information is readily available to anyone who wants to take the time to check it out.

As I said, I support neither group, but for those who persist in claiming PAD was non-violent, please wake up and smell the coffee.

a) erecting barricades -- not violent, Weapons? Defensive? Since when? Often Why? See Sept 2008 when they were attacked by the reds at Gov't house. See the multiple dates they were grenaded.

Your charicterization of "shooting indescriminately into crowds? False. Firing upon when attacked is more accurate. The guy should rot in jail, but he would probably get off on self-defense due to grenades over the previous weeks.The Youtube video CLEARLY shows he was NOT being attacked, and was firing indiscriminately.

c) please document Try doing a little research on Youtube.

d) please document See above answer

e) speculation on your part, please document that he wasn't murdered by a car bomb. You might try reading the paper and watching the news. Police and news reports both stated the man was driving the car that was packed with explosives.

f) patently false -- crazed loon hit a cop not killed a cop Sorry, but PATENTLY TRUE. Again, try reading the papers sometime. Both The Nation and the "other paper" reported on the conviction and sentence, as well as the reasons the courts gave for their sentence and, yes, he KILLED the cop, not just ran over him.

g) document the claims of beatings Once again, it was broadcast not only on Youtube, but the Thailand news channels as well.

h document shooting up police vehicles. See answer to "g" above.

I don't know anyone that claims the PAD were entirely peaceful/non-violent. People say that by comparison to the reds that the PAD was relatively peaceful/less violent.

From your reply to my OP, it would seem that you've never bothered to go to Youtube, watch the news on television, or read the papers, as everything I stated in my OP was covered in one or more of those outlets.

[TAWP]

Why are you guys so off-topic?

[ginjag]

Why are you guys so off-topic?

Isn't this relating to blaming the P.M. for the Central World fire, and how this incident came about. Why should the summing up of events leading to this be off topic, as you quoted ???--are my sentences getting better ??? Why don't you and I try to answer topics honestly, even if we dissagree doesn't warrant my education being brought into the conversation thanks,

Edited March 19, 2011 by ginjag

[TAWP]

Why are you guys so off-topic?

Isn't this relating to blaming the P.M. for the Central World fire, and how this incident came about. Why should the summing up of events leading to this be off topic, as you quoted ???--are my sentences getting better ???

Talking about PAD as a pre-cursor to the actions by the Red shirts is just silly. Unless we are then allowed to excuse all action by PAD for the same narrative reason - Thaksin was in power, and so on. I suppose we end up with blaming Eve for everything.

We can explain a path of actions, but it doesn't excuse them.

And I'd rather see that there was talk about the de facto point in the OP: That the opposition, without proof, blaims the PM and the government for the Central World fire.

[animatic]

Why are you guys so off-topic?

They enjoy it.

[horisize]

They really must think everyone else is as stupid as they are.....

Unfortunately, many many of the voting public are just that.

Thats why they are voting.

[jdinasia]

Why are you guys so off-topic?

Just confronting fallacies with facts. It is pretty much impossible to prove something didn't happen which leaves it to just1voice to prove that any of his alterations of the truth did actually happen.

(BTW --- I agree with you that this shouldn't be needed!)

[jayboy]

Talking about PAD as a pre-cursor to the actions by the Red shirts is just silly.

I'm not sure "pre-cursor" is the right word.However it's not silly at all to see PAD as being the first grouping to openly defy the elected government, seizing and occupying public property and defying the law openly and brazenly.To that extent it blazed the trail which others followed.

[TAWP]

Why would you give PAD the honor of being the first 'the first grouping to openly defy the elected government'? They might like it but I would disagree.

[warfie]

They really must think everyone else is as stupid as they are.....

Perfectly said...

[rubl]

Talking about PAD as a pre-cursor to the actions by the Red shirts is just silly.

I'm not sure "pre-cursor" is the right word.However it's not silly at all to see PAD as being the first grouping to openly defy the elected government, seizing and occupying public property and defying the law openly and brazenly.To that extent it blazed the trail which others followed.

This needs some study "PAD as being the first grouping to openly defy the elected government". We're talking about 2007 - 2008 I assume? Even then I don't think they were the first, depending on how far back you allow me to wander off.

The rest is a bit of propaganda and only here to emphasize 'blazed the trail' whereas the 'seizing, occupying, defying law' part can refer to various groups now and in the past.

[rubl]

From your reply to my OP, it would seem that you've never bothered to go to Youtube, watch the news on television, or read the papers, as everything I stated in my OP was covered in one or more of those outlets.

Just had a quick look starting with youtube user 'uddtoday', then searched a bit on yellow shirts and found literally hundreds of clips. No way am I going to look at all of them, neither will I follow a suggestion for a specific clip with either red/UDD or PAD behaviour. Too many clips seem to lack a description of when and where and who and what. Let me watch some cartoons again, a much better idea for a cool Saturday evening

[jdinasia]

From your reply to my OP, it would seem that you've never bothered to go to Youtube, watch the news on television, or read the papers, as everything I stated in my OP was covered in one or more of those outlets.

Just had a quick look starting with youtube user 'uddtoday', then searched a bit on yellow shirts and found literally hundreds of clips. No way am I going to look at all of them, neither will I follow a suggestion for a specific clip with either red/UDD or PAD behaviour. Too many clips seem to lack a description of when and where and who and what. Let me watch some cartoons again, a much better idea for a cool Saturday evening

Proving a negative is simply impossible, just taking ONE point (call it cherry-picking if you like -- but with so many points listed...) Oct 7th 2008, no policeman was killed (by a truck or any other way)

http://www.hrw.org/en/node/87403

On September 7 the National Counter Corruption Commission (NCCC) ruled that National Police Chief Patcharawat Wongsuwan and six other high-ranking police officers should be charged with criminal offenses and subject to disciplinary action, and criminal charges should be brought against former prime minister Somchai and then deputy prime minister Chavalit Yongchaiyut, in connection with the crackdown on protesters from the anti-Thaksin People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) on October 7, 2008, when police violently dispersed about 2,000 protesters in front of parliament. Two PAD supporters died and 443 were injured; about 20 police officers were wounded.

The loon that hit the policeman with the vehicle did not kill said policeman.

[warfie]

Anything and everything these chumps say should be flushed straight down the toilet.

Mr. Happy Toilet?

[Buchholz]

When the government tried to remove them from Government House they immediately got violent and attacked Police.

How many authorities were killed?

Compare that to how many of the authorities were killed when the government tried to remove the Red Shirts from Ratchaprasong and elsewhere?

There was no attempt to remove them from the airport or you would have seen violence.

I was there during the closure and during the occupation and there were plenty of thugs spoiling for a fight.

A hypothetical guess at what might have, what could have, what possibly could occur.....

Compare that to what did happen with the Red Shirts, shootings, fires, deaths, mayhem over a wide area and in many outlying provinces. Provincial halls burned, etc.

Red and yellow; two cheeks of the same ar*e.

Not really.

Not to those that see them as quite disparate.

A simple listing of the violence demonstrates that very readily.

It's the serial killer saying treat me the same as the check forger.

We both did wrong, but we should be treated the same and punished the same.

I do, however, understand the motivation for the serial killer would attempt to proffer that.

But my point which seems to have been missed by posters desperately trying to prove one group is better than another group was that the yellow shirts and the authorities inaction set a precedent and that is so evident with continued protests from all sides over two years later.

The Red Shirt violence started before any yellow shirt precedence. The authorities inaction against the Red Shirts when they started the rioting in July 2007 and were not apprehended, prosecuted, confined, and generally held responsible for their actions is what started all the escalation.

They didn't learn anything from the Yellow Shirts in terms of not being held responsible. They learned that lesson with their very own gang-like activity

that is just now... in 2011... being addressed, 4 years later.

Edited March 19, 2011 by Buchholz

[Buchholz]

But my point which seems to have been missed by posters desperately trying to prove one group is better than another group was that the yellow shirts and the authorities inaction set a precedent and that is so evident with continued protests from all sides over two years later.

Anybody familiar with your history of posts will know full well that desperately trying to prove one group is better than the other precisely describes your position.

If both sides are as bad as each other, as you would like us to believe is your opinion, why for the past however many years, have you only ever staunchly and continuously defended one of them?

Good calling of a spade... a spade.

[Buchholz]

I am not supporting either Red or Yellow. I think both are misguided by people who are only out for their own personal gain. But for those who continue to believe the PAD was "non-violent"

You could have saved yourself a lot typing by realizing that people aren't saying what you think they are saying.

I don't see anyone saying PAD was non-violent, but less-violent, and that justifiably counts for something during all these tumultuous times.

The incidents you listed pale in comparison to the longer and more detailed atrocities of the Red Shirts.

As I said, I support neither group, but for those who persist in claiming PAD was non-violent, please wake up and smell the coffee.

IF you are truly neutral, you would need to acknowledge the disparate level of violence between the two groups.

Remember, it's less-violent, not non-violent.

[animatic]

I see we apear to have false flag posters lately, trying to look like reasonable voices, for a time, for the moderate edge of a radical view point. Typically after creating some middle ground they attempt to drag the friendly few that join them over to the more radicle side later on. Instant perception of a ground swell from the middle to their predetermined final point of view. Classic Perception management technique. It's not what is real that counts, but how techniques can make people join a group, and feel included, and then move that group where it's want it.

This and the more radical voices ramped up as the censure motion gathered steam, more important Red rally dates, and following a damned hampster missive to the world. Yes send out a tract, get the quarterly fee for doing something and let the mice on the digital treadmills win adherents to the points to be spread about. Soft sell, hard sell, subliminal sell. Take the clients money and worry not of what happens later.

Edited March 19, 2011 by animatic