Thaksin's Long Shot With Yingluck

[webfact]

BURNING ISSUE

Thaksin's long shot with Yingluck

By Niphawan Kaewrakmuk

The Nation

Although the naming of Yingluck Shinawatra as party-list candidate No 1 for the opposition Pheu Thai Party was not totally unexpected, it was decided in the last hours before the deadline.

Yingluck reportedly flew to Brunei to meet with her older brother, ousted and convicted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, just a few days ago. It must be noted however that the idea of having Yingluck represent her brother in running a pro-Thaksin party was entertained by Thaksin himself soon after the 2006 military coup. While a few insiders who were asked by Thaksin to weigh in said she would be fine, it was Thaksin's other sister, Yaowapha, expressing concern that "it would cause trouble" that shelved the initial plan to have Yingluck enter politics.

Things changed after the squabble over who could truly lead the Pheu Thai Party to contest the upcoming election. In the end, Thaksin was wary of senior figures who were not part of the family exerting too much influence, like the period when the so-called "gang of four" ran the show when the party was known as the People Power Party (PPP) under then-PM Samak Sundaravej. This, combined with the fact that the red shirts are increasingly seen as an anti-royalist movement, raised the risk for anyone heading the party, and Thaksin eventually settled for his youngest sister.

In a way, it matters little who leads the party as the accusation of the person being a proxy of Thaksin won't go away. Thus the choice of Yingluck could be construed as being more transparent, as Thaksin has nothing more to lose.

And he will no longer have to worry about having a potential rebel at the helm of the party as in the past.

What's more important is the clear signal sent by Thaksin and Yingluck that if the party emerges victorious and succeeds in forming the next government, it will not seek revenge against the establishment. It will try to " correct" things, with national reconciliation the goal.

In an interview with Post Today newspaper, Thaksin was quoted as saying:

"Due to her female characteristics, national reconciliation could truly be achieved. What's more, Yingluck doesn't carry political baggage. She was never the subject of anyone's personal hatred. [she] doesn't have any personal liking for any political side and her heart is impartial and ready to talk with all sides to forge reconciliation..."

It is hoped Thaksin's vocal strategy for reconciliation will help reduce the resistance toward a possible Pheu Thai victory.

Through various polls, including ones conducted internally, Thaksin is 100 per cent certain that the party will emerge victorious. But he has stated clearly too that Pheu Thai will not form a one-party government but seek to form a coalition with smaller parties -except Bhum Jai Thai, whose de facto leader Newin Chidchob betrayed Thaksin after the Army coerced him into helping form the current Abhisit Vejjajiva administration.

Thaksin is believed to have already discussed a future coalition with the de facto heads of smaller parties such as Chart Thai Pattana and Puea Pandin.

Even to the Democrats, Thaksin said: "If necessary, we can work together. I hold no grudges about the past."

He is also believed to have talked with leaders of the yellow-shirt People's Alliance for Democracy and believed to be ready to have the Pheu Thai Party announce a proposal to remove feuding shirt colours in order to forge reconciliation.

Thaksin is also believed to have "cleared" himself with the Army and the "amart", the established old elite. He has also instructed red-shirt leaders and key Pheu Thai members to "not do anything to make the Army paranoid".

What's intriguing is that throughout all of this, Thaksin did not put the issue of an amnesty on the table.

He also told his close aides that he has no plan to return to Thailand anytime soon due to the risk of assassination.

"Even if they want me back today, I won't go," he was quoted as saying by a source.

He will perhaps wait to see if his sister wins and whether she can clear "the big matter" with the established elites or not, in order to ensure safety before returning.

Through this strategy, Thaksin is willing to swallow the bitter past in order to aim for a long shot that he believes is more worthwhile.

-- The Nation 2011-05-19

[ToffeEFCpower]

Well with all his insurances sorted accoding to this article, we can expect Thaksin to walk back into Thailand today

[whybother]

"Even if they want me back today, I won't go," he was quoted as saying by a source.

But he "will be back by the end of the year".

[AleG]

...he has stated clearly too that Pheu Thai will not form a one-party government but seek to form a coalition with smaller parties -except Bhum Jai Thai, whose de facto leader Newin Chidchob betrayed Thaksin after the Army coerced him into helping form the current Abhisit Vejjajiva administration.

Thaksin is believed to have already discussed a future coalition with the de facto heads of smaller parties such as Chart Thai Pattana and Puea Pandin.

Even to the Democrats, Thaksin said: "If necessary, we can work together. I hold no grudges about the past."

...

Another example of Thaksin´s doublespeak. The man is indeed a pathological liar.

More examples:

He has also instructed red-shirt leaders and key Pheu Thai members to "not do anything to make the Army paranoid".

While a few months ago he was saying the he didn't know those people...

He also told his close aides that he has no plan to return to Thailand anytime soon due to the risk of assassination.

"Even if they want me back today, I won't go," he was quoted as saying by a source.

And just a week or so ago was saying that he plans to return by the end of the year...

He would say and promise anything that would help him advance his own interests.

As for reconciliation, I think his sister said that reconciliation meant amnesty for political based judicial charges, I´d bet the moment (if) PTP gets to lead the country that the charges against Thaksin will be labeled as politically motivated and they´ll seek to "amnesty" them away.

[mrtoad]

Shouldn't Phuea Thai's logo be "When Thaksin speaks, Thaksin lies"?

[mrtoad]

Hilarious - Thaksin now thinks that a coalition govenrment is fine to form - if it is lead by his party. Will the Red Shirts feel that this is undemocratic as well?

[khaowong1]

I've been talking to the Thai people who live here in the U.S. and I have yet to meet anyone or talk to anyone who feels like putting Yingluck up for PM is nothing but a Thaksin ploy. They are all having a pretty good laugh about it. They don't think she has a chance. They say that Thailand isn't ready for a woman PM. Especially Thaksins sister.

[swerver]

Shouldn't Phuea Thai's logo be "When Thaksin speaks, Thaksin lies"?

Thaksin is a typical run of the mill capitalist businessman / politician who all spin stories to suit the moment. They learned this BS from American and Britain. You find them all over the world

The campaign began between 1880 and 1920 in Britain and the United States when the right to vote was extended from 15 percent of the adult population to 50 percent. This popular franchise immediately posed a threat to the rich minority, because as real democracy was instituted, people would naturally be voting for laws that supported their own health, education, and welfare. For the first time, their tax dollars would be used to support the majority of the population and not just the rich. In 1909, two leading scholars - Abbott Lawrence Lowell, president of Harvard, and Graham Wallas, a leading British student of democracy - warned that the consequences of those new laws might be dangerous. In other words, if the power of the rich is challenged, they will use their money to intimidate and coerce people, to buy votes, and to produce a mandate for themselves.

The techniques of propaganda were developed during the First World War when the American people were reluctant to become involved in the war because at that time they had no specific animosity toward the German people, although Germany certainly antagonized many Americans when it sank the British passenger liner Lusitania, with the loss of 128 American lives. President Wilson and others initiated a large and very effective campaign, under the supervision of the Committee on Public Information, headed by George Creel - a Denver newsman - to convince the nation that Germany, whose people were called Huns, was the seat of all evil.

Propaganda is "the organized spreading of ideas, information or rumor designed to promote or damage an institution, movement or person," and the First World War marked the first time in history that propaganda had been successfully conducted on a large scale. Within six months, the American people were devoted to hating the Germans and to defeating them in the war effort. (Does it sound familiar? Replace Germany with Iraq.) Public opinion at that time had been so aroused that grotesque campaigns of witch-hunting and Americanism abounded.

One of the creators of propaganda during the war was Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, whom he closely resembled. He said proudly that he was the person who taught women to smoke, by dressing them in beautiful clothes, placing a cigarette in their hand, and adorning Vogue magazine with their photographs. Bernays headed the transfer of wartime propaganda skills to the business arena. When the war ended, Bernays wrote, business "realized that the great public could now be harnessed to their cause as it had been harnessed during the war to the national cause, and the same methods would do the job."

In the 1920s, Edward Bernays called this use of propaganda 'the engineering of consent," and Harold Lasswell, for fifty years the leading American scholar of propaganda, said in 1939 that propaganda had become the principal method of social control. In other words, if ordinary people gain power in a democracy through the vote, then the rich will find another way to maintain control.

Business people never liked or accepted President F.D. Roosevelt, because they had temporarily lost the public's loyalty, so they set out once again to recapture the minds of the people. How did they do this? Well, they spent millions of tax-deductible dollars on public "education" programs and on polls. They also taught "human relations" to their own workers in order to control their thinking.

In 1935, the by then renowned NAM organized another massive propaganda campaign. The president of the NAM told business leaders in 1935, "This is not a hit or miss program. It is skillfully integrated . . . to . . . blanket every media. . . . It pounds its message home. "

By the late 1930s, public opinion polling had been invented, and it turned out to be highly useful to business. It was employed, according to Alex Carey, as an "opinion sensitive radar beam," which continually assessed ideological drift in the population. The polling data were used by the industrial propaganda institutions to provide continual flow of data and feedback, so that they could define and redefine their pro-business messages to make them more effective. It was also used to evaluate public response to product marketing.

In 1945, the corporations invented a new method to sell their capitalistic philosophy, which they called "techniques for community ideas." They discovered that the American people were not very excited by the rather sterile concepts of capitalism or free enterprise but that they did exhibit a rather positive emotional response to the notion of "Americanism." From this new information, the corporations devised a formula that tied many fundamental values together:

• free enterprise = freedom = democracy = family = Christianity = nationalism = God.

The equal and opposite formula they devised went something like this:

• egalitarianism = equality = government interference = socialism = unions = communism = Satan

These two formulas became the backbone of corporate philosophy and profit-oriented activities and propaganda, and they have been used ever since with undiminished success.

Just watch TV carefully for one night, and you will under­stand the meaning. A big, tough, hairy guy hefts a can of beer, the ad implying that all red-blooded Americans drink this brand of beer. The scene fades with patriotic music in the background. There will even be an American flag waving in the background. Advertisements also imply that freedom and democracy are God given, that the family is the fundamental unit of American society, and that all is well with the world, if you buy the products in the ads

The corporations developed another nifty trick to convert their workers from "unionism" to "corporatism." It occurred to them that since most US workers were captive audiences in their factories, if they appealed to them the right way, they could win their hearts and minds. Psychologists might be interested to know that the human relations movement was pioneered by corporate America for an ulterior motive. Human relations, a euphemistic phrase, was also called "employee participation," "employee communication," and "democratic decision making."

Brainwashing entered a more sophisticated phase in the 1970s. Until then, the propaganda offensives had been "grassroots," but now the corporations decided to establish a series of "think tanks" staffed by brilliant, erudite people who produced editorials, TV news pieces, and legislative material that was easy to understand, well conceived and written, and very acceptable to both the media and Congress. The material has always been provided in a timely fashion to guide legislation on a particular issue. This sophisticated, high-level manipulation is called "treetops" propaganda. Instead of being directed toward the man in the street, it is focused on influential decision makers in Congress and in the media - newspaper editors, columnists, and television. Its immediate purpose is to set the terms of debate and to determine the questions and agenda that dominate public discussion.

Here are a few instances of the terms of debate:

• In the wealthiest country on earth, should unemployment be maintained at 6 percent or at 10 percent? Not, should unemployment at any level be unacceptable? (Unemployment is good for business because it weakens unions' negotiating power by providing a pool of unemployed workers.)
• Should private doctors have more control over the medical system so that doctors make more money and only the rich get good treatment? Not, Does every person have a right to free state-of-the-art treatment?
• Is it economically desirable to eliminate CFC gas, should CFCs be reduced to 50 percent production by 1995, or would business lose too much money? Not, Should CFCs be eliminated completely?
• Would auto companies suffer too much if they made fuel efficient cars? Not, Are fuel-efficient cars a necessity for saving the planet?

These think tanks are involved in "policy research" or "agenda setting" for the corporate benefit. Their goal is not to save the earth or to care for the working people but to enable the rich to get richer and maintain their power. It is extraodinary that the rich expend so much effort and energy to gain ever more money and power, for these assets do not by themselves lead to happiness.

Although some private think tanks, such as the Conference Board and the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, have existed for several decades, some new, aggressive right-wing tanks producing an incessant flow of market-oriented studies were established in the 1970s. Among them are the Heritage Foundation, the American Economic Institute for Public Policy Research, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Business Roundtable. Funders include such reputable corporations as Reader's Digest, Hertz, Coors, Holiday Inns, Ocean Spray Cranberries, Bechtel, Gulf Oil, Vicks (makers of VapoRub), Amway, Hunt Oil, and the Chicago Tribune Company. (Of course, there are also a number of think tanks that might be described as left-wing, among them the Brookings Institution, the Institute for Policy Studies, and the World Policy Institute, but they exert little influence on the public agenda.)

Edited May 19, 2011 by swerver

[whybother]

Thaksin is a typical run of the mill capitalist businessman / politician who all spin stories to suit the moment. They learned this BS from American and Britain. You find them all over the world

....

Fair use?

The Manufacture of Consent

excerpted from the book

If You Love This Planet

by Helen Caldicott

WW Norton, 1992, paper

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Helen_Caldicott/Manufacture_Consent_IYLTP.html