Bangkok - Descent into chaos

[Kelevra79]

Hi..I'm supposed to be in bangkok this Saturday morning. .. some friends tell me to leave immediately when landed and go elsewhere...but I'd like to visit the city for 3 days....my hotel is in suhkumvit whereabouts.. what's the situation now? Thanks....

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[anon210]

Hi..I'm supposed to be in bangkok this Saturday morning. .. some friends tell me to leave immediately when landed and go elsewhere...but I'd like to visit the city for 3 days....my hotel is in suhkumvit whereabouts.. what's the situation now? Thanks....

Sent from my i-mobile i-style 8 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

So far, this evening all is quiet. Log back in tomorrow in the morning, we will be able to give you more info. However, in general, the protests or riots have been circumscribed to limited areas.

[VegasVic]

Fascinating, the current events in Bangkok. If I'm not misinformed, the Thai elite represented by people dressed in yellow, suggest that the poor Thais are too stupid for their own good. Therefore they should not have the right to vote.

This creates an interesting paradox; a number of Thais are exercising their right to demonstrate AGAINST democracy and free public elections.

r

There's a first time for everything...

Yes if they keep this up, perhaps the next thing the Bangkok elite will propose is a real-life version of the hunger games

Even a majority can over-reach and become a tyranny over the minority. The amnesty bill was a perfect example. 'Not certain that the 2011 "landslide majority" (which was neither in terms of the popular vote...) is any longer even the so-called majority now that it was then. Regardless, if PTP hadn't pushed TS's amnesty bill (yes, it WAS to get him repatriated, c'mon now...), things would never have gotten to this point, and we all know it. And every member of the anti-government opposition as well as every defender of the current regime knows that bill is not really dead.

Hawker, There is credence to much of what you say, however I feel the overiding theme here that most are missing is the most basic human instinct of all "self preservation". Suthep has been indicted for murder and his primary motivation in all of this is to save his own skin pure and simple, he orchestrated this mixed bag of yellow shirt activists, southern muslim activists, and of course what "anti establishment " movement would be complete without a sprinkling of college students. The revelers that formed behind Suthep represent a small minority in the Kingdom, and while I think it is great that they have the right to assemble and protest when they crossed the line and took over government offices and started to attack foreign journalists who were just trying to report the events they crossed the line and force should have been used against them. Suthep needs to be taken into custody and tried alongside Abhisit for murder, if they are aquited then Abhisit should be set free and Suthep should face charges for inciting this riot. If on the other hand Suthep is not aprehended and he continues to incite this unlawful violence then the government needs to come down with a strong show of force, otherwise there will be a great loss of confidence in Thailand by the world business and investment community and everyday thais will pay the price for that for many years to come!

[hawker9000]

Fascinating, the current events in Bangkok. If I'm not misinformed, the Thai elite represented by people dressed in yellow, suggest that the poor Thais are too stupid for their own good. Therefore they should not have the right to vote.

This creates an interesting paradox; a number of Thais are exercising their right to demonstrate AGAINST democracy and free public elections.

r

There's a first time for everything...

Yes if they keep this up, perhaps the next thing the Bangkok elite will propose is a real-life version of the hunger games

Even a majority can over-reach and become a tyranny over the minority. The amnesty bill was a perfect example. 'Not certain that the 2011 "landslide majority" (which was neither in terms of the popular vote...) is any longer even the so-called majority now that it was then. Regardless, if PTP hadn't pushed TS's amnesty bill (yes, it WAS to get him repatriated, c'mon now...), things would never have gotten to this point, and we all know it. And every member of the anti-government opposition as well as every defender of the current regime knows that bill is not really dead.

Hawker, There is credence to much of what you say, however I feel the overiding theme here that most are missing is the most basic human instinct of all "self preservation". Suthep has been indicted for murder and his primary motivation in all of this is to save his own skin pure and simple, he orchestrated this mixed bag of yellow shirt activists, southern muslim activists, and of course what "anti establishment " movement would be complete without a sprinkling of college students. The revelers that formed behind Suthep represent a small minority in the Kingdom, and while I think it is great that they have the right to assemble and protest when they crossed the line and took over government offices and started to attack foreign journalists who were just trying to report the events they crossed the line and force should have been used against them. Suthep needs to be taken into custody and tried alongside Abhisit for murder, if they are aquited then Abhisit should be set free and Suthep should face charges for inciting this riot. If on the other hand Suthep is not aprehended and he continues to incite this unlawful violence then the government needs to come down with a strong show of force, otherwise there will be a great loss of confidence in Thailand by the world business and investment community and everyday thais will pay the price for that for many years to come!

PTP over-reached, setting up an exploitable situation. If it hadn't been Suthep, it would've been someone else. The problem was the tyranny of the "majority" (if one is going to insist on using that word), not the response to it which has to be viewed as inevitable. All these rants about the anti-govt protests put the cart before the horse. TS is the mastermind here, and deserves the ultimate credit for this bedlam. Solve THAT problem, and it'll go a long way toward putting Thailand's division and unrest behind it. I just don't see how "stability" ever happens as long as he keeps up his meddling.