Suthep threatens to seize Yingluck’s assets‏

[philw]

The Team Thaksin PR boys in their boiler rooms are working over time to diminish or disguise the western perceptions

of what this really is all about. I guess they try it here because enough of the alternative western press

checks in for back story info, they figure it's worth the drakmar to pay for attempting to dilute reality to their point of view.

The last two pages have been dripping with propaganda, caged to look like regular blokes saying their piece.

Perception Management at it's finest. Too bad those paying the tab are the main cause of the need

to twist reality to fit their narrative. And that narrative is not the one the great mass of people have been choosing,

no matter how grossly rigged their last elections have been.

It really would be hard to believe so many apparently well spoken english writers here are also so grossly out of touch.

I normally ignore your posts, but this one really does hit your own thumb before the nail..................

Any throbbing sensation ??

Are you suggesting TV is free from astroturfing?

If so, I would characterize that as an amazingly naïve assertion.

Another one, hand, hammer, nail, ouch.............

Must be a difficult learning curve,

What is "astroturfing" and does it help ???

[kaobang]

from wikipedia,about Suthep

Wikileaks diplomatic cables from the US embassy revealed that many members of his own party have long complained of his corrupt and unethical behavior

[DrDweeb]

Thaksins money should have been seized since a long time. Most he got from corruption.

They were seized. Have you forgotten the 2006 coup and the 46 billion baht the court took? He's probably actually a net beneficiary because I doubt he made anywhere near that from stealing from the state. Policy corruption? Well, it's arguable. His companies benefitted from his time as PM but so did others in the same industry. In fact I believe DTAC and Truemove actually did better than AIS during his last years in office. There were the loans, of course, which benefited him, but was that really a loss to the state in the end?

Direct stealing though? Hmm... And you know the CTX scanner thing was probably the stand-out example I can remember. People involved made 600 million on that. His sister and wife were obviously heavily involved in the airport. But it's all very carefully layered. Too many people involved. Not enough evidence for the court to move on the scanners. In fact, all the cases against him were difficult to prove when it came down to it. That's why they got him on the nonsense land charge.

Changing the law to avoid tax was what turned a lot of people against him, of course. The final straw. Lot of things he did wrong, but people exaggerate out of all proportion. Newin was involved in several of these cases, wasn't he? Wonder what happened to his rubber sapling case when he was in govt with Abhisit in 09... (of course, there may not have been enough evidence there either but those who are cynical about the justice system would no doubt make insinuations).

They got TS on the land charge for the same reason they got Al Capone on tax evason, because it was a slam dunk to prove. Start with the easy ones.

TS's defence was not that they (him+wife) did not do it, but that it was not illegal. The court rejected this specious argument. It is questionable whether the amount of wealth confiscated was proportional to the crime, but not whether he did it. The 2 year sentence which he will never serve was not in any way too light for the blatant abuse of position for personal gain.

There are 6-7 other cases prepared and ready to go should TS ever set foot in Thailand again. However ...

Has it never occurred to ou why YS and PTP are so busy trying to eliminate the court that has juristiction over these matters? Iknow it is not high on the list of news items, but eliminating the court charged with prosecuting TS for his vast list of misdeeds is and has always been very high on the PTP agenda.

Yes it was easy to prove he'd done it, rather more dubious whether what he'd done was actually wrong. Here's a detailed blog on it: http://slimdogsworld.blogspot.co.uk/ - read it and perhaps you'll see why I described it as a 'nonsense charge'.

The other cases are a threat but probably won't go very far. If they'd figured them provable they would've been done and dusted in 06/7 I reckon. I might be wrong, I haven't really looked too closely at the details of the individual cases. The wealth confiscated had nothing to do with his land charge btw. That was mainly based on whether he'd used office to benefit his businesses. And it is arguable if you look at the details - not that I particularly care that they took his money. Hard to pity the billionaire. And I didn't realize that Yingluck and PT were trying to eliminate the Supreme Court.

I mean, I don't even like the guy. I'd agree he's greedy, power hungry and insincere. But I see his corruption as a relatively minor issue in the scheme of things and many others, including Suthep, would surely also be subjected to prosecution on corruption charges if the system were fair. I'd rather see the focus be on human rights and democracy. And Thaksin and many others (from all sides) should be investigated and prosecuted for involvement in extrajudicial murders & other abuses of state. Maybe in a less polarized society in future, impartial investigations of such gross HR abuses will be possible.

Sorry a few errors crept in there.

I accidetally conflated the two separate things while editing. I don't consider it a "nonsense" charge as I have seen precisely the same sorts of thing bring down politicians before. You always have to start somewhere.

YS is not trying to get rid of the supreme court, just the institution(s) was set up in the aftermath of the coup to bring the corruption charges to court. Disbanding this body will extinguish the outstanding cases against TS, at least that is how I have seen it presented. Just another of the "Free TS" schemes he has cooked up for himself.

Sadly, in the end, he will in all liklihood succeed because there will be nothing to stop him short of lead poisoning.

[beowolf2012]

I always enjoy waking up to another Monty Python sketch. This morning I was not disappointed.

Excuse me - but do not put monty python into the troubles that haunt in Bangkok.

rebel leader is nothing compared to Monty Python