Citizens should be discreet in trusting media, CDC sub-panel chief says

[Lite Beer]

Citizens should be discreet in trusting media, CDC sub-panel chief says
The Sunday Nation

BANGKOK: -- Under the new constitution, citizens should be taught to be critical of the mass media and not readily believe in whatever information they are fed, Manit Suksomjit, chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee's subcommittee on Citizen and Civic Rights, said yesterday.

Other proposals by the subcommittee are respect for other peoples' rights, respect for equality, being responsible to society, discipline and lifelong education through both formal and informal means.

Manit said the state would have to take the responsibility through the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security.

Mechai Viravaidya, chairman of CDC's subcommittee on youth mobilisation for national reform, said the subcommittee concluded that an independent organisation or an organisation under King Prajadhipok's Institute should be set up to facilitate youth participation in the drafting process for the new constitution.

Youths have been very forthcoming in expressing their views regarding what reform they wish to see under the new charter, Mechai said, with huge numbers of them responding through electronic mail and postal mail.

In a related development, the National Reform Council's subcommittee on political reform has finished compiling its proposals, said Prasarn Maruekapitak, the sub-panel spokesperson. The proposals will be submitted to the CDC on Tuesday after the sub-panel votes to endorse it tomorrow.

The key proposals are direct election of the prime minister, reducing the number of members of parliament to 350 with all being elected, and doing away with party-list MPs.

Each electoral constituency should also have no more than three MPs, the sub-panel concluded, although voters can choose MPs from a different political party in the same constituency.

In reaction to the proposals, Democrat Party deputy leader Nipit Intrasombat said the whole process is now plagued with confusion, and no country with a parliamentary system directly voted for its prime minister.

Nipit also defended the party-list system of MPs, saying they offered the oppor-tunity for qualified people to enter politics and warned that doing away with the system would be a regressive move for Thailand.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/politics/Citizens-should-be-discreet-in-trusting-media-CDC--30249273.html

-- The Nation 2014-12-07

[noitom]

"The whole process is now plagued with confusion." This from a Democrat party leader, the party that declined to show up and led its party in a no vote in the last democratic election.

[deckape]

subcommittee on youth mobilisation for national reform

Oh, great. Worked well in the cultural revolution, and the Khmer Rouge. Oh yeah the Hitlerjugend.

Lots of attention these days given to keeping the media in line. Starting to get interesting.

[Tatsujin]

"... citizens should be taught to be critical of the mass media and not readily believe in whatever information they are fed ..."

... especially that coming from the local Thaksin controlled media empire and its "western" propaganda arm, Robert (I'll support anyone vehemently who's rich enough to pay me) Amsterdam ...

Sad to say, too many people lap up the lies coming from these people.

[Pib]

"... citizens should be taught to be critical of the mass media and not readily believe in whatever information they are fed ..."

Especially many of the govt media releases. And of course completely ignore TAT media releases.

[BSJ]

My dad used to say "Sometimes you have to read between the lines son". And that's what I've been doing all my life!

[alantheembalmer]

"citizens should be taught to be critical of the ........................................... and not readily believe in whatever information they are fed"

Just insert anyone who tries to feed you their side of the story.

[JOC]

"... citizens should be taught to be critical of the mass media and not readily believe in whatever information they are fed ..."

... especially that coming from the local Thaksin controlled media empire and its "western" propaganda arm, Robert (I'll support anyone vehemently who's rich enough to pay me) Amsterdam ...

Sad to say, too many people lap up the lies coming from these people.

The landscape at the moment is all blue and yellow, but you still managed to find a red spot, and put the blame on it!!

Well done Sir!!

[JOC]

To teach the schoolchildren critical thinking might be a good start!!

But of course way too dangerous!!

[rubl]

"Mechai Viravaidya, chairman of CDC's subcommittee on youth mobilisation for national reform"

Interesting to see our "mister condom" is mobilising the youth

[ggold]

Nipit also defended the party-list system of MPs, saying they offered the oppor-tunity for qualified people to enter politics

OK Name one qualified politician?

[Tatsujin]

"... citizens should be taught to be critical of the mass media and not readily believe in whatever information they are fed ..."

... especially that coming from the local Thaksin controlled media empire and its "western" propaganda arm, Robert (I'll support anyone vehemently who's rich enough to pay me) Amsterdam ...

Sad to say, too many people lap up the lies coming from these people.

The landscape at the moment is all blue and yellow, but you still managed to find a red spot, and put the blame on it!!

Well done Sir!!

The landscape is most certainly NOT "all" blue and yellow at the moment, and you'd realize that if you got your news, rumors, comments and information from more than one source, and especially from the non-mainstream news forums or online sources that are not as heavily (self) censored as they are within Thailand.

The likes of the mainstream public TV news and papers might be somewhat one-sided (and even more so in recent months), but there's a whole lot more information out there if you ignore those and do some more in-depth research as to what is actually going on here now and has been going on for a goodly number of years prior to this.

Case in point is the blocking of the HRW site ... there is information out there in the public domain that they don't want people to know about, because once they lose control of the media (or at least the spin they try to put on things), they lose control of the country. This applies to "all" sides.

The recent and very sudden stripping of the royally bestowed name of Princess Srirasmi Akrapongpreecha was also very interesting.

Edited December 7, 2014 by Tatsujin

[rubl]

Nipit also defended the party-list system of MPs, saying they offered the oppor-tunity for qualified people to enter politics

OK Name one qualified politician?

It's a quiet Sunday morning, so please excuse me.

What "qualifications' ? I vaguely remember k. Chuwit being very qualified

[ggold]

Nipit also defended the party-list system of MPs, saying they offered the oppor-tunity for qualified people to enter politics

OK Name one qualified politician?

It's a quiet Sunday morning, so please excuse me.

What "qualifications' ? I vaguely remember k. Chuwit being very qualified

Chalerm has qualifications also!

[dominique355]

Indeed, don't trust the Media, the government and its agencies as long as there is Martial Law and censorship. They are either not allowed or not willing to tell the truth.

[brucec64]

"... citizens should be taught to be critical of the mass media and not readily believe in whatever information they are fed ..."

... especially that coming from the local Thaksin controlled media empire and its "western" propaganda arm, Robert (I'll support anyone vehemently who's rich enough to pay me) Amsterdam ...

Sad to say, too many people lap up the lies coming from these people.

Or more currently, the junta controlled media and polling arm, especially the "Researchers in Community Happiness Association", and any news article containing the word "understand".

Sad to say, too many people lap up the lies coming from these people.

[tbthailand]

Under the new constitution, citizens should be taught to be critical of the mass media and not readily believe in whatever information they are fed

1) how does it make sense that this is part of a constitution?

2) it's obvious why people who want to control what you know want to demonize, if not outlaw, a free media.

3) the incompetence of the people running the circus at the moment is dismal.

[lil fluffy clouds]

Maybe go back to the old village speaker system huh?

[Suffinator]

And the Government are the worse perpetrators of misleading (outright lies) information. I wonder if there is any hope left for Thailand with such morons who are clearly little more than dictators running the show.

[rubl]

Under the new constitution, citizens should be taught to be critical of the mass media and not readily believe in whatever information they are fed

1) how does it make sense that this is part of a constitution?

2) it's obvious why people who want to control what you know want to demonize, if not outlaw, a free media.

3) the incompetence of the people running the circus at the moment is dismal.

Free media?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_and_network_surveillance

[Yann55]

"The whole process is now plagued with confusion." This from a Democrat party leader, the party that declined to show up and led its party in a no vote in the last democratic election.

Every word you say is right, except for the one before last, and that changes everything.

The last election was not democratic, neither was the one before... and the one before that... Frankly I am sick and tired of hearing Western politicians and media referring to former Thai elections as 'democratic', because they were not. An election may be labelled 'democratic' when the amount of cheating, vote-buying, influence and manipulation usage are below a reasonable line. Elections in this country have not qualified to be under that line for a long long time. Trying to say that democracy had somehow merged with Thai culture and customs, is pretty much like raving about the emperor's new clothes. But the West continues to insist that this one and only system can and must fit all cultures. Well, it does not.

Westerners are either naive or incredibly arrogant (probably a mix of both actually) when they keep assuming that elections = democracy. When democracy is litterally taken hostage by a group of crooked politicians, then it becomes demockracy, more or less clever, but certainly nothing close to respectable, honest and real.

I do not think that the good people are on one side and the bad on the other, it's obviously a lot more complicated than that, and not just in Thailand. I heard a (respectable) politician in Europe recently saying "the problem, more or less in all our Western democracies, is that governments change but policies do not". This remarkably points out to a scary reality, where a global financial and economical system is basically in charge of sustaining itself and making sure that no politician, elected or not, will put it in danger.

So we're stuck with governments who can't really do much except for a little bit of plastic surgery. They cover their incapacity with words, tons of words, and because people are not stupid, politicians are regarded more and more like buffoons. This is exactly the kind of situation which leads humanity directly into religious fanatism, sectarianism, irrationality and new forms of facism.

As for the issue of trusting media, need it be said that people are not as stupid as the Chief thinks. They don't take everything in the media for granted, and actually they are not even stupid enough to believe everything the Chief says, even though he's the Chief and in Thailand, as we all know, the Chief is right, the Chief is always right, even when the Chief is wrong, he still is right etc...

[Thai at Heart]

"The whole process is now plagued with confusion." This from a Democrat party leader, the party that declined to show up and led its party in a no vote in the last democratic election.

Every word you say is right, except for the one before last, and that changes everything.

The last election was not democratic, neither was the one before... and the one before that... Frankly I am sick and tired of hearing Western politicians and media referring to former Thai elections as 'democratic', because they were not. An election may be labelled 'democratic' when the amount of cheating, vote-buying, influence and manipulation usage are below a reasonable line. Elections in this country have not qualified to be under that line for a long long time. Trying to say that democracy had somehow merged with Thai culture and customs, is pretty much like raving about the emperor's new clothes. But the West continues to insist that this one and only system can and must fit all cultures. Well, it does not.

Westerners are either naive or incredibly arrogant (probably a mix of both actually) when they keep assuming that elections = democracy. When democracy is litterally taken hostage by a group of crooked politicians, then it becomes demockracy, more or less clever, but certainly nothing close to respectable, honest and real.

I do not think that the good people are on one side and the bad on the other, it's obviously a lot more complicated than that, and not just in Thailand. I heard a (respectable) politician in Europe recently saying "the problem, more or less in all our Western democracies, is that governments change but policies do not". This remarkably points out to a scary reality, where a global financial and economical system is basically in charge of sustaining itself and making sure that no politician, elected or not, will put it in danger.

So we're stuck with governments who can't really do much except for a little bit of plastic surgery. They cover their incapacity with words, tons of words, and because people are not stupid, politicians are regarded more and more like buffoons. This is exactly the kind of situation which leads humanity directly into religious fanatism, sectarianism, irrationality and new forms of facism.

As for the issue of trusting media, need it be said that people are not as stupid as the Chief thinks. They don't take everything in the media for granted, and actually they are not even stupid enough to believe everything the Chief says, even though he's the Chief and in Thailand, as we all know, the Chief is right, the Chief is always right, even when the Chief is wrong, he still is right etc...

They had yellow cards, thry had red cards they had disqualifovations for dodgy voting.

They banned parties.

The voyes were accepted and a parliament formed. With respect, I would say they did an OK job. In which case the problem is enforcement not the need to kkeep having coups and rewriting the law.

Maybe the Army just doesn't like governments it doesn't like. Or do you sit in the group who believes that there should be no voting at aall if there is any corruption at all. By that policy there would be no voting anywherevoting in any country.

You vote, then you catch the wrontgdoers which is precisely what Thailand attempts to do, not very well, but attempts.

Edited December 7, 2014 by Thai at Heart

[kaobang]

a kingdom in crisis

[doggie888888]

My dad used to say "Sometimes you have to read between the lines son". And that's what I've been doing all my life!

Is that like "listening to the voice in your head"? Or "follow your gut"?

Except sometimes there really is nothing between the lines, or that voice in your head is starting to say scary things, or perhaps it is better to follow one's brain? LOL

[HiSoLowSoNoSo]

"Citizens should be discreet in trusting media"

​Good advice, especially when it's heavy censored by a military junta and forced to play along with some of the worlds craziest defamation laws.

[joebrown]

A senior military figure recently said that when assessed on arrival, at least 50% of conscripts couldn't read or write much more than their names. What hope is there in the current education crisis of such people exercising any form of critical thinking. What hope is there for the future of justice in Thailand if the RTP ever goes ahead in adding to it's already bloated numbers by means on conscription?

[binjalin]

what they really mean is "trust us" and "mistrust anybody against us"

in other words "get on message or else Citizens"

[soalbundy]

"... citizens should be taught to be critical of the mass media and not readily believe in whatever information they are fed ..."

... especially that coming from the local Thaksin controlled media empire and its "western" propaganda arm, Robert (I'll support anyone vehemently who's rich enough to pay me) Amsterdam ...

Sad to say, too many people lap up the lies coming from these people.

I wonder if that refer's to e v e r y channel, oops, every channel except that one

Edited December 7, 2014 by soalbundy

[wilcopops]

so they are setting up a government department to tell the Thai people what to, and what not to believe?....i can see a few flaws in this.

[fobuff]

This coming from a military junta under martial law and no freedom of the press... what crap