Critics warn constitution crisis looms

[mikemac]

Another poster who claims to know who committed the crimes during the 2013-2014 protests. Please do come forward with names and evidence.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/politics/681260/life-terms-for-lethal-grenade-attack-on-protest

http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/chief-investigator-says-mastermind-abroad-financed-violence-pdrc-protests

Yet another red-shirt hypocrite who knows full well who is behind all the violence, but will hide behind any lies + denial he thinks he can get away with until it is proved.

And you people dare to complain about everyone else having such a low opinion of you. Go sit in a corner and feel ashamed. Oh sorry I forgot, you have no shame.

Four men convicted of a grenade attack with no stated connection to the government or any group, and a police investigator stating that violent attacks were "manipulated by a mastermind living abroad", but not naming the mastermind or filing charges. That was over a year ago, has he provided evidence, a name or charges yet?

It seems you could find nothing connecting the attacks to the PTP government. Keep trying. Or just give up, every rational person accepts that the PTP government was doing its best to prevent violence in order to not give the military the excuse it wanted to stage a coup.

You've got to get past this idea that everyone who doesn't view the world through your yellow shades is a redshirt. I'm not a PTP supporter, I'm someone who wanted the Thai people to choose to keep or replace the PTP government through elections. Not everyone who thinks that elected governments are better than military rule is a redshirt, in fact the majority aren't.

BTW, do you also accept the theory that Suthep was working with the army all along to create conditions to justify the coup, or do you only accept the bogeyman in a redshirt conspiracy theories?

Well, I have to give you full marks for your tenacity, but even the village idiot could work out who was behind those killings.

Guess what ? You are just "Another poster who claims to know" who did and/or did not commit the atrocities during the protests. But your opinion is worth as much as mine, nothing.

Another poster commented on members, (usually new ones), who seem to rack up huge numbers of posts, more often than not anti-junta based comments.

I don't know what their angle is but it would seem they are on the "payroll". (You would have to be to write such lies and propaganda.)

Either that or they just hate the junta in their spare time............ a lot !

(just my opinion, which is worth the same as yours, nothing)

[heybruce]

Another poster who claims to know who committed the crimes during the 2013-2014 protests. Please do come forward with names and evidence.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/politics/681260/life-terms-for-lethal-grenade-attack-on-protest

http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/chief-investigator-says-mastermind-abroad-financed-violence-pdrc-protests

Yet another red-shirt hypocrite who knows full well who is behind all the violence, but will hide behind any lies + denial he thinks he can get away with until it is proved.

And you people dare to complain about everyone else having such a low opinion of you. Go sit in a corner and feel ashamed. Oh sorry I forgot, you have no shame.

Four men convicted of a grenade attack with no stated connection to the government or any group, and a police investigator stating that violent attacks were "manipulated by a mastermind living abroad", but not naming the mastermind or filing charges. That was over a year ago, has he provided evidence, a name or charges yet?

It seems you could find nothing connecting the attacks to the PTP government. Keep trying. Or just give up, every rational person accepts that the PTP government was doing its best to prevent violence in order to not give the military the excuse it wanted to stage a coup.

You've got to get past this idea that everyone who doesn't view the world through your yellow shades is a redshirt. I'm not a PTP supporter, I'm someone who wanted the Thai people to choose to keep or replace the PTP government through elections. Not everyone who thinks that elected governments are better than military rule is a redshirt, in fact the majority aren't.

BTW, do you also accept the theory that Suthep was working with the army all along to create conditions to justify the coup, or do you only accept the bogeyman in a redshirt conspiracy theories?

Well, I have to give you full marks for your tenacity, but even the village idiot could work out who was behind those killings.

Guess what ? You are just "Another poster who claims to know" who did and/or did not commit the atrocities during the protests. But your opinion is worth as much as mine, nothing.

Another poster commented on members, (usually new ones), who seem to rack up huge numbers of posts, more often than not anti-junta based comments.

I don't know what their angle is but it would seem they are on the "payroll". (You would have to be to write such lies and propaganda.)

Either that or they just hate the junta in their spare time............ a lot !

(just my opinion, which is worth the same as yours, nothing)

I'm not one of the many who claim to know who was behind the violence against protesters, I'm one of the many who point out that those who accuse Thaksin or the PTP of orchestrating the violence offer no evidence. There is a big difference between making claims without evidence and pointing out when claims aren't supported by evidence.

I'm also one of those who point out that it flies in the face of logic for the government to have instigated violence during the protests; violence served the cause of Suthep since it provided justification for the coup. Preventing violence was very much in the interest of the elected government.

As far as posters here on someone's payroll, do you think the pro-junta posters are on anyone's payroll?

Edited September 14, 2015 by heybruce

[onelasttime]

I get the feeling that whilst Thailand ponders its own navel and endlessly wrestles with internal options that the rest of the world and S.E. Asia in particular will pass it by. I'm not a Thaksin lover.. far from it but he let the genie out of the bottle and for all of Mr. P's huffing and puffing it will never go back in. Meanwhile everyone wonders about the political landscape post when that which is inevitable and is not discussed comes to pass.

The Junta government will remain in power. Opposition will grow more overt, the repression will grow more intense.

Eventually someone in uniform will lose the plot and kill a lot of people.

The old safety valve, being called in by a "higher authority", no longer exists.

That which binds the wildly disparate strands of this society together will have gone. It will get very messy (bloody).

I take absolutely no pleasure in predicting this, but sadly I am beginning to see it as inevitable.

On another thread I thought it a good idea that we expats get our documents and finances in order and be prepared to leave LOS for a 'vacation' together with those we care about for a while. Your last sentence says it all.

[Yme]

This article here looks at the over all economy since the junta came into power as well as what the rejection of the draft means.

Fairly similar conclusion though. More Pain For Thailand’s Economy As Junta’s Reign Extended

The intent of the ruling junta is clear. A return to a Thailand of 84 years ago before the Siam Revolution in which the Thai people gained emancipation and an end to absolute monarchy rule. A straight up and down hierarchal structure with little room for dissent or individual freedoms modelled on China, or worse North Korea, ruled by a plutocratic government.

<snip>
Why the junta was so insistent on this clause being added though is a mystery. The 1997 Thailand Constitution specifically made military coup’s in Thailand illegal, but this did not stop General Sonthi Boonyaratglin from mounting Thailand’s 11th successful coup d’état on September 19, 2006 to topple the government of Thaksin Shinawatra.

<snip>

The prospects of elections in Thailand before the end of this decade are starting to look slim. This is because an identical or similar clause is likely to be contained in the next draft of Thailand’s 20th constitution ensuring it will be as unpalatable as the first draft.

<snip>

It remains to be seen whether the ruling junta will consider its aims of neutering any viable broad-based opposition party to the pro-royalist, pro-Bangkok middle- and upper-class aligned Democrat Party has been achieved in that time.

If not, the inclusion of a similar clause in the next draft and the prospect of defeat by either the NRC or public referendum remains high.

For Thailand’s economy, now facing serious risk of stagnation, the political shenanigans could be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back.

<snip>

After presiding over a Thailand gross domestic product (GDP) loss of between US$8.520 and $12.781 billion in 2014 (See: Thailand 2014 GDP Boosted to 0.7% Due to 2.3% Q4 Spurt) as a direct result of its bumbling attempts to manage the economy, Thailand’s ruling generals now appear content to continue the damage for another two years or more.

Such a continuation will remove any doubt to the validity of the adage that a military coup is an expensive way to change governments.

<snip>

The military junta has been big on talk of mega-projects since seizing power but has presided over the commencement of not a single one since seizing power.

While the government talks almost daily of some $47 billion in road and rail projects, they too remain little more than a punch-line in the Prime Minister’s weekly national television addresses.

<snip>

Inbound foreign investment to Thailand in the first six months of the year has plummeted, largely as a result of Japanese firms shifting their focus to Indonesia, and South Korea businesses heading to Vietnam.

For the first six months of 2015 foreign direct investment into Thailand dropped 38.7 per cent HoH.

<snip>

Once a regional exporting powerhouse Thailand has had its day in the sun. Samsung and GMH are just two of a growing list of A-level manufacturers who have either shut-up shop in Thailand in favour of neighbouring countries with better business incentives, more advantageous FTA agreements, with younger, better skilled, and cheaper work-forces, or diverted money slated for expansion in Thailand to other locations.

[ddavidovsky]

Most of you "men" have missed the point. The cost of preventing fraudulance in western democracies is a high wage to the average bloke doing his/ her duty. Get this in your brain. This country is not a western democracy, get a grip. Adapt or always make stupid posts. Or piss off if you can't stand it here. My better friends are Thai, not you ....

That's intended to be pragmatic, no doubt, but it's the very attitude that has prevented change in society during a period when change has become inevitable.

Nobody expects an overnight fix to Thailand's problems, but I guess what most TVers want is a progressive system that improves over time and reduces the real risk of entrenched authoritarianism. You're right that the first requirement for that is to build the economy, except that the first requirement for building the economy is to get back to a relatively accountable system, ie. democracy. One step at a time, that's all people are saying, only forwards rather than backwards.