The Thailand expat forum for Travel, Lifestyle and Fun.

DrAndy

are we talking pigs now?

might want another one DrBOb, one day

EmperorTud

A military coup happened!

baldrick

what - because I question yours and tuds campaign to paint this present govt as the evil overlords ?

hail from your pulpit b0b - but not everyone is going to suck it up

DrB0b

If you want one for your new place, no problem, might even get a discount as the girl we bought it from says she's so sick of pigs now she'll happily kill them for free. But no way I'm driving half way to Burma through those rice-fields around your house in the sticks again. I had to swim most of the way home

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To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.

DrB0b

No, because you're too thick to notice that what you posted backs up Tud's argument, not yours.

baldrick

I wear my thickness with pride b0bbles - just as you wear your nuanced understanding of english and thai language - granted I have not been ordained in the monkhood , mimicked Che Guevara with the red shirts in the hills behind Wang Sai Poon or done a stint as a lady boy in obsessions - but surely I can allow myself to interpret my own observations.

tudious reckons that the evil censorship regime of the populous ceo was minimal compared to that of the reign of the military and now funky markys turn at the helm - though his statistics do not seem to acknowledge that an upsurge in internet usage and increasing tubulent society might have also increased the amount of radical posting online which should of course increase the amount of websites that are blocked. the more chances of somchai's swearing at the siblings of socrates the more chances there are of the censors cultivating their scorecards.

they will never attain the efficiency of the golden shield which leaks like a sieve anyway


it seem I am upsetting your acolytes.

__________________
Knowledge is realizing that the street is one-way, wisdom is looking both directions anyway

"The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it." - George Bernard Shaw

EmperorTud

What campaign?

I am just pointing out that Thaksin wasn't the devil as many posters, such as bones earlier, try to make out. Bones also made a statement based on nothing more than his opinion that was utterly false to try and further his position. I corrected him.

Are postings criticising the establishment radical?

Or are they warranted, as I believe, because the rural majority have been diddled out of their vote by the old establishment?

Seems to me that this campaign of censorship is to protect the coup-makers and those who continuously interfere in politics and hinder the democratic process.

The statistics on website censorship show an increase of 443% in censorship during the 3 months following the 2006 coup, so an upsurge in internet usage or "turbulent society" certainly isn't the reason.

But again, why should people be prevented from criticising or discussing the coup and the CNS Junta on the internet?

No-one should be immune from criticism or debate, least of all the military.

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Mortals you defy the Gods, I sentence you to travel among unknown stars, until you find the Kingdom of Hades, your bodies will stay as lifeless as stone.

DaffyDuck

It's odd how the same people all desperately avoid answering the above question. Why is that?

EmperorTud

See my post earlier with a link to the FACT website that completely rubbishes your argument.

Pre-coup, the government blocked 2,475 websites, while as of January 2007, the Junta had blocked 13,435 websites - an increase of a shade under 443%.

NickA

FACT!

DaffyDuck

What argument? I asked a simple question, which you just get around now to answering.

It's amazing how these answers, even favoring your points, are so easy to come by, but they appear to need to be dragged, kicking and screaming, out of each of you's.

RPETER65

Mass murders? What pray tell are you talking about?

RPETER65

You have them on ignore because you are not willing to look at both sides,seems to me that is like blocking the websites.

watterinja

Folks, personal animosities aside, stand back for a moment & review what is going in Thailand under Mark Vejj's government.

The recent explosion in press controls, internet clampdowns & Les Majeste cases, should begin ringing any sane person's alarm bells. Something is very wrong at the moment, & it is getting worse by the day.

Ask yourselves why this is happening. What is the driving force behind it? Who has the most to lose?

Democracy, being, the rule of the people, by the people - where are you?

__________________
"Education is the ability to perceive the hidden connections between phenomena."
- Vaclav Havel, Oct. 2000

"One component of what we call "mathematical genius" is the ability to recognize a simple phenomenon masquerading as an apparently complicated phenomenon."
- Chris Hillman, 2007

Butterfly

ah I see that the Red brigades are in full swings when it comes to propaganda, fallacy, and logical flaws, with DrB leading the charge
in the Lalala legion

A few facts:

- We had a coup, and that's when the division of society came about and started to be expressed. The monkeys discovered the Internet thanks to Thaksin cheap Internet initiative, and decided to use it to express their opinions

- The garbage of posting by Thai politician wannabe is beyond measurable. It's like monkeys who found fire for the first time and are trying to find a use for it, torching everything in sight.

- The Anti-Royal, Riot calling websites has increased by 1,000,000% because everyone has an opinion, making almost impossible for the government to keep up as they try to create stability. Again, you are dealing with monkeys on both sides, so it's all justified at the end.

We all know how all this would turn under Thaksin. But as our Red friends have reminded us so many times here, it's not about Thaksin (despite referencing him 1000 times in their arguments here). That said, the banning of Porn (under Thaksin) and extremists (under Mark) shouldn't be happening, it really doesn't work. Let the Reds express themselves and reveal the garbage that they have to say, eventually everyone will see that they have nothing under their belt, only hate and delusions.

gjbkk

The first casualty

April 16, 2009

As troops and antigovernment protestors clashed on Bangkok’s streets again this week, a furious battle also played out in the media over casualties. Government spokespersons and army officers insisted that bullets had not been fired into the crowds. Their opponents said the opposite.

Soldiers had at times pointed their weapons at people, and some of the red-shirted demonstrators had been shot, but there were few reliable details of who was hurt, how, where and why.

Staff at the prime minister’s office blamed Red Shirts on motorbikes for amelee with local residents that left two dead. Other sources were less certain about the identities of the protagonists, but doubtful voices were drowned out as local outlets obligingly reported the official version. Meanwhile, emailed narratives of battles around the city had it that the Red Shirts’ rivals were in some areas backing up the army, but there was no immediate evidence to support this claim either.

What all this goes to show is not which side is to blame for the street blockades and bloodshed of the last few days, but how difficult it has become to believe Thailand’s media. Since 2006, when domestic news agencies and many overseas ones fell over each other to enthuse about the army’s latest power grab, the biases of newspapers, magazines and broadcasters have become more pronounced, their coverage more partisan, and their opinion-makers seemingly more sure of themselves even as things get less certain.

In normal times, the impoverished domestic journalism which has become a hallmark of Bangkok has made following current affairs there difficult; with the city under siege and a state of emergency declared, it has made following them all but impossible.

Blinded by seething hatred of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, many journalists have transformed him from the authoritarian bully that he is into a superhuman bogeyman on whom everything and anything can be blamed.

Thaksin obviously provoked his supporters to violence this week, as he has done in the past. There is no need for the point to be made repeatedly. What is needed is to situate what has happened in a meaningful trajectory with which to make sense of it and to figure out what might occur next.

But instead of offering useful analysis, most newspaper space has been taken up with headlines jeering at the Red Shirts’ failed putsch accompanied by content-free commentary that has at best been infantile and at worst shameful.

A columnist for the Bangkok Post shrilled that Thaksin was responsible for turning the city into a war zone and for the death of a young man whose brother she heard speak on television. Does Thaksin have a soul? she cried out theatrically.

The paper’s main editorial was little better, branding the former prime minister’s crimes “heinous” and heaping praise on the incumbent, Abhisit Vejjajiva, who came to power on the back of prolonged violence of the same type last year.

By the time the Post was published, the government had closed the satellite station that the protest organizers were using for increasingly vociferous broadcasts. Whether or not the shutdown can be justified, the same has not been done to the Yellow Shirts’ mouthpiece. It continues to churn out propaganda even as the leaders of last year’s Government House and airport takeovers run around on bail, while a number of their red-shirted counterparts have either been locked up or are in hiding. Perhaps the yellow-shirted bosses have not felt the need to go on the run because no one is actually chasing them.

And while the authorities have moved against their adversaries’ use of modern technology, they have also been working overtime against sources of news that might have filled some of the gaps, corrected some of the errors, and exposed some of the lies in the big media and authorized accounts.

The Prachatai website has been on the back foot since its director was hit last month with a volley of ambiguous charges over supposedly unlawful comments that readers – not the service itself – had posted. It continues to put out news and views that cannot be found elsewhere, such as a recent careful critique of the prejudiced and simplistic television coverage of the newest battles in Bangkok. But its weekly radio feature has fallen silent.

Many bloggers have been trying their best to keep abreast of things, but they can’t make up for the paucity of trustworthy periodicals and professional broadcasters. The bureaucracy has been fighting a war against them too, blocking the domestic audience from reading thousands of web pages since the start of this year alone on spurious grounds relating to the monarchy or national security.

A few foreign correspondents who have worked on and in Thailand for some years have filed informed and critical stories of what has been going on, but they are in the minority, and their reporting does not have much reach back inside the country where it would count the most.

During Thaksin’s time as prime minister, police and bureaucrats routinely harassed journalists and media advocates: searching premises, issuing warrants and making threats. He and his government rightly attracted censure for their efforts to intimidate and silence critics, and for their misuse of state agencies toward these ends.

But in Thaksin’s time there was at least a struggle for freedom of opinion and expression that extended across different parts of the media. Since 2006, it has fallen to small committed groups like Prachatai to keep that effort alive, often at considerable risk to those involved. None of the mainstream print and broadcast outlets can today be counted as defenders of the right to speak freely. This last week is proof of that.

“The first casualty when war comes,” U.S. Senator Hiriam Johnson once famously said, “is truth.” While both sides in the latest battle for Thailand’s future were arguing furiously about how many lives and limbs they had claimed, the first casualty went uncounted. Its passing is now more obvious than ever, its presence sorely missed.

Source: Bangkok’s first casualty of political war


Thailand’s democratic crisis, Tyrell Haberkorn (openDemocracy)
Thailand’s loyal sub-plot, Andrew Walker & Nicholas Farrelly (Inside Story)

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"If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving isn't for you "

gjbkk

Bangkok Pundit has covered this and I like and agree with his comments here.

http://bangkokpundit.blogspot.com/2009/04/first-casualty-of-war.html


Political Prisoners in Thailand also has some comments here.

Butterfly

the funny things with blogs is that they will discredit eventually all information from the Internet as they are so easy to setup and have an immediate audience

but at the same time, the truth is more likely to come out from a blog than any main source media, but the lack of standards just mean that the truth is buried with the lies so at the end the audience doesn't really get a chance to see the truth, but why should they anyhow ?

baldrick

so after a heated incident between the market residents and maybe red shirt protesters , pistol packing motorcyclists returned and opened fire - do I get to phone a friend or 50/50 from the audience ?


they are only angry with him because he is shagging lydia - right ?

I missed seeing the molotov cocktails and burning buses last year - are there any youtube vids ?

such a sensational piece - I am sure that with the mounting evidence of the brutal crackdown on the freedom of speech that you lads will be taking care to post these stories via a hacked wifi connection , tor and a proxy stripping headers - else you might have the jackboots coming through the door at 3am.



after the demonstration on friday we can understand now how automatic gunfire can be aimed at the crowd and no-one gets killed.

baldrick

there were comments by Journalists since the red shirt protests began in BKK that they were harassed and intimidated by the red shirts and did not feel safe around them.