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  1. #426
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    ^^^Thanks for that.

  2. #427
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    There will be no reaction from the "reds" this time around. Thaksin's crew are being wheeled in to get the facts of life read to them. I should imagine that there is so much dirt on those jokers, given the colossal amount of corruption of the past three years during their so-called government, the alternative to reining their necks in is years of hassle from the courts, at best.

    Quite extraordinary really just how long the illusion that the redshirt movement constituted a bona fide social force for change has persisted. I suppose when all the clueless foreign press corps and the chattering classes of western democracies swallowed that particular nonsense it was bound to gain traction. Still, when all those huddled masses in Isaan etc fail to stir their loins and the heralded uprisings don't materialize then even the dimmest commentator might concede their foolishness.

    Thaksin 's last proxy government,and one sincerely hopes his final, had to be stopped and this coup was the only way. One simply can't rely upon democracy here to provide good government, and that's the reality. The criticism from the West is mere lip service to their sensibilities and business will continue uninterrupted, as indeed will the usual tenor of life both in the capital and elsewhere.

  3. #428
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    You don't get it gent. But you have a right to support whoever you like. Thaksin is the lesser of evils in Thailand at the moment. You just can't get that.

  4. #429
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    Quote Originally Posted by aging one View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Perota
    I wasn't here in 2006 but as far as I remember things didn't get that far, did they ?
    This is by far the most organized and planned coup I have been through. TV and radio are still out. Nothing like this before.
    True. The worst I've seen in 30 years. Looks like this time they are playing for keeps.

    I don't think this is over by a long chalk. If the UDD are driven underground there will be sporadic violence and death for a long time accompanied by the brutal repression the army are so good at.

    This in turn will damage business and the tourist industry and Thailands international image. Human rights agencies will be kept very busy .They will be unable to take the lid off censorship since the moment they do they will come under a barrage of criticism. A lot of face is going to be lost.

    In short , they themselves will come under grinding pressure to solve the mess they themselves have helped create.

    Things could get so bad it would not surprise me at all to see a counter coup sometime in the future.

  5. #430
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    As someone once said , it's nothing personal it's just good business.

  6. #431
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    Just a clip of where Yingluck went, Army Club. Yingluck isn't in the clip.


  7. #432
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    Quote Originally Posted by thegent
    Still, when all those huddled masses in Isaan etc fail to stir their loins and the heralded uprisings don't materialize then even the dimmest commentator might concede their foolishness.
    I sincerely hope you are right.

    No difference in the local Issan village, apart from a day off school, but that doesn't mean much. In 2006, I brought them the news about the Coup and they believed me when the kids came back from school because it was closed.

    However, there are villages not too far away that are far more red-blooded and have been safe-havens for all sorts, being on the verge of anarchy at the very best of times.

  8. #433
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    " Peace and Order Maintaining Council: Don’t believe rumors about shutting down internet"
    https://twitter.com/CoconutsBangkok

  9. #434
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    I cant seem to access Twitter all of a sudden....maybe a temporary thing but it hasn't happened before. Times out.

  10. #435
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    The US has led widespread international criticism of a military takeover in Thailand as the South-East Asian nation spent its first night under curfew.

    US Secretary of State John Kerry said there was "no justification", and $10m in bilateral aid could be suspended.

    France and Germany condemned the coup, with the UN expressing serious concern.
    BBC News - Thailand's military criticised as coup takes hold
    Cycling should be banned!!!

  11. #436
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    Quote Originally Posted by Merrimack View Post
    Yingluck has reported to the Army Club

    http://asiancorrespondent.com/122874...and-coup-live/

    where in your link does it say that?

  12. #437
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    Was wondering that too.

  13. #438
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    Frankly, it appears to me all this chatter about insurrection is nothing more than wishful thinking and only serves to prop up the silly notion that Thaksin was indeed the rallying point for the poor, the under-privileged and unrepresented among Thai society.

    Finally, his Machiavellian antics have been terminated, and hopefully for good.

  14. #439
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    Quote Originally Posted by Merrimack View Post
    You don't get it gent. But you have a right to support whoever you like. Thaksin is the lesser of evils in Thailand at the moment. You just can't get that.
    its you who doesnt get it. blathering from the western viewpoint again.

    The moralist cosmology is static, so change is perceived as social decay. Unable to decipher the underlying economic and social changes, moralists blame structural problems on individual moral failure. Deeply rooted in the culture of Theravada Buddhism, moralists explain high social status with the moral authority reflecting kamma acquired in prior lives. Hence, corruption by “bad people” at the top must be seen as a perversion of the ideal social-moral order. The solution is clear: “bad people” need to be replaced by “good people” whose virtue is assumed due to their membership in the ‘network monarchy’. “Vile” critics of the social order “have no place in decent society”; they cannot be “real Thais” and should leave the country “to live somewhere else”. Moralists aim for a political system led by “neutral people of virtue”. With reference to Plato’s “philosopher king”, this can be a monarchy administered by loyal technocrats.
    thats how it works here, and i cant see it changing for a good while yet.


    A democratic anti-corruption discourse for Thailand
    BY MARC SAXER, GUEST CONTRIBUTOR – 17 MAY 2014

    A democratic anti-corruption discourse for Thailand

  15. #440
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    Can't see the point of taking the opium like thai TV off air, would have thought that benefited the coup makers. Can understand the news being off but the without the rest of the crap people will actually have to talk to each other, and the internet is still on anyway.

  16. #441
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    From just half an hour ago, and now mention of Yinglack.

    Niwattumrong reports to NPOMC Former leaders begin reporting to junta Published: 23 May 2014 at 11.11 | Viewed: 1,748 | Comments: 0 Online news: Writer: Online Reporters Niwattumrong Boonsongpaisan,...

    Please credit and share this article with others using this link:Former leaders begin reporting to junta | Bangkok Post: Most recent. View our policies at Bangkok Post: Terms and conditions of use and Bangkok Post: Republishing policy. © Post Publishing PCL. All rights reserved.

  17. #442
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    Quote Originally Posted by thegent View Post
    Frankly, it appears to me all this chatter about insurrection is nothing more than wishful thinking and only serves to prop up the silly notion that Thaksin was indeed the rallying point for the poor, the under-privileged and unrepresented among Thai society.

    Finally, his Machiavellian antics have been terminated, and hopefully for good.
    Never the less his supporters have won one election after another and would have continued to do so. What could be more illegal or corrupt than a bunch of uniformed thugs taking over a country and suspending the constitution?

  18. #443
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    Quote Originally Posted by thegent View Post
    One simply can't rely upon democracy here to provide good government, and that's the reality. The criticism from the West is mere lip service to their sensibilities and business will continue uninterrupted, as indeed will the usual tenor of life both in the capital and elsewhere.

    We need a good Democrat led government so they can run the country the way they do Bangkok.

    Like the 2004 purchase of fire boats and trucks for which Pracha is supposed to be serving 12 years.

    Dodgy allocation of BTS contracts by Sukhumband.

    No corruption there.

    We have seen Thailand's projected 4.7% GDP growth evaporate, along with hundreds of thousands of jobs, in the past six months as a result of this "uninterrupted business."

    So long as this nonsense continues, and none of the existing outdated tax treaties, that are full of holes, are replaced my company will do nicely, thankyou, so I have no complaints.
    I see fish. They are everywhere. They don't know they are fish.

  19. #444
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    illegal and corrupt to you maybe, but perfectly justified by many thais according to their beliefs and traditions.

  20. #445
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    Quote Originally Posted by xanax View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by thegent View Post
    Frankly, it appears to me all this chatter about insurrection is nothing more than wishful thinking and only serves to prop up the silly notion that Thaksin was indeed the rallying point for the poor, the under-privileged and unrepresented among Thai society.

    Finally, his Machiavellian antics have been terminated, and hopefully for good.
    Never the less his supporters have won one election after another and would have continued to do so. What could be more illegal or corrupt than a bunch of uniformed thugs taking over a country and suspending the constitution?

    Hun Sen and Kim Jong Un win elections too....

  21. #446
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    Quote Originally Posted by xanax View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by thegent View Post
    Frankly, it appears to me all this chatter about insurrection is nothing more than wishful thinking and only serves to prop up the silly notion that Thaksin was indeed the rallying point for the poor, the under-privileged and unrepresented among Thai society.

    Finally, his Machiavellian antics have been terminated, and hopefully for good.
    Never the less his supporters have won one election after another and would have continued to do so. What could be more illegal or corrupt than a bunch of uniformed thugs taking over a country and suspending the constitution?
    A uniformed thug becoming Head of State?

  22. #447
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    Thai Coup Risks Clashes as Thaksin Camp Better Organized - Bloomberg

    When Thailand’s army last ousted a government linked to Thaksin Shinawatra in 2006, his rural-based supporters lacked the organization to mount a resistance. They’re better prepared this time around.
    The Red Shirts, who coalesced in 2008 to fight Thaksin’s opponents, have built networks in northern Thailand that mobilized supporters across the nation and helped secure a majority for his allies in a 2011 vote. Their leaders were arrested yesterday when six months of instability came to a head with the televised announcement by army chief Prayuth Chan-Ocha that he was suspending the constitution, in the 12th coup in eight decades.
    “The opposition and resistance to the coup will likely be strong,” Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, said by phone. “This time the looming confrontation and clashes are going to be severe and violent.”

    The coup exacerbates divisions between a rural majority that has propelled Thaksin-backed parties to power in the past five elections and their royalist opponents who have used the military and the courts to oust the government. While Prayuth said the army aimed to restore peace in a “short time,” the seizing of power threatens to further undermine an economy that will probably have the slowest growth among its major Southeast Asian peers this year.
    Photographer: Rufus Cox/Getty Images Thai army soldiers secure the grounds of the venue for peace talks between pro- and... Read More

    Fueling Fire

    “The last coup in 2006 was, I think, regarded by some in the military as a bit of a mistake because it widened political division and it only added fuel to the fire,” Jon Grevatt, an industry analyst for Asia-Pacific at IHS Jane’s in Bangkok said in an interview with Bloomberg television.
    “This time the anti-government protesters will be appeased and placated by the coup, because it has pushed their move to put an unelected administration in power. But the pro-government protesters will be very aggrieved by this decision especially as the army has said that they will look to reform politics in the country.”

    Two days after declaring martial law and saying there was no coup, Prayuth announced alongside senior military officials that he was seizing control to restore peace. He said there would be a daily nationwide curfew from 10 p.m. until 5 a.m. and banned political protests.
    Baht Declines

    Thailand's Troubled Democracy
    The baht gained 0.3 percent against the dollar at 11:00 a.m. in Bangkok, after sliding 0.4 percent yesterday after news of the coup broke.
    The coup could provide short-term certainty to markets after months of protests and upheaval that led to the removal on May 7 of then-caretaker premier Yingluck Shinawatra -- Thaksin’s sister -- by the Constitutional Court, according to Alan Richardson, whose Samsung equity fund beat 96 percent of peers tracked by Bloomberg in the past five years.
    Still, the coup comes days after the state planning agency reported gross domestic product shrank 0.6 percent in the three months through March from a year earlier.
    “It’s one thing for markets to shrug off a military coup when there’s fairly buoyant growth, but quite another to be so insouciant when the economy’s contracting,”said Nicholas Spiro, managing director of Spiro Sovereign Strategy in London. “Investors are underpricing what brought about the coup in the first place: debilitating political dysfunctionality and its corrosive effects on Thailand’s economy.”

    Thaksin in Exile

    The intervention by the army to oust Thaksin in September 2006 and install General Surayud Chulanont as interim prime minister saw the military enmeshed in the political sphere for more than a year. It wasn’t until December 2007 that an election was held, where a Thaksin-allied party won the most parliamentary seats.
    Since the 2006 coup, courts have disbanded two parties tied to Thaksin and disqualified three prime ministers backed by his allies. Thaksin has lived overseas since fleeing a jail sentence in 2008 on corruption charges stemming from a military-appointed panel after the coup.

    The military will want to seek to avoid being caught up in governing for such a long period again, according to Michael Connors, an associate professor at the Malaysia campus of the University of Nottingham.

    “We can expect this to be a highly repressive coup with a promise of return to normality in a year perhaps,” he said by e-mail. “A coup like this has never happened before. No Thai coup has occurred under conditions of potential mass and armed resistance. And no coup has had to be so cautious in the making, and with the possibility of a split military. This is Thailand’s most dangerous coup.”
    Yellow Shirts

    Thailand’s instability stretches back decades, with more than 20 prime ministers since 1946. Until Thaksin’s term from 2001 to 2005, no prime minister had ever served a full term. Turmoil has worsened since 2006 as the nation has divided into two camps: Red and yellow.
    The yellow shirts comprise Bangkok’s middle class, royalists and retired generals. They have called for several versions of an appointed government in the past few months and are aligned with the opposition Democrats, who have not won a national vote since 1992 and boycotted a February poll.
    Thailand is a constitutional monarchy and King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 86, has reigned since 1946.

    Double Standards

    The red shirts point to the coup and subsequent court rulings that dissolved parties allied with Thaksin as proof that Thai society is unjust and filled with double standards. They took to the streets in both 2009 and 2010, calling for new elections. The protests in 2010 were put down by the military, resulting in more than 90 deaths.
    Prayuth said he aimed to reform the political sphere, the economy and society, without giving details. The anti-Thaksin movement now led by Suthep Thaugsuban had pushed for the formation of an appointed council to replace governments linked to the former premier.

    “Nobody welcomes the coup, but I believe that the ruling government had many opportunities in the last six months to avoid this,” Kiat Sittheeamorn, a senior member of the Democrat party, said by phone. “They never moved back an inch to avoid this. They had six months to address the demands of the demonstrators. They did not do a thing about it.”

    Thailand had a fully-elected Senate for nine years under its 1997 constitution. The current charter, written in 2007 by a military-appointed assembly, calls for just over half the members to be directly elected with the rest appointed by a commission.

    “It remains to be seen how far the military goes to take permanent control of government or turn it over to a new, likely royalist, caretaker,” analysts Christian Lewis and Shaun D. Levine from Eurasia Group said in an e-mailed note.
    “It will be several days before governance plans materialize, as street-level security under martial law will remain the top concern. But we don’t see last night’s coup as marking the end to a period of political instability.”

  23. #448
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    Quote Originally Posted by Thormaturge View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by thegent View Post
    One simply can't rely upon democracy here to provide good government, and that's the reality. The criticism from the West is mere lip service to their sensibilities and business will continue uninterrupted, as indeed will the usual tenor of life both in the capital and elsewhere.

    We need a good Democrat led government so they can run the country the way they do Bangkok.

    Like the 2004 purchase of fire boats and trucks for which Pracha is supposed to be serving 12 years.

    Dodgy allocation of BTS contracts by Sukhumband.

    No corruption there.

    We have seen Thailand's projected 4.7% GDP growth evaporate, along with hundreds of thousands of jobs, in the past six months as a result of this "uninterrupted business."

    So long as this nonsense continues, and none of the existing outdated tax treaties, that are full of holes, are replaced my company will do nicely, thankyou, so I have no complaints.
    Glad you agree. The sooner that nice chap Abhisit is back in business, the better.

  24. #449
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    Quote Originally Posted by taxexile
    illegal and corrupt to you maybe, but perfectly justified by many thais according to their beliefs and traditions.
    This is just untrue, and you have to get it out of your head that somehow Thais are just like this... Actually, Tax, I'll agree with you to a degree; the beliefs and traditions are there, but they are conventional and force framed they are not inherent. Thais, the university age ones I've taught for 10 years or so, just aren't like this, they a nice young folk that want a corruption free nation with opportunity for everyone.

    Thais do not like corruption, murder, cheating, lies, etc - they are, in fact, human being just like me and you... But, since the 1930s, a society has been framed and very carefully manipulated, not so different from the Muslim countries or North Korea, that forces a set of 'values' and 'beliefs' upon the nation - it is highly conventional and engineered, it is not somehow in their nature or genetics.

    All societies change from feudal to a kind of democracy - welcome to the history of planet Earth. Thailand, due to the massive power of the PADites and the companies they control which although they are the richest in the nation do not adhere to any laws, checks or balances (and are not very visible at all)..., is attempting to keep a feudal grasp, this is exasperated by the situation at the top and the fact that nobody lives forever... - their system, which had made them so much money, and given them so much power, since the 1930s is coming to an end, and they are panicking. They have massive power; courts, army, 'moral authority', etc, but they are a minority group who abuse society, frame it to their benefit, in a feudal way. They are using all of that power in a desperate bid to keep all that power and money.

    It is an age old power struggle where the ones that have everything want to keep it, and some of you folks, shouting the slogans of "but, Thaksin..." and "Thai people are like that..." would make Geobbels very happy indeed...

    Edit to add: while there was a chance of gradual migration where all the Thai rich folk benefited (and the average Thai too, and the nation...), with this extreme move, the PADites risk a total loss (not today, but in a relatively short space of time) where Thailand is turned upside down. The PADites, as I've being saying all along, are only interested in an all or nothing game, and that is incredibly dangerous.
    Last edited by Bettyboo; 23-05-2014 at 12:07 PM.

  25. #450
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    Quote Originally Posted by taxexile View Post
    illegal and corrupt to you maybe, but perfectly justified by many thais according to their beliefs and traditions.
    I agree with you on this entirely, and this is the point. There is corruption on both sides and the fact that Thaksin's political party won the last election here displays that it frankly doesn't bother the majority. Corruption, on various levels, exists right through the Thai business world.

    Perhaps the Democrats should campaign on the platform of "Thaksin is more corrupt than any of us" and they might gain some credibility.

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