dbrenn
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Posts posted by dbrenn
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Koo, there are millions of people who have exactly opposite reactions to all three choices. You do realise they exist?
I only know that majority of Thais love the 3rd man. This explained why he and his parties won elections.
Right - the Dems dare not hold an election, for obvious reasons. And they still have the audacity to go by the name "Democrat" Party.
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and yet barely 10% of what the Leaders were confident of bringing out...
A 10% turnout to any function is still quite good in Thailand SJ, unless there is free food
100,000 is still a lot of people, and undescores that the government cannot sweep the red movement under the carpet. They can only suppress the reds temporaily, using tanks and guns.
Why don't the Dems suppress the reds permanently by holding an election? Oops, forgot - they might lose, again.
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Are you complaining that not more TRT/PPP MPs got banned?
If they did, they couldn't have voted for any democrats...but as they wasn't, they are still legit in the eyes of the law.
So those who voted for Abhisit are legit because they didn't buy votes?
Many banned TRT/PPP did not buy votes. But they were banned. Are they not legit in your word?
That's what people here ignore Koo. There are two definitions to the word 'banned':
1 - (Criminal) banned - people who support Thaksin
2 - (Forgiven) banned - people who support Abhisit and lend him 22 MPs
So, you see, the word banned in yellow political speak actually has two meanings
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If so, she is a British subject at that time, a tourist.
I don't beleive that true. As soon as she steps on Thai soil she is a Thai and not longer has protection as a UK citizen.
I don't have a UK passport but mine has a little warning about holding dual nationality that says my country can't help if you are in the country that is your other nationality.
That's right, see the UK rules on dual nationality here:
http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecont...ity?view=Binary
Article 4 of the Hague Convention on Certain Questions relating to the Conflict of Nationality Laws, 1930 provides that "a State may not afford diplomatic protection to one of its nationals against a state whose nationality such person also possesses". This means that the UK cannot protect a dual UK/Thai national from the Thai authorities.
Travelling to Thailand on a UK passport won't make any difference and won't ensure that the OP's niece will have to leave Thailand, ever. As a Thai national, she can never be deported, even if she overstays the entry stamp on the UK passport that she used to enter Thailand. The fine of up to 20,000 Baht would still be incurred for overstaying the British passport entry stamp, however.
As Ubonjoe says, it depends on the girl's age as to whether her mother would be abe to prevent her from leaving of her own free will. Given that the couple are separated with presumably no custody arrangements, if the mother did decide to prevent her child from leaving, then the case would have to go to court. Mothers usually win custody battles.
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Thaksin and his proto redshirts did their best while he was still in office to
'Submerge that Emerging Democracy you mentioned.
And they are still at it at these S.L. protest sites and in general.
You can overlay some valid arguments on top of a ceaspit of bile
and it's still bile under it all.
Devotion in an almost relgious ferver is not over typical political things,
but over ATYPICAL political personalities. Good ideas debased by grafting onto
cults of personality; which most often spin out of control eventually.
Well I agree with your likening Thai politics to a cesspit of bile. But that bunch of corrupt and incompetent CDR army generals running the country, filling their pockets while advocating the dilution of the popular vote for the 'uneducated'? What kind of democracy is that?
For all Thaksin's misbehaviour, at least the TRT could have been voted out of office, by the general public, by way of a peaceful popular vote. A bunch of corrupt generals Kicking the TRT/PPP out for alleged corruption, then helping themselves, in a country where corruption is pandemic, is hypocrisy of the highest order. People resent being treated like idiots and they obviously don't like it at all when the party that they chose to govern them is forced out of office and replaced with the Dem oppostion, under whose governance they derived no benefit whatsoever for years on end. They are all corrupt, so describing just one side as a cesspit of bile makes no sense at all.
Look at the mess the generals have made. Was it really worth it?
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My guess is it's a war you wage on behalf of others - could be your wife, or perhaps your in-laws, or maybe even your neighbours.
And there you go second guessing again! Just like you second guess anyone who doesn't agree with you and assume that they must be a Thaksin supporter. You are totally obsessed with the man.
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defending Thaksin is a job your heart's not really in. You do it well but lack the devotion of a Koo82. My guess is it's a war you wage on behalf of others ....
Eh? You are at it again! When are you going to stop relating everything people say here back to Thaksin? I think Journalist was spot on when he said that you do it to try to hide behind TV rules that forbid criticism of court judgement.
And if you think that my heart is not in this, because I don't have hours on end to spend all day constructing elaborate responses on an anonymous internet forum, then that's up to you. The fact is, there isn't much to say to people like you who dodge the various issues I and others have put forward regards democratic values, alignment of the yellows with ccorrupt handlers, hypocritical viewpoints, and so on. All you do is accuse everyone who doesn't agree with you of having criminal associations and leading the discussion towards ctiticism of a court judgement. That is such a cowardly way to behave. You hide behind Thaksin because your weak arguments don't stand any scrutiny.
For us or against us. You are like George Bush.
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There you go again banging on about Thaksin. You seem to have an obsession with the man
Simple count of occurences of "Thaksin" in that post, including all the quotes, gives dbrenn - 4, rixalex replies - 5.
I can't be bothered checking Plus, and it doesn't matter anyway - you make things up as you go along as has been observed by other posters here. You don't have a point of view that is consistent with facts that are reported from yellow and red alike. The last sensible conversation that I had with you ended up with you denying that the CDR had any agenda against foreign rights, in spite of evidence to the contrary that was all too obvious at the time to the expat and business community living in Thailand, in the months following the coup. There is no point talking to you if you keep inventing things to make whatever point it is that you are trying to make.
Do you work for the Democrat party, or are you just a troll having a laugh?
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I said earlier, it doesn't matter where it comes from, it matters what it IS, now.
Plus decides that a basically conservative party which is organized in the International Liberal is now suddenly Social Democrat, because he has searched in an outdated Wikipedia entry, yet ignores almost all political studies which do put the Democrats into the conservative camp.
Can you please, for the sake of keeping up appearances, cite any study by a relevant academic that calls the Democrats "Social Democratic". No newspaper articles, no wikipedia.
If you can't do that, then i will leave this silly debate with you.
Plus just says anything to make a point. It doesn't matter what it is.
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So you accept that the coup wasn't democratic, and you justify this with a belief that Thaksin wasn't democratic either. You still haven't explained why you believe that replacing one system that you see as undemocratic, with another system that you also see as undemocratic, is worth bringing Thailand to the brink of civil war for.
Does anyone claim the coup was democratic? I don't think so, just as few would deny that Thaksin had corrupted democracy. Yet you say it's my "belief". You believe differently? You already yourself stated that Thaksin did engage in vote-buying (although of course you always rush to point out that "all politicians do" - so that's alright then).
The coup didn't bring the country to the brink of civil war - quite the opposite - it prevented a clash on the streets that was being instigated by Thaksin so he could justify a heavy-handed clamp down.
Since that crisis was narrowly avoided, Thaksin has tried again to take the country to the brink of civil war but he failed - in no small part thanks to the military.
Not as venal as Thaksin's bunch. Hmmm. Try General Saprang K.,If Saprang is guilty of corruption, i absolutely agree that he should have his day in court. Do i think that Saprang's case compares with Thaksin's backlog of cases? Probably not, but let's allow the courts to decide that one - they are the ones privy to all the evidence.
There are probably a lot less Thaksin supporters here than you would like to believe. All you can do when your argument fails is keep tryng to convince yourself that everyone who dosn't share your viewpoint must be a rabid Thaksn supporter, and is therefore worthy of censure for having 'criminal' associations.I don't support censure of people's views no matter what they might be or whoever they may support, i just think it's dishonest to argue from a supposed point of neutrality. Yourself and your like-minded friends on this forum go to considerable lengths to distance yourselves from Thaksin, but then go to great lengths to defend him.
It's not of course impossible to defend someone you don't support, but is slightly strange devoting so much time to a cause you have no belief in. If someone claimed that Mugabe was a pick-pocket and you suspected it to be untrue, would you spend a minute of your life defending his name against the charge?
What?
There you go again banging on about Thaksin as the root of all evil, the Beast, the Antichrist or whatever. You seem to have an obsession with the man. He may mean everything to you, but your constant references to the man are just plain boring.
You seem like a reasonably intelligent person. Don't you have anything else to talk about, just for a change?
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"BUT the legal standard is 5-4 is 100% guilty as charged."
Hi TAWP
I agree with you 100%. I would never suggest any thing else!! 5 - 4 is a decision equally as binding as 9 - 1. But TAWP it is a weak verdict. It is obvious that 4 did not agree with the findings as the (other) 5.
So to the "usual suspects" ---- please relax ---- not suggesting he was innocent -- in fact stated his guilt several times!!
Right. And given that the CDR claimed to have so much eveidence to jsutify their overthrow of Thaksin's elected government, it did take rather a long time to dig up that charge and nail him for it. You would think that the charge sheet would have run into several volumes ... but just one 5 - 4 ...
Thaksin was guilty, I am sure. But he was nothing out of the ordinary for a Thai pol, and he certainly wasn't bad enough to justify pushing Thailand to the edge of a civil war for. Purge Thailand of guilty and corrupt pols, and there would likely be none left.
And where were the charges against the equally as corrupt CDR generals that installed Abhisit? Those old army generals who took directorships of state owned enterprises as their spoils of war just after the coup? You gotta hand it to the yellow lot - they conned a lot of people into believing that corruption was peculiar to Thaksin, while helping themselves to the goodies.
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A couple of points.
His charge was abuse of power in office which was corruption
and it was concerning 770 million baht.
Wow - 770 million! That's a lot of cash! Mind you, Thaksin is not in the lead there. Read on.
Let's look at your rationale so far in the discussion:
POSITION 1 - You began with a stance that was against corruption, period. All corrupt MPs and Thaksinite detritis, in your original viewpoint, deserved to be banned from politics, to make way for a new generation of clean yellow saviours.
POSITION 2 - When it was explained to you that Newin the Banned (an ex TRT/PPP mafia godfather, who happened to control 22 MPs) was instrumental in getting Abhisit the PM job, you morphed from having an exclusively anti-corruption stance to one that favoured the least degree of corruption, and excused it in lesser 'degrees'. You ended up telling me that all Thai pols were corrupt to some extent, which is what I had been telling you all along. Now, I presume from your comments above that 'lesser degrees' in your calculus means 'a lot less than 770 million'
Consider the case of General Saprang, one of your CDR coup heros that delivered Thailand from the evils of Thaksin. In the months that followed the coup, Saprang fired the chairman of the ToT for trying to block an 800 million Baht 'donation' from the ToT to the army. Yes, the State owned telco giving money to the army. Do we need to fight a war to get a decent telephone service? In addition, as the AoT boss, Saprang took his cronies and members of his family on a 7.2 million Baht 'fact finding' trip to Europe. That year, the AoT's profits dropped 90% in spite of a 17.9% increase in revenue. To cap it all, Sondhi L. still put his mate Saprang forward for the job of army chief.
So much for the yellow anti-corruption pretext.
Now, considering your disgust at Thaksin's 770 million Baht fiddle, how does your 'degrees of corruption' calculus reconcile the antics of Saprang and the CDR?
since when is sums like this a little matter?Now what was that you were saying about little sums mattering?
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the BBC did a 1 hour program on Bang Kwang Prison, it was on YouTube but not anymore...;-(
Go there and pay a visit for yourself, the prisoners always like to have a visitor.
Check before you go. I heard that the Department of Corrections was trying to discourage what they saw as jailhouse tourism - a steady stream of backpackers visiting people at the facility that they had no conections to. From what I heard, the DoC was only allowing relatives, consular/charity support and legal council to visit inmates.
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You can read up these "editors" personal pages there, too. They are as biased as they come, both would feel at home among Thaivisa red posters.
And in a good tradtion of red posters, no one even attempts to explain how Democrat policies or Abhisit convictions make them center-right conservatives.
This is one of the reasons why wikipedia has to be taken with a grain of salt, and why you should not have quoted it to support your mistaken view.
To answer your question why the Democrats are not Social Democrat, but in the conservative camp:
First of all, the very strong Royalist position makes the party conservative.
Economic liberal policies follows generally accepted conservative lines.
There are no specific pro-union policies, no policies regarding the building of a welfare state. We have seen no drive towards stronger taxation of the wealthy or the corporations - all which are center policies of Social Democrats.
Last but not least - they are not part of the Socialist International, which Social Democrat and Socialist parties are internationally organized in. The Democrats are part of International Liberal. You have to understand though that nowadays "liberal" does not mean the traditional policy of upholding of civil liberties, but pure economic liberalism. Which is about as far as you can get from Social Democrat agenda.
Admittedly, like most Thai parties also the Democrats operate under a veneer of pseudo political policies, while in reality they are dominated by the same regional power politics without much political conviction other than social conservative pro status quo as any other party. They just obfuscate it for the foreign observer slightly better by placing front men that can appear as if the party is comparable to a proper political party. Nevertheless - these front men are from the conservative camp, and not from any social democrat background (just because somebody can express himself in English does not make him Social Democrat).
On the other hand, the former TRT has attracted, next to the many other political and business interests, a large amount of people with a clear Social Democrat background, such as Chaturon Chaisaeng.
Under the present political system it is almost impossible to found a socialist or social democrat party. Only very recently a socialist party has been refused registeration here. Unless the Thai state accepts that Thailand is a pluralistic society, and that the founding of a socialist or social democrat party does not mean the overthrow of the system and immediate revolution, we are stuck with what we have now - mostly conservative parties, and politicians of social democratic backgrounds being forced to go into alliances with parties they would otherwise not.
I hope that clarifies things for you.
Very well explained. Thank you for enlightening dear old Plus on the obvious traits that make the Dems conservative.
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It's like the poor should be happy with their poor lives because Abhisit cannot make money now and has to spend a lot.
Inteseting thought - it's what's left over for the Thai people after Abhisit has paid off the army, Newin, the PAD et al
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the BBC did a 1 hour program on Bang Kwang Prison, it was on YouTube but not anymore...;-(
I've watched that. Terrifying and frightening!
Looked ok to me. Pretty relaxed in fact, apart from the cramped sleeping rooms (if you didn't have money to pay for a bigger room).
No worse than some of the places I stayed in my backpacking days. The rooms at Bang Kwang are probably cheaper than Khao San these days.
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In the Aussie Daily Telegraph (paper edition) this morning, it is claimed that the lady in question:
1) Took flight and had to be chased down the beach
2) Was abusive to the police down at the station
3) There was a photo of someone holding the bar mat. It is quite an elaborate one - about one metre long and decorated with the pub's own artwork
4) The group who was with the girl was complaining that there was 'no man around to help them negotiate a bribe, as this was all that the police were after'
She may have panicked, but is there more to this that what was originally reported? Abusing the cops anywhere is a good way to get locked up.
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As another poster pointed out, the manifesto of the Dems is true blue conservative.
You either don't read or have no built in aversion to lying without any shame.
What that other poster said was:
He is about as typically conservative as you can possibly be, by upbringing, education and convictions, in a party that has been founded as a conservative royalist party..I was just about to point out that party and politicians are judged by their ideology, not upbringing and education, and here "dbrenn" cites this non-existent "manifesto".
That Wiki entry has been edited out, predictably.
One can get a glimpse of what it said less than two years ago, thanks to Thaivisa search facility:
http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Anti-coup-Le...15#entry1452315
>>>
I'm not trying to argue a particular position here, just protesting against "Plus decides to summarily redefine political science".
People who were writing that wiki entry had a similar outlook. I don't know how is redefining political scence here, I see some unknown hacks editing wikipedia to reverse party's political label, though.
Semantics again, my dear Plus
. "He is about as typically conservative as you can possibly be, by upbringing, education and convictions, in a party that has been founded as a conservative royalist party" and "True Blue conservative" conveys exactly the same meaning: one who has a very conservative point of view. Look it up.To call me a liar for that mekes me feel that I should add poor language skills to your long list of other charming idiosyncrasies, like flatly denying that the CDR was xenophobic, in spite of such a wealth of abundant evidence to the contrary.
And for your information, Wikipedia is an open forum, so everyone can edit it - not just "unknown hacks". In the absence of first hand experience of a topic, the important thing that you should bear in mind when using a tool like Wikipedia is where the information comes from, and what citations are used to support the information.
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Yes it is. The coup wasn't democratic but it didn't pretend to be. Something that masquerades as democracy is no better - in fact it's worse.
So you accept that the coup wasn't democratic, and you justify this with a belief that Thaksin wasn't democratic either. You still haven't explained why you believe that replacing one system that you see as undemocratic, with another system that you also see as undemocratic, is worth bringing Thailand to the brink of civil war for. You can't explain why you believe that a system installed by a nationalistic, xenphobic junta is better than one that can be voted out of office by the people.
Do you really believe that the CDR were not just as venal as Thaksin's lot? Army generals? In Thailand?Yes i do believe they weren't as venal as Thaksin's bunch - in fact they don't even come close. After the coup they said they would be elections and there were. So please do tell me which general was personally enriched by the coup - names and sums of money please.?
Not as venal as Thaksin's bunch. Hmmm. Try General Saprang K., one of the original CDR members who would look more at home in Burma, and the same guy that Sondhi L wanted to be army chief. This is what all the media (red and yellow) was reporting about him in the months following the coup:
1 - Publicly stated that 'Thailand will always have coups'
2 - As AoT chief, went on a 'fact finding' mission to Europe, spending 7.2 million Baht of public money on him and his gang, some of whom were members of his family. AoT's profits dropped 90% that year, despite a 17.9% increase in revenue. Where do you think those lost profits went, Rixalix? Inefficiency?
3 - Fired the ToT boss for trying to block an 800 million Baht 'donation' to the Army
4 - Spported the yellow position on dilution of the popular vote
5 - Declared that Thaksin should be banished to live in the jungle
Seems that all that you and the yellow devotees focus on is point 5, ignoring the first four points. Why is that?
All the above was reported in the papers of noth red and yellow persuasion at the time. How do you reconcile this with your anti-corruption stance?
And we haven't even started talking about Newin yet, who Abhisit owes his job to. Can't you smell the hypocrisy yet?
Not at all hel_l bent on lumping people into a group. You asked me why people who do support Thaksin shouldn't be able to express their views without being lambasted and i agreed that if they do support Thaksin then they shouldn't feel the need to hide it - that they do tells its own story.P.S. "criminal" Thaksin requires no speech marks.
Goes back to my original point. There are probably a lot less Thaksin supporters here than you would like to believe. All you can do when your argument fails is keep tryng to convince yourself that everyone who dosn't share your viewpoint must be a rabid Thaksn supporter, and is therefore worthy of censure for having 'criminal' associations.
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Democrat party was founded fifty years ago and no one from those days is around anymore. Chuan and Abhisit are two leaders that represent the party ideologically now.
Dems have been put in a social democrat camp on wikipedia, it's not just MY whim, though that might have been edited out, I don't keep up.
Ah yes! Wikipedia says so
As another poster pointed out, the manifesto of the Dems is true blue conservative. I'd add a hint of khaki to the true blue bit.
I know what you are going to say: "No, they are not, so there". But Plus can't rewrite the laws of political science just to prove everyone else is wrong.
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How much speding money do you give your wife or long-term girfriend ?
I give my wife 15,000 Baht a month, divided into 4 weekly payments. This is for her personal expenses or whatever she wants to send to her family, not for food, transportation or extraodinary expenses (doctor, dentist, emergencies).
To my mind this should be plenty, but she's always asking for more for this and that.
What's your experience and opinion ?
Assuming that she has no income, share with her whatever you can comfortably afford after paying for the essentials and putting money aside as savings.
If she repeatedly tells you that what you do is not enough for her, then you have to ask yourself whether you want to spend your valuable time with someone who is dissatisfied with you.
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I've hit the big four.
And while I'm still happy living here, things are starting to fray at the edges.
I enjoy my Thai friends.
I equally enjoy my Western friends married to Thais.
I love walking around Thailand as a recipient of Thai smiles.
And... I have a mean mouth when it comes to fiery red chillies.
And when posters warn of the big four, I've flaffed them off.
But in the past several months I've hit a sort of a bottom.
Happens to most people. First you are in love with the place, then you start to realise that it has flaws just like anywhere else and disillusionment sets in. Then you accept the flaws and get on with life.
You'll get over it.
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I wonder what really happened.
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They didn't unsurp a democratic system because a democratic system, at least one that was free and fair, no longer existed. And no i'm not just talking about vote buying, before you rush to tell me that that has always been present.
Ahhh, I get it. You think that the CDR bunch of army generals who sent tanks rolling down the street, while trying to capture the public's imagination by ranting on about curtailing the very rights that you depend upon as a foreigner to live in Thailand, is an improvement. Your viewpoint is masochistic, to say the least. How can you say that the CDR junta was an improvement? Looks at all the chaos and division. At least Thaksin's lot was relatively benign towards foreigners, and let them own things and do business relatively unfettered. The country was running a lot more smoothely than is is now. And all this mayhem for what noble cause? Do you really believe that the CDR were not just as venal as Thaksin's lot? Army generals? In Thailand?
I absolutely agree. If people support Thaksin they have every right to - but they should have the balls to come out and admit it and attempt to defend what it is they support, rather than disingenuously pretending to be neutral.There you go again with that 'for us or against us' jingoism. You sound just like George Bush. It is possible to have opinions that do not fall exclusively in either Abhisit's or Thaksin's camp, but you seem hel_l bent on lumping anyone who doesn't agree with you into the 'criminal' Thaksin camp, when in fact people have a variety of differing viewpoints that actually have little to do with the man. Accusing your opposition of colluding with the criminal Thaksin is an easier way to shut up the opposition than presenting a valid argument, no? Smacks of authoritarianism and curtailment of political expression, no?
Red Shirts Set Up At Sanam Luang
in Thailand News
Posted
Oh wow! That is such a tremendous improvement Rix. Until recently, anyone who disagreed with you had to be a criminal and rabid supporter of Thaksin the Damned. Either on one side, or the other, with nothing in between.
Glad you have seen the light.