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Suthichai Yoon Interviews Stephen Young


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Very well said Khun Plus.

Yes very well put.

Here's that interview again from a slightly different angle

http://www.notthenation.com/pages/news/getnews.php?id=822

I enjoyed that Jayboy. Thanks for the link.

I can see that hurting supporters of the original article.

A very good use of humour to make a point.

Biting cynicism, political parody, peppered with sarcasm,

spiced up with some journalistic twists and turns, mockery and sneer

isn't "humor" as "spitting images" aren't meant for the baby's cot.

And beware NotTheNation isn't even pretending to tell anything enlightening!

Note: This website is not The Nation. For entertainment purposes only.

Some who fall for it.... well I deeply regret it... and now THAT is awsome FUNNY!

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I am shocked by that terrible article from not the nation.

Fancy writing satire..and making it bitingly honest and hilarious.

http://www.notthenation.com/pages/news/getnews.php?id=822

Professor Stephen Young, a white man who therefore represents all white countries, especially the all-powerful United States where he is from, and who furthermore has a doctorate in something Asian-related, and is therefore smarter than everyone in the world without a doctorate, especially those red-shirted people who are too blind to see that Thaksin Shinawatra was cynical and exploitative closet republican, granted an exclusive interview to NTN’s sister publication The Nation in which he graciously explained at length why the yellow-shirts are right and everyone else is lying.

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The notthenation item is good satire. I enjoyed reading it.

However, that doesn't change the situation with Thaksin. He is still a massively divisive demagogue and a one man major threat to the future of Thailand. Foreigners, do you really want a Thai Chavez/Peron here? In the long run do you actually think that will be good for Thailand?

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Thaksin has helped stir up and ridden a wave of rural discontent in Thailand. But he wouldn't have been able to do so if there hadn't in the first place been significant social inequity for the rural people to be discontented about. But just because Thaksin has stirred it up now doesn't mean that the inequity is greater now than in the past. It only means that the rural people are perceiving the inequity more clearly than before. This I think is because of television showing them all sorts of nice things they don't have: fancy cars, fancy houses, overseas travel, and lots and lots of new electronic toys. Its one thing to know there are rich people living somewhere else, its quite another to see those unaffordable luxuries marketed to you every night on TV. And as the better off people in the provinces begin to move up and start acquiring the cars and other things that brings the difference into even sharper focus.

Some amount of social friction is inevitable in a country that rapidly develops and leaves a part of its population behind. Having a greedy politician that exacerbates the friction for his own political gain magnifies all the problems immensely.

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Just to lighten the load a bit more on a Friday. They should have a print edition, it may sell more than their more "genuine" so called better half.

It's ok folks, Irony has been legal for ages.

CNS Lifts Ban on Irony

Former CNS chief Sonthi said that effective immediately, all citizens could now use sarcasm, sustained satire, conceit, and “if appropriate, the nearly-undetectable use of wry understatement”

Another beauty from NotheNation

http://www.notthenation.com/pages/news/getnews.php?id=174

Some social critics are wary of the longer-term effects of opening up Thailand to myriad forms of irony. But in the meantime, editors like Suwitcha are more focused on the present opportunities. “We have months of good material stored up, satirizing every aspect of Thai politics, culture, and arts. Seriously, this stuff practically writes itself.”

Never a truer statement about the circus called "Thai Politics".

Edited by Thai at Heart
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Not The Nation is not news, it is parody.

An the Mods have asked NOT to link Not The Nation to news topics.

Several have mistaken Not The Nation for real news in the past.

The only parody is the amount of time you spend posting to this site claiming you know about Thailand.

Stephen Young is the son of an ex-Ambassador. As such it is unlikely that he was in touch with real people. The way he patronizes the interviewer is a sight to behold.

Seriously - you need to get out more and see Thailand. Sitting on this forum for 12 hours a day does not count as 'getting to know the country'. Get out there a bit & then come back and comment. At that point, you may realize than Not The Nation reveals a lot more about Thailand than the Nation ever did.

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//regarding Not The Nation//

As long as everyone is made aware it is a parody I see no issue and have no objections

If its not clear from a post I will delete those posts

WF

Balanced reaction for sure.

Perhaps though, it would be more appropriate to delete the posts of those that can't recognise blatant sarcasm when it is posted.

Or is there now a maximum IQ level on Thai Visa ?

Edited by pedro01
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//regarding Not The Nation//

As long as everyone is made aware it is a parody I see no issue and have no objections

If its not clear from a post I will delete those posts

WF

Balanced reaction for sure.

Perhaps though, it would be more appropriate to delete the posts of those that can't recognise blatant sarcasm when it is posted.

Or is there now a maximum IQ level on Thai Visa ?

a minimum or maximum IQ level?

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This guy is so full of s**t.

What he as a Professor completely misunderstands that it is not so much about Thaksin, yellow or red shirts, Sondhi or whatsoever - these are just symbols. It's about the inherent unfairness in the Thai system in general and clinging to status quo rather than change for the better that ppl are upset about. It's also not about what ppl have to their avail or that they are much better off than bloody 40 years ago (hel_l, Germany was MUCH worse off 40 years ago - what kind of retarded comparison is that????), but they've come to realise that the current system does not provide chances or opportunities for self betterment and development.

I seriously cannot believe that a Harvard trained Professor would spill out such utter nonsense and incoherent arguments without a hidden agenda. I do acknowledge that he has a fair knowledge of Thailand's history, but he is completely out of touch with today's Thailand. Coming from a capitalist country where self development is seen as a positive, as the individual's contribution to the betterment of society as a whole, I am shocked to hear something like that from an "educated" person.

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Bottom line, this thread again proves the good professor correct.

that so called professor is only good for comical and zany quotes. for entertainment purposes only. hilarious. correct is something else.

check this out: Professor Stephen B. Young: Notes on the 2008 election. taken from his Blog at the Twin Cities Daily Planet newswire. i am sure you will love it.

John McCain

Unlike two other men who were similarly irresponsible and self-referential (one also angry, alcoholic, adolescent, given to acting out and pouting braggadocio), McCain went to war. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush dodged military service.

McCain’s wartime suffering provided him with character. This was a stroke of fortune as elections are largely about character, not issues.

When McCain speaks of “country first”, of placing civic responsibility above service of self, he is turning the clock back to a pre Boomer culture. He is closer to the mythic stance of the Greatest Generation who fought a great war than he is to those who fought to stay out of the Vietnam War.

McCain is closing the chapter of Boomer culture in American history, putting that childishness behind us.

Hillary Clinton

Hillary’s address to the Democratic National Convention in Denver basically said it all: it was always about her: her ideas, her plans, her nagging the rest of us, her getting power to do what she wants because she wants to.. Hillary is a Boomer – cold at her core and self-referential; spoiled and arrogant, insincere in her claims to fellowship with the rest of us, keen to make money and live the good life, put upon by mean-spirited social enemies.

Sarah Palin

Here is a find; an original; another Andy Jackson come from the frontier to take no prisoners. We have seen the arrival of a person who will be in national politics for a long time to come.

She will give Hillary a run for the money and, I would guess, will outclass Hillary in the coming years. Hillary is a whiner while Sarah is a doer.

It is also a generational transfer of style: from the Boomer Hillary to the post-Boomer Sarah. ...

there is no publishing date given, but i guess it was written before Obama was named the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party.

please don't blame that as off-topic. to have a look at what the comedian Stephen B. Young had said about the us-american election maybe can provide other us-americans, ko samui tourists, '77 peace corps veterans and otherwise clueless white men without a degree some hints about the mindset of Stephen b. Young.

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I guess Professor Young just touched a lot of people's nerves when he dared point out that Thaksin is essentially just a corrupt, manipulative, self-serving lying imperialist nation-dividing elitist ex-police bastard.

Right? :)

Dared point out? Who denies that what you say about Thaksin is untrue? The point is that there is a gap in society and thats not because of Thaksin or Abhisit or whoever - people are just aware that there is and are no longer contempt with how things used to be. Maybe what's happened in the past 8-10 yrs made people more aware and Thaksin sure was a part of it (plus better access to information).

I must admit I only read the transcript posted on TV and didnt watch the whole interview. To a large extent stating the obvious. In terms of his views - I probably could have spoken to Sondhi or any other yellow shirt for that matter and he would have told me the same story. Personally, I do not take sides as I wouldnt know which side to be on to be frank.

I can kinda understand both sides though. I have many people work on my huge farm surrounded by walls. I can pretty much do what and go where I please. I even school them - basically pound it into their heads that they should respect me and anyone else superior to them. They do get paid as well, but have to pay for their accommodation. They can purchase everything they need at the store on the farm (which I own of course). Yesterday a young kid dared to ask a question - I just told him to be quiet. The answers to all his questions are in the book that I wrote and is the main learning material from Year 1 to 12. Every hut comes with a copy of that book in the nightstand drawer. We usually have blue-dress theme parties every Friday.

Edited by emsfeld
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Young most likely got into Harvard as a "legacy," that is his parent(s) are Harvard/Radcliffe grads as are relatives going back to grandparent(s) etc. He clearly avoided any profs who were the least bit to the left of the US socio-economic-cultural-political center or ignored any who were. Someone earlier categorized Young as being "Beacon Hill" which is one of several such tags, a few others being "Boston Brahmin" or "Blueblood." It's clear Young hasn't ever touched an untouchable.

Young however does seem to make two valid points even if by accident:

1) Other leaders of Thailand who have seen the proverbial handwriting on the wall have simply recognized it, shaken it off and gone on with their lives elsewhere in other capacities but that Thaksin has not;

2) Thaksin shares the mindset and emotional composition of 5,000 years of China and its imperial, absolutist and hierarchical view of society and government/rule; Thaksin certainly pursued the Chinese traditions of the one guy at the top controlling everyone and everything. This view may well be Thai Thai too, but the difference between past dictators of Thailand and Thaksin is that from their beginning Thaksin and his gang seemed determined to create a People's Republic of Thailand by morphing the government and economy into Thailand/Thaksin Inc.

So I think Young happens to be accurate in these observations albeit from afar. Yoon himself fails the smell test in presenting Young at all much less so prominently.

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Bottom line, this thread again proves the good professor correct. It all boils down to how you perceive THAKSIN. It IS about this one man.

NO, it's not about one man like the good professor claims and you know I answered to that already on 2009-09-09 but that thread was closed, unfortunately:

I posted as follows:

A man with Professor Young's reputation is to be respected of course but his memories of the '60's are drifting away from reality, between back than and now.

In the years his father was the American Ambassador (they arrived in 1961) Thailand had a little over 26 million people*; there was hardly any television coverage about politics and if there was coverage it was probably controlled; just radio; no internet and maybe a few telex machines.

Nobody had a car, only the elite; nobody but few had a motorbike. Tourists? maybe a few.

We shouldn't forget that Thailand was even more dead poor than it is now; after all it was just some 15 years after WWII ended and the Japanese left Thailand after they first invaded the country in December 1941, transferring it into a softy ally.... :) ...and sucking it empty for it's own benefit.

He's talking about an era when Jim Thompson was still sipping his whisky on the terrace of the Oriental Hotel and probably knew Young's father as there were just a few Americans in Thailand, before he disappeared in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia in 1967.

As long as everyone had some food and a job, everybody was happy.

Now we're talking about a Thailand with 65 million people. That's 39 million more people than his memories! and 39 million more than the number of 26 million in his days in the sixties when he was a young boy and visited some rural villages.

To blame the divided population of Thailand on just one man, Thaksin, is far from reality and to blame his (supposedly) Chinese way of thinking** as the cause for all this is absurd since I don't know where he would find evidence for that since he doesn't know the man personally.

It is even more strange to say so since it's odd to blame someone for Chinese thinking a la a Chinese Emperor since his great-great-grandfather (and that's a long time ago) arrived in -than- Siam some 150 years ago, in 1860.

I think Mr. Young, with the utmost respect, thinks a little bit with an influenced American propaganda fed brain about the "Chinese" way of thinking. But, that's not surprising as the American press is feeding their readers with an anti China sentiment since decades.

And, it might be correct that Thaksin was granted a monopoly for his mobile phone adventure which made him so wealthy but the ultimate 1-MILLION-DOLLAR-QUESTION is:

WHO granted him that monopoly ? :D

Were that the powers (behind the velvet curtains) not to be named ?

But if not...who were they? Did they benefit ? If not, why not? If they did...how much ? I could go on.

SO, concluding: Thaksin might have been (or still is) a financial crook, but to blame the dividing of Thailand's population on just one man is a bit, shall we say.... naive?

* * http://web.nso.go.th/eng/en/pop2000/prelim_e.htm

** This kind of thinking to me reflects not Thai Buddhism, but Chinese imperial thinking. The imperial thinking of the Chinese emperor. The Chinese theory. If you read about this, and I've studied a lot about it, we see this thinking.....<snip>....it's just like 2,000 years ago. Same thinking.

I think it would be better for Mr. Young to stay away from politics.

From: http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/National-Div...49#entry2999949

And, Jingthing: I answered also to another remark by you, here:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/National-Div...29#entry3000329

LaoPo

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//regarding Not The Nation//

As long as everyone is made aware it is a parody I see no issue and have no objections

If its not clear from a post I will delete those posts

WF

Balanced reaction for sure.

Perhaps though, it would be more appropriate to delete the posts of those that can't recognise blatant sarcasm when it is posted.

Or is there now a maximum IQ level on Thai Visa ?

a minimum or maximum IQ level?

I think it's fairly clear there are no minimums :)

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What he as a Professor completely misunderstands that it is not so much about Thaksin, yellow or red shirts, Sondhi or whatsoever - these are just symbols. It's about the inherent unfairness in the Thai system in general and clinging to status quo rather than change for the better that ppl are upset about.

If what you say is true that those reds wouldn't be running around trying to save Thaksin's money but demand that their political representatives started doing something useful.

So far I don't see that those protesters care a bit about democracy, not a step beyond fiery rhetorics.

Chunkton, Thaksin didn't invent vote buying, the difference is that he legitimized it.

Just like prostitution has existed since forever but no one presents some whore as an innocent bride.

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If what you say is true that those reds wouldn't be running around trying to save Thaksin's money but demand that their political representatives started doing something useful.

So far I don't see that those protesters care a bit about democracy, not a step beyond fiery rhetorics.

Chunkton, Thaksin didn't invent vote buying, the difference is that he legitimized it.

Just like prostitution has existed since forever but no one presents some whore as an innocent bride.

eeerm...ok. Let's start out on a point we all agree on: democracy basically boils down to the political opinion of the majority being represented and acted in accordance to (to some extent of course).

Ignore the vote buying for now, the red shirts' representatives very voted democratically since the coup, but overthrown each time so that now the ruling party is an undemocratically installed one, by the powers behind the scenes.

You wonder why they no longer take the democratic way?

Now take the vote buying into account - so basically you are saying that if votes hadnt been bought that Democrats would have one the past elections? Why? Because the Isaanies would have voted for Abhisit rather than Thaksin's parties? OR because they wouldnt have attended the votes at all (which I reckon)?

Again, I am not condoning what Thaksin has done or represents at all - but neither am I pleased about what's happening at the moment. Yellow side is full of hypocrisy and self righteousness themselves.

I can give you more examples of my farm though...you may be able to see some parallels...in case you are interested?

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One thing that Mr Young also has wrong - Thaksins first real success came from leasing computers. Telecomms came later.

Yes after his forays into a silk shop, a movie theater, and an apartment building failed and left him over 50 million Baht in debt.

Leasing commputers through police contacts, after marrying the police chief's daughter, had mixed success. It wasn't until he was able to arrange monopolies, via minister of communications Samak Sundaravej, in both telcom (1990) and satcom (1991, that Col Thaksin gained the road to riches.

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One thing that Mr Young also has wrong - Thaksins first real success came from leasing computers. Telecomms came later.

Yes after his forays into a silk shop, a movie theater, and an apartment building failed and left him over 50 million Baht in debt.

Leasing commputers through police contacts, after marrying the police chief's daughter, had mixed success. It wasn't until he was able to arrange monopolies, via minister of communications Samak Sundaravej, in both telcom (1990) and satcom (1991, that Col Thaksin gained the road to riches.

Oh those heady days of 25,000 (25 baht = 1 USD) baht for a two year old model of a Nokia and the futility of buying one overseas and trying to get it onto the AIS network. Kerching, kerching!

Edited by Thai at Heart
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I guess Professor Young just touched a lot of people's nerves when he dared point out that Thaksin is essentially just a corrupt, manipulative, self-serving lying imperialist nation-dividing elitist ex-police bastard.

Right? :)

Dared point out? Who denies that what you say about Thaksin is untrue? The point is that there is a gap in society and thats not because of Thaksin or Abhisit or whoever - people are just aware that there is and are no longer contempt with how things used to be. Maybe what's happened in the past 8-10 yrs made people more aware and Thaksin sure was a part of it (plus better access to information).

I must admit I only read the transcript posted on TV and didnt watch the whole interview. To a large extent stating the obvious. In terms of his views - I probably could have spoken to Sondhi or any other yellow shirt for that matter and he would have told me the same story. Personally, I do not take sides as I wouldnt know which side to be on to be frank.

I can kinda understand both sides though. I have many people work on my huge farm surrounded by walls. I can pretty much do what and go where I please. I even school them - basically pound it into their heads that they should respect me and anyone else superior to them. They do get paid as well, but have to pay for their accommodation. They can purchase everything they need at the store on the farm (which I own of course). Yesterday a young kid dared to ask a question - I just told him to be quiet. The answers to all his questions are in the book that I wrote and is the main learning material from Year 1 to 12. Every hut comes with a copy of that book in the nightstand drawer. We usually have blue-dress theme parties every Friday.

This "Gap" is an occurrence in EVERY Society - there are always "underprivileged", Poor and under performing people in ANY country on the planet - and rural Thailand is NOT rural Germany, Italy, or the US!

But Mr.Thaksin is playing this gap to an extend that it turns not only my guts around like the "tumble dry" cycle of a washing machine!

What does this guy tell the people and what is he really doing - see this gap?

Alone this underlines the red thread what Mr.Young tried to picture!

It' is not about who Sathit was and what a Dictator he was -

it's simply drawing a line of comparison between!

And yes, Mr.Thaksin is working this "gap" to get the division he needs...

for his plans - this is what Mr.Young meant with "Imperialism"!

MR.Thaksin actions he orchestrated and denied any involvement are clear signs

of what he is really up to.

As he accuses people for being "dictators" what was he up to with his fumbled absolute Majority?

Wasn't this going into the direction of an authoritarian de facto "dictator ship"?

Well hope his dreams will never come true!

Because then all this, they are trying to warn the people of, and excuse the present Government of,

will become reality - what else was "the war on drugs", what else did his many expressions about "the UN is not my father"!

Tell?

The red shirts and his tactics is to twist things so long around till unassumingly nobody knows anymore where is up and where is down - or left and right - or better right and wrong!

The gap is being deliberately created and worked on to open further -

but hey, they underestimated their very own people -

and here we come to the point that Mr.Young also didn't fail to

mention Thaksins origins and ethnic background, his taste for the occult....

and draw a line from there to his "Imperialist thinking and behavior",

where do we arrive, what is the conclusion - Mr.Mandarin?

Edited by Samuian
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