Riots in BKK

[anicon]

... just as the heavy tourist season is about to begin the protesters are at it again making international news trying to takeover govt. buildings and foreign embassies are issuing travel warnings.    Shots are being fired now so where this will end is anyones guess but I don't expect it will be pleasant for the local economy at this time of year.  Any bets on what section of Bangkok will end up in flames this time?  

[TEXASMAC]

More important question "will they mess up my February vacation? " Its all about ME !!

[rxpharm]

Keep an eye on things. There is no way the airports will be affected again. Don't cancel your plans - if problems are still on going when you arrive, avoid any areas where there are protesters. Currently none of the popular areas for meeting lbs has been affected.

With the King's Birthday coming up, things will quiet down, but it may still rise back up. The good thing is the gov't has taken a different approach recently, by stopping the use of tear gas and allowing the protesters through.

[TEXASMAC]

As I arrive in LOS in 42 days I am reading and watching so much more. I don't mind if once I get to LOS I get stranded. I just don't wish to get stopped.

[rxpharm]

I think you will be ok. Even if things are still ongoing in Feb, if you are going to Hua Hin or Pattaya there shouldn't be many problems. The bulk of the problems will be the demonstrators in Bangkok.

[TEXASMAC]

Thanks rx.

[Torurot]

Protests begin to shut down Bangkok
Last updated 13:34 13/01/2014
thai
PAULA BRONSTEIN / Getty Images

The Thai flag flies as thousands of protesters attend a rally at a democracy monument Sunday in Bangkok
Thai protesters rally support
Asia
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Thailand braced for a new wave of mass unrest Monday as anti-government demonstrators blocked major roads to "shut down" Bangkok in a bid to thwart February elections and overthrow the nation's democratically elected prime minister.

The intensified protests, which could last weeks or more, raise the stakes in a long-running crisis that has killed at least eight people in the last two months and fuelled fears of more bloodshed to come and a possible army coup.

Overnight, an unidentified gunman opened fire on protesters camped near a vast government complex, shooting one man in the neck who was admitted to a nearby hospital, according to the city's emergency medical services.

In a separate incident elsewhere, another gunman fired about 10 shots at the headquarters of the headquarters of the opposition Democrat Party, shattering several windows but causing no casualties, said Police Major Nartnarit Rattanaburi.

The protesters are demanding Yingluck's administration be replaced by a non-elected "people's council" which would implement reforms they say are needed to end corruption and money politics. Critics have lashed out at the moves as a power struggle aimed at bringing the Southeast Asian nation's fragile democracy to a halt. Candlelight vigils have been held in the city to counter the shut down and urge the Feb. 2 election to be held on schedule despite an opposition boycott.

In a speech late Sunday, protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban repeated a vow that neither he nor his supporters will negotiate an end to the crisis.

"In this fight, defeat is defeat and victory is victory. There is no tie," he said. "The masses from all walks of life have woken up. They're aware that we are the owners of Thailand."

Demonstrators set up stands in the middle of several major intersections Bangkok and were forcing drivers to turn their cars around. At one, protesters had hung huge Thai flags from an overhead walkway. Bangkok has a subway system and an overheard train system, and traffic was noticeably heavier on both.

Protesters have vowed to surround Cabinet ministries to prevent them from functioning, and vowed to cut water and electricity to the private residences of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her Cabinet.

The crisis dates back to 2006, when mass protests calling for then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra €” Yingluck's brother €” to step down because of alleged corruption and abuse of power led to a military coup. Since then, supporters and opponents of Thaksin have vied for power, sometimes violently.

The protesters say that billionaire Thaksin, who lives in exile, continues to manipulate Thai politics. Thaksin commands overwhelming support in Thailand's less well-off rural areas, where voters are grateful for his populist programs, including virtually free health care. He and his allies have won every national election since 2001.

Since Yingluck assumed the premiership after 2011 elections, she has walked a careful tightrope with the army and her opponents that succeeded in maintaining political calm. But the trigger for the latest protests was an ill-advised move late last year by ruling party lawmakers to push through a bill under the guise of a reconciliation measure offering a legal amnesty for political offenders. The last-minute inclusion of Thaksin led to public outrage and the bill was voted down.

Since then, demonstrators have steadily escalated pressure on Yingluck, attacking her office at government house and the city's police headquarters with slingshots and homemade rocket launchers, and occupying the compounds of several government agencies they withdrew from last month.

There are fears the protesters are trying to incite violence to prompt the military to intervene, and Yingluck has dealt softly with demonstrators in a bid to keep the situation calm. Concern about a coup is high because of the army's history of intervening in politics.

The powerful army commander General Prayuth Chan-ocha has repeatedly said he does not want his forces drawn into the conflict; but in a sign of apparent impatience late last month, he refused to rule out the possibility of a military takeover.

The grass-roots pro-Thaksin Red Shirt movement, closely allied to Yingluck's Pheu Thai Party, has said it will mobilise its supporters to fight any coup.

Most Bangkok residents, however, have more practical concerns. The U.S. Embassy has urged its citizens to stock up essential items like food and water €” enough to last two weeks. There were signs hoarding had begun with bread already sold out at some supermarkets. Thai authorities have dismissed the American advice as overly cautious.

Protest leaders have said they will maintain their "shutdown" of Bangkok for weeks, or until they obtain their goal. Their recent demonstrations have drawn up to 150,000-200,000 people at their height.

The protesters' attempt to destabilise the country has been assisted by the opposition Democrat Party, which is boycotting the February elections. The main protest leader is a former senior Democrat leader, Suthep Thaugsuban, who served at deputy prime minister in the party's 2008-2011 government.

In 2010, Suthep ordered the army to crack down on Red Shirt protesters backing Thaksin who occupied downtown Bangkok for two months. Those protests ended with 90 dead, mostly protesters.

Another deputy prime minister, Surapong Tovichakchaikul, said a combined force of around 12,000 police officers and 8,000 soldiers was being deployed to maintain order in Bangkok.


- AP

[Torurot]

January 29, 2014
Elites F*** Up Bangkok
Down and Out in Thailand
by ANDRE VLTCHEK

They really do, do it! And they are hard at work.

Sukumvit Road, the main commercial artery of the capital, is totally blocked. €˜Protesters€™ are camped in the middle of it, basically taking it over, their tents, shops and eateries are spread all over the pavement.

In most true capitalist societies it would never come to this. Local businessmen, the city administration and the government by now would be worried silly about all those huge losses €“ of hundreds of millions of dollars disappearing because of the irresponsible actions of the ultra-conservative minority political movement.

Would this occur in London, Paris or New York, police would have already moved in a long time ago, maybe even the army, and beat up hundreds of people, and arrested perhaps thousands.

And in Bangkok itself, it was done several years ago, and in a much more horrible way, when the Red Shirts (those who are now practically running the government after winning elections again and again) were massacred in the middle of the night, when the pro-elites, pro-feudal and pro-Western government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva (born in England, and educated at Eton College and Oxford University) began using snipers to blow out people€™s brains.

Were Thailand to be some sort of €˜mature capitalist society€™, things would have been a bit different. Not great, not good, but different€¦

But Thailand is the land of rumors and long silences, of unpronounced threats. And Thailand is not capitalist, not yet, far from it. Like the Philippines and Indonesia, it is a deeply feudal society, which has never really managed to reform itself, nor to progress. Don€™t be fooled by the boutiques, five star hotels and luxury restaurants. Don€™t think that Bangkok€™s cosmopolitan flair is something that has managed to change Thai society to its core.
Thai flag or Citibank_

Thai flag or Citibank?

Thailand has always €˜served€™ those, whoever, that came. Be it the Japanese or Americans, or now the millions of foreigners that descend on the capital city for a variety of reasons.

Foreigners want their Latin American salsa clubs and traditional Indian eateries: and here they can have them and enjoy them! But there is still very little mingling between the locals and outsiders, and even when there is some contact, (at workplaces or during the €˜client/service provider exchanges€™) real dialogue between the cultures is not common.

True changes, Latin American revolutions, the fight against imperialism €“ all these are unknown, totally foreign terms in Bangkok and in the provinces.

Here, things are mostly done because €˜they are profitable€™. Thailand is very pragmatic.

It was the same during the Vietnam War, when Thai airports were converted and expanded or built from scratch, to serve their neo-colonial masters. Millions of sorties were flown against Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, spreading death and destruction all over the region. Millions of innocent men, women and children were massacred because of these airports, with Thai staff servicing them, even getting into the cockpits.
those who hate progress

Those who hate progress.

Then it was not about €˜morality€™ or about what one actually believed (the West€™s fight against progress or against Communism): it was absolutely simple, practical. Air force bases were €˜good business€™ for the elites. And if the price had to be counted in millions of human lives, so be it! Thais have always had an enormously high opinion of themselves, of their worth. Such an opinion clearly borders on racism. Therefore, if the millions who were dying (while Thailand was getting richer) were foreigners, and especially Khmers, Vietnamese or Laotians, then what was there to worry about?

Tens of thousands of young girls, even children, were brought from the North to Pattaya and to other bases, in order to €˜service€™ those foreign men, who were so busy implementing Kissinger€™s dogma of using €˜all that flies against all that moves€™ (read, massacring millions of civilians).

Girls were not allowed to say €˜no€™, because of the structure of Thai feudal society and its medieval family structure. Here, girls in the countryside could not say €˜no€™ to their fathers, who could easily decide whether their children stay at home or leave home, even whether they should go and prostitute themselves, to send money back to the family.
thugs 'protesters' blocking elevated public sidewalks

Thug €˜protesters€™ blocking elevated public sidewalks.

And the most feared and revered €˜father€™ was that man whose name we cannot even mention, that€™s if we want to stay out of prison.

He was born in the United States, brought back, implanted into Thailand, when the institution of the monarchy by then had almost disappeared as a real force and as an alternative. The West needed him. It generously rewarded him and lifted him up to a divine level.
brand new generators - not some spontaneous action

Brand new generators €“ not some spontaneous action.

From then on, it was all €˜unconditional love€™, between the Western regimes of neo-colonialism and this old twisted Southeast Asian culture. A culture that helped to spread terror all over the region, a culture that burnt people alive in oil barrels (those members of its own left-wing opposition, its own progressive youth).

It was a culture that had been massacring its own students, shooting them on the streets, or in the murky waters of the river near the Thammasat University in Bangkok. It was a culture that €˜survived€™ several military coups with no major soul-searching afterwards, and with almost no criticism coming from abroad. This culture ruling over a country with a higher per capita homicide rate than the United States; but dubbed by the mainstream Western media and Western propagandists as €˜The Land Of smiles€.

This, one of the most feudal systems in Asia, was glorified as a democracy, while the man at the top (one of the richest monarchs in the world), was only described by the disciplined Western press as a €˜revered€™ demi-god, and, a ruler €˜loved by his people€™.
in full force in defense of feudalism

In full force in defense of feudalism.

So what is really happening now in Bangkok?

It is simple, but it is not supposed to be spoken about.

Thaksin Shinawatra, the former Thai Prime Minister, a business tycoon of Chinese origin, committed the most unforgivable crime in the eyes of the Thai elites: Some years back he actually attempted to convert Thailand from a backward feudal nation, into some sort of a modern capitalist state.

Which, under the circumstances, was actually an attempt to move his nation forward.

Mr. Shinawatra was not an angel, and when he was in power, I criticised him on several occasions. He €˜cleaned€™ the Bangkok streets of homeless people, moving them to the suburbs. He was brutal towards the Muslim minority in the South. He was a real business tycoon.

But, he did some things, unimaginable anywhere in the region, except in Singapore and to some extent, Malaysia.
no doubt you do..

No doubt you do€¦

He introduced universal health care, virtually free, and excellent. He reformed education dramatically and so well that many of my friends, left-wing educators, were actually deeply impressed. He began housing the poor.

The elites in Bangkok hated this. The majority of them are not just after profits. They need to feel exceptional. They need €˜respect€™. They need admiration and fear. They need weak, prostrated people; they need their feet to be kissed. They need to feel that the majority of the nation exists only in order to please them.

While Mr. Shinawatra knew that Thailand can only compete on the world stage and succeed, if its people are well fed, are healthy, educated and enjoying at least some of the basic privileges that are taken for granted in places like Singapore, Japan and Korea.

But the elites felt that if the €˜plebs€™ got all those privileges, the gap between them would shrink, an unimaginable and most horrifying outcome!

And so they forced Mr. Shinawatra out from office, from Thailand, and in the end, they massacred those that demanded his return.

The Red Shirts they shot at actually consisted of individuals and movements as far apart as the Communists, and the moderate, pragmatic business folks. There were maids, peasants, as well as technicians and engineers in their ranks.

The massacres resolved nothing.

Soon it became obvious that the Reds represented the majority of Thais. Pro-Shinawatra and pro-reform forces kept winning election after election, democratically.

Then, a charismatic Ms. Yingluck Shinawatra, the younger sister of Mr. Thaksin Shinawatra, became the Prime Minister, following the 2011 general election.

The elites and the army, as well as the €˜revered father€™, could not allow this course of action. People deciding the fate of the nation is something insane, even monstrous to them. And they are not hiding their thoughts; it is all in the open.

***

And here we are. Sukumvit Street blocked, every major intersection converted into a dormitory for the demonstrators. There are speeches and concerts. And there are also thousands of thugs, €˜controlling€™ traffic and access to public places.

The iconic Bangkok Art and Cultural Center is closed down. No wonder, culture is dangerous. When the Red Shirts occupied this area in 2010, BACC was wide open.

Two days ago, €˜protesters€™ blocked people from voting in a pre-election round. Photos showed one man, a potential voter, being almost strangled to death.

The Prime Minister confirmed that the elections would take place on February 2nd. Protesters have declared that they will boycott them, and do all they can to disrupt them.

One speaker after another is declaring that €˜Thailand is not ready for democracy€™, and suggesting that the country should first be governed by technocrats. €œOtherwise the present government will keep winning€. And that is, of course, €˜unacceptable€™.

It is clear that the present government is going to win again. Of course it will. People are not cattle. They know perfectly well that they have had all those feudal elites, €˜up to here€™.

To show the real state of marasmus in which Thailand exists, the army is sending messages that the possibility of yet another coup, should not be excluded.

So read well: if people vote for the existing government, there will most likely be a coup. The opposition will not accept the results, instead, suggesting openly and publicly, the abolishing of democracy. And the West is listening to this crap, and is doing nothing to encourage one of its closest allies, in fact its client state, to come back to its senses. Or more precisely, to discipline its collaborators, that fraction of Thai society, that is sucking blood from the open veins of the country.

€œIf the army takes over the capital, this time we will fight€, I was told by my contact in the North, who did not want to be identified. €œPeople will descend on Bangkok. This would be one coup too many€¦ Thais will not allow this to happen. Enough is enough!€
selling military pants to protesters

Selling military pants to protesters.

A manager of one of the international hotel chains operating in Bangkok, Joseph Yamdee, explained:

€œI am sure that someone very big is behind all this. It is all organized so perfectly well. The guards and those who are sleeping on the streets; almost all of them are from the South. It is said that they are being paid 500 Baht per day (US$15). There is everything in place at the sites: huge electric generators, food and medical supplies.€

I asked Mr. Yamdee, what impact had Shinawatra€™s reforms on his hotel chain had, on the employees, on the life of ordinary people in Thailand?

€œHuge€, he replied. €œThe minimum wage was elevated to US$300 dollars a month. For instance, the receptionists used to make that amount in the past, and most of the receptionists belong to the middle class. We matched the wages of the cleaning ladies, to comply with the new minimum wage regulation, so suddenly everybody was making the same amount of money. Of course that was unacceptable for those who came from wealthy families€¦ You see, it was not about receptionists making less money, but about others, those from the lower class, suddenly making the same wages.€

Mr. Thon, one of the owners of café Bake & Brew, at the Bangkok Creative Design Center, commented:

€œNow everything is closing down early. We used to be open late, but now we shut down at 7pm. People are scared. I am against Shinawatra. I don€™t want him to come back, although I can accept this government, the one led by his sister. But whatever I think about Shinawatra, I absolutely reject this blocking of elections, and bringing Bangkok to a full stop.€

€œShut Down Bangkok!€ the slogans all around the city shout.

There is clear impunity in the air.

The army is waiting. The elites are waiting. The government is scared. One false move, and there will be a military coup.

***

At the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand, the mood has been subdued. As always, almost nobody here would openly criticize the local elites, the Thai military or the monarchy. All three are fully allied to Western interests.

Instead of daily press conferences, the FCCT was showing, on January 27, a BBC film about the child-victims of the Syrian conflict. That was one day after €˜protesters€™ blocked access to several polling stations.

Bangkok is part of this bizarre new type of €˜rebellions€™, simultaneously and very suspiciously taking place all over the world: Syria, Egypt, Ukraine and Thailand €“ everything appears to be inter-connected.

It is definitely not a set of uprisings that are supposed to improve the lives in all those above-mentioned countries. Instead it appears that these are events sponsored from abroad and their only goal is to bring politically, religiously or economically oppressive or regressive regimes to power: Mubarak and the military in Egypt, jihadi pro-Saudi cadres in Syria, pro-business and pro-Western market fundamentalists in Ukraine and now this feudal clique in Thailand trying to survive by all means.

What is striking is how uneducated, how ignorant the Western crowd visiting this city is. European tourists pose in front of posters, admiringly grinning at the €˜protesters€™. They have no clue what they are witnessing. And it appears that they have lost all interest, all curiosity about what is behind the propaganda with which they are being bombarded, day and night, from their own Western mass media.
she is just homeless nobody to them

A homeless nobody to them.

Now Bangkok is getting ready for a showdown.

The depressing and oppressive feudal forces, all of them backed, paid and €˜educated€™ by the West, are blackmailing that embryonic, fragile Thai democracy.

It is a really bizarre spectacle: A legitimate government, elected by the people, is too scared to strike back at hordes of paid thugs.

It is sickening. Once again, local elites are raping the country, in broad daylight, in front of the world. But suddenly there is nobody to say it. The local press and the international mass media are presently deep in thought, at how to package this shameful act, without insulting the sensitive Western regime and its local collaborators.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/01/...t-in-thailand/

Andre Vltchek is a novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His discussion with Noam Chomsky On Western Terrorism is now going to print. His critically acclaimed political novel Point of No Return is now re-edited and available. Oceania is his book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about post-Suharto Indonesia and the market-fundamentalist model is called €œIndonesia €“ The Archipelago of Fear€. He has just completed the feature documentary, €œRwanda Gambit€ about Rwandan history and the plunder of DR Congo. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and Africa. He can be reached through his website http://andrevltchek.weebly.com/ or his Twitter.

[Torurot]

Thai red shirts leader says 'It's time to get rid of the elite'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news....te.html
As election day approaches in Thailand, supporters of prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra vow to take to the barricades in her defence
Thailand's red shirts leader says 'It's time to get rid of the elite'
Ko Tee: "This is already a war, but so far it is an unarmed war" Photo: ANDREW CHANT

By David Eimer, Khon Kaen

10:42AM GMT 30 Jan 2014

Clad in a red beret, combat jacket and sunglasses, Ko Tee looks like a cliché of a 1970's revolutionary as he gathers with the angry activists under his command.

But along with thousands of "red-shirts", he is not out to topple any government - quite the opposite, in fact. Ko Tee is preparing to man the barricades to save Thailand's prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, from the anti-government protesters who have brought parts of Bangkok to a standstill as they try to overthrow her and the ruling Pheu Thai party.

With five days to go to the general election called by Ms Yingluck in an attempt to draw the poison from the protests, her most loyal supporters are preparing for the worst.

"This is already a war, but so far it is an unarmed war," said Ko Tee. "If there is a coup, or the election doesn't happen, then it definitely becomes an armed war."

If anyone doubted the abyss into which Thailand could be heading, Ko Tee - who has been accused of orchestrating grenade attacks on anti-government marches in the thai capital - is the living proof.
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"I want there to be lots of violence to put an end to all this," he said. "I'm bored by speeches. It's time to clean the country, to get rid of the elite, all of them."

Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra (REUTERS)

Nine people have already died and hundreds been injured in small-scale clashes between the red shirts and their opponents since the current phase of anti-government demonstrations commenced in November.

Now, there are increasing signs that those attacks are just the prelude to a conflict that could be far more deadly than the battles between red shirts and the military in Bangkok in 2010 that killed 90 people.

With the opposition Democrat Party boycotting the Feb 2 poll - in the knowledge that it will almost certainly lose it by a large margin - and the constitution court ruling the election can be legally postponed, Thailand is bitterly split along political and class lines that threaten to overwhelm its fragile democracy.

Those divisions pit the rural poor of the north and northeast of the country, who overwhelmingly support Pheu Thai, against the metropolitan middle class, the traditional ruling class and the Democrat Party's supporters in their stronghold of southern Thailand.

The red shirts regard Ms Yingluck as the head of a democratically-elected government whose populist policies have done more to benefit them than any previous administration.

But for the anti-government protesters, Ms Yingluck is merely the puppet of her brother - the former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, who was overthrown by a military coup in 2006 and fled into exile two years later to avoid trial on corruption charges.

Mr Thaksin was the first Thai leader to grasp the potential for winning support from the millions who still live in poverty in the Thai countryside, by providing them with subsidised healthcare and student loans.

His critics accuse him of buying the votes of the poor and using his power to line the pockets of his family and associates - and also of disloyalty to Thailand's revered monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

As the anti-Thaksin forces - known as the yellow shirts - have maintained their presence on the streets, a siege mentality has taken hold among the various red-shirt organisations, with almost all convinced that Ms Yingluck faces the same fate as her brother.

Thailand has endured 18 coups or attempted coups since the end of absolute rule by the monarchy in 1932, and many Thais believe the protest leaders want the military to step in once again to resolve the present crisis.

"I think there will be a coup. It's the only way the elite can maintain their power," said Sabina Cha, a red shirt leader in Khon Kaen province in northeast Thailand, a heartland of the group.

Any such intervention would prompt a mass uprising of the red-shirts.

"If there is a coup, of course I'll go to Bangkok and fight," said Phutthiphong Khamhaengphon, the head of security for Khon Kaen's red shirts. "Millions of us will go. We'll fight in many different ways. If necessary, it will be like the Vietcong fighting the Americans in Vietnam: a guerrilla war."

And Ms Yingluck's support runs deep in the northeast, where almost a third of Thailand's 67 million people live and Pheu Thai hold almost every parliamentary seat.

In the rice-farming villages that make up most of the region, Mr Thaksin remains a hero. "Before Thaksin, the people in the countryside were forgotten," said Tongkoon Tongmee, a 55-year-old farmer in western Khon Kaen.

[Torurot]

Colour coding Jonestown [In Bangkok Thailand]
http://publicaddress.net/speaker/col...ing-jonestown/
by Simon Grigg

There€™s a never-ending surrealism about life in Bangkok €“ I'd say Thailand but the two are sometimes only marginally the same thing.

In central Bangkok, a city of close to 15 million, where futuristic skytrains zip past at rooftop level, where some 500 skyscraper classed buildings dominate the skyline, and an increasingly advanced and sophisticated economy has doubled the average income in the past two decades, tens of thousands of citizens now sit outside on the road at six intersections every evening chanting and whistling, hoping somehow to reverse the nation into its recently escaped semi-feudal state.

Four years back, in 2010, as we sat in our townhouse, a department store was aflame some 7 short kilometres away and around it a street battle between the army and parts of the population raged. A year later 16 billion litres of water poured south towards the city and we had €“ pointlessly €“ 1 metre walls around our ground floor. As with the street battles, it passed, but more than 1300 died.

However rare is the day in Bangkok where I don€™t say myself €œI love this city€, no matter how much it challenges you not to. And it does.

In 2010 92 people died, allegedly (the courts have yet to decide although charges have been laid) because a guy called Suthep Thaugsuban, then deputy PM, told the army to shoot to kill, to clear the streets after a 4 month occupation. Snipers, under somebody€™s orders, were used against sheltering civilians, in a temple €¦

The history of representative government in Thailand since the 1932 coup that overthrew absolute monarchy, is both fascinating and unbelievably complex (for more I'd recommend this book, although please don€™t try to bring it into Thailand). I won€™t even try to explain the mix of brutal factional power struggles, heinous US backed totalitarianism during the Cold War, and intrigue that defined the nation€™s body politic until the mid 1990s when democracy seemed to finally gain the upper hand, with a guy called Thaksin Shinawatra winning ballots decisively both in 2001 and 2006.

Thaksin was, and still is, an enigma €“ a self made multi-billionaire, he€™s an odd mix of a self-serving old school despot with serious human rights issues on his slate, and a reforming socialist with policies that gave the long ignored poor but populous north and north eastern regions of the country schools, roads, healthcare and infrastructure. He multiplied expenditure in the regions some 250% in five years and the region is clearly grateful. Much of that gratitude was expressed via the ballot box, and continues to be so. He also treated Thailand as his personal fiefdom, but did so via €“ however imperfectly €“ elections.

His power base are loosely called The Red Shirts, or Reds, and their current party is Pheu Thai.

Political power in Thailand has always been centralised around Bangkok and, to a lesser degree, the surrounding southern provinces. It devolves out from the city in feudal manner, descending from the monarchy. Regional governors are appointed and the police and mechanisms of government have little local autonomy. The mind-blowingly wealthy old elite have been joined by a fast growing middle class who number well over 5 million in the city, and an upwardly mobile urban working class of similar size. Bangkok is awash in money and an increasing awareness of its place as one of the world€™s great metropolises.

The other major political grouping, which broadly represents this old power elite and much of the Bangkok middle class, especially those over 30, are called the Yellow Shirts, or Yellows, and their party is the Democrats.

This power elite initially had time for Thaksin and tolerated his grand ideas of self, but increasingly balked when he seemed to be both offering up an alternative to the centrist world they had controlled for centuries and €“ so the meme goes - placed himself in the middle of this alternative as an aspiring €œdictator€, although there was little evidence of this. In particular the empowerment he offered the North and North East threatened the Southern establishment and the conservative middle class, a grouping that has traditionally and derisively used the word €œbuffalos€ for the rural and provincial masses who make up 70% of Thailand.

These €œbuffalos€ now have schools, money and fast Internet - and Thaksin gave them more: a political voice.

In 2006 the establishment hit back, and Thaksin was thrown out in a military coup, which eventually saw a rewritten constitution, intended to control the rising red wave, and an appointed administration under Abhisit Vejjajiva and the Democrats. Thaksin €“ accused of every crime known to humanity by the new junta, with some fairly well substantiated charges of corruption amongst them €“ fled Thailand, eventually basing himself in Dubai where he still resides.

Following the 2010 blood, a traumatised nation held an election and Pheu Thai stormed into power, taking 48% of the valid votes, in an election hailed by observers and the UN as fair and clean by Thai standards. They were led by Yingluck Shinawatra, a businesswoman with two degrees in Political Science and Business Admin, including a masters from Kentucky State. The problem with this - according to the Democrats who were firmly trounced in the election, and the Bangkok establishment - is that she is Thaksin€™s sister.

Fast-forward to mid-2013 (I€™m keeping this as uncomplicated at I can) and Pheu Thai, headed by Yingluck, is still the elected government. The demonization of Thaksin by the Thai establishment has accelerated and now includes his sister. Large parts of the south and Bangkok are now convinced that a) Thaksin somehow controls his sister on a day to day basis from Dubai, b) both he and his sister€™s parties only received the votes they needed to get in after massively bribing millions of northern voters (they are, after all €œbuffalos€), c) they have been and are still siphoning billions of dollars out of the country, d) they represent the most evil regime mankind has ever faced, and e) the Pheu Thai voters by and large are too uneducated to be trusted with one-man, one-vote €“ they need to guided by educated voters, who happen to live in the south. We will call these the €œmemes€.

History is largely not taught in Thailand, so awareness of past leaders is limited.

The biggest problem the Democrats €“ and by extension the established elite €“ now face is that they are simply unable to win an election. They do not have the numbers and they haven€™t won an election since the early 1990s. Mild panic sets in, supported by the growing currency of the memes, but everything remains stable (relatively) until Yingluck badly miscalculates: she introduces a bill to create a general amnesty with the stated aim of reconciliation. The net is wide enough to allow Thaksin to walk away from his post-coup politicised convictions and return to Thailand.

Yellow Thailand erupts and the bill is eventually defeated in the upper house and withdrawn, but it's too late. Bangkok - or at least parts of it €“ is a-frenzied and the previous deputy PM, the aforementioned Suthep, sees his chance. A old school scoundrel with an appalling history of misbehaviour, thuggishness and corrupt practices €“ plus those hanging murder charges from the 2010 confrontations €“ he reinvents himself as the champion of reform and democracy and enters the fray.

It gets worse for Yingluck €“ another bill targets the upper house. 50% elected and 50% appointed (by the elite), she attempts to convert it to fully elected, something that logic steeped in democratic processes would deem to be the right thing to do if the country is to move on, but, supported by the growing currency of the memes, the yellows see it as an attempt to remove the checks and balances that restrain a deeply corrupt red regime.

From there everything has escalated, and if it wasn€™t for the sporadic violence and the damage it€™s now doing to Thailand€™s still robust but threatened economy, it would be easy to paint the marches and so called shutdown as somewhat absurd.

In a city with some 13 million Facebook accounts and about a million twitter accounts, plus a range of hugely popular Thai language sites, social media has gone berserk in every language you can name (Bangkok has a population of expats and foreigners well into six figures) and it dips regularly into the insane and inane, with conspiracy theories whipping around the city at cyber speed. The memes €“ never questioned by the protesters €“ have become the tool Suthep and the others controlling this frenzy, use to demand not only Yingluck€™s resignation but her and her family€™s €˜eradication€™ from the nation. The memes have become the Kool-Aid to Suthep€™s Jim Jones.

Suthep and his grouping of old rogues, most ethically little better than Thaksin and with far worse democratic credentails, demand an appointed council €“ who will be appointed to this council is grey €“ to *reform* Thailand and run the place until such reforms can be enacted. That Suthep had years in parliament to do so and made little effort to do more than enrich himself is never mentioned. Nobody seems quite sure what these reforms look like.

Looking more and more like an ascendant Mussolini, Suthep stands in front of the faithful nightly and rages about Yingluck. Each day he wanders the streets, albeit with shrinking numbers of supporters. Women line up just to touch him and hand him money. He takes vast amounts of cash from the faithful, all of which is stuffed into plastic bags never to be seen again. He€™s ringed by dozens of guards more and more reminiscent of an Iron Guard and as he walks he stops periodically, clenches his fists, raising them to the sky €“ whistles erupt, more women reach out at him and more wads of notes are transferred.

Polling puts his base at around 10% of Bangkok €“ less outside the city €“ and yet to the hypnotised he€™s the undisputed voice of the people. A complicit media including the yellow€™s own TV channel, routinely broadcasts his claims of millions of attendees €“ physics and independent analysis put the numbers more correctly in the low hundreds of thousands at their peak and now in the tens. The touted Bangkok shutdown is more a minor Bangkok inconvenience in most of the city.

Politically, though, the game is more complicated. The government are heading towards a new easily winnable election on February 2nd €“ supported by the mass of the electorate who want to be able to vote €“ however, with an overhanging fear that the military might stage yet another coup, an increasingly radicalised and violent element in Suthep€™s mob doing everything it can to shut the country down and interfere with the electoral process, and an awareness the reds simply won't allow a yellow takeover, there are so many variables that it could go any way, and it could flip violently when it does.

We wait, and as I waited I took some photos.


[Around 20 photos of the streets and the protestors at the link http://publicaddress.net/speaker/col...ing-jonestown/ ]

[TEXASMAC]

All I can say is ... AMAZING !!!

[rxpharm]

Interesting articles Torurot, but for another viewpoint have a look at this one

Polling day's purple patch
Expect an election to change nothing - a rotten system will stay rotten as long as votes can be bought for 500 baht
€¢ Published: 15 Dec 2013 at 00.00
€¢ Newspaper section: Brunch
Every single problem that arises in the administration of the Kingdom of Thailand can be traced back to this simple situationWell I'm back from the States ... anything
happen in the two weeks I was away?
Oh look, I'm kidding. Talk about impeccable timing. My trip began with Suthep calling for a million-man march and ended with Yingluck calling a snap election. I really
should stay in Thailand; look at the chaos the country sinks into when I leave.
The news that we probably have an election on Feb 2 almost dampened the elation I felt upon touching down at Suvarnabhumi.
Is that the way we solve the problem? Another election? In the American vernacular, it just ain't gonna work.
How is having another election going to help this fragile situation when the elections are the very root of the problem?
I have read and seen enough of the Facebook posts and the ribald satirical YouTube clips of our prime minister to know that there is a large swathe of the Thai population
who believes she is not smart.
How wrong they are; calling an election is the smartest thing our prime minister could do. She should have done it the moment Suthep began his vocal protests.
Because she is going to win again.
There is no doubt about it.
Pheu Thai has the numbers, and they will get in again thanks to the democratic process of elections.
That will keep the international media happy, since the international media just loves a democratic process, but for those of us in Thailand, it isn't going to solve anything.
I do not want to repeat myself from two weeks ago, but at least allow me to refer to that column: The root of the problem is in vote-buying. Outside of Bangkok, in the
North and Northeast, people are paid to vote.
Through a very intricate and ingenious network of vote canvassers, villagers receive up to 500 baht to cast their vote.
Both sides do it, and in the current climate Pheu Thai has more money than the Democrats, so they win. Amazing; in two sentences I just summed up the whole problem.
Every single problem that arises in the administration of the Kingdom of Thailand can be traced back to this simple situation.
This is why I cringe each time CNN speaks of the elected Thai government being persecuted by a mob of protesters demanding the government's ouster. If only life were as
simple as a 15-second CNN sound bite (and if only CNN could find reporters who would take time to truly understand the situation).
What the international media doesn't get is this: Political parties in Thailand don't win elections on popular vote. They buy the government.
We can blame Thaksin for being money-hungry. We can say Abhisit is elitist and old guard. Whatever. The truth is, they are all working within the same smelly, rotten
political system in which you have to pay to win.
And once you win, the arduous process of recouping one's losses begins.
I tried my best to convey this message to my American friends and family, since during the first week of my American trip, Thailand was hot news.
(Interestingly, in week two of my visit that coverage practically disappeared despite the situation becoming more intense. If one day is a long time in politics, one week is
an eternity in the news media.)
Still, Americans kept asking me the same question.
''Why are y'all wanting to oust an elected government?'' I got asked in various forms. ''Don't y'all want a democracy over there in Taiwan?''
That last question I really was asked, in a bar in Washington DC I escaped to one morning to beat the freezing cold. By that stage I was so tired of trying to explain what
was going on back home I didn't even bother to correct him on the country's name.
I had one learned American tell me that while vote-buying was bad, it was no worse than the intense lobbyists found in the halls of power in Washington DC.
Perhaps he was right, but do two wrongs make a right?
Thailand needs an all-out, in-your-face re-education of the masses on vote-buying. Billboards, TV ads, town hall meetings, buttons, T-shirts, a catchy pop song and most
importantly, scary repercussions for parties that engage in it.
Imagine the magnitude of such a campaign. It would be the equivalent of Sweden in 1967, when the entire country changed from driving on the left to driving on the right.
Perhaps it would be even more difficult than that, because of the inherent understanding by villagers across this country that they must be paid in order to vote for
somebody.

How does one do that? How does one re-educate 68 million people into understanding that election time is not a period of temporary prosperity? Keep in mind the average
villager is impoverished. That 500 baht he gets at election time buys a helluva lot of rice whisky.
And who is going to instigate it?
No major party in this country is going to make an honest attempt to dismantle a system that works overwhelmingly in its favour. It is easier to dish out cash for votes
rather than actively build a relationship of trust with voters through good governance, something we have yet to see in this country.
It is on this point alone that I veer towards the formation of a ruling council, albeit absolutely interim, to sort things out. But only veer, dear reader, not make a beeline. To
me a ruling council reeks of communism and I'm not ready to don a faded party uniform and go out into the fields just yet.
Is there any other way to dismantle the system?
I believe that with the absence of money being doled out at election time, there would be a radical change in the political landscape in this country.
Without the massive injection of vote-buying funds, there would be a lessening of the desire to recoup that investment through 30% under-the-table payments for
government contracts, currently edging up to 40%. And imagine how brilliant a country this would be with an extra 30-40% in its coffers for public spending.
Is this realistically going to happen any time in the near future? I think not. Remember all the politicians who were banned from politics for five years because of their links
to Thaksin and corruption? Well their five years are up. You're not going to find any of them actively campaigning for no vote-buying and more checks and balances. They
are back, and they are hungry.
There are all sorts of other things that must be done to rid Thailand of its rotten political system, such as a repeal of the liquor ban on election day, too.
Just look at the calibre of politicians in this country. They can only have come from a bunch of moribund teetotalers.
The moment you force a nation of alcoholics to sober up in order to vote, their judgement is impaired. The proof is sitting right there in the Thai parliament.
I have faith in the Thai people, especially this more informed and educated new generation, to make the changes necessary to create a new, cleaner system.
It is not an uphill battle; it is a sheer cliff face of a battle. But hey, if the boring old Swedes can get used to driving on the right, so too can the Thais start to elect politicians
based on merit, rather than a purple banknote.