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there seems to be a dependence on rice subsidies, so I'm guessing that they're not actually very free of Bangkok's reins
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May 26, 2014 11:21
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I can ride over and check it out, that's my hood. I'm not a foreign journalist ^__^ronya posted:there seems to be a dependence on rice subsidies, so I'm guessing that they're not actually very free of Bangkok's reins
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May 26, 2014 11:28
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Hah, do it if you want. Although apparently the police are berating the crowd for "having faring husbands" since they "take their side," heh.
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May 26, 2014 11:29
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if the rice subsidies are withdrawn, does the network of local party bosses erode? Are the bosses merely loyal to whoever that doles out subsidies?
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May 26, 2014 11:29
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They're one club in the bag. Basically, as in most agrarian economies (the US relationship is a bit more complex, with companies like ADM keeping local farmers under contract), there are farmers, then there are the mills and then there are the large companies that do import/export and domestic supply. Guess who gets the money first. EDIT: Part of the reason Suthep is so vocal as the Yellow protest leader is that he wanted the same program for his Southern rubber plantations instead. And, of course, guess who would end up controlling the money in that deal. Not the dudes tapping the trees, that's for sure. EDIT EDIT: The rail modernization deal was the other huge overreach economically by Yingluck's government. It was totally a good idea in concept, but good God the loving graft that must've been built in to hit 2-3 trillion Baht - and that was just the projected outlay. There's always another 20% that somehow becomes necessary before the project closes. ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 11:41 on May 26, 2014 |
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May 26, 2014 11:35
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MothraAttack posted:Hah, do it if you want. Although apparently the police are berating the crowd for "having faring husbands" since they "take their side," heh. How about goonettes banging Thai dudes? Or all those muey thai trainers?
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May 26, 2014 12:52
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Thailand's not particularly aggressively xenophobic on a day to day basis, but when you're roughly an ethnic monoculture it doesn't take much to flip the switch. Still, I can't imagine personally facing any weird retribution. Coming from a massively multicultural, multiethnic country and local area it's all kind of bizarre (though I'm used to it now).
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May 26, 2014 12:58
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Is Thailand really that homogeneous? I figured they had heaps of minorities like all its neighboring countries do
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May 26, 2014 13:00
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They have minorities, sure, but when all your minorities are from neighboring Asian countries that you've traded borders with for centuries it's a lot like a Swede and a Norwegian arguing about how culturally distinct they are.
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May 26, 2014 13:03
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yeah the waves of distinct migrants elsewhere are related to colonialism
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May 26, 2014 13:55
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ReindeerF posted:And they've been putting the infrastructure in place for years should they need to flip the switch: I lol'd when I read "18 coups since 1930s." Well its 19 now. If the big man in military/yellow shirt don't want red shirt candidate to win election, why don't they rig elections like the other countries do instead of getting the Constitution Court/military to do the dirty work? edit: how many times has ConCourt ended a Thai government? whatever7 fucked around with this message at 15:32 on May 26, 2014 |
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May 26, 2014 15:26
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rigging elections requires a shadow state east asia has had plenty of dictatorships and authoritarian democracies, but I can't recall a result that didn't follow truthfully from the rules as announced. even Park, re-elected with 99.9+ of the vote, was openly handpicking electors. Pretending to have a free and fair election that somehow produces grossly skewed results is probably for societies with a less integral role for bureaucracy
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May 27, 2014 05:04
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ronya posted:rigging elections requires a shadow state Malaysia's last election was coming close.
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May 27, 2014 06:34
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I believe the phrase of choice by observers is "free but not fair". gerrymandering to the hilt and lots of misc obstacles to media access, but the actual results themselves are decently credible. The accusations of mass electoral fraud via immgirants are about as credible as they are when invoked in the West
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May 27, 2014 06:49
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Obviously you are not as skilled as America yet at encouraging self-deportation! Thai elections are hilariously corrupt on all sides. Anytime there's an election and you're in the office you can hear the open discussion about who is going home to vote for how much money (as voting is tied to property registration, typically through the parents until mid-30s for people). This is with white collar university graduates as well as the typical targets of these charges, the working class, it's all over the map until you hit upper- middle class. The openness with which it's discussed is staggering for someone from, say, America, frankly. That and protest payola discussion, which does tend to be more working class and is equally entertaining. I recall the maid at one office bitching that she wouldn't be going to the protests anymore because they had dropped the pay from 1,000 to 500 or something around there. Just slip it in the styrofoam box beneath the ga pow! EDIT: I've often argued that the protest money makes a lot of sense, really, as poor people can't afford to just quit life for months on end to protest their government. It's still an influence, and a corrupting one at that, but it's understandable. The election tea money, on the other hand, people should frankly be ashamed of taking in exchange for their votes. Still, it's a feudal society at the core and that only becomes more true the further you get from the international schools and hives of the new rich. By the time you're at the village level it's completely transparent patronage networks, quite often, from what I can discern. EDIT EDIT: Ashamed is strong, that's just wrong, but there's some emotion that should bubble up in a country that's basically been on the brink of civil war specifically on the topic of self-rule for about 8 years. ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 07:27 on May 27, 2014 |
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May 27, 2014 07:06
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ronya posted:I believe the phrase of choice by observers is "free but not fair". I wasn't really referencing the claims of immigrants being bussed into to vote for BN/UMNO. It's pretty clearly corrupt though; anyone currently working in the civil service is pretty much forced to vote for the current government, People in small kampungs being paid (an incredibly small amount but it's still there) to vote against their own best intersts as well as some of the shenanigans that went on in some of the polling stations and with the ballot papers. The opposition is quite shrill and has a tendency to latch on to some really stupid poo poo but the free elections in malaysia are dodgy as gently caress and there's a reason bersih rallys happens so often even if they tend to be focused on some of the wrong reasons.
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May 27, 2014 07:18
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there's a lot hiding in the phrase "pretty much forced" to my knowledge there's a massive amount of propaganda and quasi-religious superstition that... somewhere.... the government has a List of People Who Vote Wrong, but no regular practice of actually conditioning rewards on voting the right way. there is a nominal commitment to the ideal of a secret ballot as civic ritual the main way this is important is that it allows a flexible transition to liberalization two, three decades down the road. One of the more traumatic transitions that Western liberal democracy went through was delegitimizing the public ballot
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May 27, 2014 07:28
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ReindeerF posted:Obviously you are not as skilled as America yet at encouraging self-deportation! that's why I asked above the dependence on party bosses, above. the contention that local rural networks are highly dependent on handouts is also my impression, but it suggests that civil war is not actually likely. Uprising would end the handouts
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May 27, 2014 07:30
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ronya posted:there's a lot hiding in the phrase "pretty much forced" As far as I'm aware if you are in the civil service you don't get a choice in how to vote your ballots are done through your job, which you will lose if you don't vote for the current government. This is hearsay though and I can undersand the propaganda, secret government lists and superstitious poo poo being closer to reality. Civil service is massive in this country but I still think the biggest contribution is with the rural population being bribed to vote for the current government every year. The opposition promises made to rural people have nothing to back them up and at the end of the day that 100 RM from some shitbag in BN who lives two villages away, means a lot more than an empty promise from some DAP/PKR guy you've only met once begging for a vote. It's complicated and calling it fraud is over simplifying it but at the end of the day it's still bribery. It's kinda like the opposite of what I see in Thailand where the rich guy who figured out it's the rural poor you need to get on your side to carry the country was already in charge. lemonadesweetheart fucked around with this message at 07:41 on May 27, 2014 |
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May 27, 2014 07:37
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ronya posted:that's why I asked above the dependence on party bosses, above. the contention that local rural networks are highly dependent on handouts is also my impression, but it suggests that civil war is not actually likely. Uprising would end the handouts However, Thaksin and his political machine have been the direct source of all of the election and protest payouts, that's non-governmental, and that group of people is insanely wealthy and nowhere near the end of their resources - plus they get a shitload more if they can capture control of resources. So, the thinking goes that if there were some kind of actual split that resembled a civil war or insurrection, it would involve the same group as a government in exile and probable attempts at territorial secession in order to gather resources. It's a longshot still, like I said, but it gets closer every time these people and their votes are shat upon by a military coup and all of that activity is being bankrolled by wealthy people who keep a shitload of their wealth offshore. It's also why Chiang Mai is packed full of military right now - it's Thaksin's hometown and sort of the base of the upper echelon red support (the grassroots is largely Isaan, which is Northeast). So, is it likely to happen? No. Could it work for a while? Yeah. Could it really work if the One Big Thing happens? More likely, yes, as any country needs some unifying mythology to work. They can definitely fund it out of pocket for quite some time, though. Just look at Ratchaprasong back in 2010. Huge expenditure to fund that for months and months, including logistics, stages, AV, international telecommunications, food, water, sanitation, payments to those involved, payments to the organizers who act as the faces, payments to the injured and the families of the dead, payment for weapons & ammo, payments for hit men, you name it. It's very expensive to fund something like that and it didn't even make a dent. Imagine if the same people could basically do this but also capture a non-zero chunk of the ag exports, funneled through Cambodia for international sale. I doubt this will happen, but it's actually being talked about for the first time these last few years and that talk has intensified in this latest round of protests.
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May 27, 2014 07:41
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it is bribery, and in much the same fashion as the PAP announcing that opposition districts will get lift upgrading and block-to-carpark covered walkways later than PAP-held districts, but it's still the case that the voters did in fact vote for BN in a secret-ish ballot that emulates the rituals, if not the spirit, of public democratic participation. When the villages are richer - when it becomes harder to bribe them with just tea money - it will be at least possible for opposition candidates to peacefully make headway, rather than having to overturn the armed gangs of incumbents a la Central America or central/western Africa. This stuff matters
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May 27, 2014 07:45
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ReindeerF posted:I understood your question, but I was trying to clarify it. It might not, and that's the problem. The rice subsidy was put in place by the red-aligned government as part of its campaign planks, which included a free tablet for every child, big first-time buyer discounts on cars and homes, the train modernization and several benefits. Typically, when there's a coup, the coup government tries to continue or pay off these programs (often reformed) as a gesture of goodwill and that's what's happening now. ehhhh it is very different to persuade aspirational students to organize political activity if you provide their food money, the Communists recognized that long ago, it's not actually as expensive as it seems because you only need a charismatic core and you get a vast labour pool of young adults for cheap. But those treating it like a dating & social club vanish easily when the government brandishes actual threats to an upwardly mobile lifestyle, the anti-communists also recognized this long ago, it's why the first move of everyone from Suharto to Mahathir was to simply condition scholarships and civil service entry for students on non-participation in politics. This dance has very familiar steps. Urban aspirational young adults are straightforwardly not reliable as militants - war isn't glorious, pretending to be a warrior is.
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May 27, 2014 07:58
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Oops. You were replying to him above, not me, but without a QUOTE I couldn't tell. Earlier comment retracted.ronya posted:ehhhh it is very different to persuade aspirational students to organize political activity if you provide their food money, the Communists recognized that long ago, it's not actually as expensive as it seems because you only need a charismatic core and you get a vast labour pool of young adults for cheap. But those treating it like a dating & social club vanish easily when the government brandishes actual threats to an upwardly mobile lifestyle, the anti-communists also recognized this long ago, it's why the first move of everyone from Suharto to Mahathir was to simply condition scholarships and civil service entry for students on non-participation in politics. This dance has very familiar steps. Urban aspirational young adults are straightforwardly not reliable as militants - war isn't glorious, pretending to be a warrior is. You know, the people in the South come from a somewhat different situation and aren't at all analogous, but their insurrection makes just as little sense on its face - yet it goes on, still. I suspect this time we will see toe-dipping in the waters of fracturing from the state, but no full fracture. \/\/\/ Good! I was being a dick, heh. ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 08:09 on May 27, 2014 |
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May 27, 2014 07:59
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I didn't see what you posted before you ninja'd it away, so 
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May 27, 2014 08:02
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We actually have a Thai goon, but he never posts. I wish he would because I'm probably off-base on a number of things and he surely knows 1000x what I do.
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May 27, 2014 08:10
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ReindeerF posted:The Red Shirt movement does have a few leftover communists, but not a shitload of students. The grassroots are the poor and working class who haven't a lot of options or wealth and who can thank Thaksin's regime for just about everything they've gotten in the last 15-20 years. No one's saying it will be war or secession or anything as of yet - though a shadow government is openly talked of now - but Red Villages are not some soft-headed student plot with LF types sitting around debating what to put in the manifesto, that's for the wealthy offshore refugees like Ji Ungpakorn. The last round of serious red protests they had, at any given time, between 20,000 - 100,000 people from all over the country logistically based in central Bangkok for a period of (IIRC) about six months, building fortresses, fighting the police and so on. They proved no match for a military assault of course, but they didn't shrink and they weren't cowards and that was still civil disobedience. At the same time, it was the first time we saw these paramilitary wings of the protests emerge and they carried out targeted assassinations of military personnel and political figures with pretty cracker jack timing. It's been four years now that they've been building red villages in the countryside, organizing, blasting propaganda and building their regional support networks. okay that's a little more alarming. I hadn't heard about assassinations. Implies that the money flow is a lot greater, too. Is everything being paid out of diverted subsidies here?
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May 27, 2014 08:16
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Isn't there supposed to be a lot of red sympathy among the lower ranks of the military?
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May 27, 2014 08:23
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ronya posted:okay that's a little more alarming. I hadn't heard about assassinations. Implies that the money flow is a lot greater, too. Is everything being paid out of diverted subsidies here? Of course that means that the ruling side is infinitely more wealthy at the moment, but they're also much more fractious currently. EDIT: Brunei wealthy meant to reflect odd and disproportionate nature of wealth, heh. ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 10:22 on May 27, 2014 |
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May 27, 2014 10:00
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now perhaps it is just me but ST seems to be editorializing in favour of the blogger. bizarre!
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May 28, 2014 05:42
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Following the coup formula: http://en.khaosod.co.th/detail.php?newsid=1401363586&typecate=06§ion= quote:Coupmakers Repackage Former Govt's Economic Policies With all the current rancor over the yellow side, which is deserved, it can be easy to forget all the horseshit with Chalerm's many ridiculous escapades and the various Thaksin amnesty bills and so on. The government that was tossed out was hilariously corrupt by any measure, but they're being replaced by a corrupt junta and they deserved to be thrown out at the ballot box. If the powers behind the coup spent half as much time and money campaigning as they do losing elections, whining and then overthrowing legitimate governments they could win, but it's entirely a psychological/sociological issue. They simply cannot conceive of having to lower themselves before the peasants they see themselves as controlling and all their political ineptitude flows from that basic issue. ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 13:26 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 13:19
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Oops, actually good foreign journalism on the topic: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/30/opinion/thailands-army-tears-up-the-script.html?hpw&rref=opinion&_r=0 quote:Thailand’s Army Tears Up the Script "Such attempts to create a climate of fear have no place, given Thailand’s long democratic tradition." But the overall point he's making is exactly what I've been thinking. This time it's much more aggressive and hamfisted.
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May 29, 2014 13:36
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Amsterdam and crew are predicting a nominally civilian government to be appointed 2-3 months down the road, with Prayuth and hardline royalists still calling the shots behind the scenes and approving all positions. Not implausible, I suppose. There's a real since at their end that they'll try to thoroughly purge Thaksin's influence once and for all.
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May 29, 2014 14:17
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Yeah, feels like a bit of a last effort. It will completely fail, of course. Absent a total crackdown, Burma 8888 style, you can't put this genie back in the bottle and that level of organization is asking a bit much from Thailand even if they did have the chutzpah to massacre heaps of their own citizens.
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May 29, 2014 14:30
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So who appointed Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha? The King? Is there an international NPO that give metacritic score on a country's democracy? What's Thailand's demo-o-meter score?
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May 29, 2014 16:11
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whatever7 posted:So who appointed Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha? The King? If the letter is to be believed, then he approved him. It's not necessarily that he appointed him, per se, but at least granted him sanction. I think this is almost solely of Prayuth and his ally Eastern Tigers' doing, though, for reasons that might be inferred but not written from my home in Thailand (which answers your second question -- it mostly hasn't been democratic).
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May 29, 2014 16:16
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ReindeerF posted:Yeah, feels like a bit of a last effort. It will completely fail, of course. Absent a total crackdown, Burma 8888 style, you can't put this genie back in the bottle and that level of organization is asking a bit much from Thailand even if they did have the chutzpah to massacre heaps of their own citizens. Yeah, that was the impression I got while reading that. Civilian government is brought back in and after that what's gonna prevent Thaksin's party from being popularly elected again?
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May 29, 2014 17:44
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2014...r&dlvrit=992637quote:The junta has denied planning the coup in advance. Lt. Gen. Chatchalerm Chalermsukh, the deputy army chief of staff, told foreign media on Thursday that "planning for a coup is treason which is why we did not plan it".
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May 30, 2014 03:18
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ReindeerF posted:http://www.reuters.com/article/2014...r&dlvrit=992637 I thought it was completely clear. They winged it. Met that morning and just seemed to pull a coup. These things happen.
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May 30, 2014 03:26
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If they didn't plan it, then how were they carrying out their plan?
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May 30, 2014 03:33
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ReindeerF posted:If they didn't plan it, then how were they carrying out their plan? The plan was to wing it. Very American really, setting forth an end goal and then concluding the planning session. Everything else should fall into place, right?
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May 30, 2014 03:56
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