TFY
TFY – Think For Yourself. But first: am stuck in Europe. About to head back to the realm, but Icelandic volcano ashes grounded some 16,000 flights. Well looking at the Central European sky this sunny Saturday afternoon I cannot see a single darkish cloud. Satellite images show marginal ash contact with outer Continental Europe. Yes the ash plume will move and may pose some risk. Still … closing down the continent’s air space? They could fly!
And how about that H1N1 mass hysteria? Crises are easily made in these days of governmental paternalism and instant digital simultaneity. This brave new world is no stranger to hysterical overreactions – yes, maybe there might be some ash risk, but the volcano will continue to erupt and the paranoia will settle soon as if nothing ever happened. A made crisis? What this has got to do with Thailand?!
Are tens of thousands of stranded passengers the victim of massive overreaction of super cautious politicians and bureaucratic herd instinct? And how does this remind us of the Thai crisis. Of this our “made Thai crisis.” Yes we heard all the arguments. Some say it’s necessary to fight for democracy exactly now. Why? And fighting for what exactly? Democracy? Come again? Did we just fall into that same trap of herd instinct and mass psychosis? They made their point. Let’s move on.
Had an interesting conversation the other day with a foreign news editor of a leading European newspaper. “Why don’t they just allow an election,” he smiled. “Look how they came to power. Even if the vote’s gonna be dirty, you think elections in Italy or Germany are cleaner? Let the people vote, and who knows, the reds may wish they hadn’t protested.”
It’s not that, I tried to reply. We’re prisoners of an endless cycle of vigilante justice, arbitrariness and more and more anarchy. Thailand was hoping to find some balance again. Now we’re thrown back even behind square 1. Why give in to mob pressure again. It’s time to gain some sort of foothold. Why curses and blood and death again when quiet progress and reform can do.
I felt ridiculous trying to defend the, yes, status quo. Even worse: you start thinking of a “Singapore solution.” Thai democracy. By now ever Thai citizen can present an own list of experienced injustices, setbacks and double standards. Everyone turns out to be some sort of a victim in a crisis with not a single winner so far. With the hardest part remaining: how to put the past behind.
So why do we have to hear the “willing to die for democracy” and martyrdom stuff again now. Why now.
It seems so much easier to start a fight than stopping one. In a crisis thou shalt be united. We’ve become good at singing from the same hymn sheet. Even there’s peace, we’re looking for a fight.
How about start thinking for ourselves again, not just dancing to someone else’s tune.
How to?
- Question everything
- Be curious and ask “why, why, why”
- Think outside the box
- Vaccinate against mental viruses
- Challenge your assumptions. Proven wrong? Accept it
- Look for selfish motives
- Stop being a people pleaser. Trust your gut. Don’t worry what others think about you
- Do the research yourself. Be as informed as you can about topics relevant to your life
- Why not stop being lazy. Thinking for yourself takes some effort
- Say bye to the blessing of ignorance
- Live outside your comfort zone
- Put no authority higher than your ability to think for yourself
It’s simple, really. Annoy your opponent. Think for yourself.
But what do I know.
Amen.
Maybe you’d like to add something about free access to all relevant information for anyone who is interested enough to want to know? Because both the Bangkok Post and The Nation are so obviously biased, to the point of active dishonesty really, that if a genuine seeker of the truth was to search for information he would soon become interested in many of the blogs on your blog roll. Sadly, and ironically for anyone who sees the government as part of the solution and not part of the problem, the most detached and objective sources of information are being blocked by the government. There must be some things out there that they don’t want you to know. So when you think for yourself you will have the benefit only of that information that they want you to have … So it’s bye bye to informed comment on Thailand’s ludicrous economy by ThaiCrisis … Its silence and potential incarceration for the noble soul who created Prachatai. And, wait to you come on back and discover the joys of CP controlled True. My iPhone can access practically none of the blogs on your blogroll. Even that dangerous subversive the translator Marcell Barang was being blocked last night!
The deluge of lies, distortions and spins coming from the government and its supporters are part of a process of branding anyone present in the Redshirt area as a terrorist or a terrorist sympathizer. I don’t care if Thaksin shelled out for this, or if the red leaders are ignorant bigots espousing inane drivel for the sole purpose of bolstering a fugitive criminal’s bargaining position. You just have to go down there to realize that most of those people are complete innocents. If the psycho crazy conservative impulse is to crush their inchoate objections to the rule of the disgusting people who are the public face of the status quo then Thailand is not likely to recover from the subsequent blood letting for a long long time. In the past when rulers of Thailand ruthlessly put down demands for accountability and the rule of law there was nowhere for the money to go but these days there are places like Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and even the Philippines to welcome any formerly Thai directed flows of investment in their direction.
And those people who are hoping for some moral leadership from the PM are truly deluded … Ever since I saw Abhisit on CNN supporting the military campaign to mass murder the Rohingya refugees by claiming ignorance of the facts I have understood him to be a deeply cynical and utterly amoral political operator. Those who continue to be fooled by his pleasant ingratiating manner and believe his educational background to have influenced his ethics may now be about to discover that under the shell of the pleasant sophisticate lies a very dark force in Thai politics… It’s astonishing to listen to otherwise well informed people argue that the Prime Minister is a moderating influence … This man is the head of the ISOC and as such should be fully aware of what they do. Presumably, as he hasn’t objected publicly, this must imply that he supports their policies. Bearing in mind that despite the enormous amount of money spent of propaganda on their behalf, the truth is that their policies are often brutal and on occasion homicidal. Why then should it come as a surprise to anyone that the crackdown should be orchestrated by elements of the government under the control of Mr “Privilege” Abhisit. How rancid is Thai politics that most admired and respected senior Thai political figure is Anand, appointed PM by the people responsible for the last big bloodbath in 1992. Does anyone not see the problem with this? People like Anand and his clone Abhisit dignify and make respectable by association the kind of scum that should be despised and rejected by decent people. If the current system is so great can someone tell me why people like General Suchinda continue long after the massacre to enjoy a pleasant life here in Bangkok …
The reds might be ignorant, easily influenced by demagogues and mostly deluded but the people on the other side, with the benefits of money, status, education and other privileges are really repulsive. They’ll stop at nothing to make sure that you are kept in ignorance of their true characters though. So enjoy the freedom to read what we can’t read and watch what we can’t watch. Under the ash coloured skies of Central Europe you are fee to think for yourself and be informed. When you return, the few remaining sources of information may force you to think that way the people controlling the formation flow desire …
H1N1 hysteria? Hmm, while I welcome you to my first class seat on the next flight over Iceland, no, I’m not giving up my vaccine jab.
Does trying to make a difference through blogging really make any difference? Yes, it does, a negative one mostly, IMO.
Stop trying so hard, sir …
(BD: Well I had the H1N1. While a strange kind of fever it proved harmless … all the panic for what?)
looks like Dan “thinks for himself”
, and that’s why he .. places “Tulsie’s Red Rally Tweets” on his blog and continues to write in The Nation’s style. LOL (which has been – no, IS being! – pointed out repeatedly in many comments here).
That is – if he does write himself and not posts instead entirely someone else’s writings (regularly).
(BD: It’s slave labor, really.)
Jaded: Thanks for another great comment.
Dan: Speaking of ‘thinking for yourself,’ what do you think of
this:
(BD: Agree Hobby, sounds like some serious overkill plus provocation. But read somewhere that’s the hardware’s standard equipment.)
Prachatai.org has been dead for a couple of days, even if they still send out their feeds (via Google feed, though).
A couple of proxies I tried don’t work either – Prachatai.org fails DNS resolution.
New Mandala is off, too, the same proxies say there’s no response from their server.
Last thing I saw there yesterday is some Hla Oo user openly calling (BD: edited) a dictator, a comment that was approved by their mods, BTW.
That makes me think – is New Mandala, an influential blog by all accounts, holding us hostages? Will they insist on posting defamatory comments in exchange for allowing us to read other uncensored information?
Great comment by Jaded. I think it’s the complete absence of a “think for yourself” culture that makes true democracy an impossibility in Thailand. I sympathize with the reds but in power they would be (are?) just as bad as the current fascist government. Thais are too willing to be bought to understand the true nature of democracy – whether that means vote buying or accepting without thinking or just plain corruption.
Even the Thai language – the fake respect given to age and position, and the formality given to written communication – tells you that Thais will never move beyond being told what to do and say.
A single party system (along the lines of Vietnam or Laos) is best for the Thais. After a few generations, maybe they will even achieve the same level of growth and (human) potential.
Jaded, you are the very only reason I occasionally still cruise this now-reactionary blog. Do you have your own blog?
New Mandala is back, it was a server problem, nothing to do with censorship, and Hla Oo’s comment is still there, under “Reflections on Eric Campbell’s royal report.”
Interesting news Stan, and if you have the right provider ThaiCrisis is visible too now. The censorship is not a blanket policy. Perhaps it doesn’t need to be. Well done CP/True for figuring out that appearances are reality in Thailand and pre-empting the government by taking care of those appearances on the net, airwaves and in certain newspapers I might mention … Well done military for getting legislation passed that actually invents internet thought crime and well done to the authorities for charging people with offences under the same legislation. Well done to those pro-government people who comment on sites where the bias is less than gentle to them. If this is the start of a proxy information civil war then it’s best to forget about fighting fair and fight to win. I don’t know what would be left if there really was an actual civil war but, as Dan pointed out, people are free to make up their own minds. And while you can fool most people some of the time and some people all of the time, eventually …
If I were to translate True into Russian would I get something like “Pravda”?
ThaiCrisis is blocked when one’s ISP is TOT. It’s been that way for months, and still is.
Jaded, you’ve got a lot of good ideas and you express them eloquently and with passion. Please do share with us your blog address if you have one. If you don’t, perhaps it’s time you started one?
(BD: What I’ve been telling Jaded all along.)
Along the lines of thinking for yourself – have a look at the “No Agenda” podcast. Just a couple of blokes talking about things going on in the world. Nothing about Thailand – but a lot about other things in the world along the lines you are talking. It is certainly very thought provoking at times and makes you think about the real story in the background of a lot of world events.
I’ve stopped reading ThaiCrisis months ago when I got tired of reading how the economy has totally collapsed a million times by now.
It’s available on True now, and first thing I noticed is that ThaiCrisis firmly believes in unimaginable bloodshed during Songkran protests last year and predicts the same massacre this time around.
Come to think of it – that wouldn’t be a bad ending. Of course April 10th alone surpassed last year already.
True would indeed translate into Pravda, according to Google. The brand name first appeared when Orange was leaving Thai market and CP part of the company needed a new identity. It was True Orange, then True Move, True HiSpeed, True Visions etc. True HiSpeed was a real oxymoron then.
True StanG – feeling lonely? Some blood to appease your appetite?
No one died during last year red dispersal.
And what’s this “lonely” thing? Even if I was, you got the wrong idea how I prefer to be consoled.
The only thing that’s as clear as a clear noodle soup is we’re in deep shit thanks to all of us.
Now even the reddest hardcore elements may have a feeling that all these aggressions are not about to bring democracy, but hey, they’ve gone too far already.
Maybe mix some harsh diarrhea in their drinking water. Don’t see any other realistic way out. (Oh do we even have to say sorry for satire in these days?)
The wilderness has reached downtown. Not that I don’t enjoy the wild, but ignoring centuries of human, social and political development is a sad thing.
Even sadder is that some believed in a “peaceful” protest. It was even clearer than a clear noodle soup from the very beginning that there’s only one way to go – and the government supported it with free bus rides.
BangkokDan
Saw Dan’s comment on the market and that prompted me to write this.
Before the last few weeks I would have said that stock market and the strength of the baht reflect the general view that certain markets in Asia, because of their exposure to China, are good value. Even assuming that is the case, normally the possibility of political instability would deter all but the hardened investors. So either the investors are betting on a peaceful resolution or they are assuming that a violent resolution would resolve the situation in a way that would promote economic growth. I’ve just come back from Singapore where I had an interesting chat with someone who works for Standard Chartered. They pointed out that most of the money in the market is Asia based. Western sources for capital, while still around, are too puny to be taken terribly seriously any more. And if you can accept the existence of an Asian investment psyche then you might concede that an authoritarian regime with decent infrastructure and an willingness to repress dissent and ignore civil rights is an attractive location so long as the “right” people are in charge … A pseudo democracy backed by unaccountable figures and with the military in attendance would serve their purposes very nicely. If this view is correct then, should there be a violent confrontation, shortly thereafter observers will observe a steep rise in the Thai stockmarket … Money, particularly money in Asia, rarely has a conscience. And it seems from the movements in the markets in recent weeks that Thailand attracts investment from people without consciences too.
In Singapore last night I thought about this some more and it seems to me that the links between economic success and political alignment seem to cry out for discussion although I rarely see them mentioned except as part of conspiracy theories. There is a political realignment being worked out in Thailand now. From an early dependence on Japanese capital and a few European style colonial enterprises, Thailand turned to the United States which was playing cold war dominoes at the time. Now it seems the superpower whose attention needs to be solicited in China. And I don’t think the Chinese are reluctant to point out that “too much” democracy is a particularly unpleasant issue for prospective partners of the People’s Republic. The recent rapprochement with Taiwan is an excellent example of how they perceive successful democratic and open societies as a threat. Although the nature of the dialogue is disguised in various ways it seems that the PRC are more comfortable dealing with their former deadly enemies the KMT (richest political party in the world btw). Some commentators have suggested that the sight of a sustained and functioning democracy in this estranged province of China is deeply destabilizing. It seems that the moves to jail the former president and members of his family, unprecedented moves in a long history of openly sanctioned and largely KMT based political corruption in Taiwan, are teaching a clear lesson about the limits of ambition within that society’s democratic politics.
How much of the money now coming into Thailand is “truly” Chinese we will probably never know as the origins of capital flows are easily concealed. What we can see though is a very public connection developing between Thailand and China of a more than cordial nature. It’s a connection that is very much focused on the patronage system which is strongly supported by one part of the community in particular.
Is it too much of a stretch to see the Democrat Party/yellow shirt discourse which is seen as articulating the views and hopes of the Thai=Chinese business elite as part of this move towards China? And is this perhaps why the red shirts are receiving from the media outlets servicing Thailand’s older economic partners a more sympathetic hearing than one might have previously expected?
What I am saying seems very tenuous to me but I’d be interested to know what people think … There’s one other obvious point to make if you accept that there is anything in what I have been saying. If Thailand is now modeling itself to be more attractive to a prospective future Chinese partner what consequences will this have for the way it views the farang?
A couple of days ago I read someone saying that markets responded according to general political assessment rules that judge the political threats by level of engagement of the middle class, bureaucrats, military, political parties, grass roots appeal, media etc.
Without this support the threat of the protests having any political impact was perceived as low.
They had no idea how much disruptive power a small but armed and determined group of nobodies can have.
There was a power vacuum for a few days but now the government and army moves have restored investors confidence, SET was up yesterday, wasn’t it?
If, however, Ratchaprasong is not cleared by next Monday and there’s no resolution in sight, the SET will plunge, assuming the govt can keep momentum going and maintain confidence levels today and tomorrow.
Not that overseas investors opinions mean much in local politics, just one of the indicators.
Hi Stan,
It’s true that there are other indicators to look at if you are an overseas investor considering Thailand. I suppose inflation is the one worrying most people these days. But, even in the world of derivatives, ETFs and margin trading, it’s necessary to have some real growth as a base or engine to the investment process. And to have growth implies that there must be real investment coming from somewhere. If it’s not coming from inside Thailand (and the stimulus measures suggest a considerable impact) then Thailand becomes part of a beauty pageant of SEA economies. Other markets are going up fast too so why choose Thailand?
I guess you have to look at Thailand’s core competences when you assess these things. I believe that Thailand’s most attractive feature to a prospective investor (amoral creatures mostly), is its willingness to keep wages and living standards for workers as low as possible. The degree to which labour has been exploited in Thailand is quite extraordinary but it certainly pays off for the Thailand’s profitability.
Marketing its commodities at lower prices is only possible if labor costs are kept down. The large scale industrial enterprises from places like Japan and Korea are attracted by low labor costs. Thailand is particularly attractive as, believe it or not, there is little difference between the pay of a Thai industrial worker and one in China! The construction industry relies heavily on migrant labor and the conditions those people have to deal with must be familiar to everyone who lives here. I could go on and describe conditions in Thailand’s enormous sex industry but as this is the core competence of Thailand’s current commerce minister I should think that policies that connive at the merciless exploitation of workers are considered by the government to be simple common sense.
Thailand’s competitiveness is based on a merciless system of exploitation that creates both enormous wealth for those with capital and enormous pain and suffering for those without it. Naturally, if investors understand Thailand’s cost advantage is based on the denial of respect to those without capital then they will appreciate that the repression of the current protest will strengthen this position for at least another decade … And yes, the stockmarket will probably rise on that news.
Thailand is a rich country with a visibly poor general population. It squandered the decades of competition free enterprise as the states around it were paralyzed by internal politics. After taking a leading role in the Asian financial crisis made it dependent on foreign investment capital there was some room for progressive change in the name of improving the general economic situation. But that was then and this is now and the people who managed and benefited from the exploitation economy of the last two decades of the 20th century seem to want to go back to the old ways again. In recent years conditions for workers showed signs of improving but, if the people who run enterprise Thailand want to continue to follow the example of the past then the “prai” must be pushed down.