Thailand Needs New Elections

[Torneyboy]

Exactly....

[Bangkoktraveler]

Thailand doesn't need another election, they just have to capture Thaksin and pur him in prison where he belongs.

[zzzz]

Bloomberg news: Thailandâ??s Abhisit Pledges Poll, Restored Stability

 

"Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva pledged to call elections once stability is restored, as offices, banks and the stock exchange opened after anti- government riots killed two and injured 135 people in Bangkok."

 

Link

[cavanami]

[CTO]

Been buzy - but very few schools had internet access or even phone lines in 2000 - by 2006 most had internet and phone lines.

 

Roads are very important - ask a farmer how he gets his stuff to market. If a road is crap he can't. Farming land that wasn't viable now is because of the roads. I thought a Detroit boy would understand importance of roads better

 

I have many photo's going back 10 years of the dramatic changes in the area I know best Sakon Nakorn - and other parts of Isaan.

 

Min Ed is 2nd or 3rd in Budget I seem to remember and just as if not more "dodgy" than other ministries.

 

Major attraction of the road building was it was a trickle up effect. Locals really did benefit - no doubt local TRT - but then ironically talking with the Orbitor's - the current government is building roads as fast as TRT did (which the locals like) and the money is as dodgy as ever.

 

Agree totally on village funds however at last we see some intelligence coming through.

 

OTOP was a dodgy as other projects too! (Not often realized)

 

Real English teachers in gov schools - something I am surprised to see how much the locals like this.

 

At the end of the day I support trickle up rural infrastructure economics. Hence I supported TRT and if Democrats continue following exactly (not my words - local TRT Orbitors) projects I'll support them but also I will know the level of corruption is the same.

[..]

Been buzy - but very few schools had internet access or even phone lines in 2000 - by 2006 most had internet and phone lines.

Generous at best to credit TRT with that. More likely simply progress...

 

A Detroit boy knows that pick up trucks don't much care about roads (that's why they are trucks, and not cars), but understands that money spent on education pays back tenfold what a road does in the development of the people.

 

Given Thakky's well documented hatred of farangs, I'd love to see your reasoning TRT was in any way responsible for the teachers you reference!

 

Cheers,

SD

[shygye]

You don't care much about rural roads because you lived all your time in LOS in urban areas. If you lived in an area with dirt roads that become impassable during heavy rains you would have a different perspective.

[Central Scrutinizer]

You don't care much about rural roads because you lived all your time in LOS in urban areas. If you lived in an area with dirt roads that become impassable during heavy rains you would have a different perspective.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

True. And the poorest of the poor of the farmers do not even have trucks (real, later model, in decent shape trucks) that can pass on the rural roads that are either dirt or some tarred yet nearly impassable. Try driving in the areas near our village that have yet to be paved or even 'improved'. The poorest farmers use their rice tractors to get to the markets nearby (not the real cities with the large markets where they can/could sell their wares for much more and cut out the gouging middlemen). The tractors are seen on many of the rural roads with a 'wagon' (homemade many of them) and can barely make 15/20 kph even on the well paved roads. On the dirt roads you can jog nearly as fast as they can go. And, as Shygye points out, these dirt roads become almost impassable during the rainy season. I also see many 'homemeade' "trucks". These are dodgy at best and very slow and most are not that well maintained. They do what ius needed, but are far from ideal transport to get one's goods and wares to the major outlets of the larger cities, which lie many kilometers from the rural outposts where much of the farming is done.

 

Roads, well made and well maintained roads, are essential for these rural peoples. Under the Dems when I first moved up to the village these were mainly dirt roads, which in the rain would become quagmires nearly impossible to drive on (especially if you wanted to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time IN A DECENT pick-up truck even).

 

Whereas under the Taksin regime many of these former dirt roads were raised above the water levels of the surrounding rice fields, and paved and maintained. The improvements were dramatic and well received by the locals, and improved their lives immensely. Whether this was a direct result of the TRT government, or simply the usual progress, is not really the point, as it WAS done under his government. And whether there was rampant corruption in the building of these roads is also not the point, as the roads WERE built and paved and/or improved, which definitely improved the lot of the locals.

 

Which is why many of the rural Thais still to this day would vote in a Taksin backed/approved government. Their lives improved under his government, they made more money and received at least some basic services they had NEVER had or been given by any of the previous governments.

 

Taksin may be a thieving cunt and a bastard, but he is not stupid (although now he seems to have gone more than a bit mental). He used this to gather himself a voting base and he kept it up all through his tenure. The rural poor love him because he was the first to give them something (and when you have nothing even a small something is better than nothing).

 

Believe it, the roads are a big deal up in Isaan in the very poor rural areas far from the large cities. And Taksin is seen by these people as the one who built and improved their rural infrastructure, to their benefit (and most know that the TRT bigwigs and Taksin and family benefitted in their pocketbooks as well- they are not as stupid as some would seem to think). 'TRT giin baht' was what I heard, but some of that baht helped these locals as well (trickle down theory at work). The local village funds were plundered by many TRT village heads and their families, but SOME of it did do things that benefitted all to some extent. Previously they got squat.

 

As I said many months ago here in these threads, Abhisit/the Dems needed to follow some of Taksin/TRTs policies to help them gain some voters from the former TRT base. They are now doing so, but not fast enough or enough in my view. They need to get some new policies out there that are seen as their own ideas and not Taksin's. They should not just copycat TRT, but show they have their own ideas and policies to show they do give a fuck and have plans that will help these people.

 

JMHO.

 

Cent

[Flashermac]

One reason there are real English teachers in the schools now is that the government some time ago asked for Peace Corps vols and other foreign vols to be assigned to primary and secondary schools. In the past vols taught mainly at secondary schools and teachers' colleges (which no longer exist). As far as I know, Mr T had nothing to do with the change.

 

 

 

[Central Scrutinizer]

Flash,

 

Your point being that some things were/are just a natural course of progress?

 

I'd say that certainly this is true. But some things that did happen under Taksin were a planned and concerted effort to win the hearts and minds (and votes) of the rural poor.

 

Cent