Thai Rural Protesters Prepare to Paint Bangkok Red

[Flashermac]

I'm almost in "rural" Thailand - northern fringe of Bangkok. I'm awakened by rosters crowing every morning and have to put up with the smell of the neighbours fermenting pla rah. During holidays I am surrounded by moh lam played at full blast.

 

Odd mix of residents in the area - university archans, civil servants, small business owners, taxi drivers, mo'cy boys, retired folks. I see a split by social class here - those more educated supporting the government and the uneducated solidly red. This crosses over income level though, as some of the uneducated folks have very nice homes and new cars. But a retired taxi driver neighbour (Isaan native) tells me Thaksin is finished and should get used to it. The T-man has divided the country in a way I have never seen before. Think he cares?

 

 

 

 

[Mekong]

I'm almost in "rural" Thailand - northern fringe of Bangkok.

 

 

Flash,

 

Sounds like we will be close neighbours, I am moving out there in a few days time once I get the Internet sorted at the house.

[Julian2]

I'm almost in "rural" Thailand - northern fringe of Bangkok. I'm awakened by rosters crowing every morning and have to put up with the smell of the neighbours fermenting pla rah. During holidays I am surrounded by moh lam played at full blast.

 

Odd mix of residents in the area - university archans, civil servants, small business owners, taxi drivers, mo'cy boys, retired folks. I see a split by social class here - those more educated supporting the government and the uneducated solidly red. This crosses over income level though, as some of the uneducated folks have very nice homes and new cars. But a retired taxi driver neighbour (Isaan native) tells me Thaksin is finished and should get used to it. The T-man has divided the country in a way I have never seen before. Think he cares?

 

 

 

A Bangkok taxi driver once told me that no Jews were killed on 9/11, the Israelis had warned them all not to go to work that day.

Probably the same guy!

[Flashermac]

Was he from Ubon? Served a year in South Vietnam as a conscript?

 

Mekong - I'm almost in Nonthaburi, just a couple of blocks inside the Big Durian.

[Mekong]

I will be East of you, Amphoe Lam Luk Ka in Pathum Thani Province, not far from Dream World Amusement Park.

 

TOT Rangsit office promised me an 8Mbps Internet connection within the week, once online there we will make the fianl move, half of our stuff is there already.

[Flashermac]

Poor Pathum Thani ... no planning being done at all. The way it's going, the province is eventually going to become as big a mess as Bangkok.

 

When I was a PC vol in the mid to late '70s, we used to go to summer seminars at the Asia Institute of Technology. It was beautiful around AIT, nothing but green and clean as far as you could see. It's already so built up that you have to hunt for AIT. (It's almost buried by Thammmasat Rangsit.)

 

 

[Wallenda]

As I understand it, you bid so much to the Siamese government for the right to collect taxes in an area. Once you obtained the right for that year, you tried to gouge the locals out of as much as you could to make a profit over what you had paid the gomvt. Needless to say, this didn't make the Chinese involved in it very popular.

 

Here's an article on it that I can't get to load for me.

 

http://www.jstor.org/pss/20070537

 

 

Jeezus freekin Christ. This is so Dark Ages. That's the kind of stuff that led to the French revolution, exactly that kind of uber corrupt obviously-you-don't-do-it-this-way pissing off of the people. How the hell has something like that made it through all these reformed constitutions? What about witch burnings, they still into that too? Good lord.

 

Yeah, if the T-man could be removed from the picture somehow (might have to hire a 'remover'), do you think these reds would still make noise about these issues? Somehow I doubt it. But they need to. That's the ultimate test of their legitimacy: if they can rise up sans T. And of course insist on real reforms to eliminate nonsense such as this.

 

(that said, now that I finsihed my rant, are you gonna next tell me that the tax farming has indeed been eliminated?)

 

[Julian2]

Was he from Ubon? Served a year in South Vietnam as a conscript?

 

Mekong - I'm almost in Nonthaburi, just a couple of blocks inside the Big Durian.

Could well be the same guy, back in the day I was coming in from DM from the Philippines for a change of pussy.

He spoke goodish English and said had worked at the big air base at Ubon up to when it closed.

[Mekong]

Poor Pathum Thani ... no planning being done at all. The way it's going, the province is eventually going to become as big a mess as Bangkok.

 

 

Flash,

 

Rather than Hijack this thread we can discuss Here

[ThaiHome]

Guilty of listening to the BBC and other foreign correspondents. And most other news groups including Fox and CNN.

I spend a little time reading The Nation/ThaiVisa.com also, which makes them sound so much more plausible.

 

ThaiHome, I live in rural Thailand, and have for a while. I can form a conclusion from what I see and hear locally, not what I read or listen to on TV.

 

I’m sorry, but your statement that the landowners turned the generals loose on Thaksin because he was attempting to increase the income of the rural poor is just ludicrous and is just straight out the TRT/PPP big lie propaganda machine that the BBC and others have completely swallowed.

 

You say you live in rural Thailand and you base your opinion on what “see and hear locallyâ€Â. Do you know who the MP is that represents your area? He is some poor rice farmer or a member of the local "elite"? Do you know what faction he belongs to? Who controls that faction? Has the faction holding the MP seat(s) changed in the last 20 years? What party is the local faction currently aligned with? Do you know who is on the local TAO? Who do they own allegiance to? Who owns the main employer in the area? Who owns the major farms? Who controls the local building supply business? Is there actually competition in it? If a rice growing area, who do the small farmers sell to? How about the other crops? Do they have a choice? Who owns the local transportation business?

 

These are all important things to know if you want to understand Thai politics in the context of your local “rural Thailandâ€Â.

 

 

TH