[El Chinito loco]

(05-22-2014 01:42 PM)Que enspastic Wrote:  

^ El Chinito I don't think anyone will kowtow to the elite now. Yes large swathes of the population are ignorant but the genie is out of the bottle and things will have to change. The status quo is not acceptable to the Reds. See what happened last time Abhisit was in power. Reds blockaded Bangkok and set fire to CentralWorld until army shot them to pieces.

Here's the problem I see.. The red and yellow political parties are all controlled by the elite. It's not a simple ethnic division like some people assume it is. It's much more complex than that and more like a power struggle between old and new money. There are Bangkok families who have been rich and in power for several generations now with honorary titles and shit. These people are "old" money and will do everything to protect it and the feudal lifestyle they've grown accustomed to.

People are literally paid to protest on both sides and vote buying is rampant everywhere. There is no democracy on either side. The institution is just broken in Thailand with no hope of being repaired anytime soon.

Quote:

Real democracy is not acceptable to the Yellows. The Yellows will never win an election and will get smashed if Thai people are given a voice. Their only hope is either put in place a military dictatorship or try to compete in elections by changing their social policies to put much more emphasis on the millions of rural poor.

Which path do you see as more feasible?

The problem is that any honest social policy in the rural areas will never compete with the massive scale of corruption (ie. vote buying) and racketeering programs (rice program) that go on in the rural areas. This would require Thai politicians and the culture in general to enact mass change and I don't see that as a possibility anytime within the next 100 years.

I was in Thailand during the 2006 coup, then happened to be there again when the yellow shirt dicks closed down the airport around 2008 and again in 2010 when the reds were burning centralworld down.

There is simply no personal responsibility. People can do whatever they want and get away with it as long as they hold the bigger stick at the moment.