There’s more to Thailand than the smile
The People Against Democracy, aka PAD, have decided that Thai people can not decide for themselves. So PAD want parliament to consist of 70% appointees and 30% elected representatives. So who is going to appoint the ones who apppoint the appointees? The PAD? And on what basis will they be appointed? What a harebrained idea.
A nice commentary in La Stampa about those disgusting PAD (Pricks Against Democracy) people:
As in any democratic country, demonstrations have to be authorized and otherwise must be forcibly removed. This is necessary to prevent the minority from prevailing on the majority and establishing a dictatorship.
This is not happening—the police seem powerless, the military refuses to intervene, and the demonstrations grow bolder by the day. The protesters insist on the same old thing: The prime minister must quit. Why should he quit? Because a mob said so. Then who should appoint the new government? Who knows. Or does somebody?
But this is not democracy. This is, once again, a coup d’etat. It does not matter whether the military rolls out tanks to banish the prime minister; it is bad enough that they tolerate a situation where a democratically elected government is held hostage to a rabble shouting empty slogans.
They should know, Italy is very much like Thailand in many respects.
A story about a money-grubbing creep, liar, and fraudster such as this Dutch Royal would never make it to the Bangkok Post or Thai Rath, I am sure. In Thailand live only upstanding, honest people.
Once in a while you stumble on one of these prejudiced stories about sex tourists in Bangkok. Why do these people feel the need to moralize about what two consenting adults are doing with their lives? Ok, I don’t like public displays of affection in general, and frown when I see an adolescent couple almost having sex on the Paris subway. But that’s a different story. An old white man and a young Asian women walking together on the street in Bangkok is a whole lot less offensive to the eye, methinks.
The newspapers are full of news from protests just a few mile away yet if you did not know it, everything seems completely normal. People lead their normal everyday life and keep themselves busy with trivial things. Weird, how newspaper coverage manages to skew our view of reality time and again, yet we continue to fall for it.
The PAD demonstrations here in Bangkok are supposed to be some alliance against the current inept government and for democracy. In the manner they incite people to rise against the current elected government I think it should be called the Movement Against Democracy. Clearly they have a lot to learn about the thin line between peaceful protest and incitement.
In Thailand porn is illegal, whether it is about gay Asian boys, Bangkok bar girls or American celebrities. That is a sad state of affairs for freedom of expression. On the other hand it is just fine to show a soap opera in which a woman gets raped by a dozen men. "She deserved it", is the attitude they are trying to convey. Seriously. The message I get is "we disapprove of natural beauty, we approve of mindless violence". That is pretty sick.
It can be nice and cosy to stay home and watch the rain pour down over Bangkok while knowing that others are stuck in endless traffic jams. Yes, such are the joys of the rainy season.
It says something about a country when the most popular website for foreigners living in the country is a website that started out as a bulletin board related to visa matters for sex tourists. Most of the discussion on thaivisa.com is of the ill informed bar stool type but sometimes it can be entertaining. But don’t dare say anything about the powers that be in the country. It will be deleted. This sycophancy and kowtowing results from their fear of getting banned. There’s nothing more to fear than fear itself. But thaivisa doesn’t realize that, it seems.
Well, I am hard pressed to come up with five things. They are all so superficial. Like the people smile alot, everybody is so nice, etc etc. I guess the people with the rose tinted glasses who really can’t see through that, have never seen cartoons like this one above, via 2bangkok.com.