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Comments

by michel on 05/29/2010 08:22 am

thx, u put in some strong words what was annoying me all the time. whats really saddening me is that so many of my friends, all educated people, in thailand think that way and i dont know how to open their eyes.

by Anonymity on 05/29/2010 08:47 am

"Bourgoisie" is "middle class"as opposed to nobility or working class. Abhisit is comfortably in the upper class. Perhaps Mitton should stay with every day English words.

by AnonymousXX on 05/29/2010 10:38 am

Do you think it was only the "privileged elite that runs Thailand and cares little for the welfare of poor folk in the hinterlands" that complained about the CNN coverage ? Wrong! Many who complained are foreigners, many like me don't run anything. We're not part of the elite!

by Anonymous on 05/29/2010 11:26 am

Much of the commentary surrounding the press criticism suffers from the same shortcomings as some of the coverage itself. Roger Milton does Khun Somtow a huge disservice, and perhaps reflects his politics more than his reading comprehension.

This is and was a highly nuanced situation, which is something the international press has difficulties. It is much easier to see things in a simple sense, rather than attempt to explain the complexity. All red shirts become poor protesters for democracy (some were, some were paid thugs set to overturn the government, some were other factions of disaffected) versus the Bangkok elite putting down the rural poor (some are).

I am none of these, but educated in political science, and I think the coverage by the international and local press was dreadful. I am not "fenqing" from Chinese web boards, and I do not think that parellel is apt either.

Yes, this society lacks introspection and critical thinking. Yes, there are huge divisions in society. Yes, the politics is petty and personal. But those things are true in the US health care debate too. This is a different situation and I think Khun Somtow illustrates that well, and points to the language problem. Much of the international press does not understand what the leaders of the protest, then riot were saying. If there were two dozen disaffected groups in that crowd, then mob, how many views did the press capture?

by AnonymousXX on 05/29/2010 11:37 am

The amount of stereotyping around here is unbelievable! If you dare to criticize some journalist then you're automatically branded as bourgeoisie, elite and not caring for the poor!

by Anonymous on 05/29/2010 01:07 pm

I have been following your blogs for about 4 weeks now.
There are many social and other problems in Thailand, and the protests certainly covered a fair number of them. If they had only remained peaceful protests, Abhisit wouldn't be where he is now.
Whether what happened afterwards was the idea of the red leaders or of infiltrants, the fact is that the red camp let it happen. If it wasn't red policy to burn and loot the city, then why is there evidence all over Youtube? If red policy was circumvented by infiltrants, why did they allow them to join in the first place?
I'd like to ask you, since the title refers to 'rational response', what it is that you are actually trying to say? That all the foreign media have done a great job and that all the Thai media were very one-sided? Isn't that as simplistic as saying it was the other way round? Where is the rationale?
I think everyone here knows that this government has made its share of large and small mistakes, before, during and after the protests. However, this does not automatically mean that it is an aggressor and/or oppressor. Many of the decisions made by this government around the time of this crisis would have been made by other governments around the world, in similar situations (this includes the West).
This could turn out to be very long, but that's not why I am answering. Just in case it wasn't clear, even though every journalist (or blogger) is biased, the question I'd like to ask is: Do you have to show it so much?

by doctor J on 05/29/2010 04:08 pm

Local medias like BKKpost,Nation etc are not biased by any intention. They simply hold true to a (whole)different set of definition of 'democracy'. A kind described by Kevin Hewison as 'Thai style' democracy. That's what the traditional Thai establishment try so hard to 'programmed into every Thai's head, unfortunately some underprivileged's skulls are too hard to be penetrated (or blocked by evil number one's money : ))!
How can you expect the same impression of the same picture from the (totally) different perspective?

by Chunkton on 05/29/2010 08:02 pm

Democracy in the west means 51% of the population, usually the parasites and bureaucracy learning they can vote themselves the treasury and hence the financial benefits, it is hardly a flawless system, in fact it eventually leads to firstly socialism/fascism and then the inevitable bankruptcy that follows excess greed. So, democracy is hardly nirvana.

The Thai elite may or not realize that, but certainly do realize the financial benefits that flow their way from controlling government. They have no intention of giving that up, thus the military and judicial establishment coups. However an insurgency will probably develop now where sharing the spoils would probably have sufficed.

No bright future here that I can see.

Governments should serve the people, but in what country are they not the masters acting as a leech on the working populations? The corrupt always see the benefits that can flow from maintaining their brand of control. And no, Taksin was no different.

by Srithanonchai on 05/29/2010 08:34 pm

Somtow's piece was one of the most disgusting, disingenuous, and hypocritical texts I have read in recent memory. Anyway, he has been and will remain an elite right-winger.

by Steph on 05/30/2010 12:51 am

Somtow's article was published by ABC News.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2905056.htm

It's got over a hundred comments on it too. BP, perhaps you should have a link to it on your main post.

by No Color Thai on 05/30/2010 01:48 am

michel on 05/29/2010 08:22 am wrote:
...whats really saddening me is that so many of my friends, all educated people, in thailand think that way and i dont know how to open their eyes.
The same here. Perhaps we should read the account of Germany under Hitler to find out how millions of people did nothing to stop their leaders while millions of innocent people were massacred in their country.

by bosunj on 05/31/2010 07:27 am

In my opinion Rivers has no business being a correspondent for any news agency.

by Angie on 06/03/2010 02:46 am

Reg the above comment on "bourgoisie" - Erm, from someone who lives amongst French people, the original coinage for the term is derived to define the middle class but has, over decades, been applied to the upper middle class and in France is used colloquially to describe the rich urbanites, especially those residing in Paris. So I think we'd all appreciate it if you did your research outside of wikipedia and actually read some books, maybe even ask some French people, before criticizing someone else's literacy. So maybe you should stick to reading the whole article and taking it for what it is instead of picking out unfound grammatical errors that really don't matter. Hypocrisy noted on my side on the nit picking. Thank you.

p.s. If you read the remainder of the wikipedia article you would stumble upon: "In contemporary (capitalist) societies, the term bourgeoisie can refer to middle, upper middle, and/or upper classes, and/or their lifestyle and values."

by Anonymous on 06/04/2010 01:11 am

Angie: According to your authority, "bourgoisie" would include every one but the poor. What's the point of that concept? By the way, did you know that any one can contribute to your Wikipedia and they don't neeed to offer their qualifications or citations of their sources.

by Republican Senator on 06/04/2010 06:12 am

Military-controlled Pro-Yellowshirt Thai Medias are not better than CNN anyway. Instead of attacking CNN why not attacking at the Thai Media and its censorship that has been brainwashing Thais for hundreds of years? Dan Rivers was just doing his job and at least he did show some of video evidences of the bloody crackdown by Thai military. Not even BBC is allow on Thai cable.

Of course, the redshirts would responded violently if the Thai military were shooting at them with live ammunitions. How can you expect that the redshirts would still be standing like a sitting duck in the middle of the street and doing nothing to defend their own life? You can even punch at a Policeman who was hurting your child as an example because that's not what authorities should be doing in the first place.

by Marxist on 06/04/2010 06:26 am

When Karl Marx mentioned about "Bourgeoisie", he is actually refering to the "rich elite class people" oppose to the "proletariate class people" or the "working class people". In Marxism, Bourgeoisie means being elite or typical aristocratic capitalist who only owns the land and allow working class people to work for them and to make them rich. Karl Marx argued that it is less likely that the working class people would become rich or gain a higher position in society and they would only make the bourgeoisies become richer. Thus, these bourgeoisies does nothing but only use working class people to make them richer.

When Karl Marx talks about class struggle or class division, he isn't really talking about how rich you are but he is talking about what position in the society you are in (bourgeoisie class or working class). Like the ants and bees with their own natural caste system like the Queen, the drones and the workers. If you are happen to be born as the ant worker then it means that you will have to serve the Queen Ant for the rest of your life but Thailand does not deserve to be like this insect-cast-style aristocratic society. We are not animals but humans and we all wanted democracy and basic rights like freedom of expression otherwise this could lead to the bloody, violent French Revolution epecially when democracy is oppressed!

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