190906

http://19sep.blogspot.com

photos on flickr

amazing speed at which blogs have popped up literally overnight to spread e news after e media blackout on TV channels & while foreign cable TV channels were temporarily cut off. can just imagine e volume of emails & online chat messages pouring back & forth between those in Bangkok, other parts of Thailand, & overseas, to update one another on e situation. something that would not have been imagined back in 1992?

Thaksin's wife has fled to e little red dot, but so far no mention of this on e news here, which is generally (irritatingly to some) pro-Thaksin ;) guess e cat can expect even more anti-'little red dot government' comments on its next trip to Thailand, apart from e usual remarks about e Temasek-Shin Corp deal & Kra Isthmus canal?

e irony....just yesterday we were talking about profs in e same building who had their studies interrupted by e Cultural Revolution, & a labmate was telling us about how e Tiananmen incident influenced her choice of grad school - joining e Chinese Academy of Sciences to avoid having to spend a year in e countryside, as all uni grads were then required to. & this morning she asked e cat to explain how Thailand changes governments 'like changing clothes' (15 times liao?) & how e country doesn't come to a total standstill or fall to pieces overnight just cos there has been a bloodless military coup. e civil service serves e kingdom & people, not e ruling party ;)

airports are still open (with staff trying to fix e leaking roof of Suvarnabhumi? =P), KTVs still opened last night, people are still buying junk food from 7-Eleven, street hawkers have been selling food to troops stationed in e capital, people have been taking photos of soldiers (e more 'lor3' ones perhaps =P) & tanks with handphone cameras & giving them water, monks still go on their morning alms rounds, today's a public holiday so all can sleep in late....

2nd kor: Good morning. We are all fine. Nothing new, everyone kind of expecting this situation. My shop is closed but I'm at work clearing some things.

& e usual joke about how if MFA needs to evacuate all Singaporeans in Bangkok at short notice, MBK shopping centre will be e best assembly point cos all of them know their way there, & half of them are probably staying in Pathumwan Princess Hotel anyway =P

whatever e outcome, hope for something peaceful that can give HRM e King & everyone a peace of mind & more hope for e future. many are sick of too much senseless bloodshed (war on drugs, deep South, etc) & unabashed corruption & power play, about time for some change?

[update #1] comment in The Nation: Onus now on coup leaders to restore trust of the people

excerpts:

The coupmakers are luckier than those before them in that much of society now believes they have done the wrong thing for the right reason....

The slower the coupmakers are in the pledged transfer of power back to the people, the more Thaksin will look like a "pretext" and not the "reason" for the power seizure. Today, he is seen as a seriously flawed political leader, who had tried to propagate and perpetuate a culture of corruption and deceit that threatened to undermine democracy as we knew it. Throughout his five and a half years in power, he was exposed as a greedy politician who had pursued selfinterest at the expense of public good. Even called a tyrannical leader by some, he was accused of rolling back civil liberties, suppressing dissenting voices, not to menฌtion his flagrant violation of human rights as part of a sinister design to dominate and then monopolise political power so as to indulge in corrupt practices unimpeded.

Ideally, the likes of Thaksin should be rejected at the ballot box or through public pressure in the form of peaceful protests. The problem is most people did not believe both options available to them would succeed in removing him from power. To many people the military coup against Thaksin may be a necessary evil.

[update #2] who's in charge now....BOT governor MR Pridiyathorn Devakula to be PM?

[ filed under: thewonderingstraycat + thai1 ]