SO WHAT HAPPENED IN THAILAND TODAY? DON'T WORRY, NOT MUCH

I'm a huge Thailand hand. I stopped counting how many times I've been there long ago and I'm looking forward to my next visit right after the midterm elections here. When people ask me why I'm so enamored with Thailand I try to explain how peaceful it is and how loving and sweet the people are. I even write about the politics there on my travel blog rather than at DWT, although in April I did have reason to mention the fascist triumvirate of plutocratic clowns: Bush, Berlusconi and Thaksin.

This has been the longest period Thailand has gone without a coup in decades and decades. They used to have 'em all the time. This one was
an inside job by allies of the beloved and revered king against a crooked right winger with almost as little legitimacy as Bush. From what I'm reading and from what I'm hearing from friends in Bangkok, no one was hurt and there was no resistance. Thaksin is in NY at the same UN meeting as his pal Bush.

"Thaksin, who has faced calls to step down amid allegations of corruption and abuse of power, was in New York at the U.N. General Assembly, and he declared a state of emergency via a government-owned TV station... The coup came a day before a major rally-- the first in several months-- was scheduled to take place in Bangkok by a anti-Thaksin coalition that has been seeking his resignation. Massive rallies earlier this year forced Thaksin to dissolve Parliament and call an election in April, three years ahead of schedule. The poll was boycotted by opposition parties and later annulled by Thailand's top courts, leaving the country without a working legislature."

A couple of Thaksin cronies, the Thai versions of Cheney (Chitchai; really) and Rumsfeld (Thammarak Isaragura na Ayuthaya) were arrested. Cheney Chitchai already resigned. A friend of mine in Bangkok said this was not nearly as big a deal-- so far-- as when they arrested that John Mark Karr kook for kind of claiming he killed JonBenet Ramsey.

The Bush-Thaksin parallels are often talked about by Thais and many there oppose his policies promoting savage Bush-inspired privatization, free trade agreements and incompetent, greed-obsessed and uber-corrupt Bush-like CEO-style administration. Thaksin's cronies and family, like the Bush cronies and family have been embroiled in massive corruption. In January his family announced it had sold the massive telecommunications giant Shin Corp. to Singapore's state-owned Temasek Holdings for a tax-free $1.9 billion. The sale smacked of gross insider trading and is widely viewed as unpatriotic since it puts a key national asset in foreign hands. Thaksin has also screwed up his Muslim problem-- southern Thailand is Muslim majority and the rest of the country is predominantly Buddhist.


UPDATE; THAIS SEEM RELIEVED TO BE RID OF THEIR FASCIST-ORIENTED REGIME

"Thais poured into the streets of Bangkok on Wednesday in a sign of support for the military, which took power a day earlier in a bloodless coup... Democracy activists who had long sought Thaksin's ouster embraced the military's action, and even some opposition leaders acknowledged that Thailand must find some way out of its political crisis."

Of course, the Bush Regime expressed disappointment in the developments and is thought to be working behind the scenes to get Thaksin, or a similar stooge, back into power.