Blogging Thailand's Coup

[liz_marcs]

I few links to first-hand accounts and photos showing what's happening on the ground. All sites are in English.

Thailand Blogs is a collective of blogs by people in Thailand and Thai expats. (Fantastic round-up of the various blogs, detailed background.)

Jot Man, which is an actual blog. (English is not the writer's first language, but awesome pics and detailed descriptions of what's going on in them.)

2Bangkok, which looks like like a blog coupled with a few newsy touches. (Confusingly organized.)

thailand is discussing it in this post.

Other LJ users blogging the coup: badsmurf, jethaina (scroll down beyond the top sticky post), erussell, and shivwuffy

Comments

[ladycat777.livejournal.com]

I find the comments in the thailand blog to be hysterical, particularly the one who's very anti-coup. I've never lived in Thailand, but I do have friends who do, and they have family memebers who've lived there for decades, as well, so it gives me a slightly different view. Which is basically the same as the guy who said the military has a better idea of how to run a democracy than the politicians.

Whatshisface was utterly corrupt and became more so every year. The king is decent, the queen is very awesome when she can get things done, but the prince is literally a drug-addicted fool because of the PM, and frankly, this coup should've been done about five or six years ago.

And from what my friends say -- granted, they live in Phuket, but Charlie's in Bangkok on business -- it doesn't sound like this is affecting day to day stuff at all. Charlie got to work without anything more than the normal smog-jam, and nothing's changed. Mostly, I'm hearing through him that this is a good thing.

I find it very amusing when people say a coup is a bad thing. Hi, what the US did to be founded could be considered a coup, although with a lot of variations. Sometimes it's the right thing to do. In this case, not that what I think matters a jot, I think it is.

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that the Thailand-based blogs seem to agree that this is a good thing.

The ex-pats living there either think "good thing" or are just confused.

I just like linking to blogs of people who are actually on the ground at these kinds of things because it opens up the perspective a little bit.

Good to know that your friends are okay. From what I'm getting, this is a totally bloodless "coup," and there seems to be a big push for returning to normal (except for yesterday's unexpected "government holiday" *snerk*).

[ladycat777.livejournal.com]

Everyone in thailand, except for the elite who benefited, hates the TRT. They're corrupt, dangerous, and, on occasion, deadly. And Sothi has a really good reputation has an honest man.

Is all that true? I dunno. But just about everyone I've spoken to has nothing but good to say about this, and not all of them are blind supports of the king, either.

I think too many americans forget that sometimes yes, it's important to say no, we won't live like this anymore -- particularly since trt always rigged the elections. There was no way whatshisname was getting voted out. Hard to be democratic when really you're being dictatorial, you know?

And yeah, everything seems fine. Rumor is that the holiday was to basically keep people off the streets so there wouldn't be an issue like back in the 70's, when all those kids got killed. But that's rumor *shrug*

[ladycat777.livejournal.com]

Your pardon -- Sondhi. I've been typing the wrong thing all morning, god knows why, and Meri about took my head off when she saw that in my latest email :)

[ad-kay.livejournal.com]

Thanks for these links. I got to visit Thailand on business in 2004 and would love to go back. Sawatdee kha.

[(Anonymous)]

As far as I understand it the PM's main support came from the rural areas, Thailand being a mainly rural country. Do these bloggers come from these areas or visit them often or are they city based? It seems the PM was very unpopular with the educated urban middle classes, but does this mean that the rural masses should have the democratically elected PM that they helped elect overthrown. I just find it depressing that at a time where all we seem to get here in England are speeches about the importance of spreading democracy and elections and the sacrificies that have to be made to do so, that a democratically elected govt. can be overthrown and Blair says nothing about it. Hey if the Thai PM is unpopular than vote for the opposition. I'm not sure if I buy this "the elections were rigged" outcry. Were they really? Or was it just that the urban middle classes were outvoted by their rural countrymen and women?