NYT hit piece claims unlike US State Department-backed "Arab Spring," current anti-regime protests in Thailand seek "less democracy."
December 17, 2013 (Tony Cartalucci) - The New York Times' Thomas Fuller has persistently written hit pieces regarding Thailand's political situation for years. In his most recent piece titled, "In Thailand, Standing Up for Less Democracy," he claims:
If the Thai protests then, "stand out," that is a good thing.
Throughout Fuller's hit piece, we can see the same exact omissions made by other propagandists across the Western media. These include the dismal human rights record of Thaksin Shinawatra including the mass murdering of 3,000 in a 90 day "war on drugs" in 2003, many of whom had nothing to do with the drug trade at all. Fuller also fails to report how Thaksin's brutality is not only seen as acceptable by his followers, but the campaign of mass murder in 2003 was in fact, wildly popular amongst his support base.
This above all, is the reason why many feel those who continuously return him to power, despite not being eligible for office (he is a convicted criminal with two arrest warrants out for his arrest), not being on the ballot (his sister, in true 3rd world nepotist fashion is running as a placeholder for him), nor even being in the country (he currently resides in Dubai), are not capable of participating in elections until serious reforms can be carried out. Reforms are aimed at closing the loopholes that have allowed a convicted criminal to run in 2011 under the motto "Thaksin Thinks, Puea Thai [his political party] Does." Thaksin literally campaigned for his sister, and openly runs the country via Skype and meetings with regime ministers outside the country.
This too, was ironically revealed by the New York Times, and by Fuller himself, in an article titled, "In Thailand, Power Comes With Help From Skype," which begins by stating:
It has nothing to do with wanting "less democracy," because a regime like that headed by Thaksin Shinawatra was never about democracy in the first place. Thomas Fuller is an intelligent man and undoubtedly knows this. He is doing just what his counterparts at the BBC are doing, just as lobbyists working for Thaksin Shinawatra are doing - manipulating public perception for the corporate-financier interests that were behind "good" protests like the "Arab Spring" and the current pro-EU Nazis clamoring in the streets of Ukraine, and opposed to "bad" protests like the nationalist-driven, pro-sovereignty movement in the streets of Bangkok now.
"In a world now accustomed to democratic upheavals, including the Arab Spring and the Saffron and Orange Revolutions, the weeks of political upheaval in Thailand stand out for one main peculiarity. Protesters massing on the streets here are demanding less democracy, not more."Ironically, it was the NYT itself that revealed the true nature of the so-called "Arab Spring." In its article titled, "U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings," it was stated:
"A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington."The article would also add, regarding the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED):
"The Republican and Democratic institutes are loosely affiliated with the Republican and Democratic Parties. They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million annually from Congress. Freedom House also gets the bulk of its money from the American government, mainly from the State Department. "So in other words, the "Arab Spring" was not a pro-democracy uprising, it was instead, a region-wide US-funded campaign for regime change. The resulting regimes included two Muslim Brotherhood regimes which colluded with the US-Israeli-Saudi campaign against Syria, a brutal war that has left the nation of Libya decimated and in the hands of extremists, and an ongoing war in Syria that has seen tens of thousands dead and with the West directly arming, funding, and codding Al Qaeda, even on NATO-member soil.
If the Thai protests then, "stand out," that is a good thing.
Throughout Fuller's hit piece, we can see the same exact omissions made by other propagandists across the Western media. These include the dismal human rights record of Thaksin Shinawatra including the mass murdering of 3,000 in a 90 day "war on drugs" in 2003, many of whom had nothing to do with the drug trade at all. Fuller also fails to report how Thaksin's brutality is not only seen as acceptable by his followers, but the campaign of mass murder in 2003 was in fact, wildly popular amongst his support base.
This above all, is the reason why many feel those who continuously return him to power, despite not being eligible for office (he is a convicted criminal with two arrest warrants out for his arrest), not being on the ballot (his sister, in true 3rd world nepotist fashion is running as a placeholder for him), nor even being in the country (he currently resides in Dubai), are not capable of participating in elections until serious reforms can be carried out. Reforms are aimed at closing the loopholes that have allowed a convicted criminal to run in 2011 under the motto "Thaksin Thinks, Puea Thai [his political party] Does." Thaksin literally campaigned for his sister, and openly runs the country via Skype and meetings with regime ministers outside the country.
This too, was ironically revealed by the New York Times, and by Fuller himself, in an article titled, "In Thailand, Power Comes With Help From Skype," which begins by stating:
Millions of people across the globe have cut the tethers to their offices, working remotely from home, airport lounges or just about anywhere they can get an Internet connection. But the political party governing Thailand has taken telecommuting into an altogether different realm.
For the past year and a half, by the party’s own admission, the most important political decisions in this country of 65 million people have been made from abroad, by a former prime minister who has been in self-imposed exile since 2008 to escape corruption charges.
The country’s most famous fugitive,Thaksin Shinawatra, circles the globe in his private jet, chatting with ministers over his dozen cellphones, texting over various social media platforms and reading government documents e-mailed to him from civil servants, party officials say.What Fuller describes is an almost cartoonish example of 3rd world corruption, nepotism, and wrecking ball abandon for the rule of law - yet curiously, Fuller has a difficult time wrapping his mind or his editorial around the fact that this banana republic-style corruption exhibited by the regime he has documented in his editorials, propped up by the same interests behind an "Arab Spring" the paper he writes for exposed as being foreign-backed subversion, is precisely why anti-regime protesters are on the streets of Bangkok today.
It might be described as rule by Skype. Or governance by instant messenger, a way for Mr. Thaksin to help run the country without having to face the warrant for his arrest in a case that many believe is politically motivated.
It has nothing to do with wanting "less democracy," because a regime like that headed by Thaksin Shinawatra was never about democracy in the first place. Thomas Fuller is an intelligent man and undoubtedly knows this. He is doing just what his counterparts at the BBC are doing, just as lobbyists working for Thaksin Shinawatra are doing - manipulating public perception for the corporate-financier interests that were behind "good" protests like the "Arab Spring" and the current pro-EU Nazis clamoring in the streets of Ukraine, and opposed to "bad" protests like the nationalist-driven, pro-sovereignty movement in the streets of Bangkok now.
