October 7, 2020 (Tony Cartalucci - ATN) - A recent AFP article - uncritically re-published by the Bangkok Post - attempted to once again sell the fantasy of "massive demonstrations across the country" - and "coincidentally" - has attempted to link current anti-government protests to unrest in the late 1970's - just as Thailand's corrupt billionaire-led opposition has on many occasions.
It is a coordinated bid to help promote an upcoming anti-government rally and make up for disappointing turnouts for previous protests.
To help sell this fantasy, Bangkok Post has clearly rigged its comment section allowing only comments favorable of AFP's narrative to be published. Readers familiar with Bangkok Post's "like" feature have clearly rigged it to make it appear massively read and approved of despite the poor share stats also clearly visible on the article's webpage.
To do this, one only needs to load the article in "incognito" mode, hit like, close the window and reopen it, and repeat the process. Certain users are known to "sit" on articles for hours to pump "likes" up to or over 1,000 even when Facebook shares and comments dwindle in the single or double digits.
While the protests are hailed as "historic," such tactics demonstrate just how dishonest and desperate they are.
It is yet another example of how corrupt media is creating "popularity" for an otherwise unpopular, but loud and well-funded Western-backed opposition.
AFP's Fantasy World vs. Reality
By now, it is no secret that the Western media has sided with the opposition. It is no surprise since Western governments whom these media organizations work with and for - have been revealed to be funding virtually every aspect of the protests.
READ MORE: The Complete Guide: US Government Role in Thailand's "Student Protests"
Despite this massive foreign state and media support - current ongoing anti-government protests have been anything but "massive."
The largest rally attracted less than 20,000 and most of those who showed up were paid and bused in supporters of fugitive billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra. Other rallies regularly attract fewer than 1,000 - a pitiful turnout in a nation of nearly 70 million - especially considering many of these rallies are held in or around Bangkok where nearly 12 million people live and work and are relentlessly promoted by the Western media and their local Thai collaborators.
Not only is the size and impact of the anti-government protests lied about by media organizations like AFP, the BBC, Reuters, AP, and others - but the history surrounding both the current protests and those in Thailand's past are also presented as if taken from an alternate reality.
Rewriting History
The 1976 Thammasat protest cited by AFP in which it claims, "at least 46 student protesters were shot, beaten to death or hanged from trees," failed to mention the death of several members of security forces that day - killed in what was gunfire coming from the campus. Videos of the violence clearly show security forces seeking cover from incoming gunfire from the campus - a fact often and deliberately omitted in attempts to portray the event as a one-sided "massacre."
Likewise, protests organized by Thaksin Shinawatra in 2010 are described as a military and government "crackdown" despite Thaksin's own political lieutenants admitting they employed up to 300 heavily armed militants who fired first on April 10, 2010 at Thai crowd control troops, triggering gun battles across the city that raged for weeks, culminated in city-wide arson and left nearly 100 dead including soldiers, police, journalists, counter-protesters, and bystanders.
READ MORE: US-funded Front Supports Thai Terrorist Sympathizers
To this day, dishonest media outlets like AFP, the BBC, Reuters, AP, and many others deliberately and entirely omit this - just as they do armed opposition present in 1976 - to present uninformed readers with an alternate reality and to paint Thailand's government in as negative a light as possible.
This ongoing effort is linked to the West's current confrontation with China - as Thailand's current political order has decisively pivoted toward Beijing counting China as Thailand's largest trade partner, investor, source of tourism, arms supplier, and a key partner in several major infrastructure projects including a regional high-speed rail network. By supporting anti-government protests and instability in Thailand - the Western media and its sponsors seek to roll-back these ties.
The Western media's consistent dishonesty in regards to Thailand's political crisis is not unlike how these same Western media organizations coordinated their lies to help sell US-British wars of aggression against Iraq in 2003 and Libya and Syria in 2011 based on now verified lies.
The lying hasn't helped current anti-government protests in Thailand who have - so far - failed categorically to even work their way up to the "massive demonstrations" AFP would have readers believe are already taking place.
That the protests are entirely funded and directed by foreign interests but this fact never mentioned in AFP, BBC, Reuters, AP, and other media outlet articles says a lot about just how far from reality their collective reporting is.
READ MORE: US Embassy Denies Funding Thai Protests Groups Listed on US NED's Own Website
That denials from the US Embassy of this funding can easily be debunked by simply visiting the US government's own National Endowment for Democracy (NED) website where its funding for every major opposition organization involved in current anti-government protests is clearly listed - but that the Western media refuses to do so - proves they are engaged in propaganda aimed at selling global audiences an alternate reality - not inform them of facts or news.