Minichan

!r

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Im here

@previous (bhutan)
We are all here, bhutan.

@691,658 (beckyderp !Hi.HILLARY)

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Not really. I might be committing political suicide by saying this, and be accused of selling out, but here it goes: I want to get away from the Kimmo stylesheet altogether. I want to get away from the idea of being a chan altogether. I want to create a discussion board that is more like a social network than anything else. It would be like Facebook, with the focus being on the board and real discussion rather than it focusing on groups, likes, wall-posts, pokes, games, etc. It would give you the option to post anonymously rather than forcing you to register, but registering and having a profile would be an option. It would be like twitter, but would encourage intelligent conversation rather than 100 character "tweets" that seem to be dumbing down the nation. It would be like a blog, but people would actually care about it, because rather than being a blog in the sense that it's a single website about you, it's interactive and everyone is tied together through the social network. You could have a "friends" list, but it would be more like a list of favorite posters where you watch for their posts/threads, rather than a restrictive list. It will be like Facebook WAS, back when people actually joined groups and went into the discussion tab to have actual discussion, before they started putting ridiculous restrictions on groups and encouraging people to just "like" corporations instead and have you play mindless games so they can sell your information to advertisers. You'd still have the same freedom of speech, and be able to post anything from chan bullshit to legitimate reporters using it as a medium to post their news articles or blogs. It would be like youtube, but the focus would be on discussion rather than video, but the idea of it being user generated content is the same. Privacy would never be an issue, because you'd still have the option to post anonymously and no logging in would be required.

I warned you it was political suicide. I know some of you must think I'm joking and that I just don't get it. I know I probably sound like Kimmo several years ago, posting about stuff where it was obvious to everyone but him that only he thought his ideas were a good idea. The difference is, I'm not a sociopath, I don't want to do this because I think I deserve a billion dollars, I don't think it's guaranteed to be the next big thing, and I understand that it's not for everyone, so I have no intention of spamming my site all over the god damn place trying to attract attention from people who will obviously hate it. I just know there are a lot of people just like me out there who miss the old youtube, miss the old facebook, hate the teenage drama of myspace, and are sickened by the watered down content and pointless updates of twitter. There are people out there who love the free speech of blogs and chan sites, but hate the meaningless shit that fills most chans and the fact that most blogs are just people who only want to talk about themselves or think they're real reporters because they have a website. I know the internet market is already flooded with so many social networking and sharing sites that I might just be insane. Maybe I really am like Kimmo and I'm trying to reinvent the wheel just because there's not a site out there that's not EXACTLY what I want it to be. If that's the case, just say so. If there's a social networking site out there that's ridiculously close to what I'm describing here, just say so, and I'll leave you alone and I'll go there instead. I'm not going to be like Kimmo and go ahead with an idea when everyone tells me it's lame and refuse to take any advice and call anyone who disagree with me a troll, but if you read this and you feel the same way, if your're like me and feel like there are millions of people out there who feel the same way we do, if your're sick of settling for what's already out there and feel like the internet needs a new niche for everyone who is like us...
JOIN ME

Or don't because I realize that was a little over the top.

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(Edited 22 seconds later.)

Glug. No it's not. You've been reading too much output from the Robert Amsterdam propaganda mill. Robert Amsterdam is a paid political lobbyist who specializes in character assassination of politicians and movements opposed to his client. He likes to pitch himself as a "human rights activist" but he simply uses human rights as one tool in his portfolio for harassing his client's rivals. At the moment, Robert Amsterdam is being paid by Thaksin Shinawatra so everything he says and does is determined by the need to promote the interests of his client. Since both the client and the interests are very unsavory, this requires substantial prevarication and obfuscation.
Before going into what's been happening in Bangkok this year, some background is essential. Not just on Thaksin Shinawatra himself but also on Thai politics in general. Let's start with Thaksin. The man is a billionaire who made his pile getting sweetheart deal contracts from the Thai Government for work in modernizing Thai telecommunications infrastructure. He was also a Lieutenant Colonel in the Thai Police. When he first entered politics, his act was quite revolutionary. Normally a Thai political campaign consists of the candidate publishing lists of worthy people who support him. In effect, they provide lists of references that more or less state "I am a good person and can be trusted to work in your interests." People then voted for whoever paid them the most. In Thailand, it's quite possible to have a worthwhile debate on whether vote buying is wrong or not. Thaksin changed that. He conducted a western-style campaign that put a portfolio of promised policies out and invited people to judge his party on the basis of those policies. This was so different that it worked rather well. His Party became the largest in the Thai Parliament and he pushed through the items on his agenda (low cost medical care, low-interest loans for farmers and a few other things, all calculated to endear himself to the rural population – note still buying votes but wholesale rather than retail and using Government money to do it). When the next election came up, his party wasn't just the largest one, it actually had an overall majority.
This made Thaksin's real objectives critical. Thaksin is (or was) a great admirer of the Singaporean model of government and industry. He wanted to create a new Thai state in which there was a single party (controlled by him) and a single corporate entity (controlled by him). The fact that Singapore doesn't really work that way is neither here nor there. Thaksin wanted a state where there was no center of government or economic power that was outside his control. With a majority in Parliament, he set about achieving just that. Hold that thought.
Now, let's look at Thai politics. Thailand is an odd place; it's one of the few countries in the world where the political establishment openly says "we're politicians, don’t trust us." There is an ongoing presumption in the country that political shakeups should never be seen in terms of black and white. The message is to look with skepticism on political changes and to assume that all political movements are corrupt and tainted by greed and ambition. There is an assumption that all are backed by a hidden hand that is pushing a secret agenda. This is an intensely cynical view of course, and one that leaves no room to suppose that a protest is both genuine and sincere. It also presumes that idealistic people can be too easily-fooled (there is a Thai joke that the only difference between the words idealist and idiot is the way somebody says them), a belief that results in the fear that legions of gullible farmers might be turned on the capital by calculating politicians. The only defense against that eventuality, it is held, is that people must be constantly made aware that the motives of all political leaders are suspect. There is only one person in Thailand whose integrity is not questionable and that is the King (and by extension the institution of the Monarchy – and, by the way, that trust is earned, not demanded).
Back to Thaksin. In his second period as Prime Minister, he began his real agenda. There are checks and balances in Thailand; there are parts of the court system that are there to prevent political corruption (by which the Thais mean something a bit different from everybody else). There are parts of the government that are designed to stop things happening too fast or in ways that are disallowed by the constitution. Above all, there is the Army.
More background. If a Thai officer is asked to define the role of the Thai armed forces in general, and the Royal Thai Army in particular, the reply is likely to be some variant of "a political instrument aimed at maintaining the internal and external security of the kingdom." The emphasis on political considerations inside the Thai armed forces rings strangely and uncomfortably on British and American ears, which are used to the concept of an apolitical military. Yet our hypothetical Thai officer may well reply to such concerns by pointing out that war is an extension of politics by any means and that war fought without regard to political objectives is just mindless butchery. One of the awkward questions always asked about democracy is the possibility that 51 percent of the population may vote to exterminate the other 49 percent – and what should be done about that extremity? Some countries answer the question by denying its possibility; in the U.S., the Supreme Court would not, in theory at least, uphold such a position. Returning to our hypothetical Thai officer, the answer would be that it was the duty of the Army to protect all the citizens of the country, not just those who agreed with the government. After all, as the argument goes, the Army belongs to the country and the people. It is the people who pay for the Army with their taxes, and through conscription, it is they who provide its personnel. Therefore, the Army has the obligation to act for all the people, not the political party that has the majority in the government. There is a saying in Thailand "If you are in trouble, seek the man on the white horse." The "man on the white horse" is an army officer. It's a piece of good advice, if you are in serious trouble in Thailand, go to the Army, not the police for help. That principle is actually written into Thai law; if you lose your elephant, tell an Army officer and he is obliged to lend you some of his men to help you find it.
Thaksin started to undermine all of the safeguards that were built into the Thai constitution. He had two primary tools to do this. One was pushing his supporters into the organizations that were supposed to prevent corruption and abuse of power. The other was to silence the opposition with libel writs. He actually said "Censorship? There is no need for censorship. If somebody opposes me my lawyers accuse him of libel and sue him for a hundred million baht. Now, everybody censors themselves." He also started to take on the Army and the Monarchy. That's when he made a major mistake.
There had been rumors for years that Thaksin wanted the abolition of the Monarchy and during the 2004-2006 period, that became quite obvious. He disrespected the King on several occasions. Critically, when the 2006 military promotions and reshuffle list was made up, he took the list approved by the King and rewrote it to put his own supporters and family members in pretty much all of the key positions. That was a direct challenge to the King (not to mention a calculated insult to both the King and the Army) and it cost him everything. The Army decided to move and in September 2006, Thaksin was removed by a military coup. Once he had lost his power to issue libel suits at will, a mass of dirt started coming out. Basically the problem was that he couldn't distinguish between his own private financial dealings and those of the state (under his doctrine of course there was no such difference). He had been using his position to massively enrich his family and himself. With the courts purged of his supporters who had blocked any previous investigations, he was accused of corruption on a massive scale – we're talking billions. When his wife was found guilt of buying government assets at far below market price and then reselling them, he jumped bail and ran for it. He's been in exile ever since.