Don’t stress if you can’t read the Thai, it’s similar to the Back To The Classroom article from the Bangkok Post. Click for the full version.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Noam Chomsky (and me) on doublethink
Good piece from Noam Chomsky on the problems going on back home.
Very timely, as I see a huge amount of doublethink in Thailand’s politics, Red shirts are demanding a fully-democratic government, but they support Taksin who strong-armed congress and had a horrible record of press-freedom. The taking of the airport by the yellows was seen by many as a perfectly legal form of protest (for which nobody was put in jail), but the taking of shopping malls is considered illegal by those same people.
Even the coup that ousted Taskin was supported by people called the People’s Alliance for Democracy … sure Taksin deserves to rot in jail forever, but supporters of democracy should support the democratic process and use laws and the courts to deal with criminals, not the military.
California today is a dramatic illustration. The world’s greatest public system of higher education is being dismantled. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he’ll have to eliminate state health and welfare programs unless the federal government forks over some $7 billion. Other governors are joining in.
Meanwhile a newly powerful states’ rights movement is demanding that the federal government not intrude into our affairs—a nice illustration of what Orwell called “doublethink”: the ability to hold two contradictory ideas in mind while believing both of them, practically a motto for our times.
But in a brilliant exercise in doublethink, people are led to hate and fear the deficit. That way, business’s cohorts in Washington may agree to cut benefits and entitlements like Social Security (but not bailouts).
At the same time, people should not oppose what is largely creating the deficit—the growing military budget and the hopelessly inefficient privatized healthcare system.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Bangkok Radio For Men
Last night I was a guest on Bangkok Radio For Men, a weekly Thai radio program for gay audiences. Originally I was invited to talk about the differences between gay society in Bangkok and San Francisco, but once this news came out they wanted to expert opinion on whether Yoga could make people straight. We covered a few other things, then opened the phones for calls …. most of the calls were from kids complaining about problems in love, and two calls from people whose boyfriends were forced to marry women by their parents. Anyway, my part starts around 24:30 of the first clip and carries through to the second clip.
Of course, listening to my voice on the tapes I hear all sorts of problems with my Thai, vowels said the wrong length, a tendency to say แบบ excessively, much in that annoying way that Americans say “like” constantly.
Monday, April 13, 2009
This mess in Bangkok ….
So when I read about a bus being set on fire up the street from me, I had to go check it out (from the safety of my roof at a zoom lens). I took these while listening to gun fire and the Muslim call to prayer that was happening at the same time. I think it’s rather ironic (and probably very politically incorrect of me to say this) that we have fighting caused by a Budhists happening at the same time that Muslims were going to pray. (I guess it’s also ironic that the government is able to kill Muslims in the south, but can’t keep our airport open. )
Anyway, I’m fine …. staying around my apartment. My only real danger is dying of malnutrition, as I don’t have much more than potato chips in the house. Hopefully the pizza guy can make it through later.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Copy Cops
So Bangkok is known for fake Gucci, Rolexes, car parts, movies and now cops. These fake cops have been turning up at major intersections lately, I’m guessing that they will maybe get people to slow down … ohh and if I’m in a fake hit-and-run accident, I am sure they will be extremely helpful. I’m not sure if it’s a sign of an economic downturn that we can’t afford enough cops or it means that Thailand’s economy is doing so well that police officer’s salaries have been steadily increasing.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Individuality
In Thailand the current King is on every banknote, in India it’s Ghandi, in Vietnam it’s Hồ Chí Minh and in the USA each bill is a different dead president. I point this out, because it highlights a really interesting point. In the states, there is this culture of independence and individuality that encourages people to be different and have egos. In most of Asia, the opposite is true. It’s important to fit in with the masses, and if someone is going to be elevated then it will be for one person in an almost god-like manner. In Thailand, the King’s image is protected be lèse majesté laws, and I am guessing that similar laws protect Ho Chi Minh’s image in Vietnam.
In the states, especially in present-day history classes we are generally taught about the faults of our country’s great men along with their accomplishments. Thomas Jefferson was the principle author of the Declaration of Independence but at the same time owned a huge number of slaves, Christopher Columbus was the first European explorer to find the Americas but then he massacred and enslaved most of the Native Americans that he found. In having the opportunity to study people for their accomplishments and their faults, I find that it allows us the opportunity to see the human side of each of them. When we see that they aren’t gods, that they make mistakes or that they make sacrifices, it allows for insight into their decision making process. If, instead, the person is above analysis and the histories are controlled by the government the person starts to seem less real to me.
Ok, so this is a bit of a long-winded explanation of the picture above. Hồ Chí Minh died in 1969 and was eventually installed in the above shrine for viewing. We queued up outside and were told how to behave: hats and sunglasses off, hands out of our pockets, don’t hold hands, don’t talk, stay in line, etc … inside the cool inner chamber, Uncle Hồ’s body lies in state for ten months out of the year (the other two he spends being restored in Russia). Jimmy picked up one of the official histories, which was really interesting to read. Each sentence seemed crafted to raise him to this super-human status, which in many ways seems rather ironic for a Communist.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Super Obama
The image above is from a weekly Thai news magazine, what the text says really isn’t all that important, what is important the fact that it made the cover of the magazine. On the day of the election, there was Obama news on the front cover of virtually every Thai-language newspaper. The debates were on Thai TV, and there were multiple election returns parties going on. I was an a party put on my Democrats Abroad at a bar that I shared with about 200+ other expats and interested people. The USA embassy put on a huge party in a hotel ballroom which was attended by the Thai prime minister, the USA Ambassador to Thailand, over 1,000 interested college and high-school students, along with lots of expats and Thais.
I’m throwing this all out there, because I don’t know if the rest of the world knows how much people outside of the USA follow her politics. Part of the reason was the monumental fact that a black man had gone so far, but a bigger reason is probably the fact that USA politics both directly effect and indirectly influence virtually everyone in the world. Leading up to the election, random people would stop me and talk to me about the election, students at my university would ask me if I supported Obama. The blackness was likely an issue here too, darker Thais are often discriminated against and magazines are constantly pushing light-skinned Asians as the beautiful ones. To see a black man make it so far in USA, must in some ways be an inspiration.
About a week ago, I was talking with a boy who “works in a bar” (and yes that’s euphemism) and he started to tell me how he and his friends crowded around the TV on election day and were blown away that Obama mentioned gay people in his speech. He started telling me that how even in open-minded Thailand that gays are sometimes discriminated against and how he thought that Obama’s comments would influence politics here.
It’s going to be interesting to see where this all goes, he seems like he’s doing some really good stuff … He may just be able to reverse the reputation that the USA has around the world, and reduce the risk of terrorist attacks by making people not pissed off at us.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
More Stuff You May Not Know About Laos
When Ambassador [to Laos from USA] William Sullivan assumed his post in Vientiane near the end of 1964, his assignment was to wage war while maintaining the fiction of the Geneva Accords, which he had personally helped to negotiate. He came to the Lao capital aware of US plans for Operation Rolling Thunder – a sustained carpet-bombing campaign against North Vietnamese designed to go “after the manure pile” rather than simply swatting flies, as the Commander of the US Air Force, General Curtis Le May, eloquently put it. Even before the Vietnam operation began, Sullivan established his own programs for Laos, called Operation Barrel Roll in the north and Operation Steel Tiger in the south.
Sullivan set the tone for the US campaign in Laos – ground troops were kept out (apart from reconnaissance missions and raids on the Ho Chi Minh Trail area) and military planes had to take off in complete secrecy. As British journalist Christopher Robbines wrote in The Ravens, based on interviews with pilots who fought in “the Other Theather”, “There was another war even nastier than the one in Vietnam, and so secret that the location of the country in which it was being fought was classified …. The men who chose to fight in it where handpicked volunteers, and anyone accepted for a tour seemed to disappear as if from the face of the earth.”
From 1964 until the ceasefire of February 1973, United States plans flew 580,944 sorties – or 177 a day – over Laos and dropped 2,093,100 tonnes of bombs – equivalent to one planeload of bombs every eight minutes around the clock for nine years – making Laos the most heavily bombed country per-capita in the history of warfare.
- The Rough Guide To Laos
Friday, October 10, 2008
What exactly makes people think that McCain / Palin can fix this country?
Part of me thinks it is just plain stupidity, that most people are just dumb and don’t know any better. I mean, most people don’t read much more than USAToday and some gossip magazines, so I guess I can’t expect them to make much of an educated decision about things …
… then again, people could be racist and not fully realize it.
Monday, September 22, 2008
let’s hope obama wins and takes this to heart
The artist, however faithful to his personal vision of reality, becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an officious state. The great artist is thus a solitary figure. [...] In pursuing his perceptions of reality, he must often sail against the currents of his time. This is not a popular role. [...] I see little of more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist. If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him. We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth. [...] In free society art is not a weapon and it does not belong to the spheres of polemic and ideology. Artists are not engineers of the soul. [...] And the nation which disdains the mission of art invites the fate of Robert Frost’s hired man, the fate of having ‘nothing to look backward to with pride, and nothing to look forward to with hope.’
– President John F. Kennedy, in remarks given at Amherst College, October 26, 1963
(found on Conscientious)
btw: have you registered to vote?
