The fading yellow
Great op-ed last week by Voranai Vanijaka in the Bangkok Post talking about the fading power that is known as the yellow shirts or PAD. Close friends know the vitriol I’ll use when talking about this group given how they impacted my family, friends and myself.
When the Criminal Court on Feb 28 this year sentenced Sondhi to 20 years in jail without parole for violating the Securities and Exchange Act, the only yellow in the streets were the lights that tells drivers to speed up, floor the gas pedal.
When army tanks rolled into the capital in September 2006, the yellows greeted the soldiers with cheers and flowers. Last week when they wanted to use the grounds of the Army Club for a political rally, they were told to ”go somewhere else”.
That refusal signified one of the last few remaining breaths of an organisation that once moved a Kingdom, but now can’t even move more than a few hundred people onto the streets.
How has it come to this?
Source: Bangkok Post
Nodoubt
Voranai Vanijaka’s commentaries for BKK Post is almost readable and may sound intelligent when compare to much of the right-wing/conservative junk especially compare to the Nation. Let’s not pretend that Voranai is neutral though, and though he has been “more fair” than other analysts probably, his sneaky trick to insert for example “As an organisation, the UDD is run by professionals. As an organisation, the PAD is a part-time gig.” is exactly that, the same crap that conservatives have attacked the red for- Thaksin’s got the money, all the reds are bought bla bla bla crap.
Pon
Haha, well put Roger, in the end politics here is a ridiculous game played out by the fellows at the top. Even the thai newspapers reported 2 years ago that members of the “PAD” and the “Red-Shirts” are family related. Alas lets just enjoy this watching this drama unfold and hope that the media actually has a proper look into who receives all the latest government concessions and why.