Chatree Prakitnonthakarn is dead right?
Or Chatree Ladalalitsakul is dead right?

I vote for Chatree Prakitnonthakarn.

The Map Tha Phut "story" ought to be the catalyst that galvanizes the Thai people into action, that demonstrates the way for them to organize, to defend themselves, to seize power in their own country, to legitimately occupy the seat of their own government.

Elsewhere I saw a link to In Industrial Thailand, Health and Business Concerns Collide

The judgments stunned foreign investors, infuriated powerful Thai companies and jolted an already shaky Thai government. The Thai Chamber of Commerce has warned that if the injunction against dozens of projects is not lifted soon, the Thai economy could suffer for the next decade.

To the MSM worldwide the story is all about the polluters and their "investments" but in Thailand the overlords are infuriated at the temerity of the "underclasses" in challenging them!

The historic Siam, that cosmopolitan mob of Indians, Chinese, Persians, Portugese, Japanese... and a Greek, remains alive and well in Bangkok. The health of the Thai people, the state of the Thai environment is of utterly no consequence to them, just so long as something remains to exploit. There is good reason that the people preferred to take their chances with the Burmese to helping their overlords at Ayuthaya repel them.

And this new Siamese palace is meant to be the seat of their continuing exploitation.

There is no meaningful alternative to Thaksin because all the political parties in Thailand are cut from the same cloth : alien exploiters, despoilers, consumers of the countryside and its people.

“In rural areas, there is almost no enforcement at all. Water pollution, air pollution, noise pollution — you can make all the complaints you want, and no one pays any attention to you.”

This story, played as the "tragedy" of the international investors, ought to be enough to make the blood of every Thai boil, to embolden them to fight for their own interests. Certainly no political party will ever do so.

“I don’t care about investors,” he [Srisuwan Janya, the lawyer who won the case] said. “I don’t care about losing employment and the economy. I just care that people’s lives will be protected... I will file lawsuits against all of them.”

John Francis Lee: Unless you're trying to be facetious, your comment completely misses the point that Bangkok Pundit was making. He was not derogating the people's rights to education, medical treatment, or anything else. He was pointing out that it's false hope to enshrine such rights in the constitution without a meaningful follow-through in the form of funding and enabling legislation, and even then it's still false hope because it's virtually impossible to establish a system that provides everyone equally the "rights" that the constitution has optimistically established.

In the Map Ta Phut case, the court (evaluating only section 67) has sent the message that the constitution means what it says. The problem that BP highlights is that the constitution establishes many "aspirational rights" that cannot realistically be enforced. So the court's ruling that the constitution means what it says cannot realistically be applied to all the rights guaranteed in the constitution.

JFL: I meant Chatree P, sorry if I wasn't clear.

Thanks for exposing B Pundit's views on Map Tha Phut, for some time now I have been getting increasingly uneasy with his/her direction.

From International Herald Tribune on the case:

Mr. Srisuwan, the lawyer who won the injunction, is unapologetic about the potential economic effects of the decision. “I don’t care about investors,” he said. “I don’t care about losing employment and the economy. I just care that people’s lives will be protected.”

There are 181 other factories in Thailand that are not complying with the new Constitution, including paper, steel and petroleum companies, he says. “I will file lawsuits against all of them,” Mr. Srisuwan said.

The guy is a hero. I hope he is well protected.

were you drunk,

No. Although I was a drunk I have not had a drink in 27 years.

or do you just have difficulty with analyses that go beyond black & white, & attempt to be realistic?

Expanding the "grey" area is indeed the purview of the world's oldest profession, lawyers. Map Ta Phut is surely painted in many various shades of grey.

You readily call me a drunk but I hesitate to call you a lawyer. You seem to gravitate to the ad hominem attacks quite readily. Based on your uncanny ability to detect "the truth" by telepathic means, no doubt. Alas, I've no interest in either of your specialties. I'm sure you're a fine fellow, although I have no reason to say so. Other than my own life experience. Most people are fine fellows.

"Although I was a drunk I have not had a drink in 27 years" - too much information & quite irrelevant. The question was,"Were you drunk?" (i.e. when you read BP's blog, NOT 27 years ago!) Interesting that you should then, in your mind, cause the question to become an accusation, and then an "ad hominem attack." And why do you need to say,"I hesitate to call you a lawyer?" Nothing I've said represents me as a lawyer. Neither do I aspire to clairevoyance. It seems you are developing a habit of reading all kinds of information that is not really there into comments.

I am not interested in being BP's protector or spokesperson. I'm sure he doesn't need one. My comment was intended to wake you up to the fact of your misenterpretation of BP's statement, & your false attribution of rather sinister motives to him. But if you are really serious about arguing against his post, why are you pussy-footing around, bitching about him on another site? Why not go to his blogspot and meet him head-on?

Sam Deedes, wouldn't it be more productive for you to do the same? (What's the point in challenging an assertion by someone who is accessible on their own blogsite, on an entirely different blogsite?)

John Francis Lee: I don't think he was apologising. What made you think that? Are you not sober yet? (Try reading BP's blog when you are, it makes a lot more sense that way.)

JFL - I don't want to turn this thread into a boring argument about your past, but I will say the following: When I make an unreasonable statement & my friends respond with "How could you have said such a thing. Were you drunk?" I don't take offence about the possibility of my having been drunk. All of my friends understand that I do get drunk occasionally, as most of them do. So I laugh it off. As they would. None of them would ever imagine that I could be called a drunkard (i.e. an alcoholic), because, fortunately, I am not. So the question is not taken as an accusation. It is taken as a joke. You, on the other hand are apparently a reformed alcoholic, a fact which I did not know.

I am not unsympathetic to this. But I do hope you understand that in the absence of information I was quite innocent of malicious intent when I made the remark, "Were you drunk?" It has obviously caused you some discomfort, and I apologise for that.
However, I still think your hatchet job on BP is silly and malicious, and that you should go back & read his comments with an open mind.

Thanks for this article. I was looking for something along this line of thought.

Thanks, Joy. Same to you, & all my Prachatai contacts. Let's hope things improve next year! I'm off to 2 parties now: a fantastic Thai Birthday party, and a traditional home-cooked Christmas dinner with several farang-Thai families. Ten days off! Lovely.

I don't take offence about the possibility of my having been drunk. All of my friends understand that I do get drunk occasionally, as most of them do.

Yes, I used to have that same perspective, so I am understanding if not sympathetic. Your apology is accepted. But please remember that the conduct of yourself and most of your friends is not as broadly accepted as you think it is.

I stand by my assessment of the BP and many of the other Western commentators on Thailand who are neoliberals to whom the exploitation of Thailand is taken for granted, whose only real objections are that the Thai government is not yet with the "mainstream" of the world economy and therefore not acting expeditiously enough.

I think that "mainstream" economics is a ponzi scheme, built upon an unsupportable "foundation" of endless growth, and therefore not to expedited at all.

So we may differ there.