Re: Populism rears its ugly head
- From: Blade@xxxxxxxxxx (Deckard)
- Date: Thu, 01 Nov 2007 08:15:01 GMT
On Wed, 31 Oct 2007 18:16:48 +0800, pluto <pluto@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
The Nation's Contempt for the Poor Rears its Ugly Head, Again
EDITORIAL
Populism rears its ugly head
Voters must learn to distinguish between principled policies and empty promises
of handouts
The Nation pontificates:
The problem is that it is quite difficult for many people - particularly those
who are not well educated or who belong to the lower rungs of the socio-economic
groups - to tell the difference between good and bad policies touted by
political parties in the run-up to the election. This is not only because the
country's 75-year-old democracy has been too often punctured by periods of
authoritarian rule, but also because the quality of public debate in this
country has remained poor. People invariably fail to ask really important
questions of political parties, such as where they are going to find the money
to finance the populist policies they promise to implement if and when they
achieve political power and form a government.
In other words, poor people are too stupid to understand policies that help them
and The Nation's editorial staff are the only people in Thailand who know the
difference between a "good government program" that helps society and an "evil
populist program" thats sole intent is to bribe voters.
It is the media's responsibility to investigate and report on political party
agendas and government policies.
When has The Nation ever done a cost benefit analysis of any populist program?
The answer is never.
Has The Nation ever done any significant polling or an investigation regarding
why Thais like this program or that program?
The answer is never.
The Nation's pontificates:
To carry out populist policies, including village funds, low-cost housing
projects, debt moratorium for farmers and People's Bank credit programmes, the
Thaksin government had to bend rules that were made to ensure sound governance
and good economic stewardship. This allowed corruption to happen.
Uh, has The Nation ever provided evidence to back up this accusation? The answer
is never.
The Nation's pontificating continues:
Bad populist policies are implemented with little regard to the facts of
unprincipled and wasteful use of the country's resources. The unthinking
spending of taxpayer's money and the incurring of excessive public debts by the
government must somehow be paid for by future generations of taxpayers. In other
words, the entitlements the Thaksin government heaped on the current generation
of taxpayers will pose an unacceptable level of risk to Thailand's financial
standing, if not also the economic destiny of our children.
Again, there is absolutely no evidence that Thaksin's spending bankrupted the
country.
The Surayud government, on the other hand, has increased the defense budget to
fight phantom foreign enemies, funded multi-million baht propaganda campaigns to
destroy its political enemies, and has increased deficit spending in the name of
sufficiency economics. Plus the Surayud government has spent untold millions of
baht spent on luxury junkets for generals like General Saprang's phony fact
funding trip to Europe, spent millions sending prosecutors to Britain to
extradite Thaksin and has spent billions on wasteful celebrations for the King's
birthday.
The Nation lies:
The financial mess left behind by the Thaksin government, which is now being
cleaned up by the interim Surayud government, will pose a considerable burden to
the future government.
Actually, the economic mess that Surayud is leaving behind is much worse in
terms of growth, corruption indicators, deficit spending, inflation than what
incurred under Thaksin. I am the first to admit that a government can't be
responsible for everything in a capitalist economy, but for The Nation to say
that Surayud has improved the situation when the economic indicators show
otherwise is disgraceful.
More Nation idiocy here:
That's why it is disturbing to see a new crop of populist policies being
promoted by so many political parties whose main concern is to persuade gullible
people to vote for them and to put them in power. Any political awareness
campaign to be launched by the Election Commission and the Surayud government
between now and the election must include teaching people how not to be
distracted by grand-sounding populist policies and how to ask the right
questions. These must include where the political parties propose to find the
money to finance their policies and how to make sure those policies will
continue to benefit the public in the long run?
These idiots at The Nation are a a disgrace to the journalism profession. Read
the paragraph carefully. The Nation actually believes that the government should
play the role that the press is supposed to play in a democracy. No Suthichai,
it isn't a military appointed government's role to tell people how to behave
politically. No Suthichai, it isn't a military appointed government's role to
dictate to people how to make electoral decisions just because you and your
sycophants don't like the results of elections in the past.
Posted by Fonzi at 9:34 AM
============================================================
============================================================[IN REPLYING/DETERING TROLLS PLEASE DELETE THIS CROSSPOST]
I fully agree with you.
The Nation's editors are the lapdogs of anti-Thaksin billionaires and
the slaves of the senile putchists.
Shame on them and the many traitors from the PAD!
Regards,
Mort
.
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- Populism rears its ugly head
- From: pluto
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