Postbag: None of our business

Postbag: None of our business

Not only do I agree with Mr P (PostBag, Jan 9) and Brian Stocks (PostBag, Jan 10) that it would be wrong for expats to involve themselves in anti-government rallies, but I think it's outrageous for PostBag writers to be supporting insurrection in this country.

If regular PostBag contributor Richard Bowler, for example. doesn't recognise the legitimacy of the Yingluck Shinawatra government, then how can he regard his visa (which I assume he has) as being legitimate? How can a visa be more legitimate than the government which gave it to you?

These hypocrites know fully well that demonstrators would never get away with attempting to shutdown a major city in the US or the UK. (And don't tell me that US presidents and British prime ministers haven't done things far worse than Yingluck.) In my opinion these writers are abusing their privileges and are giving the rest of us a very bad name.

Eric Bahrt
Pattaya


REFORMS OR JUST PARROT-TALK?

Re: ''Suthep should be shut down, not Bangkok'' (BP website, Jan 9).

Anyone with common sense will agree with Voranai Vanijaka that reform can only be achieved in small steps. If there is anything to be learned from the 2012 political crisis and the government shutdown in the US, it is that disgruntled politicians cannot turn reforms into explosives to throw at the people they don't like. In the end, fighting factions had to negotiate a way out of the crisis to save the country from chaos.

Prolonging conflicts only hurts the country, its image and its fragile economy. The ''my way or the highway'' choice being forced upon us by Suthep Thaugsuban is not going to bring any reforms. According to Mr Abhisit, 2014 is the year of reforms. Just like the protest leaders, he also sounds like a parrot. His party cannot fight elections on reform issues, but he doesn't hesitate using them to remain in politics.

Just like Thaksin, Mr Suthep is a career politician, except he is frustrated with his own career and the performance of his party, which has not won at the ballot box since 1992. Now, with his new found popularity, he believes he can force reforms through on his own terms.

I agree with Voranai that it is time to stop this parrot-talk and start some serious negotiations to resolve the current crisis.

Kuldeep Nagi


STOP FORCE-FEEDING US THIS CRUELTY

As Vanniya Sriangura is a food writer, I find it hard to believe she is unaware of the cruelty involved in the production of foie gras, and yet week after week after week she writes about eating it in her restaurant reviews for the Bangkok Post.

On Friday she even beseeched one restaurant to rethink its laudable decision to remove foie gras from its menu, on account of it being a ''luxury'' item. Clearly she is not at all concerned with the poor animals that are literally tortured for weeks just for the pleasure of her tastebuds.

Many countries have banned the production and sale of this morally unsound foodstuff, and I ask the Post not to promote it any further through the pages of your restaurant reviews.

Sean Butler


HE'S NOT MY FATHER

Ban Ki-moon, secretary-general of the United Nations, wants to mediate in Thailand's political turmoil. Mr Ban is like a meddlesome old lady, as effective as my old Auntie Wong in mediating disputes in mahjong games.

If the UN had become involved in Thaksin's extra-judicial killings of 2,800 innocent people during his ''war on drugs'' and the Kru Se mosque incident, perhaps Thailand would not have reached this critical point. People are fed up with the UN's gift for the gab and its ineffectiveness in solving world problems.

The UN is ignored by most countries most of the time. The UN is all bark, no bite, and its secretary-general is more effective at fixing diplomatic parking tickets in New York.

David James Wong
San Francisco


SAFER HERE THAN AT HOME

It is always interesting to note US reactions to Thai actions. The latest advisory is to stockpile food, money, drinking water, etc.

The siege mentality is always evident. I feel safer in Bangkok at its worst than in Detroit, Chicago or Los Angeles at their best. Bangkok is even safer at its worst than Toronto, Canada's No.1 showcase city.

Let those inside the US embassy surround themselves with more marines, hoard stockpiles of food, (bring in the cattle, sheep, goats and chickens _ they certainly don't lack money), and live inside their compounds. The rest of us, and those in Bangkok will simply go about our business as usual, inconvenienced perhaps, but nevertheless, this is Thailand, not Iraq, Iran or Afghanistan. Perhaps, if the US had not meddled internationally, those places might be safe too.

Jack Gilead
Prachin Buri


THE PEOPLE ARE COMING

Contrary to all the stereotyped monologues and cliches of the ''Bangkok elite'' and ''the rich against the underprivileged'', we now see supporters of the anti-government protest arriving from the North and the Northeast: from Chiang Mai, Udon Thani and Nakhon Ratchasima. The numbers arriving to close down Bangkok are swelling. The corruption and incompetency of the current self-serving regime, at the people's expense, has hit an immovable object _ hundreds of thousands from across the land converging on the capital.

As the saying goes: ''You can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all the people all of the time,'' and the time has come for Ms Yingluck and her cronies to walk away now with at least a tad of dignity, or face an ignoble end. If they walk away now, Bangkok can remain open and flowing with the sun in the sky. A new era will be born.

The social divide is fading away as all people share a common cause; to achieve good, fair and just government free from corruption and free from the nonsense of the amnesty bill and the rice-pledging scheme; and free from plunging the country into a 2.2-trillion-baht debt which would encumber the country for generations.

Democracy _ for the people, by the people _ is now in sight.

JC Wilcox


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