From: fstawit@icomp01.lerc.nasa.gov (Tawit Chitsomboon)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.thai
Subject: Re: Ex-MP says he bought votes, will buy again
Keywords: vote-buying
Date: 6 Apr 92 17:13:53 GMT
Article-I.D.: eagle.1992Apr6.171353.2163
Organization: Institute for Computational Mechanics in Propulsion

In article <1992Apr4.165222.6850@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> 
ssg9328@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Samart Srijumnong) writes:
>psuttiyo@metz.une.oz.au (Peerasak Suttiyotin) writes:
>
>>I don't know, either, why some vote buyers still won the election.

>the newspapers, should also have their own agenda. Like other institutions,
>they are far behind and often set back the political development. 
>
>All these must be placed in a decade's agenda. We can not afford talking
>about them only in every four year. We can not let the problem dying down
>with time. As political watchers, we also need agenda!!!!

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Part of the problem, as we all know, is that Thai people are not
politically active. We implicitly invite those BUG to rape us as
many times as they wish. (Why do we keep calling those people with
honorific title BIG? BUG is a more appropriate title. Thailand
will run properly if and only if we are completely debugged.)
We are even worse than prostitutes. A prostitute get paid to be raped;
but we pay our rapists with both honor and money.

One way to correct this, as we again all know, is to have a good
education to our kids. This must be an all-out effort not just an
empty rhetoric as has been so far. We must not only teach them
how the government functions but also how the citizen functions
to make the government functions properly, besides performing
good citizen's duties like: voting, obeying (whose?) law and order,
paying tax and the like. We must teach them in practice also not just in
theory. Even in an elementary school level, decentralization of power
is needed. Let the student body elect their own leaders that can
bargain with the teacher board to set school's rules and regulation;
help them publish school newsletters, set up a forum for them to
debate on political issues, etc. There are a lot we can do
to improve on this end. Trouble is, how do we go about doing all these
seemingly good stuffs given that we have a stupid bureaucracy and 
politicians to start with?

Which brings me to my second point. I think educated and concerned
citizen can no longer afford to be passive. We need to form as many
action groups as possible so that we can pressure the gov
to act as we wish. If we don't do anything, we can't change anything
-- It is the Law of Karma at its best. To hope, for example, that the 
military will reform itself of its own accord is like hoping that racial
prejudice will disappear from this world someday.

When I was a child, I was forced fed with the idea: " You are the
future of Thailand", over and over again. Well, the future is already
here and I still see no future for Thailand. I'm determined to do
somethings which I deem worthy of being born as a Thai citizen
, to pay somethings back to the mother land if you like. When I go back
to Thailand (which should come in a little over a year from now), I
plan to act as a catalyst to form a citizen action group. 
My friends, I invite you all
to join me in this effort. Together, we can serve as an initial seed
that hopefully will grow and prosper and finally spread its seeds
all over the country.

I already dreamed up an anglicized name for the group:
Association of Concerned Thais for Improving Our Nation (ACTION).
Anyway, this is just a ploy to get you hooked with the idea.
Please send me your home address and phone number to be contacted
in Thailand, if you are interested in forming this group; and I will
contacted you as soon as I get back home. Meanwhile, we should form
our private mailing list to discuss things. I can be reached by email
at < fstawit@icomp01.lerc.nasa.gov > When physically possible,
We will sit down together
and share ideas, form agenda/strategy, etc. At a minimum, we should
publish a weekly magazine to serve as both an income earner and to 
spread the seeds.

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