We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Western-style “Democracy” Unravels in Southeast Asia’s Thailand

Click here to access article by Tony Cartalucci from New Eastern Outlook.

Cartalucci exposes the Empire's most frequently used propaganda theme and regime-change program they refer to as promoting "democracy, and shows how it has been applied in Thailand. It doesn't matter to Empire agents who they back as promoting "democracy"; it doesn't matter that their stooge in Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra, is a convicted criminal and wanted by Thai authorities. He still rules in absentia through his sister by holding carefully managed elections.
Despite Thaksin Shinawatra’s demonstrably destructive policies and his autocratic, brutal style of dictatorship – when his overtly criminal actions were ever called into question, he simply held “elections” to give himself a renewed mandate to remain in office. His success at the polls was due to his iron grip on Thailand’s populous, but sorely undeveloped rural northeast region. An array of government subsidies, cheap loans, literal cash handouts, and a Tammany Hall-style political machine ensured not only victory after victory at the polls, but a growing sense of political and legal impunity.
And, of course, elections = "democracy", according to Empire agents. In this article Cartalucci, who refers to this as a "democracy racket", explains how it has failed in Thailand in contrast to so many other Empire applications elsewhere--for example, in nearby Myanmar (see this).