Shades of 1930s in intimidation
Red shirts throughout the country should prepare for a new struggle because a movement to bring down Prime Minister Yingluck's government is likely to kick into action in December, Pheu Thai party list MP and red-shirt core member Jatuporn Prompan said on
Born in the United States in 1932, I grew up during WWII and still remember how that war began - how the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime under Adolf Hitler's dictatorship were revealed both during that world-wide conflict and afterwards. In Nazi Germany during the 1930s, lie after lie was fed to the citizenry in order to create an aura of invincibility of the German government and people, thereby drawing them into the belief that only the Nazi regime had the answers to all their problems. As soon as the people had been hood-winked sufficiently, all pretense of democracy disappeared when on the night of November 9, 1938, the Nazis coordinated an attack on Jewish people and their property in Germany and German-controlled lands. The violence, instigated by Joseph Goebbels, left 91 Jews dead and hundreds seriously injured. About 7,500 Jewish businesses were gutted and some 1,000 synagogues burned or damaged. The Gestapo arrested 30,000 Jewish males, offering to release them only if they emigrated and surrendered their wealth. The incident marked a major escalation in the Nazi program of Jewish persecution, foreshadowing the Holocaust. These organised riots were presented as a reprisal for the shooting on November 7 of Herr vom Rath of the German Embassy in Paris. He was killed by mistake, by a 17-year-old Jewish murderer who had intended to assassinate the ambassador and mistook Rath for him.
Now, here in Thailand, we are seeing a prime minister who is in control of nothing other than her expensive wardrobe while the government she heads is being run by power-hungry individuals who in both word and deed have made perfectly clear that they will tolerate no criticism. Will we now see a Thai style Crystal Night (Kristallnacht) repeated here in Thailand when instead of the Jews being the target it will be anyone who is either critical of or opposed to the current government? Is this what MP Jatuporn is alerting his minions to be ready to do? To amend President Abraham Lincoln's famous description of democratic government in his Gettysburg Address, is this now a Government of the Pheu Thai/Red Shirts, By the Pheu Thai/Red Shirts and For the Pheu Thai/Red Shirts?
William Reynolds
Chiang Mai
