On Thai govt, be careful where you get your news
Re: “Message to excitable expats: You are not living under a vicious dictatorship”, Have Your Say, yesterday.
I am not aware that anyone who is less than enthralled by the present government in Thailand has compared it to the brutal 1970s dictatorship in Argentina, as A Johnsen seems to think, an excitable and irrational comparison if ever there was one.
The recent World Bank report cited by Johnsen indicates impressive economic progress in Thailand, which is welcome news, but another recent World Bank report states that around five million Thais still live below the poverty line, with millions more just above it. The lack of financial and material resources for provincial hospitals is well known, and there is still inadequate welfare assistance for the elderly, but the government splurges money on more military hardware of dubious strategic value. One does not need to be in receipt of money from shadowy foreign agents of chaos to highlight these obvious facts.
I am disappointed that the writer gives the oxygen of publicity to a particular website which he touts as an alternative source of news. Well, it certainly is, being one of a clutch of interrelated “media outlets” based in Moscow which disseminate news mixed with Russian propaganda aimed at undermining Western governments and interests. Their output is liberally sprinkled with lies and distortions. I am opposed to censorship, thus would not seek to dissuade anyone from taking Johnsen’s advice, but suggest that those who choose to do so keep an open mind and deploy liberal quantities of scepticism.
Robin Grant
Bangkok
