Poll: Majority of Thais see 'no return to happiness' under junta rule

[buksida]

Almost 80% of the population say their level of happiness has either remained unchanged or worsened after four and a half years under the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), according to the result of an opinion survey by the National Institute for Development Administration, or Nida Poll.

The poll was conducted on Nov 12-13 on 1,250 people aged 18 and over of various occupations and levels of education throughout the country to gauge their degree of happiness four and a half years after the NCPO took over the country's administration with a pledge to "return happiness to the people".

Nearly half of the respondents, 47.68%, said their level of happiness is the same as before because the country's economy has not improved and the cost of living is still high; 30.64% said they are less happy than before because of the poor economy, high cost of living, low farm prices, poor law enforcement and too many restrictions on rights and freedoms; 21.20% said they have experienced greater happiness because the country is peaceful and orderly, and the NCPO is determined to get rid of corruption and help the people with projects like state welfare cards; and 0.48% were uncertain or had no comment.

Source: https://www.bangkokpost.com/news/politi ... -nida-poll

[handdrummer]

To be able to return to happiness there had to be happiness to begin with. When was that?

[StevePIraq]

Is this any different to many other countries, UK, USA, France, Germany, Italy to name a few

[buksida]

Well, none of the countries you listed are under un-elected military regimes that seized power and promised them happiness.

[europtimiste]

And those who promised happiness, do they have a happy face ?

[StevePIraq]

Well, none of the countries you listed are under un-elected military regimes that seized power and promised them happiness.

Does that really matter.

[buksida]

I guess in the context of the article and the eyes of the unhappy people polled it does. Who gives a hoot if Italians are unhappy, the topic is about Thailand.

[handdrummer]

1250 people represent 69 million, the total population of Thailand. That's nice. Group think at it's finest.

How To Lie With Statistics, Darrell Huff, 1954. Available in pdf.
Most useful book I read in high school. Maybe the only book I read in high school and 2day I are a genyus.

[buksida]

Granted the poll is a bit silly in terms of numbers, but I still cant see the majority of the population being happy with the regime still holding a vice-like grip over power over four years later. Most of them are likely to be in more debt than they were this time four years ago and the cost of living hasn't exactly gone down.

[Nereus]

I don't normally bother with posting stuff like this as it is mostly political BS, plus I cannot stomach the writer.
Mods please move it if not considered news.
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Out of the box

https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opi ... of-the-box

For kakistocrats who have failed for four years-plus to organise reconciliation, bring back happiness, fight pollution in the air and on the beaches or even to organise so much as a date for an election, our all-male green-shirt regime sure has a lot to criticise about the rest of us.

They seem so disappointed in our lack of respect for their selfless service.

Eight days ago was Children's Day (Official slogan 2019: Good teachers, good students. Developing and stepping forward toward technology). Wednesday was Teachers' Day, and the general prime minister's speech was confusing.

Students should not be told to think out of the box, because they aren't being properly structured in a box. Pupils should discuss issues raised on social media but teachers have to provide strong discipline and inform them what is false information because otherwise they might decide on their own.

On one point he was strongly committed: Get 'em while they're young. "It's easier to instil values in young people" than when they grow up and start thinking for themselves. That is why teachers and other government workers must inject correct-thought into young people. Because if students are allowed to discuss issues before their minds have been completely moulded, "conflict could get worse".

Which proves yet again that the people who make the decisions about right-think are precisely the very last people you ever would freely choose to make such decisions. Not a single teacher rose to state the obvious: If everyone were inculcated in the classroom only with approved thoughts, then government would put the purchase of more tanks ahead of medical care, unusually rich phuyai would flaunt million-dollar watch collections, and deadly haze would once again infuse the capital city for days before even token action.

We wouldn't want any of those to occur.

And teachers don't rise in protest because there are ways to deal with bad-thinking people who, as Junta Order 3/2558 put it, "cause public alarm or public misunderstanding" with divisive views.

That's also the language of new regulations, decrees and laws passed and currently operating. When the Royal Thai Army commander Gen Apirat Kongsompong says, "Don't step over the line" and, "We're watching you", he's not talking through his heavily gold-braided cap.

Nor is his nominal boss. The official arbiter of good-think let the children and their teachers know who he has in the crosshairs of his jihad. Again. Targets haven't changed.

Those targets are politicians. Politicians caused damage to the country in the past. Politicians are promising to cause damage to the country in the future. They make election promises, which identify how despicable they are, vowing to create the unrealistic and make the impossible, possible.

"Don't listen to them!" Gen (Ret) Prayut explained. Or else.

Now, fair enough in one sense. Certainly, everyone should consider election promises. They can be outlandish. These days they seem to be 95% populist including from the Palang Pracharath party (PPRP). But it's rare as hen's teeth for the leader of a supposedly aspiring democracy to warn "don't listen" and intend it literally, and have the means to enforce it.

Because here we are, residents of Orwell's "green shirts good, red and yellow shirts bad" Animal Farm kratocracy, where the act of reading a document online is not only tracked and recorded, it is both legal and illegal at the same time.

For example, just recall the 2016 case of Jatupat Boonpattararaks aka Pai Dao Din. He quite liked a BBC article -- a perfectly legal article read legally by thousands of others -- but he went to prison for five years because when he read the perfectly legal article, the article morphed into a lese majeste document, while it remained (and remains) benign for others.

In a week where the regime declared three dates for an election, none of them valid, officials still don't get it that 1984 wasn't meant to be an instruction manual.

[STEVE G]

The thing with a regime like Thailand has now is that there are absolutely no checks on what they can do so there is no way of knowing how bad they actually are until they're gone.
Most of the military dictatorships in the past have enriched themselves massively whilst they've been in power.