On taking to the streets in protest

Richard Barlow writes:  Re. “Razer’s Class Warfare: you call that a protest?” (yesterday). I think Helen Razer and Annabel Crabb make the point about why real world protests work.  Anyone who deals with the media knows that they only report a story if there is crying, violence, or confronting anger. A good protest makes the evening news because it offers us all of the above. Do protests work ?  Of course, look at Egypt.  Does it always work the way you would like it to ?  I guess you would need to ask an Egyptian.

The boats have not stopped

Dr George Crisp writes: Re. “The boats have stopped” (yesterday). In their haste to denounce Bernard Keane’s article, Messrs Calderwood and Lambert have exemplified the folly of using the “end to justify the means”. By doing so they have overlooked that intervention confers responsibility. Put another way, we cannot justify reducing the danger to asylum seekers from seeking a dangerous passage without ensuring that we do not inadvertently (or otherwise) subject them to another danger. By their reasoning (or unreasoning) surgeons should be entirely exempt from liability when operations go wrong. Fortunately we are wiser than this.

Secondly, the boats clearly have not stopped. If they had, there would be no need for purchasing hundreds of new orange “lifeboats”.

Business (mostly) as usual in Thailand

Brendan Giffney writes: Re. “The unspoken but crucial role of Thailand’s royal family in Thailand’s current crisis” (Monday). I too am an expat in Thailand and I wonder where your anonymous expat in this report has been for the last few days. Sure the TV went off for a couple of days but with the masses threatening to rise up if the soapies weren’t back on air, transmission was restored. Despite what your expat says the overseas news channels, Australia Network, BBC, Fox, Channel News Asia etc were also restored shortly after and have remained on air. On Wednesday Facebook was down for a few hours before it was allowed back on.

For the visitor, or expat, nothing has really changed. The curfew has been moved from 10pm-5am to midnight-4am which has given those here for the nightlife a better chance at enjoying it. Many of the bars have been ignoring it anyway. I live in Chiang Mai, the ancestral home of the Shinawatras  (Thaksin and Yingluck) and reputedly a hot bed of the red shirts (the pro-government supporters). Apart from a few soldiers on a few of the streets you would not know Thailand was in political turmoil. This is how it is now,  but perhaps not for long as the red shirts have sworn revenge if their government was overthrown. And it has been.