Here in Thailand, the Department of Environmental Quality Promotion has announced that 14 department stores have joined their campaign to reduce the number of plastic bags given to customers. Certainly that’s a good start, and if they can get other retail chains — particularly the one-on-every-block 7-Eleven stores — to join the campaign, that will be even better. And why stop at plastic bags? The number of straws — another form of plastic nonsense — that these stores regularly dispense is absolutely insane!
As I predicted last week, the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has announced plans to boost Thailand’s battered image. According to an article in the Bangkok Post this week, TAT plans to spend up to 600 million baht (that’s over 17 million US dollars) to “restore international confidence” in the tourism industry. In the article one TAT official vows that “it would take two to three months to restore confidence among foreign visitors.” That’s incredibly, and naively, optimistic. After the series of unfortunate events that have happened in Thailand since late last year, it’s going to take a helluva lot longer than a few months to restore anyone’s confidence; perhaps two or three YEARS is more realistic. That aside, there is no guarantee that there won’t be more street protests or unruly mob behavior in Thailand this year. In fact, it’s highly likely the kingdom will see a repeat of the ugly scenes that we witnessed earlier this month. The TAT would do better to hold on to their big budget for now instead of wasting it on ineffective advertising and silly road shows. At least one columnist at the Bangkok Post shares my view that TAT is jumping the gun with their revival plans. In his column this week Boonsong Kositchotethana wrote that TAT’s campaign “may be premature and wasteful” and their planned road show to Dubai in May was “also likely to be futile.” And yet … the show goes on.
Speaking of people who are clueless, former US vice-president Dick Cheney resurfaced with some choice comments this week. Tricky Dicky apparently does not approve of new President Barack Obama’s recent diplomatic efforts. Obama has had the audacity to actually sit down and talk — or express a willingness to do so — to leaders of countries that Cheney and Bush considered evil empires. Imagine that; talking and listening to other countries instead of criticizing and lecturing them! I applaud Obama’s fresh approach to world diplomacy instead of the hostile and corrosive stance that Bush-Cheney employed. But Cheney remains alarmed by Obama’s attempts to reach out to world leaders like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Cheney called the images of the encounter with Chavez “not helpful,” adding that he thought “it sets the wrong standard.” Cheney also criticized the new administration for “leaking” documents relating to torture methods — or “interrogations programs” as he prefers to call them — that were used during the Bush-Cheney regime. He said it was “disturbing” that Obama had gone overseas and “seemingly apologized” for past actions of the United States. “I think you have to be very careful … both our friends and our foes will be quick to advantage of a situation if they think they’re dealing with a weak president or one who’s not going to stand up and aggressively defend America’s interests,” Cheney said. “The United States provides much of the leadership in the world. We have for a long time. I don’t think we’ve got much to apologize for. And it’s got to be made clear that you do distinguish between good guys and bad guys, between those who believe in democracy, who are friends and allies of the United States and those who don’t.”
That’s a typical Republican analysis: they think someone who doesn’t act superior and condescending towards smaller countries is “weak.” Personally, I think that the US government DOES need to apologize for a lot of what they have done in recent decades. I find it “disturbing” that Cheney and Bush were allowed to get away with as much as they did during their reign, all in the name of Patriotism, Freedom, and Democracy — however they define those terms. And the sad thing is that most of the so-called Free Press gave them a free pass, allowing them to deceive the general public and perpetuate so many of their precious, but destructive policies and programs. But Cheney thinks that he and his myopic cronies have the wisdom to “distinguish between good guys and bad guys.” Scary people.
