The military gang of thugs running Thailand are nothing if not hypocritical. Perhaps the best example of their hypocrisy is their various morality campaigns.
These began with The Dictator’s “12 core values of the Thai people.” Of course, like most dictatorial regimes, such moral diktats were designed to repress, suppress and discipline.
While schoolchildren are still required to rote learn these “values,” the idea that Thailand’s murderous and corrupt military can lecture citizens on anything like values is unadulterated hypocrisy and has nothing to do with morals and everything to do with repression.
The military dictatorship’s moral campaigns are not being embedded for the long term. The propaganda arm of the regime, the National News Bureau of Thailand reports that the junta “has given approval to the national moral promotion master plan, with the intent of creating peace [they mean order and discipline] at all levels of society.”
Minister of Culture Weera Rojpotchanarat has said that there is a “national master plan for the promotion of moral integrity for the year 2016-2021 as proposed by the ministry. The objective of the plan is to involve all sectors in instilling morality, ethics and the right values in the people.”
The “master plan” has four “strategies,” and there are no prizes for guessing what they are:
- “to elevate the mind of public members by encouraging them to uphold religion and the monarchy.”
- “to strengthen related operations and mechanisms in order to promote morality in a concrete and effective manner”
- “to foster cooperation networks and role models to spearhead the effort
- “to turn Thailand into a model of morality for other countries in ASEAN and around the world.”
The moral enforcers are threatening to ensure “that the plan reaches people in all communities.”
The junta seems to be settling in for the long haul.
Political Prisoners in Thailand 