Victory in Thailand for anti-gov't Red Shirts!

Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly (ANALYSIS); BBC.co.uk

Thailand court ousts PM Yingluck: Thailand's Constitutional Court orders Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and several of her ministers to step down on abuse of power charges.

War on the streets of the Thai capital as Red Shirts agitate against political corruption in Buddhist Thailand alongside monks. Yellow Shirts are pro-corrupt gov't (Sakchai Lalit/AP).

Waving the red, white, and blue Thai flag during rally -- protests roar on as radical Red Shirts oppose conservative Yellow Shirts to change the system and clean up government (AP)

 

Monks protest as in the Saffron Revolution (R)

There has been a war on the streets of Bangkok for years as radical revolutionary Red Shirts agitate against political corruption in Theravada Buddhist Thailand. 

Even the monks frequently join in to oppose the Yingluck Shinawatra administration and the previous corrupt administration of her billionaire business mogul brother Thaksin Shinawatra.

Police State successfully resisted by Thais (W)

He was deposed by protesters fighting police and paramilitary forces in the street and went into self-imposed exile to avoid legal reprisals.

He then installed his sister, buying her election to the prime ministership but, allegedly, still pulling the strings and wielding political and business influence from afar.

The battle to oust Thailand's PM: Why has the prime minister been ordered to step down today? Find out the background to the crisis in this 60-second video (BBC.co.uk, May 7, 2014).

  

"Patriotic," conservative Yellow Shirts have been pro-corrupt government. The beloved king has allowed the matter to be resolved by the courts that today handed a victory to the Red Shirts by throwing her out of office. 

Red Shirts disrupt Thailand (BBC)

What does the court's decision mean?

It would be like the Occupy Movement waking up one day and realizing the third Bush/Cheney Administration (called the Obama Administration with a much more attractive leader carrying out all the worst policies of the previous ugly rulers) had been thrown out of office by the Supreme Court and hope for actual change had been restored.

The finance minister has been installed as the interim prime minister by the court. Deposed PM Yingluck Shinawatra is shocked and sad.

Bangkok is a booming Asian economy wracked by corruption in a city (Gift-of-Light/flickr)

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Live from the scene

Wisdom Quarterly reader Dr. Will writes in to say, "Whoever wrote this error-ridden story should be taken out and shot." Thank you, professor. We await your corrections and field report live from the scene. The story contains  links to the BBC version of events. So even though "[we and readers] can find out the facts about the current crisis in Thailand in a couple of minutes of googling," we hope you can do the Buddhist world one better than that and enlighten us all on what has truly happened in Bangkok. Send in your report because we don't want to waltz over to Thammasat U. to pick it up from you. "Jeez, guys!" He who admonishes, ack. But he who enlightens, ahh! Sawadee ka.

Orange County fails to convict its killer cops

Ashley Wells, Pat Macpherson, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly; Chase Madar (PW)

"Ask Mister Republican Man" (Tom Tomorrow/thismodernworld.com)

Pro-Kelly Thomas demonstration (AmberJamie)

As further proof that police cannot be held accountable by our biased (in)justice system: Two of the gang of five murderous Orange County officers who assaulted, threatened, held down, repeatedly beat, Tasered, and finally murdered a helpless, white, mentally disabled, homeless man (Kelly Thomas) were acquitted today.

• Verdict: Not guilty in Kelly Thomas case The verdicts came after two years of hearings, recalled Fullerton city council members, a Police Department roiled by protests and firings. 
• OC jury: Cops who fatally beat Thomas not guilty (LAist)
• PHOTOS: KFI (right wing talk) AM radio

Jay Cicinelli and Manuel Ramo (OCR)

Plans to try a third officer involved in the gang killing are being aborted. Former Fullerton PD Officer Manuel Ramos was the first active duty officer to ever be charged with murder in the line of duty. With his acquittal -- even after many protests by concerned citizens and the victim's father, Ron Thomas, a former police officer who advocated for his dead son. Were it not for the father's advocacy, the case would have likely been swept under the rug. It is likely no charges would have ever been brought against him or fellow killers (former Officer Jay Cicinelli and Officer Joseph Wolfe) beyond the Office of Internal Affairs in the Department (where they were slapped on the backs in the locker room and called macho by fellow cops for killing a hapless, schizophrenic "bum").
 

Kelly Thomas after police gang beating (FF)

Even right wing radio hosts thought this beating and murder was excessive by their pro-police standards of vigilante justice. This is to say nothing of the police killings of Latins around Disneyland and other ongoing abuses in Anahiemstan, like police shootings at Occupy sites.

Welcome to Anaheimstan: the police state around "the Happiest Place on Earth"

 

Equality before the cops?

Chase Madar ("Afraid in America," PasadenaWeekly.com, 12-17-13)

 Anaheim, Orange County protests over police killings spark unrest

 
It will surprise no one that Americans are treated unequally by the police. Law enforcement picks on kids more than adults, the gay more than the straight, Muslims more than Methodists (a lot more than Methodists), antiwar activists more than cowering conformists.

Above all, our punitive police state targets the poor more than the wealthy and blacks and Latinos more than white people.

A case in point: After the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School, a police presence -- including surveillance cameras and metal detectors -- was ratcheted up at schools around the country, particularly in urban areas with largely working-class black and Latin students. It was all to “protect” the kids, it was said.

But at Columbine itself, no metal detector was installed and no heavy police presence intruded on students, no lock downs, no extra guards. The reason was simple. At that high school in the Colorado suburb of Littleton, the mostly well-heeled white families did not want their kids treated like potential felons.

 
And they had the status and political power to get their way and protect the civil rights of their children. But communities without such clout were less able protect their children from police, less able to push back against the encroachments of police state powers-that-be and their plans. More

American judge rules against NSA spying

Wisdom Quarterly; TheGuardian.com; Mitch Jeserich, Larry Klayman (KPFA, Berkeley)

Larry Klayman, who successfully challenged the military-industrial complex's spying apparatus, the NSA, in civilian court was interviewed on Pacifica's "Letters and Politics." He says, "I challenged the NSA in court because it's a totalitarian attack on human rights. I'm pleased Judge Leon sided with the American people Monday by ruling that the NSA's actions likely violate the Constitution..."

 

Lead Plaintiff of NSA Ruling
Letters and Politics (Dec. 17, 2013, 10:00 am)

• LISTEN: PLAY NOW - download (MP3, 10.27 MB)

Larry Klayman, conservative (right wing) activist  (often applauded by the left), is the lead plaintiff in Tuesday's NSA ruling. He appears to talk about his case and his history of suing American presidents. Also: David Greene (Electronic Frontier Foundation), Ben Griffin...

[Mr. Klayman, what difference does it make if brave Judge Leon symbolically stood up to the powers that be if this ruling, which he himself placed on hold as soon as he ruled to allow the government to appeal his decision, will soon be overturned by FISA Court judges (15 of which have affirmed NSA crimes as acceptable) or corruption in the Supreme Court is exploited by the third Bush administration (now called the Obama administration)? It can be passed by executive order or sent back underground to be done illegally just as was happening before Edward Snowden blew the whistle and is being made an example slated for assassination on a JSOC/Obama-approved "kill list."]

American gov't crimes
Larry Klayman, The Guardian

Shortly after it was disclosed by then Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald and NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden that the NSA was running roughshod over the constitutional rights of the American people, I filed two class action lawsuits, on behalf of myself and a client, Charles Strange, who lost his son, a NSA cryptologist, in the Afghan war. 

These lawsuits not only ask for large monetary damages, but also for an injunction against the US government spying on over 300 million citizens in violation of the Patriot and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Acts. The laws make it crystal clear that the NSA, CIA, FBI, or any other American government agency can only eavesdrop on persons who are under investigation for being in contact with foreign terrorists... More

• Sunday's NSA report confirms it: 60 Minutes spins
• I no longer get an orgasm from penetrative sex
• Murray-Darling basin: this gratuitous decision to reject science is disastrous
• NSA goes on 60 Minutes: the definitive facts behind CBS's flawed report
• Edward Snowden offers to help Brazil over US spying in return for asylum 
  VIDEO: How the Lords of Finance Caused the Great Depression and the Second World War (BNY Mellon) 
  Seumas Milne: Mission accomplished? Afghanistan is a calamity and our leaders must be held to account