Add Thai Coup to Egypt's Last Year -- See What's Coming?

The Sisi coup in Egypt last July represented a turning point. As I said before on this page, I thought a lot of power elite sat up and took note. The trumpeted Arab Spring democracy movement of aspiring youth could be rolled back. All that was required was the requisite amount of ruthlessness.

Today the announcement by Thomas Fuller reporting from Bangkok on the military coup there, "Thailand’s Military Stages Coup, Thwarting Populist Movement," says that the generals in charge have learned their lesson; they're not going to skimp when it comes back to paring back democratic rights:

It was the second time in a decade that the army had overthrown an elected government, but there were signs that this takeover could be more severe and include sharp curbs on Thailand’s freewheeling news media. 

The coup was seen as a victory for the elites in Thailand who have grown disillusioned with popular democracy and have sought for years to diminish the electoral power of Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister who commands support in the rural north. Unable to win elections, the opposition has instead called for an appointed prime minister, and pleaded with the military for months to step in.

As soldiers spread out throughout Bangkok on Thursday, the generals issued a series of announcements, declaring most of the Constitution “terminated,” banning gatherings of more than five people, imposing a curfew and shutting schools. 

The coup was at least the 12th military takeover since Thailand abandoned the absolute monarchy in 1932. But unlike many previous coups, which involved infighting among generals, Thursday’s military takeover had as a subtext the political awakening among rural Thais who have loyally supported Mr. Thaksin and benefited from patronage and policies such as universal health care and microloans.

*** 

After deposing Mr. Thaksin in 2006, the generals put in place an administration that was widely seen as a failure. 

“The lesson they learned the last time was that the medicine they prescribed after the coup was not strong enough,” said Thongchai Winichakul, a former student activist in Thailand who is now a professor of Southeast Asian history at the University of Wisconsin. “There’s a high possibility of very drastic measures and suppression this time.”

In the same national edition of the Gray Lady today there is more information of the extent of the national security state monitoring the Occupy Wall Street protest movement of fall 2011, "Officials Cast Wide Net in Monitoring Occupy Protests":

[C]ommunications, distributed by people working with counterterrorism and intelligence-sharing offices known as fusion centers, were among about 4,000 pages of unclassified emails and reports obtained through freedom of information requests by lawyers who represented Occupy participants and provided the documents to The New York Times. They offer details of the scrutiny in 2011 and 2012 by law enforcement officers, federal officials, security contractors, military employees and even people at a retail trade association. The monitoring appears similar to that conducted by F.B.I. counterterrorism officials, which was previously reported.

The U.S. political system is just about as completely captured as one can imagine. There is occasionally a spot of sunshine, like the vote the other day in Jackson County, OR to ban GMOs. But on the national level, nothing of the sort.

An Occupy movement is going to have to reappear to rejuvenate the system. Know that when it does there will be "no more water but fire next time."