Culture, we should have learned by now, is the first refuge of vulgar propagandists a world over. In this sense, the counteroffensive launched by a veritable army of sycophants, useful idiots, third-rate academics, and serial Kool-Aid drinkers in the Thai media – brain-dead buffoons like Thanong Khanthong, Vasit Dejkunchorn, and Surakiart Sathirathai – in the face of the increased scrutiny Thai politics has received in the foreign press was entirely predictable. Save for the fact that these writers have taken to new heights the laziness, intellectual dishonesty, and crass …

I am not generally in the business of giving unsolicited (much less unpaid) advice to politicians like Thaksin Shinawatra. But in the (high-minded, I know) spirit of the old adage – the enemy of my enemy is my friend – I will indulge in a half-assed bit of strategizing to sketch out a path for a possible return to political power of a Thaksin nominee (if not Thaksin himself).
 
The conventional wisdom is that Thaksin is dead in the water. The election of Abhisit to Prime Minister, thanks to the votes …

Check out this countdown of the top-25 most corrupt politicians in the history of the United States (from the show “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” on MSNBC). I think it speaks for itself, save to say that US history shows that democracy can work pretty well in spite of grotesque levels of graft (not to mention that lack of public accountability generally works pretty well for corrupt leaders in the kinds of dictatorships so dear to the PAD). Anyway, this is pretty funny stuff (note that it’s in two parts).

It promised to be a nail-biter. In part it was because the rules of parliamentary procedure  are somewhat different in Thailand from many other parliamentary democracies. So instead of a straight, up-or-down on one prospective cabinet at a time,  the nominees for Prime Minister — Police General Pracha Promnok and pretty boy chickenshit Abhisit Vejjajiva — would go head-to-head. In part it was because of the yet unknown implications the vote might have for Thailand’s short- and medium-term stability. Would the vote bring the PAD back out to the streets? Would the …

In the days since the PAD was ordered by its patrons high up to vacate Suvarnabhumi airport, by far the biggest news has been that former Thaksin loyalist Newin Chidchob and his faction of 30-some Members of Parliament jumped the fence, paving the way for Abhisit Vejjajiva’s assumption of the Prime Ministerial post. It remains to be seen whether Newin’s faction is really that unified behind its leader — or whether, for that matter, the newly formed Peua Thai party will manage to buy back Newin’s MPs. Nonetheless, thanks to …

Siam and Europe have taken very different historical courses. Therefore, it is totally mistaken to try to introduce Western ideas as they are. We cannot cultivate rice in Siam using European agricultural textbooks about wheat. Western political institutions, such as parliaments or political parties, are not suitable for Siam where the king traditionally leads a backward population. Even if the radicals could introduce European political institutions, they could not achieve their aims because their political party could not obtain a majority of support in the parliament since the majority of …

On October 7, after bloody skirmishes outside the Thai parliament building left three people dead and scores injured, The Nation’s special online edition screamed ”BLACK OCTOBER 2008.” The idea the headline sought to convey is that the current disturbances are essentially the latest in a series of violent clashes between “the people” and the authorities that famously claimed hundreds of casualties back in 1973, 1976, and 1992. Indeed, this is exactly the kind of story-line the PAD has relentlessly been pushing for months. In this narrative, the PAD is but the …

At 6 in the morning on October 28, 1922, Prime Minister Luigi Facta called an urgent Cabinet meeting to discuss what the government should do in preparation for the arrival of 25,000 armed “black shirts” – who were converging on Rome to demand that the government resign and Benito Mussolini be nominated Prime Minister. Eighteen months earlier, Mussolini’s Partito Nazionale Fascista had received a paltry 0.5% of the vote in national legislative elections held under universal male suffrage. The Cabinet approved an emergency decree, which Prime Minister Facta personally submitted to …

A few months ago, just as the situation on the streets of Bangkok was beginning to get out of hand, an acquaintance of mine (a highly educated Thai woman) lamented in very emotional terms the grave danger that the PPP government posed to the future of Thailand. For the first time in its history, she said, Thailand has a government hell-bent on “selling the country off.” She volunteered no specifics, but I knew what she was talking about.
For years now, the PAD has repeatedly warned the nation that Thaksin Shinawatra …

In all honesty, I did not think that today’s Constitution Court decision would be enough to induce the brown shirts (ahem, yellow shirts) to declare victory and go home. 

Then again, it makes sense that the PAD would do so. Outside the despicable The Nation and the sycophantic lapdog that is the Bangkok Post, its public image had taken a beating and could use some rehabilitation. Perhaps more important, the PAD on its own strength can inflict a lot of damage on the country, but cannot do so with impunity without …