The battle lines are drawn, in the ongoing fight over Thailand’s grotesque lèse majesté laws. It’s “Western” democracy versus “Thai” culture. In contemporary political discourse, after all, ”culture” is just about the only word whose international currency rivals democracy’s. To be sure,  culture commands more respect than the “dictatorship” and “oppression” it is frequently invoked to mask. As a justification for torture, murder, and the arbitrary imprisonment of political opponents, pseudo-cultural arguments are not only effective at home —where they can be tailored to fit just about any narrative about the imperative to protect traditional …

Soi 4, just off Sukhumvit Road, is not quite as smooth as silk. A uniquely Thai blend of fermenting piss, rotting compost, exhaust fumes, and burnt-out cooking oils is rendered only more asphyxiating by the cheap incense smoldering by the ubiquitous makeshift shrine. Steam rises from the roadside foodstalls that cramp the narrow, potholed sidewalk; it is with great difficulty that it finally dissipates into the thick, damp air. A bewildering lineup of dead animals on a stick lie on display on pushcarts, alongside tropical fruit whose freshness has long …

It has been too long since the people of Thailand last faced any good option. Today as they have for much of the past eight decades, if perhaps in terms that have never been more stark, the Thai people confront a choice that offers no real alternative. Before them stand two factions, divided more by competing private agendas than they are by alternative visions for the future of the country. On one side, in yellow, safely ensconced behind their tanks, their guns, and a frenzied, yah bah- powered army of …

The 2007 Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand begins with a tawdry, obscene fabricaton. With Orwellian audacity, its preamble states: โดยที่การปกครองของประเทศไทยในระบอบประชาธิปไตยอันมีพระมหากษัตริย์ทรงเป็นประมุขได้ดําเนินวัฒนามากว่าเจ็ดสิบห้าปี. The official English translation is still more unequivocal, removing any language referring to the “development” of democratic institutions: “Thailand has been under the rule of democratic government with the King as head of the state for more than 75 years.” There you have it. No mention is made of aborted transitions and military takeovers. No significance is granted to the decades of repression Thailand experienced under the thumb of ghastly military dictators …

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 …