This isn't the first time I've wanted to cut and paste a comment. I wrote this before my Sheepish post. So a bit of seriousness after the madness.
Giles Ungapakorn is a Thai academic in political exile in the UK because of Lèse majesté laws. Nobody takes the subject seriously elsewhere, but Thailand is the world heavyweight champion, the undisputed leader. Full evidence in that first link. It's good that there's no such burden in the UK. A lot of people think Prince Charles is a bit of a tool. I don't know for sure as I've never met him though I like his multi-faith ideas, I think it's healthy to have a viewpoint on architecture even though I disagree with HRH. Other than that I could say openly and for all to hear on public transport for example that Prince Charles is a complete cunt and I'm almost certain that nobody would object to what I think but to the use of vulgarity.
More obscene would be the loss of freedom to talk about say Republicanism. Or how moved the Brits were as Charles Spencer delivered his eulogy at the funeral for his sister The Princess of Wales. These things matter. The importance of talking uninhibitedly about the large crowds listening to the service outside Westminster Abbey matters. How their applause for Charles Spencer's scathing speech against the Royal Family coalesced from outside Westminster Cathedral and swept inside and unquestionably humiliating the Queen. It was a gesture of solidarity for the Peoples Princess, as Tony Blair named her.
That's a freedom not fully appreciated until discussion of the monarchy can land a 20 year sentence.
I haven't read any of Giles' academic work. I'm sure he was a Marxist before me. I'm also sure he wouldn't agree with my Neo Marxist thinking which is principally about sharing as an economic model. However he's written a piece about the Royal Thai Military which I think is extremely interesting to those like me who find his analysis helpful in negotiating the rapidly shifting multi-factionalism that typifies Thailand's institutional and political relationships.
The article is also really useful as a ready reckoner for astute people who find Thai current affairs confusing. A lot of the contextual information is unintentionally informative. There's more glimpses of the national psyche than entire books I've read about Thailand. I've noticed that Giles attracts a lot of irrational venom. As far as I can see it's mostly the people who think that Marxism is historically obsolete . This is odd given that Capitalism's single largest failure is its inability to factor in the costs of relentlessly liquidating nature. A colossal miscalculation that is least easy to grasp by those who are rewarded for ignoring the blunt logic of corrosively global imbalances.
In any case. Once in a while a comment I write needs to be here so that there's no ambiguity about what I think. This ticks off a fair bit of where my heads at on a lot of things, and although I categorically accept that Communism was nothing less than a complete disaster for millions upon millions of people around the world. It's evident our current model is busted. I'm often surprised that nobody calls me out on this post I wrote back here, because I got some things the wrong way around. I totally underestimated Wall Street and The Federal Reserves' ability to game the system. My timing was wrong but I still stand by what I wrote back then. As indeed I stand by this comment.
Giles gets deserved airplay because nobody articulated the military triangulation dynamic better. His consistency and coherency are an anxiety to the bildungsphilister. A leitmotif to their impending loss.
That is loss of respect, loss of credibility, loss of status and finally loss of wealth not to mention the plot. The Royal Thai Army has its own poetic consistency. Periodically massacring Thai citizens with asymmetric force while safeguarding with first class whitewash. A matter of least vulgarity to those most disinclined to sharing the peoples burden no less.
Instead of applauding he who speaks truth to power, the calumny commentariat debase reason, side with might and bully in unison. They are intolerant to pluralism, ignorant of Marxism, drunk on capitalism while hallucinating on history.
Why else would one solitary exiled voice continue to rock every institution his attention focuses on.
