I’ve been trying to keep abreast of the situation over there but it’s been difficult as our press is obsessed with volcanoes and the imminent collapse of the European economy if another one goes off. You have to love an alarmist press. Plus we have an election that ironically, no one gives a shit about and are experiencing massive voter apathy. Thailand barely gets a mention sadly.

I suppose I could have just emailed. My wife keeps me updated a bit but it’s good read various opinions. Even if it is almost impossible to even speculate.

Democracies have massive inherent problems but I’ve wracked my brains for literally the past 10 minutes and can’t think of anything better. Beneficial dictatorship can be good but it’s hard to keep going and you could end up with Singapore and can’t chew gum.

I’m not smrt enough politically either though.

I’d still rather be living out there again.

Anyway, all of that being said, my guess is that Thailand will take a third way out of the current crisis that is neither civil war nor a populist paradigm shift. I suspect the end result will be a series of complex, backroom political deals that gratify the red shirt leaders while leaving the status quo essentially intact. Political, social and economic interests and loyalties run along fault lines that are as deep as they are hidden, convoluted and alien to Western eyes — this is a country where modern property boundaries are laid out according to an ancient, feudal logic and where publicly traded corporations seek the blessing of a fortune teller before making hiring decisions — and so any farang who hazards a guess (me most of all) as to the specifics of any denouement is per force shooting in the dark. That doesn’t mean we should abdicate our responsibility to understand the current situation as best we can but rather that we should allow for a large degree of uncertainty to inform our prognostications.

Eh. Ok, all that said, it’s time for Fruit Loops.

Agree re the variety of opinions, most foreigners I know have no idea what is going on. It is healthy to take an interest, although expressing an opinion publicly isn’t.

Btw, I got SMRT instantly – love a well planted Simpsons reference.

As for the whole situation, I no longer have much faith in democracy. It seems to me that it really comes down to how much money you have. If you don’t have money, you don’t have much say.

And as for the rest of the world, it seems like we may see an uprising of civil unrest in the United States as the economic systems implodes on itself.

It should be an interesting decade…