Absolutely agree re 2 sides to the story and objectivity is essential to a healthy discussion.

That said my original point, which I still believe, is that the presentation of The Alternative Argument is somewhat “parroted” (to reuse the expression).

I do note the disclaimer following the letter though.

Well, fwiw I appreciate the opportunity to debate different views. If BD was partisan, this opportunity for growth would disappear, as it has done on ThaiVisa.

I think AB does a good job of presenting issues objectively. God forbid it should ever become the same or a mirror-image of ThaiVisa, that would be just awful.

absolutely Bangkok.com is like a wild garden, an other, more subtle, no copycat take on lifestyle, politics, travel, food & events in Bangkok. An insider’s take on this wildly poetic city, which deep in its heart remains a wildly charming village.

(BD: Thanks for raising this again Jon. As said earlier on to understand the arguments of the questionable side you have to know that side’s arguments. I get often accused publishing biased, unbalanced information … Let’s have and show the generous mind that can digest such petty reasoning and deal with it. But for this you cannot ignore their lines of thought.)

“This reads like it was issued by the state. Painful. I really don’t see how it fits with the rest of the usually excellent content of the blog.”

And of course it is. It’s the official line being mindlessly parroted by someone whom the government and the others know they can rely on to mindlessly parrot.

It is part of the weaponry of propaganda to propagandize those whom the Thai culture has made unintelligent and unquestioning.

Loyalty is one thing but sometimes it would be easy to get the impression that these people have no dignity, no self-respect, but are instead possessed of an abiding need to prostrate and humiliate themselves on the altar of what must surely be the most delusional acceptance of cradle-to-the-grave propaganda on behalf of a few miserably privileged and chinless folk the world has ever seen. Indeed, many people might think that the one thing that Thais do well (perhaps the only talent they have outside of an abiding and all-pervasive incompetence), is to delude themselves, which they do at every conceivable opportunity.

It is well know that need for “face” and self-esteem among Thais is among the most pitiable in the world: what is less well-known but indisputably true, is that the magnitude of this need derives from what is actually a very poor self-esteem which needs constant bolstering and re-inforcement. In this respect as in others, they are just like 9-year-old children in more developed countries with more developed societies and more developed cultures. This, and the need for self-abasement and prostration are of course, linked at a very deep psychological level.

The delusion continues with this awful Vongthip woman projecting her own needs and beliefs on the Thai populace as a whole, in averring that the puppet prime minister is putting the country’s needs before all else, when he is doing no such thing at all. What the almost completely talentless though privileged man is actually doing is exactly what the military, Prem and the Palace put him there to do – which is to look after their interests and bollocks to Thailand and bollocks to the needs of the Thai people.

I for one think HMK is a good man, and watching the TV programs of the birthday celebrations theater, I was struck with a single thought, which is that he must be tired and demoralized and completely fed up with the (…) which is perpetrated in his name.

This is the only way a sane and good-minded person could possibly feel.