• News & article

  Easy choices made difficult

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 23/12/2018

  » Lucius Edward William Plantagenet Cary, aka Lord Falkland, went to his death in the English Civil war, leaving little of note except a rule that could be the official motto of libertarians.

• News & article

  Rule by law

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 18/11/2018

  » As RoboCop said to arch villain Clarence Boddicker in the climactic scene of the original movie: "I'm not arresting you any more." Rather than bringing them to justice, the green shirts now hope to be able merely to bring the world's only brother-sister fugitive ex-prime minister duo to heel.

• News & article

  Promises, promises

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 19/08/2018

  » The general prime minister is off to the South this week. The trip to Chumphon has been planned for a while, so the irony is coincidental.

• News & article

  The strong arm of the law

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 05/08/2018

  » The most heavily armed military member in Thailand in the most heavily armed unit of the Royal Thai Armed Forces is the head of the Judge Advocate-General (JAG) office of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO).

• News & article

  Turning red into green

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 22/07/2018

  » Rarely in recent Thai political history has a government minister been so honest, so open and so utterly truthful as was PM's Office Minister Kobsak Pootrakool last Sunday.

• News & article

  A mad, mad week

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 20/05/2018

  » Week Three of the 2019-2020 election campaign was Crazy Week. There always is at least one.

• News & article

  Brave the third wave

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 07/01/2018

  » The regime is about set to spring the third wave of its plan to extend government by elites. They're careful plans and they seem foolproof. But we will continue to live in interesting times, because not all military attacks proceed as planned.

• News & article

  Silence rewarded

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 05/11/2017

  » The prosecutor of Pattani province officially dropped the army's charges under the criminal defamation and Computer Crime Act laws against three civil rights veterans who had the audacity to detail 54 incidents of torture in the deep South and publish a book about them, entitled <i>Torture</i>.

• News & article

  The Intimidation Game

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 22/10/2017

  » The military government has a propaganda unit. People know this, including reporter-people, which includes us, and editor-people. But they still call the chief manipulator of regime propaganda a "government spokesman". A two-star general whose sole task is to justify military actions without ever admitting an error was possible is also, on all front pages and news broadcasts, a military "spokesman".

• News & article

  The boy who cried 'Vote'

  News, Alan Dawson, Published on 15/10/2017

  » In the 85 years since the pioneering but no longer mentionable event concerning absolute rule, Thai citizens or some of them have voted in 27 elections. Or so. A few were free and fair. Most weren't, and things aren't looking too sunny for election No.28.

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