I’m lightening up the mood here.

Thailand has coups. It’s almost a fact of life.

Prime Minister abuses power. Government is corrupted. People protest to no avail. The military steps in, essentially to wipe the slate clean. A new constitution is drafted, essentially a forced reform. Temporary PM and government is installed. About a year later everything goes back to normal. About 10 years after that, a Prime Minister would come along and abuse his power.

Rinse and Repeat.

Once in a while you run into a Suchinda where the power went to his head and wouldn’t return democracy to the people. Then we have the bloody uprising and clash of the people and the military. But that happened once in my life time.

Foreign countries are speaking out that they want to see Thailand return to democracy, that they’d like to see the political problems solved democratically.

But how can we solve it democratically when people who are running the election are all corrupted and controlled by the Spongebob Squarehead (aka Thaksin)?

In a sense, the democracy we had wasn’t really a democracy after all but dictatorship disguised under the facade of democracy.

Hence. The coup. So, go military.

I have a few lighter comments on the coup from the Peanut Gallery.

The Inconvenient Coup

I gave Brandon a run down about the coup and how TV stations were cut off.

Brandon: Oh, in that case the coup won’t last that long.

Me: What? Why not?

Brandon: Doesn’t Academy Fantasia come on on Wednesday night? They can NOT possibly cancel the broadcast of Academy Fantasia!

Yes, AF is crack. It’s a combination of American Idol and Big Brother. You watch these performers live together, go to training, and once a week there’s a concert and elmination show. There’s a channel that dedicated to the live footage of the house and follow them to classes and activities through out the day.

But so much for using AF as a cause to stop a coup. Season 3 already wrapped up. AND the concert is actually on a Saturday. 😉

The Convenient Coup

Me: So, the office is closed today. Are you doing anything, dad?

Dad: I’ll be in the office still. We still have stuff to do. Your brother is going golfing I think.

Me: Golfing? The day after the coup?

Dad: Yep.

Me: Isn’t there a Martial Law thing imposed? You know, you can’t have a group gathering?

Dad: Well, you can’t have a party of 5 or larger. A golf party has only four.