[MestaMachine]

Thank you very much. I had not followed Thailand much before this crisis broke. I will make it my business to learn as much as I can. It has never been on my radar for obvious reasons. Will now expand the scope of my radar.
I appreciate your information and will definitely follow it up.

[killjoy]

It is really difficult to get a good grasp of the situation here since things have gotten so polarized. The best I could compare it to is the extreme anti-Bush crowd going head to head with the extreme anti-Obama crowd. Throw in a very healthy dose of government censorship and this is what is left.

The Economist has been running a series of very good articles about Thailand but are unavailable here because the hardcopy magazine is banned when addressing these topics.

A few of the Economist articles are online at:

The battle of Bangkok

A polity imploding

The battle for Thailand

Another good reference is Paul M. Handley's book "The King Never Smiles". It is also banned in Thailand. It is pretty biased but is very interesting in pointing out an alternate view of Thailand from what is put forth by the Thai government.