[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.

[Zhang Fei]

My impression of Thai politics is that Thaksin acted to break up Thailand’s oligopolies, and the oligopolists moved against him. Is that an accurate impression?