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Bang goes the Game of Thrones conspiracy theory
Red Thai Socialist - December 14, 2014
Only 1 day later, the naked photos of his new girlfriend are doing the rounds on the internet. Bang goes this Game of Thrones Conspiracy Theory!!
I have always maintained that:
(1) The Thai political crisis has nothing to do with royal succession and is really about Taksin's ability to use democracy to win the hearts and minds of the people against the interests of the conservatives. In the first general election since the 1996 crisis, Taksin's party put forward a raft of modernising and pro-poor policies, including the first ever universal health care scheme. Because the Democrat Party had told the unemployed to "go back to their villages and depend on their families, while spending state finances in securing the savings for the rich in failed banks, Taksin was able to say that his government would benefit everyone, not just the rich. Taksin's Thai Rak Thai Party won the elections. The government was unique in being both popular and dynamic, with real policies, which were used to win the election and were then implemented afterwards. Previously, the old parties had just bought votes without any policies. Taksin's policies and his overwhelming electoral base came to challenge many elements of the old elite order, although this was not Taksin's conscious aim at all. The Democrats lost the election. The military could not compete in terms of democratic legitimacy and support. The middle class started to resent the fact that the government was helping to raise the standard of living of workers and poor farmers...
(2) The Thai ruling class use the monarchy as a puppet. The monarch has always been weak and cowardly, a creature of the military and the elites who surround him and use him for their own ends. They are united in seeing Wachiralongkorn as the next king and if they deviated from this path, for example by placing Princess Sirintorn on the throne instead, they would immediately destroy all the "reinvented tradition" about the sacred monarchy. If an unsuitable member of the royal family can be discarded, why not just have an elected president?
So... the real question for us is not what the upper class parasites are up to but how we can overthrow the dictatorship by mass political action.
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