Don’t be too hard on Aet. He’s a pretty damn good singer-songwriter as far as I’m concerned.

My only comment is de gustibus non disputandum est.

As for the rest of your comment, I feel the distinction you draw is quickly becoming a false one. In a dictatorship, those that are successful in the local market, by definition, serve the state. Indeed, it is worthing noting that the office of Reichminister für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda Ladda Tangsupachai has been doing its best to draw all forms of artistic expression into the greater hegemonic web of the state through being the sole arbiter of what is authentically “Thai” and what is entartete Kunst/Kultur. That which does not serve the interest of the state is not allowed to florish in the marketplace (complete with all its messy farang concepts, like “invisible hands” and “property rights derived from reason; not from a เจ้าแผ่นดิน”).

However, Aet is allowed his own political views, and the most municifent Ladda has allowed him the opportunity to express them for the time being.

You are being naive. Aed has lent the force of his popularity to politcs regularly and consciously, early on helping Big Jiew Chavalit Yongchaiyut, not a sign that justice, honesty and anti-corruption are important to Aed.

Instead of accusing Aet of opportunism we should be condemning in the strongest possible terms the “higher caste” of academics, both Thai and Western, who DO have the job of studying and understanding Thai society and politics, and who for the most part lined up squarely against the democratically-elected Thai Rak Thai government last year and who have continued to be so “nom naem” towards the royalist regime installed after September 19.

Yet they present themselves to us as people of “silatham”, leaders of the “peoples movement”, fighting for “freedom”, or else act with the arrogance of academic “detachment”, treating both sides even-handledly in the interests of “neutrality”.

Which leading academic has come out with a straightforward denunciation of the king’s role in the coup and support for the dictatorship?

Aet serves a market, the academics serve the state, and many of them, a dictatorship as well.

Compared to these academics Aet is 100 times more “honest”.

I thought EC prohibits campaign songs, maybe I haven’t undersood theses new rules issued? Or maybe the EC canceled or bent some of these rules for fear of the controversy raised by most of the parties against these rules?
Thank for answering, I’m a little bit in the fog by now