I do find in particular the tone of Plate’s comments haughty and condescending, in this passage:

“One rests happily when American nonprofits honor geniuses or freedom fighters or even the otherwise disenfranchised. But kings — or queens for that matter — would seem to need no honorific welfare from American nonprofits. Generally, they can get along just fine on their own, especially those with the power to eject elected governments.”

I do not pretend to know the real truth whether HM “has the power to eject elected governments” nor justify in the least these allegations. If they are true, anything that runs against democratic principles should be condemned. But it is not for Plate to take the moral high ground and criticize the “honorific welfare” when in his very own society, its own leaders run a government whose “democratic institutions” continue to be upheld blindly (& affirmed) by its people even when they are involved in bloody and illegal wars of occupation and subverting anyone else who is not with them in their grand policy for hegemonic control of the world.

Unfortunately, Thailand doesn’t have the resources (e.g. influential Thai newpapers, blogs, intelligence services) to counter negative propaganda against its revered institutions. It doesn’t cost much to generate a counteraction against someone who had the gall to call the US a “useless friend”. It takes only finding and suborning the “right” disaffected people and with sophisticated planning pull off something that would appear to fit everbody’s purposes and most of all, come out with clean hands. Although these statements may strike as conspiracist, so be it until someday when the evidence is unearthed.

I secretly imagine having Plate the recipient of Samak’s vulgar retort that his writing is indicative of a toe sized brain (never mind that the Prime Minister gets more international exposure as a Neanderthal), or to be in the receiving end of Thai berserk rage (for his insult of HM) screaming, “you murdering bunker buster terrorist bombers, baby killers, leave us alone”!

“But even so, somehow the whole event left a taste in the mouth that one doesn’t ordinarily associate with things Thai. Democracy is not the one-size fits all formula for all, and as mentioned, the elected Thaksin was no second coming of Thomas Jefferson. But removed as the prime minister had been by the force of arms, the East-West Center’s bow to the king seemed odd. One rests happily when American nonprofits honor geniuses or freedom fighters or even the otherwise disenfranchised. But kings — or queens for that matter — would seem to need no honorific welfare from American nonprofits. Generally, they can get along just fine on their own, especially those with the power to eject elected governments.”

If all the good things that have resulted from the long-term relation between Thailand and the East-West Center as well as the University of Hawaii over what must be several decades were thoroughly documented and only one google query away from Tom Plate, maybe his op-ed piece would be different.

This article seemed fairly myopic and more of a personal complaint. If personal complaints are insights I should start a blog and call it ‘listen to me!, live my way or I shall …’ The ‘…’ would be the preface for each blog post. Tom Plate’s would be ‘listen to me! I go to functions where I am bored and empty. I then translate these feelings into articles!!!’