OPINION

Bringing 'him' home

Re: "'Thaksin's return can wait,' says Cholnan," (BP, Jan 9).

Back in Thailand, the first thing I read in the Bangkok Post was about the populist politics presented by two of the biggest political parties. I immediately thought "now they are at it again, to bring him home".

Then a tentacle previously associated with the fugitive's different political parties suddenly surfaced next to the leader of the ruling party, and even introduced himself as a PM candidate, and that after only one day's party membership! The Bangkok Post commented on all this, but the normally very awake PostBag writers were all mute.

When the Post on Jan 9 wrote about the fugitive and "his party", and where this party's leader said "Thaksin's return can wait", only one person commented under the article the first day, a meagre five in total, and not a single letter from the normally very punitive PostBag forum!

You are all sworn supporters of democracy, so how on earth to interpret your silence on "vote-buying" by the newly introduced populist politics, and then the fugitive's interference in Thai politics, assuming he is making different preparations for his own possibility to return to Thailand?

Society's poisons

Re: "Alcohol way worse!" (PostBag, Jan 14).

Dear Felix Qui. Allow me to clear up some confusions you have sowed to poison society and the next generation.

First, the original quote by Khun Boonlue Prasertsopha was about the rationality of opening casinos in Thailand. It was not on alcohol consumption. So bringing up the issue of criminalising alcohol was irrelevant.

For your information, none of my family members drinks alcohol or smokes cigarettes, or smokes any kind of banned and illegal substances which you are cheering for.

Since Boonlue's boss, the Bhumjaithai Party's leader Anutin Charnvirakul is the man behind legalising cannabis, it is relevant to bring up the issue of cannabis consumption in Thailand that is now poisoning youths. You are welcome to visit Khao San Road, where you can find cannabis sellers everywhere, and youths are openly smoking at the back of the booths or shops.

Last but not least, about the issue of the alcohol industry, I fully agree with what you mentioned. The alcohol industry is the biggest industry in the world and the most powerful one after pharmaceuticals, and it is an open secret how they control governments through money. Governments collect monstrous amounts of tax money from selling alcohol even though they know how poisonous alcohol is and that millions of people die every year related to alcohol.

Help the monkeys

Re: "Release the monkeys," (PostBag, Dec 3, 2022) and "Fruit farms to get 'monkey free' proof," (BP, Aug 19, 2022).

It seems that despite all the negative publicity about the exploitation of monkeys by the coconut industry in Thailand, nothing has improved.

Peta reports that baby monkeys are still being kidnapped and are chained and whipped to force them to work long hours picking coconuts. They are often kept in small cages, deprived of adequate food and water. And some monkeys have broken bones as a result of being manhandled. Peta claims it's impossible to know if locally produced coconut milk did not come from places that exploit these monkeys.

It seems to me that local animal welfare groups only care about dogs and cats but not the other animals. Why aren't they doing anything to help the monkeys?