Are the movements in Ukraine and Thailand democratic?  I don’t
know enough about these cases to say.  Clifford Bob, who knows
more than I do, writes with concerns:  I just read your blogpost
on Ukraine and Thailand.  I was struck by that juxtaposition
today also.  But one thing that bothers me is exactly what the
protesters are after.  I haven’t been following either protest
too closely, but from what I know about Thailand this is, very
broadly, a case of protest aimed at bringing down a
democratically elected government.  And that has been a major
part of the protest ever since Thaksin won elections in the
early 2000s.  The protesters, mostly middle class urbanites,
want various changes to the Thai political system, to help
ensure that  populists such as Thaksin and his sister, who
depend mostly on the votes of poor rural people, can’t win
elections or at least dominate politics–even if they won
relatively clean democratic elections.  And the protests that
helped lead to the downfall of the Muslim Brotherhoo