What was I thinking?

I have been coming and going from Thailand for a few years now. Over time I have learned a little, lost some innocence and gained the occasional insight into the - I almost said "murky" - workings of this place. I briefly worked for a local newspaper here... A close friend asked me what was the point of writing in a "suck rag" when the fears of the owners would ensure than nothing remotely interesting or controversial could be written without risking their business benefits and my own safety... As an old Asia hand, he had immediately spotted how vulnerable a locally based writer would be to the pressures that can be brought to bear officially and unofficially.... They say that prose is a mirror for the soul but in the highly censored media of Thailand, the best that a reader can hope for is a mirror that is broken, distorted and occluded. The foreign journalists who represent large media conglomerates and news agencies have a certain measure of freedom if their work is appearing outside of Thailand but where there is an overlap, as in the recent case of Jonathan Head of the BBC, pressure can be brought to bear... So, to find out what is actually happening in this country, I am increasingly turning to the blogosphere... So far at least, the net has remained relatively free of censorship. I suspect that Australia's new laws are probably more restrictive in practice, than the Thai "lesse majestee based attempts to ban certain sites. The net is heavily monitored of course, and as a tyro in such matters, I may not be very good at finding the more interesting sites. Still, I find that the internet, as accessed from Thailand using a normal server, contains plenty of critical commentary and otherwise difficult to access information... As most of the mainstream media in Thailand are enslaved through advertising, political alleigance or regulation, the vested interests that are responsible for most of the country's problems escape public censure except in the most egregious of cases. The classic Thai response to their problems is well known and regularly rehearsed. "Don't think too much" the newly arrived farang is instructed. And carried in that injunction is the implication that if you do think at all, the thoughts may not be pleasant. Choosing to act on your thoughts, to stand on principle as they say, would be at best foolhardy, and at worst suicidal... Knowing this, I will abide by Thai rules, but there are a surprising number of interesting facts, that are already in the public domain. If people already know then can I be censured for discussing the implications of this knowledge?  I hope so. Full, free and frank discussion of the shortcomings in my writing and thinking will be greatly appreciated. If I genuinely thought that I understood what was happening I think I would be less motivated to write about it...  Whatever I was thinking when I arrived here, I contrived to deny the obvious and ignore the outrageous... These days I think a little knowledge is a dangerous thing but the more I know the less I understand and the more I wonder... When I arrived, what the hell was I thinking?