As a pro-democracy Thai, I invite you to give as much reverence to the late king as you wish and as he deserves, but I offer the following notes:
- Bhumibol was the rich king on earth! As the richest monarch among all royals in the world, Bhumibol ironically preached about self-sufficiency economy in light of the fact that Bhumibol's wealth is over 50 times higher than the average Thai and Thailand is tarnished by problems associated with prostitution, child labor, drug trafficking, and so on.
- Bhumibol was the king of coups—Browse through these to entertain yourself: coups in thailand since 1932. And how many constitutions were torn undemocratically during his reign? How many prime ministers were army generals endorsed by the palace?
- Bhumibol was the king of massacres and impunity: Start with this link List of massacres in Thailand - Wikipedia and dig deeper if you wish.Bhumibol was the king of propaganda. Imagine the 70 years of image building with the CIA money during the cold war and with millions of dollars from the Thai taxpayer's money. In 2016, for instance, the royal army junta allocated in the national budget almost THB 20,000,000,000 for keeping the monarchy's image and security. In addition, mainstream media bombard Thai citizens daily on the TV, radio, and movie theaters as schools and temples have traditionally become the willing speakers for the palace for at least five decades.
- Bhumibol was the protector of dictatorial and/or abusive generals. As commander in chief, Bhumibol appointed all main dictators who served his agendas, including Sarit, Thanom, Prapat, Narong, Sujinda, and Prem, who together ruled Thailand for over four decades.
- Bhumibol was the king of plagiarism: Cloud seeding, self-sufficiency economy, water management theory, etc. were not his original ideas, and he often refer to them without any citations.
- Bhumibol, despite his wealth, paid his servants and the palace business with the people's tax monies, use all resources from the people's tax monies and private donations for the 4000 "royal projects" and use the national budgets for propaganda, taking full credits all to himself. Should I say he is king of selfishness?
- Bhumibol was the king of dictatorship: You were able to love him and praise him, but you are not allowed to criticize, or sue him, or insult him in any way, or you could end up in jail for between 3–15 years for each act!!
- This is not to take away the true credits, if any, that he deserves, of course. I am just roughly presenting some facts and points for further investigation.
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