Apparently, the U.S. citizen Joe Gordon, while residing in the U.S. a few years ago posted a link to a respected Yale University book on the political history of Thailand and this act has so greatly "damaged the reputation of Thailand's revered monarchy", the only solution is to throw Joe into a Thai prison cell with 20 other prisoners, a hole for a toilet in the corner, the cement floor as his bed and gruel for sustenance.

To rot there until he either signs a false confession and [...] or ends up dead

Luckily for the Thai State apparatus, the U.S. Ambassador to Thailand, Kristie Kenney, an erstwhile U.S. Republican appointee who takes a very strong stance on the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, including the right of all U.S. citizens to express themselves freely, at least while resident in the U.S., has so little skill, daring and backbone that she finds it impossible to mount an effective campaign for Joe's immediate release and deportation back to the U.S.

So Thailand will remain intact, prosperous and safe........

I don't think that having a good ole boy with deep pockets as ambassador would help Joe Gordon. The US State Department is a wholly owned subsidiary of the US Department of War and anyone working for them would do War's bidding, i.e. springing the Russian arms dealer, or the cold-blooded CIA murderer in Pakistan, but there's zero help for an ordinary American.

Face it. The US government is so corrupt that we could prosecute the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court under the RICO Act... if the last leg's membership in the Triad hadn't precluded that possibility.

As far as I can see, my countrymen and women are waiting for the complete and utter collapse of the criminal enterprise under the weight of its own heinous crimes before getting to work and doing what must be done to reconstruct a government responsive to the American people.

Meanwhile we're willing to throw all the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq; the cops, firemen and teachers in Wisconsin; and Joe Gordon under the bus... to protect our blissful torpor, as my friend Steve Hills would say.

Poor Joe is in a bad way, and I predict that the courts will treat him even worse. The case may be flimsy, but there's a rock-solid bureaucratic resentment against any Thai who absorbs Western notions of freedom and identity. He's not on trial for slighting the King, he's on trial for turning his back on his own "Thai-ness," as prescribed by the state. One of the big problems with the Thai state is the belief that the government should enforce national identity over and above personal freedom.

The 5th column in Washington DC feels the same way about American citizens imprisoned by its compradors here in Thailand as well.

Gaza: Cradle of Killing — Americans Too

Stuffing my backpack before setting out to board “The Audacity of Hope,” the U.S. boat to Gaza, I got a familiar-sounding call from yet another puzzled friend... “You know you can get killed, don’t you?”

From some others — who don’t much care about Gaza’s plight and/or who do not wish us well — the words are phrased somewhat differently: “Aren’t you just asking for it?”

That was the obligatory question/accusation at the end of a recent interview of me that was taped for a BBC-TV special scheduled to air this coming week as we try to break — or at least draw attention to — Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza and the suffering it inflicts on the people there.

I also have been cautioned by a source with access to very senior staffers at the National Security Council that not only does the White House plan to do absolutely nothing to protect our boat from Israeli attack or illegal boarding, but that White House officials “would be happy if something happened to us.” They are, I am reliably told, “perfectly willing to have the cold corpses of activists shown on American TV.”

I mention this informal warning for the benefit of anyone who may have harbored hope that the U.S. government would do something to protect us American citizens from the kind of violence used by the Israelis against last year’s flotilla.

Joe Gordon will not be receiving any help from his government in Washington. I'm sure the Thai authorities were assured of that fact before they imprisoned him, an American citizen, without trial here in Thailand.

No one knows better than Rachel Corrie's mom, Cindy, just how depraved is the indifference of the US Government when it comes to a choice between furthering its own diabolic agenda or standing up for its citizens. It's perfectly OK with the US Government if its accomplices murder its citizens, so there's zero hope that it will stand up for Joe Gordon, a US citizen rotting in a Thai Remand Prison... sentence first - verdict afterwards.

US collusion in the Gaza blockade is an affront to human rights

My daughter's death shows the cruelty of an America that won't protect its own and is complicit in harming Palestinian civilians

After eight years, our family remains engaged in prolonged court proceedings seeking accountability that the US government has been unable to secure – though it has no difficulty sending Israel $3bn annually in weapons that do the damage.

The US government has failed repeatedly to obtain accountability for its own citizens and Palestinian civilians harmed by Israel. Now, it is an accomplice in manipulating policing of the Mediterranean and maintaining Israel's naval blockade of Gaza. It has thwarted and threatened citizens acting in the nonviolent tradition of our most revered champions of human rights. Much of the world is watching, disgusted with US abandonment of its own and with its collusion in the imprisonment of the people of Gaza.