Transcript of the above video: 

You know, I've veered more political in the past year than I have otherwise liked on this channel but there have been legal issues that have arisen here in Thailand that have political implications and so I felt like it was kind of warranted all things considered. That said, let me dig into an article that caused me to think of making this video and then I will get into my analysis. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Thaksin's Udon Thani vote pitch raises eyebrows. Quoting directly: "Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, might have broken a local election law.." - and that is where I decided to go ahead and make this video as it pertains to the legality pertaining to elections here in Thailand - Quoting further: "...by telling people in Udon Thani to "vote for "Thaksin" while campaigning for a provincial Pheu Thai Party candidate there, says a former Election Commissioner. Somchai Srisutthiyakorn said that making a false or misleading statement that causes misunderstanding about the popularity of a candidate violates section 65, subsection 5 of the Local Councillors and Local Executives Act. Violators could face a jail term of 1 - 10 years and/or are fined 20,000 to 200,000 Baht, and lose their electoral rights for 20 years, Mr. Somchai wrote on his Facebook page on Thursday.”

The point I am trying to make with this video is a year and a half ago or whatever it was when Thaksin was coming back, this was all based on the notion that we're going to get some reconciliation. He was going to retire; he wasn't going to be involved in politics, hence the reason for the thumbnail. It is a clip, or it is a thumbnail from the film, I will put a clip in the description below, it is from the film Old School, where this guy has to go to couples counseling. He is kind of a hapless guy, he ends up confessing some kind of embarrassing thing in this couples counseling but they kind of all look at him like he's a weirdo and he says, "What? Are we not in the trust tree, with the nest?" I mean that is kind of how I keep feeling when I'm reading this stuff about politics with regard to Thaksin and again, I don't like getting into the political side, but there's a legal issue here too. And it was my understanding he was coming back to not be involved in this; he was going to retire. As we all know, he faced certain legal consequences by coming back to Thailand; he didn't spend any time in jail, but he spent time in a police prison or a Police Hospital I should say while he was under his sentence and then he was granted some clemency, allowed out but again it was my understanding that he was done with that. And now they are talking about there are these accusations of possible election law violations and things. 

The point of this video is I feel this way about a lot of things going on in American politics, and I feel this way about a lot of things going on in Thailand. I'm sick of the gas lighting; I'm sick of the nonsense; I'm sick of everybody kind of pretending like it's still 1996 and you get to play this Spin City. We kind of tell half-truths and omissions and then we sort of just try to do whatever we want, consequences and legalities be damned. I am not pointing out anyone specifically in Thailand or the USA, just the overall phenomenon that I've watched in both places really acutely over the last 15 years in the United States, but very acutely I would say over roughly the last 15 months here in Thailand, as we've seen a lot of this honestly disingenuousness in the public forum, sort of seeping into Thailand.

I'm not saying that there's any right or wrong, especially in terms of partisan politics; in my opinion partisan politics oftentimes is a waste of time and resources in a lot of different ways especially where it is acrimonious, but the only point I'm trying to make is at the end of the day, the narrative a year and a half ago roughly when all this sort of, the wheels were put in motion, was that things were going to work at certain way and now it seems like there are operators here in Thailand who are saying, "well we're just going to disregard that." You know what, everybody's kind of tired of that, myself included, I think. Can we just have some honesty and just some basic levels of integrity with matters pertaining to all legality moving forward both here in the Kingdom of Thailand and back in the United States for that matter.