Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing well a lot of things and actually, the title of this video may be confusing, but we are going to get into it here. First of all, I think it's worth pointing out, I made some videos in the past where I was talking about some guys run, some guy stay, when I was talking about Thaksin's MO. He did come back. As the photo in the thumbnail shows, I think he made a big point of putting on a bunch of pageantry about it, about leaving and then everybody speculated he would run back to Dubai, and then he came back, and made a big point of going into the correctional facility, probably for political ends. It seems to be kind of political chicanery if you will, chicanery might not be the right word, but political pageantry if you will. 

Look I had my real qualms with this whole notion of politicians and celebrities which kind of came back in right at the beginning, especially of Paetongtarn's tenure after Srettha was removed, but even if you go back into August of '23 when Srettha came back in, it was like they started putting on all of this, it's almost antiquated at this point; it's almost a relic of a bygone era. It was kind of at its heyday this celebrity politicians in the news cycle, its heyday was sort of the Clinton era, the sort of the CNN 24-hour news cycle, original 24-hour news cycle of the '90s. And we sort of saw that kick started back in 2023 a little bit, and then it really kicked into full gear with Paetongtarn; she immediately becomes PM. I brought this up at the time. It's like why are you doing all of this photo op kind of stuff? Why don't you get in there and start doing some things to help the country? I'm on the record; I've talked about that at the time. But again this same pageantry I think had something to do with Mr. Thaksin's return, and I'm not going to cite directly stuff in this video, but there are articles already out there talking about his Court proceeding: they found that he was improperly "incarcerated" during his first term of "incarceration" again in quotes, because they determined he did not really fulfill his prison term and so he is going back into serve his year, his presumptive year. How that all plays out remains to be seen. But what I'm going to get to here in a moment pertains to an article, I first started thinking of it, it started percolating up in my brain and then it brought forth some thoughts of a couple of different movies and then how it related back to just the entire sort of story arc of Mr. Thaksin or at least the story arc of Mr. Thaksin as I have personally witnessed him in my time being here in the last roughly 17 and a half years. 

So I initially thought of making this video after reading a recent article from Khao Sod English, that is khaosodenglish.com, the article is titled: The Unacknowledged Bad-blood Factor that pushed the People's Party to support Anutin as PM. Now I urge those who are watching this video, I am going to quote some excerpts out of this article. I urge you to go read it yourselves. It's actually a well-done article by Khao Sod. I don't agree with all of the conclusions in it but some of the data points are really interesting and I am not going to point out all of them in this video, so it is worth reading that article. 

Also for those who are interested, I do deep dive analysis into a lot of this stuff in our paid news service: geopolitics, economics, finance, as well as local Thai politics, as well as information for expats pertaining to Visas, Immigration, Banking and how this all kind of winds together and impacts expat land. If you are interested in that, you can email us [email protected]. For those who are interested as well, I might as well point out, my better half and I did set up a restaurant here in downtown Bangkok. Pancake Palace as the name implies, breakfast anytime as well as American Diner style food. Links are in the description below if you want to come join us there, and we'd be happy to see you. 

That said, let's get into this. Quoting directly: "The mutual hatred between the Orange and Red camps stems from the Pheu Thai Party's repeated betrayals of the People's Party (which was known as the Move Forward Party before). This started with the government formation attempts for Pita Limjaroenrat, leader of the Move Forward Party, who later penned a memoir entitled “The Almost Prime Minister” after a failed bid as a result of the Pheu Thai Party outmaneuvering the young party." I am going to then get down and quote further, but first of all understand what all transpired in August of '23, it left a bad taste in not a few people's mouths and a lot of them were in what was then Move Forward, became People's Party and that has sort of come forward to even now. What you have got to understand, these sort of ghosts linger if you will ghosts, linger on the periphery of day-to-day politics and only sort of come back immediately into the foreground, albeit very starkly and sometimes with tremendous effect at certain points along the if you will, Thai Political timeline. And that has recently come up here in recent weeks especially culminating in the decision by People's Party to back Anutin and the Bhumjaithai Party in a new Government. They are calling it a minority government; I don't really love that. People's Party decided to stay in the opposition themselves, while voting for him as PM, so it was their decision not to join the Cabinet and things. I don't know you would necessarily call that a minority government. It's basically just look most of, or half of the votes if you will that voted for Mr. Anutin, opted to stay out of the Government by their own volition, but whatever. That said, to add further nuance here, quote: "This while Bhumjaithai Committee members" - and again I urge those who are watching this video, check out that article for all the nuance on this but this is a key point into how if you will The People's Party, now People's Party and Bhumjaithai sort of became more friendly. They realized they could work together because of a few incidents in the past two years where Bhumjaithai Party, for whatever you think of their politics, were shown to basically be relatively honest in their day-to-day dealings, at least in terms of rank-and-file day-to-day politics or politicking. Quote: "This while Bhumjaithai Committee members, knowing they are from an ultra-conservative Royalist party and will never vote for such a move, accepted the People's Party request to leave the room in order for the rest to stand a better chance to push for this as the draft Amnesty Bill thus winning the PP's trust, as recalled by Progressive Movement co-leader Pannika Wanich recently with bitterness." 

So again, read the article, but you need to understand, and I noticed this as well, we did a video on this. Anutin also went across the “aisle” if you will, at one point when he was in the Coalition if I recall Bhumjaithai was in the Coalition prior to them withdrawing from the Coalition in the aftermath of the phone call between Ms. Paetongtarn and Hun Sen, or the leak of the phone call I should say, Mr. Anutin actually reached across the aisle to People Party and began working with them on rolling back some of the more banal albeit fairly significant pieces of bureaucratic decree that had accreted if you will, over the roughly 9, 10 years that we had the so-called Uncles in control here in Thailand. And they basically together, also it seemed like, again from what I read in the newspaper reports and things at the time, that they were able to work together in rolling back some of the basically accreted bureaucratic red tape of the prior decade and again this would seem to be at odds, it seems unlikely that they could come to an accommodation, but they both agreed that it should be done. I personally think Anutin is something of a pragmatist; it looks to me like more and more People's Party is learning to be pragmatic and less dogmatically idealistic or ideological maybe is the right word, but again these data points add up to explaining why we are seeing this Coalition if you will - for what it's worth - come together at least for these forthcoming four months. 

Now that said, quoting further: "These are but some of the grievances that the People's Party supporter in the social media video I viewed described with bitterness and schadenfreude that his Party eventually chose Anutin, an agent of the deep state," - now I don't think that's fair; again ultra conservative royalist, whatever you want to call it, but I would call that the Establishment. The use of the term "deep state" especially here in recent times, it has become so broad as to be almost useless. People need to understand, the term when I first heard the term "deep state" was like probably nearly 15, 20, probably more than 15 years, like 20 years ago. I think I read that in the Economist when I was still living in the United States; I think when I was an undergrad back at Washburn University in Topeka and they were using it to describe a certain faction that existed in Turkey, where there was this sort of confluence of Parliamentarians sort of establishment bureaucrats and the military that existed in Turkey. And again, it has now sort of been applied, oftentimes I think people are now using it in substitute for the term we used to use which was “the Establishment”. I don't think it's unfair to call Bhumjaithai a sort of Establishment Conservative Party insofar as they want to continue those things that made Thailand great to this point. The traditions if you will, both political and customary and otherwise, that have brought Thailand to this point in time; they want to see those preserved. That is kind of why I like them. I mean as strange as it sounds, I have the fervour of the converted; I became Thai because I like what this country is all about. I don't necessarily want everything to change here, so that's a reason, sort of giving away my own biases, why I personally like them, but to call them "deep state" - I see why people are saying it, but I don't think it's quite right when specifically talking about that Party. I can understand in the past especially, certain Parties being described that way, but I don't know if it's quite right to call Bhumjaithai that. Conservatives, sure. Establishment sure. But Deep State exactly, I think it's a slight misnomer. That said, quoting further: "Instead of Pheu Thai's PM candidate Chaikasem Nitisiri." Quoting further: "This is the level of animosity that the People's Party and its leaders would never publicly admit to. The bad blood between the two sides exists both at the Party level and among supporters. They have left it to their supporters, particularly to the man in the video I watched, to lay bare the perceived truth about both Parties in the video." And again, I urge folks who are watching this, read the article in Khao Sod English; they go into all that. I don't want to get into all the nitpickity who said what. They talk about how Thaksin himself made some rude comments about the leader of the People's Party I believe in the northern dialect, they noted in some speech somewhere and some things like that, I don't want to get into all of that stuff. I want to get to the point of this and again the reason why I am bringing up Guy Richie's film Revolver comes to this excerpt here and again I am not even going to get into the video on social media that they refer to. Again, go to Khao Sod English, get the references from there. Quoting further: "This video was heart felt and raw. It exposes the dark side of both Pheu Thai and the People's Party: the deep grudges held by PP supporters who were heartbroken when Pita was outmaneuvered and when insult was added to injury with needless public boasting by the talkative and megalomaniac Thaksin.

That is the point I want to get to in this video, and that is why I am bringing up Guy Richie's Revolver. That term “megalomaniac”, they didn't quite come out and say ego or egotism, but if you have ever seen the movie Guy Richie's “Revolver”, let me be clear, in terms of movies I want to watch over and over, Revolver isn't actually on that list. But this movie is one of the few films I have ever personally watched where at the end of it one, there's a whole almost sub film it's like an epilogue to the movie, that goes over the credits where they are talking to psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, other people who are then talking about the ego in the back part of the film, but really it's one of the only movies I have ever sort of just sat dumbfounded  by the end of it. I actually wrote a letter to Mr. Richie some years ago and actually sent it by FedEx, I think, to his Attorney, and I mentioned to him in there that Revolver was one of my all-time favourite films. But it's not like one of my favourite films the way other movies are, like popcorn type cinema. The reason I brought up the Id in this movie, there is another movie I like, but it's not nearly at the level of Revolver, but it is kind of a fun little film; it was a movie called Tales from the Crypt: Bordello of Blood. It's one of the few films that had Dennis Miller in the starring role and the reason I brought up the Id is there is this scene where he ends up in this what is seemingly a bordello but it is actually a trap set by a bunch of basically honey-pot vampire women; it is almost like a throwback to a '50's like monster movie or something, but with a little more edgy raciness, and he's looking at all these beautiful women scantily clad, and somebody asked him, "do you know where you are?" and he looks back and says Larry Flynt's Id. And it was just kind of kind of one of those funny lines.

The reason I bring it up is when I was thinking of all this in the cauldron that is my brain, I remember a friend, actually a girlfriend of mine years ago once telling me when watching that film, she said "you know that's your thing; you don't really have a huge ego strangely enough, you have a huge Id" and I was like well probably not an inaccurate assessment of me. 

That said, going back to this line "megalomaniac Thaksin", and all of this pageantry that led up to him then going into jail, I had to wonder how much this person is driven by their ego, and that's the whole point of the movie Revolver. If you have never seen Revolver, I strongly recommend it as a film, but do not sit down watching it thinking; it's very unlike most of Mr. Richie's other movies. If you have ever seen the Gentleman, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch: those are great movies, I mean Snatch is an amazing film. I never thought in a million years Brad Pitt would get the character of the Pikey just cold, but he does. That said, those are kind of good time movies; those are movies you sit down, they are the kind of film you sit down and, I won't call them popcorn flicks, but to an extent they are but they are unique unto themselves; like Rock and Roll is another one. These British gangster movies that have kind of American twist to them, they are great, but they are what you think of when you think of movies. Revolver is something else; it's very thoughtful. You have to actively watch that movie, and the point of the movie gets down to the issue of ego. And what I worry about in a certain way for Mr. Thaksin, notwithstanding the fact that I have been critical of him, I have watched his sort of character arc if you will, at least since 2010 when he sort of came up my radar because of the things that he did that in my opinion stoked the passions of the mob if you will, here on the streets in Bangkok and caused the problems that it caused leading up to now. He seems to be driven by his ego and it's sort of interesting because I have got to be honest, I think I see the political logic if you will that went into him doing all of this, going to Dubai, returning and then going into jail that it's sort of a linear thinking politically. I brought up the fact 'some guys, run and some guys stay'. I am not necessarily saying he became aware of that, but I think a lot of Thai folks kind of had the same sort of sentiments about him and maybe he felt that; that resonated with him, and he decided "well I'm going to go and show that I can face the music if you will." I don't know that that was the right move here, because politically I'm not sure that it's going to really do much of anything for him long term or his movement if you will, his Party if you want to call Pheu Thai that. I kind of like to think of Pheu Thai as a party unto itself but whatever. And meanwhile, again I think it was kind ego driven, and why I bring it up is again it gets to it in Revolver and I just hope for his sake, he finds some way of dealing with that, because at the end of the movie Revolver, they talk about how the ego in its own way is almost the anti-hero to a given person's life. It can actually operate very much to a person's detriment while at the same time being the thing that strives to keep the person alive. It is sort of all bound up with your survival mechanism as well, but I personally think there have been a lot of political moves made the last two years most notably Cannabis. I think Pheu Thai and in this case I think Thaksin with his influence, massively misread how to proceed in dealing with the Cannabis issue. By coming in, especially after Bhumjaithai withdrew from the Coalition, and then just hammering down on Cannabis as if this was 20 years ago, that was a really bad move if for no other reason than roughly 19,000 folks here in Thailand had licenses to operate businesses, had detrimentally relied on government policy to set up those businesses, and then to just kind of be seen as pulling the rug out from under them. Not only was it bad policy but it was my mind it was bad politics. Meanwhile, coming back in here and making a big show of going into jail, yeah, I mean credit where credit is due. I thought he was going to run off again and I made a video to that effect, and he did not, so he definitely defied my expectations, and he faced the music and good on him for that, I guess. But I am not sure that it was the right move politically and I am not sure that having to do this time is necessarily going to be particularly again, you have to abide by the law - I'm not saying not to do that - but I don't know if he is going to find that there are any positive political benefits to this move down the road or if it may ultimately prove to just be another bad decision based on his own ego. And by the decision to turn himself in, I am not talking about that per se, but all the pageantry associated with it by leaving and coming back and everything. Again, that seemed like political maneuvering to me or political pageantry if you will, and I am not certain that that is going to benefit him or anyone else in the long term. Again it remains to be seen.

At this point frankly, I am hopeful for Mr. Thaksin's own sake that he finds some level of solace and he as well as the rest of the country, are able to move forward now and heal and we can all reconcile, and hopefully over the course of the next four to six months where we are likely to see some major developments politically here in Thailand, we can all come together and really in many ways put all of our egos aside and do what's best for Thailand.