Transcript of the above video:

For those who have been watching this channel with some frequency over the past couple of weeks, you will know we have kind of veered over into frankly discussion of a more political nature mostly because the current Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra has had some controversies involving her communication with the former Prime Minister and what many would call the sort of de facto leader, Mayor Domo the President of the Senate Hun Sen over in Cambodia. If you have watched any of my videos, I am very concerned about this because from my perspective, what she did, if she intentionally meant to do what she did, I think that it calls for serious scrutiny to what she was doing because it looks to me like she was selling the country out and undermining sovereignty. If she didn't intend and didn't really understand the magnitude of what was happening, it calls into question her competency. Either way, I think it is pretty sound – you know where I stand basically if you have been watching my videos - I think it would be best for the country if she stepped aside.

Now that said, I get that there's going to be hyperbole and rhetoric that comes up at times like these especially where there is International controversies especially as it pertains to International borders. For example I get quite worked up when I hear about some news involving the American Mexican border; it's just what happens in me. And I have been rather concerned again with regard to what's going on along the Thai Khmer Border but to engage in what I can only describe as sort of childish analysis regarding one's opponent is a bad idea. You can read the Book of the Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi or Sun Tzu’s, The Art of War. Even if you consider somebody your enemy and I'm not going to go so far as to say that about Cambodia or Hun Sen, I think these Borders pop up all the time. Frankly if anyone is the problem if or has been it was the French frankly in the Imperialist era that left us with this bag of odious excrement that we all have to deal with now in the form of the way that the initial I believe it is called the Franco-Siamese Treaty, dealt with things like the Border itself and watersheds, and all of this stuff. It was basically designed much the way their entire Colonial enterprise was designed, to subvert and to put at a disadvantage the locals out here in this region. That’s just the fact of it. Read your history if you want to get into that but that is just the fact of it. 

Now can Hun Sen be necessarily blamed for that? I don't think so. And can he exactly be blamed for playing his own cards to the best advantage that he needs to play them? I don't think so. Now again me personally, I'm on sort of “Team Thailand”; I'm a naturalized Thai; I have the fervour of the converted. I feel very much in the Thai camp regarding sovereignty, but to just level childish insults at the man doesn't serve any purpose and frankly it puts the country to disadvantage here because you are underestimating the guy. I mean as the title of this video suggests, He's many things, He's not "stupid".

I thought of making this video after reading a recent opinion piece in the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Too long in power a bad idea for leaders. Well immediately when I saw that I was like "huh?"  What's the old Bob Hope joke? "Oh, nobody wants to live to be 105 except 104-year-olds". I am pretty sure leaders once they are in power don't think it's that bad of an idea to stay there. The whole title of it was nonsensical. That being said, bangkokpost.com, quoting directly: "Leading an entire country for a few years is a steep learning curve, but it's useful experience." First off, experience for what? Do you put “Prime Minister of X country” on your resume when you go apply for a job at Baskin Robbins? I mean what are we talking about there? Experience! Quoting further: "Being in power for a dozen years makes most leaders arrogant and careless, but some remain more or less functional. Being in power for more than 30 years just makes you stupid." Really? Staying in power, in a position of power, you are stupid if you are able to do that? Do you know what the word "stupid" means? Quoting further: "Consider Cambodia's Hun Sen." Quoting further: "Hun Sen began as a Khmer Rouge commander and went on to rural Cambodia effectively as an absolute dictator for 36 years. "I don't sense any signs of his mental deficiency from that statement. Quoting further: "He is by far the country's richest man.." Hmm, so stupid and rich! Those two often go together, yeah. Quoting further: "..and his personal guard rivals the national Army in size." Again, you can level other names or other labels on him but "stupid"? Quoting further: "He passed the Prime Ministership onto his son Hun Manet 2 years ago, but really he still rules." You know, I am just not getting an idiotic vibe off of anything that you are talking about there Bangkok Post. I mean again you can level other names if you would want at him, which I don't even see the purpose in that, all it does is exacerbate the situation, and inflames egos and tempers I guess I should say. And to what end? I mean calling names, that's what we are reduced to now? Just one more reason why I think the leadership needs a real shake up here in Thailand so we can get some competent fricking people in here, to actually go in and just basically have a sit down with these people and say, "hey, how do we work out this border dispute so everybody goes back home happy?" It seemed like that is what they were trying to do before this whole phone call debacle happened to begin with that, and then in the aftermath of that, in order to look so-called "tough", our current Prime Minister over here in Thailand went about doing all kinds of things to exacerbate, inflame the tempers on the other side of the Border just to look “tough”.

Again, I also have in the thumbnail a photo or a painting of Cardinal Richelieu, and I just want to read this because I was kind of thinking who would I compare Hun Sen to and I kind of wanted kind of a French context because we have got the French lingering around in the background like some kind of, I don't know, like some kind of ghost that nobody really needs in this scenario. Then on top of it - I did a video recently - Paetongtarn got on the phone to talk to Macron, as I said there, what is he, apropos of what? Who cares what he has to say? I mean do we need the imperialist French sort of perspective on this whole thing? Why? Why not just have a dialogue with these people across the border and figure out how best we can all deescalate the situation and move on down the line. 

That said, I was looking for somebody that I felt like was kind of a good parallel and I came upon Cardinal Richelieu and just from Wikipedia, wikipedia.com, Armand Jean du Plessis, First Duke of Richelieu commonly known as Cardinal Richelieu was a French Catholic prelate and statesman who had an outsized influence and civil and religious Affairs. Yeah I would say, Hun Sen, a guy who started off in the Khmer Rouge and then came back in with the Vietnamese when they came in there and ended that regime and then has been in power ever since; he's kind of one of these people that you look at the history of Cambodia and you have to kind of wonder, would it be better off if he had been not there? I don't know that you can say that. If anything, I think you might be able to say it would have been decidedly worse off if he hadn't been over there. Again, whatever you think of him, just try to look at this objectively. Then quoting further: "He became known as the Red Eminence; a term derived from the style of Eminence applied to Cardinals and their customary red robes. Consecrated Bishop in 1607, he was appointed Foreign Secretary. In 1616, he continued to rise through the hierarchy of both Catholic Church and the French government becoming a Cardinal in 1622 Chief Minister to King Louis the XII of France in 1624, he retained that office until his death in 1642 when he was succeeded by Cardinal Jules Mazarin, his career the Cardinal had fostered." So basically put his own guy in, not dissimilar here to Hun Sen. I mean would anybody say Richelieu was stupid. Now I'm sure there were those who were at odds with him that had all kinds of other names for him, but again stupid wasn't one of them, okay? 

The whole dialogue surrounding all of this frankly is stupid, especially over what I am seeing from the English language press over here in Thailand because it is not looking at the main issues. The issues are sovereignty; the issues are trying to get this thing de-escalated; the issues are also dealing with a system and a situation left over by a bunch of Imperialists who were just doing things for their own interest in this region, and everybody out here has just been left holding the bag over it. At the end of the day, I am hoping cooler heads can prevail, but it is not going to happen by calling the counterparty if you will “stupid” especially when from all objective metrics and evidence there is nothing stupid about that person.