Transcript of the above video: 

Much as we, the background right now is sort of the aftermath of this earthquake. Time does march on and unfortunately there are those who have their own agendas in this world, for good, ill or otherwise. I am not saying it is bad, good or indifferent, but we have got to march on with sort of covering this stuff and there was something I noticed recently in the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Early house debate for Casinos Bill: Could go before MPs on April 9: Wisut. Quoting directly: "Parliament will likely discuss the entertainment complex Bill by April 9, Chief Government Whip Wisut Chainarun says. Mr. Wisut, also a Phue Thai list-MP, on Sunday provided an update on the progress of the Bill that was approved by the Cabinet on March 27, saying Parliament has not received confirmation on when it will be submitted." So first of all, what Mr. Wisut is talking about is not a forgone conclusion. So let me read that again: "Parliament has not received confirmation of when it will be submitted", so we don't know exactly when things will happen. This is like the timeline they would like. Quoting further: "If it does not arrive in time for review on April 3, it will likely be considered on April 9, he says."  Well okay, also we don't know if it will get there on April 9th. I mean there's a lot going on there.

The point I am trying to make with this video though - and I urge you to go to the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com and read that article in detail - there's like a push to get gambling down, okay. And as I discussed in other videos, initially there was this push where there was a sneak peek at the Bill draft and it was from Reuters, but none of us in the public ever got to see it but they did and dah, dah, dah, and now, in the aftermath of an earthquake here in Thailand that has taken lives, and frankly I would kind of wish my Parliamentarians were more concerned about the aftermath of that, than the rushing of legalization on gambling - which I'm probably one of the more pro-gambling kind of people in Thailand - but I even view it through a reasonable lens that it's not the end all be all; it's not a magic bullet for the economy; it has tremendous negative societal ramifications and I just start really having a problem with it almost on like a courtesy level, when you see somebody, they are trying to really ram it through in the aftermath of a disaster. Why?

And let's be real clear and honest here, okay. In the aftermath of 9/11, they pushed through the Patriot Act, which was like, I don't know, the goody bag of constitution, in the US, Constitutional sort of just complete shredding of many of our like basic liberties and things. Again I'm not saying the Gambling Bill is anything like the Patriot Act, it's not an apples to apples comparison, but I am talking about the whole notion, who was it, Rahm Emanuel, he was former Chief of Staff to Obama, then basically he was the Mayor of Chicago for a while, and then he became from what I have read, effectively one of the worst Ambassadors to Japan in recent history, but whatever, good job on that one. In any event, wasn't it him who said, "never let a good crisis go to waste"? And they talk about that in the context of the worst kind of things that the public would otherwise not necessarily want. That's the kind of stuff they push in a crisis, because people are distracted, primarily distracted, they're not thinking with their level head, they're thinking emotionally and then they're saying, “Oh my God this is a disaster, now we have got to do something drastic like change a major law that heretofore has been pretty well a given this is going to be illegal or something of this nature”. That's my only point is noting the technique. Why are we rushing this through now? 

And meanwhile, can we have a minute as the public, to chime in with our members of Parliament? Where are the draft Bills? Can we see what this thing looks like please? Where's the fire over this? To do this the week after this earthquake, I mean to my mind, is this really a priority this week? Could we maybe look at the situation involving, I don't know, legislation regarding safety of structures - both already built and supposedly earthquake proof - and under construction. Maybe Parliament should be more worried about that today than gambling. Just a thought.