Transcript of the above video: 

Yeah I'm still doing some of these informal videos here. Again apologies, the lighting is a little off from our usual videos and the sound, I am working on it; we are trying to get some get some new equipment in here so bear with me and it's much appreciated. This is probably going to be a quick one. 

The thumbnail to this probably seems a little bit perhaps irreverent but honestly when I first started reading this stuff, my first reaction was confusion, then I was a little bit frankly, anger is the wrong word but maybe perturbed which I will get into in a minute, and then I just kind of culminated with thinking ‘wow this is just kind of absurd’ and hence the reason for the thumbnail, just to give reference. It's not really meant to be negative, it's from a scene in the movie Anchorman, where Champ, the character Champ, I think it was Champ Kind was his name. He kind of gets a little bit hyperbolic. He gets basically upset and overwrought and basically one of the characters Brian Fantana says "hey why didn't you just take it easy, maybe stop talking for a while". It's a funny little line but it is kind of very encapsulating as to how I feel about all of this stuff. Going into Thaksin, and we've definitely veered over into a political sort of bent on this channel but that's because politics is going to have an impact on the Law, you can have an impact on how foreigners operate here in Thailand; you can just have an impact on the future of Thailand generally and this has become more of an issue for me. For those who are unaware, I naturalized to Thai citizenship some 6 and a half years ago; I may have the fervour of the converted a little bit insofar as I really, really love Thailand and I don't want to see anything particularly bad happen to her. Now do I think that anybody involved in this is operating in any kind of bad faith, as if they want what is bad for Thailand? No. But even when people are operating in good faith, sometimes they can in my opinion, become a little bit overwrought and maybe do things that may not necessarily be in everyone's best interest.

That said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Nation, that's nationthailand.com, the article is titled: Thaksin appoints trusted aide to shield daughter from armed forces. In most of our videos I cite when I'm on screen, right now I don't have the capability to do that, I'm very much a tech novice especially with this YouTube stuff. I don't seem that way because we do have a producer who assists me in making these videos look as good as they can but I am quite frankly. So we'll go ahead and put a link in the description below to this Nation article. I will also put a link up to the line in the movie Anchorman to get some context for the reason for the thumbnail. 

In any event, again the article is titled: Thaksin appoints trusted aide to shield daughter from Armed Forces, nationthailand.com, quoting directly: "Phumtham Wechayachai handed task of guarding Paetongtarn's Government against the fate that befell previous Shinawatra administrations. Pheu Thai patriarch Thaksin Shinawatra has entrusted his longtime ally Phumtham Wechayachai to play the role of guardian angel," I like that term "guardian angel", okay guardian angel, "for his daughter Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra." First of all I want to go back to the title, "Thaksin appoints". Thaksin is not the Prime Minister. I thought the sole reason he was coming back was to retire so we could all reconcile and move on with it. A lot of the problems of the past stemmed from him being the Prime Minister. Now again, I'm not getting into the whole 'which side are you on, or this, that or the other thing." I view all of that stuff as being in the past but it was my understanding he was going to be coming back here to primarily retire and set in motion reconciliation. Now the media is reporting, literally the headline is "Thaksin appoints"! He's not the Prime Minister. His daughter is, but he's not so why are we talking like that in the Press? Doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Again this notion, I think it's pretty ridiculous when you understand the concept or the context I should say of anything. This notion that she needs a "guardian angel" when you need to understand that effectively the Establishment here in Thailand, the System if you will, brought Thaksin back. He was allowed to come back and not only that but deal with the pending criminal matters that were pending against him in such a way that he didn't actually spend any time in jail or anything. He went into a hospital and I would say it's fairly safe to call that being treated with kid gloves. Metaphorically speaking I would sort of liken it to he was sort of brought back into Thailand on a little pillow and allowed to go through all that due process but go through it in a pretty comfortable way. I think many people, especially those who saw convictions in the past for red shirt activity or other things are probably looking on how Thaksin was treated in the process of coming back to Thailand - especially through the Criminal Justice System - kind of look askance at that and say: "Wait a minute. Is that exactly how everyone goes through the system?" I mean it's a good question to ask. And it also in my mind makes me think maybe you're being a little bit hyperbolic this whole notion of a "guardian angel". Is that really necessary? I didn't see any need for any guardian angel last year. Meanwhile quoting further: "Phumtham's experience as a political and military strategist dates back to the '70s." Now here is where I get very concerned. "When he joined the Communist Party of Thailand and was known as Comrade Yai"! Communist Party of Thailand. I keep thinking of that movie, Other People's Money with Danny DeVito where he says, “You know what happens when capitalism gets messed up? The Communists come back; they come out of the bushes; they're in there”. Again I can't stress enough. Communism as an ideology is pernicious in the extreme. I don't want to get too into detail in this rather short video hopefully, but it is pernicious in the extreme, and I question whether it's in the best interest of the country to have the Defense Minister be an avowed former Communist. I mean this person was known as a Communist, known as a comrade literally. That is what it says in the Nation, Comrade Yai, and was part of the Communist Party of Thailand. Is this really what we want as a people? Is this really who we want overseeing the Defense Ministry in Thailand?

Meanwhile and then it gets all mixed up again. Again it is sort of why I kind of just wish Mr. Thaksin would maybe take a page from other folks' book here in Thailand where you go up into retirement and yeah, maybe you chime in from time to time from a distance and sort of observe from afar if you will, but this direct interaction when it was my understanding that was what was not going to be the case here, coupled with the fact that now he's "appointing" put that in air quotes because that's rather absurd in its own right because he doesn't hold any office,  he's appointing this Communist! Is that the best thing for everybody? Quoting further: "Thaksin is confident Phumtham will know what the military is up to and be able to take action to save Paetongtarn from any threat." Well again, I find that rather absurd when he specifically was brought or allowed to or came back to Thailand with the cooperation of the Establishment in such a way that he did not face the same type of criminal consequences as we would generally see other people who were convicted of similar types of crimes. I find it again pretty absurd honestly. I kind of laughed at it. I initially thought of making this video a sort of a satire, and then I decided not to. I just kind of wanted to point out, especially when I read about the communism thing, I just kind of wanted to make this video a little more serious but it is kind of to my mind a little bit laughable to say "Oh we need a guardian angel" or something when the reality is that it doesn't look to me like there's any major threat to anyone, that is basically my only point there. Quoting further: "Pheu Thai sources confirm that Phumtham is among Thaksin's most trusted aide having helped him found the Thai Rak Thai party in 1998." Again that's all well and good but is Thaksin the Prime Minister? Quoting further: "While Phumtham's official rule as Defense Minister is crucial, his core duty is to help the inexperienced PM run the economy." So what's going on here? Is this person actually the Defense Minister? Is the Prime Minister actually the Prime Minister? Or are we playing a bunch of Shadow boxing games? And these are exactly the things that has caused us problems in the past. How about we just let the Prime Minister be the Prime Minister and run the Government, run the Cabinet the way it's usually done. Meanwhile the notion that the PM is there to ‘run the economy’, again this neo-Keynesian talk, we've heard about this with the Digital Wallet and the notion of Negative Income Tax, just massive interference, and ‘interference’ is probably the best word, interjection of the Government into the economy. Is that overly necessary? And is it also overly good for the economy? It has been my experience when the Government participates too much in the economy, it causes problems. The best example was COVID where they literally shut down the economy because we might get sick was basically the underlying reason at the end of the day.

Look, long story short, I don't really love making hypercritical videos but this isn't me being critical in a negative way. I think that there is a path forward where this current Government can operate very, very well quite honestly. It looks like a coalition that could get a lot done. But again, being hyperbolic and in my opinion being almost to the point of paranoid the notion of ‘Oh, we need a guardian angel’ when recent history would suggest not so much. Then meanwhile, this discussion of putting, again a person who is a member of the Communist Party of Thailand is now going to be the Defense Minister, that's concerning in the extreme and it brings up something that happened about a year ago. I made a video on, I called it This is Thailand, I'll put a link in the description below, when this Government first came in and they wanted to put Chinese Communist Party Police, they wanted to put Chinese Police on the streets here in Thailand. There seems to be this constant sort of veering over into the lane of Communism and it really is making me uneasy and I think anyone who knows the history of Thailand, and how Thailand stood as a bulwark against Communism, when it counted by the way. When the so-called Domino Theory did to one degree or another come to fruition, the Domino that didn't fall was Thailand. And I think Thais would be well advised to keep that in mind. Again I have the fervour of the converted but again I find it very concerning the notion that we could have a Communist as the Defense Minister here in the Kingdom of Thailand.