In the '40s the Thai Military shot the current king’s brother in the head. They invited back his brother and laid it pretty much on the line. He realized he had no other choice and went along for the ride, received great PR and wrote the National Anthem on his saxophone.
Meanwhile alumini of the Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy conduct backroom dramas exchanging public political figures for public funds and rule a country for 50 years. They do so through coup d’etats on a 12 year cycle.
Enter Taksin Sinsalot, a premier from Chiang-Mai. Associated with previous regimes from the north – his ancestors were Tax Farmers and his father the husband of a northern princess.
And so as premier, he doesn’t let the north down. But some how his crack down on drug trafficking, prostitutes, and rural poverty grinds bitterly on the Chulachomklao crowd (after all the country is pretty much based on it). Yet, after enriching a shit load of them, they cut him loose – he’s intolerable, so they have him charged and convicted, quite legitimately, on tax evasion.
He’s a billionaire – a power unto himself. Previously unknown, unfathomable, a telecommunications Baron, a creation of western deregulation, Chicago School of Economics or whatever, he rises. He owned Manchester City. He sponsors a movement to fuck with these military guys. I own the north. Fuck with me and feel the movement. It has legs. The King’s about to croak and what follows hasn’t been nurtured. It is anachronistic, just as it is every where. Thaksin thinks he’s on a winner. How else would he free his frozen 2.2 billion?
It’s an interesting question.
OK. It’s cynical, but there are few peoples more cynical than Thais, except for those that are giving their lives , obviously.