Jatuporn Wants Court To Clarify Its Move

[Moruya]

Don't forget to mention that, like Nattawut, Weng, Veera and most of the other red shirt leaders, this a Southerner, recruited to be a leader of the Northeastern and Northern poor, while he is reviled by the people of his own province.

Weng is from Bangkok (not that it really matters). I doubt that most of the leaders, other than the three you mention, are from the south. Most of them are locals, often vote canvassers and the like for PT but not always. There's a lot more autonomy and bottom-up influence than people assume I think, Nostitz has often discussed this. Why has Thaksin appeared to switch strategy? Because he could see that grassroots red shirts weren't happy that he appeared to be trying to reconcile with the 'amaat' (Yingluck met Prem twice, for instance). But like you, I hope this new found influence could be used for more progressive purposes than this whole changing the constitution and bringing back Thaksin business.

What the ultra right wing Thaksinites are truly afraid of is that the Northeast and the North will start to produce their own homespun leaders who will challenge their ruthless capitalist philosophy of throwing a few crumbs to the poor while accumulating massive power and wealth for themselves and ensuring the poor remain uneducated and poor. Thaksin hates labour activists as much as the military and the so called "elite", if not more.

Why are they 'ultra right wing'? And where's the evidence that Thaksin hates labour leaders? I don't think he hates anyone per se, just people that aren't willing to work with him. In fact, he cosied up to NGOs and Labour leaders in the early TRT days. But anyway, there are 'homespun' leaders, they're just not leading the genuine democratic progressive movement we'd like to see... yet. I also hope the many progressive students and also people from the older 70s generation could influence the red shirt masses in this direction.

To someone from the north or north east, Bangkok is south.