Thaksin Shinawatra brings humiliation to the Thai people

The actions of Mr Thaksin this week is bringing widespread humiliation to the Tahi people. Never before has any so-called statesman of any country, anywhere, stooped so low in populist personal progaganda to stage such a low-level paranoid fantasia in which he is being filmed by national television liberally dispersed hand-outs to a party's voter-based supporters. His crude arrogance is deeply embarrassing and I cringe whenever I think of how our once proud nation is being so cynically and perversely exploited in the eyes of the world. His campaign is not one of economic education, it merely demonstrates to local people how to turn a hard-working farmer into a beggar, expecting free hand-outs rather than doing an honest days' toil. This story is being covered by the BBC and CNN. It is therefore global news that shows what a pitiful state Thailand is in under his paranoid, corrupt and despotic leadership; a direct result of the arrogant lack of transparency his government shows in economic mismanagement.