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The Degenerates

By Terry Chulavachana

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“The Fixed Election that Failed and Odd Friend”

Fast forward from the slum, to between the end of 2007 and the start of 2008, and you may say I have progressed a long way from basking in the happiness of the slum people.

I was again a cutting edge writer with impact. However, as stated before, my humanity was heading south very fast. Dangerously I was threading into waters similar to previous years again- by toying with my sanity.

At about the time CIO Forum was going out of business, three people entered my life in a big way. That was before the fixed election in Thailand took place and after the election. You see, the military just pulled all the strings under its control to put together a Thai constitution that solidified the Amart Rule of Thailand. After that was done, it was time for an election as the military then was happy with Thai politics.

At the election, again the military pulled all the strings it could, so that the Democrats would win the election. The Democrats in Thailand, of course is also all about country, king and religion - just like the military. But Thaksin's popularity was still strong and the Thai people voted for the party that supported Thaksin. Thaksin won the election of course and the prime minister was Samak - since Thaksin was still in exile and faced corruption charges.

Samak and me go way back to the old days. The mother of my first wife, Pam, was the accountant for a political party belonging to Samak. So I have been running in and out of Samak's Party for a long time and have heard a great deal about Samak.

But I didn’t pull Samak’s strings or anything apart from trying to get an appointment with Samak for a friend. Namely, I just kept writing. Samak also knows me well. Before the coup, Samak had several radio stations going. While I never listened to him, one of my fans e-mailed me and said Samak said on the radio that he wanted my phone number because he was impressed with my writings - and wanted to meet me to discuss some business.

My fan, yes I have many, said he hoped I wasn’t angry when he gave Samak my number. Well Samak indeed called me up on my mobile; however, I didn’t answer it for technical reasons. And when I finally called back, Samak’s secretary said that Samak was out of the country and that his media days were over because of the Prem incident. The Prem incident was about how Samak blasted away at Prem, the King’s Privy Council for a wrong political stance.

Well it was bad luck really because I could have jumped from CIO Forum, into being a journalist or a supporting cast for Samak. But then I could understand Samak’s blasting away at Prem. You see, Prem was telling the military that the government was like a jockey that comes and goes, but the military was like the horse that should not listen too much to the jockey. Well those were very undemocratic words and the first signal really that Thailand was heading for a military coup, with the blessing of people in very high places.

So at this point thai-journalist-democratic-front.com and a string of other websites under me were going full steam.

Personally, I was “trash” and you could say I was like the “Ugly American” in that movie played by Marlon Brando. I served my financial needs that were driven mainly by my partying and whoring needs, by taking on a job as a foreign marketer for a manufacturer. And I literally stole and cheated money from the owner. My favorite sexual dreams were as nasty as can be - and they bordered on madness and illegal activities. I was a heavy drinker and smoker.

The first guy that entered my life in a significant way was my father, who told me that because my weight was about 135 kilos, I was a risk of getting diabetes and that he was willing to pay me good money to lose weight. Covertly, looking back now, it was also about getting me off the money mongering and cheating track.

So I remembered thinking back then, that my father really cared about me and my family. I was then about 49 and on a collusion course with early death from deteriorating health. Heart problems were in the family. I smoked and drank like mad. I was way overweight. And I was heavily into experimental and very unsafe sex.

Politically, I was confused what it meant for Thaksin, a progressive middle of the road kind of guy to push for Samak, a rightwinger, to be the prime minister. The next two guys that came into my life at about that time, obviously sensed my confusion and fed on it - trying to confuse me more - I now realize in hindsight. And it succeeded; I became more confused. My writings suffered the lack of new cutting edge direction, to go with the election results.

That next guy, I mentioned before, that came into my life was a hard-core Amart friend, who got me hooked into going to a very High-Society pub. And he used my every visit there to manipulate and cajole me into changing my political views. Looking back, he fed me lots and lots of false information also to destabilize, confuse, and get me into the wrong track - from a democratic and social-justice minded point of view.

The climax is of course when I took a bunch of very low-class call girls to that pub, and went wild with them. The crowd was so sickened at what I did, that the DJ started to crack real nasty jokes about me. Well it didn’t really work, what ever that Amart friend of mine was cooking up, because I didn’t even blink an eye at the crowd’s disgust and disbelief.

And my writings just continued on-course, with or without cutting edge impact.

There could have been some major articles from me at that point. Because as the Amart friend was attacking me, he forgot that his ammunition was like a two edged knife that I could have used. For example, he said there was a drive within the Amart class for everyone of them to donate about US$30,000 for the cause of the Amart and they had raised a great deal of money already.

That money of course was meant to defeat Thaksin and used to twist the election result through vote buying. I was very tempted to write about this bit of explosive information but decided that I owed this Amart friend a great deal from the past. You see he was the one who threw the bunch of money out his window so my wife, Pookie, could deliver Tammy, my kid way back about 10 years ago.

But with this hardcore Amart friend it was like, we would meet and I would say “No Political Talks Tonight Please” and the next thing he does is trying to crack my resolve with very strong political rhetoric. When I finally said goodbye to him, I gave him a kiss on the cheek and said “I love you man” just like in the movie that is in US theaters about right now. And I never saw him again and never visited that pub again.

The next guy that came into my life is a famous Thai actor. Just about then, my finances were drying up and the marketing job soured. My weight losing money didn’t come in because I was gaining not loosing kilos. Before you knew it, through the actor's advice, I had no choice but to take a job with a rising star MP of the Democrat Party, as an advisor.

Try figuring this out. I was a well known democratic activist supporter of Thaksin, going to work for a party that supports the Amart - who wants to kill democracy and hated Thaksin.

  Content © 2009 Terry Chulavachana All Rights Reserved.