The general prime minister has once against shown his power to unite the country. He doesn't need Section 44. He doesn't need fun, fairs and games. He definitely doesn't need the minister of truth by his side.
For example. Thailand since Tuesday has been a united country.
Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha went to the deep South on Monday with his cabinet, including the new ministers. They all schmoozed for a day. The prime minister talked down to some people in a market and talked with some goat farmers. On Tuesday in Songkhla, the cabinet held its first mobile meeting in the deep South, the first formal meeting of the Prayut 5 government.
Several hundred Songkhla residents who feel pretty strongly about the coal-fired power plant that Gen Prayut wants in Thepha district decided that, since the general prime minister refuses to talk about it, they would do what citizens worldwide do -- spectacular intervention. They staged a short march and lay down beside the highway.
At which point police rioted, beat some of the protesters, arrested 16 of them and charged them with several ridiculous offences. The minister of truth smirked that one protester was helped to escape by a woman who was "not his wife".
Here's the good point, where the country unites.
Prime Minister Prayut loved it. They broke the law, those hard-core assailants. There were more than five of them, against the non-martial law. Then he screamed at a fishermen to stop yelling at him. And the country united.
Of course, the usual detractors are arguing that being appalled and sympathetic to protesters is no way for a country to stay united, and that's true. We won't dwell too long on the Abominable Mascot Nong Kiao Koy ("holding little pinkies sister"). You've heard and will hear much elsewhere.
In his way, same-same but different, the Gen Prayut is the Trump of Thailand. On a normal day, half the country is against him. But then he says (tweets) or does something so incredibly, eye-wateringly outrageous that every man, women and child over the age of three is united.
Then Isoc met ISA. The Royal Gazette published an order to extend enforcement of the Internal Security Act for another year in Thepha and surrounding districts. The enforcement arm is the Internal Security Operations Command, answerable only to the chief of Isoc, who is a former senior army general, Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha.
It took two close-typed pages of the Royal Gazette, 25 lines per page, tiny margins, to detail all the losses of rights the people and visitors in the affected districts will suffer for the next year.
What happened is that Gen Prayut proved the truth of what was written here the day after mourning ended for King Bhumibol, and elsewhere since, is true. The dear leader's greatest challenge isn't going to be staying in power by vote bargaining and strong-arming after an election. It's going to be remaining in power until such an election.
To be fair, Gen Prayut sent out his right-hand man, the three-star minister of truth, with an apology, sort of, for yelling at the fisherman. It seems he was in a bad mood.
That is of course an excellent and highly believable excuse, replicated uncounted times in the past three years, six months, one week, four days and several hours, not that anyone's counting.
Back in Bangkok, the general prime minister waded into it with the media and added this to the already quite weird situation. News people asked him why he acted so distantly from people, especially on these forays to the provinces.
They got this: "This government and I myself listen more than any government did."
He may believe this. US ex-president Barack Obama used to say he had the most transparent administration in US history while spying on and arresting more reporters than all the previous presidents together. The truth is of course that the more a leader refuses to get down to brass tacks with the grass roots, the more isolated he is and the more he will believe nonsense about his or her "open" government.
The actual Thepha anti-coal protest was about as dangerous to life, limb and national security as the opening of a typical Bangkok wedding buffet line. Until the police attacked. That was dangerous, and in fact the police rioted, evident in numerous videos showing they were out of control and injuring demonstrators.
For a man who so constantly uses the memory and harps on about the legacy of King Bhumibol, Gen Prayut appears either to misunderstand or simply not grasp how and why the late king earned respect and love from every community and citizen in the nation.
Because the king asked, listened and -- the important part -- cared about what people said. And the general won't do that.
