Neutral colors

bkk-skytrain

As people move around Bangkok Thailand doing their day to day tasks, several things are visibly missing. What is missing are people wearing the color red, the color yellow and the tourists.

The photo above was taken Friday December 12 on the Bangkok Skytrain. At this time of the year normally 30% of the people using the Skytrain would be tourists. There should also be random splashes of red and yellow in what people wear.

Although Thailand is greatly divided, only the most bold would display red or yellow outside of a rally site. As with any population there are differing amounts of enthusiasm about any topic. Some are highly motivated, and others may not give it a second thought. In this case due to the violent nature of the red shirts, one does not want to be singled out wearing yellow as a target of violence, or red as a target of retaliation.

This very simply spells out what is known as mob or bully mentality. When they are alone they lose their power so to speak. This is mostly tied to the red shirts. The yellow shirts are patriots and will take a stand in lesser numbers to defend their country.

Another reason the red shirts essentially are the weaker of the two colors is from the rhetoric of their leaders. The vast majority of what is said is so grossly distorted from the common sense known truth leaves significant doubt in motives. All things aside, much of that rhetoric would only be believed by the lesser educated and people who are not exposed to the truth to evaluate for themselves.

It is because of this distortion,  when comments from the red shirt leaders find their way into the media, most is just blown off as wishful thinking or total nonsense. In short the red shirts have little credibility in what they say when it comes to facts. That however is not totally unexpected as they follow Thaksin Shinawatra, and practically everything Thaksin says is totally opposite the truth.

On the other side of the coin the leaders of the yellow shirts have a much closer line to the truth. To add some spice, it is not unexpected to throw a few jabs pointing out that the red shirts are way off base and how they look to others.

The red shirt rally set for today will ride on the leaders ability to convince the red shirt followers they are following the right flag. However that will be increasingly difficult because of the chain of events since the last rally. That includes Thaksin’s UK visa getting canceled, the dissolving of the People Power Party and a mass defection of the government coalition to the opposition. In short the red shirt leaders must lay it on rather thick or they risk another mass defection of red shirts joining the yellow shirts.


Comments are closed.