Sentimental Update (Thailand, changes in the meaning of my life, etc.)
10 September 2016 [link youtube]
Youtube Automatic Transcription
this case in a lot of ways has been a
reminder to me of how much I really do understand Thai culture but of how much I've wanted to forget what i know about thai culture northern Thailand Laos I do understand the way people think feel do business there I understand some of the language issues that lurk behind cultural misunderstandings because years of my life were taken up with you know research and work in that part of the world but in a lot of ways it's stuff I don't want to think about it's it's an understanding that i thought was part of my past and you know just today I was reflecting on why I feel so sad for during writer for the very real possibility that the story ends with him in prison and you know I have to reflect on all this research I did back in the day for years and years of my life you know I really thought that prison activism was going to be a significant part of my my career or Mike humanitarian work because you know one time Buddhism was a you know prime leading part of my identity I was first and foremost a scholar tera vaada Buddhism and then any interested in ecology or vegetarianism or veganism was was secondary that this is back in the day so I thought for a long time that I would be involved with programs to improve education inside prisons just in being engaged with prison conditions and I was interested in that and did research into that was you know trying to get the first stages of a humanitarian involvement going when I was in Laos when I was in Thailand when I was in Cambodia but also when I was in England believe it or not I was talking to people vote about prison charity for the negativism etc and of course when I was in Canada when I was in Saskatchewan involved with the the Korean a jib way there I was really interested short-term and long-term about charity work education work etc a link to the prison populations so I mean none of that it's not a repressed memory it's just something I haven't thought about and I didn't want to think about because in many ways it's a saddening reminder of my own lost potential and if things I want to do with my life that I now know I'm never going to be able to do but really as soon as I stopped being a Buddhist in any sense as soon as I broke with the religion I guess you know my hopes for prison related charity work ended with that also but to give just I mean I remember one prison I actually visited in Laos and I talked to the warden I didn't say much there was someone else they spoke to language fluently but you know I didn't go inside that prison but I still saw a fair bit of that prison that was a prison with concrete walls that was a pretty high level prison by Lao standards and I saw other prisons that had bamboo walls you know whether he could see through walls he saw inside the prison without having to go inside the prison and nobody was trying to escape I mean those prisoners they could have they could have punched their way through the wall but they knew what the consequences would be so nobody was trying to escape from from those bring a couple prisons or so and when I was in Cambodia saw some prisons that were truly truly third world and you know this is the other thing with humanitarian work you spend more time wanting to do it than actually doing it I very intentionally met and spoke with him had meetings with people who had done that type of research or done that type of activism or done that type of charity work and so I learned things from from talking to them and you know when he talked to people face-to-face you notice there are some things that are comfortable telling you and there's some things they're uncomfortable telling you and there's some things they've seen inside the prison's that they're still traumatized by you really you know all those nuances come across so I mean just today I was reflecting on this like on some level I would feel happy if Durham writer didn't have to go to prison even though I do think that pushing forward with this case is the right thing to do and it's what I have to do morally it's obligatory but it's it's a sad situation for me personally in many ways including the reflecting I have to do on the Thai establishment how the Thai legal system actually works and what the attitudes are within the Thai establishment I you know Thailand a lot of their institutions have borrowed the names of British institutions and they seem to follow the format oppression institutions so they have a prosecution service that resembles in England you know what's called the Queen's prosecution service of the court the Crown Prosecution Service think these days people say crown prosecution service rather than kings or Queens but it's used it's used all those names historically in some ways outwardly even if you look at footage from or photographs from inside a tie courtroom it looks a lot like specifically the British model of how a legal system works but then when you actually get involved in these ways you're reminded of the deep and profound ways in which Thailand is culturally alien from any European country and you know it's not just procedural a lot of it really is cultural but it's important for us I mean so I have a lot to say in this video apart from the kind of bare facts of providing an update on the case it's a very onion term to use we have this idiom in English you know boiling frog a boiling frog scenario all of us even I myself all of us lose sight of just how violent and vile and dangerous and hurtful and offensive during writers conduct as we all get used to it even me we hear it again and again there people have been seeing this for years and they start to treat it as if it's business as usual and then you know I talked to my lawyer and the lawyer talked to the judge and you get the reaction from the thai establishment and you're reminded you know from an outsider's perspective from an objective for anyone's objective perspective but especially from a conservative member of the thai establishment from someone whose career has been in the law whether they're a judge or a lawyer or a bureaucrat you know someone who is really a conservative member of the establishment they watched just one video from durianrider like just the video he put up on September first is very recent I'm recording this today what is this in September ninth yeah today September 9th Bieber video recently tember first that video alone can result in you doing a hard time entitlement out one video and you know he restates many you know accusations many slanderous and defamatory and frankly threatening and harassing things he said against me in the past and there really is a sense both during writers critics and his supporters have just become desensitized to this in a boiling frog scenario and it was funny but me hearing my lawyers voice on the phone today and again I have years of really deep experience with Thai culture not from a tourist perspective I've worked inside the Thai government I have worked inside Buddhist monasteries if I think they're different you know even your experience inside hospitals if you talk to people who are more like medical employees I mean they're conservative in different ways they're members of the establishment in different ways from a Buddhist monk related story from university professors have all this experience inside universities and universities can be extremely conservative places in Thailand but you know someone like that whether it's the judge or the other people in that courtroom in that bureaucratic context the way they feel about the how shocked they are and how they regard during writer they perceive him are they okay I guess we'll give the you know that way this is my interpretation they can't say allegedly but you know I think they perceive him as insane and dangerous and out of control and they're right you know um and there's a sense in which everyone loses sight of that whether the people who are laughing at him or the people who are laughing with him people are making excuses for him where people who got fed up with the excuse a long time ago people who regard him as lying all the time or people who actually believe what he says the people who regard what he says is a mixed treatment vision there really has been a boiling frog scenario and it was just funny for me today cuz hearing my lawyers voice on the phone and you he'd already he's talked to judges more than once already in this procedure of these proceedings you know the depth of that sense of just shocked I can't say outraged but I mean the sense of you know this person is a danger to the public and the right he's proven that I'm not the only case I'm not the only instance this is somebody who's doing dangerous and harmful things again and again and you know we forget that and this sense in which I forgot that was up until today so again in parallel to the British crown prosecution service I was afraid because it so every time a case is presented Crown Prosecution Service and in England in the British system which in some ways on the surface the Thai system resembles the British system if they're presented with the case they have to make a decision they make a series of decisions but one of the most important decisions is whether or not bringing the case to trial serves the public interest and this is a very British thing because it's completely non-democratic completely non transparent no public accountability but in many cases especially when something very bizarre and conflicted happens sometimes their cases of murder that are in the in the newspapers but it's a murderer where someone was attempting to prevent another murder there was some really complex set of circumstances and the the crown just decides not to bring the case to trial they just say no it's not in the public interest to bring a trial and I just mentioned I think the public will they mostly notice this the press like the newspapers they noticed this happen when it's some very strange set of circumstances because people are interested LT they'd like to see it go to trial but the crown just decides no it doesn't serve the poconos so before its arch Miller today I was actually concerned that the crown or sorry the prosecution service in Thailand I don't know the user but the prosecution would decide that this case was not worth pressing and again I mean there's so many ways in which so I keep using this idea of the boiling frog but you know in some ways Thai society is very liberating and very permissive in some ways it is very indulgent towards its tourists towards for foreigners who go there and get drunk and misbehave they're famous for that they tolerate a lot of drunkenness behavior on the part of foreign tourists and you know even I with my years of deep experience that I establishment you forget that tremendously conservative tera vaada Buddhist Orthodox establishment that's there all the time and that is ruling the country and that takes very seriously their obligation to do justice it's no joke I mean that's funny because again this brings back they're not repressed memories but it's just memories of a whole career I had as a scholar in that part of the world that makes me sad to think about so I I don't think about it very often but I mean you know like in Thailand give you a sense of what that subculture is like the same way in the United States there's a George there's a family surrounding George Bush you know the the George Bush clan family what have you there are these conservative families that are you know really the strength of the government and I mean they'll be members of a Buddhist temple that only performs funeral ceremonies for people who've done Navy service and they will put their sons into the Navy for a few years and the sons will go to naval academy or in other cases it will be the the army you know the army on land or the Air Force or the police service and their sons will do a couple years in the Navy and maybe get some education you know the military academy our naval academy and their sons will do some period of time as a Buddhist monk most likely serving in a temple that's linked to that same temple and they will go into some kind of bureaucratic or legal career you know there is a you know we use this word there is the establishment in Thailand it's very politically complex and nuanced of course there are different allegiances and alliance and I mean even the fact you can be in a town where there really is like oh yeah that's that's the Buddhist monastery that's linked to the Navy and that's the Buddhist monastery it's linked to the police or the the army or maybe both were you know those types of unspoken distinctions and most time those different institutions don't get along the army don't get along with the police and the police don't get along with the Army and the Navy and the land army or you know supporting different factions politically blah blah blah all this stuff is going on below the surface but apart from the politics of the day there's also the politics of the millennium politics stretching back centuries centuries of these people who really take their moral duty there there there are ethical obligations very seriously and come out of that that hardcore tera vaada Buddhist background that I understand so well I'm one of the few white men who can really say I have some appreciation for that some appreciation for what it means if you know obviously there's the actual ritual elements of being a Buddhist monk and you know even even though of course the religion is corrupt but you know on that sentimental level of you know your grandfather dies and you become a Buddhist monk for two weeks during the grieving period uh you know you have a respected elder who dies and once a month you go to visit the wall there remains are put in you know as a concrete wall that human remains and you go to show your respect to this disease really you know there are there are so many elements to that conservative culture and it's there all the time and tourists don't see it because they don't want to see it you know but the same I could say to some extent is true of like Florida I mean do you really feel how conservative Florida is as a state and who is the Florida establishment who runs the police who runs the courts who are the lawyers and the politicians who is the establishment in Florida who are those families the equivalent to the George Bush family in Florida though actually some of George Bush's family members are living in Florida and they are part of the Florida stuff now now that i think about it Florida includes George Bush's family but it away um you know if you go to Disneyland or you go to Miami and you go to nightclubs in Miami you don't see that conservative establishment in Florida but it's there I just I mean today again I stopped thinking about it because I it's for me personally it's sad reminds me of my years being involved with charity work there and trying to be more involved being involved with Buddhist scholarship and trying to be more involved all those dreams that have died for me are linked to that understanding out of that culture in that context you know there's another sense even the work I did professionally we're getting professionally and you know day-to-day reality of living in Bangkok I have lived in Bangkok in the past I have lived in Chiang Mai in the past I have lived in Laos blah blah blah you guys know I have experienced in the area but like you know I was getting mad at my lawyer a few days ago because you know he would send me an email saying oh yeah okay i'll send you another email about that tomorrow you know in thailand as a language as a culture tomorrow doesn't really mean tomorrow so like four days go by and i'm sending the guy furious email saying look you know you said you would have this done by tomorrow and you know i mean that's that's thailand you know like really thats thailand like really with thailand tomorrow doesn't mean tomorrow um it was a saying in the language they're very close languages but would I gel me whele of course now my pronunciation is getting sloppier and sloppy or so many years ago by so that was important language my life but you know um you know like I would say to people ok do it when you have time would I Jamie whele when you have enough time to do it so you go to a tailor you go to some other shop to order something to be done you're gonna come back and pick it up it's ok you know do it when you have time and you'd say you know okay I'll come back on Saturday or something and come back and they they wouldn't done anything they wouldn't even started doing it or something you know I learned because it was not in my nature to peel like this but you know people who live there their whole lives the friends of mine who were born and raised there they really had to explain oh no no when he wants something done you never say do it when you have time or i can come back saturday you say why isn't it finished already and you'd be a jerk about it every time and it'll still be late and they'll still tell you tomorrow and tomorrow doesn't really mean tomorrow tomorrow means two weeks from now so I mean on a deep level thailand and laos in some ways they're different cultures but in some ways they're profoundly similar cultures the link between them is ancient and ongoing these these two cultures so you know i'm reminded of those elements in dealing with a lawyer i'm reminded of what the attitude and perspective of the thai establishment is and i'm most of all I've just been given a wake-up call with the extent to which all of us we've just gotten used to such a high level of those two things violence and defamation and they're both totally unacceptable within veganism now if we were talking about a football you know like the sport of football maybe some level of violence and defamation is acceptable and then above that it's not acceptable if we were talking about the sport of wrestling or boxing you know there are some ass elements in our culture where people insult each other and they defame each other and there's some violence you know I don't know that's a different question but within veganism as a political movement as an ecological movement as an animal rights movement doong doong doong zero this is totally unacceptable and the reaction of gotten just now you know from the lawyer and indirectly from that whole courtroom just you know what I feel coming back from the procedures we've already had it really reminds me of that and we can't we really can't lose sight of that short-term or long-term this is all about drawing that line where you say this is acceptable this is unacceptable but emotionally for the reasons I talk about the beginning of this model on emotionally because I've seen those prisons because i had that interest in those prisons there still is a sense on a deep level in which I feel like I don't you know I feel like I'd be happy for the guy if he doesn't go to prison but it's it's is this is so serious it's not a joking matter and after the the last court hearing you know my judge confirmed for me that from the from the prosecution's perspective um this is serious enough that even if he leaves Thailand they are going to refer the arrest warrant they're going to to to the authorities in Australia so I was also concerned about that earlier i do not know that the the minimum set or i think that's only for cases where the sentence is over a certain length of time i do not know if that's two years or what but where the charges are serious enough and the sentence is long enough that even if the person flees the country you know the paperwork will be handed on to the government of Australia so that also I was uncertain about earlier would the with the crown prosecution service or sir whatever they call it there the National bus station would they take these charges seriously enough to pursue them even if he flees to Australia before this process is done on paper and the answer is yes so had that confirmed for me today or guests confirmed again because I was I was I had my doubts about that because I forgot I forgot about I didn't forget I wasn't thinking about who those people are I wasn't thinking about their cultural perspective the type of person who becomes a career bureaucrat a lawyer a judge a member of the establishment out that conservative core that sees it as their duty to actually serve the public interest to actually keep the peace and to actually punish people who are insane or dangerous or who do harm to others on the kingdom soil and you take that duty seriously I know who those people are I know them and you can see them in Buddhist temples you can see them on University campuses and you can meet them you know whatever I met them when I was working for the government myself in Thailand I met those people and I saw you know there are many sad elements of the lives those people lead as tiling goes through the vicissitudes of 11 revolution after another one coup date after another one experimental attempted democracy after another there are many sad elements to that and I've seen so many governments rise and fall in Thailand I can't keep count but yeah I I lost sight of that myself so sorry for me that's something something moving in something real and it's nice for me to hear that you know those are the people who are in my corner and they're not in my corner because they know me or like me they're in my corner because again just even one video from durianrider they look at just one video like that and they take very seriously that this is somebody the law needs to handle you know whoo so look guys it is not in my interest to make public any of the other details of this court case those of you have been following them patron for a long time know that it is not in my interest to educate durianrider or anyone else about exactly what the charges are or exactly what happened what happens where you know all of us are learning that we do not understand the Thai legal system as well as we think we do and it has been hilarious to me to see everyone pretending they're experts on the law in general and then pertaining the experts in the law with in Thailand specifically it's just a joke and mostly people have never well girls are even been to Thailand but they never thought about they never given serious consideration to what the situation is what's going on um but for me both in terms of the the formal legal process and in terms the informal cultural expectations behind that process and how it works I'm I'm you know I'm learning so much so like the the September sixth court aid from my perspective I thought okay so that means my lawyer has all the paperwork done and then he goes to the hearing that's the end of the poor like that's the the conclusive point at which all the papers are smooth the judge and no again this is partly cultural not just you know the explicit legal organization things he goes to that court date and you know he talks to the judge and the judge gives him a checklist of things to do and they have a conversation about how the evidence needs to be prepared seems like a very helpful and collegial process but that's not what I was expecting I thought that was the kind of end point where my lawyer would present the papers to the judge and either the papers would be good enough to proceed or they would not be would get a yes or no answer but no it's obviously much more of a ongoing nuanced process where the judge was basically advising my lawyer as to what requirements were what what needed to be done but will be helpful the case etc etc and um so none of us understand the legal process as well as we think we do I think even my lawyer doesn't understand shalinka process as well if he thinks he does and you know my lawyer has told me that it will be absolutely necessary for me to go to court in person as a witness and as a victim and to testify and to swear and I did not know that until a couple days ago and today he confirmed that he said no you have to this is obligatory for you and I know some of you guys think I'm wealthy but I'm really not the only way I can afford to do that is from the money given on patreon because the money donated for the legal cause the money donated through generosity calm the money donated through generosity it has all been spent 100 percent of that went to cover the lawyers fees and in fact I'm on the hook to pay more monies the lawyer and future I hope the the Supplemental fees do not add up to too much but it's this could indeed end up costing me more or considerably more than what I raised and you know some of you guys know that it's stupid in the past people were always complaining oh I didn't ask for enough money it's impossible for the cost so little again I did that moral principle i just wanted to raise exactly the amount of money that i needed to pay the lawyer period you know another you know people were but people used to say that the case must be fake because it was too cheap and you know now people say the opposite you know now people say it's so much money that i must have stolen it because it's more than it's just stupid no matter what you do with these people and people say like why don't i post more documents online or something doesn't matter if i post documents people say the documents are fake like you've got understand what the game is here we this is about someone who has been accused of a serious crime and again we we do lose sight of that we do forget that um and he is willing to lie in his own defense understandable and he is willing to lie to continue defaming and harassing me and threatening me um so we know when you know that and when you know this guy's track record of lying about everything clearly just lying about things I can't believe anyone lies but people are not lying about whether or not I ever went to university so you know if I'd never gone to university I'd be proud of it I'd talk about that up but like any way stupid I mean I know when people lie saying I used to work for the CIA or whatever would you know yeah right CIA program to do original research on Buddhist philosophy right I wish sign me up for that program you know so that's it I mean you know that's the update and it is mostly a sentimental update rather than a factual update but as you guys know I do like to record videos that I might want to watch myself five years to nine ten years from now and I you know so trying to share the way I feel and the thoughts you know that I'm swimming in at this peculiar juncture in the case that's at least something valuable to me right now and maybe it's valuable and worthwhile to some of you maybe not
reminder to me of how much I really do understand Thai culture but of how much I've wanted to forget what i know about thai culture northern Thailand Laos I do understand the way people think feel do business there I understand some of the language issues that lurk behind cultural misunderstandings because years of my life were taken up with you know research and work in that part of the world but in a lot of ways it's stuff I don't want to think about it's it's an understanding that i thought was part of my past and you know just today I was reflecting on why I feel so sad for during writer for the very real possibility that the story ends with him in prison and you know I have to reflect on all this research I did back in the day for years and years of my life you know I really thought that prison activism was going to be a significant part of my my career or Mike humanitarian work because you know one time Buddhism was a you know prime leading part of my identity I was first and foremost a scholar tera vaada Buddhism and then any interested in ecology or vegetarianism or veganism was was secondary that this is back in the day so I thought for a long time that I would be involved with programs to improve education inside prisons just in being engaged with prison conditions and I was interested in that and did research into that was you know trying to get the first stages of a humanitarian involvement going when I was in Laos when I was in Thailand when I was in Cambodia but also when I was in England believe it or not I was talking to people vote about prison charity for the negativism etc and of course when I was in Canada when I was in Saskatchewan involved with the the Korean a jib way there I was really interested short-term and long-term about charity work education work etc a link to the prison populations so I mean none of that it's not a repressed memory it's just something I haven't thought about and I didn't want to think about because in many ways it's a saddening reminder of my own lost potential and if things I want to do with my life that I now know I'm never going to be able to do but really as soon as I stopped being a Buddhist in any sense as soon as I broke with the religion I guess you know my hopes for prison related charity work ended with that also but to give just I mean I remember one prison I actually visited in Laos and I talked to the warden I didn't say much there was someone else they spoke to language fluently but you know I didn't go inside that prison but I still saw a fair bit of that prison that was a prison with concrete walls that was a pretty high level prison by Lao standards and I saw other prisons that had bamboo walls you know whether he could see through walls he saw inside the prison without having to go inside the prison and nobody was trying to escape I mean those prisoners they could have they could have punched their way through the wall but they knew what the consequences would be so nobody was trying to escape from from those bring a couple prisons or so and when I was in Cambodia saw some prisons that were truly truly third world and you know this is the other thing with humanitarian work you spend more time wanting to do it than actually doing it I very intentionally met and spoke with him had meetings with people who had done that type of research or done that type of activism or done that type of charity work and so I learned things from from talking to them and you know when he talked to people face-to-face you notice there are some things that are comfortable telling you and there's some things they're uncomfortable telling you and there's some things they've seen inside the prison's that they're still traumatized by you really you know all those nuances come across so I mean just today I was reflecting on this like on some level I would feel happy if Durham writer didn't have to go to prison even though I do think that pushing forward with this case is the right thing to do and it's what I have to do morally it's obligatory but it's it's a sad situation for me personally in many ways including the reflecting I have to do on the Thai establishment how the Thai legal system actually works and what the attitudes are within the Thai establishment I you know Thailand a lot of their institutions have borrowed the names of British institutions and they seem to follow the format oppression institutions so they have a prosecution service that resembles in England you know what's called the Queen's prosecution service of the court the Crown Prosecution Service think these days people say crown prosecution service rather than kings or Queens but it's used it's used all those names historically in some ways outwardly even if you look at footage from or photographs from inside a tie courtroom it looks a lot like specifically the British model of how a legal system works but then when you actually get involved in these ways you're reminded of the deep and profound ways in which Thailand is culturally alien from any European country and you know it's not just procedural a lot of it really is cultural but it's important for us I mean so I have a lot to say in this video apart from the kind of bare facts of providing an update on the case it's a very onion term to use we have this idiom in English you know boiling frog a boiling frog scenario all of us even I myself all of us lose sight of just how violent and vile and dangerous and hurtful and offensive during writers conduct as we all get used to it even me we hear it again and again there people have been seeing this for years and they start to treat it as if it's business as usual and then you know I talked to my lawyer and the lawyer talked to the judge and you get the reaction from the thai establishment and you're reminded you know from an outsider's perspective from an objective for anyone's objective perspective but especially from a conservative member of the thai establishment from someone whose career has been in the law whether they're a judge or a lawyer or a bureaucrat you know someone who is really a conservative member of the establishment they watched just one video from durianrider like just the video he put up on September first is very recent I'm recording this today what is this in September ninth yeah today September 9th Bieber video recently tember first that video alone can result in you doing a hard time entitlement out one video and you know he restates many you know accusations many slanderous and defamatory and frankly threatening and harassing things he said against me in the past and there really is a sense both during writers critics and his supporters have just become desensitized to this in a boiling frog scenario and it was funny but me hearing my lawyers voice on the phone today and again I have years of really deep experience with Thai culture not from a tourist perspective I've worked inside the Thai government I have worked inside Buddhist monasteries if I think they're different you know even your experience inside hospitals if you talk to people who are more like medical employees I mean they're conservative in different ways they're members of the establishment in different ways from a Buddhist monk related story from university professors have all this experience inside universities and universities can be extremely conservative places in Thailand but you know someone like that whether it's the judge or the other people in that courtroom in that bureaucratic context the way they feel about the how shocked they are and how they regard during writer they perceive him are they okay I guess we'll give the you know that way this is my interpretation they can't say allegedly but you know I think they perceive him as insane and dangerous and out of control and they're right you know um and there's a sense in which everyone loses sight of that whether the people who are laughing at him or the people who are laughing with him people are making excuses for him where people who got fed up with the excuse a long time ago people who regard him as lying all the time or people who actually believe what he says the people who regard what he says is a mixed treatment vision there really has been a boiling frog scenario and it was just funny for me today cuz hearing my lawyers voice on the phone and you he'd already he's talked to judges more than once already in this procedure of these proceedings you know the depth of that sense of just shocked I can't say outraged but I mean the sense of you know this person is a danger to the public and the right he's proven that I'm not the only case I'm not the only instance this is somebody who's doing dangerous and harmful things again and again and you know we forget that and this sense in which I forgot that was up until today so again in parallel to the British crown prosecution service I was afraid because it so every time a case is presented Crown Prosecution Service and in England in the British system which in some ways on the surface the Thai system resembles the British system if they're presented with the case they have to make a decision they make a series of decisions but one of the most important decisions is whether or not bringing the case to trial serves the public interest and this is a very British thing because it's completely non-democratic completely non transparent no public accountability but in many cases especially when something very bizarre and conflicted happens sometimes their cases of murder that are in the in the newspapers but it's a murderer where someone was attempting to prevent another murder there was some really complex set of circumstances and the the crown just decides not to bring the case to trial they just say no it's not in the public interest to bring a trial and I just mentioned I think the public will they mostly notice this the press like the newspapers they noticed this happen when it's some very strange set of circumstances because people are interested LT they'd like to see it go to trial but the crown just decides no it doesn't serve the poconos so before its arch Miller today I was actually concerned that the crown or sorry the prosecution service in Thailand I don't know the user but the prosecution would decide that this case was not worth pressing and again I mean there's so many ways in which so I keep using this idea of the boiling frog but you know in some ways Thai society is very liberating and very permissive in some ways it is very indulgent towards its tourists towards for foreigners who go there and get drunk and misbehave they're famous for that they tolerate a lot of drunkenness behavior on the part of foreign tourists and you know even I with my years of deep experience that I establishment you forget that tremendously conservative tera vaada Buddhist Orthodox establishment that's there all the time and that is ruling the country and that takes very seriously their obligation to do justice it's no joke I mean that's funny because again this brings back they're not repressed memories but it's just memories of a whole career I had as a scholar in that part of the world that makes me sad to think about so I I don't think about it very often but I mean you know like in Thailand give you a sense of what that subculture is like the same way in the United States there's a George there's a family surrounding George Bush you know the the George Bush clan family what have you there are these conservative families that are you know really the strength of the government and I mean they'll be members of a Buddhist temple that only performs funeral ceremonies for people who've done Navy service and they will put their sons into the Navy for a few years and the sons will go to naval academy or in other cases it will be the the army you know the army on land or the Air Force or the police service and their sons will do a couple years in the Navy and maybe get some education you know the military academy our naval academy and their sons will do some period of time as a Buddhist monk most likely serving in a temple that's linked to that same temple and they will go into some kind of bureaucratic or legal career you know there is a you know we use this word there is the establishment in Thailand it's very politically complex and nuanced of course there are different allegiances and alliance and I mean even the fact you can be in a town where there really is like oh yeah that's that's the Buddhist monastery that's linked to the Navy and that's the Buddhist monastery it's linked to the police or the the army or maybe both were you know those types of unspoken distinctions and most time those different institutions don't get along the army don't get along with the police and the police don't get along with the Army and the Navy and the land army or you know supporting different factions politically blah blah blah all this stuff is going on below the surface but apart from the politics of the day there's also the politics of the millennium politics stretching back centuries centuries of these people who really take their moral duty there there there are ethical obligations very seriously and come out of that that hardcore tera vaada Buddhist background that I understand so well I'm one of the few white men who can really say I have some appreciation for that some appreciation for what it means if you know obviously there's the actual ritual elements of being a Buddhist monk and you know even even though of course the religion is corrupt but you know on that sentimental level of you know your grandfather dies and you become a Buddhist monk for two weeks during the grieving period uh you know you have a respected elder who dies and once a month you go to visit the wall there remains are put in you know as a concrete wall that human remains and you go to show your respect to this disease really you know there are there are so many elements to that conservative culture and it's there all the time and tourists don't see it because they don't want to see it you know but the same I could say to some extent is true of like Florida I mean do you really feel how conservative Florida is as a state and who is the Florida establishment who runs the police who runs the courts who are the lawyers and the politicians who is the establishment in Florida who are those families the equivalent to the George Bush family in Florida though actually some of George Bush's family members are living in Florida and they are part of the Florida stuff now now that i think about it Florida includes George Bush's family but it away um you know if you go to Disneyland or you go to Miami and you go to nightclubs in Miami you don't see that conservative establishment in Florida but it's there I just I mean today again I stopped thinking about it because I it's for me personally it's sad reminds me of my years being involved with charity work there and trying to be more involved being involved with Buddhist scholarship and trying to be more involved all those dreams that have died for me are linked to that understanding out of that culture in that context you know there's another sense even the work I did professionally we're getting professionally and you know day-to-day reality of living in Bangkok I have lived in Bangkok in the past I have lived in Chiang Mai in the past I have lived in Laos blah blah blah you guys know I have experienced in the area but like you know I was getting mad at my lawyer a few days ago because you know he would send me an email saying oh yeah okay i'll send you another email about that tomorrow you know in thailand as a language as a culture tomorrow doesn't really mean tomorrow so like four days go by and i'm sending the guy furious email saying look you know you said you would have this done by tomorrow and you know i mean that's that's thailand you know like really thats thailand like really with thailand tomorrow doesn't mean tomorrow um it was a saying in the language they're very close languages but would I gel me whele of course now my pronunciation is getting sloppier and sloppy or so many years ago by so that was important language my life but you know um you know like I would say to people ok do it when you have time would I Jamie whele when you have enough time to do it so you go to a tailor you go to some other shop to order something to be done you're gonna come back and pick it up it's ok you know do it when you have time and you'd say you know okay I'll come back on Saturday or something and come back and they they wouldn't done anything they wouldn't even started doing it or something you know I learned because it was not in my nature to peel like this but you know people who live there their whole lives the friends of mine who were born and raised there they really had to explain oh no no when he wants something done you never say do it when you have time or i can come back saturday you say why isn't it finished already and you'd be a jerk about it every time and it'll still be late and they'll still tell you tomorrow and tomorrow doesn't really mean tomorrow tomorrow means two weeks from now so I mean on a deep level thailand and laos in some ways they're different cultures but in some ways they're profoundly similar cultures the link between them is ancient and ongoing these these two cultures so you know i'm reminded of those elements in dealing with a lawyer i'm reminded of what the attitude and perspective of the thai establishment is and i'm most of all I've just been given a wake-up call with the extent to which all of us we've just gotten used to such a high level of those two things violence and defamation and they're both totally unacceptable within veganism now if we were talking about a football you know like the sport of football maybe some level of violence and defamation is acceptable and then above that it's not acceptable if we were talking about the sport of wrestling or boxing you know there are some ass elements in our culture where people insult each other and they defame each other and there's some violence you know I don't know that's a different question but within veganism as a political movement as an ecological movement as an animal rights movement doong doong doong zero this is totally unacceptable and the reaction of gotten just now you know from the lawyer and indirectly from that whole courtroom just you know what I feel coming back from the procedures we've already had it really reminds me of that and we can't we really can't lose sight of that short-term or long-term this is all about drawing that line where you say this is acceptable this is unacceptable but emotionally for the reasons I talk about the beginning of this model on emotionally because I've seen those prisons because i had that interest in those prisons there still is a sense on a deep level in which I feel like I don't you know I feel like I'd be happy for the guy if he doesn't go to prison but it's it's is this is so serious it's not a joking matter and after the the last court hearing you know my judge confirmed for me that from the from the prosecution's perspective um this is serious enough that even if he leaves Thailand they are going to refer the arrest warrant they're going to to to the authorities in Australia so I was also concerned about that earlier i do not know that the the minimum set or i think that's only for cases where the sentence is over a certain length of time i do not know if that's two years or what but where the charges are serious enough and the sentence is long enough that even if the person flees the country you know the paperwork will be handed on to the government of Australia so that also I was uncertain about earlier would the with the crown prosecution service or sir whatever they call it there the National bus station would they take these charges seriously enough to pursue them even if he flees to Australia before this process is done on paper and the answer is yes so had that confirmed for me today or guests confirmed again because I was I was I had my doubts about that because I forgot I forgot about I didn't forget I wasn't thinking about who those people are I wasn't thinking about their cultural perspective the type of person who becomes a career bureaucrat a lawyer a judge a member of the establishment out that conservative core that sees it as their duty to actually serve the public interest to actually keep the peace and to actually punish people who are insane or dangerous or who do harm to others on the kingdom soil and you take that duty seriously I know who those people are I know them and you can see them in Buddhist temples you can see them on University campuses and you can meet them you know whatever I met them when I was working for the government myself in Thailand I met those people and I saw you know there are many sad elements of the lives those people lead as tiling goes through the vicissitudes of 11 revolution after another one coup date after another one experimental attempted democracy after another there are many sad elements to that and I've seen so many governments rise and fall in Thailand I can't keep count but yeah I I lost sight of that myself so sorry for me that's something something moving in something real and it's nice for me to hear that you know those are the people who are in my corner and they're not in my corner because they know me or like me they're in my corner because again just even one video from durianrider they look at just one video like that and they take very seriously that this is somebody the law needs to handle you know whoo so look guys it is not in my interest to make public any of the other details of this court case those of you have been following them patron for a long time know that it is not in my interest to educate durianrider or anyone else about exactly what the charges are or exactly what happened what happens where you know all of us are learning that we do not understand the Thai legal system as well as we think we do and it has been hilarious to me to see everyone pretending they're experts on the law in general and then pertaining the experts in the law with in Thailand specifically it's just a joke and mostly people have never well girls are even been to Thailand but they never thought about they never given serious consideration to what the situation is what's going on um but for me both in terms of the the formal legal process and in terms the informal cultural expectations behind that process and how it works I'm I'm you know I'm learning so much so like the the September sixth court aid from my perspective I thought okay so that means my lawyer has all the paperwork done and then he goes to the hearing that's the end of the poor like that's the the conclusive point at which all the papers are smooth the judge and no again this is partly cultural not just you know the explicit legal organization things he goes to that court date and you know he talks to the judge and the judge gives him a checklist of things to do and they have a conversation about how the evidence needs to be prepared seems like a very helpful and collegial process but that's not what I was expecting I thought that was the kind of end point where my lawyer would present the papers to the judge and either the papers would be good enough to proceed or they would not be would get a yes or no answer but no it's obviously much more of a ongoing nuanced process where the judge was basically advising my lawyer as to what requirements were what what needed to be done but will be helpful the case etc etc and um so none of us understand the legal process as well as we think we do I think even my lawyer doesn't understand shalinka process as well if he thinks he does and you know my lawyer has told me that it will be absolutely necessary for me to go to court in person as a witness and as a victim and to testify and to swear and I did not know that until a couple days ago and today he confirmed that he said no you have to this is obligatory for you and I know some of you guys think I'm wealthy but I'm really not the only way I can afford to do that is from the money given on patreon because the money donated for the legal cause the money donated through generosity calm the money donated through generosity it has all been spent 100 percent of that went to cover the lawyers fees and in fact I'm on the hook to pay more monies the lawyer and future I hope the the Supplemental fees do not add up to too much but it's this could indeed end up costing me more or considerably more than what I raised and you know some of you guys know that it's stupid in the past people were always complaining oh I didn't ask for enough money it's impossible for the cost so little again I did that moral principle i just wanted to raise exactly the amount of money that i needed to pay the lawyer period you know another you know people were but people used to say that the case must be fake because it was too cheap and you know now people say the opposite you know now people say it's so much money that i must have stolen it because it's more than it's just stupid no matter what you do with these people and people say like why don't i post more documents online or something doesn't matter if i post documents people say the documents are fake like you've got understand what the game is here we this is about someone who has been accused of a serious crime and again we we do lose sight of that we do forget that um and he is willing to lie in his own defense understandable and he is willing to lie to continue defaming and harassing me and threatening me um so we know when you know that and when you know this guy's track record of lying about everything clearly just lying about things I can't believe anyone lies but people are not lying about whether or not I ever went to university so you know if I'd never gone to university I'd be proud of it I'd talk about that up but like any way stupid I mean I know when people lie saying I used to work for the CIA or whatever would you know yeah right CIA program to do original research on Buddhist philosophy right I wish sign me up for that program you know so that's it I mean you know that's the update and it is mostly a sentimental update rather than a factual update but as you guys know I do like to record videos that I might want to watch myself five years to nine ten years from now and I you know so trying to share the way I feel and the thoughts you know that I'm swimming in at this peculiar juncture in the case that's at least something valuable to me right now and maybe it's valuable and worthwhile to some of you maybe not