Transcript of the above video: 

So I'm making another one of these videos about the “Nong Cake” murder and, let me just jump in, because a lot of people both foreign as well as Thais will be jumping on this "bandwagon" – wow, I hate using that term - in light of the fact that this young lady passed away under what seems to be really grizzly circumstances, but I just can't let this sit, because this is just wrong. Let me start off with the thumbnail, and I want to read this, and I hope people remember this as I go through this because I am going to point by point explain what is going on here. One, why I think it's just, it doesn't to my mind show a lot of class to use this woman's murder and ‘woman’ isn't even quite the right word. I mean 17-years-old, to paraphrase the song Strawberry and Wine, caught somewhere in between a woman and a child. I mean we are talking about a teenage girl here; a 17-year-old girl. But I want to read this. We used this as a thumbnail. "She said she wanted to see the sea." Her stepmother, Oradee Bussarakum said she and the teenager's father had tried but failed to contact her. Ms. Oradee said her stepdaughter went to Pattaya on June 16, telling them she wanted to go for a holiday with her friend. "She asked for money from her grandmother and she gave her some. She said she wanted to see the sea." I can't imagine the kind of grief these folks are going through. I just can't imagine it, to lose your daughter at that age, and under these circumstances. I'm not even going to get into issues associated with the Australian man that has been accused in this murder, and based on the clips I've seen, largely looks like he has acknowledged that he had a part in it at the very least; again, we're waiting for further formal adjudication and we will keep folks updated on that. 

But what I have seen is not only the Foreign Press but if you go back about, I can't remember now, it's going back about 5 years ago, maybe a little earlier, there was a moment when General Apirat, who at the time was the Head of the Army - and I think it was right before he retired - did a speech where he was talking about how folks from Western Universities that were Thai, were coming out and they were being indoctrinated in for lack of a better term Marxist Ideology. A lot of, I hesitate to use the word left-right dialectic, I hate the dialectical approach, it is what gets us into these problems to begin with. But for lack of a better term, a lot of foreign notions have gotten into a lot of Thai folks’ heads, largely from for lack of a better term University indoctrination and we're seeing this play out. And in this situation, I mean I just can't believe it's being used to the ends that is clearly being used for under these circumstances. I mean this little girl, this young woman is dead, and this is what we are doing. That said, I want to jump into this. 

So, I came upon this from the Nation, their post on X, so that's the Nation Thailand @Thenationth on X, under the headline: Murdered over 500 Baht: The disclosed EP.13. So this seems to be some series that the Nation is running. A couple of things here, some background. There was a rumour going around - I commented on this on Twitter - there was a rumour going around that this young lady was going around and like entrapping and ensnaring men by using like a fake ID and telling men that she was one age and then once they had some sort of "inappropriate relations" with her, she was then turning around and letting them know that she was actually 17 years old and then holding it over, basically extorting them. This was the accusation. This was purely a rumour on Twitter. I commented on it; I thought it didn't make any sense. There was another story that said that there was some sort of behind closed doors transaction that involved 1,000 baht and then this was reneged upon and 500 Baht was all that was being offered. Apparently, the story is she got upset and then a fight ensued and it culminated in her death. I don't even know if that is true, but that's the reason for the title: Murdered over 500 baht. So again, understand there are these rumours going around. I don't know if any of them are true or not. I have actually stated on X that of the two - between the one where she's trying to rip people off for 300,000 Baht using this complicated scheme to defraud using her age, I thought that sounded rather outlandish. One she's fairly young; it's not like she's like a seasoned professional con man or something. And then I'm sure there are those cynical people, "oh you never know". I find it unlikely. Also, the whole notion of 300,000 baht, the amount of money, seemed ridiculous. If you were trying to hit somebody for a quick payoff, you would hit them for like 30,000 baht because that is most of the time the max most foreigners can take out of a Thai ATM at the moment. So, 300,000 baht, you're going to have to wait around by an ATM while a person pulls out, if they can even do it, pulls out at a max 30,000 at a time, 10 times; sounded outlandish to me. Sounded more likely of the two stories, the notion that it was originally agreed on 1,000 Baht, some sort of transaction, then behind closed doors that was reneged and 500 was offered and a fight ensued; that seemed more likely to me than that this woman was a con woman or something. And I really don't like the implications of victim blaming in all of this anyway. I don't know why it's in the nature of people; sort of a madness of crowds thing to do this type of thing. But that said, that is providing background on what we're talking about here. But the thrust of this actually goes into social issues deeper than just this murder and I'll get into it further, but let me quote: "The killing of a 17-year-old girl exposes a deeply disturbing reality in Thailand's entertainment capital, Pattaya. An Australian man has been charged with murder after the victim was found in a suitcase. Why do some foreign men believe that they can do whatever they want to Thai women?" - I'm going to get into this but why do some men anywhere, at any given time think they can do anything ever. This is politicizing something, and by the way, as I will get into here, it is massively conflating a bunch of different issues. Mostly, it looks to me to be the vilified foreign men just generally across the board. And then also there seems to be a push for the "legalization" of sex work, which makes absolutely no sense in light of the underlying facts of this case, but I'll delve into that further. Let me just go further on this. - "In this special report, we dive into the darkness of the system, tracking the evidence from the CCTV footage to the courtroom. More importantly" - and I have watched this, and I urge those who are watching this video, go over to that Twitter posting. The video is there. I'm going to go through this. I actually took detailed notes and I quoted it. I could play the video. I didn't want to do that. I don't want to mess around with all of that. I'm going to quote it and then I am going to do my analysis. But long story short, I urge those who are watching this video, go watch that. But again, “we dive into the darkness of the system, tracking the evidence from the CCT footage to the courtroom." What are you talking about? They are not even in court. The person is being detained right now under investigation. A lot of hyperbole here; a lot of smoke and really just - as you'll see, I'm not thrilled with how this was reported on. Quoting further: "More importantly, we break down the legal void that leaves hundreds of thousands of hospitality workers without a minimum wage, social security, or police protection, giving predators absolute leverage."

Let's jump in, okay? In the video and I'm quoting from this woman in the video, "Let's be honest, this is not the first time a tragedy like this has made headlines, which poses the question, "why do so many foreign men believe they can do whatever they want to Thai women?" Nobody thinks - not nobody - the vast majority of foreign men do not think that about Thai women, and I can most assuredly say the vast majority of foreign men don't think they can come to Thailand, find an underage girl, kill her, put her in a suitcase and just walk away, or think that that is appropriate. I mean I think it is increasingly obvious that the person who is accused of this has some sort of for lack of a better term, possible mental issues. I'm not saying they lack compos mentis, but they are definitely not somebody who is in line with, for lack of a better term, civilized society, so let's start there, okay. 

I don't know why this is being used to just blanket blame all foreign men like we are all, what I'm saying here is this feels like foreign influence. This feels like what I can only describe as Neo-feminist Cultural Marxist, what I would even call Cultural Bolshevism, which I think is frankly an attempt by foreign sort of influence to sort of break down certain aspects of Thai society in the aftermath of the grizzly killing of a young Thai woman.

Now I'm going to go ahead and put the photo, as I quote this stuff, we will put the photo just of the video up on screen as I'm quoting. Again, I'm not going to run the video, but I'm just going to quote. "It doesn't matter if the woman is an entertainment worker, a tourist, or a minor". Yes, it absolutely matters. Yes, it absolutely matters. The context always matters. That was the moment I knew that this piece was not designed to convey even really opinion in a good faith way, but it was designed to in the background of this very provocative news report that will raise passions in people - both locals, foreigners, whatever - and to then use that momentum towards some other end besides a good faith analysis as to what happened here. But yeah, there's a huge difference between being a minor and being an entertainment worker. If you are a 29-year-old entertainment worker, and it's your common thing to engage in whatever liaisons you engage in, that's a totally different thing than a 17-year-old. We're talking apples and bowling balls. Quoting further: "The issue isn't her profession." Well of course it is. If we were talking about an entertainment worker or l as they go on to say, sort of a sex worker, I mean there is a very; look I know nobody really likes to get into this, and I don't know where the notion of zero-tolerance came from, except for the fact it looks a lot like communal punishment which is what comes from Bolshevism, and other types of tyrannical ideology, but basically it's, "oh we just paint everyone with the same brush, and if there is ever a crime, everyone is punished." But yeah, the background of someone's profession is going to colour the analysis of the outcome, okay? This would be a totally different analysis in my mind if this person, if the victim here, had been again somebody that was older, more mature, had been involved in this scene for long periods of time. Quoting further: "It is the sense of absolute entitlement." This is what is being imported from the West. This is what is being imported through this Communistic type, Bolshevistic type ideology. It's this anti-male, for being anti-male’s sake type of ideology. What entitlement are you talking about? What absolute entitlement? Are you saying that all foreign men that come off the plane in Thailand, have in their mind that they are entitled to kill a young woman and put them in a suitcase? Is that what's being said here? What absolute entitlement? It's just ridiculous. Again, it's imported. I think it's being brought into undermine the harmony of the country and the next target by the way, it's interesting because for now it's targeted at foreign men, but wait, it'll just be all men. So, she brings up the, I have got notes on this. I don't usually do notes when I do these videos, but this piece, news piece, whatever you want to call it from the Nation really gave me pause, so I made some notes here. So, she brings up the Suppression of Prostitution Act, and she says that makes sex workers criminals, but we know this is not totally true, and I've gone over this in other videos. The Entertainment Practices Act of 1966 creates special entertainment zones and creates special entertainment zoning and there are special laws associated with being an "entertainment worker". One of the big ones is and I'll get into this further in a bit, but it's good to point this out now, they have to be of age. This young lady wasn't of age in any way, shape or form, to be working in one of these venues. She would need to be 20 years old, which is the age of majority in Thailand, which by the way is 2 years older than most other foreign countries, especially Western countries, when it comes to the age of consent to be able to even engage in these types of occupations. 

As we have discussed, in my opinion, the Entertainment Practices Act and the paradigm associated with it, is, I'm not going to sit here and say anything about the entire industry is per se good in the sense of like absolute morality right and wrong type of thing, I'd set that aside. But I think it is a good framework to deal with this insofar as it presupposes one) there is a promiscuity element in the act which basically says, you can't be engaging in this stuff openly and notoriously. So again, street walking, this kind of thing is a problem. Strictly speaking, sex work per se is illegal in Thailand, but what the framework sets up is it allows consenting adults - and I emphasize ‘adults’ - because the entire analysis in this piece is predicated on this notion that "oh sex workers should be brought out of the shadows and blah blah". What would that have done for this girl? She couldn't have engaged in this anyway legally under this framework, or any other. So, it wouldn't have changed anything. I'm not even convinced she was in that game. It sounds to me like she may have just befriended this person and was maybe a young naïve lady. I don't know. Nobody knows. We don't really have a full of adjudication here as to what happened. Again, but that's the point; she's not of age. So, we are not talking about consenting adults even under the framework that this piece challenges, because clearly, she didn't consent to be killed and be put into a suitcase. Nor was she an adult.

In this video they go on to say: "they have no minimum hours, wages, Social Security etc." So there seems to be a push within the video to legalize sex work, to regularize sex work, and then they say, "they have no minimum hours, wages, Social Security etc." Yeah, they are sex workers; I mean we are talking about a very gray economy. Nobody disagrees with that. We are not talking about these people work on an assembly line, chunking out widgets or parts or something. So no, and what does that have to do with anything? How would minimum wage or hours or Social Security contributions have done anything for this young lady? And beyond even that, again she wasn't an adult, so what are we talking about? She couldn't have engaged in this under any legal framework to begin with, so why is her death being used to push this agenda? This man did not target a "sex worker", he targeted a child; legally, and factually here. I mean look until at least in any other context, 18 is a certain legal threshold in Thailand with regard to ages of consent and things like that. That is one of the reasons, one of the charges here has to do with taking a minor somewhere. Again, then it goes on to talk about a trans sex worker and how foreign men have a "all the power" and that these people can't fight back. Look I've done a number of videos on this, so maybe to give some context to the talking head who made the video that we are commenting on, have you ever seen the ladyboys when they get their hackles up, because I have; I've done videos on it. We had an almost Gangs of New York style brawl on Soi 11 a few years back. So, no power to "fight" back? I mean have seen a ladyboy wield a stiletto like nunchucks. I mean look, the most fascinating thing to me about this video is how it reminded me of Western, for lack of a better term, propaganda dressed up as news, and that seems to be what it is. Because one) I don't even know what they are talking about in this conflation with legalizing sex workers because, even if you had done that, it wouldn't have changed anything in this case. The girl still would have been 17. It's not clear to me that she was even engaged in that to begin with. Quote: "Because their profession is illegal", Quote: "True Justice for this Thai girl means catching more than one man at an airport." No, true justice for this young lady means exactly catching this guy at the airport. The Thai Police did their job. They found this guy, he tried to flee, allegedly, and he is now under basically investigation; he's detained. That is exactly what justice called for. Again, this just sounds to me like Bolshevik propaganda, utilizing this young lady’s death to create a push for legalization of sex workers, which would have done nothing to save her and then saying that somehow the police or the system isn't doing enough for her, and there isn't enough justice delivered, when her, or at least her precisely accused killer is exactly the person who has been apprehended and detained? That makes absolutely no sense. Again, this girl could never have been a legal sex worker. 

So, getting further into this, again the thrust of this video seems to be to try to conflate the issue of this young lady into why we need to regularize sex work in Thailand. My personal opinion, if it's not already clear, I think Thailand has done a pretty good job dealing with the overall issue via the legislation we already have. Most notably, I think the Entertainment Practices Act sets up a framework by which again, out in the open, out in society, this type of behaviour is illegal; you can't go around soliciting prostitution, you can't go around advertising such things. But again, I think it is also very pragmatic in the sense that consenting adults, behind closed doors can make arrangements as they see fit. Makes sense to me. Operative terms there being "consenting" and "adults", and I think I've driven that point home enough in this video.

But I'm going to put a photo of this on screen, we'll go ahead and put this up on screen. This is Chris Hedges’ book, America: The Farewell Tour. Now one can say what they want about the hyperbole of the title. It's actually quite a good book. I'm not convinced that America is on a farewell tour, but I think we're going through what Strauss and Howe called a Fourth Turning. I think there is major change happening both in the US and around the world. The point of me bringing up the book though is Hedges and he is one of my favourite authors, frankly one of my favourite people out there in the media and journalism and whatnot, I think he is a truly sincere human being, and I have followed him for a number of years. I find him interesting because he does bring up Marxism a lot, but it took me a long time to realize he's not a Marxist, he is actually an old school Christian, and it's interesting, sort of his analysis on things. But I point out again, the whole piece after I was watching, I was just like this is just propaganda that's being pushed utilizing this poor girl's death toward that end. That said, in Hedges' book, there is a chapter in there where he is talking about sex workers, legal sex workers, and it's sort of in the pornography/sort of prostitution arena, but he talks about how utterly dehumanizing and more importantly, how people become commoditized as a result of the legalization of sex work, because at that point they just become a product. And in fact, and it's another reason I think that this piece is highly disingenuous and I question whether or not it's propaganda, because the exact outcomes that their solution would lead to i.e. by legalizing sex work in Thailand, the outcome is the commodification of people, and probably more likely the belief that, "oh, hey I paid my money, I can do what I want, dah, dah, dah." That kind of attitude. Again, where it's left more amorphous and it is left as a one-on-one for lack of a better term, transaction, occurring behind closed doors, which I'm not even saying is what occurred here. We don't actually know what happened here that led to this woman's death, yet. What I have only said is I believe it is more likely the issue of they got in a fight over 500 or 1,000 Baht, rather than this woman was some kind of Black Widow Spider looking to ensnare this guy to get 300,000 Baht out of him. I think that the more likely story, the sort of, "if you see hoof prints, you think horses not zebras". Well, the horse in this scenario is probably the 500, 1,000-baht scenario in my mind over the one. That said, it is not a foregone conclusion that either of those scenarios are what actually occurred. So, one, that the whole thing starts from an assumption and then moves from there. But going back to Hedges, he points out that legalization of this stuff overtly leads to the heavy commoditization of people. The last thing I want to see for Thailand is us going down that road. I think we have the correct system when it comes to the issue of commercial sex work. That being said, and more to the point, it has nothing to do with this girl's death. She couldn't have been involved in it, legal or illegal or otherwise. She was a child and she was brutally murdered. And at the end of the day, that should not be used to push anyone's political agenda.