i’ve decided i will no longer play the tedious game of reducing my motivations into a legally recognised defence — all the jumping through legal hoops and being respectful of the process and processors only made me feel like an absolute sap when i was (totally predictably, in line with my years of experience) shown no respect, ignored, patronised and punished.
i had originally assumed legal defences to my actions were a hopeless and stupid endeavour, and now after many years experience, i can say with confidence, from experience, that they are.
i’m not sure exactly what i was trying to achieve by pissing around with the legal system — but i now know, whatever it was, it’s complete.
all i will do from now on is explain myself as directly and simply as i can from the witness box — if the judicial folk want to tell me to shut up instead of listening, i don’t care — the courtroom is not where things are decided anyway, it’s more important that i reach anyone in the world who actually wants to listen.
i’ll still always plead not guilty, and after giving evidence, i’ll explain why i do not run a recognised legal defence — if the feeling takes me, i’ll also tell the judiciary what i think about them, and it is not this: “i am inspired and uplifted by the insight and courage of my wise elders in the justice system, who fearlessly pursue greater justice in all forms without a single thought to their personal interests”.
i enjoyed the partial reprieve that i was granted by my punishing conscience while engaging in my legal “activities” (avoiding jail for some years) — and i got to have an awesome daughter *kisses* — but the ‘holiday’ is over: i feel i need to speak honestly and in my own terms from now on as a kind of psychological self-defence, for my own dignity.
i’m going to end up in jail anyway — and if what i say ends up being an aggravating factor in sentencing, i’ll still do the time easier than i would if i gave another high-chair the benefit of the non-existent doubt, only for them to again have the final word in which i am insultingly brushed off.
a thing i find frustrating within academia and legal “professionalism” is it’s willingness to avoid stating plainly the hypocrisies and contradictions of this system — as if it is uncouth, uncivilised, unsophisticated and childishly naive to mention certain truths, such as that roughly 50% of the worlds wealth belongs to 1% of the population, and that it is the “justice” systems of the world that hold this inequality, and all the horror it brings, in place.
rich people feel blamed with a dry statement of fact such as that, so it’s understood we don’t say things like that — but that statement didn’t apportion blame at all, and of course no one is responsible for anything, we’re all just doing our jobs, except mentally-ill fuck-ups like myself, so it’s probably actually my fault, soz.
“left”, “progressive” (informed, compassionate, sane) professional people tend to agree to conceal their fact-supported analyses of the morally indefensible nature of contemporary global injustice in the subtle implication of dense intellectual works, as if expressing their opinion plainly and directly at any stage will tar them as a “radical”, instantly destroying their perceived “objectivity” and professional credibility (therefore rendering them completely useless as a ‘progressive’) — meanwhile simplistic and historically-false platitudes of the pure intentions and justice of our current system pour from every loudspeaker, and the people making these statements of gross idiocy largely escape being pulled up on their ill-informed rubbish, or being labelled as the “ideological warriors” they most clearly are.
this intellectual trend has to stop — if a sane world view remains a private secret, that we agree to conceal for fear of being discredited in our for-profit owned “public” sphere, then we can never begin the work we need to do — when a mass of intelligent and credentialed people speak out at once, we can normalise what it is that conservatives of injustice are currently successfully casting as “radical” (i.e. being sane, well-informed and caring).
of course there are many awesome intellectuals and professionals who do speak out, that’s good but it’s not yet the best — i still hope they take the next logical step and start to act out.
i have just run out of patience with the legal system, but my decision to drop legal defences is also influenced by my need to not politely pussyfoot around the real issues or the reality of the injustice our justice systems uphold.
i want to always refuse to accept the framework and terminology of the legal system, which is all about busying us with trivial, restricted-focus arguments and excluding the fundamental arguments they cannot win in terms of the justice and democracy they claim to be all about.
if i’m denied the right to speak in the courtroom, whatever, that’s still better than being allowed to speak in any way that legitimises or respects the crazy blinkered view of the courtroom.
