Russell Brand: Man of the People

I used to think that Russell Brand was a complete twonk. Another icon of establishment decadence swaggering across the screen at our expense with a typical celebrity class ignorance and indifference to the injustices lavished upon the majority for the power, prestige and riches of the sociopathic minority we call the elite, the establishment, the ruling class. Whether that sentiment was justified at the time I'm unsure, but it is one I no longer hold. I became aware that Russell had sympathy for us, the 'unwashed masses', when I came across an article he produced for The Guardian in which he scorned the extreme hypocrisy of the establishment in their treatment of rioters whilst continuing to lay a carpet of rose petals for our war criminals, terrorists and ultra-thieves we call investment bankers and traders [1]. However I nearly fell off my sofa the other evening when I saw him being interviewed by Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight [2]. Russell was on fire! He was fierce, filled with the pain of the people and the planet, a freight train of disgust plowing into Paxman's agenda riddled questions, carriage after carriage of articulate decimation of the political paradigm that prevails ubiquitously in the establishment media. I'm surprised that the interview was even aired. For that Mr. Paxman and Co. do deserve some credit, but it is Mr. Brand who should be appreciated here, not merely for his spirited lambasting of the vogons that rule over us and control the the wealth of the nation, but for the circumstantial fact that he can awaken and invigorate a lost generation of disenfranchised and disengaged young people like few others can. I can only hope that other celebrities of Brand's generation hear the groans of the people and pick up the torch, to help ordinary people, particularly the younger generation, fight back, not just for justice and equality but very likely for the survival of the species.

Russell brings to the fight some long over due humour. A kind of humour that us ordinary folks can relate to. It has the incredibly important characteristic of raising awareness of the seriousness of the situation we're in but without sending us into a coma. He is able to stitch back together our attention spans, that have been shattered by the mind and ethics disintegrating triviality and chaotic dross we call the mainstream or establishment media. It should be well noted also that this arrangement is far from undesigned as Chomsky and others prolifically reveal [3][4][5]. The establishment do not want ordinary people participating in politics. They never did. They never will. If ordinary people enter the arena en mass then the political system will no longer be heavily tipped in favour of the rich. Check out Russell's piercing but also funny recent article in the New Statesman [6].

Russell is absolutely right that voting is a waste of time. As I sometimes say "if this is democracy then giving a slave the day off once every few years should be called liberty". Picking between factions of the elite once every few years is not choice. It is not participation. It is very definitely not democracy. It is the scam we are told to believe is democracy, rather like being given the choice between a kick in the teeth or a punch in the mouth. Furthermore there are very good reasons why genuine prominent alternatives do not exist, or at least are not made known to us. They are numerous, but perhaps most significant is the fact that the establishment own and control the mainstream media. Are they likely to allow alternatives and views that challenge their exponentially disproportionate wealth and dominance over us? It's a no brainer. The only participation in politics ordinary people have is in the streets, demonstrating, protesting, striking, refusing to comply with the ideologies forced upon us. But we do have power. Enormous power. Our power lies in our numbers. The elite are terrified of us, which is why they go to such great lengths to divide us, disengage us and make us apathetic and hopeless. But hope is here, it's growing, and you need a piece of it. Growing and evolving movements around the world are linking up, sympathising, educating, sharing and galvanising. Occupy, the 99%, Anonymous, the Arab Spring, human rights groups, animal rights groups, unions, celebrities, academics, political dissidents, whistleblowers ad nauseam are all fighting back, not just for themselves, but also for each other and for you. You just need to pay attention. Visit their websites and their YouTube videos. Join the Facebook pages and Twitter discussions. Feel the power of the people. Connect with others who are as outraged as you. Join a protest and make new friends, real friends with a passion for humanity, for the planet, for our future, for you. You'll thank me I promise.

Russell is a good man doing a darned good thing, and good people deserve our appreciation and reciprocation. The only thing I can do to reciprocate here is to make you aware that it is very typical of the establishment to go after outspoken public figures and try to bring them down before their message really reaches the masses. Don't be surprised if Russell Brand becomes 'embroiled in scandal' of some sort in the not too distant future. He is certainly at best sacrificing career opportunities for our benefit. Stand by him as he stands by you!

As always please let me know what you think.

References

[1] Big Brother isn't watching you, http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/aug/11/london-riots-davidcameron
[2] Newsnight: Jeremy Paxman and Russell Brand, 23/10.2013, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri0R9wCZz-o
[3] Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AnB8MuQ6DU
[4] Orwell Rolls In His grave (including an extended interview with media expert Professor Robert McChesney, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_lYGyIaK80
[5] Psywar, the battle for your mind, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXX0vujix-o
[6] New Statesman article, Russell Brand on revolution: “We no longer have the luxury of tradition”, http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/10/russell-brand-on-revolution

Representative Democracy: An oxymoron?

I've often given thought to the idea of the representation of interests but have never 'put pen to paper', so I thought I might share with you where I have gotten to and see what you think about the matter.

Who is the best arbiter of your best interests? As a babies we lack any capacity to reason and therefore it is down to our parents to do their best to ensure our survival and our futures. Our genes predetermine this parental behaviour, which is what is meant by maternal or paternal instincts. As our capacity to reason develops we begin our struggle for independence. Often an unhappy time for both child and parents as their instinct to best serve our interests starts to conflict with our own developing sense of self interest. At some point we take control of our much our own interests, which is typically upon leaving the nest. Outside of this normative pattern the capacity of others to best serve our interests diminishes with diminishing kinship. That is to say; the less connected we are as family or friends the more we are likely to be serving our own interests rather than each others'.

How then is a representative democracy possible? Is it merely an oxymoron? Can a politician really have your interests at heart? Personally I don't think so. They are by nature representing their own interests, even if they earnestly believe they are trying to serve ours. Even if we manage to communicate to them our needs and desires we run into numerous problems.

• The representative is going to have to balance our needs and desires against the needs of desires of others they are representing.
• They have their own political ideologies, needs and desires that may and in my opinion almost without exception does conflicts with our interests.
• Party affiliations often demand that representatives follow the party line even if the representative is not in favour of the party line.
• The fact that one person is supposedly representing the interests of many makes them a target of powerful third party interests who are seeking to ensure that your interests are not represented. This can take the form of bribery, propaganda and even threats.

It is also important to note that the rich and powerful conspire to ensure that democracy is so configured. An examination of the notes of James Madison, perhaps the leading framer of the US constitution, provides us with an important insight into the thinking of the elite. The US founding fathers certain had England as a working model around which to construct their own system, and notes from their secret meetings show just that:

"In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of the landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They [branches of government] ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority." [1]

Particular attention should be paid to the notion of protecting the interests of the minority of the opulent against the majority. Here James Madison is explicitly stating that the interests of the rich and powerful must trump those of the masses, fearful that democracy would lead to equality. Despite these horrific statements we should bare in mind that the founders were actually attempting to construct a comparatively more fair system for all than that of England at the time. They were however in fact elite, wealthy land owners and slave owners, and of course serving their own interests. This is the US 'representative democracy' in construction, but what they were in fact constructing was a tyranny over the masses with democracy for the rich. That system persists to this day, with our own British system now mimicking it almost entirely.

These points certainly demonstrate how wealthy people impose a class system upon us in which the further down the social order we are, the less participation in democracy we are afforded, for the explicit purpose of serving their interests, even if they believe they are serving ours.

For me, I don't think that there is any such thing as a representative democracy, because representatives do not and cannot represent us. I do think the term is at best an oxymoron if not an outright term of propaganda.

What do you think?

References
[1] Notes of the Secret Debates of the Federal Convention of 1787, Taken by the Late Hon Robert Yates, Chief Justice of the State of New York, and One of the Delegates from That State to the Said Convention, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/yates.asp

Modern life: What is wrong with it all?

A few years back a couple of friends and me decided to cycle a well known UK route called the C2C. As the name suggests it goes from sea to sea. In this case, from Whitehaven to Sunderland. We packed up our bikes with tents, food and other essentials and set off on the 4 day trip across the land, camping by night. It is possible to do the trip in one day if you are very fit, but we were not, and the additional weight of carrying what we needed to camp etc., slows you down, hence the 4 days. It was relative hardship compared to ordinary daily life, peddling our way across the Cambrian mountains, through sunshine, rain, fog and hail. The aches and pains of leaning on the handle bars, the bruising and soreness on your backside, revealing themselves more assertively each morning as you start the next leg of the journey, make for discomfort that us pansy-ass townies are really not at home with. Additionally, the late night sounds of your mates snoring and what I can only describe as half-goat-half-pig-half-goose mating grunts at 3 am in the morning, eminating from perhaps 20 feet away, amongst other strange noises, leaves you tired if not exhausted each morning. But still, we got on our bikes and peddled. On the upside, you see the country from a completely different perspective. You start to enjoy the rolling hills and peaks, at least when you're coming down them. You encounter people in a new context too. Folk are helpful, friendly and sympathetic to your quest, perhaps to some degree wishing it was them. By the end of the trip we were truly exhausted, though simultaneously elated at our small achievement, and enriched by the experiences along the way. But, something else had happened to us. We didnt want to stop. We didn't want to go home. We wanted more. What and why?

There was a comradery that developed, despite sleep loss and fatigue induced grumpy exchanges, that I have not experienced in daily town life. Something about the shared hardships and joys that creates unspoken bonds that we don't experience in modern life, save perhaps within the family home, but even then there is something different about this. There was more than just the bonds that made the experience so memorable and precious.

If we step back and look our lives and peer down from a larger perspective there are hints at why. We are constrained by having to pay for our homes and life in them, which forces us to take paying jobs, with our homes creating physical barriers to all outside the four walls. So for the most part of our lives we are either in our homes or in the place of work doing work, where the opportunities for the kind of experiences and comradery I'm talking about do not really exist. Furthermore we are bombarded constantly by marketing, everywhere, it is even piped directly into our homes courtesy of the box in the corner of the room. It teases us, manipulating our desires and emotions, making us addicted consumers of products, somehow dulling our brains to the fact that we are forced to pay all of our lives to live on a tiny patch of our own planet. The bricks and mortar having been paid for just a few years into our mortgages, and the rest just pampering the rich who hold our planet hostage. In this sense we are slaves to the rich. We are forced to live within their laws and ideologies, and skillfully manipulated and coerced into accepting this way of life.

Out on the road, we discovered something about freedom and friendship that is difficult to find or experience within the highly structured system of modern life that is imposed on us. Perhaps the fact that being on bikes, relatively unconstrained by road laws, allowing us to go just about anywhere also had something to do with it. I can't even adequately describe the meaning and joy of what we discovered. It is only something that can be appreciated by embarking on such adventures I think. But it changed me. It continues to change me. Every time I do something outside of the norms of the system now I feel that freedom and joy, and it's addictive. More and more I reject modern life; it's fakery, the celebrities, the rules, the slavery. And I feel good about it.

We can't continue our existing way of life. We already know it. The exhaustion of resources, the damage to our ecology, the wars that will probably ensue, the biological hazards, the nuclear hazards. If the constraints of wage slavery and these mentioned threats are not enough to compel you to change your existence, your existence will change anyway. The question is, do you want it to be on your own terms or are you going to let the terms of others, specifically the rich and powerful, be imposed on you?

My experiences have taught me that there is a much more fulfilling existence for us, waiting for us, beyond the walls of this fake life imposed on us by the rich. It will involve work too, but not this meaningless 'existance' as servants. We have to fight for our rights and freedoms, and that takes comradery and solidarity that doesn't come from ordinary modern life. You can experience it on an adventure, in protests and demonstrations, through participating in life with fellow ordinary folk. It creates meaning for your life that you wont find on your TV, in the supermarket or at work, but you have to seek it out to understand it. As the famous anarchist Rosa Luxembourg once said "those who do not move do not feel their chains", and that is something we cannot truly grasp whilst continuing to go through the motions of the life that has been designed for us by the rich for the rich.

Do something you have never done. Do something beyond normality. Understand what the word liberty means, and how we give it up by continuing with modern life. Become addicted to freedom and learn how to fight for it.

"Profits and tax cuts are not dirty words" according to David Cameron

This is the headline of a lead article from The Guardian today. It is in fact interesting to see such statements make it into headlines, as it suggests that there is a debate afoot as to the reality of the statement. If profits and tax cuts are not dirty words, why say anything? The very fact that the PM felt the need to say it is evidence of a fight back against public opinion by the ruling class. So I'd like to explore these words here for your consideration.

Let's be clear, when David Cameron states that 'tax cuts' are not dirty words in an act of defence against an opposing public position, we know he is not talking about tax cuts across the board but merely tax cuts for the rich. One of the Cameron government's first taxation acts was to cut the 50p rate on inheritance tax, which is a tax that only affects the rich. Why tax cuts for the rich? It's not as though they are facing any financial hardship is it? It is however the corporations of the rich that are lobbying our ministers and MPs on a daily basis, with campaign donations and offers of post-parliament 'consultancy' roles for MPs carefully tucked up their sleeves.

We should all take time to consider the meaning of the word profit. What is profit? What does it mean to profit? If I grow fruit on my land and exchange some for vegetables grown by my neighbour there is no profit. It is a mutually beneficial exchange for the purposes of our survival. It gets a little more complicated when we venture into the world of money, but the principle remains; in a fair and equitable exchange of goods or services there is no profit. Profit only arises when one party is exploiting one or more other parties, and on this 'principle' the ruling class has worked very hard to convince us all that it is fair and good, Cameron's own words being an explicit example. So who are the exploiters and the exploited? Well clearly ordinary folk are exploited by the rich, otherwise they wouldn't be rich! This isn't to say that the rich do no work. In fact they work very hard, exploiting us, because it is so profitable, but then should we really be calling this work? A con artist might have to go door to door for weeks before finding a suitably gullible enough victim with sufficient money to make his efforts worthwhile, but we don't call it 'work', nor should we of the activities of the rich. Furthermore the rewards to the rich are astonishingly disproportionate to their efforts.

The status quo is maintained of course by the fact that the wealth of rich gives them power, doorways into the process of government, and furthermore their domination of the media allows them to persuade the unsuspecting masses in their favour whilst keeping the truth as far from us as possible. If only folks had the time to look into the public record properly. The parliamentary record. The declassified record. Interestingly if we were all working to the principles of making a living rather than a profit, especially the rich, then there would be far greater financial equality. Perhaps more to the point though is that if we did away with the profit system and ditched all of the pointless junk produced in its name, we might all only have to work a 2 or 3 day week. Then there would be time on our hands to look into what the ruling class actually do. Catch 22. That's how they keep us intellectually and financially chained.

Thankfully ordinary folk exist in vastly greater numbers than their ruling classes, such that the mere act of talking about these things and propagating these ideas amongst ourselves leads to powerful people's movements that force the rich to act in our favour lest they risk revolution. Monsieur Guillotine's famous invention, used prolifically for shortening members of the French ruling class in the French revolution, really does play on their minds when we take to the streets.