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

Democracy Now!

Occupy Wall Street whilst the bankers are taking it all,

They're taking your job, my house and their cares are not even small,
Us peasants giving to the rich is their idea of reform,
They're Ivy Lee and have been taught this way since they were born,
What will it take for the elite to share power?,
When they already know that people are dying every hour,
To Occupy Wall Street seems all that we can do,
It will scare these crooks silly and they can't even sue,
Let the bankers feel the pain for their senseless ruthless gains,
Let's make this democracy now! and never the same pain again!

Message received?

Today I posted the following comment response to another commenter on The Guardian article "Occupy Wall Street: echoes of the past as protesters grasp the future" :

"@RjBig2000

no person can revoke these three basic rights, Life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness"


I like the general sentiment being employed in those romantically libertarian words but they fall well short of say socialism in terms providing a rights framework for achieving those things that the words long for, just like America falls abysmally short of the principles of the US constitution. This is a fact of life due to the power and corruption of wealth, which will always accumulate over time for ruthless enough individuals, groups and associations. The only thing that has ever worked for us peasants in the way of achieving even modest steps towards those ideals are social movements, workers unions and benevolent dictatorship. Democracy doesn't exist for us peasants. It never has. Liberal democracy as practiced by most Western nations is perfectly represented by the long time kids' favourite board game Monopoly. Money buys you friends in high places, politicians, political parties, political systems, governments, military juntas, brutal dictators, newspapers, television networks, Internet presence, prisons, schools, universities, entire education systems, police, armies and military hardware. It's all owned and controlled by an astonishingly small fraction of the global population. All the properties on the board were bought long before we were born, so we just get to pay rent in order to live on our own planet, and if you're not prepared to put up with that then they have everything they need to make sure the only place you are going is in the ground, and then your family gets the bill. And the US says that China is 'evil'?


Anarchism is the never ending fight against concentrations of power, which ultimately corrupt themselves, and in order not to be such a concentration of power anarchism essentially remains distributed, non-networked and leaderless, though we all happily jump on board and support movements for the benefit of the peasantry. Thus anarchism might best be understood as the state of mind one reaches having seen the king with no clothes, and that the game is and has always been rigged from top to bottom. Anarchism is not a club, an Internet site or a social movement. It is simply the recognition of the unspeakably bad state of affairs and the desire to bring about justice for the majority rather than the rich minority. Needless to say anarchism is deliberately misrepresented by the media, in fact in most cases it is just flat out lied about.


We need to wake up the anarchist that lies at the heart of every peasant by opening the curtains on the world around them. If we don't we are probably shafted properly, as a species I mean, and I mean it literally, mortally and urgently. Few people seem to grasp the enormity of what is coming in the wake of the failure to address the rapidly approaching man-made climate catastrophe and the also rapidly approaching energy crisis. Both will lead ultimately to global war (not to mention famine due to collapsed food infrastructure, disease, collapsed health care systems, genocides ad nauseum that will also result) and given that the nuclear power states' defense systems are largely automated (responsive to assumed attack) the chain reaction will resemble the dropping of a piece of cheese into a box full of loaded mousetraps. As we stand to day we are staring straight into the light of the oncoming train of extinction, and the boys in our engine room are still shovelling coal.


It saddens me that this message is not being received loud and clear by the peasantry, at least thus far, because they are our only hope."