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Russell Brand on Revolution

Diana9 said:
When people complain ad nauseum about Russell Brand's bank account ("how much is he worth," "who is he to stand up with regular people, he's not one of us, he's a rich celebrity!"), it's only fair to point out that the Queen you so love is a bigger celebrity than Brand and 44 billion richer. Furthermore, you resent Brand because he earned his wealth, while you accept without question that the Queen's wealth is inherited and that she is the biggest welfare recipient of the people's tax money. You have been so profoundly indoctrinated by the oligarchs who have ruled over your country for hundreds of years that you don't even know the depth of your subjugation, and you project this onto anyone who, like Russell Brand, a commoner from a working class family like yourself, has the temerity to think people deserve better. Those who rule over you want you to feel inferior to hold you in check and to do their social policing for them. Their pomp and self-importance conspires to prevent you from thinking you deserve better for yourself, lest you rise up against your oppressors, and you'll only attack and vilify those who try to liberate your mind from oppression. Thomas Paine tried over two-hundred years ago, Russell Brand is trying now, only to receive the same hateful vilification from his countrymen.
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You've got me bang to rights there tbf, the queen is the queen and I'm a cor blimey guv'ner prole cos that's the natural order of things.
 
JimW said:
Sure he was seen in a frock-coat at least.
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he was a famous transvestite so more likely seen in a frock than a frock coat. but diana9 makes tp out as an earlier rb whereas the american colonists had been fuming since the 7 yrs war about the defence budget and the navigation acts and er no taxation without representation. it was a long time coming and even when it came it was notable the greater part of north america remained british, as it still is with the wicked witch of the west as its queen.
 
Jean-Luc said:
That's not what I was saying of course...
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It doesn't matter that it's not what you were saying. The effect of what you propose is that the boss class would be free to exploit international labour on a scale we haven't previously seen, and all for the sake of what's (IMO) a rather dogmatic interpretation of internationalism on your part.
 
I wasn't actually proposing anything just questioning one of the proposals to counter what you describe and which the boss class (or some of them) are doing now, though I've heard that the Labour Party is promising to make advertising jobs abroad illegal if you haven't advertised them first in Britain.
 
Jean-Luc said:
I've heard that the Labour Party is promising to make advertising jobs abroad illegal if you haven't advertised them first in Britain.
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Given that it's very difficult to establish the location of digital media, that sounds like something that would be as difficult to draft and enforce as it would be easy to circumvent. Where did you hear that?
 
Diana9 said:
Aside from the sarcasm, most of what you wrote is actually historically accurate.

The one part you've missed, however, is that the "natural leader and torch bearer for a better form of democracy," wasn't an "American" at all. The real pathfinder, as I'm sure you know, was an Englishman (you should be proud). While the rich white men in the Continental Congress were sending Olive Branch petitions to make nice with the King, a penniless working class bloke fresh off the boat from England named Thomas Paine was writing the pamphlet that would become the clarion call for independence from the British Empire -- the same Thomas Paine who tried to bring the revolution against the monarchy to England, only to be condemned to death and run off by a mob. Two hundred years later, Russell Brand is being reviled by many of his own countrymen for resounding the call for revolution much as Paine was then. If you don't see the irony perhaps you're too close to the problem to get the full picture.
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Paine wasn't "working class", he was the son of a skilled artisan and guild member, and became an excise agent - a position that required education and the ability to finance your own housing and transport. He had already written (and re-written) his pamphlet before he ever set foot on the boat to America, and it was as widely circulated here as was possible for something banned from publication, and circulated among workers and free-thinkers via Correspondence Societies etc". I suspect you're mistaking the official publication date - i.e. when it was officially published in the US - with when it was first disseminated, which was IIRC about 1772.
Britain had already had a revolution a century and a quarter before that in America, but like that in America it was a bourgeois revolution - the middle classes rebelling against the rights and demands of kings, and ended up re-establishing many of the same tyrannies it purported to end.
Paine wasn't "run off by a mob", he was "run off" by a legal system loaded in favour of the state that could bring broad charges (usually of sedition/seditious libel) on little or no evidence, at a time when the death penalty was as common here as it is in the USA currently. He went to France and did more fine work.

To compare Tom Paine to Russell Brand is to insult Paine and to elevate Brand to a position he hasn't earned.
 
SpineyNorman said:
So you're saying Brand is actually like Paine only a bit better? Paine never wrote a bookywook either. Or dressed up like someone off pirates of the caribean to present a big brother whatsit. In your face Thomas!
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TBF, Paine was an actual privateer for a short while, early in his adulthood, rather than just looking like he'd ripped off the look of someone who'd ripped off Keith Richard's '80s/'90s look.
 
Pickman's model said:
he was a famous transvestite so more likely seen in a frock than a frock coat. but diana9 makes tp out as an earlier rb whereas the american colonists had been fuming since the 7 yrs war about the defence budget and the navigation acts and er no taxation without representation. it was a long time coming and even when it came it was notable the greater part of north america remained british, as it still is with the wicked witch of the west as its queen.
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"Common Sense" was popular because it enunciated how many people felt, but as you say, it absolutely didn't inspire the revolution single-handedly, and a lot of the discontent was the discontent of the urban middle classes and the rural land (and slave)-owners.
 
Diana9 said:
I have nothing personally against the Queen, or her family. I'm sure they're all very nice people. They try to do the best they can within the paradigm they were born into. They try to help with charity work (though much of that is PR), and I believe they sincerely devote themselves to fulfilling their duty. The problem isn't personal, it's the system. A system that holds people down.
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If you could apply that kind of understanding to Mr Brand then much of this thread would be unnecessary. The Queen was born into a "paradigm" this causes problems whatever her personal strengths or failings. Russell was born into a "paradigm" and then fucked and smoked himself into a privileged and in some ways influential position within it. He can like the Queen help out with charity work, activism or whatever.I believe that he is sincere in doing this. I do not believe this is just PR or at least not to the extent or as cynical as it is with Liz and pals. PR people will be involved and they will use him the great figurehead to discredit movements he is associated with. The fact that Brand is politically and personally associated with dodgy people, has a history of scandals that have hardly made him a trusted figure and has some dodgy beliefs of his own just increases the problems. The problem as you say isn't personal it is the system. A system that holds people down. There perhaps is a way for celebrities (or ex-celebrities) to be activists or to help in some other way that does less harm than good in the long run. I don't think he has found it yet and if he is sincere and moves away from the dodgy stuff I hope he finds it.
 
ViolentPanda said:
Paine wasn't "working class", he was the son of a skilled artisan and guild member, and became an excise agent - a position that required education and the ability to finance your own housing and transport. He had already written (and re-written) his pamphlet before he ever set foot on the boat to America, and it was as widely circulated here as was possible for something banned from publication, and circulated among workers and free-thinkers via Correspondence Societies etc". I suspect you're mistaking the official publication date - i.e. when it was officially published in the US - with when it was first disseminated, which was IIRC about 1772.
Britain had already had a revolution a century and a quarter before that in America, but like that in America it was a bourgeois revolution - the middle classes rebelling against the rights and demands of kings, and ended up re-establishing many of the same tyrannies it purported to end.
Paine wasn't "run off by a mob", he was "run off" by a legal system loaded in favour of the state that could bring broad charges (usually of sedition/seditious libel) on little or no evidence, at a time when the death penalty was as common here as it is in the USA currently. He went to France and did more fine work.

To compare Tom Paine to Russell Brand is to insult Paine and to elevate Brand to a position he hasn't earned.
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Oh, do fuck off and do something useful with your life.
 
Maurice Picarda said:
Given that it's very difficult to establish the location of digital media, that sounds like something that would be as difficult to draft and enforce as it would be easy to circumvent. Where did you hear that?
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I think it was on the radio, probably this:
Speaking in Great Yarmouth, the Labour leader set out plans to stop cheap foreign workers replacing British staff, saying a future Labour government would pass a law to criminalise such behaviour.
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Just found it here:
We will ban recruitment agencies from hiring only from abroad.
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Jean-Luc said:
Maybe not exactly, but it's the same sort of thing.
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No, it's not. A similar thing would be banning recruitment agencies from hiring in the UK but not from abroad. The opposite to what they're suggesting but still more similar than what you claim they're saying.
 
OK, so what? Talk about nit-picking. I was just answering a question put by a reasonable poster. Anyway, why not say something about Miliband's promise (rather than the person who mentioned it)?
 
Jean-Luc said:
OK, so what? Talk about nit-picking. I was just answering a question put by a reasonable poster. Anyway, why not say something about Miliband's promise (rather than the person who mentioned it)?
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...because you're careering wildly away from the topic at hand with random, often misleading (or downright falsified) quotes going god knows where in a quest to trap Brand's critics into "holding a nationalist position" ...or something it's hard to tell frankly.

Put yer cards on the table. Let's have it. Where exactly are you going with this in relation to Brand (and/or celebrity figureheads in general)?
 
chilango said:
...because you're careering wildly away from the topic at hand with random, often misleading (or downright falsified) quotes going god knows where in a quest to trap Brand's critics into "holding a nationalist position" ...or something it's hard to tell frankly.

Put yer cards on the table. Let's have it. Where exactly are you going with this in relation to Brand (and/or celebrity figureheads in general)?
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round the houses.
 
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