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Russell Brand on Revolution

BigTom said:
My voice gets heard fine in the projects and activities I'm involved in in my local community, along with the other people who are involved.
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for me, that is the common ground we all share, being active within our local communities, and that is what russell brand is advocating. you are already in that place, doing those things with other people. many of us aren't, what little i do, i do in almost isolation. very few hear my voice or are affected by my deeds. but i am not a leader, i'm not a good spokesperson. yet they are roles i have found myself in, albeit in a small way. i'm sure in time i will find a cause where i can be of use.

wanted to write more but have stuff to do.
 
I think last nights exchanges demonstrate the poison that allowing or fostering celeb-culture in our organising and our networks will bring with it. A leader with infatuated followers protecting him (and it will be a him) by shutting down criticism, by hunting down dissidents, by insisting that difference of opinion is malevolent, psychopathic or who knows...put there by our opponents. And then the leader gets bored and the followers move onto the next messiah leaving a hollowed out fractured and internally destroyed organisation/campaign.

Celeb-COINTELPRO.
 
taffboy gwyrdd said:
I don't agree with RB all the time, but he's clearly getting up a lot of noses, which is no bad thing.

Some leftists complaint about him strike me as weird. He's managed to get a lot of folk, not normally that interested in politics, thinking about about fairly left wing stuff, far more than so many others ever managed to via festishised rhetoric, shouty slogans and dull meetings.

It's like "how dare he talk about E15 mums or Occupy on Newsnight. how dare he do a daily show ripping the piss out of reactionaries. He's not as perfect as ME It should be ME doing that. I am the MOST LEFTYIST OF THEM ALL."

And obviously, no one with any money should be left wing. Like engles, kropotkin, Benn etc. The rich are politically obliged to be right wing, and we have right wing media to back us up on that.

You know who's not a hypocrite, doesn't blur any anti establishment message or run any risk of mishandling a campaign like New Era? Katie Hopkins. Lets have more people like her. Fan fucking tastic. If we can't have impure people arguing a case like ours, lets just have the opposite case put the whole time.

It's as if some people would rather he was just a vapid celeb, giving interviews to OK about what clothes he likes or his love life,while the real political analysis is left to the grown ups who have strangely achieved next to no traction over the last couple of generations.

Yes, alot of what he says is obvious to many of us, rather empty in some ways and ego fuelled, but he's sincere enough and would admit all the above. A lot of the critique seems rather churlish.
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It's always interesting to see how widely you miss the mark. Amusing, too.
 
Humberto said:
Is he not just doing it because he loves to be seen, to be fashionable, to be feted? Why does he live in luxury when he can quite easily give all his absurd wealth to good causes?

It seems like bollocks.

The system which gives everything to the few and nothing to the majority is the enemy of equality and of what is in the interests of the majority and fairness. All Brand has shown is that he has a big mouth, he hasn't sacrificed ANYTHING AT ALL.

In fact I think he is probably crackers. And he is not exactly a good example to the young. BTW I don't mean his drug problem but the whole Sachsgate shit.

Socialism is or should be very simple. Shelter the vulnerable and those in danger. Protect those who would be exploited by the extortioner. Support a politics which establishes principles of truth, good judgement and always persistent and hasty for justice.

I don't want to go on too much but while I am here: we are run by a bunch of ridiculous inadequates in suits who LIE to us.
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I'm sure Mr. Brand is sincere, and I'm sure he believes in his politics. I don't think he should be castigated for opening his gob and using his status. I do think that he should worry long and hard before doing so, in order to make sure that his promotion of a cause DOES actually promote that cause, and not just himself.
 
Diana9 said:
When I see the common man try to take down someone who speaks on behalf of the common man, all I can think is that centuries of indoctrination by the ruling elite still holds people mentally enslaved in the 21st century.

Mind boggling.

"But before we change the world, we need to change the way we think." - Russell Brand, "We No Longer Have the Luxury of Tradition," The New Statesman
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How many of the common herd have requested that Russell Brand speak for us, hmm? It seems to me that what you're saying is "be grateful that this great man is willing to speak for you, peasants". Well I'm not grateful. I don't need a Lord or Lady Bountiful to do my thinking or my activism for me. I don't need some top-down pseudo-revolutionist putting words in my mouth.

Shame on you.
 
BigTom said:
Not sure if I'm this common man you speak of, I'm no celeb though, so I guess so.

I don't want or need someone to speak on behalf of me.

I never asked brand to speak on behalf of me.

Afaik brand doesn't say he speaks on my behalf but he must understand how the media works and whatever he says about not being leader/spokesperson that is how he'll be presented.

His voice - to some extent - takes away from my voice.

I want my voice to be heard, I want it to be my voice, and if practicality dictates I be represented, I want a direct part in choosing who represents me.

Does that help you understand?
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It won't. The poster can't see beyond the messiah suffering for our sins. It's nauseating.
 
Raoul Vaneigem said:
"The ideological spectacle keeps up with the times by bringing out harmless plastic antagonisms; are you for or against Brigitte Bardot, the Beatles, mini-cars, hippies, nationalization, spaghetti, old people, the TUC, mini-skirts, pop art, thermonuclear war, hitch-hiking? There is no one who is not accosted at every moment of the day by posters, news flashes, stereotypes, summoned to take sides over each of the prefabricated trifles that conscientiously stop up all the sources of everyday creativity."
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I'm just gonna leave this here.

*slowly walks backwards out of the thread*
 
Most of the 'non political' people i know either don't care or think he is a bit of a joke.

It seems to be mostly overexcited lefties and trots who like Russell Brand
 
Mungy said:
for me, that is the common ground we all share, being active within our local communities, and that is what russell brand is advocating. you are already in that place, doing those things with other people. many of us aren't, what little i do, i do in almost isolation. very few hear my voice or are affected by my deeds. but i am not a leader, i'm not a good spokesperson. yet they are roles i have found myself in, albeit in a small way. i'm sure in time i will find a cause where i can be of use.

wanted to write more but have stuff to do.
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I'd like to hear more when you have time :)

For the stuff I'm involved in at the moment, I just can't see how having a celeb involved would be of any use (another pair of hands is always welcome, but not the celeb bit of it). One is getting people to apply for a free bike on the Big Birmingham Bike scheme, which I'm then going to get to refugees who don't happen to live in the right area or don't have legal status so can't get the leisure card they need to apply, working with ASIRT (an independent refugee advice service). Because I'm part of the BIrmingham cycling community, and because ASIRT is part of the migrant community, we don't need someone like brand to amplify our voice because we can speak directly to everyone we need to.

The other is Birmingham Claimant's Union which we setup in the wake of the closure of Birmingham Law Centre and branches of the CAB, to provide informal advice and support for claimants. We get in touch with claimants by being outside of job centres and ATOS testing centre with leaflets and info. In this situation it's vital that the people who are doing it are claimants or deeply connected with the benefits system (couple of legal and cab type advisors in the group, plus a few like me who are no longer claimants but still support the group). Someone like brand just wouldn't be useful.

I can see how if you are isolated/feel isolated, seeing brand talking this stuff up is great because you feel less isolated, but the problem I see with him talking about community based bottom up organising, is that it is in the nature of being a media-driven celeb to create something that is top-down great individual organising, you'd need someone with almost no ego to not have them/their image taken up as the image/person of the campaign, detracting from bottom up organising, and that's definitely not brand - or any other celeb really, you must need a proper ego to get yourself into that kind of place.

For the stuff I'm involved with, I think it would be damaging tbh. If the council got wind of our plans for the bikes and could stop it, they would, and I've already outlined why I think a celeb involvement would be damaging to the claimant's union. In general, what Butcher's has said and my paragraph above.
 
Does anyone really think he is "the messiah"?
I can't say I've read anything he's written but is he really that important? So much so that he should remain quiet at the request of `activists`?
He was into all the protest whatsit back in the day.

I think maybe we should email Chomsky so he can decide for us ;)
 
butchersapron said:
I think last nights exchanges demonstrate the poison that allowing or fostering celeb-culture in our organising and our networks will bring with it. A leader with infatuated followers protecting him (and it will be a him) by shutting down criticism, by hunting down dissidents, by insisting that difference of opinion is malevolent, psychopathic or who knows...put there by our opponents. And then the leader gets bored and the followers move onto the next messiah leaving a hollowed out fractured and internally destroyed organisation/campaign.

Celeb-COINTELPRO.
Click to expand...

Are you comparing Brand to the Black Panthers and the murder of activists like Hampton by the US state?
 
butchersapron said:
I think last nights exchanges demonstrate the poison that allowing or fostering celeb-culture in our organising and our networks will bring with it. A leader with infatuated followers protecting him (and it will be a him) by shutting down criticism, by hunting down dissidents, by insisting that difference of opinion is malevolent, psychopathic or who knows...put there by our opponents. And then the leader gets bored and the followers move onto the next messiah leaving a hollowed out fractured and internally destroyed organisation/campaign.

Celeb-COINTELPRO.
Click to expand...
When any strong personality leaves a group, it leaves a void, whether they are a sleb or not. I guess the important difference though is those with an invested interest, those would will be directly affected by being made homeless, or further impoverished can't retreat when they don't want to do it anymore.
 
Diana9 said:
So you want your voice to be heard. How do you propose going about it? I hate to shatter your illusions, but the common man doesn't have a voice, unless he can organize people en mass, and even then, millions of people marched to protest the Iraq war, nobody listened.
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And all the other times, when mass protest has worked? If you're female (or indeed a Norfolk schoolmaster for that matter), you only have a vote because of mass protest, and not mass protest led by someone with the surname Pankhurst, but led by "the common woman".

The reality is, the Sun speaks for you, the Daily Mail speaks for you. They do the bidding of the power elite to distract people with nonsense, like how much Russell Brand pays to rent his apartment. They're just trying to stir up envy, and some people unfortunately fall for it because they don't even know themselves enough to know they are envious of celebrities and wealth. "Yeah, who does Russell Brand think he is to speak for me! I can bloody well speak for myself!" And bam, they've got you just where they want you: effectively silenced. Basically it comes down to a hatchet job against anyone who deigns to speak for the public good and people need to learn to see through that and not be duped into working against each other.
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And of course, we blind foolish peasants don't have the ability to "read between the lines", so we need Russy-wussy to mediate our rage for us. Fuck off.

If you don't need Russell Brand to speak for you, fine, but why begrudge him for lending his celebrity to the people of East London who need his voice to amplify their own? Would anyone hear their plight if it wasn't for him? Hardly.

Let's not be naive and face reality. Having a celebrity who does have a voice as an ally can help give the concerns of common people a larger hearing in the world. Unless you just don't care about their concerns. In that case, you really don't have anything to say, do you.
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What a creep you are. Most of those concerns outlive the celebrities riding them.
 
Patronising team-building training lesson one
social-issues-working_together-equality-efficiency-pulling_together-teams-forn1189_low.jpg
 
Coolfonz said:
Does anyone really think he is "the messiah"?
I can't say I've read anything he's written but is he really that important? So much so that he should remain quiet at the request of `activists`?
He was into all the protest whatsit back in the day.

I think maybe we should email Chomsky so he can decide for us ;)
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I think you should mail yourself to Chomsky, given how often you mention him. Preferably in an airtight box.
 
Mungy said:
When any strong personality leaves a group, it leaves a void, whether they are a sleb or not. I guess the important difference though is those with an invested interest, those would will be directly affected by being made homeless, or further impoverished can't retreat when they don't want to do it anymore.
Click to expand...

That's pretty much the crux of it. Greebo and I do various local stuff because if we don't, we have no-one to blame but ourselves, and helping our community (either local or on-line) achieves something solid. We don't have the "luxury" of being able to retreat from activism, because everyone is important in a community, and everything we do for each other is important. Having celebrity support would bring transient attention to local causes, but then surely the drop-off of attention post-celebrity is all the steeper? I'm not saying celebs shouldn't become involved, I'm saying they should subordinate their status to the community, not act to speak FOR that community. Butchers made a very good point yesterday when he mentioned that (probably unintentionally) Brand had partially disempowered the women from E15.
 
copliker said:
MeMeMeMe

We've already got an EXCLUSIVE report on Laurie's hailing of siegheiling Weev's release from chokey.
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We're backing this up with a sensational double page spread on this.

MeMe.jpg
 
BigTom said:
I can see how if you are isolated/feel isolated, seeing brand talking this stuff up is great because you feel less isolated, but the problem I see with him talking about community based bottom up organising, is that it is in the nature of being a media-driven celeb to create something that is top-down great individual organising, you'd need someone with almost no ego to not have them/their image taken up as the image/person of the campaign, detracting from bottom up organising, and that's definitely not brand - or any other celeb really, you must need a proper ego to get yourself into that kind of place.
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I have long held thoughts of community and working together as co-operatives, but it all feels so fragile, people want, but they don't want to put the spadework in. I'm a follower, not a leader. I'll do what needs to be done but I can't do the speaking to people and bringing them around and into the fold - that's not exactly what i want to say, but really can't find another way to say it. For me, someone like russell brand, I mean in personality and not necessarily status, can be a good thing. But that is perceived through my lack of confidence, so I'm aware how that might affect my perception. Human relationships are bloody complicated.
 
Humberto said:
Is he not just doing it because he loves to be seen, to be fashionable, to be feted? Why does he live in luxury when he can quite easily give all his absurd wealth to good causes?

It seems like bollocks.

The system which gives everything to the few and nothing to the majority is the enemy of equality and of what is in the interests of the majority and fairness. All Brand has shown is that he has a big mouth, he hasn't sacrificed ANYTHING AT ALL.

In fact I think he is probably crackers. And he is not exactly a good example to the young. BTW I don't mean his drug problem but the whole Sachsgate shit.

Socialism is or should be very simple. Shelter the vulnerable and those in danger. Protect those who would be exploited by the extortioner. Support a politics which establishes principles of truth, good judgement and always persistent and hasty for justice.

I don't want to go on too much but while I am here: we are run by a bunch of ridiculous inadequates in suits who LIE to us.
Click to expand...


he is spending a good portion of his time in these damp dour winter months(when he could be in LA, etc) propelling himself across London to various govt buildings, social/council estates, etc, often early in the morning, that's something...
 
ViolentPanda said:
It's always interesting to see how widely you miss the mark. Amusing, too.
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OK, what mark have I missed? Seriously. Lots of points have been made for and against him on here. What cogent ones have I ignored, and how do they defeat a central thesis that he has done more harm than good of late?
 
This thread really depresses me. I don't see RB as the messiah but I think he's making an effort to highlight problems that are often dismissed or conveniently ignored by the media/politicans alike. He's trying to make a difference & because his profile is larger than any of us here, he's in the spotlight. Why is this a bad thing?
 
ViolentPanda said:
That's pretty much the crux of it. Greebo and I do various local stuff because if we don't, we have no-one to blame but ourselves, and helping our community (either local or on-line) achieves something solid. We don't have the "luxury" of being able to retreat from activism, because everyone is important in a community, and everything we do for each other is important. Having celebrity support would bring transient attention to local causes, but then surely the drop-off of attention post-celebrity is all the steeper? I'm not saying celebs shouldn't become involved, I'm saying they should subordinate their status to the community, not act to speak FOR that community. Butchers made a very good point yesterday when he mentioned that (probably unintentionally) Brand had partially disempowered the women from E15.
Click to expand...

Isn't it then a case of how things are managed, by campaign and sleb, rather than a sincere sleb just being told "ooooh...we don't want your help ta, because you're famous..."

In relation to E15 he seems, at least to be committed to it longer term because of his connection to the area. He's talked about the bailiffs being at his door as a youngster, which again I believe. Is he the wrong sort of working class? Should he have turned down the Hollywood work? It's hard to know.

I can imagine that it could create awkward, or worse, dynamics in the group, but again it's a question of honesty and management and hopefully lessons could be learned for future instances.

He gave publicity to the firefighters, whose union obviously sustained stuff before, during and after. I can't see how that could be over problematic.

Again, you have to wonder if people would prefer if he did fuck all except be a good little sleb. Perhaps he should be developing an after shave range, so that less people here will sneer at him. He's going on about people self organising and offering himself where people might think he could be useful. From knowledge of what he's done in the past (from "Naziboy to the drug hearings) I basically think he's sincere, and that positive gestures should be taken in a positive spirit.
 
Diana9 said:
When I see the common man try to take down someone who speaks on behalf of the common man, all I can think is that centuries of indoctrination by the ruling elite still holds people mentally enslaved in the 21st century.

Mind boggling.

"But before we change the world, we need to change the way we think." - Russell Brand, "We No Longer Have the Luxury of Tradition," The New Statesman
Click to expand...

There's a ruling elite here on urban, Diana. One that forever snarls, bites and berates any signs of populism on the left, or any dissenting opinion. It maintains the status quo and the pecking order here.
 
"One that forever snarls, bites and berates any signs of populism on the left, or any dissenting opinion."



Wait up..."populism"!?

You don't want people LIKING our ideas do you?
 
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