Why the Guardian is going down the pan!

[spitfire]

I always knew George Monbiot was a fucking idiot, but seriously? "I once admired Russell Brand"?

I once admired Russell Brand. But his grim trajectory shows us where politics is heading | George Monbiot

In an age of distortion, public figures have powerful tools and a responsibility. This is an object lesson in how that can go wrong, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

www.theguardian.com

I had to go and read that. The fact he had to watch 50 videos to figure out that RB is a massive conspiratorial bellend is mind boggling. Took me about 40 seconds but I guess that doesn’t make for a column in the Graun.

 

[LDC]

I had to go and read that. The fact he had to watch 50 videos to figure out that RB is a massive conspiratorial bellend is mind boggling. Took me about 40 seconds but I guess that doesn’t make for a column in the Graun.

The article says he looked through them to check which I think is fair enough to do and say when you're writing a piece on someone's descent into conspiratorial thinking. Looking at Monbiot's Twitter as well it sounds like he offered Brand some input which Brand never took up.

 

[spitfire]

The article says he looked through them to check which I think is fair enough to do and say when you're writing a piece on someone's descent into conspiratorial thinking. Looking at Monbiot's Twitter as well it sounds like he offered Brand some input which Brand never took up.

Yeah fair point but 50

 

[pbsmooth]

Anyway, good Brand is now being exposed like this, Monbiot's article is good I think, Brand is absolute fucking poison.

agreed.
clearly someone who has always craved fame and attention, and YouTube rants on this sort of stuff have probably shown him this is the way forward. and to hell with whether he really believes it. arguably even worse if he doesn't. his 'reach' is quite scary.

 

[Elpenor]

Yeah fair point but 50

Just doing research

 

[LDC]

agreed.
clearly someone who has always craved fame and attention, and YouTube rants on this sort of stuff have probably shown him this is the way forward. and to hell with whether he really believes it. arguably even worse if he doesn't. his 'reach' is quite scary.

Yeah he gets millions of views doesn't he? A good friend of mine went to see his recent live tour, and I did tell her that he's an alt-right loon, (in more articulate detail...) but she still went. Her partner has a bit of a conspiracy tendency I think, worried about digital currency when we last chatted, etc. etc.

 

[LDC]

Yeah fair point but 50

Yeah bet that's like me reading 50 books for an article when really I looked at 50 abstracts or summaries.

 

[scalyboy]

Just doing research

“Just asking questions”

 

[scalyboy]

“I once admired Michael Gove / Mr Blobby / Tony Soprano - but his grim trajectory…”

 

[two sheds]

I had to go and read that. The fact he had to watch 50 videos to figure out that RB is a massive conspiratorial bellend is mind boggling. Took me about 40 seconds but I guess that doesn’t make for a column in the Graun.

Not what he said, though.

"Today, I can scarcely believe it’s the same man. I’ve watched 50 of his recent videos, with growing incredulity."

He doesn't say how many he actually watched before he found out he's a massive conspiratorial bellend. It may have been just two and the incredulity just grew and grew

I've been thinking about the hatred/contempt for Monbiot on here. It seems to be not so much the subject of his articles - the substance of what he says - rather than how he says it. For years he's addressed some of the most important topics, but still he's laughed at for being a middle class wanker. Within limits of course, but I don't tend to see how someone says something as important as what they actually say.

 

[LDC]

Not what he said, though.

"Today, I can scarcely believe it’s the same man. I’ve watched 50 of his recent videos, with growing incredulity."

He doesn't say how many he actually watched before he found out he's a massive conspiratorial bellend. It may have been just two and the incredulity just grew and grew

I've been thinking about the hatred/contempt for Monbiot on here. It seems to be not so much the subject of his articles - the substance of what he says - rather than how he says it. For years he's addressed some of the most important topics, but still he's laughed at for being a middle class wanker. Within limits of course, but I don't tend to see how someone says something as important as what they actually say.

The short version is for me he's been pretty good over the decades when covering ecological stuff overseas. I read his early books on Indonesia and West Papua and he wrote really good and important stories that weren't getting much coverage at the time, and he also put himself at risk many, many times. I think he started going a bit wrong when he got involved in more direct action stuff in the UK when his background became more inescapable and he always ended up having quite shit views on a number of topics closer to home. I've met him a few times and he's actually really nice and thoughtful about politics as well, if that counts for anything!

I think he's got slightly better in more recent years though, and actually more radical as years have passed, and he's good on stories like the Brand one, but he still falls down when it comes to the 'what to do' bit of politics.

 

[Chz]

I've been thinking about the hatred/contempt for Monbiot on here. It seems to be not so much the subject of his articles - the substance of what he says - rather than how he says it. For years he's addressed some of the most important topics, but still he's laughed at for being a middle class wanker. Within limits of course, but I don't tend to see how someone says something as important as what they actually say.

I have to admit, I find it difficult to articulate what it is about him that annoys me. Sometimes it's just that he's flat out being a wrong'un about something (IMHO), but even when that's not the case I come away from having read the column feeling annoyed at him. I think it's that he has such strong opinions about things ("I think this poorly substantiated fact is what's destroying the world and why don't people pay attention to it?"), even when there's very little credibility to them. But I do have to give the man credit that he will change his mind despite the original opinion being so strong.

 

[bimble]

Forwarded the thing on RB to my friend who has booked tickets to go to his ‘festival’ this summer. Me and her are having a rough time in our friendship because she’s fallen in love with a conspiracy theory type guy. Glad that article exists and I think it’s important it comes from someone who was seduced once by his glamour & his slick eloquence.

 

[pbsmooth]

Yeah he gets millions of views doesn't he? A good friend of mine went to see his recent live tour, and I did tell her that he's an alt-right loon, (in more articulate detail...) but she still went. Her partner has a bit of a conspiracy tendency I think, worried about digital currency when we last chatted, etc. etc.

This is it, right? I am sure he has plenty of people who just like him thinking he's the funny comedian (sic) from whenever, or he did something interesting on UFOs, and he's sticking it to the man generally... but then he's on to the 'great reset' and 'trump is OK actually' and whatever else right-wing nonsense and some people will drift along with him.

 

[Serge Forward]

An anarchist publication of yesteryear once referred to him as "the ludicrously posh George Monbiot".

Poshness aside, which tbf he can't really do much about, Monbiot is alright most of the time.

 

[Pickman's model]

Not what he said, though.

"Today, I can scarcely believe it’s the same man. I’ve watched 50 of his recent videos, with growing incredulity."

He doesn't say how many he actually watched before he found out he's a massive conspiratorial bellend. It may have been just two and the incredulity just grew and grew

I've been thinking about the hatred/contempt for Monbiot on here. It seems to be not so much the subject of his articles - the substance of what he says - rather than how he says it. For years he's addressed some of the most important topics, but still he's laughed at for being a middle class wanker. Within limits of course, but I don't tend to see how someone says something as important as what they actually say.

You disagree that the medium is the message then

 

[two sheds]

I have to admit, I find it difficult to articulate what it is about him that annoys me. Sometimes it's just that he's flat out being a wrong'un about something (IMHO), but even when that's not the case I come away from having read the column feeling annoyed at him. I think it's that he has such strong opinions about things ("I think this poorly substantiated fact is what's destroying the world and why don't people pay attention to it?"), even when there's very little credibility to them. But I do have to give the man credit that he will change his mind despite the original opinion being so strong.

Only this bolded bit is what he's been criticized for with this article. That he researched it properly and thoroughly - there's a good 50 links in there backing up exactly what he's said. And to be fair, too, the environmental stories he's covered over the years are exactly what are destroying the world. I'm sure he gets exasperated by lack of inaction in the UK and globally. Again, for me, it's what he says - the subject matter - rather than the way he says it.

 

[two sheds]

You disagree that the medium is the message then

Ummmm ... I shall have to go and think about that

 

[LDC]

Just watched a clip of Brand, I do wonder if his whole anti-pharma thing has meant he's stopped taking his medications? If I met him on the street without knowing who he was I'd think he was grandiose and a bit unwell.

 

[Pickman's model]

Just watched a clip of Brand, I do wonder if his whole anti-pharma thing has meant he's stopped taking his medications? If I met him on the street without knowing who he was I'd think he was grandiose and a bit unwell.

If you met him on the street and you did know who he was you'd still think him grandiose and unwell

 

[Chz]

Only this bolded bit is what he's been criticized for with this article. That he researched it properly and thoroughly - there's a good 50 links in there backing up exactly what he's said. And to be fair, too, the environmental stories he's covered over the years are exactly what are destroying the world. I'm sure he gets exasperated by lack of inaction in the UK and globally. Again, for me, it's what he says - the subject matter - rather than the way he says it.

No, he's covered environmental things a number of times where he's either pushed an unworkable solution or is trying to create a crisis around something that - in our current fucked up situation - simply does not matter. He's one of those folks who'll back anything that sounds like a good idea before actually looking into it. Like thinking RB was ever anything but a loon. Like when he went all in for wood burning a long while back. And he'll write about it in a sensationalist way that proscribes what the One Truth is in fixing it.

Actually, that's one point where I will give him some credit - he will admit when he was wrong and that puts him ahead of a whole lot of people. Takes him a while to figure it out though.

 

[Bus Honeygun]

No, he's covered environmental things a number of times where he's either pushed an unworkable solution or is trying to create a crisis around something that - in our current fucked up situation - simply does not matter.

I don't really give him much thought, but I gave up reading his column after too many 'You Think You're Green, Dear Middle-Class Hand-Wringing Audience of Mine, But Here's Why You're Still Killing the Planet' headlines that just seemed to be more trivia for people to feel guilty about.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

I think Brand over the last few years is an example of the feedback loop you can get with this stuff - the more he's gone down that path the more attention (and money) he gets and so he keeps going. How that fits with his 'real' beliefs or even if it's possible to separate the two is anyone's guess.

I don't believe anyone who claims they always thought he was one of those though. He was rightly called on his attitude to women in particular earlier in his career (and obviously Urban fave 'he's just a cunt') but he wasn't pushing this then and did sometimes have interesting points about addiction etc.

 

[xenon]

Yeah I wouldn't have said consparaloon was why I can't stand the bloke. It has always been more cos he's an attention seeking, screeching drama school brat tosser who thinks being able to use a dictionary makes him funny.

 

[Rob Ray]

Monbiot will always suffer from chronic "arrogant smug git" syndrome, especially around anything where his poshness rubs up against other people's lived experiences. As an arrogant middle class git myself there's a mild funhouse mirror vibe whenever I hear him holding forth. But most of the time his heart's in the right place and he's often a very good journalist when he gets his finger out. I'm not sure that level of thoroughness was necessary to pin Brand to the conspiraloon wall but meh, I can't get too worked up about him managing to get a column out of a Youtube rabbit hole. If I had a Guardian column payment for every one of those I'd been down I'd be a rich man.

That said, my abiding memory of his work will always be this, a particularly eye-rolling article even for the pages of the Graun.

The day my inner anarchist lost out to the bourgeois me | George Monbiot

George Monbiot: A winter's day, some years back: a fall on the ice lands me in A&E – and that's when I meet the man with tattoos on his neck and knuckles …

www.theguardian.com

 

[DotCommunist]

back when brand was talking leftish I was still rolling my eyes at the 'shift in global consciousness' stuff. And that strain of hippy dippy went a bit wrong during rona didn't it, which I didn't see coming but perhaps I should have.

 

[Rob Ray]

that strain of hippy dippy went a bit wrong during rona didn't it

Did it fucking ever. Winter Oak being a standout example, but far from the only one, of activist ex-ravers and hippies going from vaccine hesitancy down a short path to full Great Reset loonfest.

 

[xenon]

not that surprising for some types of x raver hippy new agers that they've gone down the conspiracy route. A journey hastened by Covid 19 restrictions

I mean the transgressive acts of taking drugs and dancing at illegal parties doesn't really mean you've got any more political knowse or integrety than anyone else who likes to have a good time. Oh knows the authorities are stopping me doing what I want, must be a conspiracy.

 

[xenon]

OTOH I don't mind George all that much

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Iirc a big chunk of Mark Fisher's 'Exiting the Vampire Castle' essay was in defence of Brand and criticising the people who were attacking him. I always thought that bit was overreaching a little tbh but it does point up how differently he was seen then. It's hard to imagine an essay about current conspiraloon Brand having that impact.