Originally Posted by Zee (Post 6447986)

His message is well meaning but I find he uses archaic English to cover up the fact he doesn't know as much as he likes to pretend he does. Criticise the system... take up a position on a political magazine team... but have some ideas behind your opinions, you can't be an armchair critic and then go into an interview like that without some suggestions as to how to make things better, rather than just slating the status quo - that gets us nowhere.

Jeremy Paxman seemed to really want to push him into expressing his ideas and instead got a lot of gibberish in return.

Originally Posted by Stu

brand new

Originally Posted by Stu (Post 6448058)

I didn't find it that hard to understand him.

He favors a resource based, socialist leaning economy the strives to distribute the wealth of nations more equally than the current system which would require more compassion and help for the underprivileged and working classes and less for the corporations who he sees as being the unfair benefactors of endless second chances, political bias and monetary bailouts.

In addition he adheres to conservationist principals of protecting the planet and using what it has to offer us wisely.

He sees the current political paradigm as being unhelpful background periphery that needs to be done away with altogether as all the current mainstream choices seem to exist more or less to propagate the currently existing, defunct cultural narrative. To that extent he promotes not apathy but non participation in the current system in an effort to bring about a brand new one that would favor his principals more - principals most sane people would agree with. A more cooperative, less heavy handed government that exists more or less as administrators of simple spiritual beliefs and wealth and resource distributors.

So plenty of ideas. I think he espouses his admittedly ambitious views with great clarity. What you are hinting at and what Paxman seemed to be looking forward to was specifics on the revolution. This I find confusing. Should Brand have given a step by step breakdown of the global overhaul plans that included prospective party names and a time to meet in Trafalgar square to blaze a few fatties and rock the V masks?

I'm not trying to be facetious here - well I kind of am - I'm just genuinely curious. I see this trend all the time. Any time someone from outside the political paradigm looks in with suggestions they are met with fierce criticism that stems from the innocuous but still pointless "well you've never done politics yourself" to "what are you cracking on about mate with your daft hair and naive ideals, we have real plans here - look, we've typed them out and everything it's all in our manifesto!".

Like I said I believe one of the main things impeding this revolution from occurring is the thought that a revolution is in and of itself naive, unspecific and cannot occur.


There is your party name, for starters.

Originally Posted by Stu (Post 6448058)

I didn't find it that hard to understand him.

He favors a resource based, socialist leaning economy the strives to distribute the wealth of nations more equally than the current system which would require more compassion and help for the underprivileged and working classes and less for the corporations who he sees as being the unfair benefactors of endless second chances, political bias and monetary bailouts.

In addition he adheres to conservationist principals of protecting the planet and using what it has to offer us wisely.

He sees the current political paradigm as being unhelpful background periphery that needs to be done away with altogether as all the current mainstream choices seem to exist more or less to propagate the currently existing, defunct cultural narrative. To that extent he promotes not apathy but non participation in the current system in an effort to bring about a brand new one that would favor his principals more - principals most sane people would agree with. A more cooperative, less heavy handed government that exists more or less as administrators of simple spiritual beliefs and wealth and resource distributors.

So plenty of ideas. I think he espouses his admittedly ambitious views with great clarity. What you are hinting at and what Paxman seemed to be looking forward to was specifics on the revolution. This I find confusing. Should Brand have given a step by step breakdown of the global overhaul plans that included prospective party names and a time to meet in Trafalgar square to blaze a few fatties and rock the V masks?

I'm not trying to be facetious here - well I kind of am - I'm just genuinely curious. I see this trend all the time. Any time someone from outside the political paradigm looks in with suggestions they are met with fierce criticism that stems from the innocuous but still pointless "well you've never done politics yourself" to "what are you cracking on about mate with your daft hair and naive ideals, we have real plans here - look, we've typed them out and everything it's all in our manifesto!".

Like I said I believe one of the main things impeding this revolution from occurring is the thought that a revolution is in and of itself naive, unspecific and cannot occur.


There is your party name, for starters.

Originally Posted by Zee (Post 6448087)

I mean this in the best possible way, but I just don't have the energy to read and respond to your post properly :laugh:

He doesn't really give any actual answers to any of Paxman's questions though. He says that he thinks the system is broken. He makes a good point that the system keeps the oppressed oppressed and the elites elitist. Paxman wanted to know what Brand thought should be done about it, and he responded by repeating himself for 10 minutes, he didn't actually answer the question. I wasn't expecting a 5 point plan with diagrams and flip charts, but a simple overview of what he would do if he was able to reconstruct the political system in the country would have sufficed. I'm sure everyone reading this thread could give suggestions on what they would do if they could fix all the problems they see with the country (e.g. change the benefits system, be more environmentally friendly, free sex for everybody!!!... etc) but Brand went round in circles because he was being backed into a corner for once.

I don't take any issue with him taking an interest in politics, I'd much rather our celebrities, the people that so many of us look up to, were engaging, witty, interesting individuals like Russell Brand, I just wish he had more to say on the matter, that's all. I've seen this be posted across social media with people praising him for his words, but he doesn't even say all that much about anything, people are, as usual, taken in by his way with words rather than the meaning of his words. That's all.

The problem with wanting a revolution is that there needs to be an end goal. That's why there hasn't been one (yet) - people don't like the system as it is but nobody has any better, practical suggestions that aren't "yeah, **** the Tories!" or tutting about how terrible they are. People en masse don't know what they want, they just know what they don't want, and that's why there is no revolution in this country (yet).

Originally Posted by lostalex (Post 6448116)

Who cares what Russell Brand has to say? he's a comedian, he's not meant to be taken seriously.

Originally Posted by lostalex (Post 6448116)

Who cares what Russell Brand has to say? he's a comedian, he's not meant to be taken seriously.

Originally Posted by the truth (Post 6448128)

I think Brands strongly held Christian beliefs are a strong part of his desire for financial political cultural redistribution. He is smart enough to realise that to preach Christianity is frowned upon by the dumbed down masses, who equate Christianity and Islam as somehow equally morally repugnant, with the mindless moral relativism that pollutes us

I think his verbose outbursts do have great value however. These are pretty much Christian values and opinions in many ways. But he uses his knowledge and verbose eloquence to see the ideas to a new generation

He doesn't need to become a policy maker at this stage. Getting the moral argument right is key and he does on many issues. Though his drugs approach is often to liberal for my liking

He should really look to target the far right and challenge them in debate.
If he entered politics it would surely sap his energies to change the world
He needs to do more in external politics and this editorial position is a good start.

He does however need now to get more serious and improve his command of these subjects in a way Tony Benn would do or George Galloway. Not an easy task. but with his ability , his enormously powerful status, millions listen to his every word, plus access to powerful people with socialist leanings and the interweb communicating every idea to masses. It IS possible
who was Obama 10 years ago?

YES WE CAN

Originally Posted by Stu (Post 6448058)

I didn't find it that hard to understand him.

He favors a resource based, socialist leaning economy the strives to distribute the wealth of nations more equally than the current system which would require more compassion and help for the underprivileged and working classes and less for the corporations who he sees as being the unfair benefactors of endless second chances, political bias and monetary bailouts.

In addition he adheres to conservationist principals of protecting the planet and using what it has to offer us wisely.

He sees the current political paradigm as being unhelpful background periphery that needs to be done away with altogether as all the current mainstream choices seem to exist more or less to propagate the currently existing, defunct cultural narrative. To that extent he promotes not apathy but non participation in the current system in an effort to bring about a brand new one that would favor his principals more - principals most sane people would agree with. A more cooperative, less heavy handed government that exists more or less as administrators of simple spiritual beliefs and wealth and resource distributors.

So plenty of ideas. I think he espouses his admittedly ambitious views with great clarity. What you are hinting at and what Paxman seemed to be looking forward to was specifics on the revolution. This I find confusing. Should Brand have given a step by step breakdown of the global overhaul plans that included prospective party names and a time to meet in Trafalgar square to blaze a few fatties and rock the V masks?

I'm not trying to be facetious here - well I kind of am - I'm just genuinely curious. I see this trend all the time. Any time someone from outside the political paradigm looks in with suggestions they are met with fierce criticism that stems from the innocuous but still pointless "well you've never done politics yourself" to "what are you cracking on about mate with your daft hair and naive ideals, we have real plans here - look, we've typed them out and everything it's all in our manifesto!".

Like I said I believe one of the main things impeding this revolution from occurring is the thought that a revolution is in and of itself naive, unspecific and cannot occur.


There is your party name, for starters.

Originally Posted by Stu (Post 6448110)

Brand repeated himself out of necessity as I see it. It was Paxman more or less asking the same infantile "well what are you going to do about it?" questions over and over - wrapped up in this smug mirth about having to interview The Sun's 'Shagger Of The Year' about the political spectrum - that pushed Russell to have to eschew his values and suggestions again and again and again ad nauseam.

How do you know people were taken in by the color of his vocabulary and not by the contents of it? I'm sure there were a few fans who watched the video essentially because he is sexy and a bit funny but I imagine the vast majority of people the interview struck a chord with - myself included - had absolutely no trouble both understanding and empathizing with his pretty obvious, clearly spoken suggestions on how to improve the sociopolitical paradigm.

The end goal to Brand's revolution is clear. A resource based ...

Originally Posted by Nedusa (Post 6448150)

Look ... Let's cut to the chase, the people with money and power regardless of how they got that money or power will never ever give it up without a fight.

Armed revolution probably is the only way ever to level the playing field , that's it pure and simple...!!!!

Originally Posted by Zee (Post 6448154)

An armed revolution isn't all that likely unless our government became a dictatorship - people don't feel compelled to rise up against something if they don't feel that the cause is worthy. The government might be a bit ****, but they aren't as of yet arresting dissidents, bombing communities or taking away basic rights so I don't see it happening any time soon.

Originally Posted by Nedusa (Post 6448161)

You're right of course, things would have to get a lot worse for a lot more people before we ever got into that situation and unlike the US the UK is not awash with guns so an armed uprising is unlikely and a non armed uprising could be put down by the armed forces fairly quickly...!!