...system that really just administrates for large corporationsPARKLIFE!

November 5, 2014 7:49 AM

UK comedian Russell Brand has released his mostly "unreadable" third book, which lays out his notions of peacefully overthrowing capitalism in a revolution that would... Well, it kind of goes on. Fortunately, the internet has found a one word reply to his "champagne Socialism": PARKLIFE!
posted by DirtyOldTown (174 comments total)

It's possible that if you're not weary of Brand and a fan of Blur that this is less hilarious than it is to me.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:52 AM on November 5, 2014 [3 favorites]

I'm not weary of Brand, at least, and I still find this hilarious.
posted by Johnny Assay at 7:54 AM on November 5, 2014 [3 favorites]

Brand should work on his messaging. It seems there's a bit of Trouble in the Message Centre.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:55 AM on November 5, 2014 [10 favorites]

It is also possible that you might find this very hilarious even if you haven't thought much about Russell Brand lately. The Vines especially are killing me.

(To be fair to Mr. Brand, I am sure there are comments of mine on the Internet for which this joke would also work.)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 7:55 AM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

The book is quite likely tedious, but could we avoid editorializing in the FPP, please?
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 7:59 AM on November 5, 2014 [4 favorites]

Er, third book, after My Booky Wook and Booky Wook 2.

(I quite liked the first, haven't read the second or third)
posted by grahamparks at 8:01 AM on November 5, 2014

That wasn't intended as editorializing, more as an indirect quote. The piece from The Atlantic in that link calls it unreadable. I can ask the mods to add quotes.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:02 AM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

Finished reading the article. The book might well be dreadful, but it could never be as bad as that article.

The reviewer considers the following paragraph "indecipherable":

We can accomplish this Revolution through a collective movement of civil society that supersedes the current structure of nationstate governments and the corporate military-industrial complex. The transition is from a paradigm of competition and domination to one of symbiosis and cooperation, from greed to altruism. It begins with the realization of our shared responsibility for the future of the earth, and our inherent unity with each other and with all of life.

You might not like his sentiments in that paragraph - or you might like the sentiments but consider the text overblown - but if you have trouble understanding those three short sentences, you simply shouldn't be writing book reviews.

And the whole PARKLIFE thing is juvenile and stupid. It's the sort of thing you do in high school to drown out some unpopular student when they're trying to give a talk.

This is overall a wretched FPP. Could we get a better one please?
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 8:06 AM on November 5, 2014 [63 favorites]

Also, his twitter profile pic currently is him as...Che? (You can see it in the second link)

That's from the poster for his Messiah Complex tour from a year or two ago, which sounds like it was the precursor for a lot of the stuff in his current book.
posted by dng at 8:06 AM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

You might not like his sentiments in that paragraph - or you might like the sentiments but consider the text overblown - but if you have trouble understanding those three short sentences, you simply shouldn't be writing book reviews.

And the whole PARKLIFE thing is juvenile and stupid. It's the sort of thing you do in high school to drown out some unpopular student when they're trying to give a talk.

This is overall a wretched FPP. Could we get a better one please?

Hi Russell!
posted by ominous_paws at 8:09 AM on November 5, 2014 [25 favorites]

And the whole PARKLIFE thing is juvenile and stupid. It's the sort of thing you do in high school to drown out some unpopular student when they're trying to give a talk.

Yes what's happening here is definitely that the unpopular Russell Brand is being bullied by random Twitter users.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:12 AM on November 5, 2014 [29 favorites]

I agree that the indecipherable paragraph is pretty decipherable, but it's also way more trouble to read than if it were written in simple English. And I can see no reason for any of the long words except to make it sound complex. And to hide the banality of what he's suggesting. He does string long words together in beautiful rhythms, but that is, in my opinion, his main rhetorical talent.
posted by ambrosen at 8:14 AM on November 5, 2014 [7 favorites]

And I can see no reason for any of the long words except to make it sound complex.

That's your failing not the books. The sentences are succinct and intelligible (or should I have used a shorter word?)
posted by lalochezia at 8:16 AM on November 5, 2014 [7 favorites]

He's an accomplished stand up comedian and no stranger to Internet snark so he needs to roll with this. But he is a poor writer. He writes like Will Self without any edge. If he got back on drugs he would write better.
posted by colie at 8:16 AM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

If he got back on drugs he would write better.

That's.... a pretty not ok thing to say.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:20 AM on November 5, 2014 [24 favorites]

Mod note: small correction made to the post re: third book and unreadable as a quote
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:20 AM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

I actually think Brand can be kind of great sometimes. But anointing oneself a new Che Guevara is exactly the kind of thing a good comedian should be deflating, not doing himself.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:21 AM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

If he got back on drugs he would write better.

This is a really incredibly horrible thing to say about someone who's been open about their addiction problems in the way this man has. I don't care about any of the rest of this, but let's really not go there.
posted by Sequence at 8:21 AM on November 5, 2014 [15 favorites]

Actually I think Damon Albarn is a leftie so they should get together and do a remix version of the song with Brand's (perfectly sensible and reasonable) political observations. Possible Xmas number one.
posted by colie at 8:22 AM on November 5, 2014 [12 favorites]

Don't try to rise above your station Brand. Politics is best left to politicians, they do such a great job after all...
posted by fistynuts at 8:27 AM on November 5, 2014 [6 favorites]

I'll never understand the love Metafilter has for Russel Brand. He's a tool and a sexist - the leftist version of Dennis Miller, as if Larry the Cable Guy ate a thesaurus and then threw up.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 8:29 AM on November 5, 2014 [9 favorites]

Russell Brand gives me the creeps. I swear he's like this toxic mix of genius, good looks, and sociopathy.
posted by Yowser at 8:29 AM on November 5, 2014 [3 favorites]

I agree with Russell Brand. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by josher71 at 8:31 AM on November 5, 2014 [5 favorites]

Russell Brand has this thing: he will do something really funny or interesting or cool, and then he talks about Serious Issues and sometimes his views sound really good, and then I remember what my income is compared to his.
posted by Kitteh at 8:32 AM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

The Daily Beast also uses the word "unreadable."

A few choice bits from that one:

-Brand's assertion that the economy "is just a metaphorical device. It’s not real, that’s why it’s got the word ‘con’ in it.”
-"Sure, it’s amusing that Brand rages about corporations and an economic system that has allowed him to loaf around a mansion muttering about the rich. More low hanging fruit: the $37 Russ-as-Che-Guevara t-shirts available on his website. Or how about when he was ejected from a Hugo Boss event for a spittle-flecked rant about Hugo Boss’s complicity with the Nazi regime, never recognizing the irony of his triumphant escape in a black Mercedes?"
-"All of this is less surprising when you discover that much of the research for Revolution was provided by the disgraced journalist Johann Hari, who in 2011 was caught plagiarizing multiple columns, accused of inventing quotes, forced to resign his job as a newspaper columnist, and had a major British journalism prize (named after George Orwell!) rescinded."

There's also an extended section about factual errors, misattributions, misquotes, etc., helpfully preceded by bits of Brand's rants against the ill-informed.

Maybe my favorite bit from this takedown is this: "These are sentences that stupid people think are smart; a simple concept brutally assaulted by a thesaurus."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:33 AM on November 5, 2014 [22 favorites]

Hi Russell!
posted by ominous_paws at 8:09 AM


Hi Cameron's communications lackey! See: its easy to snark.

So much of this whining is the same playbook of dismissing other difficult thing: ohhh he used the wrong tone, ohhh he uses long words, ohhh he is a celebrity!

Engage with the topic or be shallower than the person you purport to criticise.
posted by lalochezia at 8:37 AM on November 5, 2014 [8 favorites]

or should I have used a shorter word?

To be fair, it's not so the lengths of the individual words that makes his arguments seem cluttered, it's the fact that he piles on the near-synonyms without making it clear what distinction the modifiers have on the head word of the phrase. So why is he talking about nationstate governments when it's very unclear what nationstate is adding to that phrase, except a light bamboozle of the reader. It's dizzying and seductive, because it is decipherable, and far more so than most sentences with similar noun pileups, but in the end all he's saying in that 3 sentence extract is "corporatism bad, egalitarianism good". And the reader thinks it's more complex than that. I don't see it, myself.
posted by ambrosen at 8:41 AM on November 5, 2014 [17 favorites]

Dirtyoldtown: It's a totally boring standard attempt at a 'takedown' much along the lines of 'Occupy protesters drink Starbucks coffee herp derp'.

His book - however good or bad his prose style - clearly does pose some threat to the ruling elites and their servile media, since we can now see them join up in lockstep to ridicule and discredit him. He must be doing something right.
posted by colie at 8:42 AM on November 5, 2014 [4 favorites]

This is overall a wretched FPP. Could we get a better one please?

Looks like someone needs a Bill Clinton photobombing!

I'm only vaguely aware of Brand—who I know mostly from some movie that's always running on basic cable—but I'm pretty sure this is best use of "Parklife" ever.

Also also, heavens but that Independent page is a gape into the maw of some kind of hell.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:42 AM on November 5, 2014

His book - however good or bad his prose style - clearly does pose some threat to the ruling elites and their servile media, since we can now seem them join up in lockstep to ridicule and discredit him. He must be doing something right.

In law school, my legal research and writing teacher mentioned that lawyers tend to use the word "clearly" when there's a thing they think is true (or need someone else to think is true) but have no real argument for or proof of. Your use of the word clearly here reminded me of that. The fact that people are ridiculing someone sometimes means they are threatened by them, but it's not "clear" that this is one of those cases at all.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:46 AM on November 5, 2014 [16 favorites]

Whether one agrees with the book or not, I think his last name is appropriate.
posted by Celsius1414 at 8:47 AM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

Compare Brand to Springsteen, who also shares contempt for corporations, empathy for working people, and various other lefty views and speaks publicly about them with some regularity.

Springsteen never comes off as a pompous rambler like Brand does because he never presents himself as some kind of hyperintelligent authority who will lead a revolution, but rather as a guy who'd like to share some thoughts with you, since you're listening. What's more, he never overlooks or tries to gloss over the fact that he himself is a fabulously well-to-do person. He doesn't oversell his own knowledge (let alone lard it up with turgid verbal wankery) and he doesn't ignore his own privilege.

And that's why Springsteen's political opinions garner the respect of even people who aren't aficionados of his music, while Brand finds even some of his fans cringing at the way he expresses his.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:48 AM on November 5, 2014 [20 favorites]

It's 'clear' because its a pattern that's repeated in every news outlet every day, that's all I meant. Point taken tho.
posted by colie at 8:49 AM on November 5, 2014

His book - however good or bad his prose style - clearly does pose some threat to the ruling elites and their servile media, since we can now seem them join up in lockstep to ridicule and discredit him.

Are we still talking about the same guy that re-made Arthur? His book is published by a giant media conglomerate. How in the world is he threatening anything?
posted by Fidel Cashflow at 8:56 AM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

Metafilter: simple concepts brutally assaulted by a thesaurus
posted by dephlogisticated at 8:59 AM on November 5, 2014 [14 favorites]

Are we really confident that Brand isn't some sort of reverse Stephen Colbert? Or maybe a leftie Borat?

So hard to tell who's trolling who these days.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:59 AM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

He really piles on the modifiers.
posted by Trochanter at 9:02 AM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

FWIW he says he regrets Arthur and wanted the book published by a big firm that would promote it heavily so that it got maximum exposure.
posted by colie at 9:02 AM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

Russell Brand x Blur
posted by alby at 9:08 AM on November 5, 2014 [3 favorites]

The fact that people are ridiculing someone sometimes means they are threatened by them, but it's not "clear" that this is one of those cases at all.

It's true. They laughed at Galileo and they laughed at Einstein but they laughed at Bozo the Clown, too.

Substantially, I'm happy to agree that the Parklife! thing is utterly stupid, but the idea that making fun of Brand's inflated prose is somehow necessarily reactionary is just ... far out. More likely, the problem is that Brand has trouble in the message center. If he didn't have such a badhead, then maybe he could bring the Jubilee back to old magic America.
posted by octobersurprise at 9:10 AM on November 5, 2014 [4 favorites]

Allllll the people. So many people!
posted by maryr at 9:10 AM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

The sentences are succinct and intelligible (or should I have used a shorter word)?

They're intelligible; I wouldn't call them succinct, since that implies using the minimum words as necessary to fully communicate your point. They're also vacuous and vague. The definition of "revolution" is the overthrow of the government by some faction of society; what distinction is he attempting to draw by using the adjective "civil" and the verb "supersede"? Unclear. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say he's attempting to suggest that his "revolution" will be non-violent, somehow accomplished through some sort of spontaneous emergent behaviour on the part of individuals? Because why? How? No hint.

Those two questions could be usefully interjected between every phrase of the passage, really.

Brand succeeds as a comedian because his whole being and self-presentation is an elaborate form of misdirection --- he looks like a jittery, drugged-up burn out, and then he opens his mouth and he turns out to be far cleverer than he looks. It does not however, necessarily follow that he's as clever as he thinks he is.
posted by Diablevert at 9:13 AM on November 5, 2014 [8 favorites]

So I see how Brand's style of expressing himself links up with the Blur song, but would some UKer tell me what "Parklife" means in the Blur song? The way they're using it makes me think it's some concept that people already know, but I have no idea if it's a neighborhood, social class, or what.
posted by benito.strauss at 9:16 AM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

Sure, it’s amusing that Brand rages about corporations and an economic system that has allowed him to loaf around a mansion muttering about the rich.

This would be amusing if the media didn't ensure that rich voices are the only voices we get to hear. Plenty of people mutter about the rich, but they aren't provided with soapboxes, so they go unremarked. Then as soon as someone who can afford a soapbox mutters, it's all "haw, haw, hypocrisy!" Nice racket.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 9:19 AM on November 5, 2014 [14 favorites]

I am British but I don't think any of us here have a clue what Parklife means either.
posted by colie at 9:21 AM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

Full song version with more quotes.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:24 AM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

I feel kind of bad about mocking Russell Brand. His heart is in the right place, and he can be an engaging and coherent public speaker if he wants to be. On the other hand, he's taking himself far too seriously here and deserves everything he gets (within reason). Presumably he is tough enough to take it.
posted by Nevin at 9:29 AM on November 5, 2014 [14 favorites]

That's pretty much exactly how I feel, Nevin, though I also feel less bad because if anyone ought to be able to take a joke, it's a comedian.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:32 AM on November 5, 2014 [6 favorites]

Brand succeeds as a comedian because his whole being and self-presentation is an elaborate form of misdirection --- he looks like a jittery, drugged-up burn out, and then he opens his mouth and he turns out to be far cleverer than he looks.

He was better when he spent all his time talking about his ballbag and his little winkie and his time on the womanizing circuit with Beppo, Calum Best, David Walliams, Dean Gaffney and Michael Greco.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 9:35 AM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

(And although I am not a Brit, I got the Parklife reference. Must be a '90s thing)
posted by Nevin at 9:37 AM on November 5, 2014

His book is published by a giant media conglomerate. How in the world is he threatening anything?

Rebecca Solnit, Naomi Klein, Barbara Ehrenreich, Seymour Hersch, Thomas Frank, Michael Lewis, James Risen: published by giant media conglomerates. Your argument doesn't hold water.
posted by Lyme Drop at 9:41 AM on November 5, 2014 [3 favorites]

The reviewer considers the following paragraph "indecipherable":

We can accomplish this Revolution through a collective movement of civil society that supersedes the current structure of nationstate governments and the corporate military-industrial complex. The transition is from a paradigm of competition and domination to one of symbiosis and cooperation, from greed to altruism. It begins with the realization of our shared responsibility for the future of the earth, and our inherent unity with each other and with all of life.

You might not like his sentiments in that paragraph - or you might like the sentiments but consider the text overblown - but if you have trouble understanding those three short sentences, you simply shouldn't be writing book reviews.


Reviewer cannot understand anything more complex than Get Him to the Greek.

I'm a fan of Brand's comedy and his political views resonate with me. I still find this meme funny. Just a bit of taking the piss.
posted by GrapeApiary at 9:44 AM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

Sure, he has money now, but his background is distinctly working-class. It's not like he doesn't know what he's talking about when he talks about inequality, the way somebody born with a silver spoon wouldn't.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:46 AM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

Like so many internet kerfuffles, I find myself filled with seething hate for all involved.
Brand is a self-important tool, who thinks his dorm-room anarchism is way more novel than it is. The PARKLIFE tag, and the media giggling over it, is cool-kid snickering, an exhibit A of how those with a little power can gang up to silence anyone without ever refuting a single thing they say.
Perhaps this is a moment to unleash that horrid little girl on everyone until they all shut up.
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 9:47 AM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'm kind of sad that this is on MeFi, as I have a, probably unrealistic, amount of respect for this community - Russell Brand and the dude from Blur (still alive apparently, go for him) having some twitter beef is non-news to a heroic extreme. I guess the internet has nothing of interest to discuss anymore, so let's all go play outside.
posted by Colby_Longhorn at 9:51 AM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

I don't dislike Brand at all (though I don't think I've ever seen him blink and I think it's crazy to break up with your wife over text message--but Phil Collins sent a fax and other celebs have done worse) and I thought it was funny.
posted by discopolo at 9:52 AM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

Can Parklife be used instead of tl;dr now?
posted by discopolo at 9:53 AM on November 5, 2014 [7 favorites]

God, but I get tired of the constant association fallacies that are so popular as a takedown here on Metafilter.

He drives a Mercedes, so he's not qualified to criticize those who made their millions off the Nazis!
He's rich, so he can't be right about economic matters!
He depicted himself as Che Guevara on a comedy album cover, so he's obviously a Che fan!
He re-made Arthur, and his book is published by a giant media conglomerate, so he can't possibly be threatening to the rich!

It's easier than actually arguing relevant facts, I suppose.

FWIW, I'm very ambivalent on Russell - which has nothing to do with any of the above, but is instead based on my many observations of his behavior over the years. He's neither a hero nor a villain. He's an opinionated guy with a big microphone.
posted by IAmBroom at 9:53 AM on November 5, 2014 [16 favorites]

I am British but I don't think any of us here have a clue what Parklife means either.


I always thought it was a reference to the inter-war and immediate post-war "garden city" model of suburban development in the UK, in a way that holds up the ideals of that movement to the realities of life in post-Thatcher Britain.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:54 AM on November 5, 2014 [4 favorites]

He re-made Arthur, and his book is published by a giant media conglomerate, so he can't possibly be threatening to the rich!

It's easier than actually arguing relevant facts, I suppose.

What exactly are the relevant facts?
posted by Fidel Cashflow at 9:58 AM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

His book is published by a giant media conglomerate. How in the world is he threatening anything?

Rebecca Solnit, Naomi Klein, Barbara Ehrenreich, Seymour Hersch, Thomas Frank, Michael Lewis, James Risen: published by giant media conglomerates. Your argument doesn't hold water.

Well, either that or none of the people you mention are actually "threatening" anything.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 10:02 AM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

I just don't understand how the man behind Aldous Snow's "We've Got to Do Something" could puff himself up this much with no sense of irony.

To be fair, Revolution is far above Aldous Snow in level of discourse. It's closer to Hugh Laurie's "Protest Song."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:04 AM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

I haven't actually checked the odds on whether any of this will in fact "silence" RB to any degree whatsoever, but my guess is that they are somewhat slim.
posted by ominous_paws at 10:04 AM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

Fidel Cashflow: What exactly are the relevant facts?

If you don't know any, then you don't have anything worthwhile to say about Russell Brand's book. That seems obvious enough.
posted by IAmBroom at 10:07 AM on November 5, 2014

It's easier than actually arguing relevant facts, I suppose.

Same problem that Brand has. None of the arguments for or against Brand (including his own) are very logical, but that's not the point. They're supposed to be rhetorically persuasive.
posted by nerdler at 10:11 AM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

I represent the key not-paying-attention and lazy-as-hell demographics.
As someone who knows nothing about this and does not wish to expend energy to learn anything about this, I was grateful for the Bruce Springsteen comparison above. I've been bored and irritated by Bruce Springsteen's music all my life and have actively tried to avoid it, but even trying to escape him I've garnered enough common knowledge to understand that Bruce Springsteen is a decent guy and smart. If Bruce Springsteen wrote an essay and it somehow ended up in front of me, I might pick it up and read it because he's a good writer. I know that because if you encounter them outside the songs, the lyrics are good and don't make you hurl at all. Russell Brand is another story. I've heard him blowharding on the radio like he's God's gift and at some point I watched him be mean to some conservative talkshow hostidiots especially the woman in a way that was so intolerable it made me wish there were a God, not so that I could live forever or so that I could see all the evil in the world finally get punished and the good rewarded, but just so I could watch the hand of God plunge down through the clouds into the Fox studio and slap Russell Brand upside the head for being such an insufferable dick to that lady. Based on what I've osmosed about him so far, I wouldn't read a Russell Brand thing if I were paid by the word in doughnuts and pain pills.
posted by Don Pepino at 10:13 AM on November 5, 2014 [10 favorites]

I don't sees hope the reviewer could find his writing unreadable. It's not any more incoherent than your average modern anti-Capitalism pro-Marxism screed. Admittedly, that's a very low bar, but still
posted by happyroach at 10:20 AM on November 5, 2014

He's neither a hero nor a villain. He's an opinionated guy with a big microphone.

Ten or eleven years ago I happened to sit on the number 24 bus in north London and Brand was the only other passenger on the top deck with me. He was doing a small-time radio show as his only hustle at the time and few people had heard of him. He talked on his phone for 20 minutes to a friend and said basically exactly the same kind of things he says now that he's rich and famous. That counts for something.
posted by colie at 10:24 AM on November 5, 2014 [9 favorites]

If you don't know any, then you don't have anything worthwhile to say about Russell Brand's book

It just makes me laugh that you're linking to Association Fallacies on wikipedia in one post, and then turning around and making an ad hominem attack in another. I'll ask you again: what are the relevant facts? You're the one arguing the the relevant facts are being ignored, so what are they?
posted by Fidel Cashflow at 10:33 AM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

Debt cancellation?
posted by josher71 at 10:36 AM on November 5, 2014

I'm kind of sad that this is on MeFi, as I have a, probably unrealistic, amount of respect for this community - Russell Brand and the dude from Blur (still alive apparently, go for him) having some twitter beef is non-news to a heroic extreme.

You're right, that IS non-news. Fortunately, that's not what's happening here at all. Well done!
posted by elsietheeel at 10:38 AM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

I get up when I want, except on Wednesdays when I'm rudely awakened by the Twitterers.
posted by Spatch at 10:53 AM on November 5, 2014 [3 favorites]

The reviewer considers the following paragraph "indecipherable":

Well, the passage quoted above isn't exactly an engaging read. Generally speaking we want our hardcover books to be enjoyable, rather than to come off as required reading.

Anyway, Brand should take some pointers from Charlie Brooker. Brooker makes the same points and is actually witty about it.
posted by Nevin at 10:56 AM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

Ten or eleven years ago I happened to sit on the number 24 bus in north London and Brand was the only other passenger on the top deck with me. He was doing a small-time radio show as his only hustle at the time and few people had heard of him. He talked on his phone for 20 minutes to a friend and said basically exactly the same kind of things he says now that he's rich and famous. That counts for something.

Although if you would like to succumb to ad hominems, talking for 20 minutes on the bus is the kind of thing I would hope a revolution would address.

I'm sympathetic to his belief that change is necessary, but what I've heard from him doesn't convince me he has much of substance to say about effecting that change.
posted by ersatz at 11:00 AM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

He does string long words together in beautiful rhythms, but that is, in my opinion, his main rhetorical talent.

What's the opposite of damning with faint praise? Praising with faint damnation?
posted by Ian A.T. at 11:13 AM on November 5, 2014

Even the Guardian and the New Republic now find him too much.

I think he will not age well.
posted by IndigoJones at 11:13 AM on November 5, 2014

I am a Marxist and I believe there is little chance of Brand directly effecting change in any of the ways he talks about, which boil down to substituting a set of ideals instead of the development of working class organisations that hold the power to disrupt the globalised production process, the institutions of the state, and the military etc.

However, I think it's important to defend him against the all the henchmen from The Guardian etc that are now out to get him, because he at least represents the possibility of thinking differently about our world, and that is an important starting point for lots of us when we're young. Why wouldn't we want to change the world? If Brand inspires a few young people then I'm all for it rather than the out-and-out nihilism of Charlie Brooker or the snark of a million Tweets.

Brand's ideas are exactly the kind of thing the media simply has to 'get rid of' rather than engage with. (BTW the 'Parklife' thing is just funny and I'm sure he thinks so too - but I mean the more prevalent media 'takedowns' of his book, that amount to little more than 'he's rich and I don't like him'.)
posted by colie at 11:25 AM on November 5, 2014 [12 favorites]

Vision without action is just a dream.
posted by Fidel Cashflow at 11:36 AM on November 5, 2014

sio42: "what if it were like delicious chocolate cakes and wine?"

That's Eddy Izzard.
posted by boo_radley at 11:47 AM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

At first I'd put Izzard's humourless demeanour down to pre-match nerves. A lifelong Palace fan, he became an associate director of the club last year, so we meet for lunch at the ground before the game. By the time post-match drinks arrive, five hours later, I have to conclude that while I had been very much looking forward to our meeting, he evidently hadn't. Then up bounces the former Labour leader. It's a relief just to see a friendly, smiling face – but all the more so when it turns out that even with Kinnock, one of his all-time heroes, Izzard remains detached. Nothing seems to defrost the comedian, which makes me feel better about the whole strangely tense day – but even more confused about Izzard.
posted by Nevin at 11:51 AM on November 5, 2014

He does string long words together in beautiful rhythms

In this age of tweets and vines, that's cause enough for celebration.
posted by davebush at 11:53 AM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

I've not seen it posted here yet, I don't think, but I watched this interview with Brand from Vice a few days ago and found him to be an amazingly large asshole. Just comes off as a colossal prick.

I am for the most part sympathetic with his politics.
posted by still bill at 12:14 PM on November 5, 2014

The only reason to mock Brand is because he thought his political beliefs were worthy of a book from him. Those beliefs aren't anything special--in the sense that plenty of others share them--and are nothing to be demonized. I might not agree with Brand but he's hardly arguing for something horrible. The problem is that he's neither the best thinker nor the best writer with those beliefs, but simply among the more famous. Could he not simply endorse the works of others and leave it at that? Or donate a given share of his earnings to groups which forward his beliefs? As a high earning comedian he is useful to his movement, but as a thinker he is not.

Cobbler, stick to thy last.
posted by Thing at 12:17 PM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

Russel Brand Russel Brands. It's what he does. He isn't Bruce Springsteen in the same way I'm not Leo Buscalia or Adolf Hitler and why oh why do I have to explain this to people? So he writes florid prose, but ever hear him speak? He's a verbal and elocution machine, and if that spills over into his writing, however awkwardly, it shouldn't be a surprise. Does he have to be like someone else to be taken seriously? As if that were even possible.

Brand wouldn't be getting this backlash--or should I say coordinated attack--if his message weren't deeply troubling to some people. The fact is that very few people in Brand's circumstances are making serious calls for revolution. He doesn't have to do this; he's rich and can keep on making movies forever and get richer. But he's a serious and dedicated guy, even if his writing is over the top. I like him and would think he's doing God's work if I believed in God.
posted by zardoz at 12:18 PM on November 5, 2014 [8 favorites]

I think he will not age well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Icke
posted by cromagnon at 12:19 PM on November 5, 2014

Brand wouldn't be getting this backlash--or should I say coordinated attack--if his message weren't deeply troubling to some people.

Maybe it's not a conspiracy; maybe some people just think he writes like a prat.
posted by Fidel Cashflow at 12:26 PM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

For those asking about what Parklife means, it's not about vorsprung durch technic or really about joggers who just run in circles. Hope that clears things up.
posted by eyeofthetiger at 12:37 PM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

David Icke believes we are ruled by space lizards. Brand believes the banks took all our money. Not really any comparison, but it seems the media smearing is doing its job.
posted by colie at 12:50 PM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

Parklife is a song written by posh kids taking the piss out of working class or lower middle class people.

Yelling 'Parklife' at Brand says nothing new or interesting about him. It reveals quite a bit about the one yelling though.
posted by motty at 12:57 PM on November 5, 2014 [3 favorites]

It's a lovely auto-indictment when one's response to someone's attempt to articulate their thoughts on social improvement in their own voice is: let's take this one funny thing some guy said about it and endlessly repeat it without context or meaning beyond its own repetition! Yeah! Team!

Also: if everyone chiming in with "PARKLIFE!!!!!" has read more of this book than a one paragraph excerpt in someone else's review, the book will be a smashing success in terms of sales figures alone.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 1:05 PM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think it's important to defend him against the all the henchmen from The Guardian etc that are now out to get him, because he at least represents the possibility of thinking differently about our world

It's unclear what "defense" means here—buying his book, I dunno? Surely if his ideas have any merit, then it's his ideas that deserve defending, not Brand as such. Defending the guy (whatever that means) because the Guardian dislikes him or merely because "he opens up a possibility for thinking differently" is treating him as a totem not a thinker, akin to the way the US right likes to clutch, oh, say, the Duck Dynasty guys to its breast.

Brand wouldn't be getting this backlash--or should I say coordinated attack--if his message weren't deeply troubling to some people.

This is circular logic and to really believe it—to believe that the criticism or satire of some subject is necessarily indicative of how threatening said subject must be to some presumed opponent—is to believe something that can't, by definition, be disproved. It's also to place Brand with totem figures like Sarah Palin whose only purpose in existing is to act like she's troubling her opponents. Brand probably deserves better than that.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:06 PM on November 5, 2014 [4 favorites]

And now for your Britpop guide to Russell Brand:

Do you feel Brand is:

a) cheeky?
Congratulations, you are Blur. Smarter than the pop crowd, but still indebted to it, you make fun songs about hum drum modern life. You are also not above collaborating with cartoon characters.

b) a wanker?
Congratulations, you are Oasis. Your pithy comments about other artists and your troublesome brother reveal a wit that is entirely absent from your music. Your lyrics may be asinine and your riffs derivative, but with the proper amount of lager and/or cocaine you are an unstoppable rock machine. You will keep the same shaggy haircut into your 40's and beyond.

c) who's Russell Brand?
Congratulations, you are Suede. You are infinitely too cool to know who Brand is and all of his ideas you've already discussed years ago with your roommates - unemployed art majors.

d) speaking to the fundamental inequalities of capitalism?
Congratulations, you are Pulp. You have the same pretensions as Suede, but the common people can dance to your music.

e) asking heavy questions?
Congratulations, you are Richard Ashcroft and or Verve and have discovered that Brand is your alter ego. Asking big questions in an overly pretentious manner? Indeed! You share with Brand that with enough orchestra production behind him, he too could ponder questions like what is the Science of Silence or is God in the Numbers? You tell him it's okay to put out a middling album and call it 'Human Conditions'. Later you discover that you and Brand share the same awkward physique and agree to share closets.
posted by boubelium at 1:11 PM on November 5, 2014 [25 favorites]

It's not that his writing is indecipherable, it's that it's idealistic malarkey that ignores the fact that most of the human race is greedy, solipsistic, relentlessly dedicated to its own self-interest, and all the handwringing, sesquipedalia, and good intentions in the world will never change that. As so much idealistic malarkey does.

I do remember exactly when I started disliking Brand: the first time I saw him.
posted by umberto at 1:19 PM on November 5, 2014

f) someone you really want to shag
Congratulations, you are a Spice Girl. And you'll make a brilliant couple, too. At least until he dumps you for someone from S Club 7 or you dump him for a richer, hotter football player.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:19 PM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

Surely if his ideas have any merit, then it's his ideas that deserve defending, not Brand as such.

This is kind of the point: the media takedowns always go on about Che T shirts or Arthur or his enjoyment of sex rather than his ideas.

For example, in one interview he talked about elections and made a good point about how voting in the UK doesn't equate to real democracy for lots of obvious and sensible reasons. But then all you read is 'Brand says don't bother to vote, so how can that change anything, what an idiot, fnarr fnarr snark.'

No corporate media outlet like The Guardian can really cope with the truth about how and why voting doesn't change much. Its pages are full of crap about David Cameron.
posted by colie at 1:20 PM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

On preview, if boubelium can come up with a list for Jimmy Fallon we can streamline all future threads on these two by just having people indicate the appropriate band name in the comments.
posted by Room 641-A at 1:24 PM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

colie: No corporate media outlet like The Guardian can really cope with the truth about how and why voting doesn't change much. Its pages are full of crap about David Cameron.


Colie,
Its pages are also full of columns by people like...Russell Brand.

wiki: From 2006 until 2009, Brand wrote a column for The Guardian that focused on West Ham United and the England national football team. A collection of the columns from 2006 and 2007 was released in a second book entitled Irons in the Fire...Brand continues to write articles for "The Guardian" that offer his perspectives on current events and pop culture, including the deaths of Amy Winehouse and Robin Williams. Following the 2011 London riots, Brand wrote a column in which he criticized the government's response to the riots in Summer 2011 as a failure to address the root causes
posted by Jody Tresidder at 1:27 PM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

There are plenty of cheeky columnists, but when the general election rolls round next Spring the Guardian will devote hundreds of thousands of words to it in every possible meaningless permutation. Along with supporting whatever war we're fighting at the time.
posted by colie at 1:37 PM on November 5, 2014

This is kind of the point: the media takedowns always go on about Che T shirts or Arthur or his enjoyment of sex rather than his ideas.

Maybe it's because his ideas are not so original, profound, and earth shattering as he thinks they are? Maybe his self-important and self-satisfied writing-style turns people off? Maybe some people find it funny that a multimillionaire movie and television star that used to be married to Katy Perry is now appropriating revolutionary iconography non-ironically? Maybe some people just think he takes himself entirely too seriously?

No, it must be that The Media is out to get him because they just can't handle his radical truth. That's the only rational explanation!
posted by Fidel Cashflow at 1:39 PM on November 5, 2014 [4 favorites]

He doesn't say the ideas are original, he just uses his profile to publicise them. His writing style sold him heaps of books before this, so someone must like it. He seems to have been a complete gentleman in the aftermath of his unsuccessful marriage.
posted by colie at 1:47 PM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

Fun fact: Russell Brand is a 9/11 Truther. Specifically, he gave a BBC interview where he said he was "open" to such ideas, that the Towers "certainly seemed like a controlled explosion," and then intimated that the Bush family's ties to bin Laden would lead one to believe they were involved.

But you know, hey... I probably only think that sounds stupid because he was married to Katy Perry or because he starred in a shitty remake of a Dudley Moore movie. I'm probably just trying to suppress his radical truth, man.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:54 PM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

He doesn't say the ideas are original, he just uses his profile to publicise them. His writing style sold him heaps of books before this, so someone must like it.

I'm sure lots of people like it, but I don't think that's a good argument for it being important or that we should take him seriously. I mean, James Dobson sells heaps of books too, does that we shouldn't make fun of his ridiculous political philosophy?

He seems to have been a complete gentleman in the aftermath of his unsuccessful marriage.

He ended his marriage using a text message. That's gentlemanly?
posted by Fidel Cashflow at 1:55 PM on November 5, 2014

David Icke believes we are ruled by space lizards. Brand believes the banks took all our money. Not really any comparison, but it seems the media smearing is doing its job.

By your logic, since Icke receives nothing but ridicule from the media, he must be the man most feared by the Establishment.
posted by Sangermaine at 1:57 PM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

Nothing Brand said about 9/11 above seems wrong to me. No point in shouting 'Truther!' at me.

David Icke rarely appears in the media because he is harmless.
posted by colie at 1:59 PM on November 5, 2014

I thought Chris Dillow was interesting:

It would, however, be silly to pretend that Brand is unique in his anti-intellectualism. Our ruling class - which includes the BBC and Labour party as well as the Tories - have created a hyperreal economy which obsesses over non-problems such as "the deficit" and immigration to the exclusion of truth and intellectual effort.

But the left is also at fault here. The question which Brand cannot answer - "replace capitalism with what?" - is also one to which it has little answer.

Any serious revolution would, of course, disempower political and business elites and empower people. Which raises many questions: why is there so little popular demand for worker management or even direct democracy? How do we promote anti-managerialism? Could we achieve worker democracy without weakening incentives to innovate? What institutions do we need to create a healthy deliberative democracy rather than debased populism?

... Just as some plants thrive in arid conditions, so Russell Brand thrives in our intellectual desert. Pointing to the ugliness of this plant, however, should not distract us from the fact that our biggest problem is our anti-intellectual political climate.

posted by TheophileEscargot at 2:04 PM on November 5, 2014 [4 favorites]

Does R. Brand have any ideas about what we should do about the fact that voting doesn't change much? I understand he advises we supersede governments and the corporate military-industrial complex by transitioning from a paradigm of competition, domination, and greed to one of symbiosis, cooperation, and altruism and that we do all that by realizing our shared responsibility for the future of the earth, and our inherent unity with each other and with all of life.

Most people realize that stuff somewhere around age 12, plus or minus a few years. So for most of us the hard work of realization is done! When can we expect the great global symbiosis? Does he say in one of his bookywooks?

Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn cope with the truth about how and why voting doesn't change much. They do it intelligently and intelligibly without resorting to airy pandering or personal attacks. They're ancient old cranks rather than spunky cute popstar pirates willing to say anything to get attention, though, so they don't get on TMZ and nobody buys their books. I guess it doesn't help that one of them's dead.
posted by Don Pepino at 2:08 PM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

David Icke rarely appears in the media because he is harmless.

Unlike Icke, Russell Brand became famous and popular in part because of his own image, his own brand. And for also being a bit of a prankster.

Image is a double-edged sword. If you are a celebrity and you suddenly veer way off message, you will be mocked.

I'm not even sure how Russell Brand could be regarded as a threat by anyone. He is very good at sound bites when he remains disciplined, but it does not seem like his new books is going to become more popular than Jesus Christ.
posted by Nevin at 2:09 PM on November 5, 2014

they don't get on TMZ and nobody buys their books

Chomsky has sold a lot of books. His 9/11 pamphlet alone sold half a million.
posted by colie at 2:20 PM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

"Shimmering tit temples" is a sockpuppet-ready phrase if I ever saw one.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:24 PM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

Although I find the Parklife thing quite amusing, I'm vaguely supportive of Brand. Not because I think he is espousing anything new or particularly accurate (the misquotes are a bit uncomfortable) but because I think (and there is no irony in this) we still need left-wing voices with the money for media reach to preach philosophies that will reach disaffected 14-year-olds for whom it's a relevation and with which they can feel smart.

For me, now, it's a "been there, heard that", and not a particularly good one either; but I'm from a home that's relatively left wing where there was no danger of Ayn Rand taking precedence over communialistic ideas. This is not the case everywhere - it seems from my experience there are plenty of people in conservative homes who lack internet reach, library reach (even when information is much more available now, because you still have to go looking for it), and these ideas will simply not reach them in the present media environment without somebody who has a lot of money and opinion putting them out there and being provocative (and stupid sometimes, because that just fans the flames).
posted by solarion at 2:29 PM on November 5, 2014 [5 favorites]

I'm not comfortable with a spokesperson with such a loud voice and big megaphone who acts as casually misogynistic, unreflexive, and jerkishly as Brand does. I don't think he's helping the movements, people, and positions that matter to me.
posted by still bill at 2:30 PM on November 5, 2014

I kind of agree. I'd rather there be a left-wing populist running around attracting people to that side of the political spectrum, even though he's simplistic and often kind of wrong, than there not be. The right is extremely good at doing this kind of thing, and it exists in parallel with the more intellectual, well-thought out types. We'd do well to learn from that.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:34 PM on November 5, 2014 [3 favorites]

I like Russell Brand.
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:44 PM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

In other news John Penney of Ned's Atomic Dustbin tweeted @HughGrant - calling him a 'Basic Bitch', of course the lame stream media won't report on that.
posted by Colby_Longhorn at 2:54 PM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

Here are some facts:
I like brand. A lot. He is much smarter than most of the people who hate him. The parklife joke is fine, though simplistic, and shouldn't be mistaken for actual critique. This book seems interesting, though probably overblown. The Revolution isn't going to be a book and it isn't going to be ridiculous. Stay woke.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:56 PM on November 5, 2014

DirtyOldTown: Fun fact: Russell Brand is a 9/11 Truther. Specifically, he gave a BBC interview where he said he was "open" to such ideas, that the Towers "certainly seemed like a controlled explosion," and then intimated that the Bush family's ties to bin Laden would lead one to believe they were involved.

Interestingly for a "fact," he didn't actually say the things surrounded by quotation marks in this comment! If you want to read the portions of the BBC interview and his book that have led to this "Brand is a truther" meme, they're reproduced here.

The source of the misreading seems to come from his book, where he gives conspiracy theorists more credit than I would, writing "The mysterious, ignored 'third tower, building 7,' the signs of 'controlled demolition,' the nationality of all the terrorists, are all cause for question." (Notably, of those three points, he put the two truther talking points in scare quotes, unlike the factual point about the hijackers' nationalities.) He pivoted immediately to what he thought was actually a worthwhile topic of discussion: how political operatives used 9/11 as justification for a misguided war. "What is irrefutable is that America has a long history of carrying out invasions to impose the will of its corporate clientele, there is documentation of a plan to invade Iraq prior to 9/11, and the reasons they said they were invading Iraq have all since been proved to be untrue."

When the Newsnight interviewer seized on that first sentence, he clarified that he wasn't lending credence to those theories, but instead was trying to make a point about distrust of the media and political institutions: "I think it's interesting that at this time, we have so little trust in our political figures, that ordinary people have so little trust in our media, that we have to remain open-minded to any kind of possibility." Pivoting again to the media's failures to accurately report on what took place in the aftermath of 9/11, he continued "I think it's interesting the way these tragic events are used to enforce further controls on us. I think it's interesting the way the media works in conjunction with big business and with the government."

When the interviewer asked flat out whether Brand believed the Bush family was involved in 9/11, he called such conspiracy theories "daft." And in his book, he wrote plainly: "I'm not saying 9/11 was an inside job."

IN CONCLUSION:

1. Man writes in book that 9/11 was not an inside job but that reporting failures that have led people to question media narratives
2. On book publicity tour, interviewer asks man if 9/11 was an inside job and man repeats that conspiracy theories are "daft" and reiterates his point about distrust of the media
3. Media repeatedly reports that man is a 9/11 truther

wow looks like he was way off lol
posted by cobra_high_tigers at 4:00 PM on November 5, 2014 [12 favorites]

It seems like we're supposed to solemnly listen to what Russell Brand has to say because he is Russell Brand, no matter how unfocused and self-indulgent his presentation of ideas.

The Russell Brand that I want to see is the same one who appeared before the Committee on Addiction. He's the Russell Brand who is worth listening to, perhaps because he is intimately familiar with what he is talking about.
posted by Nevin at 5:19 PM on November 5, 2014

Clearly, Russell Brand is a religious figure for some folks at MeFi and they will abide no tampering with their faith.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:35 PM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

Please don't respond to a factual argument with snark about what thoughts and opinions you imagine I hold about Russell Brand or what you imagine my motivations to be. I barely know anything about the guy, I just happened to read about the whole literally-the-opposite-of-what-he-said truther incident and saw it as another example of the media being fucking awful, which is why I commented on that specific point and never said he isn't a pompous rambler or doesn't sell t-shirts with his face on them or whatever.

If you find some quotes somewhere that back up what you presented as a fact feel free to share them - I don't presume to know what other people "clearly" believe
posted by cobra_high_tigers at 6:20 PM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

I think it is fucking ridiculous to treat a bouffant-sporting clown as some kind of political messiah, even if he does crack "sophisticated" jokes and continually circles to-and-fro in a put-on fog of lechery and whimsy.

Still, he is Mayor of London and I suppose he can't be any worse than Cameron.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 6:25 PM on November 5, 2014 [23 favorites]

I'm not interested in parsing out every word this man has ever said with excruciating detail. You can literally Google 9/11 and Russell Brand and get a dozen sources of him saying what I said he said. I'm suspecting you have your reasons for being unconvinced by those. Good for you.

But honestly, the entire point of this post was as simple as "comedian's pontificating sounds hilarious when paired with the chorus of 'Parklife'" and I'm not super interested in being drafted to serve as one side or another in a hastily constructed debate about him.

Honestly, if I'd known people felt that this particular blowhard was a sacred cow who must be defended to the death at any cost, that people were utterly incapable of differentiating amusement at how overblown he can sound from a concerted effort to silence his politics and anyone who agrees with them, I'd have probably just laughed about this privately because holyshitwtfwhocares.

Chrissakes, I generally agree with his sentiments, I just find his presentation of them self-aggrandizingly florid and bereft of practical ideas.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:59 PM on November 5, 2014

I think you have been co-opted by the 1%. Humor is a luxury that most of us cannot afford.
posted by Nevin at 7:11 PM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

The media "reaction" to this book is all quite comical, if indeed the journos concerned did actually read it. One can only assume that Sophie Gilbert spends all her time reading Twitter, and cannot cope with anything longer than 140 characters. So you think that's "garbled"? Perhaps you need to slow down and take your time there. It may or may not be bad style, but if that's your limit, then I wonder if I can trust the rest of your article.

So we have journos complaining about the book being "unreadable", labelling Brand a 9-11 truther, moaning about hypocrisy - basically doing anything but engaging with his ideas. And from what I've seen (the most recent Newsnight interview was a case in point), when people do engage with his ideas, the best they can come up with is, "tell us your alternative". And when he says, I don't have all the ideas (yet), they say, "aha! then why should we listen to you".

I find his presentation exasperating, and yes he doesn't have any concrete solutions when pressed. That really is no reason for the media to drown out the ideas with their predictable character assassination pieces because they don't agree with or want to engage with his ideas. It's just too bad that that's the media's MO for pretty much most "dissent" these days.
posted by Juso No Thankyou at 9:39 PM on November 5, 2014 [4 favorites]

LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR ANY OF YOU BECAUSE I WROTE 'PARKLIFE' ON A PIECE OF PAPER AND HELD IT IN FRONT OF MY MONITOR. DORKS!
posted by straight at 10:54 PM on November 5, 2014

Some posters, having been shown in detail how the media refuses to engage with Brand's political points (which is the whole point of this thread, see cobra's comment), are now going down another favourite pathway that the media uses with Brand: anyone who is interested in his ideas or can even tolerate him is a 'religious follower'.

So we've now got 'sacred cow', 'messiah', 'religious figure' being thrown around as a response to an entirely factual post about how Brand does not, in fact, go around propagating conspiracy theories at all.

when people do engage with his ideas, the best they can come up with is, "tell us your alternative". And when he says, I don't have all the ideas (yet), they say, "aha! then why should we listen to you".

This is often the middle section of any Brand interview, while the journalist is still doing a 'serious' face. The format then finishes up with the hack doing a pompous conspiracy theories pseudo-interrogation, then a reminder that 'this man married Katy Perry, so pop music stupidstupidstupid Arthur remake TMZ lol.'
posted by colie at 11:29 PM on November 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

DirtyOldTown: You can literally Google 9/11 and Russell Brand and get a dozen sources of him saying what I said he said.

Yeah, I'm looking at them, and guess what? They're all misquoting that same interview. I'm seeing a bunch of headlines like "Russell Brand admits he's 'open minded' about 9/11 conspiracy theories." Yes, he used the words "open minded" - in the middle of the statement, "I think it's interesting that at this time, we have so little trust in our political figures, that ordinary people have so little trust in our media, that we have to remain open-minded to any kind of possibility."

But in turn I'm so open-minded to the idea that I could be wrong about this that I'm seeking out any other sources for the Brand-is-a-truther meme and still coming up short. Hell, I found this crazy list of theories on what I thought was the official page for his YouTube show at first glance before noticing that the author of the post addresses Brand as a different person, saying things like "If you say so Rus." So I checked and found that the site is registered to someone named William Fitzgerald from Enfield, and although Brand is responding to a reader question about conspiracy theories in the embedded video, he doesn't say anything about 9/11.

I'm not interested in parsing out every word this man has ever said with excruciating detail. ...I'm not super interested in being drafted to serve as one side or another in a hastily constructed debate about him.

Nobody's asking you to do either. You repeated something that isn't true, and I pointed this out. In way less time than it took to write your reply, you could have just read the, I'm guesstimating, ten sentences right here and confirmed that for yourself.

I'm suspecting you have your reasons for being unconvinced by those. Good for you.
Seriously with this shit again, huh? All right, total disclosure: I hadn't heard the Parklife song before this post and after listening to it and reading the lyrics I still don't get the joke, so I'm sure we differ on how hilarious it is, but I'm fine with that. And I agree that he comes across as a "blowhard" who can sound "overblown," whose style is "florid" and though I haven't read his book, everyone seems to agree that he failed to provide practical details and I have no reason to believe otherwise. Literally the only statement I took issue with was the 9/11 thing.

So maybe instead of convincing yourself (and telling the world) that I think of Russell Brand as a religious figure or sacred cow and I have secret reasons for concocting this cockamamie theory that maybe shit blogs like Salon and The Blaze misrepresented what he said as clickbait, based only on the fact you can read what he said and they absolutely did, just stop repeating the 9/11 thing and go on saying anything else you feel like saying about the guy?
posted by cobra_high_tigers at 11:47 PM on November 5, 2014 [3 favorites]

I think you have been co-opted by the 1%.

Maybe not the 1% you are thinking of.

Russell Brand is to the Maharishi what Tom Cruise is to Scientology. Russell Brand is funding TM groups like the David Lynch Foundation to spread transcendental meditation in the guise of "at-risk youth education programs."

So I am infuriated when I see columnists write crap like this:

But the left is also at fault here. The question which Brand cannot answer - "replace capitalism with what?" - is also one to which it has little answer.

Oh no, Brand absolutely has a specific answer. Brand believes in replacing capitalism with theocracy. He literally believes that transcendental meditators will use their occult power to control the world. Brand is spending his cash to spread this cult.

So don't blame the Left for Russell Brand's lack of vision. The Left has plenty of ideas to revolutionize government, but I'm pretty sure none of them involve being ruled by the Natural Law Party.
posted by charlie don't surf at 11:48 PM on November 5, 2014 [3 favorites]

I heard that if you pick up Russell Brand and turn him upside down and then look in a mirror, you'll see yourself holding Jeremy Clarkson. True?
posted by the quidnunc kid at 3:14 AM on November 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

Brand believes in replacing capitalism with theocracy. He literally believes that transcendental meditators will use their occult power to control the world. Brand is spending his cash to spread this cult.

Cite?
posted by josher71 at 4:58 AM on November 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

He literally believes that transcendental meditators will use their occult power to control the world. Brand is spending his cash to spread this cult.

Literally he believes this? So I hope you have a quote where he specifically states that or you've just outed yourself as the world's first actual psychic.

(jinx)
posted by longbaugh at 4:59 AM on November 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

There is room in this world for Russell Brand. People who need him to be perfect or be gone will be disappointed that he is neither, but he is mostly good, mostly right, and mostly entertaining. He pokes all the right people in the right places. If you have to be for or against him, you really ought to be for.
posted by pracowity at 5:11 AM on November 6, 2014 [5 favorites]

Newsnight host Evan Davis: Do you believe the Twin Towers were destroyed by forces of the American government or similar?

Brand: I̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶k̶ ̶i̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶e̶r̶e̶s̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶,̶ ̶w̶e̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶l̶i̶t̶t̶l̶e̶ ̶t̶r̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶p̶o̶l̶i̶t̶i̶c̶a̶l̶ ̶f̶i̶g̶u̶r̶e̶s̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶o̶r̶d̶i̶n̶a̶r̶y̶ ̶p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶l̶i̶t̶t̶l̶e̶ ̶t̶r̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶m̶e̶d̶i̶a̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶w̶e̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶r̶e̶m̶a̶i̶n̶ ̶o̶p̶e̶n̶-̶m̶i̶n̶d̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶ ̶k̶i̶n̶d̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶p̶o̶s̶s̶i̶b̶i̶l̶i̶t̶y̶.̶ ̶D̶o̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶t̶r̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶A̶m̶e̶r̶i̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶g̶o̶v̶e̶r̶n̶m̶e̶n̶t̶?̶ ̶D̶o̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶t̶r̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶B̶r̶i̶t̶i̶s̶h̶ ̶g̶o̶v̶e̶r̶n̶m̶e̶n̶t̶?̶ No.

Davis: My views aren't important, but I think people regard it as ridiculous to suggest anything other than that al Qaeda destroyed those buildings.

Brand: W̶e̶l̶l̶,̶ ̶w̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶I̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶k̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶e̶r̶e̶s̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶l̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶h̶i̶p̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶B̶u̶s̶h̶ ̶f̶a̶m̶i̶l̶y̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶h̶a̶d̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶o̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶i̶n̶ ̶L̶a̶d̶e̶n̶ ̶f̶a̶m̶i̶l̶y̶.̶ ̶W̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶I̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶k̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶e̶r̶e̶s̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶B̶B̶C̶ ̶r̶e̶p̶o̶r̶t̶s̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶n̶t̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶O̶t̶t̶a̶w̶a̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶u̶b̶t̶l̶y̶ ̶b̶u̶i̶l̶d̶ ̶a̶n̶ ̶a̶n̶t̶i̶-̶I̶s̶l̶a̶m̶i̶c̶ ̶n̶a̶r̶r̶a̶t̶i̶v̶e̶.̶ ̶I̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶k̶ ̶i̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶e̶r̶e̶s̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶s̶e̶ ̶t̶r̶a̶g̶i̶c̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶n̶t̶s̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶u̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶e̶n̶f̶o̶r̶c̶e̶ ̶f̶u̶r̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶t̶r̶o̶l̶s̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶u̶s̶.̶ ̶I̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶k̶ ̶i̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶e̶r̶e̶s̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶e̶d̶i̶a̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶j̶u̶n̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶b̶i̶g̶ ̶b̶u̶s̶i̶n̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶g̶o̶v̶e̶r̶n̶m̶e̶n̶t̶.̶.̶.̶"̶ Yes, absolutely.

Davis: But you're not suggesting the Bush family were involved in 9/11?

Brand: I̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶a̶l̶k̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶d̶a̶f̶t̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶s̶p̶i̶r̶a̶c̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶o̶r̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶N̶e̶w̶s̶n̶i̶g̶h̶t̶,̶ ̶m̶a̶t̶e̶!̶ Nope.


There, would that have been so hard, Russell?
posted by Prince Lazy I at 5:46 AM on November 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

The truth about Russell Brand is that, if you pull the top off Russell Brand, you will find a slightly smaller Jo Brand inside. Then, if you open that Jo Brand up, you'll find an even smaller Sir Richard Branson inside her. And delving deeper, a bottle of Branston pickle, and in that bottle, Tom Branson from Dowton Abbey, and if you pull HIM apart, Charles Bronson, Britain’s most violent convict, who once covered himself in butter and fought 12 prison wardens. And within him ... Pierce Brendan Brosnan, OBE. And within him? Bono. That's right - this thing goes all the way to the top.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 6:59 AM on November 6, 2014 [7 favorites]

colie: The format then finishes up with the hack doing a pompous conspiracy theories pseudo-interrogation, then a reminder that 'this man married Katy Perry, so pop music stupidstupidstupid Arthur remake TMZ lol.'

Colie,
I'm not picking on you - but you've put a ton of energy into this thread defending Brand - so I guess I am addressing you just because you appear so invested in his reputation. (You also volunteered the factoid that Brand had been a total gentleman about his failed marriage to Perry when that's not relevant to any discussion of his politics - a hack move of the very sort you appear to denigrate!).

Some of us have thought a little about Brand's latest incarnation as a social reformer and we don't buy it.

I think Russell Brand's daftly demanding demagoguery & pseudo intellectual language is every bit as manipulative as was Sarah Palin's folksy plain speaking and her claims (I paraphrase) that the pointy heads in Washington needed a darn good shaking up.

Both Brand & Palin show a similar talent for grandiose statements about representing the desperately disenfranchised - and both are (to my mind) cynically sketchy about the practical details of achieving their respective visions.

Both sucked up colossal amounts of political energy from their faithful fans, both seem to able to inspire oceans of fierce personal loyalty from their admirers - obviously, I feel this was/is a waste of the fans' genuine energy & passion for reform.

I don't think I was ever entirely blinded by my partisan dislike for Palin's politics. She was often viciously attacked & dismissed for trivial reasons- and we appear to be headed in a familiar direction with some of the Russel Brand hating.

Like a fair number of commenters here, I am actually genuinely sympathetic to the ideas behind some of Brand's loftier pronouncements. But I cannot take him as seriously. Certainly not as he seriously as he appears to pretend to take himself. (I actually have trouble knowing whether he is more serious about his politics or his new children's book...)

Brand is an effective entertainer. But at the age of 39, he's way too old to be acting & canvassing like a prolier-than-thou pissed off radical student.

By a total (& to me wonderful) coincidence, I opened a brilliant comic novel for the first time yesterday - a European best seller which came hugely recommended by a friend - and the first two sentences made me snort with a delighted recognition. The "Pallieres boy" immediately put me in mind of Brand:

" "Marx has completely changed the way I view the world," declared the Pallieres boy this morning, although ordinarily he says nary a word to me.
Antoine Pallieres, prosperous heir to an old industrial dynasty, is the son of one of my eight employers. There he stood, the most recent eructation of the ruling corporate elite..."

Muriel Barbery: "The Elegance of the Hedgehog"
posted by Jody Tresidder at 7:22 AM on November 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

I accept that Brand's marriage to Perry has nothing to do with it - it's just apparent (at least in the UK) that he has never really spoken about being married to one of the world's biggest pop stars or done any dirty laundry about it in public (despite going into detail about everything else in his personal life).

As regards Palin:

She was often viciously attacked & dismissed for trivial reasons- and we appear to be headed in a familiar direction with some of the Russel Brand hating.

She was mainly attacked for her proven idiocy and her views; very much unlike Brand. Her views were meticulously analysed in detail and turned out to be so mainstream and so supportive of the status quo in every way that she very nearly became the Vice President of the USA - not something likely to happen to Brand.
posted by colie at 7:46 AM on November 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Huh. So can we look forward to screeds about theocracy in every Twin Peaks thread, too?
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 8:00 AM on November 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Fidel Cashflow: It just makes me laugh that you're linking to Association Fallacies on wikipedia in one post, and then turning around and making an ad hominem attack in another. I'll ask you again: what are the relevant facts? You're the one arguing the the relevant facts are being ignored, so what are they?

Wow, OK, you have an axe to grind. And you're reading nonsense into what I wrote.

I have no idea what the relevant facts are. I'm not implying anything; I'm clearly stating that attacking Russell Brand's hair, friendships, and choice of soft drink is lame, and without merit.

I haven't made any ad hominems at all. Go look it up. I'm judging content, not people. Well, possibly except for calling Russell Brand "loud"... although I don't really think that, in itself, is a character flaw.
posted by IAmBroom at 9:28 AM on November 6, 2014

I mentioned debt cancellation above. That's a relevant fact, I think.
posted by josher71 at 9:37 AM on November 6, 2014

Wow, sweet. http://aboutmeditation.com/russell-brand-john-hagelin/ So it's like The Secret only instead of asking the universe for money and a hot bod for yourself, you're to ask the universe for equality, liberty, and justice for all.

I hate to say it because I know that Russell Brand has Ideas and I know that saying that his Ideas melt away like cotton candy when subjected to the fiery crucible of paraphrase is not on, mate, but the TM data point nicely fills in the ??? part of
1. Realize our shared responsibility for the future of the earth, and our inherent unity with each other and with all of life
2. Transition from a paradigm of competition, domination, and greed to one of symbiosis, cooperation, and altruism
3. ???
4. Supersede governments and the corporate military-industrial complex!

All without leaving shavasana.
posted by Don Pepino at 9:38 AM on November 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Still not on, mate.
posted by josher71 at 9:46 AM on November 6, 2014

His book is published by a giant media conglomerate. How in the world is he threatening anything?

Rebecca Solnit, Naomi Klein, Barbara Ehrenreich, Seymour Hersch, Thomas Frank, Michael Lewis, James Risen: published by giant media conglomerates. Your argument doesn't hold water.

Well, either that or none of the people you mention are actually "threatening" anything.

Yeah, Hersch exposed the My Lai massacre, but that wasn't threatening to Vietnam War hawks. He exposed the secret bombing of Cambodia, but that didn't threaten Nixon and Kissinger. He exposed the extent of Abu Ghraib, but that didn't threaten Bush and Cheney. Flash Boys caused one high-frequency trading outfit to postpone its IPO indefinitely, but the book posed it no threat, not really. The resulting class-action lawsuit, against the NYSE, Nasdaq, BATS, Direct Edge, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, etc., brought by the same law firm that brought successful class actions against Enron, Visa, WorldCom, etc.: that surely isn't threatening. That the Obama administration is trying to prosecute James Risen for doing journalism? That clearly has nothing to do with feeling threatened. Tech workers certainly didn't feel threatened when Solnit raised the alarm about tech industry-driven change in San Francisco and protestors started blocking Google buses. And so on.

As for whether Russell Brand is threatening to anyone, I don't know. But the people I named definitely threatened someone. And the argument that books from big publishers can't threaten power? That's just wrong.
posted by Lyme Drop at 10:44 AM on November 6, 2014 [5 favorites]

josher71: I mentioned debt cancellation above. That's a relevant fact, I think.

That means I'm not complaining about your arguments.
posted by IAmBroom at 12:03 PM on November 6, 2014

Lyme Drop, what are the concrete outcomes of the things you mention? Pretty much nothing at all. Maybe one postponed IPO. Wow. The system is threatened.

Business as usual goes on and on, and books aren't changing that.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 12:09 PM on November 6, 2014

When there are so many high-profile, visible voices out there putting out the message, “Our current greed-is-good corporate plutocracy is great and makes sense and is the only way to function as a modern society,” and Person A who has a big, loud soapbox is able to speak the message, “No, our current system with its massive institutionalized inequalities is bad for everybody because of B, C, and D,” I’m not going to fault him for not having all the answers to fix everything in one fell swoop. In the current climate, it’s enough that somebody who can be heard is even saying it.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:15 PM on November 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

That means I'm not complaining about your arguments.

No, I know. I was just bringing it up again because no one had engaged with it even after asking about relevant facts.
posted by josher71 at 12:51 PM on November 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

If you have to be for or against him, you really ought to be for.

I'm a little dismayed to learn that I should have a position on Russell Brand. It's just one more thing I've failed to do with my life.

I'm clearly stating that attacking Russell Brand's hair, friendships, and choice of soft drink is lame, and without merit.

Since we're entering the What We Talk About When We Talk About Russell Brand phase of our discussion: While I think we'd agree that mocking Brand's hair or favorite soda is not a refutation of any of his political propositions would we agree that it's still possible to find humor in Brand or in his rhetoric or in other events in his life which may be irrelevant to the truth or falsity of his propositions simply because ... well, because IT'S FUNNY!? I do not know. I do not know if we would agree or not.

(Interestingly, the Parklife! thing came up on another forum I read where it received a few chuckles before turning to a discussion of Parklife and whether Harry Hill's version of the joke wasn't funnier the first time.)

Oh and because it's an oldie and a goodie and almost as funny as Russell Brand: I give you Beavis and Butt-Head watch "Parklife."
posted by octobersurprise at 1:03 PM on November 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

When there are so many high-profile, visible voices out there putting out the message, “Our current greed-is-good corporate plutocracy is great and makes sense and is the only way to function as a modern society,” and Person A who has a big, loud soapbox is able to speak the message, “No, our current system with its massive institutionalized inequalities is bad for everybody because of B, C, and D,” I’m not going to fault him for not having all the answers to fix everything in one fell swoop. In the current climate, it’s enough that somebody who can be heard is even saying it.

I dunno man, I rather despise the Susan G. Koman brand of activism*, where all your time and attention and occasionally millions are devoted to virtuously intoning how bad the bad thing is, which activities are supposed to be above criticism, because what, don't you agree the bad thing is bad?
If Brand's book is merely meant to be an awareness-raising exercise on the themes: Corporations are bad, banks are evil, wouldn't it be nice if we all were nicer....then okay, I guess, but it just seems like lefty Komen-ism. If it is meant to be a work of political philosophy --- though aimed at laymen --- a book of ideas worthy of respect, of being engaged with, then yeah, I'd like to see a fleshed-out Step 2 in the Underpants Gnome Plan. I think the ideas would be the step two, that the only bits worthy of respect and engagement are the bits that tell you how to get from underpants to profit, or in Brand's case, Revolution to the new world order. Mindless sloganeering doesn't interest me, even if you're baying at the moon in my favoured key.

*you know, paint it pink and charge a ten percent markup, then sit back and rake it in, content that you've done your bit by "raising awareness"
posted by Diablevert at 1:37 PM on November 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Corporations are bad, banks are evil, wouldn't it be nice if we all were nicer....

I haven't read the book yet but a quick scan of his Twitter shows him campaigning on specific, real grass roots social struggles in detail, such as evictions, welfare, disability rights, as well as showing up to demos and protests personally.
posted by colie at 2:03 PM on November 6, 2014

You've complained a great deal in this thread that critics of his book refuse to engage with his ideas. But you haven't read the book and cannot articulate what those ideas are? Instead, the basis for your defense of the man and his ideas is "a quick scan of his Twitter feed" and the fact that he was a mensch about his breakup with Katy Perry? It seems to me a bit hollow to get into high dudgeon over the fact that people who have read his book don't take him seriously, when it seems your own basis for judgement is mostly a surge of fellow-feeling.
posted by Diablevert at 2:36 PM on November 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

He is noxious for two reasons. One, his solution to vampire capitalism is to lie on the floor Oming and hoping to achieve The Maharishi Effect. If this solution is widely adopted it will waste people's time and detract from real work toward achievable ends. Two, his sexism will appeal to likeminded yobs who could get in the way of people like Cecily McMillan who do more than lie on the floor Oming.

http://flavorwire.com/482803/on-activism-and-cynicism-an-hour-waiting-for-russell-brand-in-zuccotti-park

"Three-thirty pm. Still no Russell. People are taking the delay as an opportunity to speak, to announce rallies and promote hashtags. A scruffy-looking chap gets up to speak about a civil disobedience event happening in Washington Square park later in the evening — apparently, it’s to involve smoking joints and free Capoeira lessons.

And then the old joint-smoking bro introduces an unassuming, mid-20s white girl. The girl is Cecily McMillan, of whom you may well have heard — she was arrested at an Occupy event in 2011, suffered injuries and a seizure from her handling by police officers, and then as a final insult, got sentenced to 90 days in Rikers for 'assaulting a police officer.' Even by the not-especially-proud standards of the US justice system, it was a pretty egregious miscarriage of justice. McMillan would be forgiven for wanting nothing more to do with activism, given how brutally it was demonstrated to her that she can be thrown in prison for nothing.

But she’s not. She’s braver than I am. She’s here, again, in Zuccotti Park, speaking about what her ordeal says about America, reading a speech off her iPhone. 'The only thing remarkable about what happened to me,” she says, “is the color of my skin.' She’s right, of course — every day in America, people of color suffer ordeals like hers, or worse. Or they’re just killed. Trayvon Martin. Mike Brown. John Crawford. And many, many more. She speaks about how she plans on returning to Rikers on the first and third Saturday of every month to rally for an end to solitary confinement and mistreatment of female prisoners.

...

Cecily McMillan hasn’t found The Answer, of course, but perhaps she’s found something more important: that if this is the best of all possible worlds, it’s that way only because people have demanded that be the case. If it wasn’t for the civil rights protesters of the 1960s, we’d live in a country even more racially divided and dedicated to the disenfranchisement of people of color than it already is. If it wasn’t for the suffragettes, women would still be precluded from voting. If it wasn’t for the work of feminist activists, anti-abortion activists around the country would have been far more successful in closing down clinics than they have been.

Russell Brand turned up just before 4pm. He spoke for a couple of minutes. It was, y’know, alright."
posted by Don Pepino at 2:49 PM on November 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think I'm right in assuming that nobody on this thread has read his most recent book (published a matter of days ago) and the thread is mainly about Brand's public and media profile. But he does many many interviews and writes in the media about his opinions so you can get most of it from that. There is no onus on me to summarise Brand's views for the thread.

I've pointed out plenty that my defence of him is because he represents a dissenting voice that the mainstream (especially now the left liberals) needs to ridicule and dismiss in order to avoid answering his questions - as proved earlier when the cry of 'Truther!' went up and was shown to be a textbook media smear.

I've already gone back on the Katy Perry connection.
posted by colie at 3:13 PM on November 6, 2014

I've got a "Let's all sing Kumbaya" right here, man and I'm not afraid to use it.


Here's my thing. When Russell Brand talked about voter apathy, and unashamedly defended it, I was right with him. But for me, with him, and with Jon Stewart ,and with any other wealthy celebrity calling for civility, and common ground, and pie-in-the-sky magical thinking and stuff I just hear them saying don't rock the boat too much, because after all, I'm making multiple millions a year, how bad can things be? My thinking is that if we even can take power back from the rich it will have to be taken pretty uncivilly.

As too the quasi buddhist part, I'm pretty sure that philosophy is a lot more about giving shit up than having shit.

Also, I'm a lapsed TM'er and I don't think there's a thing wrong with trying to still your monologue for a few minutes. However, about a zillion years ago, the TM organization sent me a pamphlet showing a VERY blurry Maharishi levitating. It was like a bigfoot photo. The organization is either loopy or selling snake oil. And I vote snake oil.
posted by Trochanter at 3:38 PM on November 6, 2014

He is noxious for two reasons. One, his solution PARKLIFE!

"Three-thirty pm. Still no Russell. People are taking the delay PARKLIFE!

Cecily McMillan hasn’t found The Answer, of course, but perhaps PARKLIFE!

Sorry, just trying to get this discussion back on topic.
posted by straight at 6:07 PM on November 6, 2014 [4 favorites]

Alllllllllllll the people. So many people!
They all go hand in hand, hand in hand through their parklife.

Know what I mean?
posted by maryr at 8:22 PM on November 6, 2014

--When there are so many high-profile, visible voices out there putting out the message, “Our current greed-is-good corporate plutocracy is great and makes sense and is the only way to function as a modern society,” and Person A who has a big, loud soapbox is able to speak the message, “No, our current system with its massive institutionalized inequalities is bad for everybody because of B, C, and D,” I’m not going to fault him for not having all the answers to fix everything in one fell swoop. In the current climate, it’s enough that somebody who can be heard is even saying it.

-I dunno man, I rather despise the Susan G. Koman brand of activism*, where all your time and attention and occasionally millions are devoted to virtuously intoning how bad the bad thing is, which activities are supposed to be above criticism, because what, don't you agree the bad thing is bad?

Well, the big difference there is exactly what i said: Not everybody DOES agree that the bad thing is bad. In fact, most of the voices making themselves heard out there don't believe it's bad at all. Your Komen analogy would only apply if the media establishment, the majority of those in power, government, and basically anyone who can afford to buy airtime was thoroughly committed to the idea that breast cancer isn't a problem, and that people should be happy to have it, and if they have a problem with it they should just bootstrap themselves out of it and stop complaining.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:52 AM on November 7, 2014

I get where you're coming from, Steely-eyed missile man: it's disheartening that powerful interests retain power and mostly have their way, sticks and stones may break their bones, etc. But Hersch helped turn public opinion against Vietnam/Nixon and (along with Risen) Iraq/Bush, Lewis helped empower voices like Elizabeth Warren, Naomi Klein and Rebecca Solnit helped get hundreds of thousands of people on the streets of our cities to protest inequality and climate change policy, etc. The threat they pose might be hard to measure, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Where would we be without tell-truth-to-power journalism like theirs? Would things be even worse? My guess is yes.
posted by Lyme Drop at 9:37 AM on November 7, 2014

his solution to vampire capitalism is to lie on the floor Oming and hoping to achieve The Maharishi Effect.

Once again: this characterisation is not accurate. He tweeted just today that he'll be on a demonstration in North London tomorrow morning against cuts in social housing and encouraged his fans to join him.
posted by colie at 10:05 AM on November 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

I picked up a copy of this in my local bookshop to take a look at this afternoon, and I was pleasantly surprised that it did seem to be telling a much more nuanced story about the way the world works than I've given him credit for. I'm not sure I'll get my own copy, but I'll definitely be a little more open to hearing what he has to say than I have in my previous comments in this thread.
posted by ambrosen at 5:11 PM on November 7, 2014 [5 favorites]

ambrosen, I know that Russell Brand isn't the most urgent topic in the world but I think that was very gracious of you.
posted by Room 641-A at 5:50 PM on November 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

I have mixed feelings about him at best, but... well played, Brand. Well played.
posted by EXISTENZ IS PAUSED at 6:46 AM on November 10, 2014 [7 favorites]

/Mike Leigh mum/ Awrr, bless 'eem! ^That's adorable. Anyway, his impetuous tool-age probably has a lot to do with the fact that he is little more than a baby. He might get over himself in time and become more useful.
posted by Don Pepino at 8:48 AM on November 10, 2014

I have mixed feelings about him at best, but... well played, Brand. Well played .


I think you have to award maximum points for that one.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:34 AM on November 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Dude knows how the internet works, at least.
posted by maryr at 9:37 AM on November 10, 2014

A review of 'Revolution' from Media Lens, who are a UK group known for media commentary and activism based on the Chomsky/Herman propaganda model.
posted by colie at 9:10 AM on November 11, 2014

The most annoying sentence in that review, one that illustrates some of the annoying aspects of this discussion from the start is

"Even if we disagree with everything else he has to say, every sane person has an interest in supporting Brand's call to action to stop this corporate genocide and biocide.

Here, every sane person has an interest in supporting Brand's call to action. Not just an interest in opposition to "corporate genocide and biocide" in general, but in, specifically, Brand's opposition. The author is vague about what that support might consist of, exactly, but very clear that only an insane person would refuse to give it. I see very little space in that sentence for a sane person to think that Russell Brand is, on the whole, a likable and well-intentioned guy who seems to have written a book filled with vacuous pseudo-profundities and half-baked ideas.

And why, if we labor under a corporately owned media tyranny bent on nothing less than "the colonisation of consciousness," did Brand choose to publish his manifesto with one of the largest media conglomerates in the world? I'm not calling him a hypocrite, mind you, but you'd think that a man so wary of abandoning our connection to wonder would be very averse to putting his destiny into unclean hands.
posted by octobersurprise at 1:20 PM on November 11, 2014

seems to have written a book filled with vacuous pseudo-profundities and half-baked ideas.

Have you read it?
posted by colie at 2:20 PM on November 11, 2014

Is this one of those things where I can't have an opinion until I've read every word?

No, I haven't read the book which is why I used the word "seems." Now you could try to persuade me that my impression is mistaken. Or you could decide that I'm a running dog of the bourgeoisie and leap defensively on any perceived criticism.
posted by octobersurprise at 2:43 PM on November 11, 2014

I haven't read it either but the review has 19 extracts from it, and I can only see one of them as 'half-baked/pseudo profound' (the one about children). The rest are all very straightforward in so far s they deal with politics, and he only does the florid word salad stuff about a sexual encounter.
posted by colie at 11:13 PM on November 11, 2014

Update: Medialens has now posted part two of their review of 'Revolution', which catalogues many of the constant sneers and smears published by the Guardian and other right-wing corporate media outlets that sometimes pose as 'liberal left'.

It notes that many of the reviews of the book concentrate almost entirely on Brand's character in ways reminiscent of classic Soviet-style 'personality disorder' smears, just like they do with Assange and Snowden.

if we labor under a corporately owned media tyranny bent on nothing less than "the colonisation of consciousness," did Brand choose to publish his manifesto with one of the largest media conglomerates in the world?

From the Medialens review: Brand has said that profits from the book will go towards a non-hierarchical, not-for-profit café and production company managed by the workforce 'where recovering addicts like me can run a business based on the ideas in this book'. (p.593).
posted by colie at 3:46 AM on November 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

It notes that many of the reviews of the book concentrate almost entirely on Brand's character in ways reminiscent of classic Soviet-style 'personality disorder' smears, just like they do with Assange and Snowden.

LOL. cute.

ad hominem attacks now make you a totalitarian.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:05 AM on November 12, 2014

You honestly find it surprising - or the idea so outlandish that you can only laugh - that the corporate media in the west might use some of the same propaganda techniques as the old Soviet Union?

Some of the reviews even call Brand 'coke-addled' when he has famously been clean for over a decade. But that's OK, because nobody bothers to check the facts or the ideas or the language you use when you're ridiculing an enemy of the state.
posted by colie at 6:34 AM on November 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

many of the reviews of the book concentrate almost entirely on Brand's character in ways reminiscent of classic Soviet-style 'personality disorder' smears

Meanwhile, critics of Brand's book and even people making mild jokes about it are all being dismissed as politically motivated reactionaries. They did that in the Soviet Union, too.

profits from the book will go towards a non-hierarchical, not-for-profit café and production company managed by the workforce

That's great. But if you believe that we live, literally, under the rule of a tyrannical corporate state, a tyranny that is, literally, trying to kill us, isn't that a wee bit accommodationist? I mean, it's rather like opening a worker-owned vegan restaurant with your profits made in North Korea or General Pinochet's Chile. Your Media Lens guys castigate George Monbiot for even appearing alongside advertisements in The Guardian. I fail to see how contributing to the bottom line of a global behemoth like Bertelsmann/Random House/OMGITSHUGE is somehow more acceptable. In fact, I should think that Bertelsmann is exactly the kind of media corporation Brand is referring to when he says

'The people that own the means for conveying information, who decide what knowledge enters our minds, are on the fun bus.'

If Russell Brand really wants revolution, shouldn't he be giving away the book for free? Doesn't he owe the revolution that?

Some of the reviews even call Brand 'coke-addled' when he has famously been clean for over a decade ... because nobody bothers to check the facts or the ideas or the language you use when you're ridiculing an enemy of the state.

You make a valid point about the sloppiness of trash journalism in the first half of this paragraph, but the second half just makes me sad. Because if you genuinely believe that a wealthy and successful man like Russell Brand, a man with a book a global conglomerate can't wait to sell is an "enemy of the state," then there's nothing to say. And if you're just being hyperbolic, then it's pointless to say anything.

So I'm going to let you have this one, colie. You're much more invested in Russell Brand than I am. Knock yourself out.

(But before I go I give you this afternoon's top entertainment news, the enemy of the state on Kim Kardashian's big oiled ass.)
posted by octobersurprise at 1:37 PM on November 12, 2014

Hang on...is colie actually Scott Adams?
posted by uosuaq at 9:27 PM on November 14, 2014

I'm Catbert.
posted by colie at 12:17 AM on November 15, 2014