I’m no great fan of Russell Brand. I did go to one of his gigs in Birmingham about 15 years ago and quickly realised that his material, back then, was very much all about him.
The content has certainly changed today. But he’s still ridiculously grandiloquent and speaks just a little bit quickly. However, he certainly shines the spotlight in a very different direction, and in a very different way too.
The point for me at least, is you don’t have to like someone, find them entertaining, or even agree with them on everything – when they are speaking messages that we arguably all need to hear. Especially so, when it has become alarmingly clear that not nearly enough of us have already heard them before.
Russell has been getting a hammering from members of the establishment media that include a number of those names and voices that used to champion his words, attitude and approach, from the so-called progressive left.
His move away from socialist-based revolutionism and all the things that go with it, to calling out the manipulation, controlling behaviour and corruption within the media – particularly in the United States – has met with derision and the apparently timely classification of being a Conspiracy Theorist, then being added to the pool of such well-known alumni as David Icke.
The difference is of course striking to anyone with ears to listen. For instance, Icke has been notorious for destroying the value of any sensible part of his proposals and arguments, just through suggestion that the elites are all, or are led by lizards who either shape-shift, or are better than Madam Tussauds at creating their disguise.
Meanwhile, Russell has well over a 6-Million subscriber following to his YouTube Channel alone – and that doesn’t include the many viewers like I am, who regularly dip a toe into programming like his, but don’t sign up to any channel that will either group us in or make our presence publicly known.
In a world where many using social media and the internet have committed themselves to the fallacy that whoever has the most followers, likes and shares has already won, it would be very easy to right off journalistic spite as jealousy from writers and pundits who could only dream of achieving such numbers – all without having the self-awareness to at least study the real reasons for the comparative result.
Regrettably, the genuine reasons for this bad blood are more deeply ingrained and in this sense, perhaps just a little more sinister.
For like most of the problems we are facing, that the media and establishment do everything they can to avoid today, there is a lot more than just a small dollop of human nature involved in the cause.
Those who have most to lose from change will always be the last to embrace it.
So when it comes to the collapse of a system that values money, wealth, power and influence above all things, the reality we all face is that those who are fully invested in what this dying way of life continues to give them, will use and abuse the platforms they have to discredit anyone or anything that contradicts or could be seen as being a threat to everything they value continuing in any way.
Russell Brand certainly isn’t right about everything. But whilst it certainly appears that the remnants of some messiah complex still exist, he does at least now have the humility to admit that he still has much to learn, and that no matter our respective views, we all need to relearn how to discuss problems like adults, whilst bearing in mind that we are all in exactly the same room.
Sadly and most regrettably for us all, those who remain in power and positions of influence to not recognise the power in such values.
They will continue to attack and destroy those who they see as being against them and maintain that they are both in control and right about everything, until the very moment that they finally realise that they are not.
Adam Tugwell 