russell brand - C or D?

xxpost Yeah, in many respects there's the 'support causes, but let people fight their own battles' sentiment which makes sense. but then all too often, it can turn into effete armchair activism or ineffectual charity (again, BandAid etc), whereas sometimes it's good to just muck in and help out - especially if one's status allows access for a cause to reach a bigger platform.

Well, unlike a lot of well-off media people who might wind up questioning his motives, I don't think Russell Brand's house was given to him or otherwise deposit-enabled by a parent.

I don't think Russell Brand's house was given to him or otherwise deposit-enabled by a parent.

― resting rich face (suzy),

exactly, or should i say, self.token = loop do?

Much though Brand gets my back up, I don't think he's co-opted this movement so much as used his celebrity leverage to get more press coverage. There's a difference between taking up space that could be filled by someone more deserving and expanding the space available. "automatically drawing attention away from the people who should be listened to"? No, it's not automatic.

it is more than slightly annoying. channel4 news, or any of the major news outlets in this country, have never in the time I can remember been interested in the struggles of decanted social tenants in London. Something has happened that has caused a change in this recently, but the Focus 15 mums and the New Era tenants have managed to garner more press attention and public scrutiny and pressure than large scale evacuations like the Heygate for eg. were able to muster. Even now that there is a public interest, news corporations can only tell the story through the language of hypocrisy and celebrity.

the collapse between journalism and publicity, the public sphere and the spectacle of celebrity. the failure of print journalism to keep power in check. half the stuff that comes up on my bbc news app everyday seems like an ad for something. recent data has been released by the government. consumer confidence is on the rise. think tanks, big pharma, international sports. there is no longer room for journalism to function in the old way exposing corruption and conflicts of interest. In the contemporary language government and business speak in the same language, with the same set of overlapping interests, in public private partnerships and private finance initiatives. corruption is a moral discourse now. I saw the focus e15 mums being told they were a front for the RCG, that they couldn't speak in good faith with the moral purity of evicted single mums because they were in cahoots with some political group. but when local government sells off masses of social housing way below market value to private speculators, this is merely policy.

it just annoys me when i see that channel 4 guy smugly telling russell brand he's part of the problem. i mean. yes russell brand is part of the problem, but channel 4 news is not really helping anyone either.

the destruction of public services in the uk is a scandal, and it is straightforwardly not necessitated by current economic constraints.

basically lex otm if that was clearer

great post ico

yes very great!

thirded!

Great post indeed Plax.

That's Channel 4 News nailed. By the way, in last night's C4 News, it was utterly repulsive that in a news story about refugees drowning one by one in the Mediterranean they felt it necessary to play "sad music" underneath the report.

That's Channel 4 News nailed.

You'd think so, right?

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/2346306/thumbs/r-RUSSELL-BRAND-huge.jpg

he's got a lot of snide (perfect phrasing from him) hacks spitting with rage and fury. he's pissed off murdoch to levels of desperation surprising even for him. Brilliant.

idgi are his landlords tax dodgers or is he trying to tax dodge his landlords - I mean it's nonsense either way but

He's doing nothing. Supposedly the property management company he rents from is registered in the British Virgin Islands.

lol at a tenant being responsible for the improprieties of a landlord

I think that, as a tenant, if your landlord/letting agent isn't based in the UK you have to pay the taxation element of the rent direct to HMRC, and the remainder of the rent to the landlord.

Yeah that is correct if your landlord lives outside the uk. Not sure about a corporation registered in a tax haven though.

I think that's a blind; the point which was made at the outset (and where the hypocrisy charge seems to start from) is that the protest is about low rents being raised to "market rate", whereas landlords set "market rates" at least in part on the basis of what they think the market will bear - which is considerably higher when people come into the area from other parts of the city and pay rents which some would consider excessive for the benefit of being in a trendy area.

why was bob mortimer now doing c4 news things?

sorry about the grammar

http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a82/bobbysixer/segrin_zps6b1096c6.jpg

For clarification: Is this a 'shit eating grin' (which I've always taken to mean a kind of embarrassed grin in a dire situation)?

it's a "thank god the woman saved my ass" face i think

Not sure you're allowed to have "ass" and "face" that close together on the Internet under the new obscenity laws tbh.

Not immediately following a post with 'shit eating' in it I would have thought.

i do think its interesting that he's become involved in local grassroots politics in his area, and the timing is right because grassroots pushbacks in his area have learnt a lot of lessons in recent years it seems. what New Era are saying does appear to have real traction and in a way that pushes deeply into the meaning of the still-emerging post-welfare state.

again, i'm not particularly interested in russell brand per se. i suspect that he might be as dangerous as he is ludicrous. but his vapidness reveals something of the vapidness of 24hour news streams. and there is this residue of real anger, and a genuine attempt to articulate this rage in relation to empirical political events and the imbrication of global investment portfolios with local social housing stock. we're used, time and again, to seeing the ways in which the devastating despoiling effects of corporate greed operate in ways far too difficult to parse in headline news and so escape the pressure of public opinion. and so public opinion always seems parochial and smallminded and news coverage seems polarizing and puerile. its easy to scapegoat immigrants or the benefits claimants but its almost impossible to track the cunning ingenuity of financial products that reap mass havoc. and so its interesting that this becomes visible here, that this story appears that makes explicit the links between different social housing and the massive foreign investment in london property and offshore tax havens and local communities and gentrification and how boring it seems to focus on russell brand celebrity comedian or television presenter or prank phone call maker or whatever

WREAK mass havoc

we need more actor-activists like danny glover, who is incredibly smart, energetic, not in the least egotistical, and always willing to take a backseat to those at the center of the crisis.

sorry, that sounds idiotic when i read it back--as if what the world's direst need is for more celebrities with causes. i guess i'm just saying that brand isn't the only model of celebrity activist.

If you ever end up feeling marginalised and finding yourself pondering a grim future on the streets, at least you have this fucking over-indulged, over-hung fucking insane coke head poltroon to fight your corner :p

i hear that sung to the tune of the "taxi" theme song

lol!

great posts, plax

Agreed. Great posts.

And xpost: Meh, you'e being depressingly cynical. I have first hand experience of Russell Brand coming to fight the corner of a very difficult organisation I'm connected to professionally which helps the absolutely most marginalised members of this country's society and tbh he was fucking brilliant and garnered a lot of much needed positive publicity, sympathy and support. I'll pretty much stan for him any time now.

yeah but lol he has a book called booky wook

xp that's all I need to know to confirm that you are full of shit

I mean, I get why people don't like him - he's successful, funny, articulate and so on. That hardly plays to the British character of knowing your place.

lol anyone who's up for taking potshots at russell brand over this, w/e they think of him in general, is fuckin scum tbh, the kind that one day a real rain will come and wash off of the streets

it is so strange the way people's arguments that they don't like russell brand because he's a misogynist get translated into not liking russell brand because he's a successful comedian

NOT THE SAME THING

(except they so often are)

lol

do the bit about comedians again I love that bit

, the kind that one day a real rain will come and wash off of the streets

Armageddon doesn't count and for now I want htis shitstain to die.

this fucking shit stain to die slowly

lol u mad bro

he talks funny

wait tho i think this famous comedian and film star mite live in a nice flat in town

GET 'IM!!

if he really cared he'd move into a dustbin and give the money to the poor

There'd be money in the dustbin?

if he moves into a dustbin tho he's on the hook for any nefarious dealings at the local council