A Lauch Pad For A Revolution: Russell Brand And The BBC. What’s Up With That?

I, like a lot of people, was enamored with Russell Brands call for a “Spiritual” revolution not so long ago in response to Jeremy Paxman’s elitist drivel about voting in a bankrupt system by and for the rich. The Internet shortly after the interview was awash with the usual videos explaining why Russell is part of the great big conspiracy.

I prefer to stay with a reality I can check for truth in a more down to earth manner and of course the BBC is very much a mouth piece for that elite and for Russell to be given this platform and the exposure that comes with it must be cause for at least asking some questions.

This article I think does just that:

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When someone with interesting things to say is granted a high-profile media platform, it is wise to listen to what is being said and ask why they have been given such a platform. Comedian and actor Russell Brand’s 10-minute interview by Jeremy Paxman on BBC’s Newsnight last week was given considerable advance publicity and generated enormous reaction on social media and in the press, just as those media gatekeepers who selected Brand to appear would have wished.

The interview was hung on the hook of Brand’s guest-editing of a special edition of New Statesman, the ‘leftwing’ weekly magazine owned by the multimillionaire Mike Danson. In a rambling 4500-word essay mixing political comment, spiritual insight, humour and trademark flowery wordplay, Brand called for a ‘total revolution of consciousness and our entire social, political and economic system.’

‘Apathy’, he said, ‘is a rational reaction to a system that no longer represents, hears or addresses the vast majority of people’. He rightly noted that the public is, however, ‘far from impotent’, adding:

‘I take great courage from the groaning effort required to keep us down, the institutions that have to be fastidiously kept in place to maintain this duplicitous order.’

These were all good points. But one of these institutions, unmentioned even once in his long essay, is the BBC.

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