Or just more of the same old bullshit?
When a primped, preened and perfumed philanthropist like Russell Brand starts pontificating about how no-one should vote anymore and demands a revolution with all the gusto of a slightly camp Che Guevara, it’s going to raise a few Paxmanesque eyebrows. The question is, has the celebrity gangbanger taken his half-baked ideas out of the oven far too quickly?
Some time inbetween banging on about changing the world in the not so New Statesman and ripping Jeremy Paxman a new asshole, Brand has picked up the diamond encrusted baton dropped by every ‘caring and sharing’ celebrity’s spiritual forefather - Bono, and just won’t stop banging his bongo drum about just how rigged the only card game in town is.
He’s got a point, we do live in a world governed by corruption, steeped in greed and staggering under the weight of its own bullshit. But it’s also worth remembering that it’s a world where the disease, famine, poor health, dire working/living conditions, unavailability of choice and out and out inequality which our forefathers lived with from cradle to grave, has been either eradicated altogether or vastly improved upon.
Yes, the swine have still got their snouts in the trough, the elite still exploit, the wealthy rule the roost, and the class system still weakens and rots the guts of the UK like a vile parasite born beyond time and reason. In short, the path of the righteous man is still beset on all side by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men,”
So what’s a poor boy to do? Well, Russ the rebel reveals in his guest editor column for The New Statesman that, “Total revolution of consciousness and our entire social, political and economic system is what interests me.” Sounds grand doesn’t it, if a little bit vague, but it didn’t stop savage Utopians everywhere beating their chest and snarling, “Count me in you long-haired Commie cunt.” or words to that effect.
The only problem with the flambouyant comedian’s cosmic revolution is, “It’s not on the ballot.” So the answer? Tell em’ how it is Russ! “I have never voted. Like most people I am utterly disenchanted by politics. Like most people I regard politicians as frauds and liars and the current political system as nothing more than a bureaucratic means for furthering the augmentation and advantages of economic elites,” barked Russell, before snapping like a well-off student high on a toxic cocktail of Marx, Mao, and Pot, “I will never vote and I don’t think you should, either.”
Now while it’s not a particularly palatable option to vote for “a man (David Cameron) whose face resembles a little painted egg,” and just as upsetting to vote for the spineless and unprincipled piece of stray flatulence that calls itself Nick Clegg, we’ve yet to give the other heavyweight contender in the red corner an opportunity to roll with the punches and lift the belt. Admittedly, despite his promising pledges to hit the energy companies where it hurts, Ed Miliband may well turn out to be a jet engine made of jelly disguised as a chocolate teapot, but how’s a punter to known if he doesn’t chance his hand?
Advising a nation already sedated and dosed to the eyebrows with cynicism, trivia, greed, sex, materialism, vanity and general all round thoughtfulness, to not vote because it’s a tacit act of compliance, is a big, bad crock of steaming hippy bullshit.
Not voting is the equivalent of holding up a white flag and whimpering, “Stick a fork in my ass and turn me over man, I’m done!” It’s the worst form of submission and it’s a complete sell-out of the human race. Not voting, is like your pulling your trousers down or lifting up your skirt and whistling, “Hey, over here totalitarianism, I’m ready for my shafting.”
The sacrifices and the struggles of groups like the Chartists and the Suffragettes gave the proletariat a tangible and very real weapon, that the powers that be went to great lengths not to relinquish. To just toss aside the fight for alternatives and resign from democratic responsibility in a display of jaded celebrity cynicism and self-serving waffle is playing right into the very hands of those men in dark corridors who strive to rule without public accountability and decide your fate for you.
The welfare state, the NHS, our education system, and all those other miraculous things we take for granted and shamelessly treat as our birthright, wouldn’t be possible without democracy and the power of the ballot box. Great change takes time, it doesn’t happen overnight, in fact, it happens so slow, you don’t even realise it. It’s like grass growing. Grass seeds need to be nurtured with both water, sunlight and great patience before they can grow into a sweet meadow for animals to feed off, or a nice garden for the kids to play in. It’s a long and boring process but it’s really worth the effort because grass has a habit of sticking around.
And then one day, without you even realising, a lush layer of grass has grown over what was formerly a desolate wasteland and things have got a great deal better. Only trouble is, now you can’t remember how bad it was before, so the little asshole on your shoulder whispers in your ear, “But things aren’t that great now and they can only can better,” and before you know it “You want the world and you want it now!” And then along comes some old tart with the promise of revolution, and revolution, doesn’t come with the baggage of boring nuances, reasoned debate, and all the other complicated weights and measures that democracy carries around with it like a dusty ball and chain. Revolutions comes screaming like a wide-eyed madman in the middle of the night with the beating heart of the righteous, the fury of injustice and all the accountability of a wild animal.
Revolution is not like grass growing one little bit, it’s raw, it’s sexy and possesses all the wonderful theatrics and indifferent violence of a thunder storm. It’s home is in the streets and whenever it makes an appearance, one thing is always guaranteed, rivers of blood will flow and might will make right. In its aftermath the world is not usually a better place. Corpses litter the streets and souls sicken with despair, but somewhere and somehow the grass still grows and waits patiently for someone to notice its inherent beauty again.
A wheel revolves slowly and builds up speed, if it spins too fast, it breaks off its axl and the whole convoy is derailed. Democracy is a slow lumbering beast, but it does work, and its biggest endorsement is your vote. David Foster Wallace hit the nail squarely upon the head when he said, “If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don’t bother to vote, you are in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major parties, who please rest assured are not dumb, and who are keenly aware that it is in their interests to keep you disgusted and bored and cynical and to give you every possible psychological reason to stay at home doing one-hitters and watching MTV on primary day. By all means stay home if you want, but don’t bullshit yourself that you’re not voting. In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard’s vote.”
It’s easy to agree with Brand when he said he want change, it’s an instinct as old as the hills, and it’s difficult to resist the urge to pin on your “smash the state” badge and shout, “Hell yeah! let’s have a fucking revolution” when he speaks so passionately about a recent visit to a rubbish dump in Kenya in along the lines of, “This was a nation made of waste with no end in sight. Domestic waste, medical waste, industrial waste formed their own perverse geography. Stinking rivers sluiced through banks of putrid trash, mountains, valleys, peaks and troughs all formed from discarded filth. An ecology based on our indifference and ignorance in the “cradle of civilisation” where our species is said to have originated. Here amid the pestilence I saw Armageddon. Here the end of the world is not a prophecy but a condition.”
But when a few weeks later, Russ finds himself at a Givenchy fashion show in Paris unable to appreciate the ‘immaculate, ‘heavenly’ and ‘gleaming sophistication on show because his mind was plagued by phantoms of the slum children of Kenya, it’s difficult to take him seriously. Especially when he writes solemnly, like a sixth-form poet with a big heart but an even bigger image, “The price of this decadence was their degradation.”
If that was not enough to turn even the most gentle souls into Holden Caulfield and shout, “Phony” at the top of their lungs, Brand digs an even deeper hole and starts pontificating in all seriousness, albeit with the self-satisfied smirk of a man who knows he’ll never go without, “The price of privilege is poverty. Profit is the most profane word we have.”
Which is quite a thing to announce when you’re a multi-millionaire who has spent a considerable time at the rock face in the craven pursuit of wealth and fame. The next time Russ gets on his soapbox and turns into Citizen Smith you may want to think on the fact that he’s currently dating the heiress Jemima Khan, who is the daughter of Anglo-French billionaire financier and tycoon Sir James Goldsmith. Khan also happens to be the Associate editor of the New Statesman and editor-at-large for Vanity Fair. Do you see a pattern emerging? There’s a club, you’re not in it, but Brand and every other multi-millionaire celebrity on the planet is. Let’s be honest, unless you win the lottery or know how to really kick a ball, it usually takes a lot of effort, cunning, ruthlessness, compromise and a questionable mindset to make a million, never mind 15 million? In this world, sticking to your principles does not usually equate with making lots of cash. In fact, not unlike dirtbag politicians, Brand and one of his best mates, ‘Wozzy’ were once paid vast amounts of public money (The BBC license fee) to act like irresponsible and sleazy twats.
But let’s be fair, everyone is entitled to have their Road to Damascus moment. Brand has seen the light realised the cult of greed and celebrity he’s so deeply embroiled so deeply in is not very pleasant and wants change in a big way. Brand said, “It's easy to attack me, I'm a right twerp, I'm a junkie and a cheeky monkey, I accept it, but that doesn't detract from the incontrovertible fact that we are living in a time of huge economic disparity and confronting ecological disaster.” He also said, “When I first got a few quid it was like an anesthetic that made me forget what was important but now I've woken up. I can't deny that I've done a lot of daft things while I was under the capitalist fugue.”
The great Aneurin Bevan spent his life championing social justice and the rights of the working people. He used to say, “Campaign in poetry, govern in prose." Because he understood all about capturing people’s imagination with heroic oratory before knuckling down and doing the grunt and groan mule work of turning a vision into a reality. Talking the talk is easy, walking the walk is the hard part. MPs like Bevan also understood that a communal society was only possible if there was personal responsibility.
It’s not responsible sit at home and let those who would deny you freedom and equality to become victorious through your apathy and idleness. Neither is it responsible for those with malicious intent to wield governmental power. So you go to war, not in the streets, but in the ballot box, by highlighting injustices, by writing letters, by penning petitions, by spreading information, by getting educated, by getting informed, by combating ignorance, by questioning everything, by standing up for yourself and battling for equal rights, civil rights, and constant improvements in our education and health systems. All this and much, much more is possible in our current democratic system. Countless unrecorded battles take place every day between individuals, pressure groups and both local and central governments that all accumulate to make a big difference to millions of people’s lives.
So you can sit back, and blame the government and big business for all the world’s wrongs and all that is base in human nature whilst stuffing your face with junk and watching streams of shit on the TV, or you can get up off your fat ass, finally stop with all the piss and moaning and take responsibility. But above all else, remember not to cut yourself too large a slice of the pie. 