RE Russell Brand Cancellation
I have re-written the opening of the Trilogy: “Relearning Political Community; Relearning Economic Community; Relearning Spiritual Community” thus:
When you walked up
to me and you said
“Hey, heads, we
dance”
Well I didn’t know
who you were
Until I saw the
morning paper
There was a picture of
you,
a picture of you ‘cross
the front page
It looked just like you,
Just like you in every
way
But it couldn’t be true,
it couldn’t be true
You stepped out of a
stranger
They say that the devil
is a charming man
And just like you, I bet he
can dance
(Kate Bush quote
from
Heads We're Dancing
My therapist pointed out to me how well-furnished I was -even before I became 19 stone(!)- with mentors. Some of them, -most I suppose- have written books. I visualise them in a circle around me, giving advice. There’s a massive shortage, in my opinion, of people asking for advice. When I put it on a T-shirt -I WANT YOUR ADVICE- and cycled from Lands End to John O Groats (2009?), stickers in hand with my “I don’t know best, we know better” message, it was a life changing experience as well as my first blog: http://iwantyouradvice.blogspot.com/
Though Russell Brand wasn’t a mentor, he was a conduit to many quality mentors, the most recent example that I followed up further being good old EckhartTolle* (of the “Power Of Now” mindfulness fame). Above that, Russell was, to me, a would be interviewer just as Dominic Cummings was a would-be enabler; but that’s a story for later. My plotted route to that elusive Russell Brand interview was via a series of interviews I began in the lockdown that followed hard on my standing for the first time in a general election; the interview series (incomplete) is called “Politics On A Platform” and only one of the three interviews that, in my mind, would lead to the interview by Russell Brand, is recorded & uploaded**.
I write this on the Tuesday following the Channel 4 airing of the Russell Brand Dispatches expose (alongside the Times); how thoroughly Brand, as the media are now increasingly calling him on the slippery slope of de-humanisation, has been strung like a chicken and dispatched.
One of the books I hope to introduce you to in this book is called “Inside the No”*** and uses the terminology “The Terrorist Line” to indicate a continuum that starts with mocking. The more the other isn’t heard as they would like to be heard the greater the likely escalation of violence by the unheard. If the Russell Brand demonisation is an attempt to discredit his lines of enquiry since key influencers of the old-fashioned political left variety fell out of love with his work****, then the post-Brexit learning about hearing each other across political divides to prevent catastrophe is once again lacking, and the consequences….
The cloak of anonymous “Alice” (whose virginity was taken by Russell Brand when she was 16 and he was 30) being mouthed yesterday in Woman’s Hour by an actor is a perfect ruse(?) for a well-scripted rubbishing of the avenues of enquiry that Russell Brand was following. Thus “Alice” said, in response to the question “What is your response to his response?” “First of all I think it’s insulting and I think it’s laughable that he would even imply that this is some kind of mainstream media conspiracy. He’s not outside the mainstream: he did a Universal Movies picture last year; he did Minions -a children’s movie; he’s very much part of the mainstream media. He just happens to have a YouTube channel where he talks about conspiracy theories to an audience that laps it up, and, it may sound cynical but, I do think that he was building himself an audience for years of people that would then have great distrust of any publication that came forward with allegations. He knew it was coming for a long time. Then as for him denying that anything non-consensual happened that’s not a surprise to me; these men always deny that any of these allegations brought to them. I knew he would. He didn’t deny that he had a relationship with a 16 year old.“.
I ask you these three questions RE Russell Brand:
- In what ways have you supported/ignored the demonisation of Russell Brand?
- What does your answer to q1 say about you?
- What shift in discourse do you reckon would be the consequence of truly acknowledging the truth in this #Solzenitzin Quote: “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
To finish this writing for now with the words of Alice again that echo my intent as well: “I hope that we can have conversations that will lead to protecting people in the future”.
*Eckhart Tolle teaching (& special offer):
**#PoliticsOnAPlatform playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLM4IagQQExowrKGeEV3V2IGl06_a-ZT7v&si=G3sINdVKuQFRdZaL
***Myra Lewis (mentored by Arnie Mindel) is the author; her TED talk is in this “Walk Towards The Conflict” playlist compiled by my company, #MediationSupportLtd:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLM4IagQQExozL8ltzcK3F_WHxTiWHvv68&si=iiiCOfjNEJDF7i8K
****George Monbiot:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/10/russell-brand-politics-public-figures-responsibility
#GoodAndEvilSolzhenitzinQuote on X (formerly known as Twitter): https://x.com/paulcrosland/status/1596518635841155073?s=46&t=f7uCiqzATKFg8umuEchRgQ
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