To actually love Russell Brand after his performance on Newsnight tonight..?

[Scarletohello]

My God I only caught it by chance and I literally couldn't believe what he was saying to Paxman. He was calling for a revolution in society, for wealth to be distributed and he was so articulate and passionate about it. NO ONE is saying this stuff although there is so much anger in British society about how inequitable society has become but everyone has become so demoralised about it ( or blaming immigrants, asylum seekers etc)

I hope you guys get a chance to see it and tell me what you think of it, I am in shock right now.

( also pissed off about AF being banned too...)

[Dawndonnaagain]

claig
You appear to be talking either another language not familiar to anyone or complete nonsense. If you have something to say, try saying it rather than what honestly appears to be an incoherent rant.

[claig]

sorry double posted because it was so slow to update. Will ask to have it deleted.

[Dawndonnaagain]

Unfortunately though Claig they also believe in getting rid of anyone who doesn't conform to their ideal - black people, brown people, eastern european people, disabled people.
As for Ukip being based among the proletariat, Nigel Farage went to Dulwich College. No different from Eton, Harrow, Rugby et al.

[claig]

"If you have something to say, try saying it rather than what honestly appears to be an incoherent rant."

Sorry, I'm just a prole, I'm not as eloquent as the celeb who "came from the street". That is the best I can do, whether it appears incoherent or not.

[Iwaswatchingthat]

Oh dear I have just watched the interview.

OP YABU to actually love Russell Brand.

Sorry, but he made a total fuel of himself.

He has a wide vocabulary, but he sounds like a total idiot in this interview.

He sounds like a fresher in the student bar. Cringe.

[Iwaswatchingthat]

I mean FOOL not fuel!!!

[claig]

"The word 'elite' can lead to a very knee-jerk 'ooh those terrible people' response. But was Einstein elitist? Or Kant? Or any thinker who has had a huge influence on the world? Are all academics elitist IYO? (Or just the really successful ones?)"

When Russell Bland talks about the elite and the 1%, he is right, just as 'Occupy Wall Street' were right, even though they followed on from the original Tea Party who were against this same elite.

By eliet, they don't mean the cleverest people, the best thinkers, the greatest mind, they mean the richest most powerful political people. There is nothing wrong with elitism, and elite schools and grammar schools and public schools and Oxbridge and Harvard if they are meritocratic and the proles have a chance to compete.

Where elitism is wrong is when a tiny handful of people decide the political policies that influence the lives of the 99%. that is wrong because it is undemocratic and unjust. That is what we all mean by elite. That form of elitism is anti-democratic and is rule by technocrats rather than rule by the people.

[HolofernesesHead]

So Claig, do you believe that democracy is always the best way to get to the best result for everyone?

So e.g. there is a knotty physics problem to solve. You have 100 people in a room. One of them is Albert Einstein. Do you give each of the 100 people a vote and go with the majority answer, or do you get everyone to sit down, shut up and listen to the one person who actually might be able to solve it?

Or say you want a new piece of music. Again, 100 people in a room. One is W. A. Mozart. Do you give everyone an instrument regardless of whether they can play and record to resultant noise, or get the 99 to make endless cups of tea for the musical genius in their midst?

Or say you want to answer the scientific question 'Is the planet's climate changing?' 100 people in a room...You get the idea.

[Dawndonnaagain]

Claig Ukip will not change the form of elitism you wish to see changed. In fact they will make life far more difficult for many of us.

[HolofernesesHead]

UKIP would have me out for starters (I'm mixed race).

[flatpackhamster]

Dawndonnaagain

Unfortunately though Claig they also believe in getting rid of anyone who doesn't conform to their ideal - black people, brown people, eastern european people, disabled people.

They don't, of course, but that doesn't stop you lazily parroting the SWP line.

[claig]

'As far as I'm concerned the real issue is to do with access to positions of influence - i.e. the type of social mobility that means that a bright thinker from a poorer family is nurtured and given the opportunities to excel and take her rightful place in something like the Club of Rome / a government think-tank on policy etc. So IMO we should be talking about class and education and how we try to create a society in which all can potentially do his or her best to contribute.'

Yes, I agree with that. but it is about something much more important than that. It is about democracy, where all of the people have their say in a proportional representation system. It is not enough for a prole to become part of the 1%. That prole can have more riches than the 99% but should not have a greater political voice that can influence the lives of the 99%. We need referenda and PR so that ordinary people, whether they are the greatest minds or not, have the final say in what policies govern their lives.

Russell Brand claims to be a populist (however he believes the elite's "the planet is being destroyed"), but i am a populist too. And that is why I do not like to see the 1% BBC put a celeb and clown on our TV in order to try and influence the 99%, because I do not think that he deserves that airtime just because he is a celeb. I believe Julie Bailey of Cure the NHS, one of us, not a celeb and millionaire, deserves that airtime.

I am a populist because I am for the 99% and not the 1% and their puppets. And I prefer not to see clowns dominate our national airwaves which the public has paid for.

[Dawndonnaagain]

flatpack I have absolutely no intention of getting involved with you.

[claig]

"So Claig, do you believe that democracy is always the best way to get to the best result for everyone?"

Yes, I believe it is the best system that we have got, because I believe that "hope lies with the proles" and that the commonsense of the masses is the best check and restraint on the arrogance and power of the 1%.

"So e.g. there is a knotty physics problem to solve. You have 100 people in a room. One of them is Albert Einstein. Do you give each of the 100 people a vote and go with the majority answer, or do you get everyone to sit down, shut up and listen to the one person who actually might be able to solve it?"

Votes really come into their own about policies that govern and impact our lives, not physics problems or learning. But if someone advocates a policy that affects the lives of the 99%, then it must go to a vote. Just because a politician produces a 'dodgy dossier' does not mean that they should have the power to kill millions without the people having a vote. And maybe sometimes the millions will get the vote wrong and it won't be as "efficient" as the capitalists or planners or 1% would like, but that is far preferable to allowing them to get away with 'dodgy dossiers' that might harm millions. That is the price of freedom, the price of democracy. It is not always optimal, but it is better than rule by a tiny 1% elite.

[Dawndonnaagain]

As far as I'm aware (unless I missed something) the BBC didn't actually show the more 'political' part of the interview due to having 'run out of time'. Ergo, he didn't get the airtime. I do agree that the BBC is biased, but generally speaking, only in favour of the government of the time. I would love to see a way of making it truly independent and not reliant on government money, unfortunately, that would probably mean advertising revenue.

I agree that PR is something we should be fighting for, but that isn't a UKIP policy, or if it is, it's very new to their manifesto.

[flatpackhamster]

SoniaGluck

Which, I would argue, is very near to where we are now. People don't seem to be very important to the current government.

I think you have to be unbelievably partisan to imagine a) That this government is going to start sticking yellow stars on people and shooting them, and b) that they were any different at all from Labour.

And I don't think that eliminating the people who oppose you is a trait peculiar to socialist régimes.

This is certainly true. But socialists are better at it. Far, far better. Probably because right-wing dictators are happy to knock off their political opponents but tend to shy away from wholesale slaughter of their own people.

What I would really like to know, I think, is how far do we go with deregulation and allowing market forces to decide the way we organise society.

This is exactly my point about socialists. You want to 'organise' society. I want to let society organise itself. I don't see that you can have clever people telling everyone else how to live, because those clever people really are quite dumb.

Do we abolish the NHS altogether, for example, rather than just selling off bits of it? What do we do about the elderly, the disabled? Does this model suggest we take out insurance for every conceivable eventuality?

I don't think there's a country in the world that doesn't have welfare and healthcare provision in some form, and I can't think of anyone who argues for it.

But surely, in that case, there is no such thing as a 'free market'?

Paradox, I know. But how long does a free market stay free? Right up to the point where a single company or small group of companies dominates it (usually a few years). Broadband was a good example. Ten years ago, 300 companies, now about 25, of which 6 hold 90% of the market between them. They can fix prices and conditions to suit themselves - and do.

And how do you lower barriers sufficiently? By abolishing hard won employee safety measures for example?

There are plenty of 'safety' measures which are anything but. Take PAT testing. That's where every single electrical item must be tested by a qualified safety engineer every single year. A huge cost, without a proven calculation of the effects on businesses or the effects on safety.

There are ways to lower barriers. Gold-plated HSE regs are one. Scrapping Employers' NI contributions for businesses with a turnover under £1m, that would be another. Scrapping a range of left-wing/union-backed employment law would be another. It'll give the lefties conniptions, but they aren't the ones working in businesses.

Incidentally, isn't it funny how safety measures became 'hard won' like poor people became 'vulnerable' and families became 'hard working'?

[claig]

If a 'climate scientist' produces a 'dodgy dossier' predicting 'catastrophic climate change' and taking about doom and destruction and 'tipping points', then it shoul be freely debated on our public service TV stations, paid for by the public's sweat. There should not be a one-sided portrayal of polar bears etc, there should be equal time given to the sceptics.

But since the policy is so controversial and since there is opposition and since the taxes and Club of Rome style 'Limits to Growth' will affect all of humanity, then the 1% has to put it to the vote, and if they lose, which of course they would, then they have to accept that they never made a good enough case to convince the proles even though their 1% media, paid for by the sweat of the public, portrayed more polar bears than there are fish in the sea.

[MamaMary]

Just watched it.

Yawn.

Keeps trotting out phrases over and over again like 'paradigm', 'economic disparity', 'exploited underclass' and 'destroying the planet' and thinks he's really clever.

Yes, reminds me of a 16 year A level pupil.

Agree with Jeremy: 'You are a very trivial man'.

[claig]

'I agree that PR is something we should be fighting for, but that isn't a UKIP policy, or if it is, it's very new to their manifesto.'

DawnDonna, I don't know many of UKIP's policies and I don't know if that is one and I am not saying people should vote UKIP. Everyone should choose and make the decision that best suits them.

I don't agree with everything that UKIP says, but I do agree with some things they say.

I want a PR system because i want everyone one of us 99% to have a vote that actually counts, so that our voices are not marginalised in marginal constituencies so that the 1% can manipulate us, ignore us and call some of us swivel-eyed loons. I have never met a swivel-eyed loon member of the 99%, but there are a fair few of them represented in the 1%.

[Dawndonnaagain]

Oh dear, on that very last point I am going to have to agree with you, Claig

[caroldecker]

Votes really come into their own about policies that govern and impact our lives, not physics problems or learning. But if someone advocates a policy that affects the lives of the 99%, then it must go to a vote.

But an ill/un informed vote is worse than useless. Ideally you should not be allowed to vote unless you can show you understand the issues and arguments on both sides

[HolofernesesHead]

You've never met a 'swivel eyed loon' among the 'proles'? You obviously didn't go to my comprehensive, and have clearly never popped into my local.

Odd people with bizarre agendas are everywhere!

OTOH, I've never met anyone happy to self-identify as a prole ('working class woman / man' seems more the norm.)

[claig]

And Russell Brand was right about some things. he talked about the elite, he talked about the 1%, and he was right that people have become disengaged and that is why many do not vote, and Paxman was wrong to try and say that he should vote for TweedleDum or TweedleDee. But of course Brand was wrong about other things such as kneejerk anti-Tory, anti-Daily Mail etc but that is what you expect from celeb lefties invited on by the 1% BBC.

But I didn't hear Brand talk about PR which might change something. However, I heard a lot of what the 1% love to hear and promote i.e. that "the planet is being destroyed".

If Brand is for real, let's see if he can use his celeb status and New Statesman guest editorship to actually change anything, because we have seen from experience that the rest of the New Statesman crowd probably won't.

Let's see if Brand can make any change or if instead sadly he has been used by the 1% to promote their lie that "the planet is being destroyed".

I welcome Brand in one sense which is why I say "Bring it on", let the left wing Establishment give him lots of airtime, let the BBC promote him like they promote many other ex-Labourites, because whereas he thinks there will be a "revolution" to his way of thinking, I am convinced that the more people see him spout 1% nonsense, the more people will vote against the 1% and for the 99%.

And if by chance, he might actually kickstart a move for us to get PR, then whereas he probably thinks it would lead to a "revolution" to his way of thinking, the 1% way of "the planet is being destroyed", I believe it will go the way of the 99% and all their myths and lies will be destroyed.