Cover Photo from “Revolution’ by Russell Brand ColdType ISSUE 91 / DECEMBER 2014 3. RUSSELL BRand’s cALL FOR REVOLUTION DAVID EDWARDS 12. THE MYSTERY OF MY ARREST ROY McGOVERN 17. redefining ‘imminent’ BRIAN TERRELL 21. BETTER DEAD THAN DIFFERENT GEORGE MONBIOT 23. AFTER CHENEY MICHAEL S. ROZOFF 27. HURwitt’s eye MARK HURWITT 28. TOO MANY PRYING EYES BILL BUCHANAN 30. PROPAGANDA, PRIDE, ART AND NOSTALGIA NATE ROBERT 36. THE SYRIAN LABYRINTH CONN M. HALLINAN 39. A WORLD OF FANTASY ERIC WALBERG 42. THE HISTORY OF BLOWBACK IN ONE SENTENCE WILLIAM RIVERS PITT 45. Bendib’s wORLD KHALIL BENDIB 45. THE FORGOTTEN COUP JOHN PILGER 47. THE FIX IS IN CAROL OSLER 49. EIGHT REASONS TO OPPOSE OBAMA’s laTEST WAR ALAN MAASS & ERIC RUDER 54. AMERICA’s secRET POLICE JOHN W. WHITEHEAD 58. MARCH OF A MILLION MASKS VARIOUS PHOTOGRAPHERS 62. THE IMPERATIVE OF REVOLT CHRIS HEDGES 67. CANADA’s heaRT OF DARKNESS JIM MILES 70. TURNING GAZA INTO A SUPER-MAX PRISON JONATHAN COOK 72. EXCEPTIONALISM RULES PHILIP GIRALDI 75. EBOLA’s link with REAGANOMICS? MICHAEL I. NIMAN 77. AN ELECTRonic ‘silent spRing’ KATIE SINGER 81. rUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE. AGAIN AND AGAIN WILLIAM BLUM 87. THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY Looks like’ JEFF NYGAARD Editor: Tony Sutton – [email protected] 2 ColdType | December 2014 COVER STORY Russell Brand’s ColdType call for revolution David Edwards discusses comedian Russell Brand’s call for revolution and the British media’s hysterical reaction PART 1 terview or the New Statesman guest issue. Brand was The Fun Bus It is clear that an unprepared Brand was speaking out largely winging it with Paxman. In response with a level n October 23, 2013, Russell Brand to the predictable question of what politi- of passionate appeared to crash through the fil- cal alternative he was proposing, Brand re- sincerity and ter system protecting the public plied: conviction that from dissident opinion. ‘Well, I’ve not invented it yet, Jeremy. are just not O seen in today’s His 10-minute interview with Jeremy I had to do a magazine last week. I had a Paxman on the BBC’s Newsnight pro- lot on my plate. But here’s the thing it manufactured, gramme not only attracted millions of shouldn’t do. Shouldn’t destroy the planet. conformist, viewers – the YouTube hit-counter stands Shouldn’t create massive economic dispari- marketing-led at 10.6 million – it won considerable praise ty. Shouldn’t ignore the needs of the people. media and support from corporate journalists on The burden of proof is on the people with Twitter. Brand was arguing for ‘revolution’ the power, not people doing a magazine.’ and yet was flavour of the month, cool to In his new book, ‘Revolution,’ Brand rec- like. Something didn’t add up. ognises that the first part of this response The hook for the interview was Brand’s ‘ain’t gonna butter no spuds on Newsnight guest-editing of New Statesman magazine, or Fox News’ (Brand, ‘Revolution’, Century, promoted by him in a video that featured 2014, ebook, p.415) and he is clearly keen to editor Jason Cowley giggling excitedly in move on from ‘the policy-bare days of the the background among besuited corporate Paxman interview’ (p.417). On the other journalists. Again, this seemed curious: hand, the second part of Brand’s answer why would a drab, ‘left of centre’ (i.e., helps explain the huge impact of the corporate party political) maga- interview – he was speaking zine support someone calling out with a level of passion- for a ‘Revolution of con- ate sincerity and convic- sciousness’? tion that are just not The answer is per- seen in today’s manu- haps easier to fath- factured, conformist, om now than it was marketing-led media. then, for time has Brand looked real, not been kind either human. He was telling to the Newsnight in- the truth! December 2014 | ColdType 3 COVER STORY ‘A small minority Similarly, the New Statesman guest edi- been empirically proven, and the only peo- cannot control an tion was a curious hodgepodge, with good ple who tell you it’s not real are, yes, people uncooperative articles by Brand, Naomi Klein and Noam who make money from creating the condi- majority, so Chomsky alongside offerings from BBC tions that cause it. (pp.539-540) they must be sports presenter Gary Lineker, rock squib We are therefore at a crossroads: distracted, Noel Gallagher, actors Alec Baldwin and ‘ “Today humanity faces a stark choice: divided, Rupert Everett, multi-millionaire entrepre- save the planet and ditch capitalism, or tyrannised or neur Martha Lane-Fox, and even Russian save capitalism and ditch the planet.” anaesthetised into media oligarch, Evgeny Lebedev. This was ‘The reason the occupants of the [elite] compliance . ’ revolution as some kind of unscripted ce- fun bus are so draconian in their defence which means ‘the lebrity pantomime. of the economy is that they have decided to colonisation of Brand’s Newsnight performance, then, ditch the planet.’ (p.345) consciousness by was an inspiring cri de coeur. But a 10- And so ‘we require radical action fast, corporations’ minute, impassioned, ill-formed demand and that radical action will not come from for ‘Change!’ from a lone comedian is not the very interests that created and benefit a problem for the media’s gatekeepers. It from things being the way they are. The one makes for great television, enhances the il- place we cannot look for change is to the lusion that the media is open and inclusive, occupants of the bejewelled bus.’ (p.42) and can be quickly forgotten – no harm The problem, then, is that ‘we live un- done. der a tyranny’. (p.550) The US, in particular, ‘acts like an army that enforces the busi- Killing corporate power ness interests of the corporations it is allied – humanity’s stark choice to’. (p.493) Brand’s new book, ‘Revolution,’ is different But this is more than just a crude, Big – the focus is clear, specific and fiercely an- Brother totalitarian state: ti-corporate. As we will see in Part 2 of this ‘A small minority cannot control an essay, the media reaction is also different. uncooperative majority, so they must be Brand begins by describing the grotesque distracted, divided, tyrannised or anaes- levels of modern inequality: thetised into compliance . ’ which means ‘Oxfam say a bus with the eighty-five ‘the colonisation of consciousness by cor- richest people in the world on it would con- porations’. (p.165) tain more wealth than the collective assets Brand notes that 70 per cent of the UK of half the earth’s population – that’s three- press is controlled by three companies, 90 and-a-half billion people.’ (p.34) per cent of the US press by six: And: ‘The people that own the means for ‘The richest 1 per cent of British people conveying information, who decide what have as much as the poorest 55 per cent.’ knowledge enters our minds, are on the fun (p.34) bus.’ (p.592) But even these facts do not begin to de- He even manages a swipe at the ‘quality’ scribe the full scale of the current crisis: liberal press: ‘The same interests that benefit from this ‘Remember, the people who tell you this . need, in order to maintain it, to deplete can’t work, in government, on Fox News or the earth’s resources so rapidly, violently MSNBC, or in op-eds in the Guardian or the and irresponsibly that our planet’s ability Spectator, or wherever, are people with a to support human life is being threatened.’ vested interest in things staying the same.’ (p.36) (p.514) For example: Thus, the ‘political process’ is a non- ‘Global warming is totally real, it has sense: ‘voting is pointless, democracy a fa- 4 ColdType | Decemberr 2014 COVER STORY çade’ (p.45): ‘a bloke with a nice ‘We have been told that Brand smile and an angle is swept freedom is the ability to understands into power after a more obvi- pursue petty, trivial de- that progressive ously despicable regime and sires when true freedom is change is stifled then behaves more or less ex- freedom from these petty, by the shiny, actly like his predecessors’. trivial desires.’ (p.66) silvery lures (p.431) In a wonderfully candid of corporate The highly debatable passage – unthinkable from consumerism merit of voting aside, most leftists, who write as that hook into our anyone with an ounce though they were brains in desires and egos of awareness will accept jars rather than flesh-and-blood pretty much everything sexual beings – Brand describes Brand has to say above. seeing a paparazzi photo of him- Put simply, he’s right – self emerging from an exclusive this is the current state of peo- London nightclub at 2 a.m with a ple, planet and politics. A cata- REVOLUTION beautiful woman on each arm: strophic environmental collapse Russell Brand ‘I can still be deceived into is very rapidly approaching with Ballntine Books thinking, “Wow, I’d like to be $ US26 nothing substantive being done him,” then I remember that I was to make it better and everything him.’ (p.314) being done to make it worse. Brand tells his millions of admirers and Even if we disagree with everything else wannabe, girl-guzzling emulators: he has to say, every sane person has an in- ‘That night with those two immaculate terest in supporting Brand’s call to action girls . did not feel like it looked.’ (p.315) to stop this corporate genocide and biocide. So how did it feel? A thought we might bear in mind when we ‘Kisses are exchanged and lips get deriv- subsequently turn to the corporate media atively bitten, and I am unsmitten and un- reaction.