Coming Home to Story

The planet is being destroyed, we are creating an underclass, we’re exploiting poor people all over the world and the genuine, legitimate problems of the people are not being addressed by our political class.

Russell Brand may or may not be a “very trivial man” but what he said was far from trivial. He called for a revolution because neither our politicians nor our political system are capable of addressing the most pressing issues of out time.

Brand was not fomenting revolution, he was pointing to the conditions in which revolutions (sometimes bloody ones) occur and saying that revolution is inevitable unless they are addressed. Revolutions happen not when governments fail but when systems of government fail. Faced with the breathtaking arrogance and single-minded self-interest of the ruling socio-economic elite in this country and much of the world, it is pretty clear that we can’t vote ourselves out the mess we’re in.

When asked: “What is the alternative to the current system?” Brand did not have a concrete proposal but why should he? There is a time and a place for nuanced political debate and a time and a place simply to say: “This is wrong. Enough is enough.”

Well said Russell. Well done for standing up to Jeremy Paxman, someone I have long admired who should have known better (and I think did) and for naming some painful truths. Like the character played by Peter Finch in the 1976 film Network, more of us need to tell those who think themselves our masters that we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it any more.