i feel like i must be a horribly cynical, critical person, but...

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Willy Wonka just stirs me into a rage. Must be all the sugar in the chocolate or something.

[CyM]

It is very important that a comedian with a following of millions gave an interview where he condemned the profit motive, call cor a revolution, and advocated socialism. We can ignore his lack of strategy or tactics, that's our job and we don't need a jester to teach it to us. I really don't think his "dodging giving answers" has anything to do with "wanting to step back and let us all figure this out together". He has no answers, and that's ok. He's simply expressing the elemental frustration of the working class and that's good enough, because it gives our answers a bigger audience.

Those who dismiss this are sectarians in the real sense of the term. Better to be pure and isolated than to share a laugh about the need for revolution with the swathes of the people enjoying this clip?

[ed miliband]

but he didnt call for socialism? where is this idea coming from, ffs. he didn't even say he wanted a revolution - paxman put that upon him, and he ran with it. in reality, he said nothing that you're average conspiracy theory reading nerd would disagree with, and whilst it's true he expressed views many working class people hold, these views are only a very basic starting point - on their own, left undeveloped, they're pretty meaningless.

the reality is, anybody came on revleft saying what brand says, they'd be told to do a bit more reading and develop their views. as i said in my original post, i didn't expect bordigism from brand, and as i go on to say, i don't think it should be taken particularly seriously (i'm not gonna castigate him for not talking about the abolition of the state and capital, for example), but leftists are reading so much into this...

and i think that says far more about the degeneration of the left than a sceptical sectarian like me, that somebody like brand making vague calls for revolution is touted as some important, significant event. i can understand those who enjoyed this clip for what it is - brand being a bit funny and saying some vaguely true things, but it's really nothing more.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

but he didnt call for socialism? where is this idea coming from, ffs. he didn't even say he wanted a revolution - paxman put that upon him, and he ran with it. in reality, he said nothing that you're average conspiracy theory reading nerd would disagree with, and whilst it's true he expressed views many working class people hold, these views are only a very basic starting point - on their own, left undeveloped, they're pretty meaningless.

the reality is, anybody came on revleft saying what brand says, they'd be told to do a bit more reading and develop their views. as i said in my original post, i didn't expect bordigism from brand, and as i go on to say, i don't think it should be taken particularly seriously (i'm not gonna castigate him for not talking about the abolition of the state and capital, for example), but leftists are reading so much into this...

and i think that says far more about the degeneration of the left than a sceptical sectarian like me, that somebody like brand making vague calls for revolution is touted as some important, significant event. i can understand those who enjoyed this clip for what it is - brand being a bit funny and saying some vaguely true things, but it's really nothing more.

isn't it exciting that somebody who has an audience of millions has said 'voting doesn't work, capitalism doesn't work, we need a totally new system'? It certainly makes me feel less alone in terms of my politics that it's not just leftist nutjobs and marxist academics preaching working class emancipation from their ivory towers.

you seem to also be posing a false dichotomy: that either one is a sceptic, or one views this interview as something that's really serious and the start of a new movement or something. In reality, it's neither. Russell Brand is a trivial man, but he has raised some important talking points, and it's a good bit of propaganda. That's all. But I do think that if we can't even just accept what Brand says at face value (for example, I think his politics are imperfect from my own POV, but still what he says is something I can get on board with, on a basic level in terms of shared values and a starting point), then how are we ever going to react when ideas that differ slightly from our own dogma become widely distributed?

It genuinely seems to me that the psyche of the left is hugely closed and elitist, and it seems not a problem of individuals, but a problem for the left as a whole, and it's pretty sad. I actually think people like TAT and others who have disowned the idea that they belong to 'the left' are actually correct in many ways, because 'the left' as it exists and has existed for a while, continually proves itself to be a moribund shell that doesn't want to do anything but be a sort of closed talking shop for those who want to validate their own sectarian ideas.

Again ed not particularly aiming the above at you so much as the wider left.

[The Feral Underclass]

I agree with what ed is saying, but I also don't really care that much. It has generated some interesting debate. Not least of all amongst well-meaning liberals who really loved what he said but then have to try and backtrack out of it, because really they don't actually want to do anything, they just want to offset their liberal guilt by associating themselves with Brand's video: "What?! Us?! But we buy bag's for life from the supermarket and eat organic!"

...On the topic of Brand, one person said to me today the words: "We don't need politics, we just need to politicise our lives."

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Not least of all amongst well-meaning liberals who really loved what he said but then have to try and backtrack out of it, because really they don't actually want to do anything, they just want to offset their liberal guilt by associating themselves with Brand's video: "What?! Us?! But we buy bag's for life from the supermarket and eat organic!"

I've seen this yeah. Someone on facebook who may fit the stereotype of white middle class liberal said that the message she took from the video is that russell brand is calling for electoral reform and that's what we badly need.

I guess it shows that people will interpret things in different ways, which is interesting as a point of discussion, and I guess when someone is a bit of a wildcard like Brand, then they'll get interpreted in an even greater variety of ways than usual.