Making sense of Russell Brand's revolution

Last year, Russell Brand wrote an article for the New Statesman calling for his kind of revolution. As he told the Parliamentary Select Committee on drugs and addiction, he is verbose, so I have attempted to précis, paraphrase (and  re-order logically) his 4,759 words down to 372. I think I have been fair; I have certainly tried to be.

My summary is below; please click this link for the full essay:

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/10/russell-brand-on-revolution
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I am bored by politics, disillusioned with politicians, and have never voted. Most Members of Parliament are contemptible. They are all the same, irrespective of party affiliation. It is better to reject the political system altogether than to validate it by voting.

Most people do not care about representative politics. Their apathy is a consequence of the system’s irrelevance to their needs, yet it suits our rulers.

Big business has corrupted our political agencies. Businesses and banks exploit and overcharge us. Meanwhile, the benefits previously won for ordinary people by socialism are being removed. Young people cannot amass wealth. The rich exploit them as consumers and punish them for protesting, but escape justice for their own economically harmful greed.

A modicum of material comfort is essential. However, more does not greatly increase happiness and threatens to destroy the world. Our overconsumption and waste cause want and squalor elsewhere.

Old religions, nationalism and other social constructs are not equipped to deal with the current ecological crisis, which threatens our survival. Nor are politicians, with their outdated thinking abetted by professional media advisers.

Conservatism is born of the natural instincts of desire (fostered by materialistic culture) and fear (spread by the media), both cultivated and managed by government, which seeks to set us against each other. We should not, as they wish, resent immigration (which is implied by the free movement of international capital), nor condemn rioters. However, atheistic Marxism is also a form of social atomisation, and divides us into opposing groups.

We need a complete revolution of consciousness and of the social, political and economic system. The solution is primarily spiritual, that is, we should care for each other and the environment. The new spirituality is ecological and inclusive.

Peaceful demonstrations are ineffective. Riots are a direct form of political action - and fun (socialists are too serious). We should revolt against the cause of our problems, which is those who now hold power.

We should revolt in any way we wish, whether as rioters, religious fundamentalists or simply mischief-makers, provided we include all and neither judge nor harm anyone.

History is accelerating; the brief opportunity for the Spiritual Revolution must be seized now. This will engage the young and refresh socialism.


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Black cloth on the towbar

We're told today that round Wolverhampton, you may occasionally see a little piece of black cloth tied to the towbar of a car.

This means, "You rear-end me, I claim whiplash, we split the compensation."

A 2010 BBC news item says that this kind of fraud adds some £44 to the annual cost of a motor insurance policy.

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A child's chair

This is a Victorian child's chair in our guest bedroom. It's for clothes and suchlike, not for sitting. 

Antiques usually have something to say about their times and in the case of this chair I think it's particularly obvious. I'm not thinking of the Aesthetic Movement style here, but rather the basic design.

Firstly there are no stretchers for little George or Georgina to climb on and off the chair themselves. The chair does not encourage that degree of independence.

Secondly there are neither arm rests nor footrest. George or Georgina have to sit up straight with their legs dangling into space or they will fall off. No wriggling around, no stretching across the table for an extra slice of cake.

Ah - those soft-hearted Victorians.

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The camshaft bribe

From Wikipedia
Computer animation of a camshaft operating valves

A well-worn issue this, but still worth asking in the interests of clarity.

Decades ago, someone I knew had a camshaft problem on his car a few days before he was due to get married. Specialist work was required and there was a backlog, but the car was essential for the honeymoon. What to do?

Well he simply went round to the workshop and offered twenty pounds to the guy in charge, which was a reasonable bribe in those days.

“You’re next,” was the response and all went well.

So if an NHS patient sees an NHS consultant and opts for private treatment by that same consultant, is that pretty much the same type of queue-jumping bribe? Legally it isn’t bribery and probably the camshaft issue wasn't either, but should we see both examples as bribery to the extent of calling them bribery?

Or are they merely examples of markets doing their stuff and paying for a better service is perfectly okay? 

To my mind, many forms of legal bribery are endemic in the UK, but so is evasive language. The NHS illustration is entirely legal of course, but in effect NHS consultants accept queue-jumping bribes. Why not say so?

It's good to be explicit isn't it? 

But would I use money to jump the queue if a loved happened to be faced with a long wait for an essential operation to resolve a painful or debilitating condition?

Yes. 

Does that make me corrupt? Maybe, or maybe it is only a rational response to an imperfect world. Yet I would not shy away from the word bribe if it came up. 

So does explicit language leave us with a better situation or a worse? 

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Cameron firm on truth referendum

Prime Minister David Cameron is standing firm on his promise to hold a "truth referendum" if the Tories win the next election.

David Cameron has promised to quit as Prime Minister if he is unable to deliver a yes-no referendum on telling the truth by 2017.

He promised he would not “barter away” the referendum in new coalition negotiations, as an angry Conservative activist told him the public do not believe he will deliver on his promise to give the British people a chance to hear nothing but the truth from government ministers.

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New EU Smoke Directive

Smoke - from Wikipedia

The EU plans to control certain domestic and commercial smoke emissions which for once have nothing to do with tobacco or fossil fuels. From the EU preamble we are told :-

Certain materials with high carbohydrate content are liable to char and emit a complex range of atmospheric smokes when exposed to levels of radiant heat beyond their design parameters. Processes where this occurs are often indoor environments of a domestic or commercial nature.

The key to effective control of potentially harmful indoor smoke is threefold.

a) Controlling the radiant heat source.

b) Controlling the degree of carbohydrate exposure.

c) Standard instruction manuals and training requirements.

In addition to these three control measures, the EU intends to investigate the possibility of changes to carbohydrate formulations, specifically water content, in order to minimise the emission of potentially harmful smoke.

So that’s damp bread and low wattage toasters. I’ll post more detail on the new EU toast-making regulations as they become available.

More details here.

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Russia's big plans?

If we are to understand them, we have to look behind the horrible events in Ukraine - for which the West may turn out to be be partly responsible, if Peter Hitchens is right about the CIA's Director being spotted in Kiev a couple of weeks ago.

What's the big picture?

How about, Russia's future as a non-EU European country?

For all its vastness, the land is far more heavily populated in the West, as hardly anyone wants to live in the cruel cold of the Siberian winter:

(Source)

Then, how about the customs union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan that started in January 2010, which could be the seed crystal of a sort of eastern EU?

And the massive blue-sky concept, mooted in 2008, of a Trans-Asian Corridor of Development? Here's a map of how it could look:

 

(pic source)

On a less gigantic scale, there is the long-proposed Eurasia Canal project, linking the Black Sea to the Caspian via Georgia:

 

(source)

This was reportedly delayed in 2011, pending the development of cargo facilities in Kazakhstan.

A company called Yaconto LLC had ambitious plans along the same lines, with a naval base at Tuapse (two hours' drive from Sochi, on the Black Sea):

 

Yaconto (founded by a Sergey P Yakunin) appears to have ceased trading, but it's interesting to note that further up the same coastline is the port of Novorossiysk, which has indeed been developed, as I noted in an earlier post:

(pic source)

As part of his integrated plan, Yakunin also proposed the construction of a second waterway parallel to the Bosphorus, to ease shipping between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. The last couple of paragraphs refer darkly to potential interference from the corrupt elite in Russia and perhaps this is what has happened after all. (Nevertheless, last year Turkey announced its determination to continue with its own similar plan for a "Kanal Istanbul".)

And three days ago, President Putin told officials to come up with a plan to develop Russia's Black Sea fleet.

Like China, Russia is under pressure to maintain economic momentum, like a fox with its tail on fire. Her aim - perhaps unattainable - is to achieve 7% pa GDP growth to 2020: have a look at these briefings from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. There's a long list of challenges to be overcome, including corruption and ineffective law and regulation.

As with China, a rapidly-growing economy is needed to tackle a host of problems, not least demographic challenges. There's a danger of collapse if their economies stall.

We can only hope that this is not the West's intention.

Some previous BOM posts on Russia:

http://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/battle-for-black-sea.html

http://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/ukraine-belarus-gets-message.html

http://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/ukraine-never-mind-fascism-taunts.html

http://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/ukraine-is-it-just-business-plan.html

http://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/from-sochi-to-sevastopol.html

 

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