Mike Sliwa reminds us that time is short and inspiration can come from the strangest places.
In a BBC interview, actor and comedian Russell Brand called for a revolution (see video below) and change in the current paradigm. He has never voted. He believes doing so makes us complicit in the destruction of such a top heavy system. He calls for alternatives. He believes a revolution is here and ready.
Bravo! Finally someone with a massive platform who is calling for not only something new, but also an end to the current machine that is devouring the living world. Whether or not one agrees with every point Russell makes in the interview is irrelevant. What’s important here is the passion, the intelligence and, most importantly, the massive following Russell Brand has.
The irony of a comedian calling for a global revolution is not lost upon me. The likes of Richard Pryor, George Carlin and Bill Hicks are dead and gone, so Russell has filled that void. The fact that he’s a famous, wealthy, white, heterosexual male calling for an end to the status quo is not lost upon me either. Unfortunately, at this point, the populace needs someone with a huge media presence to light the wick. Russell Brand is such a person.
I do not agree with every point Russell makes. It doesn’t matter. What he’s calling for is too important to worry about semantics. We don’t have time. Our window politically and environmentally is small. It’s go time. We must take a step that scares the shit out of most of us. We must evolve.
The industrial human being supported by the global economy that’s being propped up by fossil fuels…must evolve. Evolve or perish. Deep down in our psyche most of us know this. The problem is it’s deep down in a place we don’t like to talk about. We need to face our demon: civilization. It’s the hierarchy of all hierarchies. The structure that survives by oppression, exploitation and devastation. The machine that creates a few “haves” and billions of “have nots.” We need to, as Daniel Quinn points out, evolve beyond civilization. Russell knows this, I know this, and so do you.
Of course people want, need and demand a plan. Fair enough. For a plan I suggest we start by listening. Listening to those who have been calling for such change for generations. Listening to those who have articulated the disparities this system creates daily. Listening to those who have had the boot of civilization upon their collective throats. Let’s listen and then breathe. And then move forward, or backward.
“Was it a millionaire who said, ‘Imagine no possessions'” … Elvis Costello
I don’t think you can have a really intelligent discussion about this big picture stuff without having read and absorbed the Clare Graves perspective, as detailed in the book “Spiral Dynamics”. There is no doubt that we are precipitating a crisis (or several crises), and there is no doubt that the shadow side of individualistic capitalism is devouring us right now. But to think creatively about how to POSSIBLY solve the problem (rather than simply giving up), we need to see the problem in the context of the evolutionary spiral. We’re in a time of breakdown – on all sorts… Read more »
Wow, talk about your ‘First World problems’. Has he ever been to a place withOUT a liberal democratic system? He thinks he knows what a “power elite” is, but he really has no idea. Travel outside of your westernized comfort zone and see what the alternatives tend to be. There are millions of people every day fighting for the chance to cast a vote someday. Is he trying to tell them they’re wasting their time? You women and racial minorities who fought so hard to cast a ballot are just tools of the dominant paradigm, apparently. At least he has… Read more »
Hey now, let’s be fair. Let’s look on the bright side. An idiot who doesn’t vote does less damage than an idiot who does vote.
(If you’re offended by the word idiot, I mean “idiot” in the original Greek use of the term, a reference to someone who doesn’t do their civic duty. Everyone who dodges jury duty is also an idiot in this sense. If you’re not offended by the word idiot, then I mean it as someone who’s stupid or ignorant.)
Great comments by all!! but, unfortunately, we the people,are out of time outs! the clock has hit the two minute warning and its fourth and long!
The problem is that revolutions rarely work out well. This is because you create a power vacuum by removing the state, and foreign powers, commercial interests or religious ideology steps in to fill the gap.
I think that slow gradual change is the way to go. Life is much better now than 100 years ago.
I propose an even higher level of revolutionary consciousness. The extinction of the human species is inevitable. The fossil record suggests that no multicellular organisms are destined to last forever. We are not actually harming the earth, because the planet is above things like harm or health. The planet just is. We can’t actually kill a planet. We should stop pretending that what we care about is the planet and admit that what we’re really concerned about is ourselves. If we were truly unselfish about the earth we would not change a thing. We would trust the wisdom of the… Read more »
I personally don’t have much hope for industrial humans. The problem as I see it is those of us in the dominant culture like to use the pronoun “we” when describing the human plight. We are destroying biodiversity. Humans are not. There’s a psychosis at work and it tells us WE are all that matters. The planet will go on for sure, we will not. Unfortunately we are taking those who are oppressed or have never adopted this living arrangement down with us. A few are still being human, humans being, human beings. Unfortunately WE stopped sometime ago.
Yes, but the whole “biodiversity is good” is itself a human construct, and it may in fact be largely a modern idea. A lot of environmentalism is an inherently modern, Western, industrial and post-industrial concept. People like to dress it up as some sort of ancient wisdom and project their own modern Western cultural constructs onto indigenous cultures, but the fact is that environmentalism is largely a product of industrialized societies. Humans have actually never been more environmentalist than we are now. I know that’s heresy, but that’s where the historical evidence points. No matter how old the idea is,… Read more »
It’s not “good” it’s life.
An envirnoment with only one kind organism in it is still an ecosystem. It’s still “life.” It is no less alive than one with many kinds of organisms. Neither one is more natural than the other.
Sorry, should say “An environment with only one kind of organism….”
There’s a good radicalist argument that says he has everything backwards. It goes like this: Instead of trying to change the system before it’s too late, we should try to speed up the collapse so we hit rock bottom sooner rather than later. That way change becomes more inevitable and happens as soon as possible. Encourage the system to go through its resources and burn itself out as fast as possible to bring on the breaking point sooner. Support the most extreme, most self-destructive elements of the current system and you make the revolution happen sooner. Unleash industrial free market… Read more »
I have no problem with that route as well. I’ve brought it up to others and some are on board while others resist it. It’s another alternative (one Brand may or not support) that we should consider.
Now that I think about it, the effects may be comparable either way. All things being equal, if people on the left stop voting, that means more power for those on the right. There’s that whole thing about how you can’t be neutral on a moving train…..
I don’t get it? Most of the world’s leading nations are already trying to deal with environmental problems by improving renewable energy sources and nuclear energy or funding fusion initiatives. Does Russell think he is saying something new? Yes the distribution of wealth between rich and poor is too great as again, everyone already knows but it has always been so and the fact that not a single human being in history been able to implement a viable solution tells you it cannot be easily solved. Evolution takes a long long time.
Inequality has fluctuated pretty wildly over the course of the last few thousand years, but you’re right, it’s been around a long time. There is no magic threshold where inequality gets so bad that people have a revolution. Some societies put up with a huge gap between rich and poor without much difficulty, and other societies are extremely sensitive to much smaller inequalities. Historically, societies can go for amazingly long periods with extreme wealth disparity. The real question is not inequality, but how people *feel* about inequality. You have to change the way people think about inequality before inequality can… Read more »
Like you, Mr. Sliwa, I hope for “evolution” of humanity. I do want to continue to have hope that we can work our way through this. But I am hesitant to cast a blanket of disparagement over all of “civilization”. It is civilization that brought us the reasoned defense of natural rights. More immediately, it is civilization that allows for people with intense limitations to still live actualized existences. I assume you are an able-bodied person, and that is one of your privileges. Those who are not so able-bodied depend on some of the advances of civilization in order to… Read more »
Lance I appreciate the response and feedback.
Everything you said is true. Unfortunately none of it changes the fact that without biodiversity actual existence will be in doubt, let alone actualized existences. Civilization has been and continues to kill biodiversity. The rest, privileged as it may be, is just a negotiation with the non-negotiable. Now about that BGB Reunion Tour…
Hey Lance: you know what you do when you assume…
As we continue to wait for the perfect message from the perfect messenger…ah industrial humanity.
We don’t need a perfect messenger, just one with a shred of moral credibility. Surely we can do better than someone who is best known by many for his acts of ugly misogyny.
Like I said, no such thing.
Wow, that’s almost the same script I remember hearing from “enlightened” youth that were dupes to Communism, Marxism, back in the 60’s.
Please consider the level of “sophistication” that this man had to cater to, way back when he used to be popular.
Now consider- Who’s “touting” his apparently new found “religion”, and why.
Those T-shirts idolizing “Che” sure were “hip” until somebody pointed out the ACTUAL consequences that “unexpectedly” went along with them. I guess “it’s different” THIS time?
And, serendipitously, the very moment that I post that comment, someone shared this article on Twitter.
Labeling him sexist is merely a counter-revolutionary tactic by the running pig-dog lackeys of capitalism denying the voice of the people.
Wheeeee, pseudo-revolution is fun!
Russell Brand is like a highly precocious but amoral man-child. I think that, no matter what we may think about the sense of what he is saying on such issues, we should be exceedingly cautious of aligning ourselves with someone with such a track record. There are better spokespersons to be found out there.