Russel Brand: The time for Revolution is now.

reply to post by siriussam

So, as long as you apply your self to your education, and improve your marketability you will be fine and have a high standard of living, if not, you deserve what you get?

There are no guarantees in life. The idea is that everyone has equal opportunity, NOT equal OUTCOMES.

Society and your profit wouldn't exist without low skilled, poorly educated people, do they not deserve a good standard of living?

You deserve only what you put in.

It is understandable that you would not want the current system to change, it has worked for you.

I want economic liberty. That is not the system we enjoy today. While there are facets of our economic system that are still free those are fast becoming scarce. In a few years or decades all the opportunity I speak of will be for naught if we don't start creating a system where fraud is actually prosecuted, the product of ones labor isn't taxed away, and economic freedom is encouraged.

What we see today is a product of decades of micromanaging the economy to the point where one needs to spend tens of thousands just to start a business. How the hell is that going to help low skilled workers and those with a lack of education? If you're talking about being employed by someone else then don't expect to get paid for having no education and skills. If you're talking about building something for yourself then you should be able to without government forcing you to pay it money you could use to start your business on perpetuating a bureaucracy.

Many believe that there is another way that isn't driven by greed, elitist dogma, back scratching and the top 1% or even top .1%, it is this that people want to change.

Yeah but most people have no damned idea what change they want. We have had decades of creating a system that purports to take money from you and I in order to give people what they need. And when it has failed, time and time again, we haven't said "enough, you can't have more of my money to fail with", no...Instead we say "here's more keep doing the same damned things...Maybe you'll get it right next time".

All it has served to do is create the oligarchic society in which we live today. Keep going down this path and you will one day find yourself living the nightmares you fear.

Do you fear the loss of the current system?

I am under no illusions that the system we have is broken. You would have to be blind. What I take issue with is taking from those who have more to give to those that have less...The notion that such a society of mob rule and punishing success is somehow an alternative to what we're doing now. What happens when there's no more left to take from the rich and the same problems STILL plague us? Theft is theft no matter how you justify it. We should be prosecuting theft at all levels, not encouraging different forms of it.

Do you think it would put you back to where you have come from?

The system as it stands today, if it continues down the path it is on, no one except for those whom from this moment forth I shall refer to as the elite political class, will benefit.

I want a constitutionally adherent government. A Smaller government that doesn't have 50 agencies for any one purpose. A government without garbage institutions like the DOE, or the ATF. A Financial policing firm that is made up of LEOs instead of a revolving door of regulation making friends of the crooks on Wall St.

I want a system that is reformed to resemble what a MODERN Constitutional America should look like.

You obviously have the skills and the education, so nothing to fear.

You know what I do when I'm afraid. I either become strong enough(in whatever avenue necessary) that I don't need to fear it, or I kill it.

I believe that you have gotten out what you put in, but that is not the case for everyone, and as you have said yourself it's getting harder to do.

Resource based economies have already been mentioned are you aware of the Venus project?

What was the last thing you killed because you were scared of it?

I found Mr. Brand difficult to understand, he speaks to quickly for my gallic ears (my gf explained it to me though).

Listen, he might have been on the warp factor bonkers side of enthusiastic during that interview, but it was refreshing to hear someone let rip and highlight what's going wrong with our system. He's right. What's the point in voting if left and right both follow the same basic capitalist system ? Where's the democracy if we've got no choice ? Where's the fairness if I've to have taxes deducted from my pay check before I even get it, while companies like Vodafone, Amazon, NPower and all the rest don't pay tax at all ? While the greasy politicians get their party conferences, their speaking engagements ... their lucrative "advisor" jobs from these very same companies ?

He's right on that. Where he falls down is on what his alternative really is. But hell, I'm not criticising him on that. He's helping to enthuse his generation ... Thatcher & Reagan's Children ... into looking at politics, economics in a totally different way.

I spoke to a guy I know last week. He's a Brit, he's intelligent, he's articulate, he's 24 yo ... and he didn't know what a Co-operative is. He shops at the Co-op. But he doesn't know what a Co-op is. He confessed he didn't know he owned it through his loyalty card.

He doesn't know how other companies work, shareholders, company dividends, trusts, hedge funds, merchant banks, leverage and all that stuff ... all he knows is that, like me, every week he's getting poorer and poorer.

If Brand helps enthuse that guy and his generation then good luck to him.

I still think Brand should drop the comedic aspect, though, he's a bit of a self serving arse at times and could do so much better for himself.

reply to post by TrueBrit


A few years ago The History channel had a special on what Jesus looked like. The rendition they came up with looked a lot like a very tan Mel Brooks.

reply to post by siriussam

I believe that you have gotten out what you put in, but that is not the case for everyone, and as you have said yourself it's getting harder to do.

I'm still working toward my goals. It's an ever evolving process that takes time, dedication, patience, and research.

Resource based economies have already been mentioned are you aware of the Venus project?

Yes I am very aware of the star trek economy the Venus Project promotes. And while It's a wonderful idea, it requires a vast amount of technological advancement. What the VP proposes requires a star trek level of development.

What was the last thing you killed because you were scared of it?

Figuratively? Fear of the unknown. You kill that by simply showing up. Literally? Spiders.

reply to post by benrl


Russell Brand !! Hell yeah ! My heart is warmed by his ability to grasp such real issues with a loving , caring attitude !
He's absolutely right , we need to focus on the REASONS of things because it is the CAUSE of our suffering .

reply to post by angryhulk

angryhulk
You want WHAT?!

I already anwered that here.

angryhulk
I think your argument has completely derailed.

I think you didn't even make one.

muzzleflash
Democracy is Tyranny, rule of the Mob.
Thats why we have the Republic, the rule of Law.

Democracy is a horrible idea because the Mindless Mob only thinks in terms of emotions and base desires.

Those who support Democracy actually favor Lynchings with no trial.
The mob decides remember?

There is a very good reason we have checks and balances designed to strip power from the mob.

I am actually disturbed how commonplace emotional attitudes are, and how rare logic is.

I don't post here very often anymore for a number of reasons but your comments brought me in off the back forty.

We've all heard this argument for our whole lives but the fact is that it was the "republic" that stripped our illusory power by giving all the power to the mob in Washington and that other mob in New York. NO means of governance will ever function for the benefit of the whole people as long as money is issued as a loan at interest because the debt will automatically accrue faster than does the means to pay that debt. Voting is an empty gesture when a people becomes dependent on bankers to issue their currency and that economy is a dead man walking, be it socialist, communist, democratic or a republic, its only a matter of time before it all implodes and as Brand says, its time, even though he may not have the cause or the solution to the problems he decries with such passion.

It simply amazes me that people still trust the nabobs at Goldman Sachs and the EPA and the IRS and in congress or the white house, etc. etc. more than they trust their fellow Americans who have done them no harm. Same goes for GB or any other national conglomerate. Central governments tied to central banking will always be the death knell for a people and a nation. But we unfailingly blame one another rather than those who did it to us.

I watched the video and read the responses to it and you're right, there has been a great deal of emotionalism involved over it but none more so than the knee jerk emotional reliance on a document that gives government the RIGHT to strip you of your property (eminent domain) and the RIGHT to steal your creativity and give it to some campaign donor as a perk (the patent office). Not to mention holding tight control of commerce even after delegating the creation of currency to a for-profit corporation (which giveaway, btw, was NOT one of the alleged limitations placed on government by the authors of the US Constitution. Actually no limitations were placed on them at all under the proper and necessary and the general welfare clauses. It was a blank check with an open balance, so to speak. So here we are in not a really good place. And its impossible to come up with solutions when people don't understand or acknowledge the origin of the problems.

reply to post by frazzle


I dont disagree we are in a screwed up system.
I do disagree about the people though.

Imagine a world where the average person had administrative powers. It doesnt look good.

The average person doesnt want to know anything, they focus on self at expense of others, etc.

They scream at anyone for not working enough hours calling them bums, then turn around and lament the fact our system resembles slavery? What a joke.

No interest loans? Why give govt even more authority to control all commerce, thats twice the tyranny of today.

Free loans sound unreasonable they should be costly. Why would anyone lend $$$ to some guy they never met without getting paid a fee for taking the risks?

If people cannot vote wisely with their $ thats their bad. I shouldnt have to accept even more Govt regulation because people cannot control themselves.

Sorry but the facts are the problem is in the hearts and minds of the average person. Not the elites, they are a symptom and result of our backwards mentalities.

If we voted wisely with $$$ none of this would have gotten this bad.

muzzleflash
reply to post by frazzle

 

I dont disagree we are in a screwed up system.
I do disagree about the people though.

Imagine a world where the average person had administrative powers. It doesnt look good.

I don't know...... take a look at how they drafted a new Constitution in Iceland, pretty impressive stuff.

Source

A group of 25 ordinary citizens on Friday presented to Iceland's parliamentary speaker a new constitution draft, which they compiled with the help of hundreds of others who chipped in online.
The group had been working on the draft since April and posted its work on the Internet, allowing hundreds of other citizens to give their feedback on the project via the committee's website and on social networks such as Facebook.

National elections for the 25-member Constitutional Council were held in November. Every citizen was allowed to run and 522 people presented their candidacy. The turnout was disappointing: only 35.9 percent of the eligible voters went to the polls.

Not a great turnout, but it ended up being 25 ordinary citizens, whose only qualification to get on the ballot was letters of recommendations by 35 fellow Icelanders.

"What I learned is that people can be trusted. We put all our things online and attempted to read, listen and understand and I think that made the biggest difference in our job and made our work so so so much better," she said.

I don't think we could do worse, considering who we have in power with both parties.


Of Course on the flip side we could get Kim Khardasian on the panel..............

I think he's very articulated. Changed my thoughts about him

reply to post by pavil


Iceland, financially speaking, is a beacon of hope to me.

They didn't let the Eurozone, or the scumbag banksters rob them blind. They kicked out most of their government, and continued on to form a constitutional council to address these issues and others for future generations to come.

They did the right thing. They are following a process that I wish the US would follow today.

We don't have to do things exactly like Iceland. We do things the American way, but at the end of the day much of what they have done to save their nation from ruinous debt, and slavery to the banksters should be followed by every nation on Earth.

That said, Iceland has a very different society than what we are accustomed to in America. They have a common culture whereas the American culture is a conglomerate of many. We are not the same people. What works in Iceland may not work here, and as much as I love what Icelanders are doing to right their nation I fear that such an exercise may turnout to be a recipe for codified tyranny in the US.

reply to post by pavil


Thats part of the problem.

The mob WILL vote for a celebrity before they would pick a real statesman who knows how it works.

No way in hell Id accept mob rule. The mob is the problem its a flock of headless chickens.

Thats what people are being tricked into.
Lets change everything blindly cuz it sucks?
Its a disaster waiting to happen.

The media is hyping everything to upset people and its working.

The average person trusts the media despite their claims to the contrary.

Thats how grim it really is.
Lemmings meet cliff....

reply to post by siriussam

So, as long as you apply your self to your education, and improve your marketability you will be fine and have a high standard of living, if not, you deserve what you get?

Yes, learning is a life long journey not just for the formative years. Look up the term CPD, it is now expected. If you do not apply yourself, leave school with nothing, and do not apply yourself, you have two choices, 1. continue and fail, 2. Re-apply yourself. I know many people who arsed around at school, and when they go into work wish they had done better. So they applied themselves, took technical and vocational training, and you know what got PROMOTED!

for a better understanding of this concept, look City & Guilds

Let no one say opportunities for learning don't exist. that's a lie.

Society and your profit wouldn't exist without low skilled, poorly educated people, do they not deserve a good standard of living?

So you mean before the industrial revolution when society dug the ground with the arse bone of a giraffe. Or do you mean now, when the only jobs that require no skill whatsoever is manual work? As the previous poster stated, Supply of manual labour is high. if you don't like it, there is always someone who will, like 2 billion Chinese! Which is what has happened. Unfortunately having no skill, a person cannot demand a high wage. These are the types of job I did when I was 13.

It is understandable that you would not want the current system to change, it has worked for you.

Translates to, worked hard in applying himself, and chasing ambition, thus ensuring he achieve was he set out to do. if he doesn't succees, will that stop him trying, no. Poverty is pschological, and I have evidence to back that up.

Many believe that there is another way that isn't driven by greed, elitist dogma, back scratching and the top 1% or even top .1%, it is this that people want to change.

Yes, that way is called living of the fruits of other peoples labour, otherwise known as a parasitic infestation.

Do you fear the loss of the current system? Do you think it would put you back to where you have come from? You obviously have the skills and the education, so nothing to fear.

For arguments sake lets assume that Mr Brands word comes about. far from being the utopian fair shared society for the people by the people, what you end up with is a system that has already been shown to be flawed.

You think of it as equality, yet you wish to destroy value and limit humanity capacity for innovation. Isn't it strange that in that scenario, the oppressed masses would be yearning to throw off the shackles of tyranny!

It is not about the system working for you. it is about how willing YOU are to work for yourself, instead of demanding that it should be yours by RIGHT.

Consider this. Nothing exists, no 1% , no companies, no overlords, nothing. Just you, and the land. OK it's 1000 years ago, got it.

Are you unskilled?

No. if you were unskilled you would die, and so would your family. If you would not hunt, fish, weave, plough, sew, build, thatch, tile, dam, shear, milk, gut, tan, pluck, cut, carve etc etc etc. All of which are manual jobs, BUT SKILLED. If you care for honourable manual work and you want it to give you a good living

GET A TRADE!

See link to the City and Guild, we can help you.

reply to post by muzzleflash


Yes, exactly.
Neither the mob, NOR Government can be trusted with too much power.
Power should therefore always be limited, seperated and systematically decentralized.
Thus Minarchism.

muzzleflash
reply to post by frazzle

 

I dont disagree we are in a screwed up system.
I do disagree about the people though.

Imagine a world where the average person had administrative powers. It doesnt look good.

The average person doesnt want to know anything, they focus on self at expense of others, etc.

They scream at anyone for not working enough hours calling them bums, then turn around and lament the fact our system resembles slavery? What a joke.

No interest loans? Why give govt even more authority to control all commerce, thats twice the tyranny of today.

Free loans sound unreasonable they should be costly. Why would anyone lend $$$ to some guy they never met without getting paid a fee for taking the risks?

If people cannot vote wisely with their $ thats their bad. I shouldnt have to accept even more Govt regulation because people cannot control themselves.

Sorry but the facts are the problem is in the hearts and minds of the average person. Not the elites, they are a symptom and result of our backwards mentalities.

If we voted wisely with $$$ none of this would have gotten this bad.

I don't want any administrative powers over you and I'd bet the farm that you feel the same way about me. The same would go for almost everyone if they weren't handed the tools to take things from both of us instead of earning their own way. Its a system that CREATES lazy people. The question is, who gave these would-be takers those tools and then used them as their own tools against the majority of people who only want to be left alone to administer their OWN lives as they see fit.

But see, we can't do that because there is no such thing as "my money" or "your money" to either administer or vote wisely with, there is only central banker's money and every dollar of it that you or I may have in our pockets had to FIRST be BORROWED into existence, at interest. Well, for those who can qualify for a loan and pay the interest, that is. Otherwise they're bankrupt and the lights go dark. Well, unless they're the federal government or a too big to fail corporation or bank, for which the government can and does make us lucky citizens pay the outstanding debt. I ask, who cannot see that there's something intrinsically wrong with such a system? The stunning part of it is that its been wrong for thousands of years already and we STILL can't see our way clear of it.

Same with voting. Brand is right on target there. We are given choices between bad and worse by the same entities who profit so handsomely from keeping the status quo. So obviously they're going to give us a choice between a bad corporate hack and a worse corporate hack. That's even true on a local level. Just google your local candidates + smart growth or sustainable growth and notice that darn near every one that wins is a staunch supporter of Agenda 21. We're being herded. Right into the truck that's headed for market.

As for loans, if you were a wise banker you could choose the recipients of your loans with care for nothing more than an agreed percentage of their profit. That would be just and fair. Choose the recipients badly and suffer the consequences of doing business. Just like the rest of us must do.

reply to post by frazzle


I agree its dumb to print money on interest.

I meant personal loans are ok to profit from specifically rather than treasury notes. There is little logic on paying interest on the act of printing currency itself.

Sorry I wasnt specific.

reply to post by frazzle

The word "articulate" keeps popping up in this thread and it explains everything.

Russel Brand is a celebrity novelty. His whole gig is based on his dodgy past, his christ-like persona and his dandy act.

He's nothing more than a mainstream act, managed by the likes of Simon Cowell, spewed on to the masses. Looks like his manager is reaming it in!! It's sickening really.

On another note, i'd watch my drink if he were in the room.

reply to post by projectvxn



I too admire what Iceland has done.

Unfortunelty, I doubt it would work in the U.S. Totally different scale of problem and vastly different demographics.

It would be nice to have real sane normal people in charge instead of egomaniacs. That seems to be the one requirement for Higher Office in this land.

muzzleflash


The mob WILL vote for a celebrity before they would pick a real statesman who knows how it works.

Isn't that kind of what we do already????

Sad, isn't it?