Russell Brand and his Buddy Plato

You may remember that a little while ago I posted "Help Wanted II - `In A Democracy...'". I sought your help in tracing an excellent quote from Plato, to the effect that "In A Democracy, everyone should take a turn at governing - except those who want it."

Excellent idea, you may say.  And you'd be in great company.

I hope to post, imminently, about the kind of ... people... who seek power, in politics and also in the boardrooms of our "great" Corporations. And how they relate to certain historic figures of the last hundred years.  I hope you're intrigued.

Meanwhile, here's another version of Plato's idea, from the Scottish philosopher Billy Connolly, channelled through Russell Brand:

Like most people I am utterly disenchanted by politics. Like most people I regard politicians as frauds and liars and the current political system as nothing more than a bureaucratic means for furthering the augmentation and advantages of economic elites. Billy Connolly said: “Don’t vote, it encourages them,” and, “The desire to be a politician should bar you for life from ever being one.”

Russell Brand

Plato

The other day I told you about Russell becoming a guest editor of the New Statesman in Britain. Now his effort is out on the newsstands, and, more relevant to us, on the Internet. It's a shining gem, if a little verbose, as Brand-y Baby tends to be.

Some samples:  "I don’t vote because to me it seems like a tacit act of compliance; I know, I know my grandparents fought in two world wars (and one World Cup) so that I’d have the right to vote. Well, they were conned."

"I heard recently Oliver Cromwell’s address to the rump parliament in 1653 (online, I’m not a Time Lord) where he bawls out the whole of the House of Commons as “whores, virtueless horses and money-grabbing dicklickers”. I added the last one but, honestly, that is the vibe."

"There’s little point bemoaning... apathy. Apathy is a rational reaction to a system that no longer represents, hears or addresses the vast majority of people. A system that is apathetic, in fact, to the needs of the people it was designed to serve. To me a potent and triumphant leftist movement, aside from the glorious Occupy rumble, is a faint, idealistic whisper from sepia rebels."

"Materialism and individualism do in moderation make sense. If you are naked and starving and someone gives you soup and a blanket your happiness will increase. That doesn’t mean that if you have 10,000 silken blankets and a golden cauldron of soup made from white rhino cum your happiness will continue to proportionately increase until you’re gouched out, swathed in silk, gurgling up pearlescent froth."

Run don't walk, to read the whole damn thang, here.

Russell Brand, Political Commentator (Right On!), Magazine Editor

Apparently the Huffington Post has a UK edition. Not that I'm prejudiced, of course, but it does seem to have a more urbane (world-weary?) tone than its parent creation of the megalomaniacal once-Republican Arianna Huffington, who famously began her career by shacking up with aged intellectual Bernard Levin, then publishing a book on Picasso that was thoroughly slagged by the critics.

Just goes to show we can all start afresh, if we have unlimited chutzpah.

HuffPostUk, as I now call it, has a nice little piece about the BBC's late-night, at-length Current Affairs show Newsnight, which you can watch on PBS here in the States. They ask, "When did Newsnight, that ageing, late night, sleep-inducer suddenly become the most watchable programme on British TV?"

The main talking head on Newsnight is an irascible but highly intelligent veteran journalist called Jeremy Paxman, famous for snarling at politicians who he believes are guilty of dodging his questions - popularly known as "Paxo".

Yes, Virginia, we need a few dozen like him here.

HuffPostUk continues, "Wednesday’s offering continued the show’s good form, with producer Ian Katz pitting Paxo against the garrulous, unpredictable yet always-brilliant Russell Brand. And the pair played their roles to perfection."

Brand has been invited to be guest editor of the New Statesman, a venerable leftie publication in Britain, sort of an equivalent to the Nation. So of course, Paxman's first question has to be, "Who are you to edit a political magazine?"

Brand's political comments are, in my opinion, right on the money. Indeed, the Tea Party would probably approve of them, if they could just get over their hatred of "liberals".

A sample:

“What will your revolution look like?” growled Paxo from behind said beard.

“I’ll tell you what it won’t be like,” said Brand in a moment of clarity, “a huge disparity between rich and poor, where 300 Americans have the same amount of wealth as the 85 million poorest Americans, where there is an exploited and underserved underclass that are being continually ignored and where welfare is slashed while Cameron and Osborne go to court to defend the rights of bankers to continue to receive their bonuses. This has to be addressed.”   

The interview is pretty funny, but also moving in a way, as truth-telling usually is.  Don't miss it - 

The "Boris" being referred to is Boris Johnson, the hilarious Mayor of London, educated at Eton and Oxford, who once edited the "Spectator" magazine and was involved in massive sexual scandals.  Sample scandal from Wikipedia:  

"In 2004, British newspapers reported that Johnson had had a four-year affair with Petronella Wyatt.^[117] The affair, which had been well hinted at in UK newspaper gossip columns, included passionate London taxi cab rides around St John's Wood during which they would ask the cab driver to insert cassette tapes of Wyatt singing Puccini.^[118]")