The Russel Brand Conspiracy???

[keith2011 2,678]

The BBC said Quote:-

"Four women are alleging sexual assaults at the height of Brand's fame between 2006 and 2013"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-66835997

Many TTers will remember the many dumb Russel Brand Covid/Vaccine conspiracy theory videos posted here by the anti-vax idiot.
I do wonder if these allegations are about the establishment trying to get their own back or a nasty fool whose sins are coming home to roost.
What do you think?

[fraufruit 42,502]

Who is "the establishment" exacty and how do they talk 4 women into telling such awful lies? There are big penalties for false accusations.

[Malcolm Spudbury 3,527]

> I do wonder if these allegations are about the establishment trying to get their own back or a nasty fool whose sins are coming home to roost.

FFS. What is it with these loons who spout all sorts of insane bullshit and then complain about conspiracies when they get called out (either about their insane bullshit or about something unrelated, as is the case here).

See also: Lawrence Fox.

[keith2011 2,678]

fraufruit said Quote:-
"Who is "the establishment" exacty and how do they talk 4 women into telling such awful lies?"

It is not so much the allegations but the media reporting of them, the BBC website and their TV news is headlining it, you would think the PM, the US president or the King had been accused not some 2nd rate comedian whose career has been in decline for the last 10 years or so! That is what makes me wonder.

[Malcolm Spudbury 3,527]

> It is not so much the allegations but the media reporting of them

The whole trial-by-media that happens when a celebrity is accused of something is usually career-destroying, regardless of whether it turns out to be true or not. Look at the Kevin Spacey case for example.

[snowingagain 5,441]

The media expose scandals. Of course if you are confident (and rich) you can sue. But C4 and ST took 4 years on this, so I would guess their lawyers are confident. Huw Edwards and Phillip Scofield both did dodgy (not illegal) stuff, but spoiled their images as wholesome national treasures . Brand was different as he really did not hide what a creep he was and I can imagine that pushy as he was, he pushed too far and got away with it. I never liked him, but I know others people did. He became much in demand to write fatuous opinion columns. And (big cringe) promote the Labour party, because they thought he was a cool guy who would get them the youth vote. He is rich, and has a big youtube fan club which will continue. He will be okay.

[keith2011 2,678]

I guess, as with Trump, if you are a believer, your faith that anything anti about your idol is a conspiracy will not be shaken, however as a non believer I can still be surprised by these media storms against individuals and wonder if they might be maliciously directed.

[tor 17,441]

I am wondering the same thing about Miriam whatshername. You write a book proclaiming everyone was terrible to you. Maybe it's you...

[snowingagain 5,441]

OK, mad stealing from Irish Times but whatever. Fintan OT on RB.

Last July, on his YouTube and Rumble shows Stay Free, Russell Brand interviewed the far-right governor of Florida Ron DeSantis. It is a crossover moment in which two kinds of gaslighting, the political and the sexual, flow perfectly into each other. A fawning Brand gave DeSantis free rein. The would-be Republican nominee for next year’s US presidential election took the opportunity to explain that we did not see what we thought we saw on January 6th, 2021, when a mob invaded the US Capitol to try to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump.

“These are people that were there to attend a rally and then they were there to protest,” DeSantis told Brand. “Now it devolved into a riot. But the idea that this was a plan to somehow overthrow the government of the United States is not true, and it’s something that the media had spun up just to try to basically get as much mileage out of it and use it for partisan and for political aims.”You didn’t see what you saw. What happened didn’t happe n. It’s all created by the media. There are no objective truths, only partisan and political constructs.

Fast forward to Friday last, and Brand is addressing his huge audience on the platforms where, as he says at the start of his speech, “we critique, attack, and undermine the news in all its corruption”. The line was the same as the one he had allowed DeSantis to spin in July: it is all a plot by the mainstream media. Brand used a rhetorical trick that Trump is particularly fond of: saying something outlandish while attributing it as “some people say” or “some people think”. In Brand’s case, the attribution is to his own fans, who, he claims, have been warning him to “watch out Russell, they’re coming for you, you’re getting too close to the truth”.

Who are “they”? Not really the women who have come forward to recount to Channel 4 and the Sunday Times allegations of awful experiences with Brand – which he pre-emptively denied. They have no autonomous reality – they are mere puppets whose strings are being pulled by the dark conspirators who control the world, the same ones who try to fool us into believing in the Covid pandemic and climate chaos. Gaslighting is the technique of reality distortion in which an abuser (typically male) manipulates a victim (typically female) into disbelieving her own experiences. One of the classic signs is “insisting that an event or behaviour you witnessed never happened and that you’re remembering it wrong”.

Rapists and domestic abusers have used this technique for a very long time. But it has seeped out into contemporary politics. That classic sign of gaslighting now flashes all over far-right political discourse. The aim, as Brand openly boasts, is to “undermine the news”. Just as victims of personal and intimate assaults must be convinced that they are “remembering it wrong”, the same trick can now be pulled in relation to public events witnessed live by hundreds of millions of people. The knack lies in the ability to turn everything upside down. Things that would previously have been hidden are displayed quite openly, while everything that can be seen openly is really an illusion created by the hidden “they”. The first part of this trick is the chutzpah of hiding in plain sight. Brand shows that he could not possibly be a secret sexual predator by playing the part of one so flagrantly.

This ploy works because it draws on and exploits common sense. We assume that someone who is up to no good must want to pretend otherwise. Therefore, the logic goes, someone who seems so obviously nefarious (and remember that Brand actually played Dr Nefario in Despicable Me) must in fact be innocent. It takes both nerve and skill to pull this off, but Brand is a highly accomplished actor and performer who has plenty of both.

He is also immensely famous and, as Trump put it when boasting about his serial sexual predation, “when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.” The second part of the trick is where it enters the political world. In order to “undermine the news” and convince your followers that, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, you are innocent of everything, you have to generate a world view: the global conspiracy.

Its shape comes from the old tropes of anti-Semitic paranoia, but the Elders of Zion can appear in many guises, among them “the mainstream media”. Exactly who “they” are and how they operate is always fuzzy. But that is less important than the insistence that, as Brand put it on Friday, their attacks are “concerted” and “co-ordinated”. There is some place where “they” all get together and decide which enemy is getting too close to the truth and must be brought down. The plot is all the scarier because we cannot quite see what it is.

It’s this crossover that makes Brand’s case so much bigger than the individual allegations against him, dreadful as they are. Brand’s defence is more than the personal rebuttal to which he is entitled.It is a counter-offensive against the values on which rational discourse depends: evidence, truth, objective reality. Brand is not just saying that he did not rape and abuse women. He is saying that there is no cognitive universe in which such allegations could be true because reality itself is manufactured by dark forces.

He knows he is pushing buttons that are already fully wired up. The irony of Brand’s claims that he is being victimised by the mainstream is that the conspiracy-theory gaslighting he depends on is now itself completely mainstream. It is the inside dope, the creed of multibillionaire media moguls such as Elon Musk and major political parties such as the Republicans in the US. Seeing is disbelieving. Experience is fantasy. Memory is false. Evidence is fake. Testimony is performance. The accuser must be accused. The perpetrator is the victim.

[keith2011 2,678]

Good article and kind of scary from what ever side you view it. If Brand's own methods are now being used against him by the mainstream media I am tempted to say it serves him right. I certainly can't summon up any sympathy for him even if it may not be "right".

[fraufruit 42,502]

"YouTube said Tuesday that Russell Brand will no longer make money from the video streaming site after several women made allegations of sexual assault against the comedian-turned-influencer.

YouTube said monetization of Brand's account, which has 6.6 million subscribers, has been suspended “following serious allegations against the creator.”

“This decision applies to all channels that may be owned or operated by Russell Brand," the Google-owned video service said.

The suspension means Brand won’t be able to earn money from the ads that run within and alongside YouTube videos, which have titles including “What REALLY Started the Hawaii Fires?” and “Covid Tsar Admits Lockdowns Were NEVER About Science.”

Other channels associated with Brand's main YouTube page include Awakening With Russell, which has 426,000 subscribers, Football Is Nice, which has some 20,000 subscribers, and Stay Free With Russell Brand, which has 22,200 subscribers.

Brand still has a presence on Rumble, a video site popular with some conservatives and far-right groups, where his channel has 1.4 million followers. He also has 11.2 million followers on X, formerly known as Twitter, and 3.8 million on Instagram."

[optimista 5,925]

I am proudly ignorant of who this dude even is. Life is too short to find out.

What is the press NOT addressing whilst they are directing all attention to this ?

I am increasingly disappointed with the BBC news feed. Gone gutter if you ask me. And why are they now referring to England, Scotland and Wales as Nations ? The Welsh Nation anyone ? There is no more mongrel a race than the Brits.

[tor 17,441]

What does he think caused the Hawai'i fires? would google but don't really care...just curious.

[Malcolm Spudbury 3,527]

> Towards the end of the almost 23-minute-long video, Brand turns to the conspiracy that the fires in Hawaii were “started deliberately to benefit rich elites” such as the investment management company and financial services provider BlackRock.

https://www.indy100.com/celebrities/russell-brand-maui-conspiracy-theories

[catjones 1,702]

@fraufruit "Who is "the establishment" exacty and how do they talk 4 women into telling such awful lies? There are big penalties for false accusations."

From what I've read, each of these women had sex with Brand and he has admitted so, but said it was consensual. Why someone would wait all these years to make such allegations is one question that should be asked.

To answer your first question, it does seem more than coincidental that 4 women all had the same awakening at the same time.

As for false allegations; the women are not on trial. Should Brand be found not guilty does not mean their allegations are false; just not provable in court. Brands could file for slander.

"All publicity is good publicity" Phineas T. Barnum.. The keyword is "publicity." which is usually applied to a product receiving attention.

[tor 17,441]

Thanks Mr Spud, that is kind of what I figured.

It is really a shame what happened. Lahaina ... was...such a quaint town. now it will be Radissons and Marriotts. but I digress.

back to the lunatic at hand.

[snowingagain 5,441]

replying to Optmista. Ha. I love a pedant. Have a jolly song, I am using an early version that is wildly out of date because it is the best. None mention Wales though, so the obviously need to start firebombing youtube.

https://youtu.be/5pOFKmk7ytU

[pappnase 2,653]

"why are they now referring to England, Scotland and Wales as Nations"

Because it's complicated. (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/581215/PL13_Devolution_Toolkit_291116_SC_v2.pdf)

Here are the BBC editorial guidelines:- https://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/guidance/reporting-the-uk/

However if the place you saw this was in the context of Rugby Union, then the answer is because the name of one of the most important tournaments in the game is the "Six Nations Championship" and each of the teams is treated as a 'nation'.

In general I don't have a problem with it, in particular because the BBC is slowly merging the international and UK news organisations, I expect to see it used more and more often rather than the more familiar "Countries" or the less accurate "Regions".

There needs to be some word for that level of the administrative hierarchy and "Nation" seems as good as any other.
It's been in use in government and in common speech as far back as I can remember.

[fraufruit 42,502]

@catjones "As for false allegations; the women are not on trial. Should Brand be found not guilty does not mean their allegations are false; just not provable in court."

AFAIK, he hasn't been charged so it might not make it to court.

"To answer your first question, it does seem more than coincidental that 4 women all had the same awakening at the same time."

The accusations were not all made in tandem. One was back in 2020.

"The investigation done by the Times, the Sunday Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches included sexual assault claims from four women. Their alleged encounters with the British media personality are said to have taken place between 2006 and 2013. Two of the purported victims claim to have been assaulted by the Ballers alum in Los Angeles on separate occasions. A third says that she was not only sexually assaulted by physically and emotionally abused. The fourth woman – who issued a complaint to the actor’s literary agent in 2020 – says she was assaulted by him while she was in a relationship with him years ago. She alleges that she was 16 and in school at the time, while the stand-up comic was in his 30s."

[tor 17,441]

Who is this?