I don't like Brand's comedy, but this is fairly fucking brilliant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YR4CseY9pk

I saw this interview yesterday and was once again impressed by Russell's enthusiastic intellect. He's well educated and smart as well as funny. I wish the interview had been longer.

I liked the part when Paxman was honestly surprised at Russell's religiosity; in the UK, it's generally true that the smarter you are, the less religious you are and most people work on that assumption. TBH, I'd always assumed that he was religious because his values seemed imbued with a cross-fertilisation of christianity, new-age paganism & eastern philosophies. I don't think Russell has an official doctrine but he seems to be some sort of pantheist with interventionalist leanings.

For me it was how he explained why he doesn't vote and never has. It's exactly the reason why I don't vote myself. No political party in this current system seems to be capable of the change I would want as a voter, so I don't vote. It's not out of apathy.

(October 25, 2013 at 8:51 am)Ben Davis Wrote: I saw this interview yesterday and was once again impressed by Russell's enthusiastic intellect. He's well educated and smart as well as funny. I wish the interview had been longer.

I liked the part when Paxman was honestly surprised at Russell's religiosity; in the UK, it's generally true that the smarter you are, the less religious you are and most people work on that assumption. TBH, I'd always assumed that he was religious because his values seemed imbued with a cross-fertilisation of christianity, new-age paganism & eastern philosophies. I don't think Russell has an official doctrine but he seems to be some sort of pantheist with interventionalist leanings.

He's a hipster who rarely makes much sense when he tries to use long words, his religion seems to me to be a blend of non nonsensical unspecific spirituality combined with the nice parts of christianity.

ALTHOUGH, I did like this interview and he seems to be making sense so far in this interview.

I find sadly most of his words are going to be ignored. Not sure how much crap will have to happen until the populationo of the world has had enough.

(October 25, 2013 at 10:35 am)bladevalant546 Wrote: I find sadly most of his words are going to be ignored. Not sure how much crap will have to happen until the populationo of the world has had enough.

Indeed. Once again, his attacks on the passivity and apathy, which typify a great part of the British political landscape, hit home.

The thing is Ben, this is being held up by the American partisan paradigm and the total disillusioning of the population to keep anyone lower than the 10% down. I wished we have enough people to meet up and actually sacrifice to get a peaceful revolution started and start talking.

He fits into the statistics showing that one time non voters do not tend to come back.

Other than that I find not voting to be something arrogant and dumb.

The whole revolution thing is just wishful thinking in my opinion, or at the very least it won't happen for a good while.

The powers that be are too entrenched to let any thought of toppling them build up any real steam, and frankly people like myself who agree with much of what Brand says in this interview are just too lazy to really go out there and do anything.

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(October 25, 2013 at 11:22 am)The Germans are coming Wrote: Other than that I find not voting to be something arrogant and dumb.

And why is that? I'm dumb because I refuse to vote in a system I don't believe in? A system I think is flawed? How exactly does that make me dumb?

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(October 25, 2013 at 11:22 am)The Germans are coming Wrote: He fits into the statistics showing that one time non voters do not tend to come back.

Oh and he said he'd never voted at all, not sure what you mean by this.

I have some friends who get real upset when I mention anything political. Their of the mindset "if you don't vote, you have no right to say ANYTHING about politics". Which is just as well, because I don't like politics anyway. I've never voted, not registered to vote, for the same reason Russell was so passionate about.

Here we have option A, which is really a shit option and I don't know why anyone would want it
Here we have option B, which is just as much shit but it's got a little more hair on it's head.
Here we have option C, whom you probably don't recognize because they didn't have a lot of money for their political campaign, but we have to act like we're giving you choices.