{"id":6985,"date":"2013-10-31T16:25:27","date_gmt":"2013-10-31T20:25:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/?p=6985"},"modified":"2013-11-01T12:59:16","modified_gmt":"2013-11-01T16:59:16","slug":"a-new-brand-of-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/?p=6985","title":{"rendered":"<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">A new &#8220;Brand&#8221; of politics?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Russell Brand\u2019s \u201cNewsnight\u201d interview with Jeremy Paxman has gone viral across social media, attracting over a million YouTube views a day since it first aired on October 23.\u00a0 The English comedian, actor, radio host, and author who is notorious for incorporating drug use,\u00a0alcoholism, and\u00a0promiscuity\u00a0into his comedic material, was recently appointed as guest editor\u00a0of this week\u2019s issue of London\u2019s political and cultural magazine,\u00a0<i>New Statesman<\/i>. \u00a0The interview began with the question:\u00a0 \u201cRussell Brand, who are you to edit a political magazine?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>See what he had to say about that question and more in this video:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3YR4CseY9pk?rel=0\" height=\"315\" width=\"420\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Wow, is he on to something here?<\/p>\n<p>How do you feel about the fact that he has never voted, and encourages others not to?<\/p>\n<p>Brand says, \u201cIt&#8217;s not that I&#8217;m not voting out of apathy, I&#8217;m not voting out of absolute indifference, and weariness, and exhaustion from the lies, treachery, deceit of the political class that has been going on for generations now and has now reached a fever pitch, where we have a disenfranchised, disillusioned, despondent underclass that [is] not being represented by that political system, so voting for it is tacit complicity with that system.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>How many other people feel this way, too, but don\u2019t have the courage to say it?\u00a0 Do we actually, as a society, have influence or power in the way our current voting system is structured?\u00a0 \u00a0Or are we willing to consider the possibility that if we want to see some significant changes in our current paradigm, we may be called upon to take some significant actions?<\/p>\n<p>Do the ideas which Russell Brand shares represent the kind of revolution Humanity is yearning for? \u00a0These certainly are the types of radical changes that will rattle powerful cages and cause the status quo to quiver in its tightly laced shoes, but is someone like Russell Brand too unrealistic, too \u201cout there,\u201d too unbelievable, too incredible?\u00a0 \u00a0He has been criticized for not offering actual and practical solutions.\u00a0 But might it be possible that the solutions will unearth themselves in our choice to take the first step, which could be as simple as listening to each other?<\/p>\n<p>For so many, \u201cpolitics\u201d has become a dirty, ugly word.\u00a0 The more divisive and complicated our political system gets, the more disenfranchised and disengaged large segments of our population feel.\u00a0 How do we get to a point collectively where the system we have in place excites and invites?\u00a0 According to Brand, &#8220;Imagining the overthrow of the current political system is the only way I can be enthused about politics.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Is that what it\u2019s going to take?<\/p>\n<p>Are we ready for that kind of a revolution?<\/p>\n<p>I think it&#8217;s just the beginning. \u00a0<em>What do you think?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>(Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor &amp; Administrator of The Global Conversation. She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at\u00a0<span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a href=\"mailto:lisa@theglobalconversation.com\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com<\/span><\/a><\/span>.)<\/em><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Russell Brand\u2019s \u201cNewsnight\u201d interview with Jeremy Paxman has gone viral across social media, attracting over a million YouTube views a day since it first aired on October 23.\u00a0 The English comedian, actor, radio host, and author who is notorious for incorporating drug use,\u00a0alcoholism, and\u00a0promiscuity\u00a0into his comedic material, was recently appointed as guest editor\u00a0of this week\u2019s [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[157],"tags":[1450,231,1453,1451,471,1452,1449,52],"class_list":["post-6985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-romance-and-relationships","tag-jeremy-paxman","tag-lisa-mccormack","tag-new-statesman","tag-newsnight","tag-politics","tag-revolution","tag-russell-brand","tag-the-global-conversation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6985"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7004,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6985\/revisions\/7004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}