Originally Posted to Reddit March 16th 2022
No jokes, no japes, no humour this time. One thing I’ve learned over the last few months following Russell is his capacity to misattribute and obscure sources. Along with his blatant cherry-picking of content, often from within a single source, and relying on opinion writing as if it was news journalism, it is clear that, despite his protestations, Russell Brand does not care for any standard of journalistic integrity.
Nothing could throw that into sharper relief than his post to YouTube of March 15th whining about social media “censorship” on the same day that two Fox News journalists died while covering the war in Ukraine. One day after another US video journalist was killed, and less than a month after Sky News released terrifying footage of a news crew taking fire as they drove through Ukraine.
Russell likes to present himself as an alternative to traditional news organizations even as he leeches off them. It’s been said before that Russell has no skin in the game and the stark comparison of his gob-shite YouTube videos with frontline journalists further reinforces this point.
The sad thing is that Russell used to do things. Remember when he helped set up a cafe to support recovering addicts? Or when he loaned his voice to Mums protesting against evictions? Making documentaries addressing addiction and recovery? Issues he cared about and acted on.
The source article for Russell’s video is a piece by another self-proclaimed journalist and certified armchair quarter-back, Caitlin Johnstone. It’s barely worth going over, and it covers much of the same old hackneyed ground that these idiots like to fetishize.
Social media “censorship” – it’s been pointed out countless times, these are private organizations who can make their own decisions on the standards they apply to users of their sites.
NATO provoked Putin – Putin is capable of inventing whatever justification he wants. And he did. He has also claimed that he is de-Nazifying Ukraine and stated that Ukraine shouldn’t exist and was only created by Lenin in the early 20th century.
The NATO argument is circular – Why do you want to join Nato? Russia might invade us. Why would Russia invade you? We want to join Nato – and it is negated by Putin’s “Ukraine isn’t really a thing” argument, which reveals his underlying Russian chauvinism and imperial ambitions. It also ignores that Putin invaded even though Ukraine is not a member of Nato was not about to become a member of Nato. This argument – that the West should not provoke Putin by forbidding Ukraine to join western institutions – also deprives Ukrainians of their autonomy and sovereignty. It is imperialism through the back door. You could argue that it is the same as the expulsion of Taiwan from the UN because we do not want to upset China or refusing to allow Palestine to become a member of the UN.
And to publish a video the day after claiming that Biden was insincere on sanctions, complaining that Russian media is being too severely sanctioned? Make up your mind, Russell.
The article claims that western powers are “purporting” to defend “truth and freedom” in Ukraine. The truth is that Western powers are trying to support Ukraine against invasion from its more powerful and larger neighbor.
The idea that western powers are claiming to be engaged in some kind of high-minded moral crusade is a strawman. Once established, bad faith actors can use the strawman argument to undermine support for Ukraine by pointing to supposed moral failures and false equivalencies in both Ukraine and the West.
The whole thing stinks and is entirely insincere. Once again, gob-shites masquerading as journalists sit in their ivory towers, huff each other’s farts, and complain because they might lose their Twitter privileges. Meanwhile, UNESCO has recorded 400 killings of journalists in the last five years.
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