Sanctions???? Smanctions!!!111!!

Originally Posted on Wordpress March 15th 2022

Surely we can all agree that, if sanctions are inadequate, we should try and toughen them up? Not so fast! Maybe the answer is to do nothing at all…

Hello you 5.1 million blossoming onions, grass-fed organic trolls, and yoga adjacent wine aunts! Just a reminder that Russell does have a live tour planned for the UK. COVID numbers are on the rise again, so the maskless group hug is at your own risk. You can find details of the venues on Russell’s website so feel free to write to them asking for their position on the Ukraine crisis and if it is compatible with hosting a Putin apologist like Russell Brand.

Apologies, this is a long one, but here we go! 

On the 13th of March Russell released a video of himself reading an article by Julia Rock and David Sirota on Sirota’s new-media news site, the Daily Poster.

David Sirota is a journalist, former Bernie speechwriter, and the Oscar-nominated creator of the recent Netflix hit satire about COVID denialism “Don’t Look Up”. Rather an ironic choice, considering that Russell has spent the last two years telling people to look left, look right, look down – look any direction other than “up” (to stretch a metaphor). He is an editor for Russell’s current source du jour, the heavily left-leaning Jacobin magazine (Note: for all of you all telling me Russell is fighting against an exclusively left-leaning media, you might want to reconsider your position).

Before we get too deep into the article though, I’d like to make a couple of points.

Firstly, if you’re interested in learning about how the financial sector in London became critical to the rise of Putin and the Oligarchs (NOT an early signing to Atlantic Records), I would recommend listening to this podcast episode from the New Statesman magazine.  It is almost certain that Putin would not exist in the same form he does today were it not for the British financial industry and this piece shows how you can have a grown-up discussion that negs on the west, without boostin’ for Putin. I’d also endorse this one for a more detailed discussion around the possible impact and usefulness of sanctions against Putin.

Secondly, isn’t it great to see Russell back on comedy form! The silly voices, the patronizing mockery! I’m so glad we’re past all that self-conscious “war is bad” stuff and we can just cheer the fuck up! It is often said that comedy is tragedy plus time. But how much time? Well, according to Russell, three weeks after the start of an invasion, or zero time if you consider the invasion is ongoing.

Now, onto the video! I don’t want to spend too much time defending credit Suisse. None at all actually. They are undoubtedly a source of evil in this world and have facilitated the misappropriation of the world’s resources to line the pockets of a tiny minority. In doing so they have spread death and misery across the globe. Or, to use the technical term for them, they are “an international bank”.

Rock and Sirota’s article seeks to bring together several threads to insinuate some kind of linkage:

1. At his state of the union, Biden adopted a hardline stance claiming that sanctions would punish Putin’s cronies.
2. Credit Suisse works with Russian oligarchs and may have provided them advice on how to hide wealth ahead of sanctions (previous to the current situation).
3. The US Government is consulting on a waiver that would allow Credit Suisse to continue to manage pension funds despite having been convicted of crimes that would legal prevent them from doing so.
4. Credit Suisse has donated to Biden and other democrats.
5. Credit Suisse was shown leniency by an Obama-era official who subsequently received donations from the banking sector for his own political campaign.

The implication, I guess, is that Biden is not sincere in sanctioning Russians because he’s lenient on Credit Suisse – because they donated to his campaign – and this helps oligarchs.

It’s fairly tenuous and that’s probably the reason prior reporting insinuating a quid pro quo between the DNC and Credit Suisse hasn’t gained as much traction as it could have. We would like there to be a quid-pro-quo, it’s a nice story that distracts from the fact that “too big to fail” institutions hold us to ransom: businesses use the threat that penalties could harm ordinary shareholders and employees, while banks get to hand wring about investors (especially retirement) and depositors. And the simple story of a corrupt transaction negates the reality that American politics is awash with corporate cash and there’s enough “soft” corruption in the system that makes trying to draw connections between “legitimate” donations and specific policies or acts about as futile as pointing to a turd in a cesspool and declaring “that’s the stinky one, there!”. 

But, of course, to Russell, it’s a done deal and the quid-pro-quo is proven! This is the smoking gun that Biden is getting paid by the very people he’s trying to sanction. And Russell is giddy as a goose! Lots of funny voices and mockney mockery! You can’t believe that Biden is actually sanctioning the Oligarchs? How can you trust a politician who receives donations from financial institutions? In Russell’s eyes, this totally invalidates Biden’s ability to levy sanctions. There’s a kind of “Caesar’s wife” thing going on I guess.

It’s not clear what Russell is asking for on a practical level. Does he think we need more sanctions? Is he campaigning for the sanctions to be more thoroughly implemented?

The proposed waiver for Credit Suisse has not been approved. You could easily object to it. If you were David Sirota or Russell Brand and you actually gave two fucks about this, you could give instructions to your readers/viewers on how to compose a letter to object to the waiver. You could organize without too much effort.

But that’s not the point, is it?

No, all they seek to do is cast shade on efforts to end the war through diplomatic means. This is curious because it is precisely the position taken by Yanis Varifoukis when he visited with Russell last week. That we must use diplomatic, rather than military, means to reach a solution with Putin. However, it looks like the only acceptable diplomatic approach is complete acquiescence to Putin’s demands.

And where would Russell be if he applied the same moral test he demands from Biden to himself? Can someone whose Australian tour was canceled due to COVID lockdowns really be trusted to opine on COVID restrictions? Can someone who was caught in a media whirlwind that saw him sacked and jeopardized his entire career be trusted to make pronouncements on the media? Can someone who owns a $5M estate in Henley on Thames and a $3M house in Hollywood lecture ordinary people about wealth inequality and the danger of elites? Can someone who’s a fan of the Premier League talk about Yemen or Ukraine given the amount of Suadi and Russian money swilling through the UK football?

There’s more, but you get the idea.

When it’s convenient for Russell he applies an unrealistic purity test to others that he doesn’t apply to himself. Throughout his life, he has engaged in morally questionable activities and as someone who advocates for the 12 step program, you would hope his awareness of such failures would reflect on his attitudes to others. But apparently not.

On a side note, if you click through to the Open Secrets link provided in the article you get a bit more granularity on Credit Suisse’s political spending. While they spent 72% of their donations on democrats in 2020, previous election cycles have seen them almost always disproportionately donating to republicans.

Another interesting snippet: their average donation to senatorial candidates in the 2020 cycle was $1,515. One notable exception was a certain sen. B Sanders of Vermont, who received $5,603. Does Bernie Bro Russell or Bernie speechwriter David Sirota think this invalidates Bernie’s ability to criticize the financial industry? Should he give the money back to avoid the appearance of impropriety? How does this affect his ability to act as Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee?

Back to Russell who, in the last two weeks, he has given us:

1. The west has no moral authority to criticize Putin because of Iraq/Palestine/Yemen.
2. Biden has no moral authority to criticize Putin because of Hunter’s laptop.
3. Biden has no moral authority to sanction Putin because Credit Suisse donated to his campaign.

Bit of a theme developing. No?

Russell goes on to talk about Guardian articles on oligarch money in London and the UK’s Golden visa scheme. The material is good, but Russell manages to have more shit takes that don’t actually extend much beyond “everybody in the west is bad”, but somehow fails to have much of a go at the people currently waging war against civilians in Ukraine. Even when he claims that Facebook and Twitter have been shut down, he appears to imply this was due to the actions of the companies or western governments, rather than the Russian state blocking the internet.

And, of course, ultimately, Russell comes to the conclusion that Sanctions are not intended to harm the oligarchs, but simply punish ordinary people in Russia, who might look a bit like you, me, or even humble old Russell Brand himself! Yes, that’s right. Russell, sat in his $5M estate in Henley on Thames, wants you to know that he’s “one of us”.

And, coincidently enough, taking stuff off of rich people is not the answer to the world’s problems!

That’s enough from me, for now. What do YOU think? Is Russell right and no one can ever criticize Vladimir Putin ever, ever, ever? Except, maybe, for Mother Teresa herself? But wait, wasn’t there something about her and Arafat or something? And does the “spring forward” clock change contribute to waking up in the middle of the night and being unable to get back to sleep? Or is that just caused by doom scrolling news feeds?

What’s causing you to wake up in the middle of the night in a state of existential dread? Be sure to comment below!