The New Statesman may be lamenting the passing of Russell Brand’s status as a “Sexy Communist”, but Russell wants us all to know that he still keeps the red flag flying here. A tricky proposition for old Rus’, can you be a died in the wool trot’ AND a slave of Mammon? Maybe we’ll find that Russell Brand is less of a sexy communist and more of a vulgar capitalist!
Welcome, you awakening fellow travelers on the road to political emancipation! You bold Bolshevists who embody the slogan “Workers of the world unite!” and who know, in your revolutionary zeal, that there is none better to take inspiration from than someone who’s never actually done a day’s proper work in their life! But before you get too deep into throwing off the chains of capitalist oppression to build a society that takes from each according to their ability and gives back according to their need, you should consider indulging in a spot of capitalism by buying the new supplements that Russell is hawking. That’s right, probiotics what he says will calm your little tummy tum in these distressing times and what are mercifully unregulated by those villains and evil capitalists at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)! And while you sit in the Emergency Room waiting for tests to show if the new supplements you’ve been taking are contributing to your apparent bout of lead poisoning, you’ll be glad to know that the resultant cognitive decline will not hinder your enjoyment of Russell Brand! So sit back and watch one of Russell’s YouTube videos, such as this one from February 1st 2023, titled “Oh SH*T, Zelensky Really Just Said That?!”.
I’m going to make three posts on this video because, apparently, I have a tendency to be long-winded and go on a bit (thank you, Mrs. Soup!). The second post will focus on Russell’s sources for this video, the third will take issue with the brain-dead conspiracy theory that Russell is pushing in the video. But today is going to be a shameless ad hominem as we focus on Russell’s Bolshevic bona fides after discovering that Russell is a died-in-the-wool, fellow-traveling, red as the People’s Flag, card-carrying socialist! well, for today, at least.
In the video, Russell reveals himself to be a fierce opponent of “privatization” - spitting out the word with venom as he rails against the perils of capitalism. He compares the policies of the current Ukrainian government to the “brutal neoliberal policies implemented by Chile's far-right Pinochet dictatorship after a CIA backed coup in 1973” and further goes on to show his support for the working man by claiming that “Zielinski's government has imposed some of the world's most aggressive anti-worker policies” - some of the most anti-worker policies in the entire world, no less! He sneers at the forces of “neo-liberalism” as “asset stripping… publicly owned assets selling it off to private organizations when these assets were built using public money”. Russell warns us that the government is nefariously planning on “privatizing most of Ukraine's remaining public sector” and that the ultimate goal “is to sell state-owned Enterprises to private investors”. Russell obviously has deep and sincerely held beliefs about the value of government-operated, state-owned enterprises - well, in Ukraine at least.
Now, one might think that this is a bit topsy-turvy from a man who consistently derides government to the point that he tells people not to vote. But then again, can someone who rejoiced when billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter really claim to be against private ownership? Russell is so hostile to state involvement in business enterprises that he went on to publicize the so-called “Twitter Files”; a hyper-partisan attempt to discredit Twitter’s previous management for colluding with the government against, er, the head of the government, Donald Trump (spoiler alert, they did no such thing).
Russell Brand is a dedicated socialist, except when it comes to the world’s richest man, apparently, and he derides government involvement in business unless it’s in Ukraine. But what can you expect from someone who owns eight Limited companies registered in the UK? Yes, that’s right, Eight! How many do you have?
Eight companies that, between them in 2021, held more than £5 million in assets (that’s more than $6 million US). Up by £2 million from the previous year. Huh? it seems like it wasn’t just big-pharma profiteering during the pandemic.
And those “assets” are pretty much entirely Cash on Hand - what assets do you actually need if your business is uploading videos recorded in your living room to YouTube? It’s £5 million of petty cash! And it doesn’t even account for profits made, dividends issued, or wages paid to himself. That’s $5 million what Russell’s just left lying around - it isn’t in savings accounts, 401Ks, pension accounts, or even humble little old ISAs. $5 million just left down the back of the sofa! Quite the socialist man of the people.
Editorial Note: The information I am presenting here is in the public domain and freely available to anyone with an internet connection. I am not posting links to the sources to avoid accusations of doxxing or otherwise encouraging irl harassment of anyone. It should be further noted that the source documents do not contain the residential addresses for Russell Brand or his family, but rather the registered addresses for Russell’s various businesses, which are all “care of” various lawyers and solicitors.
Back to the blog post!
Russell’s concern over private companies only seems to extend to Ukraine, where his source article denounces western companies “like BlackRock, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and Starlink” for investing in Ukraine. Except, Russell only lists the three banks - JP Morgan, Black Rock, and Goldman Sacks - skipped over Starlink there, the satellite company owned by, you guessed it, world’s richest man Elon Musk! Like all good socialists, Russell wouldn’t want to upset Elon, now, would he?
But maybe it’s just that Russell wants to focus on the banks; maybe, like all good socialists, he just hates all banks. You would never find Russell tolerating such unsavory organizations, oh no!
Or would you? Public records show that Russell has a mortgage with Barclays Bank for the 15th-century pub that he bought to use as a studio for producing his Rumble videos. I sure hope that bank hasn’t done anything wacky or unsavory!
Such as:
- Having to pay a $15m settlement after committing a variety of violations of federal laws governing investment advisers.
- Or, in 2012, by being ordered by HM Treasury to pay £500 million in tax which it had tried to avoid.
- Or, in June 2014, when the US state of New York sued them for $70 million for defrauding investors. Or, in 2015, when they were made to pay $13.75 million in fines and restitution for “automatic” banking transactions made against their customers’ interests and wishes.
- Or being charged by the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) for providing “unlawful financial assistance” to a shady multi-billion dollar deal in Qatar, or money laundering funds siphoned from Equatorial Guinea by the President’s family in 2004.
- Or settling with the US government for $298 million after helping Iran bypass sanctions in 2010.
- Or, in 2012 when they were fined £290 million for manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) and the Euro Interbank Offered Rate (Euribor) - the biggest fine ever imposed by the UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA) and seeing three employees charged by the SFO.
- Or, in 2013, when the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) ordered them to pay a £299 million fine for manipulating the US electricity market, or in May 2014, when the Financial Conduct Authority fined the bank £26 million for fixing gold prices and manipulating the gold market. When socialists say they want a “managed economy”, I don’t think this is what they mean!
- Or, in 2015, when they were penalized a total of $635million by the New York Department of Financial Services for manipulating foreign exchange rates, and using computer systems to exploit fluctuations in exchange rates at their customers’ expense.
- Or, in 2017 when it was revealed that they used sensors to track staff through black boxes in their desks, and in 2020 when they were shown to have used software to track how long employees spent at their desks and warn them if they took excessive breaks.
I suppose we all make mistakes. But for the grace of God, could any one of us rack up over $2 billion of fines and penalties in the last 15 years! But have Barclays actively contributed to the destruction of the planet? Oh, they want to start fracking natural gas at Kirby Misperton in Yorkshire and they helped provide $15.7 billion in finance to the Top 50 oil and gas exporters in 2021, prompting Extinction Rebellion to protest Barclays headquarters in March 2021 . Still, look on the bright side; Russell loves a good protest!
What about the slave trade? Oh, one of its predecessor companies had two managers, a subscriber, and three directors involved in the transatlantic slave trade.
Well, I guess all banks have got dirty hands to some extent, and it’s probably difficult to find a bank that is completely clean, but these guys! I mean, who’s their CEO? Satan?
Oh, wait in 2021 their CEO resigned unexpectedly after it was revealed that he was being investigated due to his ties with Jeffery Epstein!
Russell!
Seriously, though, Russell is building his holier-than-thou reputation as a self-righteous campaigner against gross corruption and corporate malfeasance. Yet, he can’t even be bothered to find a bank with a slightly better attitude towards intercontinental rape and pillage than both Atila the Hun and Gengis Kahn combined!
Pablo Diablo (one of Russell's companies) has a mortgage with Barclays Bank
This is a million pound (plus) investment - the least he could do is actually put some thought into who is funding him. Ethical investing is absolutely a mainstream practice that you’d expect someone who professes to be informed and ethically aware of engaging in. It’s not difficult to find options for ethical banking, there are numerous companies set up for that very purpose. Even just traditional British building societies (similar to US credit unions) are intrinsically more ethical than banks.
If normal, albeit conscientious, British consumers can make the choice to use ethical banks, why can’t Russell? It’s not as if he doesn’t know about these guys; after all, in his Trews days, he encouraged people to boycott Barclays due to their investments in Israel (and again, here) Why does he even need a mortgage? We’ve already seen that he has more than $6 million in petty cash knocking about; why not use that? Well, that brings us back to those Limited companies, doesn’t it? See, that’s the beauty of the Limited company (or a Limited Liability Company): it is capitalism’s greatest innovation, it facilitates the investing of capital while protecting those with the spare capital to invest. It limits the liabilities of the capitalist’s endeavors so that a failure of one enterprise need not inconvenience another. If you or I don’t pay our bills, the debt collectors come knocking, take all our stuff and throw us out on the street. Not so much for Russell and his capitalist ilk! Imagine if you walked into a casino determined to spend only the $100 that you had in your pocket. But while in the casino, after losing that $100, you decide to take out a bank loan and a bunch of credit cards to gamble more money in an effort to recover your losses. You need a place to stay, so you take on a room at the casino hotel, and you eat steak and lobster from the casino restaurant - charge it to the credit cards. Eventually, however, you use up all your credit and have to leave the casino with thousands of dollars in debt. Except, the second you walk out the casino door, that debt is gone! You leave it behind! Your liabilities have been limited! That’s a Limited company. And that’s why Russell Brand, committed socialist, has so many of them. And that’s why he uses a mortgage to buy his pub and convert it to a studio. He doesn’t need to lay out £1,000,000 upfront. If this whole Rumble thing falls apart so that he can’t afford to pay the bills anymore, he gets to walk away scot-free! You or me don’t pay our bills, and we’re out on our f*cking ears! In our journey so far, we’ve managed to reveal Russell’s hypocritical approach to his business partners and his hypocritical approach to private enterprise. Next, we will see his hypocritical approach to news sources, but that’s a story for Part 2 of Russell’s Topsy-Turvy World: RusRus Au Pays des Soviet. But what do you think? Is Russell a socialist, or is he a vulgar capitalist? Or perhaps he is being forced to conform to the conventions of our harsh and cruel capitalist society? Can a true socialist just leave $6 million sitting about as “petty cash”? And does banking with an organization that you’ve called on people to boycott on ethical grounds make you an unethical tw@, or does it make you a massively hypocritical unethical tw@? But whatever else you think, be sure to like, comment and subscribe, cling-a-ding-ding!
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