While everyone's attention was elsewhere...

The saga over the allegations made against Russell Brand continues. There appear to be two main components to this saga. The first being the content of the allegations and the broader discussion about male entitlement and behaviour towards women. The second concerns the growing suspicion that what appears to be the taking down of Brand has very little to do with the welfare of women who've come into contact with him, and a lot to do with shutting up someone many regard as an 'alternative voice'.

As I mentioned in my previous post - We don't need 'leaders', 'voices' or false idols for our revolution 18.9.23 - with the rumours that have been circulating for quite a few years about Brand's conduct with women, he was the low hanging fruit ready to pluck as and when it suited the authorities and their mates in the legacy media to do so. Which they duly did, hence the ongoing shitshow which is getting a heck of a lot of attention. I did also comment about hero worshipping people with questionable reputations that could result in them, and the message they're communicating, being taken down when deemed necessary.

A lot has been written since these allegations surfaced. Out of all that has been written, this piece aimed at prompting a discussion is probably one of the more interesting takes:

DISCUSS: The Russell Brand “Investigation” - OffGuardian | 18.9.23

Literally everyone is talking about it, in very predictable ways.

The people that hated Brand already, that objected to his Covid skepticism or criticism of the mainstream media, are all jumping at the chance to call him a sexual predator.

While the people who agree with him already are claiming it’s all a set up. That he’s being targeted by the same media he rails against in his videos.

We – as usual – are declining the invited binary, while pointing out that the law requires people to be assumed innocent until proven guilty

The piece below is interesting in that the dynamic in how Brand is being taken down is laid bare for all to see. It really does appear to be about discrediting the message he (and many others) are trying to get across rather than holding him to account over the allegations that have been made against him. As detailed in this piece, the UK government are pretty open about their push to get content hosts to effectively close Brand down:

Murdoch Says the Media is in Cahoots With Elites on Same Day as the UK Government Goes Full Orwellian - The Naked Emperor's Newsletter | 21.9.23

In total there were 63 clauses in the Magna Carta but only four are still valid today. One of these clauses is as follows:

“No free man shall be seized, imprisoned, dispossessed, outlawed, exiled or ruined in any way, nor in any way proceeded against, except by the lawful judgement of his peers and the law of the land”.

But apparently the UK Government no longer has to follow this clause anymore and are actively trying to ruin a man before a lawful judgement has been made. I’m of course referring to the Russell Brand investigation from the weekend which I discussed yesterday. And as I said yesterday, we have no idea if he is guilty or not but he must remain innocent until proven guilty.

Today, Dame Caroline Dinenage MP, Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee wrote a number of furious letters. Clearly in her mind, Russell is guilty. No trial is needed and he must have all his income removed immediately.

It should be noted that Dame Dinenage was the Minister of State for Digital and Culture during the Covid 'crisis'. It should also be noted that her husband, Mark Lancaster, Baron Lancaster of Kimbolton was Deputy Commander of 77^th Brigade before being promoted to brigadier in August 2020. That's the 77^th Brigade that was tasked with trying to suppress any form of online dissent against the narrative we were being fed during the Covid 'crisis'. They tried but, we're still here:) Which may go some way to explaining why the authorities and their mates in the legacy media have picked the current moment to take Brand down, even though the rumours and concerns about his conduct have been circulating for many years previously.

What is absolutely no surprise whatsoever is that Dame Dineage was also involved in the passage of the Online Safety Bill which was quietly voted to pass on September 19^th while the focus of attention was on Brand. All the Bill now needs is Royal assent which it will no doubt get. This piece a pretty good job of explaining the implications of the Bill:

UK quietly passes “Online Safety Bill” into law - Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | 20.9.23

Essentially, the pandemic narrative broke because the current mechanisms of censorship didn’t work well enough. In response, the government has just legalised and out-sourced their silencing of dissent.

See, the government isn’t going to actually censor anyone themselves, protecting it from pro-free speech criticism. Rather, huge financial pressure will be applied on tech giants to be “responsible” and “protect the vulnerable”. Meaning de-platforming and cancelling independent media via increasingly opaque “terms of service violations”

The Bill allows for government to apply financial pressure to the tech giants to do the dirty work of clamping down on anything deemed to be 'misinformation'. What it's actually doing is codifying something that has already been taking place as we and may other dissidents and malcontents have been finding out to our cost. Namely that our reach on social media platforms such as Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter) has been getting throttled out of existence for some time now.

For the moment, we have this platform here on Substack which appears to be free speech tolerant. It's a platform where the number of readers we're getting is steadily growing. We're not taking it for granted in any way, so we're already thinking about how we can operate should we lose this platform or it stops supporting freedom of speech.

We are where we are. Facing up to the fact that despite the rhetoric we've come out with in the past, we've over relied on the Net to get our message across. What we're now going through is a harsh reality check on the follies of relying on the Net. We've got some thinking and then some work to do on other, more creative ways of being able to say what needs to be said without being stifled in the process.