• ZeroCool@feddit.chOP
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    1 year ago

    Yeah, I know a lot of people thought he was a reasonably smart dude with some interesting insights. But when you think about it he’s always been very superficial. There’s not much depth to any of his takes. He’s just charismatic and speaks like he keeps a pocket thesaurus in his jacket.

    • ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      He a junkie you would see rambling at a bus stop incoherently. The difference is an expanded vocabulary and a he’s been on TV.

      • GladiusB@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        He was funny at one point. But he never grew past the need for the attention and didn’t branch out of teenager years.

    • SailorMoss@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      When I was poor and I complained about inequality they said I was bitter. Now I’m rich and I complain about inequality they say I’m a hypocrite. I’m starting to think they just don’t want to talk about inequality. —Russell Brand

      Still one of my favorite quotes, it’s unfortunate that I won’t really be able to use it any more.

      Brand used to be a legit socialist back in the day. The longer he had money, the harder I think was for him to continue to understand the struggle of the common people. Either that or its audience capture like what happened to Dave Rueben.

      The YouTube channel the Kavernacle has done some good coverage on his drift to the right.

      • DessertStorms@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        He definitely didn’t come up with that line, I’m sure you could find an attribution to something virtually identical said a century ago, and several times since.
        I just watched a program about this, and he was a creep from the get go.
        A guy vaguely understanding class struggles doesn’t make him a socialist nor a good guy.

        • SailorMoss@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          I’m pretty sure he described himself as a socialist once upon a time. I’m not one to gate keep what people call themselves.

          But yeah just because he’s a socialist that doesn’t make him a good person. Marx probably had an unclaimed child with his servant girl.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Marx was an utter piece of shit in many ways. He just had some very good ideas. I’ve always wondered how many of them can be attributed to Engles though.

          • DessertStorms@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Hitler called himself a socialist too, that’s a pretty low bar… 🤦‍♀️

            All you’ve done so far is attempt to derail the conversation about Brand being a rapist…

            • SailorMoss@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              I’m sorry that’s not my intention. Do you think it would be best if we delete this thread?

              I was just working through how my perception of him had changed over the years. I don’t want to downplay his alleged crimes.

              • DessertStorms@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                I appreciate that you didn’t mean to, but making it about him and whatever good he supposedly did, in a conversation about the several women he raped (and however many more he “just” assaulted), is at best highly inappropriate (and at worst is a well known derailing tactic used by those looking to defend a rapist and/or discredit his victims). Deleting the thread probably won’t do much, but learning from this for the future will.

                Part of rape culture is the massively false idea that “nice guys” don’t rape, ignoring the fact that many rapists and abusers are experts at manipulating everyone around them (rapists “infiltrating” leftist circles, especially feminist ones, to gain access to victims, as well as the language to disarm their defences, is sadly not at all unusual).

                I would highly recommend watching the Dispatches episode that aired about this last night if you can. In several of his performances/appearances he basically admits to putting an act on to get people to ignore how shitty he really is (as well as graphic descriptions of what we now know were some of his assaults, which he used as part of his comedy routine).