What the UK Parliament is doing to Russell Brand is blatantly authoritarian and is actively killing the very liberal values that parliament claims it upholds. Ordinary citizens all across the West are being caught off-guard by what’s happening in our societies.
– Rumble received a letter from a UK parliamentary committee regarding allegations against Russell Brand, a content creator on the platform.
– Rumble’s CEO, Chris Pavlovski, responded by rejecting the UK Parliament’s demands, emphasizing Rumble’s commitment to a free internet and opposing censorship.
– Collective resistance and non-compliance with authoritarian systems, as seen in historical events like the fall of the Berlin Wall are becoming increasingly necessary.
Yesterday, the CEO of Rumble, Chris Pavlovski, announced that he had received what he called an ‘extremely disturbing letter’ from a government committee in the UK parliament. Here’s the letter that was sent to Rumble:
“Dear Chris,
I am writing concerning the serious allegations regarding Russell Brand. In the context of his being a content provider on Rumble with more than 1.4 million followers.
“The Culture, Media and Sport Committee is raising questions with the broadcasters and production companies who previously employed Mr Brand to examine both the culture of the industry in the past and whether that culture still prevails today.
“However, we are also looking at his use of social media, including on Rumble where he issued his preemptive response to the accusations made against him by The Sunday Times and Channel 4’s Dispatches. While we recognize that Rumble is not the creator of the content published by Mr Brand, we are concerned that he may be able to profit from his content on the platform.
“We would be grateful if you could confirm whether Mr Brand is able to monetise his content, including his videos relating to the serious accusations against him. If so, we would like to know whether Rumble intends to join YouTube in suspending Mr Brand’s ability to earn money on the platform.
“We would also like to know what Rumble is doing to ensure that creators are not able to use the platform to undermine the welfare of victims of inappropriate and potentially illegal behavior.
Yours sincerely, Dame Caroline Dinenage”
This letter was written to not just Rumble but also YouTube, which capitulated to their demands to their everlasting shame. It was sent as well to TikTok almost verbatim. That letter was written by a member of Britain’s Conservative Party. She is a Tory and is supposedly a representative of Britain’s conservative voters. That is what passes as a conservative today in the UK in terms of their ruling political class.
Needless to say, the Rumble executive Chris Pavloski responded to that verbal authoritarianism:
“Today we received an extremely disturbing letter from a committee chair in the UK Parliament. While Rumble obviously deplores sexual assault, rape, and all serious crimes, and believes that both alleged victims and the accused are entitled to a full and serious investigation, it is vital to note that recent allegations against Russell Brand have nothing to do with content on Rumble’s platform. Just yesterday, YouTube announced that, based solely on these media accusations, it was barring Mr. Brand from monetizing his video content. Rumble stands for very different values. We have devoted ourselves to the vital cause of defending a free internet – meaning an internet where no one arbitrarily dictates which ideas can or cannot be heard, or which citizens may or may not be entitled to a platform.
“We regard it as deeply inappropriate and dangerous that the UK Parliament would attempt to control who is allowed to speak on our platform or to earn a living from doing so. Singling out an individual and demanding his ban is even more disturbing given the absence of any connection between the allegations and his content on Rumble. We don’t agree with the behavior of many Rumble creators, but we refuse to penalize them for actions that have nothing to do with our platform.
“Although it may be politically and socially easier for Rumble to join a cancel culture mob, doing so would be a violation of our company’s values and mission. We emphatically reject the UK Parliament’s demands.”
God bless Chris and God bless Rumble. Viva Frei said, ‘We now know this was never about Russell Brand. This was a political pretext for governments across the world to coordinate with social media companies to acquire total control over dissenting influencers!’
What is happening to Russell has to be understood in light of what scholars are calling refeudalization where our society is increasingly resembling the kind of caste system akin to the class structure of the Middle Ages. In a refeudalized world, the presumption of innocence is gone. It’s been replaced with actual heresy hunters who use a comparable ideological fundamentalism known as wokeness to brand those who dissent from the ruling establishment as ‘heretics,’ or as racists, sexists, bigots, and homophobes. These ‘heretics’ by definition, must be excommunicated.
Modern authoritarianism is generally defined as the rule by the few in the name of the many. It involves, in every case, the amassing of power and wealth in the hands of the very few and the reconstitution of society to protect the power and affluence of those very few. A key characteristic of authoritarian regimes is the control over life chances. The more the regime can control your employment, education, finances, access to banking, and ability to travel, the more it sends the message that any opposition to the regime can affect your life and the life of your family. The more the state controls your life chances the less control you have over your life.
This is a concept we have heard before: ‘You’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy.’ This is the kind of society that a system of refeudalization has ushered in. We are living in a world where the power of the very few increasingly controls our life chances. They control our access to all the various opportunities to improve our lives. The control of life chances is inextricably linked with the new ideological fundamentalism of wokeness. As you heard in that letter to Rumble. What wokeness has essentially done is it has sanctified the victim and the marginalized.
Harming, offending, and aggrieving the victimized in any way is considered today an unpardonable sin. It’s not a judgment that is enforced so much by the courts. It is enforced instead by heresy hunters. This is a new breed of ‘Grand Inquisitors’ whose declarations alone are enough to trigger the mechanisms of social cancellation. A person could be convicted of murder, but still have a bank account, but the same can’t be said of someone accused of violating politically correct norms.
This is the world that we live in today. This is not the world of Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher. Their magic doesn’t work in this world! This is a neofeudalized caste-system world that is going to require a fundamentally different response. That is where the response from Rumble comes in. This refeudalized, authoritarian world only operates as long as we comply with it. That is why it constantly defers to tactics of intimidation and threat. The prerequisite for this system is our compliance, and what the CEO of Rumble did is what we must all do!
We must all band together today and say ‘We will not comply!’ This is eventually what brought down the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union. When a critical mass of the population rises and says together: “no more, we will not comply” there is nothing the very few can do. We have seen it happen before. Now it is our time to stand and say ‘We emphatically reject their demands!’
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