Russell Brand: Glenn Greenwald's System Update
VST recommends Greenwald's break down and then your disengagement.
VST intends to spend as little time as possible on the Russell Brand story and the reason why should be clear and obvious from our two previous articles. We recommend you avoid being drawn in to a deliberate mainstream media attention suck, the nature of which is within the construct itself.
VST guessed well enough what would be coming based only on Brand’s denial, with practically zero knowledge of Brand’s reputation and very limited exposure to his media output back catalogue. We read The Times article but have not viewed the Dispatches programme other than seeing a few seconds long clip of the call to Saville and the 2:50 trailer. We never intend to watch the programme.
We laid out what we feel is a reasonably even-handed take on issues inside the story and have thrashed some of that out in the comments with one or two readers.
Now, the excellent Glenn Greenwald has weighed in with his break down and take based upon his experience as a constitutional lawyer and journalist on his show, System Update. We strongly recommend you watch his analysis, which can be found here.
Our precedent work and analysis is our own and in this case, our take is practically matched by Greenwald’s and we are unashamed to point this out to readers and encourage you to compare for yourself. Greenwald goes beyond our take to cover more of Brand’s faux media labelling as “right wing”, and delves into someone’s random theory that Brand has deliberately reinvented himself over the last few years as a reformed character in order to pre-emptively build a defence against what he knew was an impending onslaught of inevitable charges from his past. Greenwald also states that he has known that the media has been actively trawling Brand’s life for 2+ years to get what it has just presented on him. This is a key detail that we flagged and has been now admitted to by the journalists themselves.
The Times admits it’s been at Brand for four years. The TV programme said “a year”, which might be true if The Times did the lifting and Dispatches just did the follow on TV leg work, rather than the primary investigation. However, the programme by default has misled viewers about the full four year extent of the effort the collective media has admitted to here.
In the couple of days since the story broke, The Times now has 28 results for “Russell Brand” covering the last 7 days, and almost all of them are about this story. They have had all of the stories you can now find in The Times stacked up and ready to go.
We said that there was a victim trawl and that in the post Saville world, this can take the form of a “revenge on Saville by proxy”.
Whether Brand did anything wrong is a separate issue that we do not dismiss, and nor does Greenwald.
As we predicted, another accuser has come forth. Police have become involved. We bet that the latest accuser was already known to The Times, was waiting in the wings, and there will be others. Cancellation has begun, starting with elements of his current tour. There will be more stuff chopped very sharply.
Again, how is it so easy to predict the format and the content of the Russell Brand story? Because it is Big Brother’s modus operandi and a minority of us know it and see it for what it is in both format and content.
Greenwald and VST are in agreement about the the architecture. We are also in agreement about the moving parts insofar as there may or may not be truth to some of the accusation but practical questions about timing, adequate evidence and due process (against trial by media) abound.
The political aspects of the story are superficially obvious. You can take or leave subtext, subsurface theories. It’s up to you to go down the various rabbit holes about Freemasonry, PsyOps, controlled opposition and so on. In the comments we’ve entertained and logically run down some of this in response to reader’s contributions. Some rabbit holes aren’t really worth the time but you have to work that out on a sovereign basis.
This story is designed and presented (simultaneously across all UK media entities at once using repetitive slogans) as a time and attention suck that serves a few purposes but you can only be part of a game that gives certain interests what they want if you play along and waste your time with it. The question is what value there is to playing the media’s game?
What benefit is it to you to devote ongoing time and attention to one person’s interactions over various allegations, whether or not they become more? You feed the beast when you engage. There is no significant truth to be found in any of the mainstream presentation of the Brand case, whose type of presentation is solely designed to manipulate your perception for the benefit of people who are not Brand. Even if the allegations are true, you will still never be given the truth from the media. Everything you are given is spin.
You know this, we know this, Greenwald knows this.
The game is, in some respects, to kill your mind and eat your time with this story. Your life is worth far more than that. Some people’s lives aren’t and they are the ones who engage on either side when really, it’s nothing to do with them. Why random people suddenly and self-appointedly believe that they can film themselves spouting unevidenced theories wrapped within virtue signals as if their ideas are the only obvious truth, is beyond us. If you listen closely, there’s always a faint sucking sound in the background. That’s the sound of your soul and life being dragged down their plug holes.
Whether or not you are a Brand fan, do the right thing and do not feed the media beast in any way on this. Due process is the only thing that matters in the here and now, like it would for any citizen. That due process should occur in conditions pursuant to reasonable objectivity. The more you feed the beast, the more you help destroy objectivity.
You know the politics, format and content. You know that lawfare and information weaponisation are persistent MO’s that constantly play out via the media on anything from election fraud, through censorship to attacks on anti-ruling class/establishment characters. Your main personal defence against these attacks on your mind and life - for that is what they are - is to be aware of the signs and the shapes, protect yourself with scepticism and pay minimal attention to the bullshit that doesn’t matter while focusing on the stuff that does. That is how you personally beat the beast instead of feeding it.
By the way, The Times claims that its “work” is so painstaking, thorough and professional that it deserves to be behind a paywall. Paying for this content is the last thing you should do.
You can beat the paywall using a Firefox .xpi plugin, if you really can’t disengge.
We’ll be leaving the whole story from now on, unless there is some incredibly significant surprise that warrants genuine thought. We may back test our position to date in the future but nothing more.
The link to the Greewald video keeps coming up with a Fenwick advertisement! Would you think this is intentional to stop people watching it?
Readers of this fine Substack might want to check Kim Iversen who, like Green Glennwald, covered this subject on her Rumble tonight. Her take was different and - separate to anything specific to RB - it was problematic.
Doesn't it seem like society in a race to the bottom when good honest commentators like Kim Iversen say "fuck due process, let's trust the court of public opinion," and cite OJ and Epstein as evidence of due process failure?
https://rumble.com/v3iv7e8-breaking-down-the-rape-and-sexual-assault-accusations-against-russell-brand.html
Advocates for due process aren't calling for due process as it may be subverted but for due process as a pragmatic ideal: innocent until proven guilty, genuine criminal charges, court trial, full testimonies from all parties, proper competent defense, sober examination of evidence, judgment by a jury of peers, punishment as prescribed by the law.
Imperfect though it may be, no other methodology works as a route to justice. Mob justice, witch hunts, trial by social media pile-on, morality policing by prurient news media: these are the opposite of fair trial. The recent Kyle Rittenhouse murder trial is a perfect example of this distinction.
Not pleased Kim Iversen didn't see the danger in what she was suggesting...