The world seems to be getting madder by the minute, I was thinking of the quote "anyone who can make you believe in absurdities can make you commit atrocities" I know it may seem overly dramatic but it appears that if they can make you believe in the impossible or incomprehensible because they say so then it leaves the individual open to doing or saying whatever else they command.
This hit job may not be as "done-deal" as they think it is. It's going to be difficult to prove sexual assault crimes when your target is a sex magnet that hordes of women throw themselves at.
The man has an abundance of choice. Hardly circumstances that would incline one towards unconsensual assault.
But.....in 2023 truth and facts don't matter.
It's all about concocting a crime, finding victims to fit, and baking in a pretense to take down another voice courageous enough to rightly and publicly mock and expose the predator class.
I had always been wary of RB as he has that lovely 33 tattoo on his arm and wrote a children’s book about The Pied Piper. He has also done other symbology. I thought it was too good to be true that he’d seen the light and was on our side as he has so many followers and was allowed to keep his YouTube channel while others on our side saying the same thing, to far fewer followers, were being cancelled left, right and centre. I used to ŵonder if he was the ultimate controlled opposition, but now I’m thinking, was he doing a double bluff and just pretending to have Masonic tendencies as a way of playing with the system? Will we ever know the truth?
"THE PROCESS IS THE PUNISHMENT" is exactly right. But that process needs to successfully shut him up, sever his connections to genpop, and get Russell out of the public square ASAP.
Three angles of attack seem to be the preferred combination: deplatforming demonetizing, criminal/civil charges, reputation destruction (audience alienation).
Russell will be a good litmus because he's as fortified as can be against all three.
Rumble is his main source of online income and growing audience. YouTube demonetized a while back. YT channel growth was handicapped over a year ago. Twitter/X and Instagram follower numbers are >10M. Russell isn't financially vulnerable (at this point). If the oligarchy is so powerful and brazen they can force Rumble and Elon Musk to cancel him prior to any credible criminal charges, it's game over.
Criminal charges, we'll see. I'll be surprised if it goes to court. Assange was set up with those bullshit charges in Sweden as a means to get him under lock and key so the US could start extradition. Russell isn't in quite the same position. We've seen the oligarchy weaponize civil actions in a bogus court to go after Alex Jones but Jones was cancelled before. That billion dollar judgement hasn't much impacted his show or ability to reach his audience. So once again, I'm not convinced this angle of attack will take Russell off the map.
Reputation destruction, audience alienation? Russell has been very open about his past. Daily Mail style hit pieces aren't likely to damage his standing with current supporters. Short of genuine criminality, I can see his audience treating the establishment's coordinated character assassination as evidence of yet more elite lies against one of the most effective celebrity dissenters. Nobody's going to be shocked by any of these dirty shenanigans. It could even rebound to increase Russell's audience.
So, in summary, I agree with Iggy and might go even further to say unless they can bring to bear the criminal case - arrest, mugshot, lurid and convincing testimony - I can see Russell taking a stand against the oligarchy and his audience backing him. Without tangible corporate action to preemptive deplatform - including Rumble and Twitter/X destroying their own reputations - my money is on Russell to weather the storm and not be silenced. 7-4 odds.
In some ways, we agree, provided one believes that Brand is an actual threat actor. This perception may exist really only in the minds of his audience, who project it onto the world.
We just put out a take following the Times article, and in short, we're overall inclined to believe that on balance, factoring a lot of what you flag (we hadn't seen your kind and valuable comments before publishing our latest) Brand is likely to survive and possible weather this because of the commitment of his audience and the nature/timing of the allegations. But, more importantly, we're inclined to see this story as a distraction from the Assange story and other important narratives.
I get what you're saying re: layers of threat actor perception and, of course, the self-serving distraction potential for the Brand scandal to monopolize the public's news diet will be exploited whether Russ is an op, gadfly truthteller, nascent revolutionary, whatever.
Frankly, the media information ecosystem is so patently an exercise in establishment propaganda operations and mass conditioning every story they publish is a distraction from more important reporting they're not doing on genuinely impactful news, e.g. Assange in Belmarsh, metastasizing biosecurity state, absolute political corruption, corporate criminality, empire violence, etc etc.
Mainstream media (and most so-called independent media) is a f-cking cancer.
As we said in earlier comments, VST's hypothesis is one thing. Our beliefs about Brand are another, and not necessarily particularly settled. In our second article, we explicitly said we did not have a position. We have tried to remain cognisant of the possibility that there is some possibility of him having crossed lines and maybe committed offences.
We mentioned that Brand is "vulnerable" due to his admitted background. Make of that what you will, but it includes vulnerability to manipulation and targeting. This is standard fayre for intelligence services, who run press operations (our hypothesis said explicitly that an attack would be intel services via media going back to US/CIA).
Whether he is being directly taken out or he is a sock puppet through which perception is actively managed and will continue to be used in that way, as your linked article suggests, remains to be seen and that may not be fully knowable.
Kompromat is not just a Russian thing. How many other famous people are compromised by their own behaviour? If you are MI5/6, part of your role is to find assets both on time and ahead of time, and have a way to recruit them by "appealing" appropriately to their motivations. There is often an over-emphasis on positive motivations e.g. ideology, righteousness, helping the asset, paying them, and almost never a "we just blackmailed/honey potted them" admitted to in mainstream statements about intel services and police work. You have to go looking for that. The FBI literally runs its entire domestic terror plot book using blackmail and kompromat of CIs. We have zero doubt that paedophilia is used pro-actively i.e. set up as a honeypot blackmail trap by every intelligence service in the world to acquire and control assets at any level in society.
Is it beyond the realms of possibility that MI5/6 and others have kompromat on Brand and have, at some point, had dealings with him and directed any of his actions, career or status? No, of course not. It's perfectly possible. To what extent, when and how will be unknown to us. Equally, they might not have. It is an assumption by others that Brand is a "threat" to be controlled as an asset, Op or whatever. VST explicitly recognised this. We don't know and we won't.
As your linked article points out, if you cut off far smaller anti-establishment voices for far smaller infractions in the news/comment/opinion space than Brand commits on a daily basis, then why allow Brand to continue building a following? That's an obvious question that would apply to Jimmy Dore and many others who do still operate on YT and SocMed platforms.
Is everyone you see over a certain size compromised and controlled? How would you know?
Here's the problem with your linked article: it expresses a certainty in its judgement about who and what Brand is and how he is run. But what's the nature of the evidence that's based on?
Brand's success past a certain point asserted to be state assisted.
Brand's compromised via sex, drugs etc in the past.
Brand's too popular to be truly anti-establishment and independent.
He would have just been completely cancelled and silenced if he wasn't an Op.
If they shadow ban me, Miri AF, and they don't do it to him, he must be an Op.
He hasn't been treated the same as Milo, so he's an Op.
etc.
You see what the above is? Unevidenced assertions. Opinions. All added up and used to base a statement of certainty on.
Your linked article would have done better to be clear about what it was doing - speculating - and then presenting its opinion with more measure, less certainty and as a possibility with specific ways to test its veracity as time goes on and other information becomes available.
Or Miri AF could actually do some primary journalism and go sniffing.
VST isn't in a position to and wouldn't do primary journalism on Brand under any circumstances. Our interest is not in Brand the man, but in the techniques and circumstances, their patterns and predictability etc that potentially betray a repetitive modus operandi within society. We overlap with your linked article and many others, but what we tried to do was walk a line that specifically acknowledges we don't know the truth and will not. We will only see a theatre production play out on a stage. We'll never know who really wrote the script and how much of it was fact or fiction. What we only know for certain is that we are watching "faction".
What this entire situation and the two-sided (there's actually more than two sides), oppositional paradigm leads to is a loop. You can literally say what it being said about Brand about literally anyone, anywhere. If Grayzone is a provable threat (it is) why has it been allowed an audience on YT etc? Why hasn't that just been killed off and cancelled? It must be an Op.
The world seems to be getting madder by the minute, I was thinking of the quote "anyone who can make you believe in absurdities can make you commit atrocities" I know it may seem overly dramatic but it appears that if they can make you believe in the impossible or incomprehensible because they say so then it leaves the individual open to doing or saying whatever else they command.
This hit job may not be as "done-deal" as they think it is. It's going to be difficult to prove sexual assault crimes when your target is a sex magnet that hordes of women throw themselves at.
The man has an abundance of choice. Hardly circumstances that would incline one towards unconsensual assault.
But.....in 2023 truth and facts don't matter.
It's all about concocting a crime, finding victims to fit, and baking in a pretense to take down another voice courageous enough to rightly and publicly mock and expose the predator class.
The process is the punishment.
I had always been wary of RB as he has that lovely 33 tattoo on his arm and wrote a children’s book about The Pied Piper. He has also done other symbology. I thought it was too good to be true that he’d seen the light and was on our side as he has so many followers and was allowed to keep his YouTube channel while others on our side saying the same thing, to far fewer followers, were being cancelled left, right and centre. I used to ŵonder if he was the ultimate controlled opposition, but now I’m thinking, was he doing a double bluff and just pretending to have Masonic tendencies as a way of playing with the system? Will we ever know the truth?
Maybe it's a warning to Neil Oliver. I've been wondering how both of them have been getting away with it for so long.
They're doing a good job at keeping bums on seats and in front of screens
"THE PROCESS IS THE PUNISHMENT" is exactly right. But that process needs to successfully shut him up, sever his connections to genpop, and get Russell out of the public square ASAP.
Three angles of attack seem to be the preferred combination: deplatforming demonetizing, criminal/civil charges, reputation destruction (audience alienation).
Russell will be a good litmus because he's as fortified as can be against all three.
Rumble is his main source of online income and growing audience. YouTube demonetized a while back. YT channel growth was handicapped over a year ago. Twitter/X and Instagram follower numbers are >10M. Russell isn't financially vulnerable (at this point). If the oligarchy is so powerful and brazen they can force Rumble and Elon Musk to cancel him prior to any credible criminal charges, it's game over.
Criminal charges, we'll see. I'll be surprised if it goes to court. Assange was set up with those bullshit charges in Sweden as a means to get him under lock and key so the US could start extradition. Russell isn't in quite the same position. We've seen the oligarchy weaponize civil actions in a bogus court to go after Alex Jones but Jones was cancelled before. That billion dollar judgement hasn't much impacted his show or ability to reach his audience. So once again, I'm not convinced this angle of attack will take Russell off the map.
Reputation destruction, audience alienation? Russell has been very open about his past. Daily Mail style hit pieces aren't likely to damage his standing with current supporters. Short of genuine criminality, I can see his audience treating the establishment's coordinated character assassination as evidence of yet more elite lies against one of the most effective celebrity dissenters. Nobody's going to be shocked by any of these dirty shenanigans. It could even rebound to increase Russell's audience.
So, in summary, I agree with Iggy and might go even further to say unless they can bring to bear the criminal case - arrest, mugshot, lurid and convincing testimony - I can see Russell taking a stand against the oligarchy and his audience backing him. Without tangible corporate action to preemptive deplatform - including Rumble and Twitter/X destroying their own reputations - my money is on Russell to weather the storm and not be silenced. 7-4 odds.
In some ways, we agree, provided one believes that Brand is an actual threat actor. This perception may exist really only in the minds of his audience, who project it onto the world.
We just put out a take following the Times article, and in short, we're overall inclined to believe that on balance, factoring a lot of what you flag (we hadn't seen your kind and valuable comments before publishing our latest) Brand is likely to survive and possible weather this because of the commitment of his audience and the nature/timing of the allegations. But, more importantly, we're inclined to see this story as a distraction from the Assange story and other important narratives.
Is that the royal "we"? :)
I get what you're saying re: layers of threat actor perception and, of course, the self-serving distraction potential for the Brand scandal to monopolize the public's news diet will be exploited whether Russ is an op, gadfly truthteller, nascent revolutionary, whatever.
Frankly, the media information ecosystem is so patently an exercise in establishment propaganda operations and mass conditioning every story they publish is a distraction from more important reporting they're not doing on genuinely impactful news, e.g. Assange in Belmarsh, metastasizing biosecurity state, absolute political corruption, corporate criminality, empire violence, etc etc.
Mainstream media (and most so-called independent media) is a f-cking cancer.
Keep up the high quality work!
Like other have said, he has the 33 Tattoo and links to the UN, he is essentially Controlled Opposition.
Seems like a specifically timed global distraction operation. I don't give a hoot about Brand or care about his fate,
Moreso interested as to why the whole online world is chipping in their 2c, and proclaiming their side on "the matter."
https://miri.substack.com/p/the-re-branding-of-russell
This is an interesting take on the situation!
Thanks for the heads up on this perspective.
As we said in earlier comments, VST's hypothesis is one thing. Our beliefs about Brand are another, and not necessarily particularly settled. In our second article, we explicitly said we did not have a position. We have tried to remain cognisant of the possibility that there is some possibility of him having crossed lines and maybe committed offences.
We mentioned that Brand is "vulnerable" due to his admitted background. Make of that what you will, but it includes vulnerability to manipulation and targeting. This is standard fayre for intelligence services, who run press operations (our hypothesis said explicitly that an attack would be intel services via media going back to US/CIA).
Whether he is being directly taken out or he is a sock puppet through which perception is actively managed and will continue to be used in that way, as your linked article suggests, remains to be seen and that may not be fully knowable.
Kompromat is not just a Russian thing. How many other famous people are compromised by their own behaviour? If you are MI5/6, part of your role is to find assets both on time and ahead of time, and have a way to recruit them by "appealing" appropriately to their motivations. There is often an over-emphasis on positive motivations e.g. ideology, righteousness, helping the asset, paying them, and almost never a "we just blackmailed/honey potted them" admitted to in mainstream statements about intel services and police work. You have to go looking for that. The FBI literally runs its entire domestic terror plot book using blackmail and kompromat of CIs. We have zero doubt that paedophilia is used pro-actively i.e. set up as a honeypot blackmail trap by every intelligence service in the world to acquire and control assets at any level in society.
Is it beyond the realms of possibility that MI5/6 and others have kompromat on Brand and have, at some point, had dealings with him and directed any of his actions, career or status? No, of course not. It's perfectly possible. To what extent, when and how will be unknown to us. Equally, they might not have. It is an assumption by others that Brand is a "threat" to be controlled as an asset, Op or whatever. VST explicitly recognised this. We don't know and we won't.
As your linked article points out, if you cut off far smaller anti-establishment voices for far smaller infractions in the news/comment/opinion space than Brand commits on a daily basis, then why allow Brand to continue building a following? That's an obvious question that would apply to Jimmy Dore and many others who do still operate on YT and SocMed platforms.
Is everyone you see over a certain size compromised and controlled? How would you know?
Here's the problem with your linked article: it expresses a certainty in its judgement about who and what Brand is and how he is run. But what's the nature of the evidence that's based on?
Brand's success past a certain point asserted to be state assisted.
Brand's compromised via sex, drugs etc in the past.
Brand's too popular to be truly anti-establishment and independent.
He would have just been completely cancelled and silenced if he wasn't an Op.
If they shadow ban me, Miri AF, and they don't do it to him, he must be an Op.
He hasn't been treated the same as Milo, so he's an Op.
etc.
You see what the above is? Unevidenced assertions. Opinions. All added up and used to base a statement of certainty on.
Your linked article would have done better to be clear about what it was doing - speculating - and then presenting its opinion with more measure, less certainty and as a possibility with specific ways to test its veracity as time goes on and other information becomes available.
Or Miri AF could actually do some primary journalism and go sniffing.
VST isn't in a position to and wouldn't do primary journalism on Brand under any circumstances. Our interest is not in Brand the man, but in the techniques and circumstances, their patterns and predictability etc that potentially betray a repetitive modus operandi within society. We overlap with your linked article and many others, but what we tried to do was walk a line that specifically acknowledges we don't know the truth and will not. We will only see a theatre production play out on a stage. We'll never know who really wrote the script and how much of it was fact or fiction. What we only know for certain is that we are watching "faction".
What this entire situation and the two-sided (there's actually more than two sides), oppositional paradigm leads to is a loop. You can literally say what it being said about Brand about literally anyone, anywhere. If Grayzone is a provable threat (it is) why has it been allowed an audience on YT etc? Why hasn't that just been killed off and cancelled? It must be an Op.
Ad infinitum.
That level of thinking is inadequate.