My family once marched in the rain through London protesting the Tory-LibDems attack upon the Disabled (which killed around 120,000 between 2010-2016) and witnessed Russell Brand’s stretched-limo momentarily drive past on a road immediately adjacent to the march – only for Brand to claim later that he was “on the march” himself (he normally landed in a helicopter). George Galloway, of course, never attended any such march and refuses to be associated to this day with any issues regarding “Disability”. His usual tactic – when reacting to examples of his own hypocrisy – is to claim that forty-years ago he once received some type of accolade for just that very cause (as if what he allegedly did in the past justifies what he is doing now)! Indeed, this has been a staple of his every time he is caught demonising members of the gay or trans communities – but is a deflection policy not limited to these groups.
Some opine that his “new” Islamacist-friendly attitude stems from his 2012 marriage – whilst others suggest that he “reverted” to Islam in 2002 – and it is from this influence that his stringently “right-wing” views and opinions have emerged. “Islamacist” is a term used to describe a right-of-centre interpretation of Islamic theology and obviously does not refer to all Muslims. Galloway has found himself sub-ordinated to this ideology and it has led to his abandonment of the genuine “Socialism” he once held dear. Perhaps the only vestige of this leftism is his opposition to Zionism in Gaza (not all Jews are Zionist or support Israel) – as far from being a unique stand-point invented by Galloway himself – this was once a staunch and obvious policy pursued by all Marxist-Leninists.
Russell Brand, like Galloway, has attempted to prostitute the leftist cause for personal gain. Perhaps one of Brand’s tackiest stunts was pretending to be Che Guevara on the cover of one of his books that contained a chapter explaining “why” he (Brand) is not a Marxist! This reeks of Galloway-levels of deception, double-speaking and deliberate misdirection! Brand has also been tainted with the allegation of sexually motivated offenses – although no official action has been taken against him. Whereas Brand seems not to mind his entire video history being available online – those who once knew Galloway as a “leftist” have commented upon how virtually all his back-catalogue (particularly his eulogising of Che Guevara) has been removed from the net. Of course, neither he (nor his cronies) can control every copy of every filmed action he has been involved in – but they certainly attempt to suppress Galloway’s old Socialistic content beneath mounds of new (politically correct) material!
Both Russell Brand and George Galloway represent the political far-right. Both suffer from the same irony that each rose to prominence pretending to represent the left. It is not the ideology of the left that has changed – but rather the inner dynamics of both individuals. Galloway ignored the “Left Out of Europe” (Lexit) campaign – which clearly described the EU as being a post-1945 US-controlled and directed anti-Socialist entity. In this regard, Galloway followed the virtue signalling of the mainstream media which sought to falsely present the debate as being either that of supporting the status quo (assisting the destruction of Socialism by default) or voting for the far-right. Galloway sat with his fascist chum – Nigel Farage – and took part in anti-migrant rallies hosted by multimillionaires! Both Galloway and Brand reject the “Internationalism” of the left – conflating this with an enforced multiculturalism or cosmopolitanism – and instead shockingly resort to a type of blanket racism which they think is an alternative to the presence of “difference” within our communities.
For instance, I profoundly disagree with the UK support of Neo-Nazi Ukraine and the Hong Kong rioters (both situations engineered by the West), and I reject the UK policy of importing thousands of Neo-Nazi Ukrainian and Hong Kong rioters into the UK. Why? – because in this instance the UK Tory government is applying the simplistic policy of “presence” equals “support” for all their neo-liberal projects and schemes. Indeed, I have very little in common politically with these people but I am aware that their children will probably grow up developing entirely different opinions to those held by their parents. Furthermore, I have gotten to know and become friends with some EU migrants in the UK – whilst remaining steadfastly opposed to the EU and the US ideology that underlies it. Artificially stopping migration does not stop predatory capitalism or the mechanisms it employs to spread its ideology. What Galloway and Brand should be doing is criticising capitalism and calling for its overthrow (Neo-Nazi Ukrainians and Hong Kong rioters are told that capitalism is the answer to all their problems) but they will not do this as neither one of them is a “Socialist”!
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 