Russell Brand and not voting

Russell Brand's BBC interview is drawing a lot of fire, from his statement that we're creating a more permanent, more worldwide, more entrenched underclass, through his statement we need some sort of revolution, and finally at his thoughts on not voting in a democracy. I take the written quote from the Guardian's summation of the interview:

"Apathy is a rational reaction to a system that no longer represents, hears or addresses the vast majority of people. A system that is apathetic, in fact, to the needs of the people it was designed to serve."

It seems that progressives (one friendly Texas blogger, I know of) as well as conservatives are jumping on this one.

Sorry, but I'm with Brand, and I'm not alone.

About a decade ago, the Dallas Morning News had interviews with a lot of ’60s era civil rights activists from the Dallas area. You know what? A number of them felt like Brand, and said they hadn't voted in years, if not decades.

I agree with Brand, overall. The Guardian's columnist nuances the issue:

Should Brand be taken to task for rejecting the vote in this context? Yes and no. No, because his rejection clearly resonates with, and is reflective of, a growing sentiment in wider society where, in fact, actual majorities in our liberal democracies do not vote - not because they are apathetic, but because of the abject apathy of a broken political system in the face of the crisis of civilisation. Yes, because simply disengaging from the prevailing political system is another extreme reaction that is, in fact, part and parcel of the very system it purports to reject. Because the more the majority disengages, the more a decreasing minority is able to dominate the political class.

Sadly, big bucks from both the Republican and Democrat (sic on purpose) parties hope more people agree with him, and get apathetic not just about the act of voting, but about politics in general.

However, it appears Brand is NOT apathetic about politics in general. Or let's hope not. Back to the Guardian:

That does not mean the solution lies within the prevailing political paradigm. Brand's call for revolution, for a fundamental political, economic, cultural and cognitive shift, is on point. But rather than entailing disengagement resulting in anarchy, this requires the opposite: Engagement at all levels in order to elicit structural transformation on multiple scales through the overwhelming presence of people taking power back, here and now. 

Agreed. At the same time, at some point, it requires having specific goals, specific "toolkits" for working on those goals, prioritizing goals, and making other strategic decisions.

In short, we need people taking back power, but we don't need the Occupy mythical nonsense of "leaderlessness," nor the Adbusters/Anonymous mentality behind it.

Anyway, back on point, speaking of focus.

I support the act of not voting. I've done it before, myself, where both "mainstream" parties' candidates in a certain election were that unappealing and I had no third-party option.

Heck, Brand is British, and he's got a wider variety of options that might be electorally meaningful, being in a parliamentary system, even if the House of Commons is like the US House with first-past-the-post single-member districts.