In case you haven’t heard, Russell Brand stepped in it again. According to a typically snarky, Brand-bashing article in the Daily Mail –– which functions like an elite team of media assassins in the service of the British Establishment, always ready, willing and able to tar and feather any perceived threat to the status quo — some of the products bearing Brand’s “Trews” logo (sweatshirts, etc) are produced in Bangladesh sweatshops, where workers reportedly earn roughly 25 cents a day working long hours under inhumane conditions. Shit.
This comes directly on the heels of Brand’s most recent public embarrassment: the debacle that was his inexplicable/ill-advised/ doomed-to-fail (by design?) last-minute endorsement of Ed Milliband and the Labour Party in Britain’s recent elections. He’s had only a few weeks to recover, while simultaneously cleaning the egg from his face. Obviously the revelations about how products bearing his logo are made fly directly in the face of Brand’s espoused philosophy; he speaks eloquently and passionately about the unjust treatment of the underclass on a regular basis. Bemoaning the plight of the poor and disadvantaged is a constant motif. So what are we to believe?
It seems the outspoken self-proclaimed champion of the disenfranchised and weak, the unrepresented and unwashed, finds himself in yet another pickle. He’s currently shooting a film with Nicholas Cage. Could this just be the latest in a series of bad career choices? Or is this merely the latest in a long campaign of ‘gotcha’ the Daily Mail has waged against Brand ever since he started speaking out against the plutocrats, more specifically, ever since he singled out Daily Mail owner Lord Rothmere for being a “non-dom” and not paying U.K. taxes? A little of both, maybe. Which is more or less what Brand said in his response to the controversy in the latest installment of The Trews. See below. — JAMIE KNERR