"Russell Brand destroys Nigel Farage on immigration"???
I can only assume you are joking. Brand was WAY out of his depth. In fact, much as I dislike the pseudo revolutionary, vainglorious half wit, I actually felt sorry for him. He was put firmly in his place by one astute person; "If you think you can, why don't you stand (for election)?" His response; " Mate, I'm frightened I'd become one of them." So, he doesn't even have confidence in his own childish rhetoric. He calls for anarchy just as long as he is not at the helm. He should put up, or shut up. Oh, and his call for people not to vote is one of the stupidest, most irresponsible things I have heard in a while.

Your video, Smart Pipe: A revolutionary new startup, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Does anyone else find it strange that Cenk is calling some one out for being a bigot, while he named his show after a revolutionary movement with a history of racism and bigotry being carried to its most extreme?

I never understood why one would choose "The Young Turks".

I'm surprised there is no cutting fluid being sprayed on it. Most all the multi-axis CNC machines I've seen (not many, admittedly--not my department), required a pretty constant flow of oil. Is this some advancement in cutting tool technology, or is it just that aluminum is soft enough not to need it?

I understand NASA has used 3D printing to create fuel injectors (or something like that) for rocket engines with considerable success. Since it's a solid metal shape with lots of vacant internal channels, there would otherwise have to be a lot of design and construction concessions if it's going to be cut or forged. I suspect that sort of 3D printing will be quite revolutionary for manufacturing once it doesn't cost stupid amounts of money.

The thing is, Brand does have notions of what the post revolution system would resemble but he does so by reference to people he considers better informed than himself.

i.e. he is reluctant to give people some half baked concoction of his own as it's not the area he is most qualified to speak about. Instead he points us at philosophers and activists who have a lifetimes study and insight on such matters.

I think this is a far more laudable position than either A. defining a post revolutionary world arbitrarily or B. taking no position at all.

It's far more dangerous for a Revolution to have a half baked goal than none at all, hence he keeps his mouth shut about specifics he's not qualified to comment on as any wise person should.

The worst possible position to me is to accept the status quo regardless of what better solutions one may or may not have. There is clearly a massive problem and moreover one which causes untold suffering on a global scale. It's essential to recognise that before anything productive is going to happen.

Brands only goal is to help make recognition of this simple fact more prevalent. From there people far better qualified step in to work on the details. Such people are very much already around and have done a great deal of work to further this goal but they don't have media platforms like Brand.

All he and other such media personalities have to do is switch people on to the idea, leaving other things to the better qualified. Good revolutions are co-operative efforts rather than personality cults. (I'd even go so far as to say they go bad precisely because figureheads fail to recognise their limits)

I don't geddit. Labour voters can't petition Conservatives because they didn't vote for them?

So yah. Initially he's accused of political apathy masquerading as revolutionary, then when he gets stuck in suddenly he's a hypocrite because he's not the apathetic they painted him as.

The interviewer is a "sell-out?" Wrong, he was simply asking what Bland envisaged as an alternative to the present system. Of course he had no alternative except; "revolution man." Jeez, he belongs with the 60's revolutionaries who are now all, thankfully, grown up. I just love it when people like Noam Chomsky and this fool decry and denigrate the system without any coherent solutions to the problems they see. Fine, let's have change, but until you know what that change should be, and are able to offer solutions rather than childish (as you so eloquently put it) Blah, Blah, Blah, be quiet.

Don't need to "Edumacate" myself thanks. As for arguing a point? Well, with certain closed minded conspiracy theorists it is pointless. Especially with someone who sees ALL the problems wrapped neatly up in a capitalist plot. Their answer? they have none other than "overthrow those in control." Well, you don't need to look far to see what anarchy brings. Or should I spell it out for you? It brings exactly that; Anarchy, in fighting, tribalism, persecution and pain. You stick to your childish revolutionary talk and I will, with all its flaws, stick to the best there is at the minute ie, capitalism and democracy (such as it is).

@Yogi, @enoch, Consider the fact that, had the American colonies not seceded from England (not unlike what the Confederates attempted to do from the Union, eh?), the British Crown would have ended slavery in the American Colonies without war and far sooner than it did. So, for those who say that it was right to "end slavery now no matter the cost," was the American Revolutionary war a good thing, given that it prolonged slavery for as long as it did?

The Civil War cost ten times what it would have cost the Federal government to simply buy all the existing slaves and free them. Already at that time, importing new slaves was illegal in all of the states, including the South. So that would have been the end of it. What if, say, 6 southern slave owners refused to sell no matter how much money they got (doubtful, but let's say they were crazy)? Would the Civil War have been worth it because of these six guys?

It would not have been worth it to either the North or the South. Their own neighbors would have set them free.
And southern legislators would have changed the laws to free them. If history shows us anything, it shows us that all politicians have a price.
The US bribes governments all over the world (it's called 'foreign aid'). Do you really think the southern governors would have been any different than all politicians throughout history?
Even now, do you prefer to bribe and threaten "rogue" countries or engage in so-called 'necessary' Iraq-style invasions?
The likelihood falls clearly on the 6% of southerners who owned slaves to take the money and retire rich rather than having to go to war.
Even explaining some math to them may have moved things along, like how hiring low wage worker was cheaper than the cost of keeping slaves.

One difference is that in Russia you don't have a right to overthrow the gov't, while the US constitution states that you do have that right.

But otherwise, these gals are looking to stir things up, so...what are they, revolutionaries or entertainment? If they're revolutionaries they really need to change their name, and if they're entertainment, they need to just show up and play some music.

Title is a good name for a porn movie though.

Ex-wife's grandmother was a Ukrainian Jew, fled the bullshit-Got several American revolutionary war patriots from my mother's side, most-likely destined to be another front-line protester of political and police state bullshit in this lifetime-

ALL politicians and their complicit enforcers need be rendered into history's forgotten ranks-

Fast. The US is highly militarized. And its military/police are much better funded than in Mexico.

"a mob of random untrained angry armed strangers"

If they are my friends and neighbors, I would not call them a mob (I don't know how you view your friends but I don't see my friends like this) and I would trust them more than the police. So did the American Revolutionaries. They trusted their fellow colonists more than the "well regulated and trained" British Army. But even then, many trusted the establishment, the Red Coats.

And who are you even talking about? Because, to each other, they are not "random strangers." The police are the "random strangers!" For most people, anyway.

This scene comes to mind.
Like Corleone implies, it's good to know where your loyalties lie. And that of those who engage with you.

"I will trust the police. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. (and make no mistake, I don't trust the police much at all) That's just me."

Yep, that's just you, and some others, for sure. So what?

"I don't know about you"

Now you know.

And like I said: Good luck with that. I wish you the best and that you never have to 'rely' on the police to 'protect' you.

Happy to be the 10th vote for this.

That guy was a total twat. I only wish the camera had showed his face so that if I passed him on the street I could call him out for being a twat.

The actual comment from Paul Robinson in the New York Times in 1979 (which Chomsky paraphrased in this talk) is as follows:

"Judged in terms of the power, range, novelty and influence of his thought, Noam Chomsky is arguably the most important intellectual alive today. He is also a disturbingly divided intellectual. On the one hand there is a large body of revolutionary and highly technical linguistic scholarship, much of it too difficult for anyone but the professional linguist or philosopher; on the other, an equally substantial body of political writings, accessible to any literate person but often maddeningly simple-minded. The 'Chomsky problem' is to explain how these two fit together."

Chomsky's coming to Japan next month and my wife and I are going to try to see him give a talk on linguistics (unfortunately his other talk on democracy and capitalism booked up as soon as it was announced).

"I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. "
-James Baldwin

“The difference between treason and patriotism is only a matter of dates.”
- Alexandre Dumas

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
- George Orwell

Snowden, like Manning before him, spoke truth to power. In a difficult situation, he saw something that was wrong and took the incredibly brave decision to do something about it, even at the cost of his life as he knew it.

If you found out something you knew to be immoral (and on a massive scale), would you have the bravery to follow his example? When it meant probably never seeing your friends and family again?

I suspect history will ultimately come to see him as more a patriot than a traitor.

I know what you mean -- but as someone who has watched my gay friends struggle for DECADES, the speed at which things have turned around still makes me tear up. Cheesy or no.

One year ago, this song was revolutionary and bold and daring. Now, it is cheesy.

THANK GOD. Mawkish sentiment! In one year, we made it to mawkish sentiment!