Need a laugh? Check out Russell Brand and Alec Baldwin’s sit down on Russia Today’s Keiser Report. Make sure there’s no food in your mouth before I tell you the episode’s title.
Ready?
It’s called “Meeting of Megaminds”.
The pair make an excellent duo of on-air Putin spambots. Russell Brand, better known as the former Mr. Katy Perry, is attempting to carve out a niche for himself as a comedian-cum-conspiracy theorist who makes Carrot Top look appealing. Alec Baldwin has devolved from Hollywood megastar to angry old man in a way that makes you wish a combo of Nicolas Cage and Clint Eastwood would magically appear every time he opens his tired old mouth. He promised to immigrate if George W. Bush were elected in 2004, but I guess pre-production for 30 Rock got in the way (thanks, Tina Fey). Fitting right in with the acting crowd, Russia Today host Max Keiser plays the typical role of upper crust yuppie-turned-commie (wouldn’t Alger Hiss be proud). He was an NYU theater student before working in stand up comedy, radio, and as a broker on Wall Street before making it rich with his creation, the Hollywood Stock Exchange. Until 2012 he was a regular on Iran Press TV. Now, when he isn’t on Russia Today, he busies himself making documentaries for Al-Jazeera and writing for the Huffington Post.
Think he might just have a bit of a bias? Then you’re the biased one, obviously. Capitalist pig.
You have to slug through most of the stereotypical socialist hyperbole to get to any actual meat in the discussion. Still, the inflated theoretical dialogue (calling it “intellectual” would be an insult to those with actual, functioning brain cells) provides a great learning experience for young folk looking to understand what Soviet propaganda sounded like before the fall of the Berlin Wall. It’s nice to know this kind of pompous hot air still floats around in our atmosphere. Perhaps Al Gore should start tagging it as the real cause of global warming.
Fast-forward to 24:30 for Alec Baldwin’s theorizing about the “conservative audience” or as he, the angry white male who owes the past 10 years of his career to Tina Fey calls, “disenfranchised white market in America” who “…need somebody to blame.”
Stop it. Stop laughing. Oh, go ahead. No, really, stop.
He goes on to claim that America has been a country run by “white Christian men” for the past 75-100 years.
“Except the President who’s a black Muslim,” Brand chimes in.
“Well, that’s now,” Baldwin replied, unfazed at the otherwise controversial Muslim remark, before diving into the theory that men fear women more than whites fear blacks, which is (according to Baldwin) obviously why Obama won out over Hillary.
Quick to end the show, Max Keiser didn’t take the time to thank Baldwin for his keen demonstration of a disenfranchised white male looking for someone to blame.
Russia Today, the network best known in the West as the news channel so biased that their own reporters are jumping ship, promoted the “Meeting of the Megaminds” as a discussion of “…the ills of global capitalism and the gradual dilution of democracy and people power.” They even go so far as to promote Alec Baldwin as a man of the people:
And like a good many Americans Alec is more optimistic for the future than Russell and believes that “deep down they’re beginning to respond in some way and speak out in some way about this disconnect.” The cases of Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning may prove him to be right.
It’s easy to draw the comparison between figures like Baldwin and Brand and 60’s commie sympathizers like Mary McCarthy and Jane Fonda. Which is why it is ironic that such ancient KGB disinformation tactics are still employed by Putin’s official state media today. Is the old KGB agent so in love with his Soviet history that, like an old dog, he can’t come up with a new trick?
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