Russell Brand compares ‘insidious’ Fox News to Charlie Hebdo terrorists
Prominent British activist comedian Russell Brand has attacked Fox News broadcaster “Judge Jeanine,” saying she promotes “the same energy” as the killers who attacked satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Speaking on his regular YouTube broadcast, The Trews, Brand reacted to a vicious attack on Muslims by Jeanine Pirro, a former judge-turned-newsreader for Fox News.
Brand showed video clips in which Pirro launched into a tirade against Islamic extremists following last week’s attacks in Paris, saying: “We need to kill them. We need to kill them. You’re in danger, I’m in danger. We’re at war and this is not going to stop.”
“Bomb them, bomb them and bomb them again,” Pirro said in the videos.
Brand responded: “That’s the same energy. It’s the same energy as the murderers. Judgment, hate, certainty in your own position, condemnation, the language of war.”
“This woman is prepared, the same as the terrorists, to cast aside human values,” he said.
“The right of free speech is important, but it isn’t as important as ‘we’re all human beings together, let’s find solutions together’,” Brand said. “What she’s doing, whilst it’s obviously not as violent or as gory or as terrible, it’s equally damaging because it’s insidious and has great reach, and she’s operating on the behalf of people with their own ideologies.”
When Pirro said only Muslims could prevent further terrorist attacks like those against Charlie Hebdo, Brand says Pirro, who is of Lebanese descent, is “at least a bit African American … does she recognize that [intolerant] language?”
He then said it was the responsibility of “all humankind” to prevent terrorism.
“We’ve got to see beyond the distinctions and the camouflage of identity and language, and recognize hatred for what it is,” he said.
Brand then turns his attention to Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire CEO of Fox News’ parent company, News Corporation.
Pretty sure Russell Brand's almost OCD amount of attacks on Fox has nothing to do with them cancelling his US show a few years back.
— Curiously Hard (@Holborncompany) January 14, 2015
“This is obviously hilariously funny, but in another way there’s a toxicity to it because Fox News, as we all know, is owned by Rupert Murdoch … it’s not like he's a racist granddad where you think: ‘Oh, it’s just a granddad, he’s from another time.’”
“It’s different if your granddad owns a multi-trillion dollar media organization and has investments in energy companies that will benefit from further military activity abroad, that requires the malignment and hatred of Muslims and Muslim nations and the dehumanization of Muslims to continue.”
Brand also took aim at US drone strikes around the world, comparing the “violent maniacs murdering people” in Paris to “state-sponsored violent maniacs murdering people from the sky all over Pakistan and all over Iraq.”
“Terrorism is wrong, killing people is bad, but that has to mean ALL types of terrorism – who gets to define what terrorism means? Who gets to decide what violence is necessary?”
