Dispatches channel 4 expose **Read Opening Post before posting**

Not really. Actual conspiracies do happen. There was unquestionably a conspiracy to put the blame on the Liverpool supporters for Hillsborough and the lies that were spread about Hillsborough still persist to this day. There was unquestionably a cack handed conspiracy to put the blame on the Liverpool supporters for the appalling crowd management at last year's Champions League final in Paris.

The guy that was convicted for Lockerbie was almost certainly framed, and it was likely Syria/Iran rather than Libya who did the bombing as a retaliation for the US shooting down of the Iranian passenger jet the previous July.

The Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four were framed and that was a real conspiracy. The British and Loyalist terrorists colluded. That was a real conspiracy.

But these are not what the people we popularly imagine as conspiracy theorists talk about. They tend to talk about the moon landings being faked, that Lee Harvey Oswald was a patsy and that there was a second shooter who killed Kennedy, 9/11 being an inside job, that Diana was murdered by the Royal Family, the Maidan being a US coup and Russia not being to blame for their barbaric invasion of Ukraine. Conspiracy theorists would mostly have you believe that Russia is a peaceful country and that any notions they interfere in the west are nonsense, which is obviously total bullshit. It's no ludicrous conspiracy theory to suspect that a mouthpiece for Russia is somehow compromised by Russia. It's the first thing you should suspect. Russia openly floods the information space with bullshit through trolls and bots. The IRA in St Petersburg are hard at work every day and you can bet it doesn't stop there. Most of Ireland suspects Mick Wallace and Clare Daly are in some way compromised by the Russians and they'd be right to suspect something weird is going on with them because something weird clearly is going on with them. It beggars belief that Russia would stop with fringe politicians.

I think Ian Dunt hit the nail on the head yesterday when he said just because the things we most popularly imagine when we think of conspiracy theories are indeed bullshit, that does not mean conspiracies don't happen or that underhand stuff doesn't go on. My guess is that conspiracies often are bumbling and cack handed, and often they're in plain sight, like the Hillsborough one. I'd argue the extent of Russian influence in the west is also in plain sight.

Except when Russell Brand is raping one, seemingly.

Interesting summary of these allegations from a Barrister

I think you are way over thinking it.

RT is the propaganda arm of a murderous and rogue state.

Brand and Rogan are producers whose main goal is financial reward. They will publish whatever they can monetise.

It's show business, no real difference to traditional media.

Propaganda has to be carefully crafted, if it isn't it doesn't work. Brand, Rogan and RT all work in similar ways for similar audiences. They've always complemented each other.

Then they link in with demagogues who appeal to different audiences on the same side, like Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones.

Then you get people who pretend to be on "the other side", like George Galloway, Glenn Greenwald, the Grayzone etc., who are in fact on the same side. Russia has always choreographed things so that it promotes people who pretend to be in opposition to each other, but in reality are not.

Russell Brand or Glenn Greenwald are not in opposition to Alex Jones or Tucker Carlson. They're on the same side.

It is a deliberate distraction and smokescreen from Brand and his defenders on social media trying to cite conspiracy against him for those views as being behind the allegations.

It is plainly without merit or foundation.

Quite the conspiracy theory you've got going there.

Dannii Minogue called Brand out in 2006:

“He is completely crazy and a bit of a vile predator,” Minogue told the Mirror after being interviewed by Brand on his MTV chatshow, 1 Leicester Square back in 2006.

“I certainly don’t think he has cured his sex addiction, that’s for sure. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. [...] He always goes that step too far. Never quite far enough to slap his face, but usually too far.”

Russia doesn't need to choreograph things, people can be pig sh1t ignorant for free.

Some of it, yes.

Big players in the election of Trump and Brexit, so whatever you want to call it, it bloody worked.

Is this a conspiracy theory thread or a thread about Brand. It’s getting more unhinged here by the minute.

Was it right that Nicola Gallagher spoke out four days before the Ulster football final this year to reveal that her ex-husband Rory Gallagher had abused for her many years to the point where she became an alcoholic? Rory Gallagher was forced out as Derry manager over this and has now been barred from coaching at any level of the GAA. I feel it's unlikely a case will ever see the inside of a court but I feel it's better that she told her story and people know what he was like.

Reading this thread there seems far more focus on Brand's recent political views than on his alleged crimes. Could someone explain how his political views in recent years are relevant to crimes that are alleged to have occurred between 2006 and 2013? Surely if his political views are relevant, it would be the views he held in the earlier time period, when whatever he was, he most certainly wasn't right wing. During that period he has been described variously as a socialist, a communist or an anarchist or perhaps all three.

In that light surely his political views are irrelevant to the crimes he is accused of? One may as well say that the US Democratic party are implicated in Harvey Weinstein's crimes as he was a large donor to them for decades and was a big supporter of the Clintons. That's clearly nonsense, just as linking Brand's prior left wing views or current right wing views to his alleged crimes is nonsense.