Yesterday I listened to two excellent podcasts from @poltheoryother - an interview with @meadwaj on the current political situation in the UK, the strategies of the various players and the need to agitate beyond the confines of Westminster. soundcloud.com/poltheoryother…
And an interview with @LidaMaxwell about her book Insurgent Truth, about Chelsea Manning and the politics of whistleblowing.
soundcloud.com/poltheoryother…
(@poltheoryother's presenter/producer, @alexdoherty7, is currently doing more, and better, public service media than any number of, ahem, better resourced operations. We should all really chip in until such time as a pro-democracy govt in the UK secures #mediareform)
On Manning, although to someone who has read to the end of Kant's 'What is Enlightenment' everything can seem like a conflict between the public and private use of reason, it is striking how closely she resembles the ideal of an enlightened subject.
The question is this - how do we make her kind of truth-telling *normal*, how does the public use of reason become a consistent item of public business. The answer lies, I think, in the establishment of effective equality-in-speech ...
... so that no one has to pass through an elite veto before they can address the citizen body and the contents of political discussion, both claims about what is the case, and what should be done about it, can be shaped by free and independent citizens.
If you want a dramatic representation of our current distance from democracy, it is Chelsea Manning leaving a voicemail message for the 'public editor' at the New York Times, trying to get someone there to look at the files that Wikileaks eventually released.
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