Spectrevision Radio

Welcome to Weird Studies, an arts and philosophy podcast with hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martel.

For more episodes, or to support the podcast,

go to weirdst. This is Phil.

This week's episode is the most overtly political one we've ever done.

J.F. and I have always tried to avoid becoming part of the gigantic media machine,

endlessly processing the differential energies of the two tribes that rule our political landscape.

But there is one political idea that neither

of those tribes seems to like very much, in which we do, namely, that you ought to be able

to think your own thoughts and express them in whatever manner and medium suits you best.

To be sure, freedom of speech has become something of a branding slogan for certain

political types here in the United States, or an empty altar to which ritual obeisances are

directed when the occasion demands it. Consider, for example, the case of Pamela Witten, the

president of my home institution of Indiana University.

This past spring, students and faculty had been meeting at I.U.'s Dunmeadow to protest

Israeli treatment of Palestinians.

On Thursday, April 25th, Witten directed the use of overwhelming force against them,

on the pretext that they had violated a rule against

overnight camping that a secretive ad hoc committee had made up the very day before.

These protesters were summarily banned from campus for a year, with transgressions to be

punished by arrest, fines, and or jail time.

Where tyrants of olden times might have celebrated

...