“The responsibility of intellectuals” Or “After I get shot in the head”

Some guy, I forget who, said that it was the responsibility of intellectuals to expose lies and tell the truth.  Meh, as far as it goes, sure. Which truths to who gets more interesting….

If I get shot in the head (and given my deteriorating relationship with Manchester City Council, this is not impossible), and there is a memorial lecture (rather than the more likely party where Councillors and activists get on down), then this;
I don’t want the speaker just to tell everyone what they already (should) know, or could find out from reading a book/article.

I want to the speaker to earn their keep, and use their analytic skills to tell truths about ‘the movement’ to ‘the movement’.

• Are we losing? Why?  How do we stop losing?
• Are we winning? Why?  Can we keep winning? (What are the next moves of our opponents, and what might we do about those). Can we ‘win’ quicker? How?
• What are our metrics for winning and losing, anyhow?
• What do we here in this room need to do, here in this city, in the next three weeks, three months, six months?
• How will we know if we’re doing these things?
  How will we know if they are ‘enough’?
• What can we learn from our own failures and successes?
• What can we learn from comparable movements’ failures and successes?
• What does it mean to learn, anyway?
• Under what conditions, with what tools, do we learn?
• Can we improve how easily/quickly we learn? How?

The whole ‘not my place to tell movement what to do’ schtick, that just about passed muster up to the 80s is not good enough anymore,  imho.  The trades unions, churches, solidarity campaigns etc are on their asses.  Too much sage on the stage, too much wilful ego-fodderfication, too many zombie repertoires, too much smugosphere.