There is a lot wrong with trying to get literature out there. How effective do you think the trots that showed up to an action where we tried to keep the police away from a funeral for a teen they shot? Do you think the people in mourning there wanted to be handed a pamphlet about whatever weird fucking zine the trots were handing out that week? What about the guy who stands at the corner near me who spends many hours every day with a megaphone and his stacks of literature shouting about how all of the suffering around him is the fault of capital. You think he’s getting through to folks? Or the guy who hawks commie literature on the trains when people are just trying to get home from work. You think that’s effective organizing?
Here’s the deal with trots. Even if their heart is in the right place their efforts are so far away from the right place that they are definitely doing harm. If they spent even half of the effort they spend invading other people’s spaces trying to shove their shitty newspapers in people’s faces on organizing that works, nobody would care. They’re pariahs in leftist spaces because the rest of us have to spend time undoing the image damage they do to the rest of us on top of all the other shit we’re up against. And when the time comes to actually DO something they’re never there. I’ve never seen a trot do mutual aid. I’ve never seen a trot bail comrades out of jail. I’ve never seen a trot tear down a statue. They’re never involved in cross group organizing efforts they just show up uninvited. They’re never fucking there when their actions could mean something.
Trots are fucking embarrassing. Get a clue and do literally any real organizing. Your zines are cool but nobody will read them unless you give them a genuine reason to, and showing up to co opt other people’s events or shouting in the street corner like an evangelical ain’t it.
There is a lot wrong with trying to get literature out there. How effective do you think the trots that showed up to an action where we tried to keep the police away from a funeral for a teen they shot? Do you think the people in mourning there wanted to be handed a pamphlet about whatever weird fucking zine the trots were handing out that week? What about the guy who stands at the corner near me who spends many hours every day with a megaphone and his stacks of literature shouting about how all of the suffering around him is the fault of capital. You think he’s getting through to folks? Or the guy who hawks commie literature on the trains when people are just trying to get home from work. You think that’s effective organizing?
Here’s the deal with trots. Even if their heart is in the right place their efforts are so far away from the right place that they are definitely doing harm. If they spent even half of the effort they spend invading other people’s spaces trying to shove their shitty newspapers in people’s faces on organizing that works, nobody would care. They’re pariahs in leftist spaces because the rest of us have to spend time undoing the image damage they do to the rest of us on top of all the other shit we’re up against. And when the time comes to actually DO something they’re never there. I’ve never seen a trot do mutual aid. I’ve never seen a trot bail comrades out of jail. I’ve never seen a trot tear down a statue. They’re never involved in cross group organizing efforts they just show up uninvited. They’re never fucking there when their actions could mean something.
Trots are fucking embarrassing. Get a clue and do literally any real organizing. Your zines are cool but nobody will read them unless you give them a genuine reason to, and showing up to co opt other people’s events or shouting in the street corner like an evangelical ain’t it.