Handing out Flyers: Need Info!

[The Guy]

Okay, so me and a fellow comrade are hoping to hand out some flyers promoting socialism soon, a peaceful and harmless act, and I just wanted to clarify some minor points:


Handing out flyers is completely legal and requires no permission, right?
Is this common within the left-wing?
What sort of things should I worry about?
What points should I cover to make a short and snappy leaflet which will have an effect on the reader?

Anyway, any help will be greatly appreciated!

Just in case some members are also considering doing this, I took the liberty of jotting down a few points I found elsewhere which will help improve your day of handing out leaflets:



Accept rejection. If people don't want to take a leaflet, so be it. Wait around 10/20 seconds for people to pass, especially those who saw your attempt fail. Try again after that period has passed.
DON'T hand flyers to children. If anything, hand them to people aged 13+ at least. Children won't understand your message whatsoever, so it's a waste of paper.
Expect to find a bin full of your flyers down the street. Not everyone wants to read your message, however, using the ones in the bin again is a great idea!
Don't blabber on if someone approaches you. Keep it as short as possible. For example, don't say "Captialism is the world's most evil cult which has claimed the lives of over 1,000,000,000 people!" - NO. Instead, say something like "Capitalism kills!", and if they walk away, don't keep trying with the same person. Only tell them more information if they agree to be told, don't force them

[Luisrah]

Yes, supposedly. Unless there's lack of democracy in your country.
Yes, pretty much
Make it short, ''flashy'', with info that makes anyone interested like ''we propose higher salaries'', and give a link or an adress for the interested people to get more info
Sort of what I said above. The best thing is to do this whilst in a party or an organization, so that you can recieve people to give them more info and for them to take an active role in changing the world, not just becoming conscious. Usually, IMO, the best thing is to talk about higher salaries, higher retirement time, less work hours and how that's possible. It's also good to criticise capitalism by showing some of the salaries of the highest bourgeoisie in your country

My main advice is, don't go too teoric right away, leave that for when people come to you with interest. The best thing is to talk about pratical things of everyday like prices, salaries, work hours etc, and not democratic centralism, for example.

Besides that, I think you know the rest, don't let yourself get demoralised when you see airplane flyers (lol get it? airplane fliers? No?) and good luck :)

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

You should consider putting some sort of contact information, maybe set up an e-mail account so that you can keep in touch with people who are interested or create some sort of organization.

[Chambered Word]

Handing out flyers is completely legal and requires no permission, right?
Is this common within the left-wing?
What sort of things should I worry about?
What points should I cover to make a short and snappy leaflet which will have an effect on the reader?





That depends on your country and area, I think. Unless you live in a police state where you could be shot for doing such a thing I wouldn't be too worried. I think you can get moved on for having a propaganda stall without asking the council in Australia or get trouble from the authorities for sticking posters on walls without approval, I imagine similar laws exist elsewhere. You probably won't get any problems for hanging around leafleting though.
Certainly. Usually where I am we leaflet for rallies, as opposed to ones promoting socialism and our organization in general.
Just the usual, like dodgy people and Nazi types who could get violent, I suppose? You'd have to ask other people with more experience to be honest. Hey, you'll probably get told to 'stick it up your fucking arse' once or twice, I know I have.






Accept rejection. If people don't want to take a leaflet, so be it. Wait around 10/20 seconds for people to pass, especially those who saw your attempt fail. Try again after that period has passed.

From experience I see no reason whatsoever why you should not try to pass out leaflets to people who have seen somebody else reject one.





Expect to find a bin full of your flyers down the street. Not everyone wants to read your message, however, using the ones in the bin again is a great idea!

Er, possibly, I can't vouch for this as a hygienic practice. :bored:

[Q]

Make it about something concrete. I just made a leaflet on Greece and that we need solidarity. This is a political response on a nazi march tomorrow which demonstrates against the Greeks getting any money.

[El Rojo]

if you are doing anti fashist leafleting, plan ahead and bring numbers. take it seriously, coz if the fash in yr area show up and are... not ammused, then its best to have a plan.

if not, then you can relax a little. enjoy it, practise your pitch. in the UK i think you need some kind of permit to leaflet or set up a stall, but in the SWP we fuck that off and do it without permit anyway (arn´t we revolutionary lol!). no pig is gonna arrest you for it, at worst you will get moved on.

say yr energy for the folks who are interested, 9 times of out 10 you will probs draw a blank. i tell myself that if i get one person interested in the revolution, then its a great sucess :D

[Chambered Word]

but in the SWP we fuck that off and do it without permit anyway (arn´t we revolutionary lol!). no pig is gonna arrest you for it, at worst you will get moved on.

I wish SAlt was as revolutionary as you guys. :lol:


say yr energy for the folks who are interested, 9 times of out 10 you will probs draw a blank. i tell myself that if i get one person interested in the revolution, then its a great sucess :D

This. And with the rest of that said, you should try start indepth conversations with people so you can get a better idea of what they believe and how class conscious they are. If you find someone who sounds like a committed socialist you might want to stay in contact with them or casually ask them if they're interested in meetings with your organization, if you are affiliated.

[The Guy]

Thanks for the info. and advice! I'll bare all of it in mind.
Fortunately, the fash aren't too welcome in my city (UK), and it'll be on a busy high street were most people go to perform or hand out leaflets anyway.

Just to note, I'm not trying to dump leaflets as such. I'm trying to hand them out as well as give out information, so...

Another point which worries me is our plan to wear masks which popped up from the successes of another group named Anonymous. Although we're not promoting the same cause as Anonymous, they wear Guy Fawkes masks (taken from the film V for Vendetta) which helps to protect their identity.

If you're unsure of what the mask looks like, look at my avatar.

Would this innocent act throw up any controversy? I want to do this for the following reasons:


People always judge a far-x political view. If I wear a mask, not only will they think twice about judging my appearance, they may mistake my for something more theatrical.
To hide my identity from people who may become hostile or be hostile towards my political beliefs.

To add some flavour! Doing something different will always get you far. By doing this, I feel me and my fellow comrade would be taking an exotic step which may help attract more attention.

[RED DAVE]

Speaking from a US perspective, looking at the UK, I think the masks are a worn-out cliche whose effect was mainly on the characters in a movie watching other characters in a movie.

Leave 'em home.

Also, it helps to have something to say to each person you approach, like "Would you like a leaflet?"

RED DAVE

[Lyev]

Thanks for the info. and advice! I'll bare all of it in mind.
Fortunately, the fash aren't too welcome in my city (UK), and it'll be on a busy high street were most people go to perform or hand out leaflets anyway.

Just to note, I'm not trying to dump leaflets as such. I'm trying to hand them out as well as give out information, so...

Another point which worries me is our plan to wear masks which popped up from the successes of another group named Anonymous. Although we're not promoting the same cause as Anonymous, they wear Guy Fawkes masks (taken from the film V for Vendetta) which helps to protect their identity.

If you're unsure of what the mask looks like, look at my avatar.

Would this innocent act throw up any controversy? I want to do this for the following reasons:


People always judge a far-x political view. If I wear a mask, not only will they think twice about judging my appearance, they may mistake my for something more theatrical.
To hide my identity from people who may become hostile or be hostile towards my political beliefs.

To add some flavour! Doing something different will always get you far. By doing this, I feel me and my fellow comrade would be taking an exotic step which may help attract more attention.

For the sake of leftism, nay humanity, don't go out wearing a fucking plastic mask from a film. We're not superheroes for pity's sake.

[Joesky]

You'll just be laughed away in my opinion and there's no need to hide your identity. Stand up for socialism and by a proud member of the left.

[Sasha]

clean up the area after your last flyers are handed out.
otherwise you'll loose at least as much support as you might gain.

[Wanted Man]

If I read your post correctly, I assume that the masks weren't your idea. :lol: I seriously fail to see the benefit of that kind of thing. I'm not a fan of gimmicks like that at all, but if used, they should have something to do with the situation. Anonymous masks at a Scientology protest = good (Scientology protests themselves are really dumb, though). Anywhere else = bad.

Anyway, would you mind posting the text of the flyers, or telling us a bit about the content? From the OP, apparently they're going to be "promoting socialism" and an example of a short phrase is "Capitalism kills!" I don't know if this is accurate, but if so, I doubt you'll have much success, because it will probably be very inconsequential and immaterial to most people. Just like when someone on the streets hands you a flyer promoting Christianity and saying, "Satanism kills!" It's just the kind of thing that doesn't level with most people. Just my €0.02.

I would recommend picking a concrete situation and adapting the flyer to that. You should decide for yourself where you want to take the text from there. Sometimes socialist groups have a flyer about a concrete situation, and then half of it says something like, "There is a solution to this problem; it's called socialism and it provides <stuff>. If you want to help, join <party>." To be honest, I have the idea that something like that is hardly any better than simply "promoting socialism" without any context, so perhaps something more effective is called for.

A practical pointer that I noticed personally is a kind of bandwagon effect: say four unrelated people are walking at you in close succession. The first one accepts the flyer; what I see nearly always is that the other three will accept it as well. However, if the first person refuses it, the other three will do so as well. Maybe it's just a coincidence?