Raising Awareness

[Radix]

Handing fliers and pamphlets is fun and all, but it usually does little but end up in the nearest garbage pail from my experiences. It's also safe to say that the average working class citizen isn't going to suddenly want to become part of the revolutionary left, possibly having no idea it exists as well.

Anyways, my question, anyone have creative ways to raise awareness for leftist ideas and the illogical doings of the right, while being accessible to a number of people?

[Psy]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28, 2007 05:40 am
Handing fliers and pamphlets is fun and all, but it usually does little but end up in the nearest garbage pail from my experiences. It's also safe to say that the average working class citizen isn't going to suddenly want to become part of the revolutionary left, possibly having no idea it exists as well.

Anyways, my question, anyone have creative ways to raise awareness for leftist ideas and the illogical doings of the right, while being accessible to a number of people?
Try going to the industrial areas, coffee shops near industrial areas are usually packed with workers during their breaks. If you aim the message at their reality you might get a few of them that at least take notice.

These workers care about:

- Job security
- How management does really appreciate their work
- Hours and pay

Most would work less if they got more $/hr, my co-workers complain about only really having the weekend to themselves, yet the idea of fighting for shorter hours (towards a leisure society) is hard for them to comprehend (at least currently).

Oh how I wish workers would regain the class consciousness of French workers in May 1968.

[abbielives!]

door to door?

[RebeldePorLaPAZ]

I think that the reason there hasn't been awareness on what Radix is referring to as the "part of the revolutionary left, possibly having no idea it exists as well." is because there isn't a clear recognition of the "revolutionary left" as a resistance movement. It hasn't demonstrated it in action since the days of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense and the Young Lords Party.

We need to begin to organize into groups that doesn't only see going to a protest or graffiti as "Direct Action", but step up and advance by taking hold of abandoned buildings and running community programs for the people, we need to clearly take a more militant stance and stand up against police brutality. Defend our communities and take a stance against ICE raids in our communities. We need to be recognizable. Back in the day you can look at somebody during a Panther event and clearly know who was a Panther, same with the Young Lords. Look how organized an event is in Gaza when Hamas organizes something, same with Hezbollah. Now I'm not talking about their ideological stance, I'm talking about their organization as a group. That needs to be us. We need to be armed to defend our movement.

People are organizing into groups that are won't recognize themselves as part as a national resistance movement, but rather push the mentality of focusing to further their group for more personal gain.

We aren't organized, currently, us as the revolutionary left are today divided among Leninist, troskyists, Maoist, anarchists, we have no clear unification.

We need to first start by abandoning the isms, and ists, and pursue revolutionary socialism in conditions that best fit in todays world, currant and geographical conditions.

The church believes its the voice of the immigrant rights movement, yet it cant be taken seriously because its not ready to defend the community when the Federal government invaids our communities and separate families in military fashion.

But then who is? Who's ready to come out and say they are ready to defend the community.

People are dieing along the border, the government sent more troops to militarize the border and our communities are being raided. Over 200,000 have already been detained, sent to camps, prisons, and sent back.

Who's going to take a stand? What organization is ready to defend a fellow brother and sister when the community comes under attack?

The church isn't ready to take a stance to police brutality, and state sponsored terror that we see with the immigrant raids that is going on in our neighborhoods, where police murder and brutalize us. They wont recognize us as oppressed people, we are oppressed people, exploited and poor and we need a resistance movement that represents us as oppressed people.

I think its time to start talking about this and not ignoring the hidden war thats going on. I don't know how many time's I've heard, you know somethings gonna happen soon, but when? when are we going to move beyond the anti-war movement and this small "Direct Action". Lets act more like revolutionaries not visionarys,

[Pawn Power]

Originally posted by abbielives!@June 30, 2007 11:44 pm
door to door?
They'll think your selling them jesus.

[abbielives!]

Originally posted by Pawn Power+July 01, 2007 12:04 pm--> (Pawn Power @ July 01, 2007 12:04 pm)
abbielives!@June 30, 2007 11:44 pm
door to door?
They'll think your selling them jesus. [/b]

not after i start speaking,

"Hello, I'd like to talk to you about anarchism" :D

[bezdomni]

Originally posted by abbielives!@July 01, 2007 04:44 am
door to door?
I've done that before. It works pretty well.

And no, they don't think you are trying to sell them Jesus.

[bezdomni]

Handing fliers and pamphlets is fun and all, but it usually does little but end up in the nearest garbage pail from my experiences.

That's why selling them works best. When a person gives you some amount of money for a radical newspaper or something, they have made an investment into it. They are most likely not going to throw away something they just bought. Furthermore, they are now giving money to your organization and thus doing two things:
1) Aiding it, which is on its own very good for any organization. This allows you to produce more newspapers, books...etc

2) Acknowledging the necessity of your newspaper or pamphlets or whatever you are selling. If they are willing to pay you for it, then that means they are probably interested enough to at least read through it long enough to determine what they think of it.

Although sometimes at like protests and stuff the goal is to just saturate people with a small flier or something that wouldn't even be worth selling. That is a completely different tactic with a completely different ends of its own.

But if we're talking about reasonably long pamphlets or newspapers or something, selling them or at least asking for a donation is actually a very good idea.

[Taboo Tongue]

Requires DSL or better internet connection and a DVD\CD writer but:
Give away DVDs\CDs that include leftist videos.
Ask close workers if there is any movies or computer programs that they want copies of, and download movies\software for them (via Torrents, http://ThePirateBay.org ). Burn them along with leftist videos, to a CD\DVD disc and give them to them.
I'm part of a very small group that does this, I haven't noticed any wonders out of it but...

Remember: If you own an actual copy of the DVD this is completely legal (in the U.S.) due to the Beta Max case.

[Rawthentic]

I've done that before. It works pretty well.
SovietPants, what have you done as you went door to door? What have you asked, given ,etc. This is something I could look into, but I'd like to know the details before. Thanks.

[AmbitiousHedonism]

I think the idea of "rasing consciousness" for consciousness sake is kind of pointless and condescending. The idea that some sophisticated political analysis is all a person needs to reclaim their lives is, well, totally out of touch. People know that if they made more money they could work less. They know their bosses suck.

Folks need tools that are relevant to their immediate situations and examples of revolutionary activity at work.

The idea that selling a newspaper is a "tactic" is laughable and pathetic.

[Rawthentic]

Selling and distributing publications is a strategy to raise awareness, as compared to the capitalist press. I agree that this cannot be one's only tactic, the only way that people will really achieve class consciousness is through struggle to eliminate those conditions that cause people to have reactionary ideas.

[bezdomni]

SovietPants, what have you done as you went door to door? What have you asked, given ,etc. This is something I could look into, but I'd like to know the details before. Thanks.

Basically we go to certain proletarian neighborhoods and apartment complexes, usually comprised of mostly black or hispanic workers. We sell it in more or less the same fashion as we would sell it on the streets. I usually begin by saying "Hi, my name is charles and I am distributing Revolution. This issue focuses on ____________, would you like to check it out?"

If they seem really interested, I then ask for a donation of $1 or whatever they can spare. If they are obviously very interested but seriously have no money to donate, I will give it to them for free.

We also try to engage people politically as much as possible. A lot of people will ask questions and I always do my best to answer. Some people will even ask us to come in and talk with us for a while. It really depends on the person.

At the end of the day, we all get back together and sum up what happened and pool the donations. If we had any interesting discussions, we talk about them or if we were asked any questions that we were not sure if we answered properly or if we did not know how to answer them at all, we'll try to come to a conclusion.

Sometimes, if we have just a short pamphlet that we are trying to push also, we will leave it in people's doors or put it in their mail slots if we come to any doors with no answer.


I think the idea of "rasing consciousness" for consciousness sake is kind of pointless and condescending. The idea that some sophisticated political analysis is all a person needs to reclaim their lives is, well, totally out of touch. People know that if they made more money they could work less. They know their bosses suck.

A newspaper is a collective agitator, propagandist and organizer. There cannot be a revolution without revolutionary theory. When we distribute a revolutionary newspaper, we distribute the seeds of a revolutionary movement.



Folks need tools that are relevant to their immediate situations and examples of revolutionary activity at work.

Now you are being condescending. You think that workers are not capable of being successful in the workplace struggle by themselves?

Workers don't need a communist party to fight for them against their bosses. They are perfectly capable of organizing unions and going on strike without communist ideology. To think that this is all we need to be helping them with is not only "condescending", but simply not revolutionary.



The idea that selling a newspaper is a "tactic" is laughable and pathetic.

The idea that only organizing and struggling in the unions is a revolutionary "tactic" is pathetic.

Do we need to be engaged in the workplace struggle? Most certainly. But should it be the only struggle we are engaged in, or even the main struggle we are engaged in? Absolutely not.

If you think a revolutionary newspaper being a main tactic for revolution is "laughable", then you must think that the Bolshevik Revolution (which was centered around Pravda) was laughable.

[More Fire for the People]

I've been having thoughts about creative conscious raising lately and I've come up with a number of ideas.

The first one is that you take pages from a book and tear them all out or print them off individually. Then on a windy day you drop the pages from a high place and let them drift throughout the city until people pick them up. One page of an interesting book isn't enough to satiate one's curiousness and they'd go out seeking the other pages by looking the book up. I've thought about doing this someday with The Communist Manifesto or the Prison Notebooks.

The second idea is establishing Centers for Autonomy, Self-Education, Activism, Culture, and Ecological Societies [ 'Case Aces' ] that promote the autonomy, education, activism, and culture of workers, students, lumpenproles, housewives, etc. A kind of combination of social centers, Intercommunal Schools, art clubs, cafés, and music halls.

[bezdomni]

The first one is that you take pages from a book and tear them all out or print them off individually. Then on a windy day you drop the pages from a high place and let them drift throughout the city until people pick them up. One page of an interesting book isn't enough to satiate one's curiousness and they'd go out seeking the other pages by looking the book up. I've thought about doing this someday with The Communist Manifesto or the Prison Notebooks.


I don't think the communist manifesto would be very good for that....but there are some books that I think would be great for something like this.

That, or doing it with leaflets or something.

[The Advent of Anarchy]

Originally posted by [email protected] 03, 2007 01:35 am

The first one is that you take pages from a book and tear them all out or print them off individually. Then on a windy day you drop the pages from a high place and let them drift throughout the city until people pick them up. One page of an interesting book isn't enough to satiate one's curiousness and they'd go out seeking the other pages by looking the book up. I've thought about doing this someday with The Communist Manifesto or the Prison Notebooks.


I don't think the communist manifesto would be very good for that....but there are some books that I think would be great for something like this.

That, or doing it with leaflets or something.
Yeah, 19th century pamphlets don't do much good almost 200 years later. Someone needs to write a new Communist Manifesto that anyone can understand.

[Rawthentic]

SovietPants, thanks for the response, those are some fantastic ideas that I will put into practice.

[Radix]

Thanks for all of the replies guys, I was worried people would tell me all the typical lame stuff like graffiti and the like. Getting a group to go door to door would certainly be interesting.

[CornetJoyce]

"If you think a revolutionary newspaper being a main tactic for revolution is "laughable", then you must think that the Bolshevik Revolution (which was centered around Pravda) was laughable."

Not to mention virtually the entire American press in the 18th and 19th centuries, when newspapers were assumed to be party organs. That's why the liberal Nation magazine founded in the late 19th century, carries a boast that it has always been "independent."
It's constituency was affluent and didn't need government patronage jobs and therefore was "above partisan politics."

[bezdomni]

SovietPants, thanks for the response, those are some fantastic ideas that I will put into practice.

Great! Glad to help. :)


Thanks for all of the replies guys, I was worried people would tell me all the typical lame stuff like graffiti and the like. Getting a group to go door to door would certainly be interesting.

It really is. Just make sure everyone in your group is more or less on the same page and will be able to effectively communicate ideas.

We usually have a discussion over the paper before we take it.



Not to mention virtually the entire American press in the 18th and 19th centuries, when newspapers were assumed to be party organs. That's why the liberal Nation magazine founded in the late 19th century, carries a boast that it has always been "independent."
It's constituency was affluent and didn't need government patronage jobs and therefore was "above partisan politics."

There is something fundamentaly different between an old liberal bourgeois paper and a revolutionary communist newspaper.

[AmbitiousHedonism]

To be fair...


If you think a revolutionary newspaper being a main tactic for revolution is "laughable", then you must think that the Bolshevik Revolution (which was centered around Pravda) was laughable.
I do.



Folks need tools that are relevant to their immediate situations and examples of revolutionary activity at work.

Now you are being condescending. You think that workers are not capable of being successful in the workplace struggle by themselves?

Workers don't need a communist party to fight for them against their bosses. They are perfectly capable of organizing unions and going on strike without communist ideology. To think that this is all we need to be helping them with is not only "condescending", but simply not revolutionary.

I didn't mean to sound like I was saying that we needed examples of revolutionary activity at the workplace but examples of revolutionary activity working/winning.

I think we're arguing (obviously) from two different models. I don't want revolutionary ideas & activity to be centered around something as mediated as a newspaper or magazine, especially a paper mass produced by some faceless central committee.

A body of conscious revolutionaries going door to door in a community could be a great idea, especially when there is something going on in the community to rally around -- the construction of a social center, defense of wild land or public space, a fight against slumlords or developers or whatever. In that sense you're actually engaging other people on equal terms and starting to fight together.

When you're just hawking another goddamn newspaper you're a fucking parasite.

[bezdomni]

I do.

Then that shows nothing more than your counterrevolutionary folly.


I didn't mean to sound like I was saying that we needed examples of revolutionary activity at the workplace but examples of revolutionary activity working/winning.

Like I said...keeping solely to economic struggle and struggle in the workplace will not achieve communism! Workers are perfectly capable of engaging in economic struggle with their employers - it does not require communist theory to understand that you are being screwed!

Otherwise, every worker who has ever joined a union would be a communist. That is certainly not the case.

Should there be revolutionary activity in the workplace? Yes, of course. No communist would deny this at all. However - struggling for better hours, higher wages and improved conditions under capitalism is still capitalism.

Therefore, a political struggle outside of the workplace is absolutely necessary for a socialist revolution.



I think we're arguing (obviously) from two different models. I don't want revolutionary ideas & activity to be centered around something as mediated as a newspaper or magazine, especially a paper mass produced by some faceless central committee.


You cannot have a revolution without a revolutionary newspaper. It is that simple.



A body of conscious revolutionaries going door to door in a community could be a great idea, especially when there is something going on in the community to rally around -- the construction of a social center, defense of wild land or public space, a fight against slumlords or developers or whatever. In that sense you're actually engaging other people on equal terms and starting to fight together.


Revolutions do not ignite over "the construction of social centers" or the "defense of public space" - they are the result of sharp class antagonisms and a class conscious proletariat.

As I have said many times before (quoting Lenin), a revolutionary newspaper is a collective propagandist, agitator and organizer. One could easily write and distribute an agitational newspaper article or a leaflet that centers around some sort of local issue, but in order for it to be a truly agitational piece, it must expose something innate about the oppressive and explitative capitalist system.

This way, you are both exposing capitalism for what it is (not something to just be struggled against in the workplace, but an outmoded force that must be overthrown) and organizing the proletariat against capitalism.



When you're just hawking another goddamn newspaper you're a fucking parasite.

When you're solely organizing in the unions you're a fucking economist!

[SpikeyRed]

These tactics sound good!

I'd like to do some direct action myself, and while I like the Library tactic, I'm not sure what exactly I should be putting in books =\
And I was thinking about going around to local community pinboards in milk bars and shopping centres and stuff and leaving stuff on them, but what?
I live in a kind of Middle class, really white area of Melbourne, so what do you guys suggest?

[Janus]

It's also safe to say that the average working class citizen isn't going to suddenly want to become part of the revolutionary left, possibly having no idea it exists as well.
Probably not but then again if you were to survey the board membership here, you'll probably find that few members here were immediately immersed in radical leftist theory right away. It's generally a very gradual process that takes a lot of time and effort. As such, flyering and disseminating other info. is only meant to be a step in this process meant to spread awareness. However, there are other tactics which can be used in tandem with these methods in order to achieve the best results, many of which have been given above. Since this is quite a drawn out process, it's usually quite difficult to gauge one's actual success which is why one should focus on one's strengths and try out these different strategies, whether it is disseminating information or actually talking to people, in order to see what works best for yourself.

[Janus]

I'm not sure what exactly I should be putting in books =\
You could put in stickers in some of them. For example:MIA stickers (http://www.marxists.org/admin/volunteers/index.htm)


And I was thinking about going around to local community pinboards in milk bars and shopping centres and stuff and leaving stuff on them, but what?
Flyers and other propaganda that address various issues in your community/region would probably be optimal; it's best not to put up anything that would most likely turn people off.

[Not entirely illiterate]

Posting up images and slogans on fliers and posters is implementing an idea upon them; apart from its mnemonic function (like any other commercialism) it probably does little to expand the mind and framework of thought for anyone that doesn't already have the potential to expand. Certainly, that is effective in its right, but to really bring out the word, you should instead bring a non-word. Inspiration is what people need, and it is far too expansive and all-encompassing to be summed up in a slogan (the Vajrayana mantra 'Om Mani Padme Hum' being the one possible exception).

You're probably familliar with the classic saying, "Give a man a fish and he has sustenance for a day, teach a man to fish and he has sustenance for the rest of his life". I believe that anecdote sums up well the potential hazards in offering a pre-packaged ideology that you only need to give a nod in acknowledgement before being ready to raise the banner.

Raising awareness in the most effective form would indeed be to plant the memetic seed of self-surpassing desire in the populace; show them the ways of honing their intellect through study, contemplation and aesthetic expression. Strengthen their body through physical exercise, martial arts and meditative practice. Unlock the potential, and the battle is truly already won; the common worker has transcended from being a beast of burden into a self-conscious entity. Then, the revolution is close at hand, I believe.