I'm generally okay with Trots but my god, the articles they put out can be really grating sometimes. Keep them on track and they can tell you a dozen interesting things about current-day struggles and labour movements. But let them stray a little and they'll just talk about how workers need to form their own rank-and-file movements free of collaborationist union leadership (which like, sure I guess, but union membership and vibrancy isn't exactly thriving throughout the world right now and I just don't think unions can have the same degree of power under financial capitalism that has exported industry to other countries so there's less means of production to even seize), and how Stalinists are destroying every good thing on the planet, and how China is secretly an even worse imperialist than America. I've spent nearly two years reading the stuff they put out and I feel like it would be pretty easy to set up an AI script to just write a solid third of their articles for them, so I hope they're getting in on that to save themselves some effort on the weekly China Bad article so they can focus on the better stuff that I know they can and do regularly write.
I appreciate that the online versions of most left-wing ideologies tend to spend a lot of time in the past for a variety of reasons - things seemed much more dynamic and changeable back then; the world is very difficult to understand and predict right now in anything but general trajectories; arguing online about past events is easier than going outside and actually doing stuff; most of the OG thinkers that you have to read to understand their works happened to be about a century or so ago and there's not a ton of big English-language communist works nowadays; etc - but of all the major left ideologies, Trots seem to be the ones who spend the most time in the past, and with ways of organizing and disseminating information that are built on the assumptions of a world that no longer really exists. They're kind of like the grandpas of the left. I can't really hate or even really dislike them that much, but you're not expecting a lot of energy and movement in that sphere compared to say, the still-surviving ML countries, or the vibrant and energetic anarchist sphere.
I'm generally okay with Trots but my god, the articles they put out can be really grating sometimes. Keep them on track and they can tell you a dozen interesting things about current-day struggles and labour movements. But let them stray a little and they'll just talk about how workers need to form their own rank-and-file movements free of collaborationist union leadership (which like, sure I guess, but union membership and vibrancy isn't exactly thriving throughout the world right now and I just don't think unions can have the same degree of power under financial capitalism that has exported industry to other countries so there's less means of production to even seize), and how Stalinists are destroying every good thing on the planet, and how China is secretly an even worse imperialist than America. I've spent nearly two years reading the stuff they put out and I feel like it would be pretty easy to set up an AI script to just write a solid third of their articles for them, so I hope they're getting in on that to save themselves some effort on the weekly China Bad article so they can focus on the better stuff that I know they can and do regularly write.
I appreciate that the online versions of most left-wing ideologies tend to spend a lot of time in the past for a variety of reasons - things seemed much more dynamic and changeable back then; the world is very difficult to understand and predict right now in anything but general trajectories; arguing online about past events is easier than going outside and actually doing stuff; most of the OG thinkers that you have to read to understand their works happened to be about a century or so ago and there's not a ton of big English-language communist works nowadays; etc - but of all the major left ideologies, Trots seem to be the ones who spend the most time in the past, and with ways of organizing and disseminating information that are built on the assumptions of a world that no longer really exists. They're kind of like the grandpas of the left. I can't really hate or even really dislike them that much, but you're not expecting a lot of energy and movement in that sphere compared to say, the still-surviving ML countries, or the vibrant and energetic anarchist sphere.