back during the revolution, having two printing presses on an armored train was just the most advanced form of bringing propaganda to the people. if trotzky was around today, in today's media landscape, he'd definitely use the full range of different platforms and formats because that's what you need to do today if you want to build broad public support. i find it incredibly weird that some trot orgs stick so adamantly to the newspaper format, that just seems ahistoric and fetishistic to me.
It's weird that leftists grasp that Manufacturing Consent is a thing and then don't spend significant time making that part of what 'organize" means. I spend a decent chunk of time going through right wing discord leaks and whatnot and they definitely understand the power of brigading and organized propaganda dissemination.
That would be kinda silly since the entire point is that they're being lied to and we're trying to expose them to the truth.
The atomization of humanity is at an all time high. Then again, the whole universe started with a big bang pushing every damn subatomic particle as far apart as possible, did it not?
But by and large people don’t read. If your hopes are tied to that, you’re doomed. The west is too far gone.
People don't read like they did in 1917, sure. But as another poster pointed out, there are other forms of media that would be useful as a tool for socialists to spread their message with.
That's the rub, yeah. I consider myself a baby ML, but thinking about your question, nothing comes to mind.
Definitely. I'd love to read the effort post and engage sometime!
Yes the Trotskyist were right about spreading their perspective. The problem with trot papers is not fact that it is a paper, the problem is what is written on that paper: boring Trotskyist rants that nobody wants to read.
A big part of news media, as Chomsky and Parenti and others like Neil Postman have written, is that the most successful news sources are focused on making things exciting and entertaining. If you fill your alternative news source with extremely dry socialist theory then very few people will pay attention. But if you make a silly comedy podcast from a leftist perspective then you can become so popular that you top the charts on Patreon and have a popular Reddit that is (initially) about your podcast, but then it gets banned but the fans liked the community so much that they created a new web forum that has however many thousands of members it is on here now.
Preferably with bearded guys drinking cans of IPA who all take bathroom breaks halfway through and don't edit any of this out, yes.
Anything, ANYTHING to break up the monotony of center to right chatter on AM
you either need your own space where you can create countercultural hegemony (like here) or a bigger megaphone. they won't let you buy time on their megaphone and there are enough legal barriers to prevent you from making your own
That's why r/CTH was banned by the CIA, it was too good at leftist propaganda
Novara media is taking the propaganda bait, and WSWS is probably busy looking for a new rich sex pest to defend.
I say this as someone people would probably call a trot
about their obsession with newspapers. Just look at the effectiveness of the war propaganda around you. That sort of power could be ours if you’d only subscribe to your local socialist newspaper, just think
The real value in the monopolization of media is rooted in the monopolization part. Ten different outlets all speaking the same synchronized talking points creates the illusion of consensus.
By contrast, a dozen independent Trotsky weeklies spitting whatever their acting editors feel is The Most Important Thing do not create any kind of uniform consensus even within the leftist community. You just get these bifrications and struggle sessions between the three guys who think Russia is based, the two guys who are on Team Ukraine, the eight other guys who think we should still be focusing on Climate Change, and the one guy who mostly just puts out reappropriated memes aimed at Joe Brandon.
Hot take: all "tankie" denominations irl are exactly the same way people on the internet say Trotskyists are. In my uni they were Maoists and exactly like this
