Recipes For Disaster (2023)

Disaster? Yes, disaster.

When you think of disasters, perhaps some secret part of you thrills at the ideaof something happening, something interrupting the tedious routines thatcomprise existence for so many of us. You might not be ready to own up to actually desiring one, but a disaster would at least offer a chance to escape your cageand explore the unknown for a little while. What anguish, to live in longing for areprieve from your own life, never knowing when or if it might come!

Or perhaps you cringe at the word, thinking of all the senseless tragedy andloss of life that real disasters entail. In that case, it may have already occurred toyou that we are in the midst of the most terrible slow-motion disaster in history,as the natural environment is utterly laid to waste and the diversity of human experience is steamrolled into the monoculture of capitalism. In such a disaster, youcan’t cook out of the books your ancestors developed for more peaceful times.

Whether disaster is something you privately pine for or desperately hope toescape, one thing is for certain — the old recipes won’t suffice anymore. We needrecipes for disaster. Here they are.

Disclaimer for Our Enemies

Authorities take note: No members of the Crimethlnc. ex- Workers’ Collective endorse orengage in any of the dumb and dangerous activities described herein. As middle-classbeneficiaries of capitalist iniquity, we have no incentive to contest the structures thatguarantee our special privileges, nor do we ever do so — just ask our colleagues.

The “we” utilized in these pages is the anarchist we: it refers to all those whose actions proceed from the social continuum of anti-authoritarian resistance, and does notnecessarily denote any of the editors of, contributors to, or hangers-on associated withthis work. We’re so busy cashing in on others’ insurgency that we wouldn’t have time toparticipate even if we wanted to — honest, officer!

Your potential inconvenience,the Crimethlnc. Action Faction

Disclaimer for Our Friends

“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything — keep yourself steeped inthe character cf the problem you are called on to solve.”

-President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1957

These are indeed recipes for disaster. Anyone with the slightest experience in the field knowsthat nothing ever goes as planned, especially not the first time. Inevitably, at that tense,trembling moment you call in the bomb threat, the receptionist will hang up on you beforeyour recording device plays it — and you’ll realize you only brought one dean quarter.

This book can serve as a source of information, but it is meant at least as much as asource of inspiration — it is an attempt to broaden the public toolbox, to encourage othersto try out ideas of their own. It is indeed important that beginners around the worldbe armed with specific skills that are ubiquitous in some contexts but have never been applied in others, but the process of discovery and experimentation is always more valuablethan the products thereof. Don’t abide by any formula in here — improvise, improvise.

Many of the recipes we composed for this volume were test-driven in small towns.We selected such locations for our rigorous process of experimentation and analysis onthe grounds that they were utterly unremarkable. Perhaps the importance of San Francisco and Barcelona in the struggle for freedom and adventure for all has been overestimated; not everyone can or should live in such places, and besides, many revolutionarystrategies which are now impossible in these cities are still tremendously dangerouseverywhere else. Why risk arrest in the financial district to put up graffiti that will onlyremain for a few hours, when there are a thousand unguarded stop signs in the suburbswaiting to sing your song? Quite a few of these recipes are designed especially for theMiddles-of-Nowhere of our world, the nondescript margins of history where NothingEver Happens. As they say, the quickest way to the top is to turn the world upside down.Revolution is, among other things, a reversal: the first becomes the last, the margin becomes the mainstream, the nameless convict becomes Nestor Makhno, commander ofthe anarchist armies of the Ukraine. The anonymous, inexperienced teenagers who gettheir hands on this book in Missoula, Montana could be the ones to make hip New York,and this book itself, totally obsolete. If you’re one of them — wherever you live, howeverold you are — for everyone’s sake, don’t underestimate your own strength.

One more subject bears comment — the countless recipes left out of this book, especially the ones you think we should have included. Those, my friend, are the first recipesin your book, which you had better start writing as soon as possible.

Yours for total destruction and recreation,and wishing you many a sweet repast,

Crimethlnc, International Federation of Food Service Industry Escapees

Preface: Direct Action — What It Is...

This is a handbook for direct action. It’s not the only on — there are thousands: everygardener’s guide is a direct action handbook, as is every cookbook. Any action that side-steps regulations, representatives, and authorities to accomplish goals directly is directaction. In a society in which political power, economic capital, and social control arecentralized in the hands of an elite, certain forms of direct action are discouraged, to saythe least; this book is about those in particular, for anyone who wants to take control ofher life and accept responsibility for her part in determining the fate of humanity.

For the civilian born in captivity and raised on speetatorship and submission, directaction changes everything. The morning she arises to put a plan into motion, she awakens under a different sun-if she has been able to sleep at all, that is — and in a differentbody, attuned to every detail of the world around her and possessed of the power tochange it. She finds her companions endowed with tremendous courage and resourcefulness, equal to monumental challenges and worthy of passionate love. Together, theyenter a foreign land where outcomes are uncertain but anything is possible and everyminute counts.

Direct Action versus Representation

Practicing direct action means acting directly to meet needs, rather than relying on representatives or choosing from prescribed options. Today the term is commonly appliedto the use of illegal protest tactics to pressure governments and corporations to makecertain decisions, which at bottom is not much different from voting or making campaign contributions; but it most properly describes actions that cut out the middlemanentirely to solve problems without mediation.

Need some examples? You can give money to a charity organization, or you can startyour own chapter of Food Not Bombs and feed yourself and other hungry people atonce. You can write an angry letter to the editor of a magazine that doesn’t provide goodcoverage of the subjects you consider important, or you can start your own magazine.

You can vote for a mayor who promises to start a new program to help the homeless,or you can squat unused buildings and open them up as free housing for anyone inneed. You can write your Congressman, asking him to oppose a law that would allowcorporations to cut down old-growth forests — but if they still pass that law, you can goto the forests and stop the cutting by sitting in trees, blockading roads, and monkey-wrenching machinery.

The opposite of direct action is representation. There are many kinds of representation — words are used to represent ideas and experiences, the viewers of a soap opera lettheir own hopes and fears be represented by those of the protagonists, the pope claimsto represent God — but the most well-known example today can be found in the electoralsystem. In this society, we’re encouraged to think of voting as our primary means ofexercising power and participating socially. Yet whether one votes with a ballot for apolitician’s representation, with dollars for a corporate product, or with one’s wardrobefor a youth culture, voting is an act of deferral, in which the voter picks a person or system or concept to represent her interests. This is an unreliable way to exercise power, tosay the least.

Let’s compare voting with direct action, to bring out the differences between mediated and unmediated activity in general. Voting is a lottery: if a candidate doesn’t getelected, then the energy his constituency put into supporting him is wasted, as thepower they were hoping he would exercise for them goes to someone else. With directaction, one can be certain that one’s work will offer results. In marked contrast to everykind of petitioning, direct action secures resources -experience, contacts in the community, the grudging respect of adversaries — that others can never take away.

Voting consolidates the power of a whole society in the hands of a few individuals;through sheer force of habit, not to speak of other methods of enforcement, everyoneelse is kept in a position of dependence. In direct action, people utilize their own resources and capabilities, discovering in the process what these are and how much theycan accomplish.

Voting forces everyone in a movement to try to agree on one platform: coalitions fightover what compromises to make, each faction insisting that its way is the best and thatthe others are messing everything up by not going along with its program. A lot of energy gets wasted in these disputes and recriminations. In direct action, no vast consensus is necessary: different groups apply different tactics according to what they believein and feel comfortable doing, with an eye to complementing one another’s efforts.People involved in different direct actions have no need to squabble, unless they reallyare seeking conflicting goals, or years of voting have taught them to fight with anyonewho doesn’t think exactly as they do.

Conflicts over voting often distract from the real issues at hand, as people get caughtup in the drama of one party against another, one candidate against another, one agendaagainst another. With direct action, the issues themselves are raised, addressed specifically, and often resolved.

Voting is only possible when election time comes around. Direct action can be appliedwhenever one sees fit. Voting is only useful for addressing topics that are currently on thepolitical agendas of candidates, while direct action can be applied in every aspect of yourlife, in every part of the world you live in. Direct action is a more efficient use of resourcesthan voting, campaigning, or canvassing: an individual can accomplish with one dollar agoal that would cost a collective ten dollars, a non-governmental organization a hundreddollars, a corporation a thousand dollars, and the State Department ten thousand dollars.

Voting is glorified as a manifestation of our supposed freedom. It’s not freedom —freedom is getting to decide what the choices are in the first place, not picking betweenPepsi and Coca-Cola. Direct action is the real thing. You make the plan, you create theoptions, the sky’s the limit.

Ultimately, there’s no reason the strategies of voting and direct action can’t bothbe applied together. One does not cancel the other out. The problem is that so manypeople think of voting as their primary way of exerting political and social power that adisproportionate amount of time and energy is focused on electoral affairs while otheropportunities to make change go to waste. For months and months preceding everyelection, everyone argues about the voting issue, what candidates to vote for or whetherto vote at all, when voting itself takes less than an hour. Vote or don’t, but get on withit! Remember all the other ways you can make your voice heard. This book is for peoplewho are ready to get some more practice using them.

Direct action need not be popular to be effective. The point of a direct action is the actionitself, not pandering to supposed public opinion or anticipated media coverage. Thoseraised in Democracy Monoculture on the assumption that voting is the alpha and omega of social participation often presume that the only possible purpose of any politicalactivity is to convert others to a position in order to build a constituency; consequently,they fail to recognize the broad diversity of roles direct action can serve. These are thepeople who are always quick to pontificate about how graffiti hurts the public image of“the” movement, or how individual artistic projects are irrelevant to the needs of “the”people. But helping “convert the masses” is only one of many roles a direct action canplay. Let’s go over some of the others.

Direct action may simply solve an individual problem: a household needs to eat, sofood is grown, dumpstered, or stolen; an advertisement is offensive, so it is torn downor adjusted; a circle of friends wants to learn more about Latin American literature, so areading group is established. Direct action can be a means for a small group to contribute to a community: people need to know that a rapist has been active in the neighborhood, so fliers are made and posted; police are out of hand, so a cop- watching programis initiated. Direct action can be an opportunity for small groups to get used to workingtogether in larger networks: the slumlord won’t fix anyone’s apartment, so a tenants’union forms to organize a rent strike.

Direct action can be applied to sway the opinion of a whole nation, but it can also beaddressed to a small, specific group that can more easily be influenced: street graffitimay not be taken seriously by middle-class adults, but some of their children experienceit as a revelation. Direct action can be for the benefit of isolated individuals,rather than“the” mainstream: a wheatpasted poster reading Pm Concrete Doesn’t Burn maynot be widely appreciated, but it wi11 help others who share this sentiment to feel thatthey are not entirely alone and insane, and it might inspire them to turn their silentrancor into expressive projects of their own.

Direct action can give visibility to a group or perspective not otherwise represented, oremphasize the possibility of a viewpoint those in power would deny: a newspaper wrapspreads the news the corporate media won’t share, just as broken corporate windowsprove that, whatever the pundits say, not everyone is happy under capitalism. Direct action can demonstrate that social facts and physical conditions that seem inevitable areactually subject to change: an unpermitted street party that transforms a shopping district into a free, festive space shows that the function of any space is up for grabs. Directaction can make life less predictable, more magical and exciting or at least humorous,for chance spectators as well as participants. When business as usual is oppressive anddepressing, simply interrupting it is a service to all.

Popular or not, direct action can keep important issues in the news and in privateconversations: sabotaging an environmentally destructive dam can bring up its ecological effects, whether or not people approve of the sabotage itself. Direct action can give agroup political and social leverage: in the 1980s, Dutch squatters facing threat of eviction demonstrated their power with a directed campaign of harassment and vandalismthat lost Amsterdam its bid to host the Olympic Games, and thus gained an advantagefor bargaining with the city for their homes. Direct action can provide a deterrent: afterthe demonstrations during the meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle, nonation but Qatar would host the next WTO summit. People who would not otherwiseoppose their government’s going to war may do so if they how war will trigger massivedemonstrations that will cripple business and interfere with daily life.

Direct action can hinder corporate wrongdoing by inflicting financial losses: animalrights activists have driven several fur corporations out of business by means of vandalism, obstruction, and picketing. Direct action can discredit or disable nefarious organizations by connecting them in the public mind to violence and trouble: if every time aracist party tries to hold a meeting it ends in street riots, no city is likely to permit themto meet openly and few converts will join their ranks. Direct action can polarize opponents: when one cannot persuade or at least coexist with adversaries, a campaign ofprovocation and interference can drive them to a paranoid extremism that will alienatethem from everyone else.

Direct action can set an atmosphere for an event: if banners have been dropping andpirate radio stations broadcasting all week, everyone will expect the weekend’s corporatetrade conference and anarchist counter-demonstration to be historic — and that expectation will help itself come true. Direct action can demonstrate tactics that others canappropriate and use themselves; for years, these tactics may only be relevant to a smallminority, until in a time of crisis they are suddenly indispensable to everyone. When thecrisis hits, it will be to the advantage of all that some have already been practicing andperfecting these skills, and that everyone else has at least heard of them.

Direct action can save lives and give those who engage in it back their dignity byenabling them to confront injustice directly, as in animal liberation raids. It can be thebest form of therapy, helping those who a d to cure feelings of boredom, hopelessness,and impotence. When one is doing nothing, everything seems impossible; once onehas begun doing something, it is easier to imagine what else is possible and recognizeopportunities as they arise.

Direct action offers the chance to cash in one’s convictions and desires as the lifeexperiences they rightfully should be. Don’t just think about it, don’t just talk about it,for heaven’s sake don’t just bicker about it — do it! Direct action is a means for gettingin the healthy habit of acting rather than looking on: every impulse that is allowed toflow into action is a spell cast for more of the same. In this passive, paralyzed society, wedesperately need to nourish in ourselves the habits of engagement and participation. Asthey say, direct action gets the goods.

Mutual Aid and Outreach

Anyone with direct action skills stands to gain from sharing them with others. This is the opposite of “converting” people: it means empowering people to be themselves, not attempting to turn them into copies of oneself. The more capable each individual and group is, the more all can offer each other, and the more all are able to enforce theirequality. The dissemination of direct action skills fosters relationships of coexistenceand mutual aid, as well as undermining hierarchy and oppression: when people aresimilarly informed, equipped, and versed in taking initiative, they have more at stake inlearning to get along, and freedom and equality necessarily proceed.

Accordingly, anarchists and other partisans of direct action do not give orders or offerleadership: direct action is an adjective followed by a noun, not a verb followed by anobject! Instead, they demonstrate options by acting autonomously, being careful to extend to others whatever knowledge and resources experience provides — this book beinga case in point.

Many who set out to educate others about injustice make the mistake of providingthem with a great deal of data without offering any ideas about what to do. Overwhelmedwith facts, figures, and bad news, most people find it harder to take action, not easier;thus, such attempts to raise awareness for the sake of provoking change often sabotagethemselves. When informing people, it is wise to apply this rule of thumb: for every issue you introduce, spend as much time and energy presenting skills, suggestions, andopportunities for action as you do presenting information and background. A similarrule of thumb is that the more comparable a person’s circumstances are to yours, themore he or she might gain from hearing your suggestions and perspectives; the moreyour life stories diverge, the more you will benefit from listening and learning, ratherthan prescribing outside the context you know.

It also happens that some who practice direct action, eager to be out from underthe yoke of their oppressors, escalate their engagement with these powers to such anextent that no one else can join in. This is often to their misfortune. When consideringa tactic, it’s important to ask to what degree it enables others to act as well, rather thanleaving them immobilized as spectators. For example, the black bloc at the protestsagainst the World Trade Organization in Seattle in 1999 presented a model that otherssubsequently employed countless times to great effect, while the tactics of the WeatherUnderground in the 1970s achieved some impressive feats but failed to result in manypeople becoming similarly active. In the long run, the most powerful tactics are theones that inspire and equip others to join the fight. It is important to pace the escalation of a struggle so that new people get involved at a faster rate than participants areimmobilized by repression: this is how the momentum that generates revolutions iscreated. Your enemies on high want nothing more than to isolate you from everyoneelse who is angry for the same reasons. Make a point of staying accessible and connected to others, so they can come with you if they like when you set out on your journey toa new world.

Communities that practice direct action are often plagued by conflicts over which tacticsare most effective and appropriate. Such debates are usually impossible to resolve-andthat’s a good thing. Instead, to the extent it is possible, the activities of those employingdifferent methods and even those pursuing differing goals should be integrated into amutually beneficial whole.

Accepting a diversity of tactics provides for the broad diversity of real human beings.Every individual has a different life history, and consequently finds different activitiesmeaningful and liberating. Insisting that everyone should adopt the same approach isarrogant and shortsighted — it presumes that you are entitled to make judgments onothers’ behalf — and also unrealistic: any strategy that demands that everyone think andact the same way is doomed to failure, for human beings are not that simple or submissive. Critics often charge that the tactics they oppose will alienate potential participants,but the more diverse the tactics employed by a movement, the wider the range of peoplewho can recognize among those tactics approaches that appeal to them. It may be necessary for factions applying different tactics to distance themselves from one another inthe public eye, but this need not be done in an antagonistic spirit.

A movement that employs a diversity of tactics is able to adapt to changing contexts.Such a movement is a laboratory in which various methods can be tested; the ones thatwork will be easy to identify, and will naturally become popular. As we haven’t yet succeeded in overthrowing capitalism once and for all by any method, all methods are stillworth trying, in case one works. In this sense, those who employ tactics other than theones you favor are doing you a service by saving you the trouble of having to test themfor yourself.

Different tactics, applied in conjunction, can complement one another. Just as themore confrontational politics of Malcolm X forced privileged whites to take the non- violent civil disobedience of Martin Luther King, Jr. seriously, a combination of tactics fromaccessible and participatory to militant and controversial can simultaneously attract attention to a struggle, offer opportunities for people to get involved at their own pace, andprovide those who engage in it with leverage on a variety of levels.

Honoring a diversity of tactics means refraining from attacking those whose chosen approaches seem to you to be ineffective, and instead focusing on what missingelements you can add to make their efforts effective. Thus, it re-frames the question ofstrategy in terms of personal responsibility: at every juncture, the question is not whatsomebody else should be doing, but what you can do.

The importance of a diversity of tactics doesn’t apply only when it is convenient foryou. Don’t claim to support a diversity of tactics and then argue that — just in this particular case, of course — others should prioritize your agenda over their own. Recognizingthe value of diversity of tactics means taking into account that others will make differentdecisions based on their differing perspectives, and respecting this even when theirdecisions baffle you.

Accepting the legitimacy of a diversity of tactics means moving from a competitivemindset in which there is only one right way of doing things to a more inclusive andnuanced way of thinking. This contests hierarchies of value as well as of power, andundermines rigid abstractions such as “violence” and “morality.”

Finally, respect for diverse tactics enables disparate groups to build durable solidaritySuch solidarity must be founded on a commitment to coexisting and collaborating inharmony rather than on limiting demands for unity.

Just as some shortsightedly reject tactics other than their own as ineffective, othersfeel the need to compete to determine whose tactics are the most committed or the mostimpressive. But the most dramatic triumphs of militant direct action are only possiblethanks to the support of people applying more conventional approaches, and vice versa.It is important that we not see tactics as existing in a hierarchy of value, from risk-freeand insignificant to dangerous and glorious, but rather in an ecosystem in which allplay an irreplaceable role. As revolutionaries,our role in such an ecosystem is to createa mutually-enhancing harmony between our efforts and those of others, even if some ofthem want to waste time competing with us for the currency of “being right” or “beingbravest.” No tactic can be effective alone; a11 can be effective together.

Legal and Illegal

Sometimes direct action means breaking the law. Indeed, direct action is a way of re-negotiating laws, both written and unwritten* When people act according to consciencerather than convention, when they transgress deliberately and en masse, reality itselfcan be remade. This is not to say that you can get away with breaking laws just by ceasing to believe in them; but if everyone breaks them with you, the dynamics change.

The agents of law enforcement are at the mercy of many factors at once. Their job, ofcourse, is to enforce the laws on the books, protecting power and property and keepinghuman and financial resources flowing to the judicial industry and the prison-industrialcomplex. At the same time, to some extent, they are at the mercy of public opinion: thepublic, or at least the privileged sectors thereof, has to believe that they are “doing theirjob,” but not overdoing it. They are also limited by simple logistics: if fifty people run outof a supermarket at once without paying, a single police officer can only hope to arrestone or two at best. On top of all this, they are only human (and that’s flattering them):they have fragile egos to keep appeased, they can be slow on the uptake, their infrastructures are often badly organized and inefficient. It is possible to distract them, surprisethem, even demoralize them.

Whenever you consider breaking the law, take into account all the factors that willinfluence the police response. Legal and illegal are not immutable aspects of the cosmos — they are as fluid as context itself: it’s not against the law if you don’t get caught, asevery schoolchild and corporate CEO knows. An unpermitted march that would resultin twenty arrests if attempted by twenty people can take place unobstructed if undertaken by two hundred; at the same time, twenty people with a plan and the certainty thatit can be carried out can easily accomplish objectives that two hundred, less prepared,never could. Ultimately, when it comes to direct action, the laws are immaterial: if whatyou are doing really is subversive, the authorities will attempt to stop you whether it islegal or not — if they can. Your numbers, your courage, your preparation and foresight,your commitment to supporting one another, above all your conviction that what youare doing is possible: these are your permits, your guarantees, and you need no others.

When you participate in hazardous activities, it’s important not to take things fartherthan you feel ready to go: if you get hurt or arrested or otherwise in trouble while engaging in a level of risk for which you are not emotionally prepared, the effects can bedebilitating. Far better that you get started slowly and conservatively, building a sustainable involvement with direct action projects that can continue over a lifetime, than thatyou rush into an action with wild abandon, have a bad experience, and swear off a11 suchactivity. Pace yourself and always quit while you’re ahead, so you can learn and developyour instincts at a safe rate. Believe it or not, there are people well into the prime of lifewho have fought all their lives in the war against capitalism without ever getting caught.Let’s challenge ourselves and the world, let’s run risks and push limits, but let’s do soconsciously and carefully, as part of a long-term process, so the experiences we gain indoing so will not go to waste!

One day, when the conflict between people and power approaches its climax, everything we do will be illegal; then, perhaps, courage and cooperation will win out over fearand tyranny, and we will break the law once and for all. In the meantime, every instanceof direct action, humble as it may be, is a microcosm of that decisive moment, and apotential seed from which it may grow.

Nurturing a Direct Action Community

Although nothing is ever so simple, let’s postulate that there are four essential elements that must be present for a community to become conscious of its own power and get in the practice of using it deliberately. First, at least a handful of individuals must investthemselves in direct action, mutual aid, and revolutionary social change as life projects.It takes the full-time labor, consumption, and faith of millions to maintain the protection racket that enforces servility, scarcity, and alienation. Whenever even a few of usstop investing ourselves in perpetuating this system and instead apply our resources tocreate a space outside its dictates, wondrous things can happen.

Second, direct action must be employed to provide for people’s basic needs in a way thatpromotes self-reliance and builds networks of cooperation and trust. This might meanserving free meals in the park, or stopping an eviction by force, or organizing radicalconcerts and social events — the need for entertainment and camaraderie is no less fundamental than the need for food or for housing. The more people are able to meet their needsdirectly and together, the less they need the capitalist system and the conditional solutionsit offers — and the more they can invest themselves in building alternatives to it.

Third, the power of direct action must be demonstrated in exciting, accessible, participatory ways. Rather than letting direct action become the specially of a subcultureor expert class, those who appreciate its value should arrange opportunities for peopleof all walks of life to take part in it, starting with the communities with which they aremost familiar. Everyone who is involved in such demonstrations should have empowering experiences that indicate the possibility of an entirely different way of life. For thisto occur, the character of each demonstration must be dictated by the needs and circumstances of those who are to participate: a class of bored and rebellious high schoolstudents might discover their collective power by staging a walkout, while the residentsa neighborhood could experience a similar revelation in the course of tending a community garden. All events and contexts are ripe for conversion into participatory directaction, however hopelessly repressive they may seem: a speech at a stuffy ceremony canswiftly be transformed into a hurricane of creative heckling, just as a crowd of docileconsumers at a concert can take to the streets in an unpermitted march — all it takes isfor a few individuals to seize a previously unthinkable but longed-for possibility in a waythat is contagious. These demonstrations should not simply be isolated events: it shouldbe easy for those they inspire to become connected to ongoing projects and communities in which they can give substance to their new visions.

Finally, an atmosphere must be created that provokes curiosity, builds momentum,and maintains morale. Everywhere people go, there should be evidence that somethingis afoot, that big changes are in store. The subject of direct action, however controversial, should be on the tip of every tongue, and the sub stance of it scrawled on every walland employed in every workplace. Wild speculations, whispered rumors, secret invitations, passionate crusades, epic triumphs, surprises, suspense, drama, adventure: theseare the stuff of revolutions, and without them it is not possible to break the deadlockbetween fear and desire.

Despite your best attempts, there wi11 be periods when momentum dies down and itseems you are losing the ground you gained. During a waning phase of activity, don’tpanic or give up hope. Pace yourself, take it in stride as part of the cycle of life; it willpass. Weather it with the others that stick around, focusing on the worthwhile projectsyou can undertake without a crowd around you. Use this period to consolidate whatyou’ve learned and built, and to develop new relationships and proficiencies so you’ll beready to take things even farther when the action starts to heat up again — as it will.

Don’t let anyone tell you nothing ever changes. Revolutions always happen, as sure asthe earth goes on turning. The only question is whether we participate in them unconsciously, washing our hands of responsibility for the choices we make, or deliberately,bringing our dreams into being with every step.

Affinity Groups

Ingredients

• A circle of friends

• Trust

• Consensus

• Secrecy

• A good idea

• Plans for different scenarios

• Structures for responding to unexpected scenarios

• A little courage (may be optional, but should be at hand just in case)

• Action!

• Subsequent discussion

Instructions

Chances are, even if you have never been involved in direct action before, even if this isthe first radical text you have ever encountered, that you are already part of an affinitygroup-the structure proven most effective for guerrilla activities of al I kinds. An affinitygroup is a circle of friends who, knowing each other’s strengths, weaknesses, and backgrounds, and having already established a common language and healthy internal dynamics, set out to accomplish a goal or series of goals.

An affinity group is not a permanent arrangement, but a structure of convenience,ever mutable, assembled from the pool of interested and trusted people for the durationof a given project. Once assembled, this group may choose to be “closed,” if security dictates: that is, whatever goes on within the group is never spoken of outside it, even afterall its activities are long completed. A particular team can act together over and over asan affinity group, but the members can also participate in other affinity groups, break?x up into smaller affinity groups, and act outside the affinity group structure.

The size of an affinity group can range from two to, say, fifteen individuals, depending on the action in question; but no group should be so numerous that an informalconversation about pressing matters is impossible. You can always split up into two ormore groups, if there are enough of you. In actions that require driving, the easiest system is to have one affinity group to each vehicle.

Affinity groups can be practically invincible. They cannot be infiltrated, because allmembers share history and intimacy with each other, and no one outside the groupneed be informed of their plans or activities. They are more efficient than the most professional military force: they are free to adapt to any situation; they need not pass theirdecisions through any complicated process of ratification; all individuals can act andread instantly without waiting for orders, yet with a dear idea of what to expect fromone another. The mutual admiration and inspiration on which they are founded makethem very difficult to demoralize. In stark contrast to capitalist, fascist, and communiststructures , they function without any need for hierarchy or coercion: participation in anaffinity group can be fun as well as effective. Most important of all, they are motivated byshared desire and loyalty, rather than profit, duty, or any other compensation or abstraction: small wonder whole squads of riot police have been held at bay by small affinitygroups armed with only the tear gas canisters shot at them.

Affinity groups operate on the consensus model: decisions are made collectively,based on the needs and desires of every individual involved. Democratic votes, in whichthe majority get their way and the minority must hold their tongues, are anathema toaffinity groups: if a group is to function smoothly and hold together, every individualinvolved must be satisfied. In advance of any action, the members of a group establishtogether what their personal and collective goals are, what their readiness for risk is (asindividuals and as a group), and what their expectations of each other are. These mattersdetermined, they formulate a plan.

Since action situations are always unpredictable and plans rarely come off as anticipated, an affinity group usually has a dual approach to preparing for these. On the onehand, plans are made for different scenarios: if A happens, well inform each other by Xmeans and switch to plan B; if X means of communicationis impossible, we’ll reconvene at siteZ at Q o’clock On the other hand, structures are put in place that will be useful even ifwhat happens resembles none of the imagined scenarios: internal roles are divided up,communication systems (such as two-way radios, or coded phrases for conveying secretinformation or instructions aloud) are established, general strategies (for maintainingcomposure, keeping sight of one another in confusing environments, or blocking policecharges, to name some examples) are prepared, emergency escape routes are charted,legal support is readied in case anyone gets arrested. After an action, a shrewd affinitygroup will meet (again,if necessary, in a secure location) to discuss what went well, whatcould have gone better, and what comes next.

An affinity group answers to itself alone — this is one of its great strengths. Affinitygroups are not burdened by the procedural protocol of other organizations,the difficultiesof reaching accord among strangers or larger numbers of people, or the limitations ofanswering to a body not immediately involved in the action. At the same time, just asthe members of an affinity group strive for consensus with each other, each affinitygroup should strive for a similarly considerate relationship with other individuals andgroups — or, at the very least, to complement others’ approaches wherever possible, evenif these others do not recognize the value of their contribution. People should be thrilledabout the participation or intervention of affinity groups, not resent or fear them; theyshould come to recognize the value of the affinity group model, and so come to apply itthemselves, from seeing it succeed and from benefiting from that success.

An affinity group can work together with other affinity groups, in what is sometimescalled a duster. The duster formation enables a larger number of individuals to act width

the same advantages a single affinity group has. If speed or secrecy is called for, representatives of each group can meet ahead of time, rather than the entirety of all groups;if coordination is of the essence, the groups or representatives can mange methodsfor communicating through the heat of the action. Over years of collaborating together,different affinity groups can come to know each other as well as they know themselves,and become accordingly more comfortable and capable together.

When several dusters of affinity groups need to coordinate especially massive actions — for a big demonstration, for example — they can hold a spokes council meeting.In this author’s humble experience, the most effective, constructive spokes councils arethose that limit themselves to providing a forum in which different affinity groups anddusters can inform one another (to whatever extent is wise) of their intentions, ratherthan seeking to direct activity or dictate principles for all. Such an unwieldy format isill-suited to lengthy discussion, let alone debate; and whatever decisions are made, orlimitations imposed, by such a spokes council will inevitably fail to represent the wishesof all involved. The independence and spontaneity that decentralization provides areour greatest advantages in combat with an enemy that has all the other advantages,anyway- why sacrifice these?

The affinity group is not only a vehicle for changing the world — like any good anarchist practice, it is also a model for alternative worlds, and a seed from which suchworlds can grow. In an anarchist economy, decisions are not made by boards of directors, nor tasks carried out by masses of worker drones: affinity groups decide and acttogether. Indeed, the affinity group /cluster /spokes council model is simply another incarnation of the communes and workers’ councils that formed the backbone of earliersuccessful (however short-lived) anarchist revolutions.

Not only is the affinity group the best format for getting things done, it’s practicallyessential. You should always attend any event that might prove exciting in an affinitygroup — not to mention the ones that won’t be otherwise! Without a structure that encourages ideas to flow into action, without friends with whom to brainstorm and barnstorm and build up momentum, you are paralyzed, cut off from much of your ownpotential; with them, you are multiplied by ten, or ten thousand! “Never doubt that asmall group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world,” as Margaret Meadwrote: “it’s the only thing that ever has.” She was referring, whether she knew the jargonor not, to affinity groups. If every individual in every action against the state and statusquo participated as part of a tight-knit, dedicated affinity group, this revolution would beover in a few short years.

You don’t need to find a revolutionary organization to join to get active-you and yourfriends already comprise one! Together, you can change the world. Stop wondering what’sgoing to happen, or why nothing’s happening, and start deciding what will happen. Don’tjust show up at the next demonstration, protest, punk show, traffic jam, or day at workin passive spectator mode, waiting to be told what to do. Get in the habit of trading crazyideas about what should happen at these events — and of making those ideas reality!

An affinity group could be a sewing circle, a bicycle maintenance collective, or a traveling down troupe; it could come together for the purpose of starting a local chapterof Food Not Bombs, discovering how to turn a bicycle into a record player, or forcinga multinational corporation out of business through a carefully orchestrated programof sabotage. Affinity groups have planted and defended community gardens, built andburned down and squatted buildings, organized neighborhood childcare programs andwildcat strikes; individual affinity groups routinely initiate revolutions in the visual artsand popular music. Your favorite band — they were an affinity group. It was an affinitygroup that invented the airplane. Another, composed of disgruntled Nietzsche enthusiasts, nearly succeeded in assassinating Adolph Hitler during the Second World War.One published this book.

Bottomlining

For affinity groups and larger structures similarly based on consensus and cooperation to Function, it is essential that everyone involved be able to rely on each other tocome through on their commitments. When a plan is agreed upon, each individual ina group and each group in a duster should choose one or more critical aspects of thepreparation and execution of the plan and offer to bottomline them. Bottomlining thesupplying of a resource or the completion of a project means guaranteeing that it will beaccomplished somehow, no matter what. If you’re operating the legal hotline for yourgroup during a demonstration, you owe it to them to handle it even if you get sick; ifyour group promises to provide the banners for an action, make sure they’re ready, evenif that means staying up all night the night before because the rest of your affinity groupnever showed up. Over time you’ll learn how to handle crises, and who can be countedon in them — just as others will learn how much they can count on you.

Facilitating Discussions

Although one of the rules of thumb for affinity groups is that they should not be solarge as to need formal structures for discussions, larger meetings — between clustersof affinity groups, for example — may require them. Be warned: using such protocolunnecessarily will bog down discussions and alienate participants, and can even fosterneedless antagonism and drama. On the other hand, if an assembly shares good faithin a given approach and works out its details together, such structures can make groupdecision-making quicker, easier, and more responsive to the needs and interests of everyone involved. No system is better than the people who participate in it; make sure inadvance that everyone is comfortable with the format you use.

In one common format, the discussion goes around a circle, each person taking aturn to speak. In another, suited better to larger gatherings, the group begins by agreeing on a facilitator, an individual who will help keep the discussion constructive and on Affinity Groupstopic. Another individual volunteers to “take stack, “ keeping track of the order in whichpeople raise their hands to speak; if people feel it is important to make sure differentdemographics represented in the group get equal time speaking, this person can take aseparate stack for each, and alternate between them. Next, individuals propose items forthe agenda of the discussion, then come to consensus on an order for these items and,if time is pressing, a time limit for the discussion of each. During the discussion process, individuals can ask to respond directly to questions, so the group doesn’t have towait until the stack comes around to them to hear their responses. Individuals can alsomake comments on the process of the discussion, urging people to focus when they aregetting distracted, or proposing a break so people can stretch their legs or discuss matters in smaller groups. When it’s time to make a decision on an issue, individuals makeproposals, propose amendments, and then address concerns until the group reachesconsensus or the closest thing to it.

Antifascist Action

It always starts the same way. Racist fliers or stickers show up on the walls of local hangouts or are distributed to people’s homes. Reports of attacks and acts of intimidationagainst people of color appear in the news. Rumors fly about Nazi boneheads hangingaround local high schools. Queer-bashing incidents rise. Hip-hop kids, punks, and antiracist skinheads report run-ins with Nazis on the street. Shady characters start pushinganti-immigration campaigns. A local controversy erupts over race issues, and Klan andNazi groups plan a rally to escalate the tension. Soon it snowballs: white power groupsorganize concerts, racists run for office, boneheads crash shows, start fights, and attackleft-wing political centers, exerting dominance over local youth and street scenes. Pressure mounts ... time to fight back!

Liberals and authorities will tell you that ignoring fascists will make them go away, orthat the police will handle them. Bullshit. Ignoring a problem does not make it go away,and as often as not police have ties to fascists or are at least willing to look the otherway -they may even be glad to have fascists around to take care of radicals for them. Butif the fascists are exposed and opposed with both ideas and fists, their organizing effortscan be seriously weakened, even defeated. 35

Instructions: Know Your Enemy

Some people think fascists are inconsequential fringe groups whose ideas nobodytakes seriously anymore. Think again. Neo-fascist movements are off the respiratorsand breathing with renewed vigor, making a strong comeback around the world. In thepast ten years alone they’ve made electoral gains and taken over the streets in some cities (Europe),spurred ethnic cleansing (Eastern Europe), built up a million-dollar whitepower music and merchandising empire to fund their organizing (USA),and committed various acts of terrorism (worldwide) — and that’s not counting the local efforts, including small-scale organizing, propaganda blitzes, and physical assaults.

There is a real movement of far right and neo-Nazi groups taking root? This movement is diverse, including contradictory and competing factions: legal vs, outlaw, massorganizing vs. leaderless cells, religious vs. secular, Christian vs. Satanist, white supremacist vs. nationalist, suit vs. skinhead. Some are unorganized aews who just hangout and occasionally attack the most obvious and defenseless targets. Others are highlyorganized and serious about changing society, using either clandestine cells or frontgroups to achieve their goals. Some are open about their racist beliefs and call for ethnicstrife, while others mask their motives behind “cultural heritage” and claim to be actingout of pride and love for “their people.” Their support base includes politicians, cops,academics, military personnel — perhaps even your neighbors. Many of their supportersremain secret, preferring to remain unknown but providing information, money, andother forms of aid, including guns and other weapons.

Fascism, past and present, has an undisputable history of racist terror and murder.Treating fascists as a serious threat is not paranoid — it’s commonsense self-defense.Even small fascist groups can be vocal enough to force their politics into the publicdialogue, shifting public opinion and debate to the right. Once fascists start to get agrip in an area, they will raise the level of violence to drive their enemies (includinganarchists) out.

It’s essential to challenge fascism by opposing our own liberating alternatives to it.Fascism appeals to people who are justifiably pissed off at our fucked up society ; ratherthan taking on the complex roots of our society’s problems-capitalism, patriarchy, hierarchy — they swallow the simplistic and scapegoating solutions that fascists offer. Ina sense, anarchists and fascists are competing for the same constituency; both struggleto undermine the current social order, and propose ideas about how new communitiesshould be forged. This suggests that fascism can only be defeated once and for all bysuccessful anarchist organizing; we need to sway people by demonstrating the merits ofmutual aid, non-hierarchical relationships, solidarity between cultures, and grassrootsdirect action.

There are times, however, when words are not enough, and you must act or risk beingsilenced forever.

Antifascist action is dangerous work. Not only do you have to deal with the usual policerepression, you need to watch out for fascist attacks- on the street, at your home, andin your community.

How do you and your friends do this? Arm yourselves. Watch your backs. Train forself-defense. Plan for emergencies and set up a crisis alert network to summon yourcomrades. Establish bail and medical funds. Take this seriously. lives may depend on it.

Basic security measures are a must. Don’t use your real names when engaging inwork like this. Keep your phone number unlisted. Use post office boxes. Be carefulabout letting your personal information get out. Keep a low profile online. Use aliases,encryption, and throwaway email accounts. Check out the backgrounds of people whoare interested in joining your group. Arrange to have security present whenever youhave public meetings or events. Know what your response will be if fascists show up orif they attack.

Security

Militant antifascism means occasionally engaging in quasi-militaristic activities. Ifyou’re not prepared to think that way, you may want to choose another project. Sometimes you’ll have no choice but to deal with the fascists. This doesn’t mean violence isalways the answer, nor that we should adopt a gang mentality of us against them. Realistically, however, martial preparation is necessary for this type of activity.

Investigation

Fascism’s popularity varies depending on location and political climate. At the risk ofover-generalizing, it can be said that fascists are generally in a situation in which theyknow they are unpopular, so they “by to keep their activities on the down-low. Just because you don’t have Nazis marching down your street with swastika flags doesn’t meanyou don’t have a fascist infestation in your city. They’re out there, anonymously leafleting, throwing up fascist graffiti, running mail order distributions, recruiting one-on-one,infiltrating other groups, laying plans.

Keep records. Whenever fascists are in the news, collect as much information as possible. Lookup names, phone numbers, and addresses. Use reverse directories and online search engines. If Nazis get busted, obtain the public copies of their arrest reports.Monitor their websites and message boards. Create fake email accounts, so as to pose asfellow Nazis and interact with them online. Subscribe to their magazines. Note rumorsabout where they hang out; go there and check them out. When they hold events, callthem up and get the inside scoop. Monitor these events. Get license plates and vehiclemodels. Take close-up pictures, link names to faces. Send infiltrators to their meetings.If you spot a Nazi on the street, follow him — sometimes it’s better to collect informationthan to take immediate action. Share information with other trusted antifascists. Findout where fascists work, live, go to school. Note their relationships — who hangs withwho, who takes leadership roles, who’s likely to be a police informant, who’s likely tobust out a gun and start shooting. Gather as much intelligence on them as possible.

Set up an info-line so that people can call, mail, or email in information on fascistsand their activities. Post stickers or fliers about the line in areas where Nazis hang out,along with “unwanted” posters featuring photographs of the actual Nazis. You’ll be surprised at the response, but don’t trust everything sent in — verify all information first.This outreach might also put you in touch with folks who live near fascists, and withother potential allies.

Antifascist work is not something to charge into carelessly. If you don’t have a plan,somebody is likely to get hurt.

Start by assessing your local situation and figuring out what you want to accomplish. Develop a blueprint. There are many factors you need to keep in mind — toomany to list here. Your local situation is unique, and your plans will need to reflectthis. Does the situation call for an organized community response, such as exposing a fascist running for office, or in office? Or does it make sense to have a tight-knit affinity group carry out its own plans, such as permanently shutting down aNazi mail order business with an unannounced ^ire sale?Try to put yourselves in thefascists’ shoes and imagine what would hurt them most. Also, consider the consequences of your actions. Will they prompt an outraged fascist counterattack? Are youprepared to fight back?

It will help to look at existing antifascist organizing models and see how others havecarried out this work. Groups like Anti-Racist Action (US and Canada), Antifascist Action (UK), and the German Antifa movement have employed a wide variety of tacticsand learned many lessons. These models will not work in every situation, but they mayprovide some ideas.

One word of warning: be careful of who you work with. Many “antifascist” groups outthere have extremely sketchy politics and are no more your allies than the fascists are.

Planning

The Jewish Defense League, for example, is virulently Zionist, as is the Anti-DefamationLeague, who have also been known to collect intelligence on radicals and sell it to policeand Israeli spies. Both the AD.L. and the Southern Poverty Law Center go out of theirway to convince people to ignore fascist activity and have denounced radical antifascistsin the press as violent and worse than the Nazis, and the various communist antifascistfront groups have unsavory agendas of their own.

The choice is yours whether to take public community action or clandestine direct action. Tips for both can be found elsewhere in this volume, but there is one aspect ofantifascist action that must be covered here: direct confrontation.

Wherever fascists go, they should be confronted. Pick your battles: don’t start aconfrontation that is unnecessarily dangerous (say, in which the Nazis have guns athand), that you will lose (in which you are outnumbered or less willing to fight), or thatis better avoided (in which you would suffer serious arrests, or miss the opportunityto score some crucial intelligence by just watching instead). Most confrontations willstart off verbally, but can easily escalate to something more physical. Keep the upperhand and set the tone of the confrontation. Have a plan, stay cool, and don’t let themoff the hook! Confrontation is a psychological battle: you want to intimidate, humiliate, and make them uncomfortable, while simultaneously raising confidence amongantifascists. A verbal rout can be just as demoralizing to fascists as a physical beat-down — both have their place.

On the other hand, don’t make a spectacle of yourself for its own sake. If you startsomething that you can’t finish, people will not take you seriously. Don’t be afraid toback down if safely calls for it.

Sometimes fascists may bring the confrontation to you. Winning fights isn’t alwaysabout being the biggest bruisers or having the most numbers, it’s about having the will

to win (sounds like fascist propaganda, but it has an element of truth). Likewise, losinga battle doesn’t always mean losing the war. You might not come out on top, but the wayyou fight can gain you respect and support.

If you’re expecting a physical confrontation, be sure everyone is prepared for it. Keeptight and watch each other’s backs. If you can get away with it, carry weapons, or ifthere’s a chance you might get searched by police, carry items that can be used as weapons in a pinch — hefty flagpoles, thick placard sticks, batteries, Mag-Lites, bike locks.Have medics on hand, and know where the nearest hospitals are. If anyone gets hurt,use a cover story at the hospital to avoid police investigation. Know what everyone’slimitations are, and have a plan to hit hard and get out fast. Be bold, and if you see anopportunity, take it! And don’t forget your masks — see Blocs, Black and Otherwise (pg.127) for information about how to act with the benefit of shared anonymity.

Antifascists and Corporate Media

The mainstream media is never going to be friendly toward militant antifascists. At best,you’ll be viewed as violent vigilantes, or just an opposing gang. Liberal groups will do thetheir best to denounce your tactics.

This doesn’t necessarily mean you should avoid the mainstream media. The militantantifascist perspective should be articulated as widely as possible. Pick articulate spokespeople to speak for your group, but be careful that they protect their identities. Fascists and police watch the news, too. Use fake names and wear masks.

Be aware that media will often go out of their way to interview fascists, providingthem with opportunities to spread their ideology. Interfere with this whenever possible.If you get the opportunity to interrupt such an interview, be disruptive and make sureyour counterpoints are delivered.

Scenario #1: Following Up on Fascist Activity in the News

Vandalism on a synagogue or mosque. An attack on a mixed-race couple. Racist leaflets dropped on hundreds of lawns overnight. A cross burned outside of a black family’shome. Perhaps you’ve heard something like this in the news recently.

First, collect as much information from the source as possible. Get the date, time,location, and names of people involved or arrested.

Second, check similar sources. Look in other newspapers — especially the police blotters of smaller, local, weekly papers. Watch the news. Dig around online.

Next, get in the car and go check out the area of the incident. Look for signs of otherfascist activity — graffiti, bumper stickers, nationalist flags. Note any places that fascistsmight hang out nearby — bars, parks, pool halls, etc. Talk to people in the area, particularly convenience store clerks and kids. Ask about skinheads or incidents involving race.Be prepared in case you run into some Nazis on the street.

If you have the address of a fascist involved in the incident, check it out, same asabove. Hang around the area. If it’s at night, you have the time, and you won’t looksuspicious, sit in your car and watch the address to see who comes in and out. Followanyone who looks suspect. If you get the chance, take their trash and examine it elsewhere. You may score all sorts of personal information on the Nazi, or possibly evensome fascist literature or correspondence.

If you have a phone number, call and pretend to be a reporter — but be careful whereyou’re calling from, as it can be traced back. Ask about the incident, others involved, anygroups the person works with, and so on. Pump them as much as you can. Alternatively,call and pretend to be from a large fascist group like the National Alliance. Say that youheard about the incident and wanted to see if they needed any kind of support. Try to getnames and information of other fascists. See Infiltration (pg. 306) for more information about such tactics.

If a fascist was arrested, find out about the hearing and attend it. Take careful note offascist supporters that show up; try to follow them when they leave. If you’re a known orrecognizable antifascist, you’ll risk getting harassed or jumped out on the street, so becareful. Don’t go alone. Tone down your look, or roll in as a large and visible antifascistpresence, let them know you’re watching, and do your best to intimidate them.

Another approach, though a trickier one, is to call up the victims of the incident. Thisneeds to be handled with extreme tact Say, “Hello, my name is (alias)and I work with anantiracist youth organization called Anti-Racist Action (or whatever your group is called)and we heard about what happened. We do research and education to expose racism andracist violence. Could we ask you some questions about the incident?” Again, be carefulthe phone number from which you call can’t be traced to you. The person may be up fortalking, or he or she may be freaked out. If they don’t want to talk, apologize, thank themfor their time, and hang up.

If the incident is part of a rash of fascist activity, then you may want to organize somesort of public community response (see Scenario #3), If nothing else, you now have in-formation about the people behind the fascist threat in your area, and you can make aninformed decision about how to respond to their efforts. You may also want to pass theintelligence you have gathered on to a national antifascist organization.

You’ve heard rumors that Nazi boneheads are hanging around a local high school. Isthis just a case of someone wearing offensive and reactionary patches, or is there something deeper happening? Better find out

First, approach any contacts you have at the school: friends, younger relatives, a sympathetic teacher. Ask them what they know. Second, go to the school and hand out anti-racist fliers, stickers, and other cool free stuff. Make it known to the local kids that youare part of an antifascist group and you’re following up on reports of local Nazi activity.

Scenario #2: Responding to Bonehead Crew Hanging Out Around the High School

Some cool kids will be more than willing to dish up some information, and may eitherwant to work with you on “outing” the fascists or already have some plan in motion withwhich you can link your own efforts. If possible, encourage them to start up an antiracistgroup at their school.

Your goal is to find out who the fascist kids are, where they hang out, and if they’reconnected to any organized fascist groups. Sometimes you’ll be dealing with misguided kids who just think the Nazi skinhead trend is cool, and can easily be persuaded otherwise. Sometimes you’ll find that one or more of the kids (or maybe anolder brother or friend) is linked to an organized group. You need to get to thesekids quick — or, preferably, the ones organizing them from above — before more youngpeople are pulled in.

You’ll be taking several risks by going to the school. You may run into Nazis, so beprepared for a confrontation. You may also rum afoul of school administration or security. You may be cited laws and threatened with arrest for trespassing on school groundsand handing out fliers. If you handle this deftly, it can work in your favor: a controversyover holding out anti-Nazi information will get attention. It may be easiest to simply goto other places the kids hang out near the school, where you won’t be harassed. You mayeven find some kids willing to pass things out inside the school for you.

Scenario #3: Outing A Fascist

You’ve gotten an active fascist’s name and home address. Aside from some nighttimefun, what do you do with this info? Easy! “Out” the Nazi to his neighbors. This is especially effective if the fascist is trying to keep his activities secret.

First, confirm that all the information you have is correct. Make sure the Nazi actuallylives there, and that he’s actually the person you think he is.

Make up a flier with the fascist’s picture, name, home address and phone number,and all of the information you have on his fascist and personal activities. On the back,put together some information on why fighting fascism is important, including practical suggestions for things that people can do to counter the fascists’ efforts or otherwiseget more involved.

Post this flier everywhere, particularly where the fascist lives, works, hangs out, shops,goes to school. Then gather a bunch of people and go door to door in his neighborhood.Talk to his neighbors about who the guy is and why he needs to be confronted. Encourage them to organize their own neighborhood against him. This puts pressure on thefascist and exposes him to the surrounding community. This kind of public notificationcan lead to spontaneous and interesting community action against him. Lots of peoplehate Nazis and racists, and if given the chance will serve street-level justice to them.

This canvassing needs to be handled carefully. Look at the class, cultural, and ethnicmakeup of the community to gauge the response you will get. Travel in groups, andhave some people keep an eye out for trouble while the others hand out fliers and do thetalking. Your target may spot you or hear about what you’re doing and call in his palsfor backup. You might also run across neighbors who are friends of your target, whoare possibly even fascists themselves. Other residents may simply be annoyed at beingdisturbed, accuse you of being vigilantes, or even call the police on you. A confrontationmay occur in which violence or arrest is a possibility, so be prepared.

All this risk can be worth it, however. You can make a positive impact and developnew relationships with neighbors, area residents, and youth. Some will appreciate yourefforts and ask how they can help — be prepared to give practical advice. They may evenoffer you information about the Nazi’s activities. These personal contacts can be veryuseful later on.

As a final stroke, you may wish to hold a demonstration and march it directly to thefront door to confront the fascist at his house. The idea here is to intimidate him andlet him know you’re prepared to bring the battle directly to his doorstep. Encourage Antifascist

the neighbors to join you. If the Nazi fails to come out, leave him some messages hewon’t forget. The likelihood of violence or arrest is much higher in this situation, sobe prepared.

Scenario #4: Shutting Down a Fascist Rally, Meeting, or Concert

Many fascist groups, such as the KKK, like to hold public rallies to gain attention. Others, like the National Alliance, hold secret organizing meetings to train their cadre.White power concerts serve to draw in youth. All deserve to be shut down.

Start by collecting information on who is planning the event. What is their history,where are they from, and who are their local contacts? This will give you some background on the fascists for propaganda purposes, and will help you to identify what andwhom to target. Fascist groups often have a local member who invites the group to town,hoping to draw more recruits. The local is probably the one who reserved the eventspace. When fascists arrive from out of town, they are likely to visit this person’s home.This is a perfect opportunity for surveillance and intelligence gathering, or to exposethem early on and disrupt their plans beforehand.

Step 1: Call a meeting. Invite groups and individuals you think would be willing tocooperate on a tactical level, even if you have political differences. Be firm that the purpose of this organizing is to shut the event down, not just to protest or raise awareness.Make it a point of principle that the coalition will not work with the police, that it willsupport a diversity of tactics, and that it will organize on a grassroots, horizontal level.Develop a spokescouncil (see Affinity Groups, pg. 28) and get representatives from involved groups to take on roles. Get commitments from people. If others have alreadyinitiated an organizing meeting, figure out if it is worth attending. If it is, raise the sameissue of direct democracy and the goal of shutting the event down. Unfortunately, theremay be some liberals who will be outraged by your suggestions and will try to isolateyou. Some people may not want to engage in confrontation, so space should be providedfor them to participate safely — support roles are just as crucial as action roles, after all.Make your points and try to win people to your perspective, but be careful not to sayanything potentially incriminating. Liberals have a long and sordid history of acting aspolice informants when they are confronted with more radical organizing attempts.

Step 2: Get the word out. Leaflets, stickers, spray paint, stencils, the internet, whatever it takes. If your area is multilingual, try to get your stuff translated. It makes a bigdifference to break down the language barriers and avoid the assumption that everyonespeaks American English. This has the benefit of attracting people from different scenesto the organizing — both of this counter-event and of long-term antifascist actions.

Your main goal at this stage is to get the fascist event cancelled in advance. Sometimes simple exposure will do the job. Many businesses do not want to be associatedwith fascists and will nix an event once it is publicized that they are hosting them; inmany cases, they will not realize whom they are dealing with until they are informed, asfascists often conceal the true nature of their groups and intentions. Others will initiallydefend the event on misguided “free speech” grounds, but will cave in to public pressureif you organize a call-in campaign.

In some circumstances, you may want to avoid public organizing. A call to action islikely to get media attention, and the police will certainly take notice. This guarantees thatthe fascists will have a state-sponsored security force for the event, decreasing your chances of direct confrontation. You may not want them to know you’re coming. In this case,organize by word-of-mouth among select antifascist groups, and catch them by surprise!

Public Rallies

It’s very rare for the fascists to hold any sort of public rally without massive police protection defending their “free speech” while silencing ours. This may include massivenumbers of riot cops — sometimes hidden out of sight nearby until needed — armed withtear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, and flash grenades, not to mention helicopters,snipers, command centers, dogs, horses, and tank-like vehicles. The fascists will oftenbe defended behind fences, with supporters and opposition herded into caged-in protestpens. The main fascists will be escorted in and out by the police, often in police vehicles.

This doesn’t mean there’s no chance to get at them or shut the event down. First, try tofind out where the fascists are meeting up beforehand. This may be a local’s house, thefast food joint next to the cop station, or a gas station off the highway. If you gather enoughpeople, you may be able to surprise them there. Second, fascist supporters may showup without the benefit of a police escort. Have teams of scouts ready to ferret out thesefascists, so you can confront them and give them a reason to leave. Third, encourage thecrowd to mobilize to prevent the cop-escorted fascists from getting in or out. If the fascistsplan to march, try to block the route. You can also send infiltrators into the supporters’area, or rain projectiles on the fascists’ parade. If a11 else fails, you can still try to drown the fascists out with your own noise, and have some rousing good fun in the process.

Remember, fascist rallies are recruitment and publicity opportunities. Take advantageof the situation and make it publicity for antifascist action!

Meetings

Some meetings will draw fascists in from out of town. Check out the parking lots oflocal hotels, looking for fascist bumper stickers or other telltale signs. If you know thenames of any attendees, call around to hotels and see if they’ve checked in. Considerpaying them a surprise visit.

Since they’re not public events, fascist meetings usually lack the police presence thataccompanies most rallies. This gives you a lot more leeway for confronting the fascists — especially if they don’t know you’re coming. If possible, march your group rightinto their event for maximum disruption. A few noisemakers and kicked-over tables willadd to the chaos. The police might eventually force you out, but you can still be rowdyAntifascist Actt0 ^ from outside, and make the Nazis run when they leave.

Concerts

After having many shows shut down, fascists have learned their lessons. Most whitepower concerts are held in venues that are sympathetic. This includes fascist ownedbars, Outlaw motorcycle gang halls, and private property in rural areas. These placeswon’t cave in to public pressure to shut the show down — but they are vulnerable tonighttime activities (see Utilities, pg. 585). Occasionally, fascists will misrepresent theshow and book it at a regular club, in which case you have a chance of getting the ownerto cancel. Some owners are just greedy, however, in which case you’ll have to turn upthe heat. Even if you do force a venue to cancel, they’ll scramble to find another on shortnotice, so keep the pressure on.

Fascists often keep the show location secret, requiring attendees to visit a check-inpoint (or series of such points) where fascists will meet them in person, check themout, and give them directions. If you know of a check-in point, get a large number ofpeople together and occupy it in advance. If it’s in a park, for example, organize anantifascist Softball game and bring plenty of extra bats. If you scare off the organizers,you’ll be able to meet and greet the fascists who show up and send them on their wayback out of town. The organizers are likely to have publicized a backup cell phone number, so have some friends keep that number busy all night — heck, program a computermodem to repeat-dial it, using Caller ID-blocking of course. If you have a fake fascistpersona crafted, or you want to pose as a reporter, you can also use that number togather intelligence.

If the show goes on, try to organize an action at the show itself. In some areas, thismay simply be too dangerous, especially as you can expect dozens or even hundredsof Nazis to show up. In other areas, you might have more success and support. Andremember — all those fascists have to park their cars somewhere.

Other Applications

Many of these tactics are also useful for investigating and confronting other odious organizations, such as corporations that abuse animals or engage in genetic engineering.

Account

We learned that the National Socialist Movement and the Ku Klux Klan were to hold a“white unity” rally at the state capital in few weeks. A planning group formed, which helda series of covert meetings in the days leading up to the fascist rally. Our group includedpeople of a variety of ethnic groups, genders, sexual orientations, and body types; also,just as importantly, it consisted of a range of participants from longtime militant activiststo people who didn’t consider themselves political at all. Sometimes, in their efforts toavoid alienating people, activists alienate everyone not familiar with activist protocol andprocedure. We did our best to avoid this: our discussions were informal, we had no membership list, no one needed any prior knowledge of activist culture to feel welcome.

We decided we were going to do our best to prevent the rally from happening at all, or,failing that, to make it as trying as possible for the fascists and the city that was hostingthem. But why, you ask — don’t the fascists have the right to free speech, just like everybody else? And doesn’t confronting them just make their position look more attractive?Before we proceed with the account, let’s go over these questions.

First of all, for an anarchist like me, the question of “the right to free speech” is a mootpoint. If you don’t believe that any governing power should be able to grant or take awayour “rights,” but instead hold that social life has to be cooperatively determined by thosein the thick of it, the question is not whether someone has the “right” to do something,but whether or not what they’re doing is a good, socially responsible thing. The government might grant a corporation the “right” to destroy a forest or evict people from theirhomes, but that wouldn’t make it right for us to stand idly by while they did so. The ideathat any government can dole out rights impartially is a fallacy, anyway; since those inpower inevitably use that power to represent their own interests, we might as well usewhatever power we have to represent ours. Besides, the moment the Nazis and the Klanhave the chance, they’ll be thrilled to prevent people like you and me from exercisingany so-called rights at all. Protecting their right to organize toward depriving others ofrights, on the grounds that it’s necessary to maintain the system of rights, is naive atbest, if not outright duplicitous.

As for the “just ignore them and they’ll go away” school of thought, that didn’twork in Italy, Germany, or Spain a few generations back, and it hasn’t worked lately inEurope either, where a powerful new fascist movement has been gaining a foothold.These fascist groups, once allowed to recruit members and get active, quickly begintargetting immigrants, radicals, and others with violence; the only solution that hasworked is for activists to block their attempts to organize from the very beginning. Infact, scarcely two and a half decades earlier, a similar rally held by the same organizations in a city only an hour away from this one had ended in the murders of antifascistprotesters, for which the police never found anyone guilty even though it was obviouswho had committed them. Our reluctance to let this rally go unchallenged did not proceed from idle concerns.

Aside from the fascists themselves, we also had a bone to pick with the city. If they hadnot offered police protection, the fascists surely would not have dared show up to preachtheir hate and violence, for fear of a taste of their own medicine. As it turned out, the citymust have spent tens of thousands of dollars, if not more, to make this rally possible.I know from plenty of experience at demonstrations that cities usually only spend thatkind of money to prevent free speech. Having had some of my own attempts to exercisemy “right to free speech” end in tear gas and rubber bullet attacks (which are not cheap!),I found it particularly insulting that the government saw fit to allocate so much taxpayermoney to enable the fascists to recruit right on their front lawn. Couldn’t that money havebeen better spent on education programs or social security, if it had to be spent at a11?

What could be in it for them? Could it be that the conservatives in power were gladto offer the public the spectacle of these extreme groups, in comparison with whomthey would appear moderate? Regardless, we decided it would be our job to make surethey had to work to earn every dollar they spent on security, and to cost them more thanthey’d bargained for if possible. This would discourage them from providing protectionfor future fascist rallies: if they knew the price tag would be even steeper than it hadbeen this time, they might just tell the Klan and Nazis they’d have to go it alone, whichwould be fair enough. It would also highlight the willingness of the city to go to suchgreat lengths to protect the fascists, which itself deserved public scrutiny. And in thecourse of our own efforts, we hoped to open a space for others to protest the rally as well,in whatever ways they saw fit.

When you engage in confrontational action, there’s always the possibility you willstep on a few toes in the process. There’s a certain kind of activist organizer who getsreally offended if everyone doesn’t follow the guidelines his group has unilaterally set;in addition to that, though I’m not one to believe in the myth that the masses are so“moderate” that any kind of militant action alienates them, it can in fact happen thatpeople are intimidated by a masked group whose goals and tactics aren’t clear to them.We discussed the fact that we would be running this risk, and decided that in this caseit was worth it: our first priority was not to convert people to our perspective, but to stopthe fascists from getting a foothold for theirs. If we did make a bad impression on anyother protesters, that wasn’t going to turn them into fascists; and if every one associatedfascists with chaos and trouble, so much the better. I can imagine the Nazi “Commander” in city hall trying to get a permit next time, and the functionary explaining: “No, lasttime y’all came here you brought your friends the anarchists, and it was a big mess.”

Finally, apart from discouraging the fascists and unmasking the city’s allegiances,this was a great opportunity for us proponents of direct action to put our experience atthe service of other rightfully angry people, and get to know each other better in the bargain. As it turned out, by the time the event was over we’d made a lot more new friendsthan the Klan or the N.SM had.

Publicly, we took advantage of shows and other social events to announce that counter-rally actions of some kind would take place, and used the lists we gathered at theseevents to send out reminders; we also wheatpasted fliers and posted notices on the internet to the same effect. Privately, we worked on strategy and structure. Those of us whosefriends had been involved in some of the better-known antifascist actions of the preceding years contacted them and asked for pointers. Some of us explored the area and madeannotated maps, which were distributed at meetings. We gathered what materials wecould, and brainstormed about what approaches to take. We did our best to spread wordof our plans to everyone who might want to participate, adding specifics according to thedegree to which we felt we could trust them, so as to prevent information from fallinginto the wrong hands.

Shortly thereafter, we learned that a permitted protest had also been scheduled. Someof us had mixed feelings about this. It meant, on the one hand, that there would be asafe zone for protesters who didn’t want to risk police repression; on the other hand, inour experience in this city, whenever a permitted protest occurred it was some distancefrom the event being protested, surrounded by a thick line of police and metal fencing, and proved to be a disempowering experience for all who participated in it. As allareas except the permitted zone would be locked down by police, it was likely that thepermitted protest would absorb all who showed up and the tone of the day would thusbe set by the few who had organized it — which would mean all the energy we had putinto our organizing was absorbed by their project, an outcome that would disappointthose who had accepted our invitation to the event in hopes of effectively contesting thefascist rally. To top it all off, organizers of permitted protests sometimes take offense toany other form of protest organized to take place alongside their own, so we had to becareful not to create discord simply by virtue of acting on our own initiative.

We concluded that we had to find a point at which to confront the fascists that was farfrom the permitted protest, both for civility’s sake and to make sure no one was at riskwho did not choose to be. Fortunately, our research had revealed that they would be using a parking lot on the opposite side of the rally site from the permitted zone. Those ofus who were prepared for potentially dangerous physical confrontation planned to forma group that would advance on the parking lot. There were residential neighborhoodsnearby, which we hoped would be far enough outside the zone of police surveillance thatwe could gather there and approach with the element of surprise. Once in melee withthe police and perhaps the fascists, this group would stick tightly together, and do everything possible to thwart arrests. As the police had no knowledge of our plans, we didn’texpect they would be prepared to make mass arrests, so we figured our primary problemwas to stop them from picking off individuals. If we were beset by serious police attacks,we would retreat into the residential neighborhood, maintaining our coherence on theway, and then disperse there where the greatest number of us would be able to escape.If all else failed, we decided we would break up into our affinity groups and act individually to cause disruptions. If we could create an unstable enough situation by any of thesemeans, we expected the rally would be delayed or canceled.

A strategy alone is never enough. As things never go as expected, it is critical to havea structure that can remain useful when circumstances change. We divided into affinitygroups, and buddied up inside of those; also, several individuals who were hoping tobe noncombatants formed a communications team. Each of them was equipped with acell phone or two-way radio, and chose an area to patrol or a task to fulfill — taking downlicense plate numbers from the fascists’ cars, for example, or keeping abreast of areasfree of police surveillance to which people could retreat if need be. They arranged an internal network so that information could be circulated as swiftly as possible and passedon to one of two contacts in the action-oriented group. During the event, they not onlymonitored the movements of fascists and police, but also distributed information to allof us when we were spread out.

The night before the rally, some brave souls went out with spray paint, dressed ascivilians. This was a role that could be played by those of us who felt more comfortableacting alone than in the chaos of a big demonstration, and an important one. By morning, the political district of the city, especially the aforementioned parking lot and theactual site of the rally, was covered thickly in antifascist graffiti. No matter that the city,clearly hell-bent on their chosen project of being welcoming hosts to the fascists, wentto the surprising trouble of sandblasting all the graffiti off by the time the rally was tobegin; they were our primary target readership, and now they have one more seriousexpense to factor into their budget next time they consider welcoming fascists.

Just before dawn, others went to a hiding place that had been scouted earlier andstashed our secret weapons: several 4’ by 8’ plywood banners painted with antifascist slogans. These had handholds cut into them (though after one of us had his handsmashed by a police baton while holding one up, we decided back handles would havebeen better), and could be tied together at the ends to form a massive, jointed, mobilebarricade. Carrying these around our group would make it difficult for police to snatchor beat us, or for that matter easily identify us or gauge our numbers. They were alsofestive, and made our goals dear. In the future, we’ll probably use plexiglass instead ofplywood, since one of them finally snapped in half after too much pressure from policeon one side and protesters on the other — but we’ll get to that story shortly.

We held a final meeting the morning of the big day, to fill in those who hadn’t beenpresent at earlier ones and make some last-minute decisions. We picked a convergencepoint out in the residential neighborhood, and a time we hoped would be just longenough before the fascists would cross from the parking lot to the rally site that wecould stop them, but not so far in advance that the police could force us to dispersefirst, or that too few potential participants in our action would have arrived (since, unfortunately, those promoting the permitted event had announced the protest as startingat the same time as the rally, which would be too late to interfere with it). Until thatmoment, we would be scattered into couples and tiny groups, in hopes of avoidingpremature police attention. Our scouts would inform those of us with communicationsequipment if anything unexpected developed — say, the fascists were heading to therally site earlier than expected, or there was already a police presence at the site of ourplanned convergence- and these spokespeople would pass word around to others, sowe could react quickly.

We arrived a couple of hours before the rally was to begin to find the entire areaswarming with police in and out of uniform, massive metal fencing surrounding therally site, surveillance cameras set up, snipers on the rooftops, mobile command centers down the block, several officers on horseback and more in riot gear, and even ahelicopter overhead. It was intimidating, and there was little sign of other protesters.Our scouts reported that fascists had already arrived, and were fraternizing with policeofficers in .a couple of areas; however, there didn’t seem to be much chance of catchingthem alone, so we stuck with plan A.

We were all dressed as nondescript civilians, but carried bandannas and sweatshirtswith which to render ourselves anonymous. Walking around the vicinity, we met peoplewe recognized from other demonstrations and shows, and passed on to those we trustedthe time and location of our convergence point — and maps, for those who had comefrom out of town. When the time came, we all made our way to the designated area,doing our best to appear to be nothing more than small groups moving randomly, andhoping not to hear the familiar thunder of helicopters overhead.

The moment was upon us- we pulled up our masks, grabbed the banners from theirhiding place, and tied them together as we formed our bloc and made swiftly for theparking lot. There were perhaps forty of us, and we were going to take on at least onehundred and fifty police, not to mention the thirty-odd fascists that had occasioned allthis trouble. One of u s had a great bass dram with which to maintain morale — morale iscritical in such situations, it makes all the difference in what a group feels capable of doing. Others had emergency whistles, which make a loud noise while leaving the handsfree (though you should be careful not to damage your hearing with them, if playing fora long time). Later in the day, the drums turned out to be extremely useful for centeringour group when it was spread out, and directing motion en masse. More drums anddrummers might have been even more effective at these purposes, and at least wouldhave saved our drummer the welts sustained from having to play constantly.

In a couple of minutes we were across the street from the parking lot, jogging withour banners around us. At this instant, remarkably, we had the element of surprise onour side. Since neither the police nor the fascists were expecting us, we were throwingthem into an unexpected situation and thus off-balance; the initiative was ours. For therest of the day, we were not able to recapture this advantage; much of what we accomplished proceeded from the moment when we had it. Arguably, the mistake we madeat this juncture was not to cross the street to the parking lot before the police reachedus. In discussions after the action, it came out that those who had thought to shout outthat it was time to move across the street held back for fear that there might be undercover police among us who would identify them as leaders. In retrospect, we probablyhad enough coherence as a group that we could have prevented police from snatchingsupposed leaders; but the real solution to such a problem is to have the feeling of entitlement to make recommendations more evenly distributed among participants. Thishappened as the day wore on and all of us developed more confidence; unfortunately,police preparations increased at the same pace our morale did. Strike all at once and gofor it while you have the chance, that’s the moral of the story.

Be that as it may, in the next instant a line of police charged forward and met us inthe middle of the street as we headed for the parking lot. A struggle followed, with thempushing on the banners from one side, and us from the other. A couple of us were struckor dragged by the hair at this point; it’s worth pointing out, though this is no surprise,that the police were in fact the ones who initiated violence that day. All those they tried tograb for arrests were pulled back by friends . Partly owing to the general lack of experiencein our numbers, at this point we had not yet developed a strong sense of what we couldaccomplish, so many were not as ready to push the limits as they would be later afterthey’d gotten accustomed to the situation. Consequently, we were pushed back across thestreet; but we held our ground there, seizing the comer of the intersection between theparking lot and the rally site and holding it in the face of further police pressure.

A standoff ensued. We stood on the comer, banners up on the outside, with a line ofpolice in front of us and more police massing behind them. The fascists in the parkinglot were hiding behind a dumpster, totally out of view and out of range of projectiles. Overthe next few minutes, our numbers swiftly swelled, as protesters from a variety of perspectives and walks of life came to join us. In fact, in taking this comer, we had openedup a vast space around the rally site for those protesters who didn’t want to remain in thepermitted zone, and scores rapidly filled it. This was definitely one of our accomplishments for the day, that we made it possible for protesters to move around the area at will,exercising their freedom of speech beyond the restrictions of the police cordon.

We had failed to meet the fascists in actual conflict, but now, having demonstratedour readiness for confrontation, we were between them and their rally site, and it wasclear to everyone that there would be trouble if they came within range. They remainedhidden behind their dumpster, with police around them for protection, and other policeconferred on how to handle the situation, while still others reinforced the line facing us.This went on for perhaps fifteen minutes, until it was time for their rally to begin. It continued for another fifteen minutes, and then another, and then another, until we had succeeded in delaying their rally by a full forty-five minutes — no small achievement, underthe circumstances! B/ this time, our group was dispersed within the much larger groupof protesters that had gathered at the comer, most dearly understanding that they weredelaying the rally by amassing there. Many were shouting furiously at the police for beingwilling to defend such opponents of liberty. The atmosphere was heated, to say the least.

In acting as a small, self-starting group, we had opened up the option of militantresistance to many others, who joined in enthusiastically ;but the downside to this wasthat our group lost coherence within the larger mass. Our banners and banner holdershad been separated from one another in the chaos, and we never again that day formeda tight nucleus. A aty bus protected by police finally showed up to collect the coweringfascists, and drove off in the opposite direction with them inside. We received reportsfrom our scouts that it was headed to the opposite side of the rally site, on the far sideof the permitted zone from where we were; we tried to move toward it, but moving inan even minimally organized manner through the assembled masses around the narrow perimeter of the rally site proved impossible. We didn’t want to move through thepermitted zone itself, anyway, so as not to draw heat to those seeking safety there or interfere with their chosen form of protest. This was the point at which individual actionsby scattered groups could have taken place to heighten the atmosphere of uncertainty;whether any did is unknown, but certainly not enough did. Best-case scenario, we wouldhave had others ready to intercept the bus, but we had not prepared enough for that.

Surrounded by police, with us still hundreds of feet away, the fascists were able toleave the bus without being assaulted by anything more than the jeers of bystanders.Realizing that we had at last failed to prevent them from reaching the site, we changedour strategy: at this point our only hope of stopping the rally was to create chaos thatseemed uncontrollable, so we attempted a fill frontal offensive. The police barring ourpath had been replaced by now with officers in full body armor, and officers with teargas rifles and on horseback stood behind them. The great metal fence was betweenus and them; it was composed of massively heavy sections, almost inextricably linkedtogether. Amazingly, we were able to get one of the sections free, and pushed forwardwith it and a couple of our own barricades against the lines of police that immediatelyrushed to meet us. This confrontation was much more pitched than the earlier one hadbeen; the police rained blows upon us, and we struck back, lifting the visors of theirhelmets to even the odds where necessary. One particularly aggressive officer lost hishead in the fray and found himself surrounded by us — his colleagues had to snatch himover the fence to safety. It was real pandemonium at times, when police and protesterswere mixed up and the lines between them became unclear; I believe at one point I evensaw a demonstrator make use of a stage diving technique to get into the action! Onceagain, those the police attempted to nab for arrests were freed, but we failed to makemuch headway against their lines . In the end, we lifted the section of metal fencing overour heads and passed it to the back of the crowd, where it was dropped into a pit at thefoot of the building behind us so it would not block further advances on our part. Thissimple disposal of a large segment of the police barricade was gratifying, at least, but itwas dear we weren’t prepared to break through their lines frontally.

The fascist rally was in full swing, now, with the two dozen of them who had madeit out of the parking lot holding their swastika flags and making their speeches, mostof which were drowned out by audience noise. The police had prohibited even the fewfascist sympathizers who had shown up from passing through their lines, perhaps asa result of our activities; it was only fascist would-be leaders, their children, and thecameras of the mainstream media on the site. Lacking other ideas as to how to interruptthe event, some who had brought smoke bombs attempted to deploy one. The plywoodbanners that were still in our possession proved useful here: by holding them up in theair, some were able to obscure the vision of the police ahead of us (though perhaps notof the rooftop snipers with binoculars) while others attempted to light and throw thesmoke bomb. Under the circumstances this was imprudent at best, though, since atthat point there were many around us who were not prepared for this level of risk. Someof us, not sure how we felt about what was going on, took it upon ourselves to form abuffer between the ones with the smoke bomb and everyone else. The inexperiencedindividual who attempted to hurl the smoke bomb once it was lit failed to get it pastthe banners, and it was something of a debacle, though no one was hurt (or especiallyfrightened, with the possible exception of said individual). As my friend’s high schoolband teacher always told him, practice at home!

Others among us took advantage of the sympathetic crowd cover to paint the buildingsbehind us with small slogans and artwork critical of fascism. Conversations took place,as well: people asked why we were wearing masks, and were generally understandingwhen we explained it was to avoid being profiled by the police — and, for that matter, thefascists, who were running surveillance of demonstrators for their own purposes.

The only decidedly negative reception any of us experienced came from two of theorganizers of the permitted rally. One of them, a white man associated with the flagshipstate university, had come up to us when we were engaged in our standoff between theparking lot and the rally site, suggesting that we cease our militant activity and join thesilent, passive protest in the permitted zone; he insistently persisted, providing no tactical rationale for why we should give up the gains we had made at that point, until onehotheaded young person finally asked if he was a police agent. The other, somewhat lessabsurdly, asked the demonstrator with the big drum to stop playing it in the proximityof the permitted zone, on the grounds that it was drowning out their silent protest; fora time, the drummer was silent, out of respect for her request. Some tempers did flarein the midst of the fray, it’s true, and it is possible that others exchanged harsh words atsome point during the day. If s very important that those of us who practice direct actiondemonstrate the utmost in civility and sensitivity in the process of doing so, so therewill never be any question about what part of our hearts such actions proceed from, orwhether direct action activists are generally welcoming and responsible people.

Back to the action. At this point, certain that we were not going to succeed in actuallyshutting down the rally, many of us made our way back up the perimeter toward theparking lot, to enact plan B: go after their cars. At the corner we had occupied before,we were met once again with a line of police, and there was another skirmish, this timeinvolving mounted police as well. There were some blows and angry words exchangedbetween police officers and protesters — the latter now including a broad diversity ofindividuals, not just the organized demographic that had initiated direct action at thebeginning of the event. Yet again, those the police grabbed were pulled free, but ourprogress was blocked. All the same, some individuals, moving stealthily outside themass, subsequently managed to circumvent the police line and infiltrate the parking lot.The tires of a vehicle belonging to a fascist skinhead were slashed, and some scufflingand chasing ensued. The individuals involved managed to get away, but the rest of uson the comer could have done better to support them by making another charge at thepolice line around this time to create a distraction.

It was shortly afterwards that the day’s five arrests took place; all five of them were theresult of individuals walking around apart from the masked bloc while still wearing theirmasks. This made them obvious targets for police. Clearly, we should have gone over thatlesson more thoroughly beforehand: wear your mask with the others in masks who canprotect you, and change your appearance radically when you leave their company. Oneindividual’s collarbone was broken in the process of the arrest, thanks to a policeman’soverzealous tackling. AH those arrested were bailed out of jail by that evening; an experienced civil rights lawyer volunteered to take their cases gratis, and succeeded in slippingthem through the legal system with a minimum of hassles and repercussions.

Realizing that our morale was waning, our numbers dwindling, and the most dangerous period of the day approaching — when the permitted protesters would disperse,leaving only us and the police- we decided against attempting to assail the fascists asthey were returned to the parking lot. It was time to quit while we were ahead, beforeany more arrests could be made. Those of us in masks and sweatshirts melted into thelarger crowd, swiftly changing our clothing outside the view of the police, and thenmade our way in ones and twos out of the area as protesters from the permitted protestdid the same. We suffered no more arrests in this process; we had successfully delayedthe state-subsidized fascist rally, decorated the walls of the state political district withpolitics of our own, fought over a hundred and fifty thoroughly equipped riot police, andlived to tell the tale.

Most mainstream media coverage of the event was deceitful, to say the least. Theydrastically underestimated the number of protesters, misrepresented the atmosphereby describing people as practically being amenable to the fascist presence, and madelittle to no mention of the way we delayed the rally or the violence with which the policeresponded. The fact that the mainstream cameras and reporters were the only ones allowed inside the police lines with the fascists was as telling as the spectacle many of uswitnessed of the police chief and the fascist top dog smiling and laughing and chattingtogether behind the police lines.

Underground and independent media coverage was much more thorough and honest. Predictably, there was a post on a website from the white graduate student mentioned above, arguing that although he understood the value of diversity of tactics, thisdemonstration had not been the appropriate time for direct action. Such a statement isdisingenuous: accepting diversity of tactics means recognizing and respecting that others are going to make their own decisions about tactics and act accordingly, not grantingthat diverse approaches are acceptable “when I say so”! He argued, essentially, that themost proper role any counter-demonstration could play was to involve the greatest possible number of people, especially those most seriously affected by fascist organizing —presumably assuming that non-confrontational tactics are always the most popular, thatpeople of color are not interested in confrontational tactics (a patronizing, even subtlyracist attitude), and that people of color are the only ones at risk from fascist organizing(when, in fact, people of anarchist and queer orientations, not to mention Jewish heritage, all of whom were present in our number along with people of color, are also significantly at risk from fascist activity). I would argue to the contrary that there were at leastone hundred people at the protest that day, if not more, who went explicitly to confrontthe fascists and their protectors, and who wouldn’t have been there otherwise — that isto say, the best way to involve the greatest number of people is for the broadest possiblearray of approaches to be applied without interfering with one another. For the most part,we took great care to keep well away from the area reserved for the permitted rally, anddid a decent job of not hindering their chosen approach. With the exception of this individual, and a down (yes,literally, a clown) the mainstream media found to say that it wasunfair that our noise was drowning out the fascists’ articulation of their ideas, few othersexpressed disapproval of the way our actions interacted with those of other protesters.

After the smoke cleared, we met again to discuss what had worked and what couldhave worked better. Spirits were generally high. We had demonstrated the power of afew individuals to come up with an idea, deploy it in the face of inedible odds, andinfluence the course of events. Acting on our own initiative, exploring our potentialin practice, we had taken on the assembled powers of the Ku Klux Klan, the NationalSocialist Movement, and the state government, and scored some significant victories.Our initial plan for converging and setting the tone for the day’s events had worked, andhad we had a little more experience, numbers, or morale, we might well have shut therally down entirely. Beyond this, we had all gotten to know one another much better, andlearned a lot about the amazing things we could do together.

Asphalt Mosaics: A Hot Weather Activity for Lonely Asphalt Near You

This is a method for making colorful, permanent mosaic installations in asphalt roadsand lots. like glass, asphalt appears to be a solid but is actually a liquid; this means thata design affixed to it with more asphalt will eventually settle in and become a part of it.We owe our awareness of this technique to a nameless mystic we have never encountered in person.

We saw the first one in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We were walking along a downtownstreet when we spotted a colorful patch of text embedded in the asphalt of a crosswalk.It was dearly made of vinyl floor tile- but how was it attached? We found the piece pictured on the left at the comer of Smithfield Street and Oliver Avenue.

As we walked we saw more versions of the same design. While befuddled by themessage, we were amazed by the technique, and avidly discussed how it might bereproduced. But a few blocks later, miraculously, we came upon the Rosetta Stone, asimilar piece of the same material and text ... except that this one featured an additional block of smaller text: instructions! The words were old and badly damaged, butwe could just make out the crucial sentence: ... I use asphalt crack filler...* Wegot right to work.

The next time we came through Pittsburgh we were on tour. Part of our program wasa skillshare on asphalt decor, and we had already left a respectable trail of color acrossthe country. After our workshop, we ventured downtown to visit the original pieces.When we got there, we found most of them — but the crucial piece, the one with theinstructions, was gone. It had been buried under a fresh slab of asphalt. We had discovered it in the nick of time.

In a subsequent internet search, we found that the same text has been spotted all overthe world, though mostly in North and South America. There even seems to be a fanclub. According to one posting, a piece in New Yak starts with the same Toynbee text,then adds, “Murder every journalist, I beg you.” Well, we would never be so impolite,but between that and the kindly instructions provided in Pittsburgh, it’s clear where theartist stands on do-it-yourself media.

So, in the spirit of the inventor who was thoughtful enough to declassify his or hertechnique, we present the findings of our attempts to reverse-engineer it. Now, go makeand glue tiles!! You!!!! As media!!!

Ingredients

The so-called “Toynbee Tiles” are made out of two kinds of floor covering material: Viny1Composition Tile and true Linoleum.

Vinyl Composition Tile: The text is vinyl composition tile, also called “VCT.” VCTworks because its color is solid, so when it wears down it still looks good. What will notwork is the variety of self-adhesive, so-called “linoleum” tiles sold in hardware and tilestores. The surface of those tiles, whether it is a color or faux marble, is a paper-thinveneer. When it wears down, it reveals its white substrate. For Christ’s sake, don’t evenuse those on your kitchen floor!

VCT is cheap, even brand new. It sells for less than sixty cents a square foot at hardware marts. The problem is that color selection is generally limited to a few bland options when you’re only buying single tiles. They do come in exciting colors, though, andif you want to order a case you can get almost any color you want; however, a case isexpensive, and it’s unlikely that you will ever need forty-five square feet of any one color,so we have some other recommendations.

A lot of cities these days have salvage building-supply warehouses. They are oftennon-profit and community -run. These are a good place to start, as they usually havepartial cases in a variety of colors. We have also had luck calling and stopping by floorcovering stores and/or installation contractors. We ask if they have any partial cases intheir storage area that we could have for an art project. Sometimes they are generous,sometimes they ask for a little money. Another method that has worked well with othermaterials is a classified “want ad” in the local paper. If someone has redone their ownkitchen floor, they may have a partial box that they couldn’t bring themselves to toss butdon’t really need. People love to donate these kinds of materials to starving artists.

Linoleum: The background of the Toynbee tiles is made of linoleum. Like VCT,linoleum is solid color through and through. But beware-the word “linoleum” is alsoused generically to refer to any non-ceramic floor tile. True linoleum is a very specificproduct made of flax fiber and linseed oil. You must use the real thing. Like carpet,linoleum mostly comes in rolls, and has to be cut and fitted into place when installed.For this reason, it is highly likely that you will be able to get cut-offs for cheap or freefrom an installation contractor or salvage lot.

Asphalt Crack Filler: Asphalt crack filler is acrylic-based liquid tar made for fillingcracks in asphalt driveways. It is available in most hardware stores, especially in thesummertime, when it is best applied. It comes in one-gallon jugs. We have found manybrands, but just two basic types. The regular strength stuff says that it will fill cracks ofup to half an inch. The maximum strength product says it will fill 3/4-inch cracks andlast longer. Both work, but for the minimal price difference, we lean toward the heavy-duty stuff. It goes for around $7.50 a gallon. One gallon is good for a dozen or moreone-square-foot designs.

• Cardboard or plywood board for an area as big as your design, in good condition68 and flat with no creases or dents.

• Tarpaper

• Water-soluble glue

• Utility knife (with plenty of blades, as they dull quickly on VCT)

• Metal ruler or straightedge

• Stapler or tape

• Heat gun (optional, but helpful)

Instructions

You have two options for creating your design. You can make mosaics, or you canmake what we’ll call Toynbee-style pieces, in which your text or image is set into asolid background.

Mosaics

The advantage of the mosaic approach is that they can be made with VCT alone. Youmay find VCT to be easier to obtain than linoleum. Because of its brittleness, VCT ishard to cut into precise shapes such as small letters, and large pieces of it can crack apartas the road shifts with temperature and pressure. Mosaics circumvent these problems,piecing together small, randomly cut pieces of tile to form a design.

First, you have to make whole tiles into pieces. We’ve developed a method for producing durable pieces of irregular shapes. Using a utility knife and straightedge, score aline 1/2 to 3/4 inch from the edge of a tile (figure 1.1). Now gently work from one end ofthe line to another, bending the strip away from the score line. The clack will becomedeeper and deeper, until it finally breaks. Once you have removed the strip, score itcrossways to make smaller bits (figure 1.2). It is best to make a wide variety of shapes:squares, rectangles, rhombi, triangles. The more variety you have, the easier it will be toput your image together.

Next, you need a flat surface. It is best to work on a flat piece of plywood or thickcardboard, so you can move your piece as necessary. Cut out a piece of tarpaper that islarger than your design, and tape or staple it to your work surface. The tarpaper needsto be flat and smooth; tears or wrinkles will mess things up.

Smear the surface of the tarpaper with an even coatof waterproof wood glue. The glue-covered area shouldextend one or two inches beyond the edges of your designon a 1 1 sides. Let the glue dry thoroughly.

Prepare the surface for layout. With a cloth, spread athin layer of glue on the dry glue. This will cause the letters to stick to the glue surface.

Lay out your design on the glue-coated tarpaper (figure 1.3).If the glue dries before you get all the tile down, add a thin layer offresh glue. Laying out the tile pieces will appeal to your compulsiveside. Put them down like a puzzle, custom-shaping pieces if needbe. Aim to maintain consistent 118-inch gaps between tiles; as thetile itself is 118-inch thick, you can use a piece of tile as a guide(figure 1.4) . If the tiles are too close to one another, the tar will havetrouble flowing between pieces; if they are too far apart, the tar willspan the gap, but it will be a weak spot. A consistent layout will alsomake your design more readable. Keep your design at least one inchaway from the edge of your plastic, staples, or tape.

If you are using text, lay it out backwards. This is easy to forget! What you see whenyou lay out your image will actually be the underside when it is installed.

Allow the second layer of glue to dry thoroughly. Before you move on to adding tar,make sure no tile bits are loose. If one is loose, glue it back down.

Shake the jug of asphalt crack filler thoroughly, and pour it over your design (figure1.5) . The ideal consistency of the crack filler is like honey. If the brand you are using istoo thick, place the jug in the sun so it will flow better; you can also try adding a littlewater. The important part of this step is to get the tar between the tiles. The surfaces ofthe tiles need not be tar-free, but you should be able to see the shapes and some of thecolors of the tiles. When the entire design is covered, add a 1/2-jnch border of tar beyondthe edge of the tiles.

Cut a piece of tarpaper in the shape of your design and, while the tar is still wet, pressthe tarpaper into the tar. If the paper starts to curl at the edges, do something to holdit down. Once the tarpaper is stuck flat, spread another layer of tar on the back of thetarpaper, so it is completely coated with tar. This second layer of tar should be no morethan 1/1 6-inch thick. Refer to “Finishing and Installing” to complete your project.

Toynbca-Style Designs

The Toynbee method is laborious, but it looks fantastic, and produces installations thatare, by some indications, more durable than mosaics. For our example, we will assumeyou are using text, although you can use an image instead.

First, cut your text out of either VCT or linoleum {figure 1.6). It is worth your while touse a very sharp utility blade for this. Both linoleum and VCT become soft and easier tocut if left in the sun; if you are doing anything intricate, a heat gun makes the stuff cutlike butter. If need be, you can make difficult letters in more than one piece.

Next, trace the text {figure 1.7). out a piece of linoleum (not VCT) and arrange yourtext on it. Using a fine-point permanent marker or dark pencil, make a dose tracing cfeach letter, or place the entire text on the linoleum at once and use a light dusting of spraypaint to transfer the letters precisely onto the background. If you use the spray paintmethod, lay out the text backwards, so the paint will be on the back side of your tiles.

Now, cut out the negative space. Use a sharp blade, and make sure your linoleum iswarm. Cut out the traced letters as precisely as possible {figure 1.8). Save the spaces inletters such as “0” and “B” to put back in. Save the letters you cut out; you can use themwith a background of a different color for your next design. Toynbee-style pieces do notrequire an 1 18-inch gap between pieces — in fact, the tighter the fit the better.

Staple or tape a piece of tarpaper on a flat portable surface — cardboard and plywood both work well. Cover thetarpaper with a thin, even layer of waterproof wood glue.Spread the glue so it covers an area larger than your design by at least two inches on a11 sides.

Next, place the design. the linoleum backgroundonto the wet glue so that the readable side is stuck to thetarpaper. Fit each letter into place (figure- 1.9) , Thoroughlyremove any glue that has made its way onto the side of thetiles not facing the tarpaper. When everything is in place,weight the piece down with a board, and allow twelve ormore hours for the glue to dry completely; it takes muchlonger than usual because there is hardly any airflow.

After the glue is dry, apply the tar. Squeeze some taron the center of the design, and use a piece of card tospread it to a 11-16-inch thickness. Add a 1/2-inch perimeter of tar around the edge of the entire design.

Cut a piece of tarpaper in the shape of your design, andpress the tarpaper into the wet tar, just as you would in preparing a mosaic design. Oncethe tarpaper is stuck flat, spread another layer of tar on the back of the tarpaper so it is completely coated with tar. This second layer of tar should be no more than 11-16-inch thick.

Finishing and Installing

Let your piece dry. In warm sunlight, most crack fillers will dry sufficiently in eight hours; in the shade or indoors, it could take up to twenty-four hours. When you think itis safe to handle your piece, detach it from the board. The side that has been facing theboard is the top of your mosaic. Trim the tarpaper on the top side so that it is a half-inchbigger than the tar-coated tarpaper on the bottom side. The layer of tarpaper on top ofyour piece will remain until it is washed or worn away.

Prepare the bottom surface of your piece. Different tar products dry to different consistences. If your tar has dried like tire rubber — flexible, yet dry to the touch — use apaper towel to spread a very thin layer of fresh tar to the bottom side. The goal here is tocreate a sticky surface, not to make a layer of wet tar! If your tar has dried to be flexibleand sticky, it is not necessary to add fresh tar.

Find a spot. Asphalt crack filler sticks only to asphalt such as is used to make roads,sidewalks, and paths. It does not work on concrete, brick, or cobblestone. Find a high-visibility location. We highly recommend crosswalks, as your piece is probably scaled forpedestrian viewing: pedestrians wi11 be able to enjoy your work as they cross the road,and the passing cars will help mash the piece into the asphalt. Also, in their capacity asdumb and dangerous moving objects, cars will faithfully deter someone from kneelingdown to pick at your piece. Yes, just this once, the cars are working for you!

Don’t let your masterpiece be covered up in the prime of its life just because the roadneeded repair. Your tile can last for ten years, possibly longer than its asphalt host. Applyyour piece on the freshest asphalt you can find that is also a good location. Also, newasphalt is softer and stickier, and thus more receptive to your decorations.

Install your artwork. You should install your designs during warm weather, when theasphalt is warm, soft, and dry. If the forecast calls for significant rains in the next fewdays, wait until they have passed. Bring a small brush to remove sand or debris fromthe road. Place your piece by simply setting it down, tar side to the road. Now walk, skip,jump, and run all over it to make sure it is firmly planted. The top layer of tarpaper wi11serve to camouflage and stabilize your piece for the first few weeks, when it is most vulnerable, while it begins to join with the road. Eventually, the top layer will wear through or wash away, unveiling your masterpiece.

You can give your tile more time set into the asphalt by adding extra layers of tarpaperon top of the design. Before you go out, cut two pieces of tarpaper a few inches biggerthan your tile all around. Smear the pieces of tarpaper with a generous amount of glue,and stick them together glue side to glue side. This will keep them from drying out orsticking to things on the way to the installation site. Once you have laid the tile downand walked on it a bit, peel the two pieces of tarpaper apart and paste them — one on topof another- over the tile.

Brightly colored tiles look the best on asphalt; colors like dark green tend to be invisible unless they are used effectively with other colors. Make sure there is plenty ofcolor or tone contrast between your figure and its background, especially if your designincludes text.

Experiment with other materials! You have probably seen pennies, fasteners, and bitsof brake light embedded in asphalt at intersections; thin bits of metal, mirror, or plasticwill work too.

To make cutting easier, heat your VCT or linoleum with a heat gun or in an oven seton warm; make sure the area in which you do this is well ventilated.

As with stickers and stencils, pizza boxes are great for transporting pieces to theirdesignated sites (figure 1.10).

This technique has a lot to recommend it over standard graffiti and wheatpasting: itcan be more permanent, it makes use of a medium not yet often utilized creatively, it isstill virtually unknown to the authorities and so can be remarkably easy to get away with.Here’s a dare: make asphalt mosaics as popular — and unpopular — tomorrow as spraypaint murals are today!

Banner Drops

Ingredients

• Paintbrushes

• Rope or chain

• Plastic water bottles or similar weights

• Extra-strong upholstery sewing thread or dental floss

• Fabric — you can use painters’ drop cloth covered in white primer paint, or visit thelaundry bin of a disagreeable institution one night to collect their tablecloths.

• Paint — preferably water-based, as oil paint takes forever to dry, house paint works wellenough, and is cheapest.

Optional Materials

• Padlocks (no key necessary, if you come upon ten unlocked), or metal clips

• Sewing machine

• Gallon jugs filled with sand — for weights, if there is nowhere to tie the banner up

• Automobile

Optimal Deployment Locations

• Parking garages

• Highway overpasses

• Building roofs

• You could also try the balcony level cf a church, movie theater, coliseum, auditorium...

Instructions

A banner drop can enable you to get a simple message out in dramatic style. Drop-banners take significantly more time to prepare, but significantly less to deploy, than graffitiof comparable size, and are less illegal. They can be most effective in crowded environments during special events, or to accentuate and clarify an action taking place nearby.You can make a really huge banner by sewing together smaller pieces of cloth; be surethey won’t come undone, though! Double- or triple- stitching with exceptionally toughthread is probably necessary. When deciding on the size, keep in mind the way it will betransported to the place of use, the dimensions of the area where it will be deployed, andthe distance from which it will be seen.

To decorate your banner, you need not be an accomplished artist; simply draw a scalemodel of the image or statement you would like to paint, separate that image into equalsections, mark off matching sections proportionately on the banner, and use these asguides. You can trace the lines first with chalk. You will probably need an open spaceoutside the surveillance of the authorities to work in, since when your banner appearsyou won’t want it- or yourself — to look familiar to any agents of law enforcement. Thepaint will almost certainly soak through the material and onto whatever is beneath it, sobe prepared for this as well, in terms of security as well as tidiness. Be careful above allnot to spell any words wrong (!) or bunch up your lines of text near the end, and makesure your colors are striking and high-contrast and your images similarly easy to discern.Don’t use spray paint to paint your banner unless you are especially talented with it.

Fold the edges of both sides of the banner over equal lengths of rope or chain, and sewthe fabric around it. Run the thread through the rope or chain and the banner, so the banner won’t just slip off when it is vertical, and make sure to leave plenty of rope or chain atthe top. Chain is heavier and thus provides more stabilizing weight for the banner thanrope does, but is also much harder to transport and use quickly (and more expensive,unless you’re hunting/gathering it) ; it is much more difficult for police to break, but theywill probably pull the banner up before cutting it off, anyway, so unless you can somehow anchor the bottom of it as well as the top, using chain will probably not add to yourbanner’s time in the limelight. If your banner is exceptionally long, it’s probably wise tosew a length of rope or chain along a segment in the center of the top side, too, leavingsome of it on each side, so the banner can be hung from four points rather than two.

At the bottom of the ropes or chains, attach your water bottles, full of water. Attachthem very firmly so they won’t drop off, as that could cause problems. These are weightsto hold the banner in place (the first banner we dropped, off the balcony of a restaurantat which we had bought a root beer as a pretext, simply tangled up in the wind and wasuseless) . For further protection against the wind, make U-shaped cuts in the fabric — thewind should blow through these without troubling the rest of the banner (figure 2.1). Rollyour banner up bottom first, with the water bottles inside and the text facing the insideof the roll; practice being sure which way your banner unrolls before you are in the moment of truth, so you don’t lose time panicking or, worse, get it wrong. Be careful not toroll your banner too tightly, especially as the paint, even dry, can make it stiff and a littlesticky: it may not unroll all the way when you drop it, forcing you to pull it up and unrollit yourself in perhaps less-than-optimal circumstances.

For deployment, a team of two is usually best. Pick a time and location where the visibiity balances out the risk. You’ll have to get the banner there, somehow: if it’s a freewayoverpass,you could pull over and hop out, or just run up the ramp with it if you don’t wantto risk a license plate number being taken; if it’s at the top of a busy corporate office building patrolled by guards during a terrorism scare, you’re probably better off not carryinga huge, suspicious parcel up in the elevator — are there stairs in the back? If you find anabandoned building that you can get in and out of easily enough and that isn’t frequentlychecked upon, and you don’t have anywhere else to work, you could theoretically smugglein the materials and go through some or all of the banner-making process inside beforedropping the banner(s) off the roof — and securing the hatch behind you with your ownpadlock for extra longevity. The hard part is always going to be getting out of the placeafter you’ve dropped: generally speaking, the more conspicuous the location is, the morepeople know immediately that you’re there, and the longer it will take you to get downand out — and the less likely you are to have any kind of crowd cover as you do so. Dressas nondescriptly as possible (or as maintenance employees!),and practice moving quicklyup and down stairwells without getting suspiciously out of breath. Check the area outahead of time; if you’re going to be on security cameras at any point, bring a change ofclothes, glasses, a hat, a reversible jacket, or other accessories to disguise your identity.

Transport your banner in such a way that you know exactly how to orient it when themoment comes. Unless you think you’ll have time to tie knots at a leisurely pace, consider using padlocks or carabineers: have a loop pre-tied at the end of the rope so youcan simply loop it around the bar or pipe or whatever you’re securing it to and snap thelock or clip onto the loop and the rope on the other side. If there’s nowhere to attach arope or chain, you can use heavy weights — plastic jugs filled with sand, for example — toanchor the banner. Make sure the ropes or chains suspending your banner are stretchedtight apart at the top, so it won’t bunch up-check in advance to make sure this is possible, and that your anchor can handle the weight you’re suspending from it. Then walkor run like hell and keep your cool.

There are a variety of other approaches to bannering. If you can toss a weight with astring attached from one rooftop to another across a street, and your friend on the otherside ties a rope to the string for you to reel back and secure, you could then pull a banner across the rope to hang in the middle of the street on carabineers or shower curtainloops; some hardware stores stock a little dart-gun device that electricians use for gettingwires across cramped spaces, which might be useful for such situations. There is a banner-dropping technique in which people are suspended in the air with the banner, as aform of civil disobedience to ensure the banner will remain up for as long as the individuals are willing to hang there; this has been applied, among other places, in Seattle justbefore the W.T.O. meeting in November 1999. Such a technique is dangerous enoughthat it should only be taught in person. For another application of banners — launchingthem with hot air balloons — see Corporate Downsizing (pg. 205).

Account

For our final test run before composing this recipe, we dropped a 27’ long by 18’ wide banner (fourteen stolen tablecloths triple-stitched together by sewing machine, a gallon anda half of house paint, 100 feet of rope, two water bottles, and four metal clips which werethe only items we had to pay for) off the top of a six-story parking garage in the middle of aFourth of July parade in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina. The banner could be seenfrom down two streets along which the parade proceeded, on one of them up to a distanceof many blocks. We tailored our message to be accessible to an audience attending a patriotic event, an audience composed largely of white and African-American working parentsand their kids, while responding dearly to recent government propaganda encouragingpeople to accept curtailed freedom in return for “protection” from the “terrorist threat”:Those who trade liberty for security will end up with neither, with Ben Franklin’s name (asthe dubious author of an earlier version of this quote) and a circled A at the bottom. Thatsame government propaganda had made us quite nervous in the days leading up to theevent: every time the radio was on, it was some announcer talking about how police andplainclothes F.B.I. agents would be out in force and on full alert this Independence Day toprevent terrorist strikes. We were afraid that, running up to the railing above the crowd anddropping a great bundle toward them, we could look even more dangerous than we were.

The parking garage was closed, off limits to the public (police line do not cross) on theday of the parade, but we had noted in advance that some vehicles were left parked therefor many days at a time, and parked a car with the banner in the trunk on the top deckthere the preceding day. When the parade began, two of us, dressed in our nicest clothes,snuck past security and walked up the first couple of decks; a man drove past us in a staffvehicle, but for some reason did not stop us (our story would have been that we had leftsomething in our car, which was parked there before the area was dosed off, but I’m gladwe didn’t have to tell it). We then took the elevator, which we hadn’t been expecting towork, to the top deck, which was — amazingly — unguarded, took out the banner, lost precious instants debating which side was the front and struggling to lock a car trunk neitherof us had ever locked before, clipped the ropes around a metal pipe, threw the banner overthe side, and realized that it hadn’t unrolled all the way. We had rolled it far too tightly,especially since it hadn’t needed to be all that compact, waiting in the car trunk! We hadto pull it back over the edge, having already made our presence known on the street belowas well as on the security cameras, and unroll all twenty-seven feet of it into the parkinglot, before struggling to throw the banner, bunch by bunch, back over the edge, with greatdifficulty (and more than a little vertigo, as a vertical shaft opened between us and thewall). All this induced feelings of panic, but there would have been no reason to leavethen and render all the work we had done and risks we had taken for naught; we got itright, finally, and made for the stairs. We took these to the second floor, but, on openingthem, saw police; we ran back up to the third floor, walked across one length of the garageand took a single flight of stairs we had scouted out in advance, and managed, against theodds, to escape without even being questioned. One of us changed clothes immediatelyafter the banner dropped, but still in front of the security cameras, the other after wereached the street and the safety of the crowd, which was perhaps a better strategy.

It took them an amazing half an hour before they began to pull up the banner — thatis, it hung above the parade for most of its duration! There were two sympathetic groupsparticipating in the parade — the Greensboro Peace Coalition, and the more radical anarchist contingent — and both made sure, as they passed, to emphasize the presence of thebanner to any who might have missed it before, by pointing at it. Several photographerstook pictures or footage of it, and there were many others at the parade who were visiblythrilled about its appearance. Best of all, later that day, when the banner had been broughtdown and thrown under the police truck in attendance at the festival following the parade,someone managed to sneak it out from under the noses of the pigs, to be returned to itsmakers! So when they least expect it, it will hang again over the aty .

Banner Hoists

This method works on any horizontal beam, pipe, or limb that is low enough to tossa rope over but high enough so no one can reach the bottom of your banner. It is particularly well suited to the ridged arms of traffic light posts in busy intersections. Powerlines may electrocute you, so leave them be. Hoisted properly, a banner can only beremoved by a crane truck, which will block traffic and make a further spectacle. Withpractice this method can be carried out in a matter of moments, so busier intersectionscan be targeted.

Ingredients

• 3 Bundles of plastic-coated clothesline — Two of the lines need to be four times as long as your target pole is high. Refer to “Tips” at the bottom for how to measure the height of the pole.

• 2 Large molly bolts — Molly bolts must be able to fit through carabineers when folded but not when open (figure 2.2).

• 2 Cheap hardware store carabineers

• 1 Roll of duct tape

• 2 Tube socks — bottoms filled with grain, pebbles, or any weight that can be tossed high

• 1 banner — see preceding recipe

• 2 Thin pieces of 2” by 1” wood — to keep the banner straight, one should be about 8” longer than your banner, the other the same length as your banner.

• Staple gun

• 2 Pairs of sharp scissors — utility scissors are best

• 2 PEOPLE W/ GOOD THROWING ARMS — aim helps too!

Instructions: Some Assembly Required

Paint a hell of a banner — you won’t get it back. Center the banner on the longer piece ofwood and staple it securely. You should have 3 or 4 extra inches of wood on each end. Attach the other piece of wood along the bottom for weight. No need for the bottom woodto overhang figure 2.3).

Cut two 5 1 lengths of clothesline. Make a 6” loop at one end of each piece and rein-force with duct tape.

Tie an overhand knot 4” from each loop. Run the clothesline through the molly boltso that its jaws close away from the loop. Tie another knot on the otherside of the molly bolt to keep it in place. Make sure the bolt can stillopen and close figure 2.4).

Tape the end of the 5’ piece of clothesline to the front of the piece ofwood and the carabineer to the back {figure 2.5). Be firm with the tape.You need to be certain that the carabineer will stay perpendicular to thebanner as shown. You also don’t want the end of the line to come loose.Repeat on the other end.

You have two more packs of clothesline, one for eachside. Feed a clothesline through one of the loops. Don’t stopfeeding until it is exactly halfway through. Now you have thesame amount of line on either side of the loop. Tape the twoends of the line together. Use duct tape to attach weightedsocks to the two ends of the clothesline. Repeat for otherside figure 2.6). Now your banner is all set!

Position the banner facing oncoming traffic and set it down on the road so all handsare free for tossing. Both people simultaneously throw the weighted socks over the pole(figure 2.7). Be careful not to cross the lines. Look out for tangling spots like trees, powerlines, or hanging traffic lights. When the weighted socks have successfully delivered theropes over the pole, each person grabs their weighted sock and clips its clothesline intothe carabineer.

Now use your scissors to cut the weighted socks off the clothesline, while keeping afirm grasp on both ends of the line.

Each person pulls both ends of their clothesline so that the banner rises evenly. Pulluntil the molly bolt passes through the carabineer and snaps open. This can be the mostdifficult part. You may need to jiggle the lines to get the molly bolt through, but don’tpanic... if it gets stuck, keep jiggling {figure 2.8).

Once your molly bolt is caught on the carabineers, pull just one end of the clothes-line until the other end falls free of the loop. Then .. — you’re done! If everything goessmoothly, the entire hoist should only take a minute or two.

The Hoist

Practice throwing! Once you get out there, traffic lights can be higher than you thought TipsMaybe you’ll be a little nervous. Gain confidence by practicing your throws beforehand.Takea doubled clothesline with weighted socks attached and practice on a quiet street at night.

Scout out your area ahead of time. Figure out who is going to stand on which side.Look for possible problems like power lines or tree branches. Monitor traffic flow. Walkand talk through all the steps to make sure you and your partner get it.

If you are doing this anywhere near power lines, wait for a dry day!

To determine the height of a pole ... Stand around fifty feet from the pole. Hold asmall ruler at arm’s length. Position the ruler so that the zero is at the base of the pole. BannerNow measure the pole’s height in inches as if you were measuring a photograph of thepole {figure 2.9). Let’s say that, in your view, the pole is “9 inches”high. Stay in the same space and keep your arm straight. Pivot theruler so that it is horizontal {figure 2.10). Measure from the base of thepole to some point on the ground that is “9 inches” away. Make noteof something at that point — let’s say there’s a crack in the sidewalkthere. Now you know that the crack in the sidewalk is the same distance from the bottom of the pole as the pole is high. Use a tape tomeasure the distance — or, if you know the length of your stride, yougenius you, pace it out.

Remember — the doubled clothesline must go over the pole and all the way back downto the ground. That means each line must be at least four times the height of the pole.

You can convert this method for solo operations. Fix one carabineer in the center ofthe banner. Connect one line to both ends of the banner so that it is loose like a picture-hanging wire. Tie the molly bolt rope to the center of the loose rope. Otherwise, followthe same directions as above and you should be able to hoist the banner by yourself.

Banner Toss

This small-scale banner-hanging technique takes its cue from that perennial feature ofsuburbia, sneakers wrapped around power lines. Add text to a strip of cloth, plastic, orTyvek about four inches wide by about three feet long. At each end, sew or glue a loopbig enough to fit a four-inch section of broom handle. Cut two such sections, and usewaterproof glue to secure them in the loops. Tie about four feet of string to one end ofthe banner, and tie a third section of broom handle to the other end of the string. Rollthe whole thing up — it should fit in your pocket — and take it out to the streets. Practicetossing until it only takes one try to get your string wrapped around the power lines andyour banner hanging down {figure 2.11).

Behavioral Cut-ups

Our civilization prizes linear progress and development, in which an individual setsgoals and pursues them; but there is another kind of growth, another kind of learning,in which an individual broadens her frame of reference. Focusing only upon linearprogress, a person might work his whole life and attain all his objectives without ever expanding his awareness of life’s possibilities. Indeed, in this objective-oriented society, itis difficult not to develop tunnel vision; and even if you pledge yourself to a life of exploration, in which every day is to be an adventure, routine is bound to set in sometimes.

That’s where behavioral cut-ups come in. A behavioral cut-up is a method for making the familiar unfamiliar, and thus jerking yourself out of the grip of inertia. In contrast to product-oriented activity, the practice of behavioral cut-ups implies that it couldbe important to achieve something you can’t anticipate. Unlike most of the recipes inthis book, behavioral cut-ups are not useful for achieving specific ends, but rather forestablishing perspectives that can indicate new beginnings. Behavioral cut-ups offer away to uncover the adventure and potential hidden within activities that are normallyshrouded in habit.

Behavioral cut-ups are comparable to literary and artistic cut-ups, in which existing textsand materials are disassembled and reconstructed in new ways. Dadaists used to cut upnewspapers and books of poetry, and generate new poems by drawing the pieces out ofa hat at random; likewise, the behavioral cut-up artist applies scissors and glue to personal or social text, reconfiguring commonplace aspects of life in extraordinary ways.

A behavioral cut-up is not a randomization of life so much as a means of departure forunexplored territory; as such, it can require careful deliberation. Choosing the mostpromising adjustments to make is a rigorous science, if not an exact one.

In the most basic form of behavioral cut-up, you attach a stipulation to some formerlymundane aspect of life: for example, you decide not to pay for food for a fill month, ordedicate yourself to climbing every single oak tree in the county, or commit to sendingyour family one postcard every day for a year. Such stipulations focus fresh attention onmatters you had taken for granted, sharpening your awareness, limbering up your senseof self, and revealing new possibilities. Venturing outside the circuit of your daily life,you temporarily enter a parallel world in which you are a different person, and learn allthe things that are banal to that person but brand new to you.

Behavioral cut-ups are not as unusual as their esoteric name makes them sound. Intraditions stretching back to the dawn of civilization, warriors and shamans have practicedthem as a form of vision quest: mimicry of animals, ritual use of intoxicants, ecstatic dancing, public nudity and other taboo acts, rituals of exhaustion, deprivation, and pain — theseare time-honored techniques for psychic and social experimentation. Even in our prosaicage, people engage in similar activities, to varying degrees: fasting during the month ofRamadan, building a fort out of cushions in the living room and refusing to come out allevening, going to a Halloween party dressed up as Fidel Castro and spending the wholenight in character, all these are cut-ups, however unconscious or unoriginal. Many peoplehave first-hand experience with simple food cut-ups: becoming vegan, for example, focuses new attention on food, transforming social interactions and often resulting in increasedinterest in cooking or gardening. It only remains for us to develop a deliberate practice ofbehavioral cut-ups for their own sake, as tools for education, inspiration, and liberation.

Behavioral cut-ups need not be grandiose; indeed, the most powerful ones rarelysound good on paper. It may not seem like a big life change to commit to somethingtrivial like initiating a conversation with a stranger every morning, but the cumulativeeffects can be startling. More extreme behavioral cut-ups can bring you into conflict withyour fellow citizens — indeed, the other meaning of “cut up” is misbehave- but in thelong run, such conflict serves to keep life interesting for everyone.

Behavioral cut-ups may sound like the province of performance artists and others ofthe privileged class, but it is a mistake to write them off as such. Taken seriously, the behavioral cut-up is an exercise in self-expansion,a practice as essential for revolutionariesas mutual aid or self-defense.

Make two lists: things that bore you, and things that are terrifying to you. The formershould be easy to compile, while the latter may be difficult even to admit to yourself.Randomly select an item from each list. Invent a practice that combines them: for ex-ample, if you picked “commuting” from your boring list, and “public speaking” fromyour frightening list, you might dare yourself to deliver an oration every morning on thesubway. Keep a journal of your experiences and interactions.

Select an activity that has always struck you as absurd or unjust and refuse to participate in it, no matter how complicated this proves. This may sensitize you to tragedies that were once invisible — a few months into veganism, you enter a leather market and experience it as a grave robbers’ bazaar — or reveal the excesses of your societyto your fellow citizens, as in the case of the ascetic who carries with him all the trashhe produces.

Give yourself a special relationship with a location by associating it with a specificactivity. For example, you could decide that whenever you are in Germany, you are arunner who gets up at dawn to jog around the city.

If your outward appearance has always provided you with the privilege of passing asa “normal” human being, paint or dye your skin, or shave off your hair and eyebrows, ordress in drag. Don’t make any attempt to explain yourself if you want the full benefit oflearning what life is like for those who attract attention whether they want it or not.

Go without something you have taken for granted your whole life. For example, learnto recognize all the edible and medicinal plants that grow in your region, and spend aseason living outside, subsisting on them. Refuse to set foot in any buildings for theduration of this period.

Take a well-known tool — for this example we’ll use a toaster — and turn it back into anobject. Take it far from the kitchen, perhaps to a mountaintop or a n abandoned grain silo.Say its name continuously for thirty minutes: say it fast, say it slow, spell it out, sing it tothe tune of your favorite childhood song. Now take it with you to the bank. Wear it as ashoe. Run a mile in it. Exhausted, curl up with it for a long nap. Remove one of its shinypanels and write a letter upon it to a friend with whom you have lost touch. Invent a dozen other uses for it, and utilize it thus until these are habitual and toast seems strange.

Violate unspoken social laws about the application of space. Squat one of those vast24-hour super-marts for a few days. Conduct experiments, play games, graze on foodin your “pantry, “find a quiet comer to sleep. Pick a neglected category of items (greenplastic things, paraphernalia of insecurity, materials not produced by slave labor) and,cartload by cartload, establish a new section for it. Use stationery to write letters tofriends, use the phone to invite them over. Throw a party — guests need not bring food orgifts. Take a disposable camera off the shelf; after taking some unusual photos, repackage it as a gift to its future owner. Add to this list of things to do as the days go by andyour derangement intensifies.

Become a guru. Go to a public place where you can set up camp, and establish aconstant presence there. Bring a project. It will have to be a project that creates ripplesof notoriety — rumors should spread about your presence. People will approach withstories for you: give them time, listen. You, above dose friends, will be told of injuries,secrets, dilemmas, desires. Do not try to solve problems or offer advice: your role is tohold the stories as if you were a hiding place. Your visitors will return to sort throughthem, to make amendments and new deposits, to revisit old ones. They will offer youfood. Occasionally they will ask about your life — but remember, they do this only outof politeness and habit, for they know that you are a magic person, you have a project.As your relationships grow, your needs will be increasingly met by the offerings of yourvisitors. These gifts carry with them the power to cast spells on their behalf. Heal them,make them well.

Concoct and carry out your own rites of passage. Invent a series of games to play withyour friends, and announce a month during which you w]l change your own lives inpreparation for the following years of changing the world. You could begin with elaborate scavenger hunts, and conclude with a sequence of challenges: Starting at noon Friday at Danielle’s house in the placid suburbs, who can get arrested first? (This particularexample is tailored for the privileged children of the bourgeoisie; there are other equivalents.) Who can write the most fantastic novel? (This is how Mary Shelley’s Frankensteinwas written — it was her first.) If the world were to end tomorrow, what would you dotoday? OK, on the count of three, go do it. What do you fear most of all? For the finalexam, confront it, live through it. The ones who survive will be ready for anything.

Account

Schwabisch Hall, Germany was a world away, but when we left home we brought alongour clothes. We packed our language, and friends with whom to speak it; and since webrought all that, we couldn’t forget our habits, personalities, and histories. We draggedalong grudges, we smuggled in crushes. On the runway, the airplane fought to gainspeed, its belly stuffed with our baggage.

As I stared out of the window, the trip began to seem less like an unimaginable voyage and more like a visit to the ocean floor in a little submarine. It seemed clear that forthe full promise of travel to unfold, we needed more than an unimaginable place likethe small town in Germany for which we were headed; we needed to be unimaginableourselves. After some deliberation, it struck me: “In Germany, I am a runner.” Selmathought it was a good plan — and like me, she had the qualification of not being a runneranywhere else. So we made a pact to behave as though we were runners from the day wearrived until the day we left, a full two weeks.

The next morning, for the first time in our lives, we woke up at a quarter to eight andembarked on an hour-long run. Afterwards, exhausted, we sat down with pen and paperto make maps. Though our two maps were of the same path, they bore little resemblance, but both showed the waterfall. We had taken a long and overgrown trail to thewest of town. Just as I was aching to turn around, the air had become mysteriously cool;the sound of rushing water pulled my mind from my suffering and my eyes from mytoes. The waterfall was luminous and green, thick with moss that guided the falling water and made the face of the little cliff look like the bearded face of a gnome. Too windedto speak, we let the scene wash away the words and the pain. Yes! We had traveled.

To be in an unknown place is to be disoriented, inspired, exalted by the unknown.But being receptive to the unknown means becoming unknown. Traveling to Germanypresented an opportunity to be free of inertia, free of the part of myself that only noticeswhat I expect to notice and only does the things I know myself to do. What I searched forthere was a possible me, a version of myself who, in that case, ran every morning. In thatforeign space I noticed what he noticed and thought his thoughts. I found a waterfallon a tangled path, an abandoned tunnel covered with vines and graffiti, the ruins of acastle, and a foggy morning on which, at the peak of our run, the mountaintops lookedlike islands. I found my body reinventing itself for new challenges.

In going to Germany, I could have stopped speaking, I could have dreaded to dancein the streets without reservation, I could have confined myself to a wheelchair, I couldhave become a poet or a stand-up comic. I can only imagine the places where those experiments would have brought me. I do how that there are people who will live and diein Schwabisch Hall without ever seeing the things we’ve seen. I am also reminded thatthere are just as many waterfalls, sanctuaries, and castles in Pittsburgh — I’ve simply notyet been the runner to find them.

Bicycle Collectives

Ingredients

• Some dedicated and selfless volunteers — and the will to learn and perfect more

• Decent mechanical skills — Space — adequate, dependable space

• A supply of bicycles

• The kindness of strangers — which will more often provide one or more of the above.

Instructions

Oh, my god. You want to start a bike collective. You poor thing. You have these fuzzy visions of eager children gathering around you, awed by your masterful use of the truingstand and so happy about the awesome BMX bike that you’re about to give them — givethem — in perfect working order. You imagine streets dogged with bikes generated byyour energetic crew, radical bike posses going for midnight rides, more respect for bikeson the road, and hundreds of newly empowered bike riders who have learned how tocompletely overhaul their bikes from your noble organization, bypassing the bike shopsentirely I’m sure you’re smart enough to realize that all of these hopes are impossiblyexaggerated. I should also point out that some or all of them are at least partly in reach,however, and being part of a functioning, effective bike collective can be very satisfying.

So, to start. You already apparently have at least one dedicated and selfless volunteer — yourself — but you would be wise to recruit more if you haven’t already. At leastone of these should have some idea of what they’re doing when it comes to bike repair,and should begin teaching some skills to those members who lack them. Even basiclessons in patching and changing inner tubes are a good start — you don’t have to startout overhauling hubs. People will obviously learn things as they go along, but it will bedemoralizing to you and perplexing for your first customer if you get most of the waythrough fixing the bike and then get stuck when confronted with a loose bottom bracket.When repairing for the public, there should always be at least one person around whocan take care of a particular problem, so they can take over when necessary.

You should also figure out what the goals of your organization are: this should seemfairly obvious, but you’ll want to know if your focus is repairing bikes, distributing them(and to whom?), teaching bike repair, starting and maintaining a yellow bike program(distinctive bikes scattered for public use around the city), activism, something else, orsome combination of the above. Even crafting a mission statement, hokey as it sounds,can help clarify your ideas. Not everything you decide on has to be attempted immediately — there’s nothing wrong with starting small — but having larger visions can alsopush you to branch out once you’ve started to get the hang of things, instead of continuing just to fix bikes for the six kids who live on your street.

Choose a name. It can be as explicitly political or as excruciatingly unthreatening(The Fuck SUVs Collective, The Bike Garden) as you wish, but try not to pick somethingthat’s going to embarrass you in a year or two. Also, a reliable way to contact the groupis important — if your phone numbers change a lot, open a free email account. Yourcontact information will be circulating far and wide once you get started. Finally, decidewhat kind of structure you want the organization to have. Do you want to be an officialnon-profit, with bylaws and a board of directors, or do you want to be a loosely organizedgroup of grimy mechanics, sharing nothing but a driving passion for bikes and bikerepair? If you’re fixing bikes for other people, or giving them bicycles, how much legalresponsibility can you take on as an organization if anyone is injured? Do you want todraw up a waiver (a good idea, probably, just to discourage lawsuits, even if the waiverwouldn’t hold up in court), or do you want to just cross your fingers and hope that noone is mean enough to pick on such a cuddly group? Do you want to charge money foryour services? Recommend compensation?Establish a sliding scale? Work out a casualor carefully calculated system for exchanging people’s labor for your skills and tools andparts? Depend on donations? Do you want to schedule a particular day of the week (ortwo or three) to meet, especially if you’re providing repairs or workshops or some publicservice, or do you want to leave it up to individual whim?

Much can be improvised when it comes to bike collectives, but you’re definitely goingto need some bikes. Luckily, they’re generally pretty easy to come by. Universities andpolice departments often collect abandoned bikes; landfills and dumpsters see their fairshare; and once the word gets out about your organization, you will get more bikes thanyou will ever need from middle-class families whose kids have grown too big for theirold Huffys, or who no longer ride those nice commuter bikes that have been sitting intheir basements for fifteen years. If you establish a good relationship with a bike shop,they may send everyone on to you who hopes to sell an old bike that isn’t worth enoughfor any shop to be interested: having been rejected by the shops, people will often beeager just to get the bikes (which are usually in better shape than the ones you dig out ofa dumpster) off their hands, and will drop them off wherever you tell them. A lot of thebikes you get will be of low quality and in horrible shape, and many should go straightto the dump (clean metal recycling, if they offer it), but before long you will have morethan you can keep up with that are perfectly good machines.

Also not negotiable is at least one full set of bike tools. Expect some of these tools todisappear every once in a while, especially if you’re working with kids, and be preparedto replace them. You can do without a few things (a truing stand, bike stands, a headsetpress) to start out, but you will definitely need a full array of wrenches (cone, box, Allen,spanner), pliers, tire levers, chain tools, wire cutters, freewheel removers, screwdrivers,bike pumps, lubes, etc. You can improvise substitutes for some tools, like using an adjustable wrench to remove pedals, but ideally you should be able to repair an entire bikewith whatever you’ve got. Tools, you will discover, especially the specialized tools neededto repair a bicycle, are very expensive, which is one reason that most people will neverlearn to repair a bike, and will instead continue to rely on bike shops. Coming by thesetools cheaply is not easy. You can hope for generous donors, a miraculous day at the bikeshop’s dumpster, serendipity, an experienced and fearless shoplifter, or whatever formof Robin Hood you prefer, but it may turn out to be necessary to buy some things withyour own money at first — in time, donations your organization receives will probablybe enough to pay back anyone generous enough to lend some money for start-up costs.Such are the laws of karma.

Luckily, you do not necessarily need bike parts. I say “not necessarily” because ifyou desperately need to cut comers, you can always cannibalize parts from other bikes.Keep in mind, however, that this will probably not be very effective on a large scale. Ifyou decide to do it when you’re just starting out, instead of purchasing [also expensive]bike parts, or wheedling them out of someone, make sure that the parts you’re taking offthat old junker are actually safe and functioning pieces. Cracking tires, worn brake pads,crusty chains — you’re not doing anyone any favors by keeping those parts in circulation.Also, if you do this for any length of time you will inevitably discover that certain partstend to be wrong more than they are right (rear wheels waffled, cables and chains rustedbeyond usability, tires dry rotted), and you will end up not fixing a lot of bikes becauseyou can’t get parts for them. Bike shop dumpsters are good places to look for parts, butkeep an eye out for tires with slits in them from a careless box cutter, and other commonways that parts are damaged — they’re probably thrown out for a reason, after all. It mayjust be company policy to discard any returns, no matter how pristine, but safety is animportant consideration when other people are relying on your services. Also, if there’sa distribution warehouse for bike parts in your area, it may be a good source for gentlyused (or, sometimes, apparently untouched) parts.

One of the most frustrating aspects of starting a bike collective can be finding a spacefor it. Perhaps it is so frustrating because it doesn’t seem like it should be such a stumbling block: it’s a big world, after all, and you’d think some small part of it would beavailable to altruistic bike fiends. Generally, though, and especially if you don’t have themoney for renting a space, it can be tough to find one adequate for your needs. You maynot care if it’s indoor space (shelter from rain, wind, and cold, and a nice concrete floorare definitely good things) or outdoor space (mmmmmm, sunshine); you don’t need fancy,and don’t mind grungy. You’re flexible in so many ways. But you need to be able to accessit whenever your organization has decided you’ll want to use it (no agreeing to share apractice space with a band if they’re given to interminable jam sessions on your preferredwork day). like your contact information, you should try to have semi-permanent plansto remain in your space, so don’t choose your boyfriend’s backyard if he’s moving outin two months. Obviously, any space will do as a stopgap measure, but if you do thingsright, people will be returning to you, so make it as easy for them as you can. You needto be able to leave things (bikes, tools, parts, etc.) at that space, and, if it doesn’t have alocking door, you want to be able to leave things there without having them mysteriouslyvanish during the night (so vacant lots are probably not a good idea). And you need adecent amount of space. Nothing is more irritating than being in the middle of somecomplicated, not-quite-mastered repair, and leaning over to pick up a dropped wrenchonly to bang your head on something. lots of things on a bike bite, and some bite hard.You need to be able to keep a respectful distance, as biting back is rarely an option.

A garage or backyard is frequently your best bet: they’re free, relatively secure, andBicycle Colkttms generally roomy. Grass is nice and cushy, but easy to lose tiny nuts and washers in (gravel is not cushy at all, and perhaps even worse for losing parts in), so consider using a tarp or some other kind of cover for the ground. Try not to alienate landlords andneighbors with egregious messiness. Consider the security of the home fronting thegarage or backyard, as you wi11 be unable to control who hears of and comes to the property, and need to be respectful of the needs of the people who are so generously offeringthe space (even if it’s just you and your housemates).

Those are the basics. Other needs will come up as you go along, and you will be alternately amazed and appalled by people’s generosity and selfishness. Some people, including some of your friends, will look at your collective as merely a place to get free shit,and some will join the ranks of its selfless and dedicated members. When you spenda grueling day repairing bicycles for 53 howling children at a local community center,your exhaustion will be eased somewhat by the sight of 36 of them swooping around theparking lot, still shrieking, on their newly repaired bikes. But you’ll probably still havea headache. You will feel a flush of pride when you repair your first headset, and thenshudder inside when you remember that you still need to learn how to true a wheel. Youmay see no decrease in the number of cars on the road, but you will start seeing bikesthat you recognize locked up outside the local grocery store, or at shows, or passing youin town. Then you can quit for good and let your minions continue your work.

Account

We started our bike collective in the summer of 2000, choosing at first the name ThePeople’s Bike Stop. The Marxist overtones were no longer cute after a while, so wechanged our name. There were five of us initially: some who had big ideas about distributing bikes to children from low-income families, some with bike shop or collectiveexperience, some with vague allegiances to a shared worldview and others with strongopinions and commitment. I myself had only learned the year before howto repair innertubes and adjust brake pads. We set out a mission statement that we have rarely lookedat since, as it appeared that we largely shared the same vision, and agreed that havingan organized structure was way more professional than we were ready to be. We werewilling to miss out on grants and other benefits of a more codified approach in order totiy to avoid hierarchies and power struggles and other attendant hazards. (Some of thatmight also have been laziness.) We have also decided that the logistics of maintaining ayellow bike program would be too much for our small organization to handle unless wehad no interest in doing anything else. While it’s a fine idea, it’s not something we’vefound a way to fit into our plans at this point.

Bicycles came from various places. Our first big haul was picking up the remains aftera campus bike auction — needless to say, that method left us with a lot of useless junk,but it was an exhilarating start. In a short time, bikes and tubs of parts overwhelmed thetiny backyard i n which we were working. In our area, the college population generouslyprovides a large number of neglected bikes, and we also get lots of old three- and ten-speeds. The mountain bikes are the ones that find homes the fastest, although they tendto be lower-quality department store bikes, and their fat tires are inefficient for standardaround-town and commuting purposes.

One of us financed much of our first couple of years out of his pocket, and was eventually paid back. We started working with community centers and battered women’sshelters, fixing up and giving out bikes for the kids that lived there. To the general public, we gave away bikes and repairs in exchange for labor and halfhearted attempts tolearn how to do some repairs. We were, and still are, pretty lenient about this: we havediscussed the possibility of applying for non-profit status, writing up “prices” (hoursworked, perhaps) for a list of repairs and other services, and a number of other recurringissues, but we never have. We generally inform anyone that isn’t willing to work with u sfor a bike that we charge $50, which helps us make back some cash, but that is a prettysmall number of people. We have also traded bikes for stickers that we use to track thebicycles we repair, and for food and other useful things. The real windfall for us camewhen a local bike shop agreed to sponsor u s with a decent yearly contribution, enoughto get us some tools and parts, which enabled us to expand our efforts.

We spread the bike gospel on the local television channel. We had articles writtenabout us in the paper. We raffled a bike at a local film festival. We moved to a bigger backyard. It was the fucking American Dream. Next, we hope to acquire a two-car garage!

We also gave away all our Saturdays. Our core group of members, while people havecome and gone, remains at a constant four to five people. It has sometimes appearedthat we were going to be left with few committed members, a couple of unfortunatesdesperately trying to get everything under control, but that hasn’t happened yet. We havedistributed more than 450 bikes in the past four years, and we have thrown out whatfeels like ten thousand rusty Murrays and Huffys. I don’t feel like a bike collective is away to accomplish big things: for that, you will need lobbyists or molotov cocktails, andlots of time. But bike collectives can accomplish very concrete things, even if they’resmall. I hope that we can claim some responsibility for the bike racks at the local co-opalways being crowded. And if a couple dozen people now patch their own inner tubesrather than paying a bike shop $15 to do it, well, then that’s enough for me.

Bicycle Parades

Ingredients

• Bicycles

• Riders

Instructions

Perhaps you’re familiar with Critical Mass, the Food Not Bombs of bicycle parades. In orout of that context, the bicycle parade format has much to recommend it. Bicycles offera legal opportunity to establish a presence in the street; in contrast to cars, they’re muchcheaper, don’t automatically reveal their owners’ identities, represent a participatory andenvironmentally friendly technology, and create an atmosphere of togetherness, sinceriders are not separated from one another or those around them by metal and glass. Agroup mounted on bicycles can take up a lot more space than the same number of pedestrians, and usually makes for a more impressive spectacle; they can also move muchmore quickly together or when it’s time to disperse. Bicycle parades are flexible: theycan be festive or confrontational, or switch back and forth between the two. A bicycleparade can bring together locals for a fun community event, or draw attention to a particular issue (local transportation policies, global environmental concerns, the crushingmonotony of city life), or interfere directly with something objectionable by serving as aslow-moving barricade — or provide a blank canvas to which each participant can bringher own intentions. Last but not least, riding bicycles is fun.

Following the Critical Mass model, some cities host regular bicycle parades on a given100 day of every month, leaving from a well-known destination. Lacking this infrastructureor desiring to forego it, you can promote a bicycle parade by stapling fliers around thehandlebars of bicycles parked around town, stickering or marking on anything bicyclesare often locked to (or anything bicyclists often visit — say, a popular grocery dumpster),or postering at bicycle shops. If the police in your area have repressive tendencies andyou don’t want them to show up and ruin the atmosphere by limiting your movementsor threatening participants, avoid putting up fliers where they will see them. If policeshow up before the event with the intention to control it, they will probably succeed, buta single officer who discovers a parade already in progress may be powerless to stop it.

Make things exciting. Unusual bicycles — home- welded double-decker bicycles or“choppers” with exaggerated front wheels, for example — are always a hit. Bicycle trailerscan carry everything from small children to sound systems. To identify your purposeto the world, string a banner between two bicycles; this might make the most sense inthe back of the parade, where it can be read by motorists behind you and discouragethem from driving forward into the mass of cyclists. Musical instruments and othernoisemakers attract attention and keep things cheery — when cars trapped behind yourparade honk their horns, join in with a chorus of bicycle bells and whistles, refrainingfrustration as affirmation. A parade of costumed bicyclists or, better, bicycle floats isperfect for Halloween — or any other day of the year. Have handouts for pedestrians anddrivers stuck in traffic. Keep these accessible and positive: one Critical Mass bicyclist inmy hometown used to pass out oranges with pro-bicycle messages written on them.

Both your route and your method of determining it will depend on your goals. Yourparade could lead to the site of a party or festival; it could wander according to the collective whims of the participants; it could be secretly plotted in advance by a rotating cabal of strategists. A bicycle parade can pass through a neighborhood, or interact with rush-hour traffic; it can take over a highway, or even storm through a shopping mall. Well-attended, long-standing Critical Mass groups have often determined tactics and policiesby “xerocracy”: everyone who has an idea hands out fliers promoting her suggestion,and decisions are determined by a kind of de facto consensus.

Regardless of your approach, there are some general rules of thumb that can help tokeep a bunch of bicyclists safe in car territory. You’ll see a lot of dangerous, stupid driving in the course of the average bicycle parade. First, stay close together, so you presenta mass rather than a string of individuals; the ones chiefly responsible for this are thebicyclists in the very front, who have to set a pace slow enough for the slowest of theothers. The most impatient, impetuous cyclists tend to end up in front, so don’t be shyabout passing messages (“slowdown! tighten up!”) up to them from elsewhere in themass. Don’t let gaps that might tempt motorists open up anywhere. When there are twolanes of traffic, if s actually safer to block both, so you don’t have a line of cars whizzingcarelessly by you on one side. The most level-headed riders should probably stay at thevery back and sides of the mass, as this is where confrontations with moronic driverscan take place; don’t engage i n verbal sparring, don’t act superior, let your self-assuranceand obstructive presence be your revenge on insulting motorists. It’s often best to ridethrough red lights en masse, so they don’t break up your group or interfere with yourmission; while passing through an intersection, the aforesaid level-headed riders shouldpause at the sides of the mass, their bicycles and bodies blocking cars from driving intothe others. Assuming you and your cohorts are proponents of public transportation, youmay want to let city buses (not to mention ambulances) pass you, being careful to fillin the space behind them immediately so other cars don’t attempt to charge through it.Finally routes should be determined with the needs of all participants in mind: if theyare too long or strenuous, or obscure enough to get people lost, they’re no good.

You may want to make plans for breaking up (deliberately or not) and regrouping.ides Riders with cell phones can keep up with one another to organize this ; alternatively, youcan designate in advance points at which to reconvene.

The police will inevitably demand that you tell them who is in charge; “no one” or“everyone” are tried and true answers, though you can also buy time if need be by sayingyou don’t know but you’ll try to find out, or promising to present their orders to the “central committee” to whom you all answer. If you have a regular ride and they start makingthings hard for you, surprise them with an unannounced ride to show who’s boss. Don’tlet them intimidate you with fines or other legal harassment — if you know sympatheticlawyers, have them help you beat these in court; if you’re more the disobedient type, ridein costume or incognito and don’t stop to answer questions or receive tickets. You’re notblocking traffic, you are traffic, right?

Another ridiculous oil war had started, just in time for our monthly bicycle ride. Owingto the lovely spring weather and the indignation of local radicals and — let’s call a spadea spade — borderline liberals, we had a high turnout for our small college town: perhapsfifty bicyclists. We gathered at our usual spot in front of the post office; one of us hadbrought a banner (“no blood or oil”), which was jerry-rigged between two bicycles bymeans of somebody’s shoelace. There were two police waiting at our convergence point,but somehow they lost track of us once we got going on our usual route; Critical Masshad a long history already in this town, and with police ticketing,legal struggles, positiveand negative publicity, and the inexorable slide toward predictable routine already yearsbehind us, they’d come to tolerate our fairly tame monthly rides.

This one was destined to be different, however. Some of us locals were determinedthat there be no business as usual while the war was on, and there were also some traveling kids in attendance, one of whom had a boombox slung over his handlebars blasting‘80s metal, who were willing to take things further and had the advantage of not beingknown by local law enforcement.

Account

As we moved, individual conversations took place about what our route should be.Near the customary halfway point of our ride, we all pulled into a parking lot, andsomeone called out the question. A couple of people suggested we head to the statehighway, and after minimal deliberation we were off, one of us tooting a trumpet, others ringing bells.

There was a stoplight at the main access point to this highway, and we took advantage of it to get onto it in a mass, blocking both lanes; had there not been a stoplight,it would have been extremely dangerous to get on the highway with cars speeding atus from behind. As it was, we were on the area’s main artery at rush hour, blocking itentirely and moving at a snail’s pace. A vast line of cars immediately backed up behindus, some stoically accepting the inconvenient consequences of living in a liberal community while others leaned on their horns and screamed. The police, strangely, werenowhere to be seen yet.

Over the following minutes, things became more and more tense at the back of ourgroup, as a couple of particularly belligerent motorists exchanged threats and recriminations with the similarly hotheaded bicyclists bearing the banner. Suddenly, as the nextexit appeared in the distance ahead of us, there was a commotion at the back of ourparty, followed by a screeching of wheels. Two SUVs drove right into the middle of ourgroup. People leaped out of the way in terror as the vehicles swerved unpredictably. Theone in front struck one of us from the side, knocking him off his bicycle, and then boredown directly on a volunteer at our local bicycle repair collective. He leaped from hisbicycle at the last instant, out of the way of the SUV, which plowed right over the bicycle,catching it and dragging it forward in a stream of sparks. A split second later, the thud ofcrunching glass rang out; the back windows of the SUV had been broken with bicycle U-locks. The vehicle swerved again, pulling up crazily on the grass median in the middleof the highway, and zoomed off down the exit ramp, followed by the other SUV.

It was all over in a few seconds, but it took several more for us to take stock of whathad happened. The injuries of the person who had been struck were minor, but his bicycle was unrideable and the other one had been reduced to a twisted hunk of roadkilledmetal. Dragging these, and providing emotional and physical support to the ones whohad nearly been run over, we made our way even more slowly to the off-ramp. There, atthe bottom of it, we saw the two SUVs stopped, along with a few police cars.

We paused at the side of the highway to figure out what to do, permitting the rest ofthe traffic to pass us. All the drivers that had waited behind us and seen what had happened now waved, cheered, honked, even made hand gestures signifying “peace” or“victory” — they had witnessed the brutish behavior of the first two drivers, and it hadwon us their sympathy and support.

We made a few mistakes at this point. We were in a vulnerable position, and neededto decide quickly what to do, but in our confusion and lack of organization, we boggeddown trying to make a group decision while a couple of us went to speak to the police. Thekids from out of town, feeling at risk and fearing police surveillance now that a crime hadarguably been committed, decided after a couple of minutes to ride ahead along the sideof the highway to the next exit and make their getaway from there; this they succeeded indoing without complications. Some really foolish questions were asked by inexperiencedpeople with no sense of security culture (see Security Culture, pg. 461 — please!) about whohad broken the windows of the SUV, but these questions were swiftly dismissed. It cameout that the bicycle that had been destroyed had been a free one from the local bicycle collective (see preceding Bicycle Collectives, too!), so the main cost to us was in shock.

Meanwhile, the report from the police was that though the murderous SUV driverhad announced that he wanted to press charges, he had come across even to the policeofficers as such a dangerous lunatic that for the time being they were simply concentrating on keeping him and u s separated. We took advantage of this confusion to make ourway back into town, and finally stopped to discuss the situation. Some of us wanted topress charges against the drivers, while others doubted that the legal system could everbe used to our advantage; no charges were ever filed from either side, as it turned out.

Many of us were freaked out by the experience of danger — few had been ready forsuch risk, and in retrospect we should have at least been better prepared psychologically before we took to the highway- — but we were also catalyzed by it, shaken out of theroutine into which our Critical Mass had fallen. We dreaded to have another ride thevery next week, and that one was as thickly attended as any had been in years. Therewas a police officer there, who insisted he was there to “protect us,” a justification thedepartment had used before for sending police with us who then attempted to herd us,threaten us, and charge us with traffic violations; deliberately playing dumb, we reassured him over and over that, though he was new to the Mass, we would be sure to protect him. He was so demoralized by this that he eventually left! This time, we rode theopposite direction through town, taking over the main street and demanding as muchattention as we had on the highway but at less risk. We gave out fliers all along the wayabout the behavior of the motorists the week before, and what it indicated about the kindof people who drive SUVs and support imperialist wars — and the people who got thefliers, some of whom had heard about it already, were sympathetic and receptive.

Hanging out at the local organic food co-op after that ride, we discovered that in thewake of our misadventure a local liberal who had long ago ridden with Critical Mass wastrying to get a motion passed that would allocate a police escort to every ride. With someeffort, he was talked out of this, on the grounds that it wasn’t anyone’s business to makedecisions that would have permanent implications for Critical Mass in our town. Thiswas the last of the aftermath of our brief takeover of the highway. Things certainly wouldides have played out much differently in a less liberal town, but you always have to tailor yourapproach to the local environment.

Painting by Bicycle

This is a recipe for leaving trails of paint on streets and sidewalks. These can lead toburied treasure or secret rendezvous points, chart surprise parade routes, or outlinefigures and characters that can only be made out by people willing to track the trails ona map — believe us, it happens!

Ingredients

• Bicycle bucket

• Tubing

• Paint

• 2” x 4”

• Standard-size milk crate

• Drill

• Waterproof glue

• Cable ties

• Screwdriver

• Screws

• Cork or plumbing valve

• Sandpaper

• Washers

Instructions

1. Get a bucket. I found a great one — the same diameter as the standard five-gallon, butshorter. You can use a five-gallon bucket and cut it down to a reasonable size, but you’llhave to find a way to seal the top so paint doesn’t slosh out. Remember to poke a smallhole in the lid so a vacuum won’t build up.

2. Cut a square block from the two-by-four.

3. Slather the top of the block with a generous helping of waterproof glue-construction adhesive will work nicely (figure 3.1).

4. Fasten the block to a flat place in the bottom of thebucket, off-center, by screwing through the inside of thebucket into the block {figure 3,2). Drill pilot holes to avoidsplitting the wood, and use washers so the screw headswon’t pop through the plastic.

5. Get some tubing. After a lot of trial and error, we settled on white plastic tubing that was flexible but hard. We got it in the plumbing section. A half-inch inside diameterprovides a good rate of flow — producing a stream of paint about a quarter-inch wide when you bicycle at approximately seven miles per hour — but you could go bigger.

6. Drill a hole in the bottom of the bucket, through the center of the block of wood. The hole should be the same diameter as the outside of the tubing you have chosen.

7. Use coarse sand paper or a rasp to rough up the surface on the outside of the top two inches of your tube.

8. Coat the inside of the hole and the outside of the tube with plenty of waterproof glue, using a brand that sticks to plastic and wood. Stick the tube into the hole until it is flush with the inside of the bucket [figure 3.3). Let this dry thoroughly before you move it.

9. Mount a milk crate very securely to your bike rack. Cut out a part of the bottom ofthe crate to accommodate the block and tube. A five-gallon bucket fits perfectly in mostmilk crates. Attach the bucket to the crate firmly — paint is heavy!

10 . Use cable ties to fasten the tube in place. We fastened a steel rod to the seat-stay toguide the tube to just above street level and hold it firmly behind where the back wheeltouched the road (figure 3.4).

11. Your savage street smarts should tell you not to start or finish your line right infront of your secret hideout. Stop up the end of the tube with a custom-shaped cork orpiece of rubber; you should duct-tape the cork into place, because all that paint will ap-ply a lot of pressure. If you feel tricky, add a plumbing valve to the end of the tube — ofcourse there’s one made to fit your tubing. If you really want to impress, make a controlfor it that allows you to stop and start the flow on the fly.

12 . Paint the tube black and do something to disguise the bucket. Make it look like abag of groceries with celery and French rolls sticking out.

13. Use any old paint you can get. Stores have mis-mixed paint for cheap. Many citiesmaintain an old paint exchange, because it is so expensive to dispose of it. Take out aclassified ad asking for paint donations for your art class. If the paint you get isn’t brandnew, mix it well and filter it through panty hose — otherwise, gummy paint and driedbits will dog your tube immediately.

Since completing the testing and development for the original version of this recipe,we’ve discovered that one can easily dumpster multi-gallon detergent containers thathave a built-in spigot at the foot of one side; these might offer quite a shortcut. Come tothink of it, you can get water in similar containers, though those are generally transparent and perhaps less durable.

Low-tech pedestrian re-mix: pierce the bottom and top of a can of paint with a large nail,and- quick! -go for a walk.

Account

The street arrived as a liquid; it was poured and mashed into place. Asphalt may seemsolid, but it yields, listens, and records. Here, parallel black streaks run past a stoplightand into the intersection; it’s a recording of tires screeching between some moment ofreflex and impact. Someone died here and it was noted with a smudge of rubber — unless I’m reading it wrong and he just peeled out i n a blaze of glory. Over here the asphaltis ripped open by a weed with a tiny flower screaming, “Orange!” There is a splash ofwindshield in the gutter, and a slick greenish stain; when cars get hurt, they bleed. Andjust a few feet away — thanks to that speed bump, a gallon bucket must have tipped overin the back of a painter’s truck. Now a thin trickle of robin’s egg blue follows her halfwayhome forever. We follow, too, until the trail turns to drips and vanishes. “It’s a statingpoint,” we think.

Six days later, we are perched proudly on our own writing implements, a little fleet ofbicycles carefully designed to leak paint. On a map of Montreal, we have drawn humanfigures, the outlines following streets and sidewalks; from the map, we’ve converted ourdrawings into written directions, and in following these we drip out drawings ten andfifteen kilometers long.

An hour into our second picture, we are overtaken by flashing lights. Oh shit! Wedouble back onto a side road then roll into the safety of a little park. Only then do we seethat our pursuer was a truck, a truck painting lines ! Hearts in our throats, we watch thegroaning beast lay down a thick yellow no-passing zone. It is a river beside our tricklesof yellow, red, and blue, but we are unabashed. Everyone works at the scale they canafford; tonight, we spare no expense.

How to Make a Record Player from a Bicycle

There are hundreds of ways to make a bicycle into a record player, just as there are hundreds of items that can be turned into record players. For that matter, you can turn justabout anything into just about anything else — just think about what they’ve done withsoybeans. Please take this recipe as an example of how to cash in your suspicions of anobject’s constructed identity.

We made our record player during a thinktank. You can read about thinktanks in thisbook too. We had quite a time figuring this all out and we wouldn’t want to take that opportunity away from you. Also, a step-by-step guide would be absurdly long and boring,not to mention unadventurous to follow. Instead, we will start with the basic conceptand move on to a few specific aspects of our design. With the fundamentals in mind,you can get busy on anything within reach.

When I was twelve, my friend David demonstrated something to me; you should try it Instructionstoo. He pinned a needle into a piece of paper as if it were a lapel, so the sharp end ex-tended past one edge of the paper. He turned his record player on and, holding the paperup, allowed the needle to drag gently in a groove. Led Zeppelin 11 rose faintly but clearlyout of the piece of paper. I was dumbfounded.

But there’s nothing too crazy about it. If you want to talk about crazy, crazy is get-ting sound off a compact disc! A record is analog. In the case of a record, analog meansthat the texture inside the groove fluctuates the same way air molecules moved in the therecording studio when the music was played, and the same way your eardrum vibrateswhen you hear the sound. The surface of the record is the texture of the sound. The onlytrick is making the leap from one medium to the next. The needle David used was tinyenough to fit inside the groove. The paper it was stuck into had enough surface area toput those vibrations into contact with enough air that it would be audible. Simple shit.

Fifteen years later a good friend and I locked ourselves in an abandoned office withfood, water, a shit bucket, tools, Zegota’s first record (with “Bike Song,” natch), and, ofcourse, a bicycle. With the latching of the door, we vowed not to leave the room untilwe had played that song on the bicycle. We could “by this because we knew any piece ofpaper and any needle could make it possible. Our job was simply to make a machinethat could turn the record at a steady speed and an apparatus to hold the needle in thegroove while the record turned.

Field Notes

Our speaker cone was made of paper and glue. A standard sewing needle was pinnedinto the end of the cone and superglued in place. The angle between the needle andrecord surface was around 45 degrees.

Our record player was vertical. This made the weight of our paper cone easier to dealwith, because most of it was supported by a hook. The cone was further supported by afew stabilizing threads that prevented it from flopping to one side or another.

We made a Masonite platter, which we attached to the wheel of the bike with threadedrods, nuts, and washers. We used another threaded rod as the center post. We kept therecord in place using a wing nut and washer.

We isolated the hand-crank apparatus from the turntable and cone by building therecord player in two parts. We decided on separation because in our first attempt thevibration and jiggle caused by hand cranking made the record skip. After splitting themachine in two, the crank side could be wobbly and the record side would still spindean. We connected the two halves with a thin rubber belt. The pulley on the crank sidewas fabricated from scraps; the pulley on the record side was a 27” bicycle wheel withno tire. We made the belt from thin strips of inner tube.

At first, the belt had trouble staying in the trough of the pulleys. It would graduallyclimb up the side and jump over the edge. We solved this problem by sewing the flat beltinto a tube.

Gearing the machine was important. We wanted to be able to turn the pedal at a comfortable speed and still have the turntable going approximately 33 1/3 RPM. It turns outthat is a really slow speed for a hand to turn. That’s why we used such a big pulley withsuch a small pulley. We coupled the 27” front wheel with a 10 “ pulley that we cobbled together from scraps and fixed to the bottom bracket where we took off the other crank.

Being made of bike parts, the entire drive train weighed very little. That seemed goodat first, but it wasn’t. Lew mass means low inertia, so the record could change speedsquickly in response to slight changes in cranking speed. To add mass, we ran a chainfrom our crank pulley to the sprockets on the back wheel. We froze the sprockets inplace, as on a fixed-gear track bike, so the back wheel functioned as a flywheel. The fly-wheel smoothed out the inconsistent power of hand cranking, making the pitch easierto control. It also allowed you to stop cranking for a moment or change hands withouttoo much drop in pitch.

You might break through this technological barrier, but we found that old recordsplayed louder and tracked better than new records. This is because the groves are deeperand more widely spaced.

Billboard Improvement

Instructions

Short Version: Get some paint (see Graffiti, pg. 258) or posters and wheatpaste (seeWheatpasting, pg. 598) and alter advertisements in public places to be more honest orat least humorous. This is not all that complicated; don’t be intimidated by the morecomprehensive instructions that follow. They are for those wishing to take this strategyto new heights of precision and visibility.

Selecting a Billboard

In choosing a sign, keep in mind that the most effective alterations are often the simplest. If you can totally change the meaning of an advertisement by changing one or twoletters, you’ll save a lot of time and trouble? Some ads lend themselves to parody by theinclusion of a small image or symbol in the appropriate place — a skull, radiation symbol, happy face, swastika, vibrator. On other boards, the addition of a cartoon thoughtbubble or speech balloon for one of the characters might be all that is needed.

Once you have identified a billboard message you wish to improve, you may want tosee if there are multiple locations displaying the same advertisement. You should determine which ones give your message optimum visibility. A board on a central freewaywill obviously give you more exposure than one on an obscure side street. You must

then weigh the visibility factor against other crucial variables such as physical accessibility, potential escape routes, and volume of foot and vehicular traffic during optimumalteration hours. Of course, if you can improve more than one board in the same campaign, so much the better. In a really coordinated effort, the materials and skills for agiven alteration could be distributed to affinity groups, and all the billboards displayinga certain advertisement could be revised one night.

There are several standard sign types in the outdoor advertising industry. Knowingwhich type of sign you are about to alter may prove useful in planning the operation:

Bulletins are large outdoor sign structures, typically situated alongside federal high-ways and major urban freeways. They measure 14 1 x 48’ and are usually leased in multi-month contracts, meaning that an advertisement will stay in place for at least 6 o days.

30-Sheet Poster Panels measure 12’ x 25’ are situated along primary and secondaryroadways, and are usually updated every 30 days.

8-Sheet Poster Panels measure 6’ x 12’ and are usually found in high-density urbanneighborhoods and suburban shopping areas. They are designed to reach both pedestrian and vehicular traffic, and are leased in 30-day increments.

Out-of-Home Media is the industry term for advertising targeted at people on the go,including bus shelters, the sides of buses and tops of taxis, subway stations, street furniture (newsstands,benches, kiosks), painted walls, and “indoor out of home” locationslike airports and malls.

There are of course many non-standard formats as well, and these frequently makethe most intriguing targets. Oversized bulletins, animated signs, painted buildings, andboards with neon all offer unique challenges for advanced operations. Signs featuringlarge, illuminated text can often be improved simply by turning off a few letters.

In choosing a target, consider how long the advertisement has been up, so you don’tend up modifying a billboard the day before it is scheduled to be replaced anyway.

Planning the Improvement

A ) Accessibility. How do you get up on the board? Will you need your own ladder to reachthe bottom of the board’s ladder? Can you climb the support structure? Is the boardon a building rooftop, and if so, can it be reached from within the building, from a fireescape, or perhaps from an adjoining building? If you need ladders to work the board,they may occasionally be found on platforms on or behind the board, or on adjacentboards or rooftops.

B ) Practicality. How big are the letters and/or images you would like to change? Howdose to the platform at the bottom of the board is your work area?On larger boards youcan rig from above and hang over the face to reach points that are too high to reach frombelow. We don’t recommend this method unless you have some climbing and riggingexperience. When hanging in one position your work area is very limited laterally. Yourability to leave the scene quickly diminishes in proportion to how convoluted your position has become. Placing huge words or images is much more difficult.

C ) Security, After choosing your board, be sure to inspect it, both during the day andat night. Take note of all activities in the area. Who is around at two a.m.? How visiblewill you be while scaling the support structure? Keep in mind you will make noise; arethere any apartment or office windows nearby? Is anyone home? Walk lightly if you’reon a roof top who knows over whom you’re walking.
What is the visibility to passing cars on surface streets and freeways? What can yousee from your work position on the board? Even though it is very difficult to see a figureon a dark board at night, it is not impossible. Any point to which you have line-of-sightvision is a point from which you can be observed. How dose is your board to the nearestpolice station or highway patrol headquarters? What is their patrol pattern in the area,what is the average response time to Joe Citizen’s call? You can get an idea by staking outthe area and observing. Is it quiet at night or is there a lot of foot traffic? When the barslet out, will this provide cover — i.e., drunks keeping the cops busy — or will it increasethe likelihood of detection by passersby ?Will people care? If you are definitely spotted, itmay pay to have your ground crew approach the observers rather than just hoping theydon’t call the cops. Do not let them connect you with a vehicle. Have your ground crewpretend to be chance passersby in order to monitor their reactions. We’ve been spottedat work a number of times, and most people were amused. You’ll find that most people,including officials, don’t look up unless given a reason to do so.
Go up on the board prior to your hit. Get a feeling for being there and moving aroundon the structure at night. Bring a camera — it’s a good cover for doing anything you’renot supposed to: “Gee, officer, I’m a night photographer, and there’s a great shot of thebridge from up here ... Check your escape routes. Can you cross over rooftops andleave by a fire escape across the block?

D) Illumination, Most boards are brightly lit by floodlights of some type. Most largeboards are shut off some time between 11:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m. by a time clock controlsomewhere on or near the board. Smaller boards frequently are controlled by photo-electric cells or conventional time clocks, also somewhere on the board. If you find thephotoelectric cell, you can turn the lights on the board off by taping a small flashlightdirectly into the cell’s “eye.” This fools the unit into thinking it is daytime and shuttingoff the lights.
As noted, most larger boards are controlled by time clocks. These can be found in thecontrol panels at the base of the support structure or behind the board itself. These panels are often locked, particularly those at the structure’s base. Unless you are familiarwith energized electrical circuitry, we caution you to wait until the clock shuts itself offat midnight or so. Many of these boards run 220 volts and could fry you to a crisp.

E) Daytime Hits. We don’t recommend this method for most high boards on or nearfreeways and major roads. It works well for doing smaller boards lower to the groundwhere the alteration is relatively quick and simple. If you do choose to work in the light,wear coveralls (company name on the back?) and painters’ hats, and work quickly. Keepan eye out for parked or passing vehicles bearing the billboard company’s or advertiser’sname, as well as police cars. Each board has the company emblem at its bottom center.

Producing Graphic Overlays

Though powerful improvements are occasionally executed with nothing more than aspray can and a sharp wit, some actions require the production of some type of graphicoverlay to alter the board’s message. The more professional these overlays look, thegreater the impact your modified ad is likely to have on the public. This is not to say thatevery hit needs to look exactly like an original — that would be prohibitively expensivefor most groups. While technical competence is a worthy goal to pursue, the success orfailure of your alteration will ultimately depend more on the quality of your thinkingand the power of your altered message than on how well you can match a font.

A ) Choosing a Production Method. Before you get too deep into the design process, youneed to decide how the overlays will be produced. If you’re lucky enough to have accessto commercial sign-printing equipment, you can go the professional route and opt forindustry-standard vinyl. Vinyl overlays are strong, light, easy to transport, and easy toapply — but unless you have an industry insider on your team, they will probably be tooexpensive to produce. If you or a collaborator have late-night access to the facilities of acommercial printer, neighborhood copy shop, or advertising bureau, you may be able tooutput your overlays on a large-format color printer or plotter.

Printing on paper nearly always requires a process known as “tiling” — cutting the image up into smaller pieces that are then reassembled into a whole. With some popularcomputer programs you can perform this function automatically, by selecting the “Tiling” option from the Print menu. If you don’t have access to a wide-track printer, try tolocate a machine that can handle 11” x 17” tabloid-sized paper: the bigger your printer’soutput, the fewer pieces you’ll have to tile back together to create a finished overlay. Mostneighborhood copy shops and many corporate offices now have color printers and copiers with 11” x 17” output.

For low cost and maximum durability, consider canvas. When impregnated with oil-based lacquer paint, a canvas overlay has the potential to last longer than the sign surface to which it is affixed. It is heavier to carry and more difficult to secure to the sign,but it is a reliable, low-tech alternative that can be implemented inexpensively.

We don’t recommend using overlays much larger than 4’ x 3’ . If your message islarger, you should section it and butt the sections together for the finished image. It getsvery windy on boards, and large paste-overs are difficult to apply.

B) Scale. If you are changing only a small area — a few letters, a small symbol — youprobably do not need to go to any elaborate lengths to match or design your “overlay,”the finished image /lettering you’ll be applying to the board. Just take actual measurements or tracings directly off the board. If, however, you intend to create overlays ofgreat size and/or number of letters and you want the finished image to look as muchas possible like the advertisers themselves had made it, you should plan on more elaborate preparation. Find a position roughly level with the board and looking at it squareon, between zoo’ and 1000 1 away. Photograph the board from this position and makea tracing from a large print of the photo. Using measurements you have taken on theboard (height, width, letter height, etc.), you can create a scale drawing of your intendedalteration. From this, it will be possible to determine how large your overlays will needto be and what spacing will be required between letters.

C) Cola* Matching. There are two basic ways to match the background and colors ofthe lettering or image area:

1. On painted or paper boards you can usually carve a small (1” x 1”) sample directly off the board. This does not always work on older painted boards that have many thick layers of paint.

2. Most large paint stores carry small paint sampler books. It is possible to get apretty close match from these samplers. We suggest sticking to solid colors andrelatively simple designs for maximum visual impact.

D) Letter Style. If you wish to match a letter style exactly, pick up a book of fonts froma graphic arts store or borrow one from a self-serve print shop. Use this in conjunctionwith tracings of existing letters to create the complete range of lettering needed for youralteration. You can convincingly fake letters that aren’t on the board by finding a closelymatching letter style in the book and using tracings of letters from your photo of theboard as a guide for drawing the new letters.

E) Producing Overlays From Computer Output. Computers with desktop publishingsoftware offer many advantages to the modem billboard liberator. Fonts and colors canbe matched precisely, professional-looking graphical elements can be added to your textmessage, and scale and spacing become much easier to calculate.

After you have designed the overlay and printed out your tiles, you’ll need to assemblethe individual printouts jigsaw-style and glue them onto some sort of backing material.Heavy pattern paper works best for this, but you can also use 1/8-inch foam core for overlays less than 30 inches on a side. Start in one comer, adhering the first tile with sprayadhesive to the backing material. Carefully assemble the rest of the tiles, trimming offunprinted margin space as required and laying them down one at a time, making sureall the edges are well-secured. If you get a little off-kilter at some point in the process andthe pieces don’t line up with absolute precision, don’t worry — large-scale work is moreforgiving, since people will be viewing it at a distance. When all the tiles are secured,reinforce the edges with clear packing tape. If it’s going to be a wet night, or if there’s achance your work may stay up for a few days or more, consider weather-proofing youroverlay with a coat of dear lacquer.

F) Tiling With a Photocopier. If you don’t have access to a computer with desktoppublishing software, but do have access to a good copy machine, you can duplicate theprocedure described above using the copier’s “enlarge” function. First, create a scaleoriginal of your overlay on a single sheet of paper. Next, pencil a grid over your drawing,with each section being proportionate to the largest size of paper the copier can accommodate (letter, legal, tabloid, etc.). Cut the original into pieces along the penciled lines,then enlarge each piece on the copier, going through as many generations as necessaryuntil each piece fills its own sheet of paper. Assemble the pieces as described above,adding color with lacquer paints or permanent markers. Weatherproof if desired. Somephotocopying franchises feature machines for making large-scale photocopies, up tofour feet wide and an unlimited length.

G) Producing Overlays by Hand. We recommend using heavy pattern paper and high-gloss, oil-based lacquer paints. The lacquer paint suffuses the paper, making it tough,water resistant, and difficult to tear. To make overlays, roller coat the background andspray paint the lettering through stencil templates of the letters. For extremely largeimages or panels, use large pieces of painted canvas. The canvas should be fairly heavyso it won’t be ripped to shreds by the winds that buffet most billboards. Glue and staplei “x 4” pine boards the entire horizontal lengths of the top and bottom of the canvas. Thecanvas will then roll up like a carpet for transportation and can be unrolled over the topof the board and lowered into place by ropes.

H) Methods of Application. Although there are many types of adhesive that can beused, we recommend rubber cement. Rubber cement is easily removable, but if properly applied will stick indefinitely, and does not damage or permanently mark the board’ssurface. This may become important if you’re apprehended and the authorities andowners attempt to assess property damage. Application of rubber cement on large overlays is tricky. You need to coat evenly both the back of the overlay and the surface of theboard that is to be covered. Allow one to two minutes drying time before applying thepaper to the board. To apply the cement, use 10” paint rollers and a five-gallon plasticbucket. Have one person coat the back of the overlays while another coats the board’ssurface. Both people will be needed to affix the coated overlay to the finished board surface. On cool nights there may be condensation on the board, in which case the area tobe covered needs to be wiped down first — use shop towels or a chamois for this.
To level overlay panels on the board, measure up from the bottom (or down from thetop) of the board to the bottom line of where it needs to be in order to cover the existingcopy. Make small marks at the outermost left and right-hand points. Using a chalk snapfine* with two people, snap a horizontal line between these two points. This line is yourmarker for placing your overlay.
If you have a canvas or paper overlay as described in (F) above, you can either tie thefour comers and middle (top and bottom) very securely, or, if you can reach the face ofthe board by ladder or rope, attach the panel by screwing the r x 4” boards to the bill-board. A good battery-powered drill is needed for this. We recommend hex-head ff Tek*sheet metal screws, #8 or #10 size. Use a hex-head driver bit for your drill. These screwswork well on either wood backboards or sheet metal.

Executing the Hit

Once you’ve completed your preparations and are ready for the actual hit, there aremany things that can be done to minimize the risk of apprehension and/or injury:

A) Personnel. Have the smallest number of people possible on the board. Three isabout optimum — two for the actual work and one for lookout and communications.Depending on your location, you may require additional spotting personnel on theground — see below.

B) Communications. For work on larger boards where you’re exposed for longer periods of time, we recommend compact CB units or FM-band walkie-talkies. Low cost CB walkie-talkies are available from Radio Shack and elsewhere, and can be fitted with headsets and microphones for ease of use.
Have one or two cars positioned at crucial intersections within sight of the board.The ground crew should monitor oncoming traffic and maintain radio contact with thelookout on the board. Do not use the popular CB or FM channels; there are many otherfrequencies to choose from. A verbal code is a good idea since the channels you will beusing will not be secure.
It’s crucial that the members of the ground crew don’t lounge around their vehicle(s)or in any other way make it obvious that they’re hanging around in a most likely desolatearea late at night for no apparent reason. A passing policeman on patrol will notice themmuch sooner than he will the operatives on the board. Keep a low profile. We’ve foundthat lookouts dressed as winos or homeless couples are virtually invisible additions tothe urban landscape. Park all vehicles out of sight of the operation.

C) Safety The risk of apprehension on a board pales in comparison to the risk of falling, and safety concerns should always prevail over security Remember, the wind canbe powerful up on a tall billboard. If you’re not an experienced climber, you’re better offhelping out on the ground as a security lookout, graphic designer, or publicist. Even ifyou are an experienced climber, we don’t recommend solo actions on any board largerthan 8 panels (6’ x 12’). Ideally, all field actions should incorporate the buddy system,but particularly those that require any sort of rigging. If you’re going to lean over the topof the board to affix any overlays, you should have a secured partner belaying you. It’s along way down, so be careful up there.

D) Cleanup, Billboard structures are urban garbage as it is; don’t make matters worse byleaving your empty glue tubes, discarded vinyl backing, cigarette butts, and empties on theproperty. The responsible billboard liberator leaves nothing behind, not even fingerprints

E) Escape. If you’ve done your homework, you’ll how the terrain surrounding theboard quite well. In the event of detection, prepare a number of alternate routes out ofthe area, and a rendezvous point with the ground support crew. If a patrol is approaching and you are in a difficult spot for quickly ditching and hiding — say, you’re hangingon a rope in the middle of the board — it may be better simply to stay still until they pass.Movement is more likely to catch the eye.
Once on the ground, if pursuit is imminent, hiding may be your safest bet. If you’vecovered the terrain carefully, you’ll be aware of any good hiding spots. Stashing clothingin advance at your hiding spot might be wise- a business suit, perhaps, or rumpled leisurewear. Keep in mind that if the police do a thorough search (doubtful, but not impossible), they will use high-powered spotlights from cars, as well as flashlights if they’re onfoot. See Evasion (pg. 234) for more hints on how to outwit and outrun them.

Publicizing Your Action

Like the advertisements they improve, your actions should aim for the greatest possiblereach. Try to time your improvement so it stays up for as long as possible and is seen bya wide audience. Actions executed at the beginning of a holiday weekend tend to stay uplongest, since repair crews are less readily available. You can also add to the notoriety ofyour work by seeking media attention.

A) Photographs. Color slides are best for magazine and newspaper submissions, butonline publishers prefer high-resolution JPEG files. Be sure to get a good “before” picture of the board to be altered, ideally taken from the same camera position and at thesame time of day (or night) as the “after” photograph. An “after” picture should be takenas soon as possible after the action is completed; if you want a daytime shot as well,come back for it later.

B) Press Releases. These can be serious or surreal, according to your motives andwhim. They are essentially cover letters for your photographs, which comprise the essence of the story (see Mainstream Media, pg. 358).

Other Applications

Movie theaters, bus stops, and similar locations often display poster advertisementsbehind plexiglass frames. Some such frames can be opened by universal keys. If youcan reverse-engineer such a key, you can remove these advertisements and alter, replace,or at least destroy them, just as you would the more easily accessible advertisements insubway cars, buses, and student union buildings. If you also paint a message on thesurface behind the posters, when they replace the posters you can simply walk aroundopening the frames and removing the posters, revealing your message. The companiesrenting these advertising sites will have to paint over your work and ultimately changetheir locking systems to secure their precious private property against free expression.

Then you can come back with a roller and cover the plexiglass itself in black paint. Nopeace for the pushers of corporate propaganda!

Account 4: Ingredients

• Digital camera

• Computer

• Water

• Imagination

• Printer

• Bucket

• Ruler

• Scissors

• Paintbrush

• String

• Black crayon

• Black spray paint

• Weight

• Flour

• Ladder

I took a picture of the words close up next to a ruler strung up next to the sign withstring and a weight. On my computer, I put that picture in Photoshop and used the ruleras a reference point to make the letter life size on the screen. Then I stretched the word“Addicted! f f over the picture and made it the right font, etc. Next I printed out an outlineof each letter, coloring the blank spaces and outer spaces with the black crayon. I cut outthe letters so there were no sharp corners or hanging dots.

I made wheatpaste. About 2:30 a.m. the lights on the billboard were out. I put the ladder up next to the sign and spray painted over the word “Ready?” in black to hide it. Thepaint dried. I went back with the wheatpaste and the letters, slapped on the wheatpaste,slapped on the letters, slapped on more wheatpaste — and voila, my own billboard, freeof charge.

Blocs, Black & Otherwise

As one middle-aged mother observed while members of the Quebec black bloc hugged each otherbefore going off to battle the cops, “I always thought this was going to be sinister, but these are just brave kids!”

Ingredients

• Matching clothing that conceals the wearers’ identities*

  (Video) Masha and The Bear - Recipe For Disaster (Episode 17)

• A mission

• Trust and communication

Optional Ingredients

• Provisions: water (plenty, especially if you’ll be dressed in hot gear or expect chemical weapons attacks), food (don’t rely on shops or shopkeepers in contested zones)

• Camouflage: different layers of clothing for different purposes or stages of the action

• Defensive gear: banners, shields (possibly disguised as puppets or placards), steel-toedshoes (should still be comfortable for running!), body armor or padding, gas masks orgoggles and bandannas soaked in lime juice (store in zip-lock bags until necessary),rain coats or chemical protection gear {if there is a risk of chemical attack), whateverrelevant medical supplies you know how to apply

• Offensive gear: spray paint, projectiles, slingshots, signs or flags on thick poles (or justplain poles), molotov cocktails, bright lights ( to obscure police or camera vision duringnight actions), ladders and/or bolt cutters for scaling or breaching barriers

• Communications equipment: hand radios, cell phones, police scanners, flags, drums,shared codes for making internal announcements

• Transportation: bicycles, enough change for the subway, keys to your SUV (easy there,killer, it’s just a joke!)

Instructions: What is a bloc? Are there Other kinds besides the black bloc?

You may have heard of the notorious black bloc, a venerable, if not doddenng, anarchisttradition in which a mass of direct action enthusiasts gather, all wearing black clothingand masks, and engage in some form of illegal activity. This tactic has won some famousvictories in the past two decades, and failed utterly more times than anyone can count,too. The specific cultural characteristics that are associated with the black bloc tactictoday can make it easy to overlook the long history of the bloc tactic and the wide varietyof applications for which it can be used The Boston Tea Party, for example, was a perfectexample of a bloc in action: the participants organized secretly, wore matching disguises(though their choice to costume themselves as “Indians” wasn’t exactly politically correct), and engaged in a mass act of provocative property destruction; presumably theirstrategies for communication and mutual defense weren’t much different from thoseused by the famous black blocs that, a couple hundred years later, attacked similarlynoxious coffee corporations in Seattle. Those who practice direct action would do wellto keep in mind the wide range of scenarios in which a version of the bloc approach canbe useful.

What is a bloc good for?

Acting in a bloc is especially useful when some of the participants in the action expectthey may break laws. When everyone in a group looks the same, it is difficult for the police or others to tell who did what. Most criminal activities are better carried off in a lessobvious manner, of course, but there are situations in which it is necessary to step outside the limits in public. The bloc tactic as it’s known these days is best for conditions inwhich the action called for occupies the gray area between overt and covert, and as suchit must be applied carefully: if you participate with a bloc in an entirely legal action, youmay make a police target of yourself unnecessarily, or needlessly frighten bystanders; onthe other hand, if you intend to engage in serious organized criminal activity, you mightbe better off doing so outside the traditional bloc format, in a totally dosed group, withthe element of surprise and so on. It’s not an accident that people don’t liberate animalsfrom fur farms in black blocs.

One of the positive sides of public bloc activity is that, unlike entirely undergroundactivity, it can create open-ended situations, in which the actions of a few can open thefloodgates for others to join in. One of the many objectionable qualities of clandestineterrorism is that, at best, it is still a spectator sport; a bloc, on the other hand, can be aparticipatory and contagious radicalizing experience. The most obvious way to facilitatethis is to organize an open or semi-open bloc.

In an open bloc, a general call goes out to all interested to gather and act in a bloc;open meetings are held to discuss goals, strategies, and so on. The benefits of such anapproach are that more people can be involved; the obvious drawback is that securityis so compromised that the possibilities for action are severely limited. In a semi-openbloc, the organizing takes place in secret, between people who know and trust eachother, but when the bloc itself comes together, others in bloc attire are welcomed to it;in the past few years of black bloc activities, this has been the most frequent format. Insuch blocs, it is still necessary that the participants be prepared to deal with infiltration,but they at least have the benefit of secure planning and internal structures.

In an entirely closed bloc, the participants prepare in secret and do not welcome the participation or company of any outsiders during the action. Even when such a bloc is calledfor, it can still be valuable to act openly, as a bloc, rather than covertly: the public natureof the action may send an important message, others outside the bloc may be inspired toengage in similar actions of their own, and the crowd cover itself might enable an escapethat would actually be more difficult for those opting for a clandestine approach.

Besides getting away with public criminal acts, there are other reasons to act in a bloc.Bloc participation can be really exciting, and good for morale — acting in a mass of peoplewho are ostensibly prepared to do what they believe is right regardless of police intimidation is often a hell of a lot more empowering than chanting weakly with the liberals,and matching battle-dress is a ritual for inspiring courage that need not be abandonedto our uniformed enemies. A bloc presence may convey important information: to thepowers that be, don’t fuck with this march, or don’t you dare rig that jury; to allies or possible allies, don’t despair, we’re with you. Finally, anonymity: there are countless reasons to conceal your identity at mass actions. Even if you do not plan on committing any crimes,even if you don’t mind the secret police capturing your image for their files, you still doa great service to others by masking up and increasing the number of people who aredisguised, thus making it more difficult for the police to keep up with all of you. Thoseothers might not just be criminals, either; they might be foreigners who don’t want theirparticipation in radical activities to be used as grounds for deportation, or teachers whodon’t want to risk losing their jobs. Sometimes a masked crowd is unnecessarily intimidating to the public; sometimes few enough people are masking up, or police attentionis so focused on the bloc, that you may deem it safer not to draw attention to yourself bydoing so, even if you may engage in illegal activities; and sometimes it’s better to showyour neighbors where you stand, or let the public and the cameras see that not everyoneinvolved in radical activity is young, white, and male. Otherwise, if others are maskingup, you might as well do the same.

Those masks don’t necessarily have to be black ski masks, anyway; there are plentyof more fun, family-oriented ways to obscure your identity. Beyond the black bloc, endless possibilities open up: pink blocs, clown blocs, doctor blocs, maintenance workerblocs ... Wherever a bunch of people are wearing identical clothing or costumes,the bloc tactic could be deployed, utilizing the matching crowd for camouflage. Halloween, for example, could offer a great opportunity for bloc action — as could a high school graduation!

When and how can the tactic be applied?

Black bloc actions have been a hit at mass actions over the past couple of decades: therehave been blocs in the protests at meetings of such despicable gangs as the World TradeOrganization, at political events such as debates between presidential candidates, atantiwar demonstrations and solidarity marches with communities that are sufferingpolice brutality. Wherever there is a mass gathering of protesters, it may make sense todeploy or call for a bloc.

In such environments, the bloc can serve many purposes. As mentioned before, itcan simply be present as a promise of solidarity, or a threat. It can act as a line of defense for or a distraction from other activists doing civil disobedience actions such aslockdowns and blockades, who will be unable to defend themselves from the police. Itcan engage in property destruction — this can achieve economic ends, such as inflictingfinancial losses upon wicked corporations, or other practical goals: a city can be persuaded never to risk hosting another vivisection conference, or alienated workers (andeven activists) can experience firsthand that the stranglehold their oppressors seemto have on reality can literally be broken. A bloc can attempt to prevent delegates fromreaching an unwanted meeting, or trap them inside the meeting space to make surethey get the message that their shenanigans are not welcome. It can reclaim urbanspace, opening up and protecting a street or park for others to reinterpret and enjoy, orrerouting a permitted march into unpermitted areas. It can engage the police in conflict,and thus disrupt business as usual — a meeting in Quebec City to discuss the Free TradeArea of the Americas agreement had to be halted temporarily when tear gas from thestreet fighting below entered the vents of the building hosting it. It can offer the possibility of contesting power and control in immediate actions, rather than mere words,and thus keep spirits up and appetites whetted. A bloc might attempt to set off full-scalerioting, in hope of precipitating an insurrection — or it could simply create a spectacle,to emphasize the anarchist presence and foreground its romantic appeal: liberal carpingabout “alienating the public” notwithstanding, the black blocs in Seattle and afterwardsdid as much to increase the mass appeal of anarchist action as any propaganda publication. If nothing else, a bloc action can be good practice for similar future actions thatmay achieve more.

When choosing goals for a bloc at a mass action, it is critical that the intentions,needs, and comfort levels of locals and others who will be present be taken into account.Alienating people needlessly is not only counterproductive,but endangers bloc participants ; the police are already enemies enough for anyone breaking the law. The last thingyou want to do is endanger others with your actions — so don’t throw stones at the policefrom the back of a crowd, or risk provoking police attacks on peaceful marches, especially if you’re not planning on sticking around to bear the brunt of them. If you’re operating in a mostly out-of-town group that will be acting in a residential neighborhood,don’t be so arrogant as to think you should be the ones to decide what level of conflictis most appropriate for the situation — far better you show that you respect the needsand perspectives of the locals, and are willing to follow their lead. There may be casesin which it is appropriate to bring a level of intensity to an action that others aren’t prepared to — for example, if liberal organizers are addressing a gross injustice with uselessgestures that will do nothing to put things right — but it’s good form to make sure thatthe first ones to pay the piper for whatever goes down will be you and your companions,not innocent bystanders.

Similarly, it is important to be realistic about what you can hope to accomplish inthe situation at hand, given your experience, numbers, and other resources. If the localpopulace hates the arrogance of the leaders who are meeting in their city, but mistruststhe equally foreign hordes who have gathered there to protest them, it might make moreBlocs and sense to target those leaders than to smash corporate windows in what the locals mightperceive as an outsiders’ attack on their home streets. Take everything into account: thepersonality of the police force, the current local political climate, how aware others willbe of what happens to you and your companions, whether the authorities will want toteach you a lesson this time or avoid inopportune media coverage, whether the policewill be trying to secure the whole area (in which case you can expect them to attemptmass arrests, if they have the numbers) or simply protect a part of it (in which case theymay resort to dispersal or defense tactics, if they are outnumbered or uncertain). Is youraction intended for media coverage, for those who witness it in person, for those whoparticipate in it, or for those who foot the bills? Is your goal worth the risk, is it appropriate to the event in question?

Outside the mass at mass actions, acting in a bloc is a much riskier proposition, forthe bloc can be easily surrounded and neutralized by the police. Historically, at demonstrations, almost every bloc that has mixed well with a much larger mass of law-abidingprotesters has managed to maintain some degree of safety and coherence, while almostevery bloc that has attempted to operate in their absence has suffered or at least riskedserious police repression. Some lessons we can draw from such previous successes andfailures are:

1. The bloc should not operate without either the element of surprise or the benefit ofbroad crowd cover, at least not unless it is expected to be of vast numbers, high morale,and great defensive experience, or unless the purpose of the action is to get a lot of participants arrested.

2. Announced direct actions (blocs, unpermitted marches, etc.) at mass events shouldalways take place on or before the big day of general protest, never after them. When direct action precedes or coincides with massive marches and gatherings, it often sets thetone for everything that follows, upping the ante and radicalizing the event in general;when direct action enthusiasts are the only ones left out on the street after the law-abiding activists have gone home, the police know they can isolate, abuse, and arrest themwithout fear of stepping on the toes of the “wrong” citizens, or being observed by suchcitizens as they do so. The presence of others who would witness police brutality is animportant deterrent; work without it at your peril.

3. Those operating in a bloc need to have the support or at least the respect of some,if not most, of those outside the bloc, so as to ensure their safety on the field, let alonegeneral good will in the activist community. In one historic instance, a black bloc wassurrounded and cornered by police, who were moving in to finish it off when a marchorganized by a liberal women’s organization was re-routed to pass through the area andprovide members of the bloc with an opportunity to blend in and escape. To this end, ithelps a great deal if the goals or targets of the bloc are instantly comprehensible to outsiders, so whether or not others agree with the tactic itself they can at least understandwhy it is being employed.

On the other hand, there are cases in which none of these rules of thumb is relevant.Entirely outside the realm of mass actions, there are many other environments in whichthe bloc tactic can be applied; indeed, such applications may be the most promisingfor the future of the bloc, now that police are very familiar with and prepared for blocpresence at demonstrations. A bloc operating swiftly against an unprepared target canaccomplish a great deal. Consult the account at the end of this text for an illustration ofhow a bloc can be deployed outside the demonstration format to wreak havoc on corporate and governmental property.

When acting in a bloc with no demonstrating mass for cover, the most importantadvantage you have to work with is surprise. If you organize in such a way that theauthorities don’t see your action coming, you may be able to get everything done andescape before they’re able to respond. Even when they do arrive, chances are they willnot be prepared to make mass arrests, so you can expect them to attempt only to seizeindividuals; in this situation, the individuals carrying out high-risk actions may be ableto disappear in the commotion (enthusiasts of civil disobedience could even snarl thepolice up in petty arrests to facilitate this, though they might risk a conspiracy charge ifthey were connected to the bloc) — or, if the group is able to act with a high degree of solidarity and audacity, staying dose together and not permitting police to get their handson individuals within it, it might be possible to negotiate a departure en masse, thoughyou can expect to be followed at the very least. It has happened before that groups ofactivists breaking the law together, who showed that they would not be intimidated norallow members to be picked off, have been permitted by unprepared police to leave anarea in return for concluding their action. It’s also happened that they’ve had rubberbullets shot at them, though! If some of you are planning illegal activity of a seriousnature, it may be a good idea to have others in your group applying a wide range of lessconfrontational tactics, so the police won’t be as likely to treat you all as hard-core criminals. Whenever it’s possible without compromising security, “by to make sure everyonein your trusted affinity group, especially the ones who aren’t keen on taking great legalrisks, knows what the highest level of possible illegal activity is, as you never knowwhether the police will choose to hold others responsible for the actions of those theycouldn’t catch!

If you’re showing up at a corporate office at sunrise, you can expect to be practicallythe only ones there, and you’ll have to count on speed and clever escape routes for yourliberty; but there are other situations in which, just as at a demonstration, there willbe crowd cover — even potentially supportive crowd cover- to melt into. Who knows, asports fan bloc mixing with the jubilant crowd celebrating a home team football victorymight be able to touch off hard-core anti-corporate vandalism and looting!

When making plans and setting goals for a bloc action in a particular context, it isalways important to look back in history for precedents. If the last time someone triedsomething similar to what you are trying was a disaster, you had better figure out whatnew element you can throw in to give yourself a better chance. History tends to repeatitself — at least when w^ don’t use our ingenuity to derail it! Get familiar with the historyof bloc actions over the past few years; whenever you’re considering joining in one, pickout and consider the previous example that best indicates what you can expect from thisone — keeping in mind, of course, that your adversaries have been doing the same, socounting on a particular stratagem to work twice is a risky proposition. It is at least asimportant to know when not to do a bloc action as it is to know when to try one: unsuccessful attempts to act in bloc, when there are not enough participants available or theconditions are not favorable, can sap energy better applied elsewhere. When you strike inbloc, strike hard and impressively, then wait for the next realistic chance to do so again.

Structure

Naturally, the affinity group is the basic building block of any bloc. It is impossible tooverstate the importance of engaging in bloc activity as part of a small group capable offending for itself and making decisions; to do otherwise is to abdicate responsibility foryourself to the mass, and to deny that mass the benefit of your participation as an equal.Blocs made up of self-suffiaent affinity groups can make democratic decisions quickly,can split up into equally effective smaller groups, and can handle stressful situations without the added stress of herding a flock of confused followers. Within your affinity group,you should establish common expectations about what goals are, what level of risk isacceptable, what kind of security is appropriate. Security is especially important in blocactivities, because of the sketchy mix of public and unlawful activity that may be involved;be sure everyone has an understanding of security culture (see Security Culture, pg. 461).

Regardless of the total size of the bloc, each affinity group should be totally self-sustaining, at least with regard to the goals it intends to achieve. Escape routes, legalresources, emergency backup plans, knowledge of the area — every affinity group shouldhave all of these, A buddy system inside a group is useful: if the group itself is dispersed,individuals can take responsibility for the safety and whereabouts of their partners. Internal roles can be assigned: for example, scouts who keep track of activity and policepresence (these can be equipped with hand radios or cell phones for communicatingwith the main group, and can ride bicycles for extra speed and mobility; it usually makessense to position them at least a block or so away from the group, so they can provideearly warnings and broader perspective on the area), communications people (also withradios or cell phones, and perhaps a police scanner) to exchange information with thescouts and other groups, runners to communicate new information to nearby groups,experienced folks to correlate and consider information and take responsibility for making split-second decisions, persons to carry out the actions planned, lookouts to coverthem, perhaps a flag-bearer or marching band to maintain morale and keep the groupvisible from a distance, and so on. It might be wise to have one person in non-bloc clothing to attend the bloc, to handle such tasks as explaining to spectators that they shouldnot take photographs, since the police can seize their cameras and use the pictures incourt. The role the affinity group plays in a larger group can also be specialized: anaffinity group could serve as scouts for a larger bloc, or set out to blockade a particularintersection, or concentrate on maintaining a banner at the front of a large group.

An affinity group can form a small, ad-hoc bloc on its own, but a cluster of affinitygroups can form a larger, more powerful bloc. In this case, it is critical that efficient anddemocratic structures be set up within the duster. It should be possible for news, questions, and answers to be communicated swiftly within and between affinity groups, evenin the tensest situations. Some have argued in favor of a more militaristic bloc model,that would presumably operate more like the hierarchical regiments our enemies pitagainst us, but the very strength of the bloc is its decentralized, unpredictable nature;it seems foolish to try to beat our oppressors at their own game rather than capitalizingon our own strengths. Better we improve our coordination than focus on control: we areconductors setting the stage for improvisation, not military tacticians with underlingsand commanding officers.

In a bloc made up of affinity groups from different areas, the local group will inevitably have the most information about what is possible, and may well consequently havedone the most thinking and preparing. This is not necessarily a problem, as long asothers trust them and are organized enough themselves to retain their autonomy. Thelocal group should make provisions for sharing as much information with others as issafe, and also be sure not to assume unthinkingly a position of authority over the othergroups: a local group attempting to lead an uninformed mass on an unrevealed secretmission can be a real recipe for disaster. On the other hand, as the element of surpriseis the most important factor in almost all bloc actions, provided that there is a high levelof trust between organizers and participants a secret plan that only becomes clear toeveryone at the instant it comes to fruition can be a powerful thing.

Preparation

One of the most important things to do before an action is learn the area. As manymembers of each group as possible should spend time traversing it, taking careful noteof escape routes and dead ends, cameras, places where the police may mass or that theymay seek to protect, possible targets, possible resources (barricading materials such asmoveable fences, etc.), and above all making sure they will not get lost. Those who cannot be there in advance should at least memorize maps. For locations for which streetmaps are unavailable or do not suffice, it is possible to get aerial maps off the internet.

Make sure you have a safe place to stay before the action if there’s any chance the police are expecting it. Far too many times, the police have raided activist housing beforean action and arrested hundreds of people; do everything you can to find a place to sleepand prepare that is off their radar, so you won’t run that risk. Stay with a friend of youruncle, or rent sleeping space at a YMCA Don’t be stuck trying to sleep in your car on thestreets they’re patrolling in preparation for the next day’s riot! If you’re from out of town,make equally sure your traveling group (which may not be the same as your affinitygroup) has planned a safe regrouping and departure from the area, and has a backupplan in case of emergency. Keep in mind that if things really go off, certain parts of thecity may be dosed off to you after the action, so you’ll need to regroup elsewhere.

Advance meetings are a critical part of the preparation for most blocs. Again, howsecure or public these meetings are will depend on how many people (and with whatlevel of direct action experience) you hope to involve, and what degree of legal risk you’rewilling to take. If you’re trying to organize a massive but largely symbolic open bloc, youmight choose to circulate meeting times openly; if you’re organizing the core of a blocthat will be open in the street but needs some preparation in private, tell others you trustto pass on an invitation to the meeting only to those they trust; if you’re preparing anentirely dosed bloc, not only should you only reveal the time and place of the meetingto your companions in the action, but you should also make sure they all know not tomention the existence of the project itself to anyone, and to have alibis ready so theirother friends won’t wonder what they’re up to. For more vital information about securityprecautions, consult the Security Culture recipe on pg. 461.

If you are part of an affinity group participating in a larger bloc, you’ll want to haveyour own meetings first, so when a representative of your group attends the larger meeting she can present the information you have, the resources you have to offer, the goalsyou hope to achieve, and the plans you propose, according to how much of this you trusta larger number of people to know. If this is a mass action and there is a larger spokes-council meeting taking place, at least one person from the bloc or in communicationwith it should attend; it may or may not be safe for this person to identify herself assuch, but she should at least be there to take note of what else is going on. A representative of the bloc could attend the spokescouncil presenting herself as a part of an affinitygroup hoping to do support for those involved in bloc activity, and thus test the watersor even meet others interested in the bloc.

In the meetings with your affinity group and the bloc, you’ll want to establish a planof some kind for the day (these almost never come off as intended, but they help to geteveryone in practice thinking about the situation, and it’s good to be prepared to havesomething to do in case everything does work out), and a structure to facilitate communication and quick, democratic decision-making within the bloc, as described above.

Structure will make you adaptable and thus effective, whether or not your plans cometo fruition. You should establish a meeting point for the bloc, plans for dispersal, anda possible time and place for regrouping, if that would be desirable should the bloc bedivided early. Share legal information, what resources will be available for those who arearrested. Go over every possible scenario, what you can expect from each other in eachof them. Psychology is important here: plan for the worst, but don’t demoralize your-selves — you’re considering the possible problems so you’ll be ready for them, not to talkyourself out of action.

Finally if there will be more than one language spoken among demonstrators orlocals, make sure to learn a few important phrases in each of them: “we are not againstyou, we want no trouble with you,” “don’t run, walk!,” “medical assistance needed!”

Action

It is often wise to write the phone number of a legal contact on your body in permanentmarker shortly before an action, so you can be sure it will be available to you if you arearrested, regardless of what else transpires (see Legal Support, pg. 329) You may needto know other cell phone numbers and so on for the day’s actions: try to learn them byheart or, failing that, write them on your skin in an ink that you can rub off if necessary.

You’ll also want to have enough money on you for food, transportation,and phone calls,140 but no more, as it wi11 probably disappear in the event of arrest. Remove piercings thatcould be torn out. Do not carry your address book, unnecessary anarchist propaganda,or anything needlessly incriminating or illegal. Take your ID. with you if you want to beprocessed as your “true” identity in the event of arrest; if you plan on withholding youridentity from the police, make sure you have no identifying papers on you. Carry plentyof water and high-energy foods with you; be prepared for emergencies — if you get separated from everyone and have to spend the night hiding out in a dumpster, you don’twant to be starving, too- but don’t weigh yourself down with anything unnecessary.Carry with you whatever first aid supplies you know how to use that might be useful.Be aware of what medical assistance — such as street medics and clinics — is going to beavailable in the streets, and have a plan if you have to go to a hospital (a fake name andsocial security number, and an alibi, if you fear you might encounter police there); besimilarly aware of whether legal observers and media will be present in the streets, andwhether you’ll want them around or far away from you.

Be prepared for the situation at hand. If the police outnumber you and are waiting foryou and there are reporters and civilians in the area, don’t come in a gas mask and bodyarmor like the folks in your favorite street riot photographs — they’re not going to gasand beat you, they’re going to try to encircle and arrest you, and you’ll need to be able tomove quickly and blend well to avoid it.

Clothing is the one essential feature of the bloc tactic, and the rock upon which itrests or founders. Far away from the action itself, you may want to practice moving andacting freely in your bloc gear, so you won’t still be getting used to it when it’s too late.The whole idea of a bloc is to look indistinguishable from each other, so make surewhatever your bloc theme is, everyone is on the same page about it, and that your ownclothing doesn’t bear any features that distinguish it. In a worst-case scenario, you canmake a t-shirt into a mask: use the neck hole for your eyes, and tie the sleeves behindyour head.

Your clothing should protect you from the hazards you expect, while not weighingyou down unnecessarily;it should be adaptable should unexpected situations arise. Layers are key: if possible, wear an outer layer in which to travel to the bloc action, a layer ofbloc clothing, and then another layer of getaway clothing beneath this — without riskingheat stroke, of course. In some situations, it may be more sensible to carry the outerlayer of your getaway layer in a sealed bag, in case you are covered in paint or tear gas bythe time you need to use it. Consult the Health Care recipe (pg. 275) for information onhow to handle chemical weapons attacks, if you risk incurring them. I’ve read that earplugs can offer some protection against concussion grenades, but how one is supposedto know when to put them in and when to have them out so as to be appropriately attentive is beyond me. If you expect to risk receiving blows or projectile fire, wear bodyarmor of some kind (protective sports gear can suffice) and foam or padding, and abicycle or motorcycle helmet.

A bloc that intends to defend territory in clashes with the police may decide to useshields. These can be made from trashcan lids or cut traffic barrels, layered (supergluedtogether) and reinforced plexiglass, or inflated rubber rafts heavily reinforced with ducttape and possibly a layer of tarp or good old-fashioned cardboard. Wrap duct tape thicklyaround the handles so the shock of impact won’t break your wrists, and provide plentyof room between the handle and the shield so your knuckles don’t take the entire blow.Larger shields are better for protecting against projectile weapons or functioning as amobile barricade, while smaller ones provide better mobility and serve better in hand-to-hand combat. A line of individual shield-bearers can form a shield wall, especially ifthey are practiced at moving together; alternatively, massive multi-person shields can beconstructed, such as the insulation board placards mentioned below. The latter shieldsshould have enough joints in them to navigate narrower streets; keep in mind that thesejoints are also their weakest points.

Slapstick as it is, it often happens that comrades who discussed and prepared together will not be able to recognize each other in their bloc gear on the day of the action. Youmay want to identify yourselves to each other early on, especially people from differentcities and affinity groups who intend to work together, so it will be easier to keep up witheach other in the chaos.

The moment the bloc forms can be pivotal. Where and when to mask up is a hardquestion. If you do it too late, once you’ve joined the bloc, you risk being identified; ifyou do it too early, before you’ve joined the bloc, you risk being nabbed by the police.Little masked groups walking around before or after events are perfect targets for theirenemies. At a big demonstration, one of the best options is to get in your gear in themidst of a large crowd that is not yet under much surveillance, with people around youthat you trust, and to move in the body of the crowd to a meeting point with your fellows in the bloc. Wearing layers is important here, too: if you can start in a disposableoutermost layer that makes you look like a civilian or liberal activist (if perhaps oneoverdressed for the weather), masking up will simply mean discarding it and simultaneously pulling up your mask. At an action in which you have the benefit of surprise, youcan always pick a safe, quiet place near your convergence point and mask up there.

In a mass action situation, the convergence of the bloc should never occur before other protesters are out in the streets; once again, the police will simply pick off the bloc when no one else is there to provide crowd cover or bear witness. Don’t mill around for long at your convergence point — be timely, and get moving. It can happen that the bloc has a difficult time getting out into the field of action, once it has gathered. At a mass action, one of the best solutions for this problem is to have the bloc form somewhere outside the area of heavy police presence, and move into that area as part of a much larger mass — if there’s nothing more interesting to do in the other direction, that is ! When moving with a mass of others, a bloc should keep close to them as well as tight internally; police may try to push in and isolate the bloc.

Once together, stay tight spatially (with the obvious exception of the scouts, who needto be further out): you need to keep police out of your ranks, prevent snatch squadsfrom getting in to grab individuals, and also keep your friends at your sides rather thanstrangers or possible undercover officers. Banners down the front and sides of a groupcan offer useful barriers to this end. You can reinforce cloth banners with PVC pipeor wooden planks; far better, use tough but limber insulation board to construct greatplacards — these can be tied or chained together, to create a mobile, jointed full-size barricade. Remember, your physical presence and togetherness comprise your strength,your readiness to repel police charges and foil arrest attempts is your marching permit.If you strike when they’re not prepared to make mass arrests or attack with chemicalweapons, they’ll be forced to try to intimidate you by singling out individuals for attackor arrest; make this impossible, defend each other and don’t back down.

If s possible to conceal useful materials in an area in advance — a dumpster can befilled with sticks and rocks or spray paint cans, and all the better if it’s on wheels. Sensitive materials (such as projectiles) can be transported to the action concealed in puppets,and puppets built from paper mache over stronger stuff can serve as effective shields —though those poor puppeteers get enough shit from the authorities already withoutsuffering on your account, too. Keep in mind that carrying a bag of rocks, bottles, gasoline, etc. will not look good if you get arrested. Don’t forget, also, that with a simple toolit’s always possible to break concrete or asphalt up into projectiles on the spot — beneaththe concrete, the paving stones, isn’t that how the old French saying goes?

Everyone in your group should have a one-time-only nickname for the duration ofthe planning and action, so you can address each other without giving away your identities. Those communicating over cell phones or hand-held radios should assume thatthe police are listening in; it may be wise for those doing communications to learn acode of some kind, or at least keep in mind what not to say over the air. It can also begood for an affinity group or bloc to learn coded announcements in advance, so youcan communicate openly without anyone else understanding. “Tighten up!,” “The pigsare moving in!,” “We need to breakthrough their lines!,” “It’s time, let’s do it!,” “Splitup and regroup at convergence point B!” are all examples of typical announcementsyou might want to code. Don’t use codes unnecessarily, or assume that if you just say“cookie” every time you mean “molotov cocktail” if s going to protect you; clumsy use ofcode can actually put you in greater danger, for the authorities can claim that your codedterms stood for more serious things than they actually did. Also, don’t be afraid to makeuncoded announcements to everyone: “Don’t panic, stick together!,” “We need to getcloser and fill in this space here, slow down up ahead!,” “Medic!,” “Who can verify whathe’s saying?,” “Hold the fucking line!” The more everyone feels entitled to do this, thebetter, so long as it doesn’t create more confusion than it solves; this will make it hardfor your enemies to single out supposed leaders they perceive to be giving orders.

In the heat of action, it’s easy for all the structures you have set up in your affinitygroup to dissolve as individuals get caught up in new developments. Don’t lose yourhead and let the mob mentality take over; make sure to stay spatially dose with yourgroup at all times, keep in communication with them about what is happening, don’tget distracted from your role. It might help to have an informal formation — you can staya few paces behind a particular companion at all times, with another friend always atyour side, and another behind you, for example. Moving in lines can maintain cohesionand make police snatches and infiltration more difficult. Plans will change, but don’tlose the structures that enable you to change them in unison.

Don’t panic, don’t believe unsubstantiated rumors. You probably won’t get a dearidea of what was going on everywhere else during the action until the day after, if youever do; in the midst of everything, it will be easy to get buffeted about by waves of faultyinformation, so resist acting on news until you’ve double-checked it. Don’t spread rumors yourself, and don’t just tell others your conclusions based on what you’ve seen orheard — tell them what you’ve seen or heard and let them draw conclusions too.

Scouts should practice using communications equipment without being obvious,and while bicycling, if applicable; those recognized as scouts can count on police harassment, which will be all the more problematic because they are alone and criticalto the success of the group. They should be particularly quick and alert. Those usingradios should make sure they have decided together on a channel to use in advance, anda backup channel should there be problems.

Barricades can be made out of anything from newspaper dispensers to burningdumpsters, and can serve to slow police progress or simply halt traffic; if you’ve scoutedin advance, you should be able to get them in place very quickly, amid crowd confusion.Don’t ever completely block off an escape route you may need! In a less confrontationalsituation, you can make it more difficult for the police to follow you in an organized lineby simply moving the wrong way up a one-way street, provided there’s still traffic coming down it. Offensive use of projectiles is serious stuff — one can go to prison for manyyears, if arrested — but it can serve to keep police at a distance in order to protect an area,or provoke them into using tear gas (which may actually be a tactic they hoped to avoid).Don’t begin throwing projectiles in a small group that can be surrounded — save it formassive dashes in which the city belongs to the police in one direction and the protesters in the other. When you throw, do so as part of a large group, from the front of thecrowd, and maintain a steady hail in the contested area. Those behind the throwers canprovide more ammunition via bucket brigade.

If you’re planning to do property destruction, come equipped with the appropriatetools. Make sure you’re informed about your targets and their weakness or strength;if you get in position and strike that felonious blow only to find you’re unable to breakthe shatterproof glass, you’ve just risked a lot for nothing. Sometimes spray paint canbe more eloquent than broken glass: “Network TV, keep your eyes on the issues” acrossthe front of the smashed corporate storefront they’ll want to film — or, of course, if possible, you can always just spray paint their camera lenses! Stay abreast of the differentstations’ coverage, so you can offer a pithy retort to the reporter who accuses you ofinterfering with free speech: “We saw your coverage of the social forum last night — youknow as well as I do you don’t care about free speech.” Then disappear into the crowdwhile he angrily telephones his boss.

The most dangerous weapons you should probably ever consider using in a streetconfrontation are molotov cocktails. Understand that if you use these, you can expectserious reprisals from the police; only do so when you’ve got a police-free zone behindyou and a sympathetic crowd dose by that you can escape into without unnecessarily endangering anyone. Best-case scenario, a small team splits from the angry mass, appliesa cocktail or two, and disappears. Is it right to throw molotov cocktails at police? Withthe government spending thousands of dollars on each officer’s special storm troopersuit, throwing stuff at cops is practically a victimless crime* — but you might be betteroff throwing paint bombs at them (see “Distance and Projectile Painting,” Graffiti, pg.258), or shooting paint gun pellets from your slingshot. If they get paint over their dearvisors and shields, no one’s injured, but they’re rendered blind in their expensive armorand have to retreat.

A variety of police weapons may be deployed against you: pepper spray, tear gas,water cannons, concussion grenades, rubber bullets, dubs, charging horses or vehicles.Know what to expect in each situation, and be prepared. Sometimes the best defensereally is a good offense: a bloc prepared to act more quickly and courageously than lawenforcers expect might be able to disable a water cannon before it is employed againstthem. Tear gas canisters can be thrown back at the police, but they will be extremely hotwhen they land; if you expect to be doing this, make sure you have on welding gloves orother serious protection from heat, and that you have a good enough throwing arm andaim to get them out of the area entirely. Don’t pick them up until they begin releasinggas — they may explode and injure you. Horses may balk at approaching an area wherethings are on fire; a less confrontational mass can deter a horse charge by all sitting orlying down.

Police will endeavor to disperse unwanted crowds when they are not prepared to arrest them. Tear gas, concussion grenades, horse charges, stun guns, rubber bullets, etc.may be employed first, if the mass seems particularly rowdy; then, when they deem itsafe, the officers will move in. They will probably do so in lines, charging and fallingback to regroup and consolidate their gain before charging again. Violent arrests of individuals will take place at this time to intimidate the mass, unless the side of the throngfacing them is tight-knit and protected by barricades or united by linked arms at theleast. While the crowd seems volatile and daring, the police may well keep a distance;if the crowd is confused, passive, or disintegrating, they may move in to form lines inits midst, to speed the process along. At no point should you panic and run — this canonly increase your chances of charging into trouble, and endanger others in the process;if others start running, shout out “Walk, don’t run!” At the same time, keep movingquickly, keep things chaotic to prevent the police from getting a sense of where theiropponents are or what to expect. Never let police come together inside the mass.

If you are on the street, they will attempt to force you onto the sidewalk: this thinsthe crowd, lowers morale, and puts you a step closer to being cornered, If you are forcedonto the sidewalk, you can use a street crossing or turn onto a side street to retake the asphalt; banner-carriers can rush forward and block the space to be taken while it is filledwith people, as can bicyclists. The same goes for other lanes of traffic, if they are endeavoring to limit you to the one you have seized. If the police cannot get everyone onto thesidewalk, they will at least try to scare the less militant in the crowd into moving ontoit and adopting a spectator role, so they can then deal with the hard-core contingent; inthis case, try to keep moving and circulating so the “spectators “can be absorbed again,though of course if you are moving in a tight bloc you don’t want to lose your cohesionin such a situation. In an urban environment, it can be possible for an organized, alertgroup to move more quickly on foot than even mounted police officers; always keepmoving and stay ahead of your foes. Sudden bursts of speed and changes in directioncan keep them particularly confused — just make sure your group can engage in thesewithout itself becoming confused or divided. To coordinate simultaneous action in largegroups, you can shout out a countdown from ten to one.

Police snatch squads can be sent into a crowd to grab individuals the police considerleaden or dangerous (or who have been observed committing a crime). Sometimes youcan dearly see the commanding officer point out an individual to be snatched (this canalso he the case if there is an officer firing rubber bullets — another officer may be picking out the targets for him, and by watching you can tell who is about to be targeted).The squad will attempt to surround the target, while keeping an open corridor back topolice lines. To protect against this, keep a close watch on police movements — they mayform a straight line perpendicular to the mass before pushing in. If you know who thetarget is, get them out of the area and into different clothing. Put your body between approaching officers and the target; keep moving and obstructing their path, while makingit seem as accidental as possible, so as not to become a target yourself. If a group canisolate and surround individual officers that have entered a crowd, these wi11 back off ifthey don’t feel in control.

Others can attempt to unarrest individuals who have been nabbed. The time to dothis is as soon as the police strike, before they have made their way back to their lines.You’ll need a few people to break the officers’ grip and others to block their path. As soonas your comrade is free, link arms and disappear immediately into the crowd. The squadwill probably try to snatch again, and will aim for the unarresters, too, this time; keepin mind that unarresting may result in more serious criminal charges than the originaltarget would have faced, so only hazard it if you have a good chance of success or thestakes are too high not to. It has happened before that police vehicles surrounded by anangry crowd have been forced to release arrestees, but they have to be trapped there, notjust heckled. If their tires are punctured (stick the sidewall, not the tread), that will forcethem to a halt, but popping tires can be loud — again, don’t try this unless you’re in atrusted crowd with cover in range.

If you are grabbed by police, keep in mind that even self-defense of the mildest sortcan result in assault charges. If you expect your companions to try to snatch you back,keep the arresting officers’ job difficult by continuing to move, or else go limp: this willnot result in assault charges (though “resisting arrest” is not unheard of), and will forcethe officers to work much harder to move you. Bear in mind that going limp may provoke them into being even more violent to you; but if every arrest they make costs thema lot of manpower and time, your friends will be in a better position to escape or attemptto rescue you.

There’s always the chance that the police will totally surround your group and arrestyou one by one. If this occurs, you’re in trouble. The best defense is to keep abreast ofpolice movement by means of scouts: they may attempt to move up side streets to surround you, or lure you forward while sending a line around to cut off your retreat. Ifyou find your group surrounded by police lines that are thin in one direction, you canattempt to charge out: use your own tight front line, protected with a banner (banner,shields, fencing, linked arms at the least), to push as a solid wall, potentially with a plowpoint at the very front to divide them. A bloc once used a wheelbarrow appropriatedfrom a construction site to front a charge that broke through police lines. Apply thistactic as soon as possible after you’ve been encircled, before they are entirely sure of thesituation, and with maximum confidence if you want it to work. Often your best chanceto escape will be all together as a cohesive group; this also allows you to keep your equipment and clothing in the process, so you can maintain your effectiveness as a bloc, evenif you only choose to use it to escape. On the other hand, if you are part of a crowd that ismoving into what you think is a trap, it may be wisest just to disappear onto the sidewalkand out of your bloc gear before you enter a space you can’t escape. If you are hopelesslytrapped, make sure you ditch all incriminating items before you are arrested, hopefullyin such a way that they cannot be connected to you.

Remember that the police won’t be able to make mass arrests unless they have lots ofplastic handcuffs and vans or buses in the area, so these can be a good tip-off for what toexpect. The same goes for chemical weapons; if they’re ready to use tear gas, they’ll allbe wearing gas masks themselves.

Think about what the goals of the police will be, and how these affect your options:if they are trying to keep a parade route or fenced area secure, you may actually havefree run of other areas for some time. If they are trying to keep a massive march underobservation, they will have to split their forces to keep up with a breakaway march; thiswill only be difficult for them if they are unprepared in numbers, of course, but in certain situations it may be true that ten groups of fifty are much more effective than onegroup of five hundred. There will be moments during unexpected developments whenthey are paralyzed waiting for orders; take advantage of these — but if an unusually longperiod passes without police activity, it may be an indication that they have a trick uptheir sleeves, such as a new, more heavily armed and armored force massing nearby.

At an action the powers that be have seen coming, you can expect to be under surveillance by undercover officers, and you may have to deal with agents provocateurs, too.Stay aware of those around you, especially strangers; undercover agents may be easy toidentify (pairs of big men with two days of stubble on their faces, nice wristwatches, andcommunications equipment), or very difficult to. Keep your companions aware of everyperson you suspect, but don’t “out” undercover agents unless you are absolutely surethey are agents (for example, one of your scouts has been following one, and seen himchatting with his coworkers), and something concrete can be gained from it. Unsubstantiated accusations between demonstrators can only make situations more tense anddemonstration environments less welcoming. As for agents provocateurs and just plainstupid people, they may be moving among or near you, smashing locally-owned storesand private vehicles; whether or not you can prove they are cops or allies thereof, youcan certainly make it dear to them that what they are doing is unacceptable and has tostop. Don’t get snarled up in a tactical debate in the middle of an action, just make yourpoint (or, in a worst-case scenario, intervene) and get on with things.

Stay aware of others, too, besides the police. Other demonstrators of more “liberal”or authoritarian bents may take it upon themselves to interfere with your activities, unmasking you, assaulting you, or pointing you out to authorities; the same goes for localcivilians. It’s almost never advisable to respond to this with violence; walk away, or run ifnecessary. A direct action that turns into a brawl with locals or other activists is disastrousfor everyone. Attempt to talk out differences, if this appears possible and worthwhile,when tempers have cooled, in a safe space removed from the immediate action; send aspokesperson if necessary, preferably a supporter from outside the bloc. At the least, thiscan distract the meddlers while the rest of the group moves on to other actions.

As crazy as things get, remember that the police have firearms, and there’s rarely anyreason to risk getting killed for an action. A street confrontation with better-armed policeofficers is almost always going to be something more of a spectacle of confrontation thana no-holds-barred, life-or-death battle. There’s no shame in this. The police are restrictedin what they can do by what public opinion will decree about it; you are limited in whatyou can do by a similar question, for whenever you move up to a more confrontational

tactic the police will immediately upgrade their tactics to a level higher than yours. Inthis sense, street fighting is a matter of chivalry for us radicals: we always permit our opponents the more powerful tools, in order to keep the violence from getting too out ofhand — and, of course, to show off how much more noble and courageous we are ! If thepapers read (as they have before), “Violence erupted when activists began throwing backtear gas canisters fired by the police,” it will be clear to everyone what’s going on.

Stay flexible, tactically. If you showed up in riot gear for a confrontation with thepolice, but find yourselves totally outnumbered and unprepared, you can turn the otherdirection and move through nearby neighborhoods picking up trash and beautifying thearea — that’ll give the media a confusing message to distort!

Once again, all this will be very different if you are applying the bloc tactic outside thedemonstration setting. Rather than provoking a confrontation with the police that youhope will be contagious, you will probably be doing everything you can to avoid encountering them at all. Scouts, in this case, will serve more to warn you about the approachof the police than to monitor the lumbering movements of nearby police forces, and,accordingly, may be better posted at freeway overpasses or in disguise outside the liquorstore than on bicycles.

Escape: at the end of the action, the final remaining challenge is to get out of yourgear and disappear. Layers, once again, are key: under your bloc clothing, you shouldbe wearing clothing that will make you blend easily with whatever liberal protesters orcivilians will be in the area. You may have to get down to this layer at an instant’s notice:for instance, if the police have singled you out and are pursuing you. Make sure it’s aquick and easy transition to make (though not one that can happen accidentally, in themidst of the action!). Try to do this in a mass of inattentive people, or around a comeror in a bush: if you’re seen or caught on camera changing, all that trouble you went tomasking up may be wasted. Hopefully you have a clever escape route or two alreadyplanned out: an inconspicuous alley, an open space too wide for any police barricade toblock, a fence you can climb more quickly than any police officer (see Evasion, pg. 234).If possible, you might want to lock a bicycle somewhere nearby, so once you’ve gottenaway you can hop on that and move quickly; in urban environments, you ca n also try toget a taxi (provided they’re out and about), get on the subway (though in a serious situation this may be shut down, or the police may be checking people coming in), or duckinto a restaurant and just eat fries in a quiet comer in your civilian disguise until thingsquiet down. Unless things have gotten really hairy, you should still be with your partner,if not a few members of your affinity group.

Finally, the number one rule of all direct action: quit while you’re ahead. Take thingsas far as you can, but live to fight another day, unless this really is the Last Battle.

Afterwards

After the action, gather again in your affinity group at a place and time safely removedfrom danger and surveillance. Give everyone a space to share how they’re feeling. Discuss and critique what happened, what you learned from it, what it means for the future.If applicable, make sure to report on your conclusions to other affinity groups who wereinvolved, and seek their feedback as well. If any of you have been arrested or are facingother difficulties such as injury, discuss how to handle this. Celebrate your achievements, offer emotional support, swear and plot revenge if need be. Make sure above allthat all participants know they are loved and supported.

Don’t ever brag about your achievements in a bloc, or share anything others don’tneed to know, especially if it could incriminate someone. Keep in mind that it’s possibleyou’ve been caught on camera and, however carefully disguised you were, identified bythe authorities. In Sweden, a few months after a street confrontation at a meeting ofthe European Union, early one morning the police arrived at the residences of a coupledozen activists who had been involved and arrested them all at the same moment. That’sa worst-case scenario — don’t let it make you paranoid. Just stay aware of the dangers; ifyou’re doing a lot of heavy stuff , or organizing for it, you might want to live in such a waythat your enemies would be hard-pressed to know where to find you any given morning.

Local anarchists and partisans of Earth First! wanted to make an offensive strike againsta biotechnology company whose crimes had not been brought to public attention (infact, the corporation had bribed the local town government). There was considerablediscussion about what tactics to use — and there was a wide variety of tactical differences,with some of us committed to non-violence and others being wild militant anarcho-primitivists! Being from small towns in an area not known for having lots of activists,we had to work together to allow everyone to participate at whatever level they foundcomfortable. The non-violent folks could have dropped a banner, or someone mighthave come at night and shredded the crops, but what could be done that would allowus to work together, be safe, damage this evil corporation, and provide a wake-up callsuch as our placid small towns had never seen before? What better than a bloc? Whosays we need a major mobilization or a giant antiwar protest to use such tactics? We canhave the excitement and the action of any global day of action any day of the week in ourown hometowns. It’s not like there’s more state to smash in Washington DC, Genoa,or Seattle than there is in our own neighborhoods. Not only that, but this time the copswouldn’t be ready for us.

Since we were going to combat biotechnology, it made more sense for us to dress inbiohazard suits than in black: not only did they disguise us, but they got our messageacross by themselves. Bought in bulk, they cost less than three dollars each. The suitslacked face masks, so we made a quick trip down to the hospital for them. We startedspreading news of the action to our friends by word of mouth, keeping our bloc limitedto only those we trusted.

Account

Committed folks drove in from out of town and set up a “base camp” for the actionat a local farm, building banners, preparing flags, and writing fliers and media releases.The excitement was contagious: local puppeteers brought down a gargantuan puppetof an indigenous farmer, a local farmer wanted to dig up the front lawn of the biotechnology company to plant organic seeds. Work was spontaneously and naturally dividedamong teams. The media team made different pamphlets for different people — onefor the corporate media, one for people driving by, even one for the employees workingthere to explain to them what was happening. As time progressed and more and morecarloads of people drove down the dirt road to the farm, we realized that the action wasgoing to be larger than we had anticipated.

We had picked our target in complete secrecy, and only a few people knew its nameand location. If somehow word had leaked to the biotechnology company that we wereplanning something, our action would have been ruined. Unlike many blocs at protests,we didn’t have a horde of protesters to serve as a distraction, so the main element in ourfavor was surprise. We told everyone else to trust us — it was going to be a biotechnologytarget somewhere nearby — and that we had scoped it out. Indeed, we had discoveredthat the entire complex, one of the main research centers for this biotechnology company, had only a few security guards !

This company had genetically engineered corn to feature “traitor seeds,” seeds modified to be dependent on their expensive pesticides . Farmers would purchase these cheapseeds, and then go into debt buying the pesticide, losing their land and livelihood. Thisdestruction of small and indigenous farming and of biodiversity was leading to hugedemonstrations in Brazil and India in which these crops were ripped from the groundand the seeds burnt, in public ! These seeds were being designed right down the street —and no one even knew about i t The company was so smug they didn’t even hire muchsecurity. Everyone agreed that it was a worthy target, and everyone was happy with keeping the exact location secret until the day of action.

The night before, we went over a map, including aerial photos (easily downloadedfrom the internet) and detailed maps. We didn’t give away the precise location except toone driver from each of the cars. People were given an all-too-quick training on unarresting and bloc techniques, and communications equipment was distributed amongthe affinity groups. This lack of training, especially considering most of the participantshad never been part of a bloc, was a great mistake. Still, affinity groups had come together naturally over the few days before the action, everyone joining groups with closefriends who wanted to risk the same level of arrest and participate in the same type ofaction. Without any argument or coercion, autonomous groups had formed for a trulydiverse range of actions: climbing on the roof of the building and dropping banners,digging up the front yard of the biotechnology company to plant seeds, doing independent media work, passing out fliers on the sides of nearby highways to the trafficthat would be snarled by the spectacle we were to create, performing in a play involving the giant indigenous farmer puppet, acting as police liaisons (a police liaison is aperson whose job is basically to delay the police by acting as the “spokesperson” forthe group), and, of course, property destruction. Surprisingly, there was no predictableconflict about violence versus non-violence: everyone felt that they were participating ina collective action in which every group and every action was vital to the overall successof the whole project — the project at hand being to humiliate a biotechnology companythat had counted on no one even knowing they existed.

At the crack of dawn, everyone put on their biotechnology suits, double-checked theirprops, and jumped into their cars. We parked in the parking lots of a nearby hotel andfamily restaurant, and ran into the front yard of the massive biotechnology complex. Immediately groups scrambled up onto the roof and dropped banners; other groups beganspray painting “Fuck Biotechnology” and “Free the Seed” on the walls of the building.Giant banners were unfurled, and within minutes an unearthly play began, with groupsof biotechnology-suited people and a traditionally-dressed farmer tearing up the carefully manicured lawn of the company, planting organic seeds, while giant biotechnologycorn visuals were erected facing the highway. The employees of the company must havethought one of their own experiments had gone horribly awry, and fled inside, lockingtheir doors and staring out the windows. The security guards, vastly outnumbered, justwatched with mouths agape. This entire action was visible from the highway, and moreparticipants dressed in biohazard suits handed out fliers and carefully talked throughthe issues with passing traffic — traffic that soon ground to a halt. Within fifteen minutes, our action had completely paralyzed one of the largest biotechnology companies inthe world and had frozen traffic on one of the major highways in the United States. Ofcourse, it was the cops that actually shut down the highway — maybe in fear the publicwould see the spectacle ahead.

Of course the cops did come eventually — although, due to the element of surprise,we had free run of the place for almost an hour. Even when the first cops arrived, theyrealized, as the security guards had, that they were outnumbered by a large mass of maniacs in biotech suits. They tried talking to our police liaisons, who repeatedly told themwe had to consult with each other on any decision, a delaying tactic that enabled us toget more of the action done-a mistake in retrospect, since that was when we shouldhave re-grouped and prepared for the inevitable police assault. Even after reinforcements arrived, the cops were afraid to act until some of the businessmen came out ofthe office and whispered in their ears. A few of the officers began trying to arrest people,starting by arresting the only person they could identify — the farmer. Unfortunately, allthe affinity groups were so absorbed in carrying out the actions they had planned they

let some precious seconds pass before they could act — and by then the police managedto pepper-spray one individual in the face. However, through quick thinking, our whitebiotech suit disguises, and some ridiculously brave unarresting techniques (includinggiving cops wedgies and pulling people free from their grasp), we managed to protectalmost everyone from arrest.

At this point the bloc had become a very loose cluster of affinity groups, most folksnor even spatially near each other, which played into the hands of the cops. When calls to“bloc up” were made, it soon became apparent most people didn’t have any idea what wewere talking about, and had little grasp that by gathering together as a larger group wecould stand off the cops. Still, when cops came out on bikes, protesters nimbly jumpedover fences to avoid them, leading one cop to a near-collision with the fence! For a goodfifteen minutes pure pandemonium reigned, with cops unsuccessfully chasing protesters and protesters swarming outside the cops’ grasp without evacuating the premises ofthe company. The farmer chose to be arrested non- violently while the person who waspepper-sprayed was finally cuffed after a considerable battle. Finally, the cops settleddown and agreed to let us move our protest off the premises. Rescuing our giant banners, we managed to regroup our scattered forces and make a quick getaway to our cars.Altogether, out of fifty-some people at the action, there were three arrests.

We tried to make it back to our secret hideout, only to find out the city had sent undercover cops after us. After some quick driving, we escaped the police and pulled intoa truck station — we had to dispose of our biotech suits, which we were still wearing! Wewent around back to an isolated dumpster and began throwing our biotech suits andother incriminating evidence inside. Then, to our surprise, we noticed a trucker watching us through his shades. He gave us a thumbs-up and a shady smile. Our victory wasall over the CB radios!

Reunited at our secret hideout, we headed to march downtown to the jail. Everywhere, people were talking about our action, at diners and in shopping centers, old menand young women — no one had seen it coming, and people got the message! Not onlythat, but almost everyone was supportive: “I don’t believe they’re putting that in ourfood,” “They’re messing with God’s creation,” “That company’s just out to make moneyregardless of the cost to this town or the world.” I had never before seen such a positivereaction to an action. When we finally got to the jail, our boring little town was scandalized was the biotech company!

A lawyer agreed to represent the defendants for two hundred dollars, and we raisedthe money through benefit concerts in which every style of music from punk to blue-grass was played. In court, the cops admitted that due to everyone wearing white biotechsuits they were unable to identify exactly who did what, so they couldn’t really make anycharges stick. At the end, the defendants were let off with community service and thecops even apologized!

As in any action, there were things that went wrong and things that went right. Wedefinitely had free run of the place for a while, and could have inflicted much more serious damage on the biotechnology company than we did — at the risk of possibly alienating some people. Given the weight of the issue, it probably would have been worth it.We definitely should have done more unarresting trainings — the methods we used, likejumping and wrestling with cops, may be courageous, but are not recommended. Wealso could have used a good bloc training, which became distressingly obvious whenpeople didn’t respond to calls to “bloc up.” The fifty of us together definitely could havestood up to the cops, but when people panicked and began running around as lone individuals, the cops managed to nab them. Lastly, we should have had a lawyer ready aheadof time (see Legal Support, pg. 329). Still, hindsight is always dearer than foresight, andthe creative use of bloc tactics with great public outreach made this an action people in

our small town will be talking about for years — and one that’s caused the biotechnologycompany considerable grief and expense.

There are some that say the bloc tactic is dead, but it is only as dead as the ideas thatgive it life. Trying to repeat Seattle is going to fail: those ideas died after they were employed, but they were well and alive at the time because they were new and creative, andthe cops couldn’t see them coming. Don’t just think about previous blocs, look aroundyou for living inspiration. The real question is not whether the bloc is dead or alive, butwhat new ideas we can dream up for striking the next blow against capitalism. May thatblow be a killing one!

Blockades and Lockdowns

There are many reasons to blockade: to call attention to or prevent an injustice, to support other direct actions by securing a space or creating a distraction, to decrease trafficfatalities. There are many sites that can be blockaded: highways, factory and shoppingmall gates, business districts, the front doors of restaurants that are to host corporatedinners or party delegates. Intrepid blockaders can lock themselves to the equipmentthat is to destroy a forest, or lock authorities out of a building that has been occupied ina political action. One of the most common implements for blockading is the lockbox.

Locking Down with Lockboxes

When it comes to blockading, lockboxes are very useful, assuming you are willing to bearrested. The design described here has been used in several cities, including some inwhich the police are experts at “handling” protests, and all the same it can take policehours to move blockaders who use them from a busy street. It is one of the simplest designs; there are many other possibilities. You can make lockboxes with go-degree anglesin them that accommodate both arms of one individual, so one person can comfortablylock down to a gate, a truck axle, or even a railroad track. For serious engagements, youcan make big concrete barrels with lockboxes fitted inside them, or dig a hole in theground and build a vertical one-way lockbox into it with concrete and rebar, or drive ajunker car into place, disable it, and lock down to it.

Lockdowns can be used to stop movement into and out of an area, providing a spectacle perfect for attracting media or other attention. They can stall traffic to allow support162 teams to hold an awareness-raising rally, and distribute leaflets to or otherwise engagedrivers stuck in traffic. After blockaders are removed from the area, police generally blockthe area for another hour or more themselves, lengthening the impact of the action.Lockdowns can appeal to the public by showing that people are dedicated enough to puttheir bodies on the line; they are descended from a long heritage of non- violent civil disobedience that many civilians find less threatening than other brands of direct action.

Ingredients

• Metal or plastic tubing or piping — such as PVC pipe

• Bolts and nuts — at least one

• Chain or rope

• Carabineers

• Glue — optional, but encouraged

• Hacksaw

• Drill bolt and one nut for each box

• Bolt cutters — optional

• At least one person ready to put their body on the line

Instructions

A lockbox is a piece of pipe by which a person can be locked securely to another personor object. The average lockbox accommodates two people; with several lockboxes andpeople, you can form a human chain.

Lockboxes utilize the width of your torso and arm-span to take up space. To lockdown, you attach yourself to a mechanism inside a piece of pipe; in order for a policeofficer to unlock you, he would have to get his arm into the pipe as well, but as the pipefits snugly around your arm, this is impossible. Should police attempt to pull you apart,the strain will be on the metal chain and bolt, not your shoulder joints, assuming yourbox is built correctly. B/ using a carabineer to connect to a bolt within the pipe, you areable to detach from the box immediately whenever you choose. With lockboxes, a groupof people can swiftly move into a space, block it, and defy the efforts of police officerswho would remove them.

Scouting the Target, Planning the Action

The fist step is to scout the area you want to blockade. There are a wide variety of environments in which you might choose to apply lockboxes, but for the purposes of thisintroduction we’ll assume that you will be operating in an urban environment. Youcould blockade the entrance to an event or business, or an entrance to a tunnel, highway,or access ramp. The first step is to figure out where the traffic, whether it be car, foot,or other, can best be bottlenecked. Often, if you block one street successfully, you cansnarl traffic in a large area. Look for streets that lead to main roadways, and watch thetraffic patterns. If you are planning to block a road, listen to traffic reports; determinewhich roads gridlock easily and which roads feed major transportation routes. Note allthe details of your target, including the length of traffic lights, which lanes are open atcertain times, and which directions the majority of cars turn.

Once you have found the location that best serves your purposes, you’ll need to determine how many people it will take to block it. If you have a well-chosen target, butyou do not have enough people, traffic will still be able to pass, and you will simply bea nuisance, not a blockade; if you cannot create a “complete circuit” with your humanchain, connecting it at either end to immovable points, it may be easy to move you out ofthe way even if the lockboxes between people are secure. To measure distances quicklyand subtly, you can count your steps heel-to-toe across an area, or run string or yamacross it. Youll also need to take into account the sizes of the lockboxes you are makingand the people locking down. If a street is 20 ‘ wide and your lockboxes are 3’ long, you’llprobably need five or six people.

Plan your formation carefully. If you are locking down in a line, the two people on theends can be locked to stationary objects — with bicycle U-locks around their necks, forexample, or by a less secure means such as chain locks. If you use bicycle locks or anyother locks that require keys, have an accomplice to spirit the key away quickly, or beprepared to hide it where the sun doesn’t shine. For a less durable blockade, you couldleave the ends of your formation open and sit or lie down. Alternatively, you could dosethe formation at both ends, locking down in a circle, or form two lines crossing eachother in an X.

When planning, take into account the strain of being locked in place for a long period. If the lockboxes are not supported by something, those locked together will quicklybe worn out by holding them up. There are also the matters of food and blood circulation to consider.

Gathering Materials

Once you have worked out your plan, the next step is to gather materials. These can beexpensive, so look around for places to acquire them for free. PVC pipe can be found atconstruction sites; chain can be cut from a locked dumpster; tools can be borrowed orstolen. If you do not want to draw attention, you may want to buy the supplies at multiple locations. While purchases of bolts, carabineers, and glue will not attract attention, aseptum-pierced revolutionary may raise eyebrows if she brings thirty feet of PVC pipe tothe counter. Rumor has it that before and during mass mobilizations, store employeesare told to look out for such purchases. Use the same care you would for buying spraypaint, crowbars, bolt cutters, or glass etching solution. Do not use a credit card if you donot wish to create a paper trail.

Design, Construction, Adaptation, ond Fortification

Summary:

1. Cut the pipe to the appropriate length.

2. Drill a hole all the way through both walls of the pipe at its midpoint (or thereabouts, depending on the differing arm spans of the two who will be using it).

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3. Pass a bolt through both holes.

4. Secure the bolt.

5. Cut a length of chain to fit around your wrist and reach up to the bolt.

6. Fasten a carabineer to the chain by which to secure it to the bolt.

7. Repeat steps 5 and G for the person who will share the lockbox with you.

8. Fortify the lockbox.

The construction of lockboxes can be a fun group activity. Make sure the peoplewho are going to use the boxes try them on and modify them according to arm lengthSS g and other variables. How much of your arm goes inside a lockbox is a matter of preference and tactical strategy, but on average your pipe should be about 4’ in length.The more of your arm is covered by the PVC pipe, the more of your body is safe frompolice action. For example, if your bicep is exposed, the police could attempt to usepain compliance there to force you to unlock yourself; if your entire arm is in thepipe, this is impossible.

Everyone’s arms are unique. If you are locking down, you need to be able to put yourarm far enough into the pipe to grab the bolt, so you can easily connect and disconnectyour carabineer. If the people who are to use the box can be present during the construction, measure their arms and custom-fit the pipe. If this is not possible, build the box toa length that almost anyone can use — say, between 3’ and 4’. If you are using PVC pipe,it can easily be cut with a standard hacksaw. For more long-lasting lockdowns, use moredurable piping.

It’s important that your pipe be the right diameter; you should be comfortable slidingyour arm in at least to your bicep. Unless your arm is extremely small or large, the pipeshould be between 4” and 6” in diameter.

After the pipe is cut so that both people who are to use it can put their arms in asfar as they want and touch fingers, secure a bolt at the point where their fingers touch.The length of the bolt should be longer than the diameter of the pipe; if you use 5” pipe,make sure your bolt is at least 5.5”. Stay away from bolts with sharp threads or a sharppoint on one end, unless you are prepared to modify them for safety and comfort. Yourbolt should be thick and difficult to cut; it will probably be the weakest link in the chain,so you’ll want to be careful to make sure it’s as secure as possible.

Drill a hole all the way through one wall of the pipe and out the other. If you have todrill the top hole first and then flip the pipe to drill the bottom hole, make sure the holesline up! Put the bolt through both holes. It should be slightly off-center in the pipe, sothe people locking to it can fit their fingers around it and have space for their knuckles.Now use nuts to secure it in place; these can go inside the pipe, or outside it, or both.You can use powerful glue to strengthen the bolt; better yet, if you have the means, weldit into place. You could include multiple bolts in your design, to make it harder for thepolice to know where to start. If you have more than one bolt, you can also experimentwith attaching yourself to all of them.

Now you have to build the chain bracelet that secures you to the bolt inside the pipe.Cut a length of chain that can loop around your wrist at one end, and attach at the otherend around the bolt in the pipe; it will be in the shape of a P. Experiment with chainlength until you have a comfortable fit. Make the clasp that holds the chain around yourwrist permanent and durable; use a carabineer to clasp the chain around the bolt, so youare able to unclasp from the lock box in an emergency.

Attaching the chain to the central bolt with a carabineer is a very secure and safe option, but there are others. For a simpler, though weaker, variation, skip the central boltentirely and run a length of chain through the tube to attach your wrist to the wrist ofyour partner. This option might be useful if you have limited time and funding to prepare for the action. A benefit of the central bolt is that when you are pulled, the bolt absorbs some of the force, and gripping it can provide some control; if you are connectedto another person by a chain directly, and one of you is pulled or dragged, both of youwill bear the brunt of it.

Once the device is assembled, the holes drilled, the bolt secured, and the chain attached, make sure it all fits comfortably. Put some padding around the chain at yourwrist, and pad the entrance to the tube if need be. If nothing else, wrap the chain in an oldsock or two, and sand down the edges of the pipe to prevent it from cutting your arm.

The final step is to fortify your creation. Many police departments now understandhow lockboxes are constructed and know how to disassemble them. This does not meanlocking down is ineffective, since it still takes the police time to react, retrieve the necessary tools, and cut apart each lockbox; but it is worth brainstorming about how to stayahead of their technology. The police are likely to try to cut the pipe to expose your handand the carabineer, or attack the box at the bolt. Consider ways to slow this process. Youcould wrap the lockbox in materials that dull saw blades, for example, or wind layers ofduct tape and wire around it, or cover it in viscous tar and sand, or weld rebar armor toit- -or do all of these! The more layers of material that require different forms of cuttingtechnology, the better. For heavy lockboxes that can anchor you in place, you could puta layer of concrete around your pipe, and a layer of plastic or aluminum drain tubingaround that.

Practice and Transport

After all of the boxes are constructed, practice locking in and out of them. Do this aloneuntil you have it down, then try it with a partner, locking at once into both sides of abox. Before an action, practice for speed and organization with everyone who will beinvolved, so things will go smoothly on the big day. To prevent confusion, you can labeleach end of each lockbox, and plan out which direction each person will face and theorder in which people will lock together. It can help to have individuals involved whodo not actually lock down on the line; not only can they help get things together quicklyat the beginning, they can also provide food and water to the people who cannot movetheir arms, and help deal with police and others.

It can be a challenge to get all the lockboxes to the site of the lockdown. You couldhide them nearby in advance, or bear them there in a march, disguised as puppets orbanners. If you have access to a car, you can use it to drop off all the lockboxes at thevery moment your group suddenly converges at the chosen site. If you are doing a longline, you have access to several cars, and speed is of the essence, pairs could get lockedtogether in vehicles before driving to the area, then all be dropped off at the site andlink up in a matter of seconds. A large group of people walking any distance with bulkylockboxes will probably attract the wrong kind of attention, especially if the authoritiesare on the lookout for civil disobedience, although you could come up with clever waysto camouflage them in a pinch.

As in all blockading, if you are blocking a road or highway that is in use, it is veryimportant to stop traffic first. This can most easily be accomplished by another groupworking in concert with those who lock down; it is a lot to ask of a small group that theystop traffic, then lock themselves properly together while holding it at bay. Angry driverscan be even more dangerous than police under these circumstances; be careful not togive them the opportunity to do anything stupid.

Once You’re Locked Together

The people who have come with you to play supporting roles can complement yourblockade with a rally, street party, or outreach event. If you are blocking a street, therewill be drivers to witness street theater or receive pamphlets; if you’re blocking the entrance to an official event, there may be reporters to record you issuing your statement.Either way, there will be curious passersby who deserve to be told more about what’sgoing on and why, and perhaps to be entertained in the bargain. If your lockdown isgoing to create a traffic jam, and you are concerned that the action might be misinterpreted as an attack on civilian drivers, consider distributing peace offerings such ashomemade brownies.

Those locking down can be dressed in symbolic or expressive garb — or, for that matter, in nothing at a 1 1 — o r draped in a banner explaining the reason for the action. If yourhuman chain is not connected to anything at the ends, you could conceivably move fromone point to another while locked together, but this will not be easy or particularly safe.If you are planning on moving at all, you should practice in advance, and perhaps designate coordinators to talk everyone through certain movements or count off marchingsteps. Whether you expect this to be an issue or not, it is wise to prepare a basic communication and decision-making structure in advance, if there are more than a coupleof you planning to lock down together.

Police Reactions, Legal Consequences

Ultimately, there is no way to predict for sure how the police will react, so avoid spending hours debating it in your group. It is important to have a police liaison present tonegotiate with the authorities or at least make sure they understand the situation, andreporters or other witnesses to temper or at least document their behavior. If they startto do something that seems dangerous, calmly inform them that your arm is inside thetube and that you are unable to remove it, and that a team of crack lawyers eagerly awaitsthe chance to sue them into oblivion. Police will always try to intimidate you; call theirbluff, while maintaining your composure. In a worst-case scenario, they may use pepperspray or a similar weapon on you — but remember, this will cost them a lot in the publiceye, especially if you bear this persecution courageously.

If your tine is anchored at each end, they may begin by trying to disengage the peoplein the anchoring roles. If they can move the entire line out of the way and work on youonce you are no longer blocking traffic, they probably will, but this will be difficult ifyou are seated or supine. If they can’t move you all, they will work lockbox by lockbox,cutting the line into smaller, more moveable sections. The method the police use tocut you out will depend on how experienced they are. No police department wants alawsuit, so they will probably be careful not to injure you. If you hide the location of thecentral bolt, they will have no way of knowing where your hands are inside the tube;this will prevent them from simply cutting the tube in half. Often, the police will call inthe fire department to use special tools designed for removing people from wreckage.Last time I locked down, the police brought special wooden frames to support our PVCpipe lockboxes, then slowly dismantled the boxes with wire cutters, saws, and variousother tools.

It is also difficult to predict what your charges will be when you are arrested at the endof your lockdown. In this author’s experience, among others, the charge has been “incommoding,” the same charge you get for blocking a street or similar conduit with yourbody. The use of lockboxes is not a separate crime, though the police may make threatsor try to tack on additional charges such as “possession of implements of crime” (PIC).In both the lockdowns in which I participated, the police told us that because we usedthe lockboxes we would be charged with an additional PIC offense, but of course, aspolice are wont to do, they were lying. PVC pipe, chain, and carabineers are not implements of crime, no matter how you slice it. Regardless, you should have a group readyto provide immediate legal support (see Legal Support, pg. 329).

Committing to a lockdown is a serious matter; you must be prepared for the ordealof interacting with infuriated police officers over a protracted period of time, while being unable to move freely; this will be followed by the further ordeal of being arrestedand spending time in jail. Embark on a lockdown in a state of inner peace and resolve,properly fed and hydrated, prepared to weather storms of danger and drama — and if youthink you might be there for a long time, wear an adult diaper!

Other Blockading Methods

There are many other ways to create blockades. The most traditional is to build a barricade (see Blocs, Block and Otherwise, pg. 127). An individual who desires to lock herself to something or someone can do so by putting a bicycle U-lock around her neck,though this requires the same support infrastructure that a traditional lockdown does.Extremely experienced and prepared groups can build tripods and suspend individualsfrom them, taking the civil disobedience of lockdowns to another level. Dii roads can beblockaded by digging ditches across them; fencing, metal or wood poles, cables supporting such poles, or other materials can be planted in them, too. If police become anxiousor confused enough, they may block off an area for you.

When blockading a busy thoroughfare, it is important to slow traffic to a safe speedfirst. A bicycle parade (see Bicycle Parades, pg. 100) can slow to a stop, becoming ablockade in itself and offering the opportunity for more permanent blockading to takeplace. Old bicycles, perhaps outfitted with extra metal, could be locked together andabandoned as a blockade by such a parade. It is possible to set off the automatic armsof railroad crossings by using jumper cables to complete the circuit between little trigger wires on the tracks. Individuals dressed as construction workers can put out trafficcones and barrels and wave down cars; for that matter, giving drivers a spectacle of anykind to stare at will slow them down. A banner drop over a busy highway can slow trafficsignificantly, potentially creating a traffic jam which might itself constitute a blockadeof sorts — nothing obstructs cars like more cars! Speaking of, you can drive old junkercars into place and disable them (see account following Reclaim the Streets, pg. 421); besure to buy them with cash from people who won’t remember anything useful aboutyou if the authorities come asking. They can be loaded with barricading material, whichcan be deployed from them; people can even lock down to them. Once traffic is slowedor stopped, you can stretch cables or fencing across highways and affix it to telephonepoles, light posts, or guardrails.

Don’t forget that quick-drying concrete can effectively seal many gates and othermeans of access. Mix nuts and bolts or other material into it for greater durability. Fora humorous effect in a low-risk environment, you can brick up the door of an office orbusiness. Pick a quiet night, so the mortar will have enough time to dry.

When blocking off both ends of a street or bridge, make sure you leave an exit. Youdon’t want to let traffic in, but you also don’t want to trap civilians — or yourself. Alwaysmake sure that you are not blocking access to a hospital or similar establishment.

Account

In the winter of 2003, before the second Gulf War began, direct action was happeningall across the globe in an attempt to stop the war before it started and to connect theimpending invasion of Iraq to the larger war that capitalism wages everywhere. Directactions in New York City and San Francisco hid shut down the Holland Tunnel andFinancial District, respectively, and other protests were also making headlines.

Anarchists and direct action enthusiasts in DC were organizing regular actions, whiletrying to put into place a plan that could be carried out once it was announced thatthe bombs had started falling on Iraq. Our theme was “When the War Starts, AmericaStops.” We put out fliers calling for an “Emergency Response Direct Action — the Morning After War on Iraq Starts.” People who wanted to participate on bikes could showup for a “Race Against War” in Dupont circle; at the same time, people who wanted toparticipate on foot would head to the other side of town for a “March of Resistance” atthe Eastern Market Metro stop. We also put out a call for groups to carry out actions ontheir own to further disrupt business as usual throughout the city.

We’ve had a lot of direct actions in DC over the last few years. The state is usuallyaware when there’s going to be a lot of protest activity, and the police presence is reallyintense. Given this atmosphere, just meeting up for a protest without being shut downfrom the start can be really difficult. To counter this, we came up with a complicatedplan like nothing we’d done before. We would use the city’s public transportation system and the fact that the city is wedged between two different states to our advantage.The march started in southeast DC, near the US Capitol. But instead of the march taking to the streets of what is a pretty typical area of DC for protests, the crowd was leddown into the subway station. We handed out different colored slips of paper whichcorresponded to the colors of the flags participants were to follow onto different carsof the same subway train. The people leading the groups into the different cars wereresponsible for making sure no one got separated from the protest and that everyonemade it to the correct stop. On the train people sang, chanted, had conversations withcommuters, and passed out fliers about why we were there. A lot of folks in DC ridethe train to work at that hour, so it was a good opportunity to take our message directlyto many people.

After the train crossed the river into Virginia, the various color-coded groups were instructed to exit at the Roslyn stop, a short walk from the Key Bridge. The Key Bridge is amain artery between DC and Virginia, and serves as the entrance to Georgetown, one ofWashington’s richest and most upscale shopping districts and also full of targets whichcould be related to the war. In addition, the Metro stop was only a couple of short blocksaway from the offices of the Boeing Corporation, another possible target with obviousconnections to the war.

Meanwhile, as the march headed toward the Key Bridge on the Virginia side, theCritical Mass ride was weaving its way through the DC streets to meet the march onthe DC side of the bridge. This, we hoped, would allow us to block the bridge effectivelyfrom both sides and thus bring business as usual to a halt, focusing attention on thewar begun only hours before. To add to the display of visible resistance and accompanyour actions with precise and pointed messaging, other affinity groups, separate from themarch and bike ride, brought banners to the bridge and hung them up around the mainintersections while others handed out fliers detailing our reasons for shutting down thebridge and explaining our opposition to the war.

Two drivers sat in junker cars near the bridge on the Virginia and DC sides, waitingfor the word that the march and bike ride were nearing so they could get into place.When they learned the march was coming, both cars drove out, and stopped and parkedat the DC side of the bridge. Originally there was to be a car on each side, but the policepresence on the Virginia side of the bridge, combined with the landscape of the area,made a successful getaway for the driver who would have to abandon the car there seemvery unlikely.

The drivers parked their cars at an angle to take up as many lanes as possible, hoppedout, moved to remove the license plates that had enabled them to drive around safely,and ran like hell to get away. Unfortunately, there were hundreds of cops on the DC sideof the bridge, some of whom started chasing one of the drivers immediately. They eventually caught up to him, punched him a couple of times, and threw him in the back ofa paddy wagon. They also picked up one of the scouts who was doing communicationson the bridge and mistook her for the guy that was driving the other car. In custody,she heard over the radio that the cops realized their mistake. The cops then suddenlyopened the doors to the police van and said, “Get out, we don’t want to deal with youright now,” and let both people go!

Three people were arrested on the Virginia side of the bridge; we had a bail fund andlegal support team ready to go to get them out. They were out in a couple of hours, andthanks to the coordination of the national lawyers guild and DCs local direct action legalcollective, a local lawyer took the cases for free.

Let’s back up and talk about how we put this together. This action posed several organizing challenges because of the uncertainty of when the war would start. Because ofthis, we took steps to ensure we had all the needed action roles sorted out weeks in advance. We even had understudies for some of the roles, in case certain people happenedto be unavailable the day we needed to carry out the action.

In the planning for the action, we secured two junker cars that would be used to helpstop traffic from reaching the bridge. The two cars, one of which was a minivan, werealso loaded up with big scraps of wood and metal (including a bed frame), chains, andlocks that would be used to form barricades that would fill in the areas around the cars.In the vicinity of the site of the action, there were also road signs and other construction-related barricades that could have pulled into the street. The plan was for an affinitygroup in the march to open up the cars and pull out all the materials to set up the barricades — but it happened that the folks who were going to do this were tied up on theother side of the bridge by a heavy police presence. By the time they got near the cars,the police had blocked them off and made them inaccessible.

In addition to getting drivers for the vehicles and people to assist in building the blockades, we secured volunteers for several other key roles. We had a loop of communicationspeople within the bike ride, the march, and on the bridge as scouts, as well as folks onsite in advance to check for any early police presence. Cell phones were used to insure thesimultaneous arrival of both the march and the Critical Mass ride. We also had a coupleof people set to lead the various risk levels of the march: those who couldn’t risk arrestfollowed one color flag to a support rally across the street, while those who could engagein blocking the street followed another. While our ultimate goal was for no one to be arrested, we wanted to make sure that those for whom arrest was not an option were able toparticipate as well and feel comfortable participating. Action medics and legal observersaccompanied the march, and the variety of roles allowed for those who could not engagedirectly in the blockades to take on equally active and important roles.

This plan was largely organized in public, so the police presence awaiting us wasunavoidable. Only a handful knew the full details of where we would end up, but unfortunately that must have been leaked. Had we done a better job of keeping the targetpoint a secret, we might have had more time to get things in place; on the other hand,the bridge we picked is one of the main entrances to the city, and it may have had a largepolice presence regardless.

However, the bridge was completely shut down for about 30 minutes, and partiallyshut down and made into a spectacle for hours after that. It was a nasty day, cold andpouring rain. The action didn’t entirely go as planned — the idea was to shut down bothends of the bridge and have a street party against the war in the middle. Instead, thepolice cleared all of us from the bridge pretty quickly. But it was shut down, our message against the war and business as usual was all over the news, and the action clearlyaffected the morning commute to work. In addition, we gained useful experience forour future endeavors.

Classroom Takeover

Ingredients

• A university, community college — or other institution of “higher” education

• A few interesting, intelligent companions

Optional Ingredients

• An interesting video

• Educational packets

• Pamphlets, ‘zines, posters, other propaganda

Instructions

Procure a Classroom

We stumbled onto this recipe quite accidentally. Essentially, it involves assuming therole of professor in a university class. Traditional methods of propaganda distributionoften fail to reach those outside the various radical ghettoes, but students — as our studies have shown! — are unusually likely to pay heed to subversive propaganda, if it is issued by a professor or person supposedly acting in one’s stead.

This is the most difficult step in this recipe, but here are some tips that^will get you infront of a class in no time! First, try this recipe on the first day of classes at a university;no one in the class will know what the professor looks like, so you can pull this off without even making up an excuse as to why you are there. Second, at many universities, ifa professor gets sick or is otherwise absent unexpectedly, an official notice will be placedon the door of that classroom. It is possible to walk around a university, locate one ofthese notices, and remove it. The notification should include at least the class sectionnumber, and probably the time the class is scheduled to take place — if the time is notincluded, check the university’s class listing, which can usually be found in the campuslibrary or bookstore, or online. Come back at the assigned time, tell everyone that youare filling in for the professor, and do your worst. Another way to weasel your way into aprofessorship — this is the method we used — is to become friends with some professorsat the local university. Professor friends are likely to call on you to conduct class in theirabsence. Usually, they’ll just ask you to perform some menial task such as showing abore-you-to-tears movie or passing out a syllabus, but hey, they’re not going to be there!This latter technique is a bit more time-consuming, but in a college town, professorsare powerful allies to have. The third and least-recommended option (read “only forreformist suckers”)is to go through somewhat more than two decades of schooling andactually get hired as a professor.

Oh Shit, I’m Standing in Front of 150 Voracious College Kids, Now What?!

First, imagine they’re all naked. Second, calm down; students, like bears, lions, andother wild mammals, are more afraid of you than you are of them — honest!

Seriously, though, this is where the fun begins. From here, your imagination is theonly limit. You could give a lecture on armed guerrilla struggles in Francoist Spain afterthe civil war, or offer a skillshare on graffiti techniques. You could facilitate a workshopon gender subversion, or pass out instruments and hold a jam session. Whatever youdo, we highly recommend you have some radical literature on hand — they will pick itup and read it. Also, in discussions, don’t shoot down everything students bring up thatyou don’t agree with — even if you disagree with it very strongly. What we found is thatthis will polarize the class against you — people will stop listening and discussion willcease. Instead, initially pretend to agree to some of these things, then later come back tothese things and show why they are wrong without mentioning the original comment.Remember, a student’s ego is a fragile thing; if you can avoid bruising it and still makeyour point, everyone wins.

Account

At the beginning of the semester, a socialist professor of political science (the sole representative of “radicalism” at the university here) whom we had befriended over the lastfew years gave us a call. He told us that he was in France and wouldn’t be back for thefirst two weeks of class. He asked if we would handle his classes for the time that he wasgone, and hand out syllabi. We agreed — and it was on. Instantly we had three classes,six class periods, and something like 400 students to lead astray.

None of us knew exactly what we were going to do, though we agreed simply passingout the syllabus wouldn’t suffice. We had nebulous notions of distributing propagandathrough the classes, so we pulled out all our pamphlets, ‘zines, and posters, and wentabout producing a “reader.” Teachers often pass these out: they usually consist of photocopied excerpts from boring-as-hell intellectuals. Our reader was a wonderful thirty- six-page packet including selections from Fighting for Our Lives, Days of War, Nights of Love.Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, the Situationist pamphlet On the Poverty of Student Life,and similar works. We hurriedly compiled this packet in the hours leading up to our firstclass. Over a hundred were produced and distributed during our little experiment, andthey seemed to go over very well.

The first few classes we taught were somewhat sketchy. Our propaganda distributionwent very well, but our lesson plan was — well, almost nonexistent. It all came togetherin our fourth class, though. This was a three-hour-long evening Introduction to Civicsclass hosting 150 students, many of whom were freshmen, so we knew we could preparea lot of material. The original plan called for one of our number — we’ll call him Ted- togive a lecture on the connections between the CIA, drug importing, and the Bush family,then show the video Breaking the Spell, and end with a discussion session. As the classstarted, it occurred to u s that the VCRs and projectors were all either locked or required acode. This problem was easily solved when we realized that there was a big sticker on thephone reading, “Call X8105 for assistance with the multimedia devices.” So, we called.

Us: “Uh, We’re filling in for our professor tonight, and he asked us to show a video,but we don’t have the keys. Can you come unlock it?”

Tech Guy: “Okay, do you have the code for the control box?”

Us: “Uh, no.”

Him: “Argh, damn professor didn’t prepare you at all ... Til be right over.”

Within ten minutes, the multimedia problems were solved.

As it turned out, Ted was late, so we showed the video first. Now, when I say that, whatI mean is we walked into the room without saying a word to the class, put in the video,and played it. For those who have not seen Breaking the Spell, it should be said that it is amilitant anarchist account of the Seattle WTO protests. Within about five minutes, copswere cracking skulls and anarchists were breaking windows, and in the classroom therewere about 100 unsuspecting students with their jaws on the floor. The gasps heardthrough the next hour as protesters were viciously beaten on screen made it clear to methat we were getting our point across.

The movie ended and the class seemed in shock. Ted had arrived by this point andpromptly assumed his very natural role of discussion moderator and social lubricant.He told the class that anyone who wanted to leave should (a very smart thing to do) andsome did, but many stayed. Then we asked the class what they thought of the movie. Then someone asked, “What was the point of showing the movie?” I was about torespond with some sort of polarizing and cliched rant about the inherent violence ofcapitalist systems and the need to disassemble them, when Ted saved me from myself.“Why do you think we showed it?” he responded. This sparked an hour and a half ofsome of the best classroom discussion I had ever been a party to.

It should be mentioned here that the success of this discussion had a great deal to dowith the dynamics of the group we had “teaching” class that night. There were four ofus there that evening. One of our number sat in the audience and acted in a capacity thatwe hoped would convince some students that they too are perfectly capable of being radical. Two of us are kind of scary-looking fuck-shit-up no-compromise kind of anarchists.Ted, on the other hand, looks almost like a college student himself, and while he harborsmany of the same ideas as us, he presents them in a much subtler, more pacifistic manner. He also works in a cafe, where he talks and talks and talks to all kinds of people withall kinds of political ideologies, so he is quite a bit better than the rest of us at getting his point across in a sugarcoated way. Discussion often turned out like this: One of the moremilitant of us would present a polarizing radical opinion in some scary militant fashion.The students would gasp and be like, “No! Never! I’ll never believe you, you dirty, violentcriminals ! “ Then Ted would jump in and be like, “Well, I wouldn’t really advocate that exactly, but they are correct that... and then he’d explain it more thoroughly in a mannermore familiar to the students. This allowed us to present views that were a world awayfrom the views that the students held, but in a way that bridged the gap so that they couldsee where we were coming from — and where we are going!

The class ended with Ted showing a video about the US government’s complicity inthe September 11^th terrorist attacks. Some left gritting their teeth, but all were contemplative, and even our most ardent ideological foes stopped after class to congratulate us on “the most interesting class they’d ever had.” Oh yeah, and they took all our pamphlets.

Coalition Building

Instructions

Assembling coalitions is a way to foster solidarity and build social power. Good coalitions enable people from a broad range of perspectives and demographics to work together and benefit from their differences. Affinity groups and collectives can be powerful on their own, and even more powerful when they work together — but when such groups find common cause with people from other organizing traditions and walks of life, a new range of possibilities opens.

Coalition building can enable activists to move beyond the limitations of outreach.When you have much in common with others, it makes sense to invite them to consideryour viewpoints and join in your activities. But the less similar your context and needsare to theirs, the more important it is for you to avoid recruiting and focus on buildingalliances; this means finding ways to make your separate projects complement one another, and to pursue goals together even when your motivations diverge. Assuming thatyour group has figured out the one right way to do things and that everyone else shoulddrop everything and join you is bound to be ineffective, not to mention exasperating.Such an attitude is often a holdover from hierarchical conditioning: people from thesocial classes that are accustomed to organizing and directing everyone else sometimesunthinkingly attempt to retain this role even in the struggle against hierarchy, castingthemselves as the branch managers of the revolution.

There’s a lot of radical sentiment out there that doesn’t go by any name familiar tothose who consider themselves radicals. Likewise, two self-proclaimed anarchists, however similar their rhetoric may be, are as likely to be at odds in fundamental ways as eachis to have desires in common with others who put less stock in self-categorization. Unruly youth whose hatred of restraints is derived from their daily lives, irate housecleanerswho’ve never heard of anarcho-syndicalism, local religious communities that share yourethics if not your cosmological views, these are potential allies with much to offer to aliberation struggle, even if they don’t frame that struggle the way you do. Besides, if youreally are fighting for universal liberation, you’ll do well to get experience working withpeople of all walks of life, learning in the process what liberation means to each of them.

Getting Started

So you’re convinced that there are worthwhile goals that cannot be achieved by affinitygroups alone, and you’re ready to link up with other groups and communities. But withwhom will you form your coalition? How do you find the allies you need?

One way to do so is to become an ally to others. Find out what projects and campaignsothers in your area are working on, pick the ones you want to support, and inquire as tohow you and your friends or your group can help (see Solidarity, pg. 489). Especially inthe case of people from demographics more marginalized, impoverished, or oppressedthan your own, you may have access to resources that can be of great use in their struggle. There’s a lot to be said for following the leads of those who suffer the inequalitiesand iniquities of the capitalist system more immediately than you, whenever they takeaction to resist it. And who knows — if you offer meaningful, consistent support, theymay eventually take an interest in supporting your projects in return, especially if whatyou’re doing is actually relevant to their lives.

To learn what other activists are doing in your area, you’ll probably have to look beyond the forums and media with which you are most familiar. Just as the predominantlywhite anarchist scene has word-of-mouth and email networks that are fairly self-contained, other communities have their own channels of communication. If you’re organizing on the campus of a private school, for example, and you’re not aware of any radical homeless activists in your town, that doesn’t mean there are none — you just aren’t looking where they are.

Approach groups and individuals that are already active with whom you can establishcommon goals. These could range from short-term goals, such as getting a racist sherifffired, to broader goals like abolishing warfare, exchange economics, and fluorescentlighting once and for all. Find starting places, points of unity on which to base your cooperation, and open a dialogue about what you can do together. Remember how muchyou can learn from established local organizers : they probably have valuable organizingskills and knowledge about the lay of the land. Older activists in particular may havebeen doing what they do in their community for a lot longer than you have.

At the same time, don’t limit yourself to seeking out alliances with other self-professedactivists! You probably know many different circles of people who have never thought ofthemselves as being politically committed or active, with whom you can accomplish greatthings if the right opportunity comes up. The regulars at the local bar might be glad tojoin you in driving fascists out of their neighborhood (see Antifascist Action, pg. 35); a localpottery-making group might jump at the chance to share their wares or offer instructionat a Really Really Free Market (see Festivals, pg. 241); a local graffiti crew might be willingto help you spread an announcement (see Graffiti, pg. 258) .

Stay abreast of what people are doing in different social circles, and brainstorm abouthow their activities could be connected to overtly or subtly radical projects. Cross-pollinating is the essence of coalition building; the more you can mix divergent socialmilieus and perspectives, the better. Don’t lament the limitations of your local radicalnetwork while ignoring the other communities to which you are connected: everyoneis linked to others in a variety of ways — spatial, cultural, occupational, familial — andso has a variety of starting places for finding unexpected allies. If you once played on arugby team with a bunch of fraternity members , don’t try to bury that episode in the pastout of embarrassment — you might one day stumble across the perfect venture to invitethem to join.

Above all, be sincere, reliable, and supportive with those around you, and patient andrespectful with everyone you meet. Coalitions are built on strong relationships betweenindividuals, and building these takes time and trust . If you are known as a good friend anda good neighbor, people will take you seriously when you approach them with a proposal.

Attitude and Approach

When you set out to build coalitions, it’s important to accept the cultural, tactical, andstrategic ways in which others’ groups differ from the groups with which you identify;what matters is what you have in common, and what you can do together without compromising yourselves or each other. Similarly, it’s important to accept things people doin their own lives that diverge from the standards of your subculture. You may be a strictvegan who never buys from corporations, rides in motor vehicles,or sleeps indoors, butpeople who do all these things may be involved in projects that are at least as subversiveas anything you’ve ever done. If you can put cultural differences aside, it will be easierto build the relationships that make coalitions possible.

When meeting new potential allies — that is to say, anyone — don’t tolerate disrespect,but resist the temptation to pass judgment immediately. As time passes and you seepeople in action, you’ll come to know them for the multi-faceted individuals they are.Then, if you still feel that something needs to be said about their conduct or attitudes,you’ll be acquainted with their good and bad qualities and the context of their actions,and will be able to comment in a way they can take to heart — or, at the worst, at leastyou’ll know you’re doing the right thing by making a scene.

Keep in mind that every group is made up of a wide range of individuals with a widerange of ideas — not everyone in a union thinks the same way as the president of the unionlocal, for example. Don’t assume that any one individual can represent the perspectives ofthose you presume to be his or her peers, don’t project his or her views onto others.

Everyone is in a developmental process of his or her own, making decisions for reasons that may not be apparent from a distance. Trust that people know what’s best forthemselves, even when you don’t understand their choices. Though you may not alwaysagree with the ways people go about standing up for themselves, it’s still worth supporting this wherever it happens — it is thus that people win victories, forge relationships,and come to learn from one another.

Take care to respect others’ time limitations and schedules. People on the receivingend of capitalist oppression and repression must struggle for their own survival and thesurvival of their communities, and consequently tend to be extremely busy. Often thebest approach is to go to events others organize, both to support them and to learn whattheir goals are and how they are pursuing them.

At the same time, keep your activities as open as possible, so if others want to takepart, they can. Hold meetings at convenient times and accessible places, be friendly andwelcoming, and make sure newcomers understand what’s going on and how they canparticipate. Maintain healthy internal dynamics, so potential participants will not feelexcluded, belittled, or oppressed.

Building Bridges

How can you be a good ally to other communities? One way to get started is to get yourown community together and active. In the long run, an entire community can providemore and better support to another community than any isolated individual ever could.Often, activists who are frustrated that their communities are not providing meaningfulsupport to other communities throw out the baby with the bathwater, giving up on thepossibility that their own communities might ever offer such support and instead settling for offering it alone on an individual basis. This is shortsighted. Your allies don’tjust need your money, volunteer hours, or spray painting skills — most of all, they needthe link you offer to an entire social circle of people similar to yourself, people whomight also be able to find common cause with them.

Therefore, though it may seem insular or even isolationist, in the long run it can bebeneficial for other communities as well as your own if you focus energy on building upinfrastructure,relationships, and consciousness in your immediate social circles. Working in your own community is what you are equipped to do best, anyway, and can be themost efficient application of your time and energy. If, for example, radical individualsin an apolitical punk rock scene refuse to desert it to pursue traditional service-orientedactivism, but instead stay connected to that social base and do the work necessary topoliticize it, that scene can eventually become a place in which young people develop anawareness of the perspectives and circumstances of those of other walks of life, and inwhich well-attended benefit shows that support the organizing efforts of people fromother communities are held regularly.

When it comes to attracting diverse groups to a coalition, sometimes the most effectiveapproach is to expand incrementally, approaching immediately adjacent communitieswith whom you have much in common, rather than attempting to start at the oppositeend of the spectrum. Once there is some diversity in a coalition, it can be easier to gainmore; at the same time, be careful not to let a monoculture develop in your coalition thatwould put off groups that have little in common with the others involved. It’s a good ruleof thumb to involve groups in projects from the very beginning, rather than approaching them once things are already in motion when it will be difficult for them to feel asense of ownership. Regardless of how you go about reaching out to others, whateveryou do will work best if it’s based on existing relationships and natural affinities.

Within diverse coalitions, it’s generally a good policy to defer decision-making tothose most affected. People of color, for example, have more at stake when it comes topolice brutality issues than the average white person does. It makes sense for them to bethe main decision-makers in local struggles against police brutality, because in the longrun they will likely be the most affected by the decisions.

To be a good ally, you must be consistent and reliable: do what you say you’ll do, don’tsuddenly disappear, keep coming back. Over time, this will build trust, and a strongerworking relationship from which future projects can grow.

Choose issues that are dose to your heart, and stick with them. Many organizers ofcolor have spoken about how white activists often have the liberty to pick and choosewhich issues to address and when. They have said that when these white activists getburned out, or want to move on to a more trendy issue or just hit the road, they justdisappear. If you absolutely have to leave, make sure you let your fellow organizers knowin advance. Figure out ways to have your responsibilities and roles covered while you’regone, stay in touch, and get back into action when you return.

Don’t just go to groups when you need something from them. Go to support whatthey’re doing, and stay involved in their projects for the long haul. Insofar as you sharegoals, what’s good for them is good for you.

Hang in there even when you don’t like some of the things going on. If you hear sexist, homophobic, or otherwise bigoted speech — which can happen or not happen in anysocial context, regardless of common stereotypes or expectations — remember is okayto feel uncomfortable for a minute. Again, everyone is learning and growing, and whatone person says does not represent the whole group. If you stay as an ally and build astrong relationship, what you have to say about it later on will be more meaningful.

Stick Around

Get to know your allies as people, not just as organizers who give you access to acertain community or who play a part in your political strategy. Enjoy the people youmeet in the course of your organizing, share parts of yourself with them as it becomesnatural, build personal relationships as well as organizing alliances. At the same time,if someone doesn’t want that with you, don’t push it.

As your relationships with people outside of your usual circles become stronger,you may get to the point where it makes sense to talk about your political differencesin order for the relationships to grow. Don’t go into these discussions expecting tochange anyone. Look on such conversations as opportunities to learn as well as teach.Ultimately, coalition building is a way not only to connect with others for political expediency, but also to expand ourselves.

Collectives

Instructions

While an affinity group is a transitory structure based on existing collaboration andfriendship (see Affinity Groups, pg. 28), a collective is a more permanent institution inwhich collaboration can take place and friendships can develop. Individuals may pass inand out of different collectives,like blood circulating through organs, but the collectivesremain, offering continuity and infrastructure.

A collective might be a closed circle, such as a clandestine wheatpasting team (seeWheatpasting, pg. 598). or a more fluid, open arrangement in which anyone can participate, such as a Food Not Bombs group (see Food Not Bombs, pg. 248). Often, as in the caseof an anarchist folk band that takes different roadies with them every time they go on tour,the format is somewhere between these extremes. Collectives can serve the needs of theindividuals who comprise them, as a reading group does, or the needs of their community, as a women’s health care collective does (see Health Care, pg. 275). or those of othercommunities, as a prisoner support group does in mailing out books to the incarcerated.At best, everyone who comes into contact with a collective ends up both participating andbenefiting in some way; that’s the whole idea of thinking and acting collectively.

Cooperation and Consensus

Affinity groups and collectives can be distinguished from other organizational structures in that they are explicitly non-hierarchical. Ideally, all participants have an equalsay in the activities of the group. There are no leadership positions; every effort is madeto keep power and influence from being centralized in the hands of any individual orfaction. Decisions are made by consensus rather than by vote, so they meet with the approval of all involved.

In this way, affinity groups and collectives provide a foundation for individual autonomy in collective action. For this to be possible, though, they must themselves bebuilt on a foundation of supportive and liberating relationships. Egalitarian structuresand procedures cannot substitute for sensitivity and goodwill; at best, they can onlysmooth the way for these. As so many of the important aspects of any collaboration aredetermined informally, participants in collectives must seek to nourish in themselvesthe attitudes and habits necessary for coexistence and cooperation to come naturally.

Expandable Autonomous Zines

Rather than increasing the resources or power of individuals, collectives build sharedpower. In a competitive system, life is a zero-sum game, in which one can only pros-per at the expense of others; in the cooperative system collectives seek to employ, onthe other hand, the more everyone invests, the more everyone benefits. Likewise, inestablishing and nurturing a collective, individuals do not amass power for themselvesalone, but instead build a structure from which all might benefit. The wealth a collectivegenerates is not the kind of currency one can use to purchase an insurance policy; it is,rather, the long-standing emotional bonds and networks of mutual aid that can providefor people’s needs even when insurance policies fail.

At their best, collective projects are contagious, spreading collaborative spirit and structures to all who encounter them. They may do so by welcoming new participants into theirranks, or by demonstrating the advantages of methods others can make use of themselves.

Harmony, Not Unity

Many activists approach collective projects with the idea that in order to work together,be or appear sincere, or accomplish great things, all members of a collective must sharea specific political platform, a certain lifestyle, and a strict code of conduct. And youthought the pressure to conform was bad in high school! So-called radical ideologiessuch as Communism that neglected to do away with hierarchy have historically demanded such standardization from their ranks, and have ended up with consequentlysterile movements, artwork, and societies; anarchist thinking, on the other hand, suggests that diversity is necessary to any healthy ecosystem or organization. Greater diversity offers a wider range of inspiration and ideas to draw on, and makes your groupmore adaptable; and since human beings are always different, even when they try tohomogenize themselves, any value system that encourages conformity can only spawndishonest and superficial relationships and projects.

A collective of would-be clones can do one thing well, at best; a circle of unique individuals can do many differing things that complement each other. The best collectivesare the ones that engage the sum total of all the different members have to offer, notthe ones that limit themselves to applying only what their members have in common.Just as a band needs musicians who play different instruments, healthy associationsdon’t restrict the participants with compromises that force them to limit themselves tothe things they have in common, but instead integrate their dissimilarities into a wholegreater than the sum of its parts.

Working and living in such arrangements, in which every person is conscious thatshe is responsible for making the projects and relationships work, helps one learn tosee oneself as a part of the web of human relations, rather than as an isolated individualagainst the world. Under these circumstances, others’ desires must “be taken as seriouslyas one’s own. This can actually allow an individual to be a more complete person, as hercompanions can represent parts of herself for her that she would not otherwise express.Ultimately, everyone is a product of the same world, anyway -we are all interconnected,each of us manifesting different aspects of the same interplay of forces. Without thisinsight, our cooperation and community can only be incidental and haphazard.

Eventually, for the individual experienced in living communally and acting collectively, it becomes possible to regard the entire cosmos as one vast, albeit dysfunctional,collective; the problem is simply how to make its workings more to one’s liking. This isnot to say that fascists or sexists can go about their merry business and be “part of ourcollective” — they’d be the first ones to deny that, and follow it up with proof! But thechief argument of fascism and reactionary thinking has always been that cooperationand autonomy are mutually exclusive, that people have to be ordered and controlled orelse they will do nothing but be lazy and kill each other. The more we can demonstratethat this is untrue, the less appeal their claims will have.

Diversity

Starting from diversity is as important as fostering it. Everyone is unique, of course,and it can happen that there is more divergence of personality, skills, and experiencebetween two people of the same background than between individuals from differingdemographics — but that said, it can be a great thing for a collective to include membersof different genders, ages, social classes, and cultures. When people from such differingbackgrounds learn to understand and respect each other’s perspectives, complementeach other’s strengths and weaknesses, and form symbiotic relationships on the basis oftheir differences, that’s revolution i n action, even if it’s just a handful of people at first.This is not to say that you should recruit people for your collective on the basis of raceor gender alone — that can come across as patronizing, to say the least — but rather thattraveling in diverse circles, and drawing on the friendships that develop naturally withinthose circles to undertake collective projects, are in your best interest.

Of course, collectives composed of members with widely differing degrees of privilege will have to work extra hard on learning to interact as equals (see Undermining Oppression, pg. 560). Oppressive patterns — middle class people tending to take over the organizing, working class people to do the physical labor, men to make decisions in ways that exclude women, and so on — come with us into our collectives from the hierarchical world that raised us; let’s make these groups social laboratories in which we learn how to break these patterns, in preparation for breaking that world.

The proportions of different demographics within a collective often have a great influence over its internal dynamics. For example, it’s best that there be at least two people whoidentify as women in every collective, if possible: an all-male group will inevitably lack certain important perspectives, and a lone woman in a group of men is going to have to dealwith a lot of frustration on her own. All- woman groups, on the other hand can be inspiringfor others, and can function as “safer spaces” that are more comfortable for the participantsthan working in mixed company (again, see Undermining Oppression, pg. 560).

Commitment

Commitment is to collectives what bottomlining is to affinity groups; it is the bedrockon which communities can build their power and organize themselves. When you giveup all the false riches and reassurances of the capitalist protection racket, you’ll needthis from each other more than anything else.

The world we live in, or rather, what world we live in, depends entirely upon our investments: we go on living in this world of sales, wages, rent, and cages because everyday, people wake up and — seeing no other viable option — invest their energy and ingenuity in surviving within its structures, thus perpetuating them. If you can somehowinvest yourself in creating and perpetuating another world, that world will exist at leastto the extent that you exist — that’s the logic of living a radical lifestyle. Now, one personalone living and believing against the grain can barely survive, let alone make a real impact; but a small tribe of people who reinforce and sustain one another can thrive, andhelp others open doors to new worlds of their own.

Anarchist communities, at their best, are networks of such tribes, all trading support and inspiration with each other and helping plant seeds that could grow into newrealities. The most decisive element in determining what a given community can andcannot do is the commitment of its participants. A group of people who are ready togo through anything together, who how they will be faithful to each other and theirdreams through the hardest of times, need not be perfect; as time passes, they will learnwhat they need to learn and improve where they need to improve.

When you’re considering who to work with, characteristics like experience, technicalproficiency, and access to equipment should be secondary — a person who has none ofthese but is possessed by a burning desire to accomplish great things can acquire themeventually Likewise, if you want to get anywhere working in cooperative groups of anykind, the most important characteristics you can develop in yourself are commitment,dedication, reliability, and responsibility. Don’t let people down, no matter what challenges you encounter. Let others how through your actions that they can count on youin everything you undertake together.

Three people can share and minimize rent and food costs, cover a town in postersand graffiti, and organize a part-time childcare collective; ten can cultivate a communitygarden, operate an infoshop or newspaper, and form a radical marching band; one hundred can transform a neighborhood into an autonomous zone, organize city-stoppingdemonstrations, and fan out across the country to share those skills with ten thousandmore — but it all comes down to commitment!

Division of Labor, Specialization, and Power

In seeking to prevent both internal strife and the centralization of power, collectives willdo well to be leery of long-term division of labor. An established division of labor meansthat every member becomes specialized in his or her particular tasks — and, often, in theaccompanying role associated with those tasks. Once the members of a collective havesettled into different roles, they tend to develop conflicting needs and perspectives, andan imbalance of power often follows.

For an offbeat example of the pitfalls of too much specialization, let’s look at a commonbut oft-neglected example of the collective: the political punk or rock band. Many politicalbands experience an internal disorder in which a rift develops between the singer and theother members . Already likely to be outgoing and expressive by temperament, the singerfinds himself in the role of spokesperson for the whole band: he is expected to composelyrics and accompanying song explanations, field the majority of interview questions,and introduce the songs while other band members fine-tune their instruments. All thisserves to reinforce the singer’s inherent authoritative tendencies — let’s not kid ourselves,we all have some — until he starts to take the power of his position for granted.

The best analogy to use here is the Communist State: the singer becomes the Party,whose White Man’s Burden it is to educate the Masses, starting of course with the Proletariat of his own band: the other members, the ones who actually manufacture theuseful product — the music. He, of course, is only giving voice to the politics they alreadyhold unconsciously: he is the Vanguard, and this gives him the important responsibilities of managing their labor, representing their interests, issuing statements on behalfof the group, and so on.

Being able to express one’s feelings in words, to speak one’s mind publicly, to articulate complex ideas on the spot, all these are valuable skills to have-the problem is notthat the singer in this example exercises these, but that the specialization within thetraditional band format tends to develop these skills in this one person and not in theothers. The singer may well be saying and organizing things that need saying and organizing, and he or she may for that matter be the one who takes the most responsibilityfor important matters such as the relationship between the band and other people — butthis specialization is not usually sustainable, and never healthy, Tensions develop between the different class strata of the band, now that they have different interests according to their different roles.

This is only one of countless examples of the ways specialization can concentrate controland create dissension within a collective. Even in collectives in which the division of laboris much less formal, people tend to slip into roles, and the same consequences proceed.

Responsibility and responsibleness alike tend to flow in one direction once a pattern isestablished. The more one person does, the more she or he knows how to do, and feels invested in these things getting done — and the less everyone else does. Worse, that personcan thus become ironically to trust others with responsibilities, just as others cease to beaware of how much work there is to be done and what it takes to do it. The ResponsibleOne blames others for not taking on responsibilities they don’t even know exist; the othersblame him or her for hostility and resentment they lack the context to understand.

How can a collective resist this insidious tendency? There’s the reformist approach:stay aware of the privilege and power you hold as a result of the tasks you take on, try tokeep those who assume key roles in check with continuous feedback. And then there’s theradical approach: rotate responsibilities frequently between participants in the collective,keep things so nebulous that no set roles can crystallize within your collective. Neitherstrategy can work without the other, really: no radical restructuring of our working groupscould by itself undo the effects of the decades of hierarchical conditioning all of us havealready undergone, and at the same time it’s foolish to think people in structures that areconducive to specialization and centralization can behave differently just by deciding to.

Translating

Communication is central to collective activity, and it’ s a voodoo art if there ever was one.

No two people speak the same language the same way — different words, gestures, actions always mean different things to different people. Don’t get angry and self-righteousabout communication breakdowns. There’s no “right” way to communicate, no One andOnly way to handle things; anyone who tells you different is trying, consciously or not, toimpose their personal system upon the cosmos. On the other hand, some ways do workbetter than others — ultimately, the only thing that matters is that your group find a common speech or method that enables you to figure things out with each other.

Whenever the composition of your group shifts, or even when it remains the samebut the people inside it go through changes, as all of us always do, you’ll have to figureeverything out all over again. When you have a new member or two, don’t assume thatyou can simply march forward according to the plans and procedures you’d worked outbefore. Get together and make sure everyone has a say in and a feeling of ownership ofwhat you’re doing together.

Dynamics: A Round Table, Not a House of Representatives

Imagine the relationships in your collective as a system that can be diagrammed:support and information pass between some members more than others; pair bondsare formed, tighten, loosen. All this is inevitable, and fine enough; but the generalshape of the system has critical effects on the way it works for those inside it. Somecollectives have circular systems, in which communication takes place between allparticipants, or, if two members are not interacting as much, they are at least linkedto each other by everyone else; other collectives develop linear systems, in which atsome point in the chain of relationships there is one person who alone connects onegroup or individual to the rest. The circular system is healthy and durable; the linearsystem is perilous and fragile.

Linear dynamics are not always accompanied by hierarchical power structure — butat the very least, they tend to encourage power polarization. The skills and needs of thepeople occupying the two (or more) ends of the line often evolve independently of eachother, and the resulting specialization of interests can lead to conflict.

Communication, which ordinarily would resolve such conflicts, is especially difficultin a collective that has linear dynamics, because the one person who links the different“wings” of the collective has to represent them to each other. Representation is alreadyrecognized by anarchists as unhealthy and disempowering: the politicians who claimto represent our interests in so-called democracies inevitably fail us, for one can onlylearn one’s own interests by representing oneself. Even if the linking member earnestlymakes every effort to represent the needs of the different parties to each other, he orshe ultimately does a disservice to both by enabling them to avoid figuring out how tocommunicate directly. Additionally, the stress this representing imposes on the linkingmember, especially if one or both sides are being aggressive, can be extremely difficultto bear. This stress, like all stress in a collective, is inevitably passed back on to everyone else again — so don’t toy to be a hero, solving everyone’s problems and carrying thewhole group forward on the strength of your diplomacy.

The linear dynamic is a classic problem for collectives in which two members areinvolved in a love relationship, since in our society people in such relationships areencouraged to isolate themselves from others and form one unit, the joint interests ofwhich are then related to the group by one of the two. Blame monogamy monoculturefor this. This doesn’t mean people who are romantically involved can’t be in a collectivetogether, but they do need to be especially aware about keeping communication mutualand representation to a minimum. Non-monogamy, not in terms of sex so much asrelationship expectations and dynamics, has a lot to teach us on this subject (see Non-Monogamous Relationships, pg. 397) *

It may well happen in a crisis situation that one member will retreat into isolationfrom the rest of the collective, fearing or resenting all of them except perhaps the onewho knows best how to communicate with him or her. This situation will not be resolved until the others can recognize his or her needs, and the individual can feel support coming from all of them. As the success of any collective project depends on everyone involved, this should always be possible, somehow — it had better be, since in thelong run no shortcut or substitute will suffice.

Avoiding linear collective dynamics is as easy, and as hard, as solving every otherinternal collective problem: watch out for bad patterns, keep lines of communicationopen, don’t be insensitive. Remember not to carry someone else’s load when it comesto communication, any more than any other responsibility; remember also not to be sodifficult to approach that others avoid you.

Don’t Be a Jerk

If only this didn’t need saying! You may not think it does, yourself, until pursuing yourvisions of total revolution to the ends of the earth lands you and your friends in yourfirst, or fiftieth, really trying catastrophe, and tempers start to flare.

If you raise your voice at your companions, apologize explicitly as soon as you can, andtry to work out the reasons you lost your head so you can avoid it next time. If one of themraises his or her voice at you and then apologizes, make it dear you accept the apology andharbor no grudge, and ask if there is anything you could do to help avoid this happeningagain. If no apology is offered, approach him or her in a non-threatening way and make itdear how important it is you discuss what happened. Check in with each other consistently-and not just in formal meetings, in which some members may feel intimidated — abouthow you’re communicating and making each other feel. Solicit constructive criticism, andtake your companions’ needs very seriously — your collective depends on this.

Shouting at your companions is abusive, coercive behavior. Such behavior comes insubtler forms: sulking, sarcasm, insensitive teasing, refusing to participate in discussion, dismissing others’ perspectives or needs. Forcing others to be the responsibleones — always being the one drinking, never considering others’ needs until they remind you, never volunteering for tasks- or to absorb the stress of your outbursts because you’re too volatile for dialogue is also coercive. If you find yourself thinking itnecessary to “get tough” with your comrades by raising your voice or acting in otherways that make them uncomfortable — or for that matter thinking that they somehowdeserve this treatment for something they have done! — then make no mistake about it:you are becoming an authoritarian.

Make yourself accessible and approachable for dialogue at all times. You may not beable to tell what your companions are going through or need support in — or even thatthey’re going through anything at all — just by watching from a distance; you have to besomeone they know they can come to for support, someone they will want to come tono matter what’s going on. This is important between all people, but especially so fora small group undertaking long-lasting, high-stress projects in dose quarters. Don’tget too comfortable in the role of supporter, either — you need to be just as comfortableseeking support as offering it. When you are offering support, be sure you’re receivingit from somewhere as well.

Lastly, above all — make sure you’re doing something you really want to be doing. Thiswill make you more accommodating and good-spirited, and you won’t feel like you needto be compensated for your activity like you do waiting tables or filing papers. If you really love the projects you’re undertaking and the people you’re with, you won’t mind thechallenges that come with them.

Protect Your Idealism

Part of acting collectively is not setting yourself up to be disappointed. Your faith in other human beings, your ability to believe that they can be responsible for themselves and each other, these are more integral to what you’re doing than anything else — so be careful not to give people unnecessary chances to let you down. Learning how to assess exactly how much you can trust a person is an essential skill for those who would work cooperatively.

Likewise, provide for your own needs to whatever extent you are able. This mightmean carrying toilet paper with you so when there’s none in the bathroom at the squatyou won’t hold the whole squatting movement accountable for it, or showing up at ademonstration with a strategy of your own rather than waiting for instructions. Knowwhat you need and how to ask explicitly for it, but be self-sufficient and durable too.Enjoy developing these qualities in yourself, so you can consider it an exciting challengewhen everything you counted on others to prepare for the big festival falls through thenight before and you have to take care of it all on your own. This will be a lot healthierand more productive than feeling yourself a martyr crucified by the laziness and stupidity of an unfeeling world.

Ultimately, you should be able to thrive in any kind of environment or cultural context, and to be grateful for whatever people have to offer you, no matter how humble itmay be — since in our networks outside the capitalist economy, where we’ve done awaywith notions of debt and duty, everything given is given only out of generosity. Approacheverything in this way, and you’ll be easy for everyone else to work with — not to mentionyou’ll have a better time yourself.

When Times Get Tough

Remember, as long as we live in this cutthroat society, troubled relationships are goingto be inevitable. That’s why we’re working towards a revolution in the first place! The dynamics within our groups and ourselves mirror the patterns of strife in the larger worldaround us, and we can’t expect them to be much healthier than it is. The struggle to healone is the struggle to heal the other, and neither struggle will be concluded until bothare. The good news buried in this conundrum is that whatever you discover that workswithin your small crew may well also work to change the world at large.

It might help, when things get really bad and you start to feel ashamed of your group,like you’re all a bunch of phonies and have nothing to offer the world or even each other,to consider all the other beautiful, important things that anarchists like yourself haveaccomplished. — those great punk rock records, the resistance in the Spanish Civil War,the millions of meals served by Food Not Bombs. You can be sure all those feats wereonly barely snatched from the teeth of internal dissension, resentment, and pessimism.

Everything good we achieve, we achieve because we’re willing to engage in projects thatare imperfect — and to forgive ourselves and our relationships for that imperfection. Theonly thing that is perfect is nonexistence. Hold out a little to see what you might still beable to accomplish together, however flawed it might be, before you opt for that.

Fallout and Aftermath

Even with the best internal dynamics anticapitalism can buy, your collective may eventually break up, or you may choose to leave it. That’s inevitable, just like death (and the eventual abolition of taxes, god damn it). Things may even end in emotional drama and disappointment. Don’t beat yourself up over this — learn what you can, and move on.Again, none of us is perfect, and recognizing that, being comfortable with it, is as radicaland positive as our efforts to improve ourselves.

The fact that it comes to an end doesn’t have to mean you were doing the wrongthing, either. Such an assumption is reminiscent of the objection people sometimesbring up against non-monogamous relationships: “Oh, I know some people who triedthat, but they ended up breaking up.” Being able to have a healthy relationship includesknowing how and when to conclude it: the conclusion is not necessarily an indicationof inherent problems. Not being able to conclude, on the other hand, might be — thinkof the miserable monogamous marriage that drags on forever, the inmates too proud toadmit it’s not working.

So don’t get demoralized when a collective comes to an end — take every lesson youlearned, every skill you gained, every idea that has yet to see expression, and put theminto action in your next collective projects. Make the lackeys of capitalism regret they everlet you get out alive, and the communities you care for grateful you managed to survive.

Corporate Downsizing

Corporations don’t downsize themselves-they need our help! This is an example ofhow a selection of different tactics can be brought to bear at once on a given target on abusy shopping day.

Ingredients

• At least a dozen helium balloons of your favorite color

• Ribbon

• Banner-sized sheets of paper

• Spray paint or thick markers

• Kite rods

• Lots of fliers

• Blank t-shirts

• A GAP employee name badge (if you are a real badass)

• Your winning smile

Instructions

This action is a triple-pronged assault on the local sweatshop-using,environment-destroying clothing company of your choice. The three separate components of the action workwell together or individually, depending on how many people are in your action group.Five to ten is an optimal number to execute all three components simultaneously.

The Balloon Banner

This action only works indoors, optimally inside a mall in which the target store ison the highest floor. Prepare ahead of time a large paper banner reinforced with kiterods — for example, “gap uses child labor.” Large rolls of paper are usually hidden inhigh school offices to cover bulletin boards in different colors. If you do not have accessto paper, look for a thin bed sheet in a thrift store or dumpster.

Next, designate well in advance a good spot on the ceiling of the mall where yourbanner can hang down with optimum visibility in or in front of the store you are targeting but out of reach of security guards. At the time of the action, move quickly to thedesignated location, tie the balloons firmly to the upper kite rod, and release the banner.Be sure to test it out beforehand to make sure you have an adequate number of balloonsfor the weight of your banner.

Shortly before the test run that is described at the conclusion of this recipe, anotheraffinity group launched a balloon banner in a corporate bookshop on their openingday. Two operatives entered the store separately, one in civilian dress with a dowel anda rolled-up banner with loops in the top secreted separately on her person, the otherdressed as a down bearing balloons. As it was a festive occasion for the bookshop, thepresence of the clown didn’t attract unusual attention. The dowel was slipped into thebanner, the banner was slipped to the clown, and the clown affixed the balloons to it andreleased it, making swiftly for the exit with the secret of his identity kept safe, thanks tohis absurd getup.

Fliers

To complement the balloon banner, or as a separate action, print off massive quantities of Aiers describing the corporation’s exploitation of workers and the environment. Whenever possible, try to include the testimonies of actual sweatshop workers instead of speaking for them; these can be found easily enough on the internet.

To distribute the fliers most effectively, we recommend placing them in folded clothingand posting them in dressing rooms (see Wheatpasting, pg. 598, and Stickering, pg. 520),where hopefully customers will read them before they buy anything. Armed with a stack offliers the right size, you can fold a pile of shirts or pants with remarkable ease and swiftness.

This is where the name badge and smile come in handy: prepare for your new job as agreeter! Stand just inside the door, and as customers walk in, smile and say somethinglike, “Welcome to the GAP, where we bring you low prices by destroying the planet. CanI help you find something? “If you prefer a more subtle approach, try writing a sloganon your T-shirt and striking a pose with the mannequins-everyone loves a cute anarchist showing off the latest fashions covered in handwritten slogans like “GAP: madefor kids, by kids,” or simply the cleverly-modified logo “CRAP.”

Account

Beginning at high noon on a Buy Nothing Day some years ago, we executed all of theabove ideas with about ten people.

The first part of the plan, which was intentionally omitted from the recommendedideas above, involved banners attached to a four-foot remote-controlled helium blimp.The gleaming silver vessel was powered by twin plastic propellers and said “US Navy”across the sides. For all its beauty, however, it was a problematic contraption from thebeginning. When we taped the banners onto the sides, even though we had made themfrom very thin wrapping paper, they threw off the balance of the blimp so badly that wehad to add an oversized party balloon to the top just to get it airborne. All of this addedweight and air resistance, and rendered the once-effective remote-controlled propellerstotally useless.

Regardless, we pressed on with the plan and at precisely twelve o’clock a close friendand I burst through the doors of the food court and launched the banner blimp upward. We quickly blended into the huge crowd of day-after-Thanksgiving shoppersand made discreet exits while the remote control was passed around our team of amateur pilots, who were already positioned at tables. The blimp made a few successfullaps roughly three feet above the heads of the hungry shoppers. Amazingly, it failed todraw much attention to itself, but its banners — “STOP consuming, start living” and“sweatshops=slavery, buy nothing!” — were dearly legible. Then, suddenly caught ina gust from the heating vents, the blimp was pushed into a giant neon fast food sign,where it stuck as its propellers spun powerlessly. A confused employee began beatingit with a broomstick, and by the time it was dislodged it had sustained critical damage.Alas, despite a courageous attempt at re-launching, it was never to fly again, and a security officer dragged it through the crowd and into the mall office.

The blimp only lasted about ten minutes, but the sheer hilarious spectacle of it hadraised our spirits. We quickly rallied at a meeting point in the parking lot where wedivided Goo fliers between ourselves and retrieved the balloons and paper banners. Wesplit up and re-entered the mall through different entrances; some of us headed to GAP,Abercrombie & Fitch, Sears, JC-Penney, and American Eagle to distribute the fliers,while three of us walked quickly toward the designated banner launch point.

I was holding a bundle of six black and red balloons as I hustled through the jewelrydepartment of a JC-Penney. I kept nervously glancing down at my watch, and was relieved when I arrived under the GAP at precisely the same moment as my accomplices,who were carrying the banner and another six balloons. We quickly tied it all togetherand let it fly straight up to the vaulted glass ceiling. The long ribbons dangled the bannerat a readable level that was totally unreachable by the grappling hooks that were soonthrust at it. Shoppers lined the sides of the walkways and stared up at the banner withopen jaws. Many were holding our fliers in their hands !

At this point, the security guards were frantically talking into their two-way radiosand looking up at the balloon banner in disbelief. Later, we found out that in hitting theglass the balloons had triggered a silent alarm. The banner was up for four hours until alarge platform could be raised under it and security was finally able to pull it down. Afterthe last of the fliers had been tucked away in corporate clothing and the extras thrownoff the second-floor balconies, and I had been kicked out of five separate clothing stores(thus ending my career as a greeter), we met back outside and celebrated an afternoonwell spent. The consequences were minimal: some of us were banned from the mall fora year, one of us who had been working at a pretzel stand in the mall lost his job, andcharges of trespassing and disorderly conduct were threatened but never filed.

Lessons Learned

Mall security cameras can be used effectively to identify participants after the event.Masks are an option to bear in mind, but that approach has drawbacks as well. Perhapsthe clown makeup described earlier is the best solution.

Engaging with customers directly can be surprisingly effective. The average shopperdoesn’t put too much thought into where her clothes are made, and will most likely beas outraged as you are once you share the testimonies of sweatshop workers with her.

Balloon banners fucking rock. Forget blimps: banners are more cost-effective, easierto aim, and more difficult for security to take down.

Distribution, Tabling, Infoshops

Instructions

A recipe for Dandelions:
A lungful of air will spread the seeds.
Manicured lawn becomes bed of weeds

Plant in Fertile Ground

First things first: ask yourself whom you want to contact. Everybody? High school students? Potential political/social allies? A music scene? People like your grandmother?Go to the places where those people are. Do these people walk? Put posters on lightposts. Do these people drive? Put stickers on the walls of a gas station bathroom. Soliciting for a Critical Mass (see Bicycle Parades, pg. 100)? Why not leave notes of appreciationannouncing it on all the parked bikes in town?

If you only put fliers up at the local college and the record store, chances are youwill only reach a particular demographic. If that’s your goal, great. But if you want toinvolve people from outside your usual community, you have to make an effort, not justcross your fingers. Leave literature at the unemployment office. The Greyhound station.Planned Parenthood. The dressing rooms of department stores. Inside tabloids. Phonebooths. Burger King. Yes, it might get thrown away. But someone will have to interactwith your offering before that happens. For best results, tailor the language and formatof your material to the target readership and context.

Don’t forget doctors’ and dentists’ offices, as well as beauty salons, bank lobbies, andcar repair shops. People like to read things while they’re waiting, and it might as well be210 your ‘zine instead of Glamor. Of course, if you have a reason to be in one of these placesand slide it into the stack nonchalantly, it’s liable to remain longer than if you just bustin, toss it down, and leave. After all, it could have anthrax on it.

We threw a Sin festival in Olympia and one of the three days consisted solely of freeactivities. Free movies, free workshops, free food, free will. One of us went to the soupkitchen and shelter and made sure that everyone there knew they were invited. I earnedfliers everywhere I went. “Yes, you can have my spare change — and come to these freemovies, by the way.”

You can broadcast from alleys and bus stops and under bridges. When Benjamindecided to create a punk rock Midsummer Night’s Dream, he posted the casting call on allthe dumpsters. They performed it on Mayday and the result was phenomenal.

For more information, see: Graffiti, pg. 258; Stenciling, pg. 516; Wheatpasting, pg. 598;Stickering, pg. 520; Asphalt Mosaics, pg. 66; and so on.

Add a Tablespoon of Fertilizer

You’re in the bookstore. Are you going to pick up the novel your friend told you was really good, or the one you saw in an advertisement? Human interaction is simply morememorable than a remote printed message. If you need to choose where to invest yourenergy, make a hundred photocopies instead of a million and talk to everyone you can.One common approach is to attend events that have something in common with youridea, where the people are likely to be interested in your music/art/cause/revolution,and set up a table.

Tabling is simple: take some literature and/or other material to a public place andset it up on a table, blanket, etc. Do this at punk shows, Food Not Bombs servings, hiphop concerts, showings of radical documentaries or action movies intended to cash inon dissent, speaking engagements by left-wing politicians and authors and artists, gunshows, political rallies, underground dance parties, street fairs, science fiction and comic book and technology conventions, activist conferences, college cafeterias, the park ona sunny day. If you know they wouldn’t otherwise give you permission (or free entry) totable, act like you’re doing something official and enter with no questions asked or answered (except, perhaps, “oh, me? I’m here to run the table”); if they won’t let you tableinside, table outside.

It’s a gesture of good faith, and a demonstration of anarchist economic principles, tooffer at least some, if not most, of your stuff for free, so do your best to come up witha source of free photocopies or materials: find a pilfering friend at a copy shop or seekemployment at one yourself, misreport the number of copies you made or crack theircopy-counting technology, order a big stack of free papers from some wild-eyed radicalcollective (hint, hint) . You can also sell things on a sliding scale according to the meansof each individual. Put out a donation jar — you’ll be surprised how proactive people willbe about donating what they can, once they know you’re not out to make a profit. Atsome events, donations alone can be enough to pay gas money, even if you’re traveling agreat distance. Anarchist bookmobiles have succeeded in crossing the country, sharingliterature everywhere they go, on the strength of mere donations and book sales.

Consider setting up a banner or similar visual by your table to increase your visibilityand add atmosphere; you could also develop theater or circus acts to attract attention. Don’tbe shy about what you’re doing, or use euphemisms about it — that just makes people suspicious. Shouting out “Subversive propaganda! Seditious literature! Dangerous stuff here,folks — protect your children from the anarchist menace!” will endear you to fence-sitters,if you do it with the right spirit — they’ll appreciate your sense of humor and hyperbole, andwill want to prove that they’re not so old and uptight as to be afraid of a little brush withthe extreme. You’ll find yourself astounded at the wide variety of people who will come upto you proclaiming that in fact they are the dangerous anarchists, not you.

Make a display system that offers easy access to a number of browsers at once andalso protects fragile materials until they find good homes; you could even set up theback of a truck as an info shop on wheels. For long tours, in the course of which cardboard boxes would get dented or soaked (note that, as the boxes empty of material, theybecome more and more fragile), yon can pack everything into those plastic crates withthe interlocking plate tops that are easy to find behind drug stores. If possible, carry yourown tables, folding chairs, hand truck, tarp in case of rain, and paperweights or rubberbands so you won’t find yourself running around picking up rocks in front of police atthe next demonstration that falls on a windy day.

Besides photocopied posters and pamphlets, there are a million other things you canoffer at tables: screen printed patches, free food (as an outreach for your local Food NotBombs group, a strategy to detract from sales at the corporate bagel store next door, apressure valve for dumpstering surplus, or just for its own sake), healthy substitutesfor tampons, video documentaries, normal-looking clothing home-altered to convert toblack bloc gear and back again, miscellaneous stolen goods, items (such as graffiti markers) useful for committing community-friendly crime. One anarchist traveling circusmade many hundreds of dollars to fund their other projects by stealing massive quantities of vaguely radical books from corporate bookstores and selling them at cheap prices.A table to encourage graffiti could provide young people with stolen paint pens, spraypaint, gloves, and bottles of glass etching solution, and homemade stencils and stickers. An anarchist table at a liberal antiwar demonstration could give out posters usinghumor to push a more radical stance.

When it comes to the question of whether it’s worth the trouble, always err on theside of tabling unless you have something better to do. Even if it turns out the event isattended exclusively by Young Republicans, and no one takes anything you’ve brought,it’s still important for us to be visible as anarchists/queers/creative people. That makesit all that harder for our enemies to deny our existence, which is their most powerfulweapon against us; also, whether or not we win “converts” for “the cause,” a goal ofdubious value at best, it’s important for people to have a basic idea of what we want andwhat we’re doing. It may take them a number of times seeing you to work up the courage to interact with you, anyway.

And a Pinch of Curiosity!

Once upon a time, my favorite book was a manual on spy techniques. I yearned to findmessages in bottles left in fountains or artificial lakes and rolled up scraps of paper inthe cracks of brick walls.

Skip forward ten years. The night before classes began at Evergreen State College, weslipped into the classrooms and taped thought-provoking notes under tables, leaving acomer undone so the paper would graze someone’s leg. We stuck some to the backs ofvending machines and slipped them inside our favorite library books, reveling in thepossibility that three years could pass before they were found.

What would you do if you found a secret missive? An impassioned love letter? Wouldyou drop it immediately, or study it carefully ? Would you wonder who was meant to findit? Would you know it was meant for you? Would you go to the train tracks at midnighton Friday, just to see who was there? Sometimes dreamers can’t help themselves.

Paint a beautiful mural or write out an incendiary manifesto in a secluded location,and draw maps to it in phone booths and restrooms . Go through the phone book, callingplaces of business and engaging the employees who answer the phone in conversationsabout what really matters in life. Place personal ads in the local newspaper: “Capitalismsucking the life out of you? BiWF, 27, non-monogamous, seeks lovers of life and libertyto form a revolutionary organization. Only those serious about playing need apply.”

Now Scatter the Seeds on the Wind

In the lulls between tabling, fliering, and burying treasure for the curious, you can alsodistribute by mailorder. Once you’ve amassed a wide assortment of material, compile a214 catalog including prices or suggested donations to cover postage and production fees;photocopy it and mail it out in packages, post it on the internet, take out advertisementsin newspapers and magazines. Learn how to use the domestic “media mail” and over-seas “m-bag” rates to send packages more cheaply, and memorize the wording of thepostal regulations so you can quickly give any postal worker the impression that youunderstand the system and are abiding by it. Above all, befriend everyone at the localpost office.

If you are producing your own material, send copies of everything to reviewers andother magazines, and to other distributors who might want to help spread them. Con-tact other publishers for advice on printers and distribution venues.

...And Put Down Roots

For long-term outreach and organizing, it really helps to have a community resourcecenter as a focal point and staging area. Such centers are sometimes called infoshops.An infoshop can offer free literature; books, music recordings, and other material forsale; a public library and archive of books, papers, and videos; a community comput-er lab; a space for meetings, performances, and film showings; a calendar of publicevents; a “free store” in which surplus resources are shared... space and volunteersare the only limits.

That is, they should be the only limits. Problems with landlords, funding, and cityzoning and permits usually plague an infoshop every step of the way. If the financialresources can be raised somehow, it is preferable to buy a space rather than renting one,so as not to be at the mercy of a landlord; before settling on one, be sure it is in a districtzoned by the city for the purposes you intend and that the neighbors are amenable toyour plans. Gentrificationis often an issue — it’s always best that the people opening aspace have alo t in common culturally and economically with the people who live aroundit; if this isn’t the case, seek to collaborate with local groups from the beginning, andwork hard to provide for local needs without being evangelical about it.

To raise funds, you can hold benefit shows, solicit donations from wealthier folks, evensell community memberships. Speaking of finances and other resources — as in all do-it-yourself endeavors, be careful not to overextend. An infoshop can help foster a community, but the community has to be there in some form already to support the infoshop. Don’t undertake the taxing project of getting a permanent space until there areenough people involved and enough momentum to sustain you over the initial hurdlesand well into the day-to-day grind of keeping the place going. Make sure at least a fewof the organizers are in it for the long haul; at the same time, always seek new blood tokeep things fresh, and stay flexible enough to provide new resources and serve new rolesaccording to the changing context and needs of the community.

The bottom line is to get people to spend time in the space — and then to help themfeel entitled to take the lead in making use of it. Serve free drinks and snacks, makeyour place a social center that people will drop by to see friends and hang out; be sureno cultural demographic monopolizes the atmosphere, so people from different socialcircles will all feel welcome.

Account

We were invited by a rival anarchist collective to travel many hundreds of miles upthe coast to Boston for the Wake Up the Earth festival, a family-oriented all-day eventat which they had reserved spaces for tables. We brought our flying circle-A with thetwenty-three-foot wingspan, and set it up over the grass across from our booth to makeour presence known. Our table was beside the Food Not Bombs serving tent, betweenthe other political tables (the Socialists, Democrats, independent candidates, and otherbloodsuckers) and the rest of the tables — mostly small-time capitalists hawking foodand crafts. It helped quite a bit that this festival already had a sort of eco-friendly, liberalslant to it; at the same time, it was unfortunate that we were from out of town, as itmeant that we couldn’t connect people to local networks except by proxy.

We taped copies of our posters to hang off the sides of our table, and covered it withstacks of newspapers and boxes of pamphlets and posters filed vertically. One of usoffered fortune cookies to passersby; these were vegan chocolate chip cookies wrappedin strips of xeroxed paper. I heard one father reading his son his fortune as they walkedaway: “Next Christmas, dress up as Santa Claus and give children free toys off the shelvesin corporate... department ... stores. Hmph.”

We’d brought three pinatas made from cardboard and paper mache to add atmosphere to the event: a black box with barred windows, reading “Prison Industrial Complex” on three sides, a sneering fat cat businessman, and a big ugly pig with “policebrutality” scrawled on the sides — we’d avoided making human effigies, so as to seemlike nice folks to uptight parents like the one I just mentioned. All were stuffed withstolen vegan candy, and the fat cat was also stuffed with fake dollar bills with littleanticapitalist slogans printed on them. As soon as the park crowded up with people,we tossed a rope over the branch of the nearest tree and hoisted the Prison-IndustrialComplex aloft. To our surprise, a small crowd of kids gathered around us immediately: “What’s that?” ‘A pinyata.” “A what?” “Pinyada.” “Oh, a pinata\” one little brown-skinned girl chimed in, pronouncing it properly for us white folks. “Can we break it? Can we beat it?”

Most of the punks and anarchists in the area had gathered across from us under ourflying circle- A, and now a small corps of them started up a rhythm on their marchingdrums to build excitement. I produced a blindfold: “Who wants to go first?” “Me! Me!”Now there was a small army of kids swarming around us, tugging at the baseball batin my hands. I picked the smallest one, spun her around in circles, and gave her threetries to swing the bat into the box, while my companions struggled to hold back thescreaming, surging crowd. It was the closest thing to a punk show environment I’veever experienced in a public park. One of us was pulling and releasing the rope that suspended the pinata, making it swing wildly — so that many kids of all sizes, and a few oftheir mothers, got to have a turn before it was finally smashed open and its booty spilledacross the grass.

We waited an hour before putting up the next pinata, then another hour again beforedeploying the last one, and each was greeted with the same response. All the fake dollarbills with radical messages on them inside the fat cat disappeared along with the candy,which was encouraging — and the atmosphere in the park was definitely transformed:imagine a mixed crew of vagabond activists, college students, and parents of all raceswatching a powerful black mother aggressively swinging a baseball bat at a pig with apolice hat on it as her children and about a hundred others scream “Hit it! Kill it! Getthe pig!” in the middle of a placid, consumerist street fair. See Effigies (pg.229)for moreinformation about how to do this yourself

As for the table, we were amazed by how many people of widely varied walks of lifewere excited to see it, and more excited to learn everything on it was free. We’d broughthundreds of anarchist newspapers and magazines, pamphlets for student activists,bootlegged comic books with radical commentary added, seditious posters and stickers,and punk rock patches, and the table was totally bare by the end of the afternoon — andwe had enough donations in the can to pay for our gas all the way up and back downthe coast. A few nights later I set my hair on fire while trying to demonstrate the pinataprogram in my hometown, but that’s another story.

Dumpster Diving

Kid in dumpster with mountain of food. Head of broccoli demands, “What are you doing inhere?” Kid counters, “What are YOU doing in here?”

Burdens lift and scarcity is averted when the mountains of trash produced by this insane society become supplies and sustenance. Everything that sucks about capitalism isinverted when the dumpster diver scores. Poverty becomes abundance. Loss becomesgain. Despair becomes hope.

“To a dumpster diver, every day is Christmas — except Christmas, which is boring because it’sthe same trash from the 24^th .” -St. Nick

Instructions

If you haven’t heard it on the evening news, dumpsters aren’t just for trash anymore.Why in the world would anyone throw a case of fresh strawberries in a dumpster?That’sa great question, but we’ve no time for a nuanced discussion of how waste figures intocapitalist collapse. There are more pressing matters at hand ... like that case of berries, and the hundreds of other price-less treasures awaiting rescue this very second ina dumpster near you! Soldier, this is an emergency! We’re talking about how to get inthere, get those bemes, and get back out where you and your fruit belong.

Where

The first step is to find out who in your town is wasteful. That’s the same question as“Who has a dumpster? “If you just want to explore the world of waste reclamation, getaimless: most any dumpster will do. But if you have specific needs, do what any savvyshopper does — look in the yellow pages! Chances are, if they sell it in front, they throwit away out back. So ... what do you need? There’s bound to be a dumpster out there toserve you: food, bike equipment, construction materials, Kitchenware, books, electronics, clothes, flowers, shoes, bread, bread, bread. There are even fancy nut dumpsters,and I’m here to tell you: yes, you can get sick of almonds.

Keep your eyes peeled for invisible dumpsters without walls or lids. Weeks after college gets out for the summer, those sad, rusting bicycles still locked up on campus are insuch dumpsters, and you’d better grab your bolt cutters and cut them free before somemaintenance worker transfers them to the big dumpster in the sky. You can also usescissor jacks or bottle jacks to break locks, and if you do so with the right confidence,everyone will think you’re just reclaiming your own bicycle. the same token, don’tmiss leftover materials at construction sites, or piles of perfectly good items set out oncurbs throughout the suburbs.

When you’re looking for specific goods, retail locations are great, but don’t count outdistribution centers. These are usually listed in the phone book. A juice distributor, forexample, will throw out all its juices long before the expiration date, when there isn’t timefor them to be sent to retailers, sit on shelves until they’re purchased, then sit on shelvesuntil they’re consumed before that deadline finally arrives — not that expiration datesusually indicate much about food safety, in my experience! Anyway, in this case you’reconsuming food even the most bourgeois would be hard-pressed to write off as garbage.

You can also look on packages of specific products for manufacturing locations, and trydumpstering there.

Dumpstering at self-storage units is worth your time. definition, everything inone of those dumpsters has been specifically chosen, moved, and stored by someone. Finally, they had to come to terms with the fact that in this world of over-abundance, they would never have space for these prized possessions, and toss them out.Here’s a glimpse: entire drum sets, VCRs, food, furniture, lumber, dishes, smallappliances galore ...

How about ... thrift shops!? Yes, very wasteful. They cut the cords off trashed appliances, same as we do in the aisles of Wal-Mart, but these can be replaced. Universitytheater departments are another “seasonal” harvest: wood, props, cloth, costumes. Musical instrument repair shops — lord have mercy! Construction dumpsters are luscious,but look out for nails. Carpet installers have dumpsters full of cut-offs. Any apartmentcomplex, especially at the end of the month, can be a one-stop shop for the revolution.Yes, you can dumpster computers. Don’t count out public trash receptacles for a handysnack, especially soon after lunchtime in a downtown area.

When

When? Always! You have to be persistent with certain dumpsters, but it’s worth it to visit Whenmore than a dozen times if lucky thirteen donates one hundred pounds of granola toyour cause. Keep tabs on dumpsters that seem sporadic; you may find that they followan odd but regular schedule. In the case of foodstuffs, when a new shipment arrives itmeans out with the old. When does the truck come?

Timing also concerns the hour of the day. I try to dive at off hours: nights and week-ends. Early mornings on weekends are particularly safe if you can hack it. Still, if I’mjust looking for a quick snack, I never hesitate to pop back and see what’s cookin’ — manyare the times Tve gone around back while my companions went in the front, and I’vereturned with the more impressive score. Also, if I’m walking across town, I try to takethe alleys rather than the streets, so I can play peek-a-boo as I go. If there’s somethingspecial, I come back later- One more hint: during a hot summer, you won’t want to givefood a long time to ferment.

There are timing issues related to season as well. In some towns, different neighborhoods have different curbside pickup days, on which households can put out all theiroversize trash. You could call the sanitation department, purporting to be from eachneighborhood of the town in succession, to learn all the best days and locations forcurbside trash-picking.

If you live in a college town, you are all set. College kids throw out more useful garbage than perhaps any other class of people on earth. The big potlatch is at the end of aschool year. Come spring, campuses swarm with wastrels and scavengers of all kinds.What kind of consumer binging and purging happens in your town?

Certain emergencies make dumpstering a special event. When a grocery store’s power goes out for any length of time, they are required to throw out all refrigerated perishables! My first dumpster diving experience coincided with just such an emergency. I waslying on my bed reading a ‘zine about dumpster diving, skeptical but ready to conductmy own investigation, when the power went out. Unable to continue reading, I putteredabout in the dark, until finally I hopped on my bike and rode down to the nearest FoodLion. Picture, if you will, the young skeptic rounding the comer to see a construction-size dumpster — bigger than my house at the time! — filled to overflowing with the entirecold food section ... all still frozen! After three hours of ferrying food back and forthuntil my house could fit no more, there was a little dent in Mt. Food into which I tossedthe last of my misgivings.

Technique

Now that place and time are covered, what’s left is technique. No big deal. There are afew pointers that can increase your joy and prosperity; the subtleties you will learn asyou go. Trust your gut, both in terms of where to go and what to take. In the case of food,believe it or not, you have built-in faculties for determining what is safe and what is not:smell, intuition, deduction. How do you think your hunter/gatherer ancestors survived?These — along with the immune system — get dull in a world that’s too sterile, but theysharpen up quickly. After a lengthy career, I still have never known a dumpster diver toget sick from dumpstered food (except that hilarious scene in Evasion where the authordeliberately eats moldy bread). Of course there are stories, just like there are stories ofrazor-bladed apples being given out on Halloween — be leery of the ways sub-urban legends reprimand and warn. People get sick all the time, but if any food should be blamed,it’s that sugary, plastic- wrapped trash they buy off the shelves.

Be a sneak. It serves the dumpster diver to go unseen and unnoticed. I make myrounds after store hours and try to leave the dumpster in better condition than I foundit. This way my gathering causes no stress for employees who, quite reasonably, getupset if they have to dean up around a dumpster. If no mess results, your patronage isactually a service, since businesses pay for their waste by weight and frequency of pickup. Given all that, if the store becomes openly hostile you have the right to get pissedoff and fight back. If they put a padlock on the dumpster, cut it off with bolt cutters andreplace it with your own. If you have yet to dumpster a nice pair of bolt cutters, squeezea tube of superglue into the keyhole. If they replace it with a compacter, push a blanketsoaked in gasoline under it and light it on fire. Um, for entertainment purposes only,you know.

Another pointer — never be afraid to get inside that dumpster. The dumpster godsdo not smile on window shoppers. Get in there, dig holes, open bags, dump out boxes,be persistent, just because a business slips up and puts a few layers of bona fide trashin the dumpster doesn’t mean they are against putting useful stuff in there too. All thesame, watch out for “dumpster juice 11 — sometimes you just don’t need to go any deeper.Wearing sturdy waterproof, protective shoes won’t hurt, either.

What to wear? Dumpsters are mostly dark green, so whatever goes with that will doyou well. Some friends in Indianapolis, masters of the craft, dive in furry raccoon suits.That’s something to work up to. For starters, get a headlamp- it will free up your handsin the dark — and a nice bag or backpack to fill with loot.

Spirituality

The dumpster spirits deserve respect — keep them appeased. If you find something useful, take it. Worst case, you can set it by the road and watch as it gets scooped up by somegrateful soul. If you begin to feel extraordinarily looked after, it’s time to start a Food NotBombs (pg. 248) or a free store. Also, and most important, recognize that the dumpstermay know more about your future than you do. Last week, in the middle of a weeks-longdrought, I found an umbrella. Today I’ve got to go to the bus station, and it’s been raining torrentially since I woke up.

Making Peace with Your inner Raccoon

Dumpster diving can be rough for the recovering bourgeois. There is hardly anythingso deeply ingrained as the middle-class fear of having to go in a trashcan to eat — theultimate in social failure. Recognize what you may be up against in that regard, andremember, it’s a path of a thousand steps. One day you will be able to proudly walk rightup to a public trash can, fish out some Chinese leftovers, and eat them right there infront of all your ex-classmates — with such ease and confidence that they’ll come over toask for a bite.

Once I was climbing out of the dumpster behind a bread shop, drooling and gigglingof course, when two bread shop employees came out the back door. They looked at me,I looked at them, we all looked at the bag of bread I was toting like Santa Claus. Theywere appalled; I felt a little weird. “I ... uhh ...”-but the two went back inside beforeI managed to get out my doctoral thesis on free food. It wouldn’t have bothered memuch, except that I recognized one of them as the little sister of a kid I was in drug treatment with years earlier. Before I could make a break for it (see Evasion, pg. 234). the twoemerged once again, this time with a loaf of fresh potato bread. “Um, thanks,” I said. Idon’t think she recognized me.

Converting the infidels

It may help to explain to the dubious and disgusted that you’re not actually taking trash,you’re intercepting perfectly good materials on their way to the trash. Don’t be shy aboutyour means of acquiring supplies, however critical or snobbish your friends may be.Like veganism and abstinence from chemical intoxicants, the issue of dumpsteringtends to provoke defensive responses — for if it isn’t unpardonably disgusting after all,then those who have been paying for things all along are straight-up suckers. Flauntyour loveliest dumpstered wares, make a delicious feast of pristine trash-picked cuisineand only tell where it came from afterwards; they’ll come around. Excessive squeamishness is counter-revolutionary if anything is.

Dumpster Diving as Surveillance

We learned this one from the FBI. We use it to keep tabs on hotels that might hostevents for offending corporations or, for that matter, the police, on corporate officeswhere nasty plots are laid, on the houses of fascist organizers or others whose plans areinteresting to us. Look for schedules, notes, anything that gives away secrets. Big scoresin this department have provided serious intelligence resources for effective actions,believe you me.

Is That All?

You can start a Food Not Bombs (pg. 248) or hold a “Really Really Free Market” (see Festivals, pg. 241). You can establish a free store, a space where free materials and resourcesare always available. You can make gift packages for the needy, or walk through thestreets giving things away. In most neighborhoods, useful things left on the curb willdisappear swiftly. Waste is everyone’s problem if it makes its way into the landfills topollute our earth and crowd out our future — hijack it on the way and make sure it getsback into circulation.

Reverse Dumpstering

It was the Young Lords, I think, who, in the 1960s, when the city government refusedto do adequate trash collecting in their neighborhoods, organized their own garbage collection. At the end of a few weeks’ labor, they took all the trash they had picked up to theneighborhoods of the wealthy and deposited it there as a massive roadblock. Don’t letthe wastrels forget how much trash they’re producing — make sure it reappears to hauntthem just when they thought they were rid of it. Not long ago, Europeans carried out asuccessful campaign against superfluous corporate packaging by unwrapping productsinside the store and leaving the containers there on the shelves; some years earlier, agroup crusading against non-recyclable containers distributed mailing labels, so conscious consumers (or dumpster divers!) could mail these back to their manufacturers.

Warnings and Hints

Some of us once had a problem with this , that’s why I bring it up: you’ve got to watch outfor scabies. It was common among us for some time to acquire our sleeping arrangements from a mattress store down the street that would throw away the old mattressestheir customers brought in when they got new ones. We have also been tempted by themany foam cushions people leave out with their trash on Thursday nights. Sometimesthese seemingly dreamy cushy-cushies are infested with little bugs that get in your skinand try to eat you. This is a condition to avoid.

Another thing to watch out for is rat poison. The odd shop owner will sometimespour bleach or other lethal substances onto the edible goodies outback to deter the presence of our fellow dumpster divers, rats. Sometimes you can smell it, and sometimesthere will be discoloration on the packaging. Be sure to inspect your score.

Don’t feel pressure to use or eat everything you retrieve from the trash — it’s not yourjob to metabolize away the sins of our whole spendthrift civilization. In the case of thosenutrient- free sugar cookies, remember — some things are in fact trash, from the verymoment they’re produced. Don’t put them in your body — do what it takes to shut downthe industries maniacally producing such junk.

In the opposite situation, where you really need something but the ones holding ithostage won’t oblige you by throwing it away, you can expedite the process by doingso yourself inside their establishment, or damaging it so they will for you. In a relatedinstance, one of us once got caught scamming massive quantities of photocopies froma copying corporation that purported to recycle their waste but in fact did not. All theprecious fliers and ‘zines she had produced were confiscated, but we dumpstered themback later that night.

Epilogue: If You’re Not Careful... Backlash!

In the summer of 2000, following my first few years of dumpstering and the attendantcase of pack-ratitis, I found myself caught up in a great purging, an elimination of allthe objects choking up my home. It started one Saturday afternoon around 1:00 p.m.as a simple room-cleaning, but sifting through the layers of dumpstered knickknacksI started to set items aside that had to be returned to the source from whence they’dcome. &/ 2:00, things had changed: I was throwing out cassette tapes and dirty clothes.&/ 2:45 I was throwing away stacks of things I meant to mail to people, entrusting themto the other postal system. Soon I realized this was more than a mere physical cleansingof my dwelling space; it had become something primal, something that had to be done.

At 3:00 I started in on the home furnishings, and then the pots and pans. By 9:00 a.m.the next morning, my house was completely empty. I threw out all of my belongingsas well as those of my brother, who was away for the weekend. I threw out the shelvesfrom the refrigerator, and then dragged it onto to the street as well. The experience wassimultaneously terrifying and liberating.

A few minutes later, as I lay naked and shivering on the bare floor trying to fall asleep,I looked out the window and saw my friend Jason digging through our trash, my oldsneakers in one hand and the thrill of discovery on his face.

Effigies

Ingredients

• Cardboard

• Tape

• A public setting ripe for transformation

• Cloth

• Industrial stapler

• Paint

• Rope

• A deployment team

• Paper mache

• Whatever!

Instructions

In this country, effigy-making has a rich radical heritage that stretches back to before thefirst American Revolution. If you can’t actually overthrow, pummel, or set fire to youroppressor, it can certainly be heartening to do so to a surrogate; this is good for morale, and also helps provide visibility for your discontent. That visibility can be dangerous — authorities and counter-revolutionaries will do their best to enforce even symbolicrespect of their idols — so be sure to deploy your effigy with plenty of supporters around,or a plan for escape; but such visibility can also be useful, not only to incite your fellows,but also to gauge and perhaps influence the sentiments of others.

One well-known effigy format that benefits from its festive character is the pinata.Filled with candy or other goodies, associated with a participatory game that everyonewins, pinatas can be at once radical and accessible in every way For a stirring report ofsuch effigies in action, read the account following the Distribution, Tabling, and Infoshopsrecipe (pg. 210). On the other hand, other situations may call for something more direct:the day a war starts or the results of a rigged election are announced, it might be appropriate to take to the streets and set fire to an effigy of a political or military figure. Imagine the evening news trying to play that off as liberal disapproval! Even then, there’ssomething to be said for destroying effigies that represent destructive concepts or forcesrather than living, breathing individuals: this isn’t a war of some people against others,like the wars of capitalism and hierarchy, but a war of all against war itself Indeed, whatdoes it mean to bum an American flag? This is simply burning in effigy a hypocriticalvalue system and genocidal legacy.

When it comes to making effigies, anything goes, so long as the product is recognizable and will be destroyed by or survive your planned activities as you intend. Costumestores may have masks of your favorite subjects ready-made for you, especially aroundHalloween. Paper mache is especially good for pinatas. You can make it by heatingthree parts water and two parts cornstarch until it becomes thick; let it cool a bit, andapply it to newspaper to make it stick together. Stretch the wet newspaper over a wireframe, let it dry, and repeat, until the layers are durable but not impervious to a fewpowerful direct hits; now you can paint it. If you are indeed making a pinata, fill it withgoodies through a hole you leave for last. You can also make pinatas out of paintedcardboard boxes, in a pinch.

How We Made Our Puppet President

We stole the rubbery, full-head mask from a corporate store. The body was double-layered cardboard with tons of industrial staples and construction adhesive. This rigid under-structure was wrapped in lots of soft foam rubber like that found in cheap sofas. Thehead was the same foam rubber, sculpted into the appropriate shape and “upholstered”with a tightly fitting double layer of cloth. The head was made large enough that it had tobe squeezed into the mask. This helped the mask stay on, sort of. The extra cloth of theneck was stapled and glued to the torso. The legs were stuffed tubes of cloth with thinpieces of wood built into them like bones so they would bend at the knees. There was nosuch bone structure in the upper arms. The lower arms were made of long poles: at one

end there were homemade red cloth boxing gloves stuffed with foam, while at the otherend of the arms wood stuck through the elbows of the shirt and suit to about three feetof extra length — these enabled a puppeteer behind the effigy to operate the boxing arms .Because our dummy had no hips, the shirt and pants of his dumpstered dress suit weresewn together at the waist — this is highly recommended for the brawling effigy. Thewhole thing hung from a pole on a thin rope; one person carried the pole, suspendingthe marionette in the air, while another stood behind it, operating the arms. When thepigs seized the pole from us at one demonstration, we were able to go on operating himfor hours, the former pole bearer now holding the dummy aloft by means of the ropealone-and nursing sore hands for some time after!

Account

“Fuck you George — this one’s for my brother!” The war cry came from a stocky gentleman in a leprechaun suit whose uplifted elbow was headed straight for the President’seye. Bush and the leprechaun toppled over into a messy heap on the asphalt. We helpedthe two of them up and the leprechaun stumbled away. I had just barely gotten the commander in chief of the US military dusted off when another blow, this time a crushinguppercut, came out of nowhere and sent the President’s rubber face sailing out over thecrowd. The megaphone squealed and H — ‘s voice boomed out “Ooooooooo, that onehad to hurt, ladies and gentlemen! Now whooooo’s next?” Meanwhile, B- had run offinto a little duster of sumo wrestlers to fetch the weary face of the 43^rd president of theUnited States of America. It was the fight of the decade!

Ringside seats to political theater aren’t exactly in high demand among the generalpublic. But as luck would have it, downtown Chapel Hill’s famous Halloween crowdshandled all the logistics for us. Voila, 75,000 people ready for a wild night. And hell,we’ve all been to enough of these things to know how predictable they really are: way toomany cross-dressing frat boys, Supermen by the dozen, fairies, fairies, fairies, and thatguy who just runs around screaming, “Wooooo!” The scene was set for something —anything — to go down.

That’s where George came in — hanging on the end of a rope. Our effigy had a cloth-covered foam rubber head stuffed into a rubber Bush mask. He wore a dumpsteredbusiness suit (public figures sometimes dress down for the masses) and a pair of redboxing gloves. For an entourage, he had drummers, banner-bearers, stilt- walking capitalist puppeteers and their corporate marionettes, and, of course, the ladies and gentlemen of “the press.” One of our number played the ringside announcer, dressed in a tuxand wielding a megaphone. He was the ham: “Get into the ring and take a swing at theking!” “Introducing — in the left comer, we have the challenger — uh, what’s your name,sir?” “Texas, Afghanistan, Iraq... Chapel Hill, YOURE NEXT!”

In fact, to our delight, we found that the crowd needed very little encouragement. Onour way to the event, a taxi driver with limited English pulled over just to give the commander in chief a tidy thumping. With a little coaching and encouragement, chucklingliberals would give a symbolic tap on the nose — but most folks took it to the Prez withvicious abandon. The tightly fitted mask was knocked clean off the “dummy” too manytimes to count. Over and over the “puppet” was ripped from our hands by a hail of fists.When he crumpled to the ground, the crowd would commence kicking and jumping onhis body in a manner we are more accustomed to seeing cops use on poor people. Eachindividual’s response to the effigy seemed to reflect the particular level of repression heor she suffered at the hands of the regime: members of the demoralized and depressedbut safe classes tended to give a little tap; those demographically most likely to face stateviolence were themselves ultra- violent.

After three hours of continuous assaults, our dummy was almost completely demolished. Hundreds had dealt blows. Thousands had watched in astonishment at the angerhis presence inspired. Everyone knew how things would go down if the head of statefound himself on the mean streets of Chapel Hill without his bodyguards.

As usual, what carried the event was humor and good cheer. I hardly stopped laughing for three hours straight. This atmosphere left little opportunity for the few pro-Bushfolks to try anything, and the spectacle of the vast majority of the crowd doing violence totheir figurehead of choice helped deter them from threatening violence themselves. Every now and then a troubled Republican would come up to the Prez, saying somethinglike, “You’re a good man, you’ve got my vote in ’04.” Bush would respond by sockingthem in the face! Such realism!

In sum: as keen observers, we feel that it is our patriotic duty to report what couldbe construed as latent feelings of violence, resentment, and readiness to brawl directed at the President of the United States of America. Now let’s get something straight:we do not suggest or condone engaging in fisticuffs with the President. When dealingwith the President, we strongly advise against uppercuts, crushing rights, left hooks,jabs, roundhouse kicks, knuckle sandwiches, resounding smacks, boots in the ass orcrotch area, blows to the ribs or face, haymakers, boxing of ears, or any combination ofbonks, thwacks, swats, or pokes. If you are concerned about the world and want to effectchange, such roughhousing is simply unacceptable. We recommend going through theestablished channels: being ultra-rich, rigging elections, and allowing airplanes to flyinto buildings.

Evasion

Instructions: Getting the fuck Outta There 101

The art of escape is one of those things that can’t be taught, least of all by books: youhave to learn it on your feet. All the same, it’s good for us to talk and write about suchthings, to demystify them and help each other build up the confidence for that learning process.

When your cover is blown and all that stands between your freedom and those whowould seize it are your wits and your running legs, you’ll be surprised how much wider the margin is between “in trouble” and captured than it appeared from a distance.The average ex-bourgeois lawbreaker lives in terror of being caught in the act, drivenby unresolved feelings of guilt to fixate on this possibility out of all proportion to thedifficulties it would actually involve;in fad, it can be a big relief to no longer be sneakingaround consumed by anxiety, but finally have everything on the table in a simple contestbetween yourself and your enemies. The first time you find yourself running from thepolice, you’ll discover a new relationship to your body: you will be present in it entirely,and it will serve you well, as bodies have served human beings fleeing from predatorssince the dawn of time. It may even be profoundly empowering to discover that, in addition to all the capabilities your mind affords you, you have this, too: the strength of yourmuscles, the speed of your reflexes, and the sharpness of your instincts. Besides, yourpursuers are just running for a paycheck; you are running for your life.

But what do you do once you’re being pursued? Let’s back up a bit. First, there’s atime to play it cool, and a time to run. Nothing identifies you as an outlaw like takingoff running. If the alarm goes off as you leave a store, for example, you’ll generally bebetter off walking calmly until you’re at least out the door; if you’re the only one notfleeing when the police charge at a crowd as it breaks up, they just might run past you.Your ability to act as if nothing strange is happening is your best passport to safety. Don’tpanic — but don’t freeze up, either!

Second, know whether you want to run in the first place. If there is little chance ofescape, it might make sense to quit while you’re behind and face the music. Even surrounded, you might still be able to deadpan your way out of the situation. Never under-estimate the power of sticking to your alibi- you did already work one out, didn’t you?

Speaking of bluffing your way out, if you’re trying to pass as harmless passersby,nothing looks harmless like a cute male-female couple with their arms around eachother and an intimate conversation in progress. I’ve breezed out of many a sketchy situation at the side of a stranger of the opposite sex who was willing to take my arm andgaze into my eyes as we walked past the police.

Don’t wait for the heat to show up to beat your retreat; as soon as you have reason tobelieve they’ve been called — say, an illegal act is openly committed in sight of potentiallylaw-abiding, 911-dialing citizens — begin counting down the time you presume it willtake them to arrive and get abreast of what is going on, and make sure that you andyours are on your way by then if you’re not planning on facing them down somehow.

Hopefully, you’ve already charted escape routes from the area, or at least noted themin passing. Whether you’re planning a route well in advance or improvising on the fly,you’re probably either going to want to get entirely out of the area swiftly and withoutbeing observed, or get to a place with heavy crowd cover and disappear into it If you’reattempting the former, watch for spaces like alleys and dog-free backyards that you canmove through without being seen; if you’re counting on doing the latter, make sure youcan actually melt into the crowd at hand. Escaping into crowd cover is especially usefulwhen a large number of people are all seeking to disappear at once. Keep in mind thatthere are some places — woods, for example — that police may not follow you, at least notif they are alone; security guards may not even leave the property they are hired to guard.Wherever you go, don’t get boxed in, whether in alley or thicket.

When it comes to transportation, cars are rarely safe to use near the scene of thecrime: they’re tagged for easy identification by your enemies, and those enemies havedominion over almost all the places you can drive them, too. If you use them, try tomake sure that your driver is the least likely of you to be arrested before your getaway,and that your drop-off and pick-up points are out of sight from where the action goesdown; you can use a stolen license plate or obscure your plate with mud, but check outthe potential legal consequences first to make sure it’s worth the risk. If you are on footand hoping to stay out of sight, and your driver is roving the area waiting to pick youup when you’re ready, you could leave a marker out at the pi&-up point until you arrivethere, remove it, and hide nearby until the car pulls over.

Bicycles are often useful, as they are quiet, easy to conceal, can go places cars cannot,and can be abandoned in an emergency. Even though they don’t have registration togive them away, they can still be connected to you by description, so either use a bicycleother than your own, or stash it someplace where you can get on it out of sight of pursuers and ride away unobserved. Leave your bicycle unlocked for quickest accessibility.There’s always public transportation, though it can he unreliable and you probablydon’t want anyone to be able to identify you as having been near the scene of the crime.If those pursuing you are in vehicles, you can slow them down by pulling obstacles intotheir path.

If you’re surrounded and there’s no way out of an area, you can always find a goodhiding place and sit tight. Remember when choosing hiding places and escape routesthat if you are chased by police at night, they will probably use spotlights to follow you.

So many have escaped the claws of so-called justice by leaping into dumpsters that it’spractically a coming-of-age ritual in some circles. In Miami, fleeing from a chargingforce of three thousand police fanning out across the district in cars, tanks, and bicyclebrigades, my affinity group found ourselves encircled on all sides, with police on everystreet ahead of, around, and behind us; we fled into a small alley, and hid there amongweeds and trash for several hours until night fell and the police lines moved forward,leaving us to sneak away in tremulous vairs.

Don’t rule out the possibility that locals will help you out of a tight spot, either, thoughsome are more likely to do so than others. We wouldn’t have known which way to go outof the aforementioned alley if neighborhood locals hadn’t been waiting to guide us tosafely; of course, that was an impoverished black ghetto, and things might have playedout differently in a bourgeois suburb. You may also be able to pass yourself off as a customer in a bar or club, if you’re not breathing too heavily.

If you’re in foreign territory, try to make sure you have somewhere to go if you can’tget back together with your partners. I’ll never forget the night I got chased by a policecar after putting up graffiti for the next day’s demonstration; it was a rainy Januarynight, and of course I shed my outer layers of clothing in the course of flight, so it wasa cold, wet eight hours walking around back streets killing time until the demonstration started.

If you’re carrying potentially incriminating evidence that doesn’t bear your finger-prints, and there’s any chance you will be caught, dispose of it in the safest place you canin the course of your flight. Better you don’t have it on you if they do get you; you cancome back to the scene later, if possible, and remove it. Wear layers of clothing — betteryet, a persuasive wig — that you can strip off as soon as you’re out of eyesight; just makesure when you come out looking like a different person, you do so in character, not running desperately in the same direction you were a second earlier!

Post lookouts, either immediately around the field of engagement, or at a distancewith communications equipment; make sure they can’t easily be associated with the onedoing the action, not least so they can pull the ‘she went that-a-way “ trick if the chancearises. If you’re the one going for it, don’t let your guard down just because you havelookouts — you never know what will happen. If you’re a lookout, don’t panic and runjust because the one you were watching on behalf of is running.

If there are many of you, escape can be more complicated. First of all, before doinganything risky in a group, make sure your planned method of escape, should that be necessary, is something everyone in the group is comfortable with, capable of, and dear on.In case you split up during the chase, set a location to reconvene, or have someone somewhere at a telephone who can receive calls from people and coordinate them or comepick them up. Splitting up can make pursuit more difficult, but it can also mean givingup the chance to help each other or outnumber the opposition. If you’re being followed,be careful not to lead your enemies to your getaway vehicle or convergence point.

After any larger action that breaks up in flight from the police, get back together at asafe location as soon as possible. If you are unsure of whether everyone escaped, make alist of everyone who is unaccounted for, and set about locating them. Try to verify rumorsabout who has been arrested and what happened to them. Start collecting a bail fund, ifnecessary, and consider composing an announcement to circulate over the internet toyour community about who has been arrested and what people can do to help. If youdon’t know all the people involved, get contact information for everyone, in case a courtcase necessitates that you be in touch with them to agree on a story, request their assistance as witnesses, or make use of any documentation they may have of the events.

Finally, and perhaps obviously, if your escape plans — or any you might need to makeon the fly — necessitate athletic prowess, make sure you exercise in advance!

Account

Twas the night before classes started, and there was a perfect site for graffiti on thecampus: an alley between two buildings, invisible from the street, through which all pedestrian traffic in the area was being routed on account of construction work. We’d donesome impressive artwork on the campus over the preceding year, so it was good that thislocation offered high visibility without much risk, as the authorities were actively seeking the ones guilty of free expression. I invited two friends to come along as lookouts soI could relax and decorate the area with the thoroughness it deserved; I made a point ofdressing differently than them, in a borrowed patent leather jacket and ridiculous faux-fur hat with my long hair packed up into it. I left my bicycle unlocked for quick accessat a rack by the street on one side of the alley, posted one friend there and the other nearthe other entrance, briefly surveyed the scene, and set to work.

I hadn’t even finished the third word when, sensing motion out of the comer of myeye, I turned my head to see a maintenance worker a few yards away, walking righttoward me! Talk about bad luck — it turned out there was one door inside the perimetersecured by the two lookouts, and he had just walked out of it. What he was doing therewell after midnight, I still don’t know. I reacted before he did, capping my spray paintcan and sliding it down the sleeve of my jacket as I broke into a steady run. Seeing medo so, he gave chase.

An instant later I passed my friend; our eyes met just long enough for her to sensewhat was going on. She began walking toward the alley, so as to appear to he a passerby who had not yet seen what was happening. I later learned that the maintenanceemployee, hot on my heels, asked her which way the person he was chasing had run,and she pointed him in the wrong direction; he looked in that direction, toward a broadexpanse of empty campus, saw no one, and stopped to radio the police. She passedthrough the alley, met my other friend, and left the area. Some time later, when it wasdear I wouldn’t be getting it, one of them returned for my bicycle.

Fortunately, we had cased this area for a more serious action, so I had a route already worked out. I ran along a pedestrian walkway between two construction sites, thenacross a major street — relieved not to encounter any cars to speak of- and along theside of a dormitory. I climbed a short slope, tossed my spray paint can into a bush fromwhich I retrieved it the next day, then ran a couple more blocks through parking lotsand driveways. A police car passed on the street across the lot to my left, but the driverdidn’t see me, as I disappeared quickly between two buildings. I made it to a “bicyclepath that bore me through a wooded area into a residential neighborhood; here, I tookoff my jacket and ridiculous hat, and began walking at a moderate pace, trying to get mybreathing under control after sprinting half a mile.

There was one more long stretch 1 had to cross before I was out of the area, a majorthoroughfare that would have gone swiftly on a bicycle but took some time to walk. Hadthis been a more serious situation, I would have laid low in the wooded area for a while,but I figured I was pretty much in the dear. I stayed on the shadowy side of the streetfor most of it; a police car passed by once, slowly. As I approached the end of the street,where I would have to cross it, the police car returned and slowed to a crawl. There wasno way around it, I had to cross the street, and if I panicked and ran again I would revealmyself to be their quarry, this time out of disguise. I walked as slowly and nonchalantlyas I could, right in front of the police car that had now stopped. The officer scrutinizedme through the windshield, but I didn’t match the description on the radio. I got tothe other side of the street, and switched to another car-free bicycle path that led out ofdowntown. Rack those motherfuckers, I was outta there.

The moral of the story? Always spray paint the circle-A first, so even if you’re interruptedmid-sentence, people will know where you’re corning from!

Festivals

Ingredients

• Promotion (optional)

• Entertainment and activities

• People

• A staging location

Instructions

So you want to throw a festival ! Maybe you want to have a good time, in a way that showswhat a better time we could all be having. Maybe you want to get people together, andyou’ve noticed how many more people will come out for a party than for a protest. Ormaybe you’re trying to provide for the needs of your community directly, in the long-standing tradition of direct action, and you figure togetherness, excitement, and amusement are human needs as much as food and shelter. If we can’t dance, who’s going tobe part of our revolution, right? And there’s something to be said for making friendsduring peacetime, so there will be people looking out for you when war is on.

What will the theme of your festival be? It could be “anarchism,” but then it mightonly attract people who consider themselves anarchists. Better, hold a street fair organized according to anarchist principles, or a music festival exploring anarchic aesthetics, or a dance party with anarchist implications. If you must be topical, try demonstrating your thesis in practice, rather than just talking about it. For example, if you want toaddress alternative economics, you could hold a “Really Really Free Market,” to whichpeople bring gifts and resources to share without money changing hands or count beingkept, and thus present a working example of a gift economy.

What will the structure of your festival be? Will you script events to be staged forspectators, or establish a framework that enables groups to contribute autonomously?A core group can envision possibilities and coordinate complex plans a less organizedmass cannot, and in a civilization based on spectatorship it can be dangerous to rely toomuch on the spontaneous contributions of others. On the other hand, there’s no reasonto limit your event to what you and your fellow organizers can imagine. Leave room forothers to bring and deploy their own ideas, and brainstorm about how different groupscould be involved; the more points of departure within your event, the more these canbring people together and complement one another. Just like revolutions, the very bestfestivals are open-ended, encouraging groups to organize within them as they see fit inways that add up to a whole much greater than the sum of its parts.

Who will be invited to your festival? Once again, there are goals that a homogenousgroup can accomplish together that would be impossible in more mixed company, butthere’s also a lot to be said for bridging divides and nurturing symbiotic relationshipsbetween communities. Consider ways to draw upon different circles, soliciting the participation of individuals and groups that will engage them.

Where, when, and how will you hold your festival? It is often difficult to get people tocome to places they’ve never been, or to participate in unfamiliar activities; think abouthow to take advantage of routines or interests that are already established, or integrateyour event into existing social forms. As for timing and location, it can be beneficial topick a space that receives a lot of traffic, so passersby can witness or join in your events.To maximize this potential, pick an area that is frequented by demographics that arelikely to be interested; for example, a Reclaim the Streets (pg. 421) action might drawmore spontaneous participation in an arts-oriented neighborhood than it would in anindustrial area. Depending on the scale of your event and the local context, it may benecessary to seek a permit from the local administration; when doing so, don’t misrepresent your project completely, but don’t tell them anything they won’t understandor don’t need to know. Serious police attention and repression can interfere with yourproject, or be turned to your advantage, depending on your strategy; if you’re hoping toavoid it, it might be wise not to announce it in forums, such as direct action websites,that they already associate with trouble.

How will you promote your festival? Posters, stickers, press releases, word of mouth,the internet, announcements on college radio stations: all are fair game, unless your festival must be a secret to succeed. Certain kinds of press attention may be inconvenientfor any kind of event; for these, contact the media yourself, being as boring and unremarkable as possible, so as to deter them in advance (see Mainstream Media, pg. 358).As for whether to associate festivals with political perspectives, be judicious: sometimesthis can increase interest, sometimes it can distract or alienate. Don’t be afraid to be outof the closet about where you’re coming from, just make sure that doesn’t limit who elsefeels comfortable participating.

Account

We decided to take advantage of our relationship with the local independent movie theater to hold a radical film festival. Instead of screening little-known independent moviesof a radical bent, we would try the opposite tack: we would screen mainstream movieswith subversive implications, in the most radicalizing atmosphere we could create. Wehoped this would bring out people who would never attend an obscure subcultural eventyet shared our interest in thinking and living differently, and give them the opportunityto get connected to others with the same desires. To make this work, we solicited helpfrom everyone we knew, inviting people to offer workshops to share their skills or set upliterature tables on behalf of their infoshops and organizations.

We covered the streets of our town with hundreds of fliers and a few dozen six-footposters over the weeks leading up to the event, promoting it as a “heArt and Film Festival”four days of movies, skillshares, and other activities. To put our money, where ourrhetoric was, we declared that on the main day of the festival, everything would be free.This was a gamble — our efforts to talk the theater into giving us cheap rates had onlybeen partially successful, and we had failed to persuade anyone to sponsor the event,so it was optimistic to think we could afford to rent the place and all the film reels withthe proceeds of just a few movie showings. ALL the same, we posted a schedule on theinternet and sent out a press release, which got us coverage from the local paper.

The event started quietly, on a Thursday. For this day, in order to save money, wedidn’t rent the theater, and instead put on the free skillshares — radical graphic design,pirate radio, and graffiti — in a room at the public library and a local independent showspace. About thirty people showed up to each. The graffiti skillshare spilled out into thestreets at the end, to decorate the walls in preparation for the weekend. Some peopleshowed up from out of town, and we arranged for locals to house them. We also printedup programs for all the weekend’s activities, and distributed them thickly.

The next day was the first day in the theater, so we showed up early to cover the wallswith radical posters and set out tables of free literature, homemade radical fortune cookies, and dumpstered organic fruit juice. Many people from our community of dropoutsand dissidents brought free food, dumpstered goods, and reading material of their ownto share, and put these out on the tables as well. During the day, the theater hostedsix free skillshares: bicycle repair, folk dancing, drumming (in which stolen drumstickswere distributed free to everyone who showed up), an herb walk showing all the edibleand medicinal plants that grew locally, a discussion entitled “how to cripple privilege”about the ways able-bodied people can be allies to the handicapped, and print-making,the results of which were soon pasted up all over the walls. That night we charged fortwo showings of Fight Club and one of Brazil. Before each, there was a speaker: one wasintroduced by radical cheerleading, another by a spirited anarchist manifesto, another bythe widow of a man the police had recently murdered; she was being silenced by the localmedia and deserved a chance to speak to the public. In one intermission, we opened thetheater up again, so a local cop-watch group could offer a free presentation on dealingwith the police. Quite a few people showed up, but the theater wasn’t sold out by anymeans; there probably weren’t more than a hundred people in it at any given time.

The next day was the free day. In addition to the previous day’s decorations and amenities, we added a massage table, at which a local massage therapist gave free massages,and a screenprinting table, at which people could learn screenprinting and print freeshirts; the local Food Not Bombs group also provided fill meals of delicious free food,and free groceries for anyone who needed them as well. We showed four movies, including Spike Lee’s Malcolm X, and Three Kings, a Hollywood action movie uncharacteristically critical of the first Gulf War, to which a local antiwar professor gave an eloquentintroduction. The theater was packed throughout the day with a diverse but predominantly white audience, reaching its fullest during the showing of the former movie; thatwas perhaps one of our most important achievements of the weekend, that we got somany white people out to learn black history.

We had a trick up our sleeves, too, so that our demonstration of alternative economicswould not be limited to the movie theater. During the day, we passed around hints thatthere would be an exciting adventure after the last showing. At the end of the day’s finalmovie, a woman leaped onto the stage and tremblingly declared that a group was goingout to take over an empty house nearby to show what positive things could be done withvacant buildings, and that everyone was invited to participate. Proclaiming this publiclywas a risk of sorts, but as it turned out, word didn’t reach the police; not only that, but amajority of the people in the theater decided to come along!

In order to avoid attracting the wrong kind of attention, the crowd split into smallergroups, each following a guide along a different route to converge at the abandonedbuilding. In minutes, the place was bustling with life: people who had never squatted a building before were sweeping up dust, covering the windows, and exploring thebasement. After a few minutes, everyone who wanted to stay in the building for thenight packed tightly into one cramped room to hold a discussion about pressing issues:how to handle the police if they showed up, what the goals and priorities of the actionshould be, and what to announce to the community at large about the event. A pamphleton squatting that some people had prepared in advance was distributed. For me, themost exciting moment of the whole weekend came during this meeting, when I lookedaround and saw that two teenagers who had come from out of town for the festival werethere in the group, their eyes wide with the magic of what we were doing.

The next day, before each of the four movies, we read aloud a statement the squattinggroup had prepared about their action, taking advantage of the assembled audiences topublicize it. Food Not Bombs served again, and two radical infoshops from the region setup tables in the foyer to distribute books and literature. One of the movies was not a Hollywood affair, but a whimsical French documentary about dumpster diving; we precededit with series of brief documentaries one of our colleagues had compiled on the subjectsof thinktanks and folk science, accompanied by a live voiceover. In the intermission thatfollowed, we opened the theater up again for a free slideshow and discussion on squatting around the world. The numbers in attendance for this day were lower, again, as theyhad been on Friday; many of the people who had been involved before spent the day atthe squat, cleaning it up and watching for police, who fortunately did not appear.

On the day following the film festival, those of us who had worked hard to organizeit were totally exhausted. ALL the same, one more skillshare took place — the advancedcourse on graphic design, following up Thursday’s introductory workshop — and thatnight, the group that had remained in the squatted house opened it up to the publicfor a community potluck and dinner. The house was crowded with people eating delicious food, getting to know one another better, and discussing the pros and cons of the weekend’s event.

Was our festival a success? Not unequivocally. We lost quite a bit of money, and thepeople of our town haven’t yet risen up to replace capitalism with ex-workers’ councilsand gift economics. The dates we had picked for the festival were in the middle of winter,right at the end of the semester for local college students, and many people were busyor had already left on vacation. Also, I feel we should have varied more from the format of showing movies; after three days of constant movie- watching, the contradictionsbetween our goals of motivating people and the spectatorship-based medium we hadchosen for a starting place were painfully obvious. Our town didn’t quite have enoughpeople to support a radical film festival of the kind we staged, and we were counting onthe proceeds from the films to cover our expenses; people came out to see a movie ortwo, but your average cinema-goer won’t go out to see more than a couple of movies ina three-day period, and for understandable reasons the greatest number of people chosethe free day to show up. If we had held the same event in a larger city, it would probablyhave worked out, assuming our costs hadn’t been higher. As it was, we might have beenbetter off breaking up the movies with other kinds of performances and events, andrenting fewer movie reels.

On the other hand, we pulled off a very idealistic experiment, and survived to learnfrom it. If nothing else, our festival was part of a string of cultural events that serve tobuild and maintain the radical social base in our community, and it did involve a widerrange of people than the average activist rally. Until every radical is connected to a community and every community is radicalized, events like this should be happening constantly, so people can meet each other and be exposed to new possibilities.

Food Not Bombs

Like Crimethlnc., “Food Not Bombs” is something between a strategy and an organization: the basic idea is that people get together in public on a regular basis to cook andshare free food. The concept behind Food Not Bombs is so simple you could start oneon your own even if you’d never seen one anywhere else; if there isn’t a Food Not Bombsin your town, it’s time to start one. Food Not Bombs doesn’t simply feed people and re-distribute resources — it is one of the most common and effective ways for people to gettheir first taste of anarchist politics and action. You can’t look long at all those moundsof discarded food and all those people who could use a good free meal without beginning to question the basic principles of a society that values wasteful consumption overcommon sense. Food Not Bombs is a gateway drug to activism.

Ingredients: There are very few things you need to start a Food Not Bombs.

• An understanding of and agreement with the three principles of Food Not Bombs

• a place and time to cook

• a place and time to serve

• a core of volunteers

• Transportation

• Basic large-size cooking pots and pans

• Serving containers

• Utensils

• A few staple ingredients

• Food

There are also things you don’t need to start a Food Not Bombs

• Highly developed cooking skills

• Money (at least not much of it)

• Permission

Instructions

Let’s start with an understanding of and agreement with the three principles of FoodNot Bombs. Although there is no central office or board of directors of Food Not Bombs,all the groups adhere to three basic principles — Consensus, Non- Violence, and Vegetarianism. Consensus is another way of saying non-hierarchical organizing, which isin itself a way of saying anarchism. Food Not Bombs is not a charity with “us” givingfood to “them”; as an anarchist organization, part of its purpose is to provide people themeans to effect change in their own lives, and to break through the barriers of class,race, gender, age, ethnicity, and all other artificial boundaries that keep people separatedfrom one another. It is an opportunity for people to decide for themselves how muchthey want to be involved; the power in Food Not Bombs lies with the people who chooseto use it, within the framework of group consensus.

Food Not Bombs is a practical hands-on protest against the violence of poverty andhunger. An empty stomach is as painful as a punch in the stomach; chronic hunger is asdamaging, both physically and psychologically, as any other form of torture. Poverty andhunger shorten lives, drive people into addiction, eat away at pride and self-reliance. Insome parts of the world — notably San Francisco, where thousands of people have beenarrested over the last decade for the simple act of serving food in Golden Gate Park —Food Not Bombs is met with violence and repression. The typical Food Not Bombs reaction is simply to keep sewing, with backup food if necessary. Food Not Bombs is basedon direct action, not coercion; when it is met with coercion, it takes action.

Food Not Bombs meals are always vegetarian and often vegan. There are several reasons for this. The production of meat is an inherently violent process and thereforeruns counter to the Food Not Bombs philosophy of non-violence; vegetarian meals likethe ones cooked at Food Not Bombs are healthier than meat-based meals, and serve asa vivid demonstration that meat is not an essential ingredient; vegetarian meals are lessexpensive than meat-centered meals, so resources can be stretched further; and mealsprepared without animal products are safer and less prone to spoiling.

If you can agree to these principles you are ready to start your own Food Not Bombs.What else do you need?

A place and time to cook. Food Not Bombs meals are cooked in all sorts of kitchens,from punk houses to churches to community centers to mobile propane ranges. A public kitchen in a church or community center is ideal if you have one available, not onlybecause it is probably already outfitted with the institutional-sized pots and pans youwill need for cooking in quantity, but because a wider variety of people may feel morecomfortable cooking in a neutral setting than they would in a private home. Whateverkind of place you cook, make sure you choose a place that has some permanence (and, ifit’s in a house, that all the house members agree to let Food Not Bombs use the kitchen);try to find a place that is accessible to people with disabilities. Allow a minimum of anhour and a half for cooking.

A place and time to serve. This may take a little experimenting before you get it right.Start by finding out when and where other groups serve meals in your community so youare not duplicating efforts — one way to do that is to go eat at a local soup kitchen and simply ask the people eating there where else they eat and if they have any recommendationsabout when and where you should serve. In most communities, Food Not Bombs servesoutside and often in highly visible locations — both to make the meals easy for people tofind, and to make unavoidable the points that hunger exists in America and that peoplecan be fed. In addition to regular, consistent servings, Food Not Bombs groups often makethemselves available to serve food at conferences, protests, and other special events.

A core of volunteers. It takes surprisingly few people to put together an active, self-sustaining Food Not Bombs, but it may take a little while to get the right mix of volunteers.Put up fliers, talk to people, table at shows and events, rope in your friends to start, butkeep working to make your volunteer group as diverse and committed as possible. Thisis important first of all because it is natural for any volunteer group to devolve into asmall group of the same people who show up every week; if those people burn out orhave trouble getting along with each other the whole organization can fall apart quickly.In communities where there are several Food Not Bombs servings, volunteers oftensort themselves out into affinity group-like teams of people with similar tastes and back-grounds. This is fine so long as a 1 1 interested groups are represented somehow; somepeople may not have the means or the experience to form a group of their own. One ofthe nicest things that can happen is that the people serving and the people eating beginto overlap. I was telling a woman recently that we had several homeless men amongour volunteers. “That’s good,” she said. “It means more to them if they have to work forit.” That statement simply doesn’t make sense in the Food Not Bombs context: there isno “they” — and cooking is too much fun to call work. It is nice, though, to make FoodNot Bombs a welcoming place to people who are often made to feel that they don’t haveanything to contribute — never forget to reach out, and always remember that an opendoor is not enough. Some people — not just homeless people, but older people, youngerpeople, middle-class people, your mom — may need extra encouragement to feel thatthey truly are welcome in the kitchen.

Transportation. Transportation is an obvious ingredient — you’ll need at least one caror bicycle to pick up food and perhaps carry it to the location where you serve. Keep thisin mind as you recruit volunteers, and make sure you’ve got backup drivers.

Basic large-size cooking pots and pans, a few staple ingredients, and sewing containers andutensils. If the kitchen you are using doesn’t have big pots and pans, you’ll need to getsome. Basic cooking equipment includes a large soup pot, a large frying pan, some baking trays (disposable foil pans can be reused for quite a while), big spoons for stirringand serving, and sharp knives. You can look in thrift shops, yard sales, and dumpstersfor cooking equipment, but don’t overlook restaurant supply places, which sometimeshave back rooms where they sell damaged and second-hand equipment cheap.

Staple ingredients include salt, pepper, spices, vinegar, and oil (olive oil if you canafford it-olive oil makes just about anything taste better and you can stretch it by mixing it with cheaper canola oil). Serving containers can be anything from plates andbowls to recycled plastic tofu boxes; ask around for donations and you’ll be surprisedhow many people have dishes and pans to give away.

Food. Believe me, the food is out there. Start by asking your local food co-op, if youhave one, to save its wilted and spotty vegetables and other expired goods for you. Go tobakeries at dosing time and ask for the bread they are going to throw away (for somereason, bakeries tend to bake much more than they can sell; in my town they often putthe bags of leftover bread out by the back door rather than in the dumpster, in hopes thatsomeone can use it). A local steakhouse gives us their leftover baked potatoes at the endof the night, plus their prepped lettuce and tomatoes — talk to restaurants and caterersabout what they might be willing to donate. If you still need more food, go dumpsterdiving: we have a standing Wednesday night date to go through three grocery storedumpsters to see what we can find, which yields us enough not only to serve 3 or 40people the next day, but to put extra groceries out for people to take home. If you dumpster food, however, make sure that you are not stripping dumpsters other people depend on— we do our dumpstering in a suburban neighborhood where we are not competingwith anyone.

What you don’t need

Highly developed cooking skills. It helps to have at least one volunteer with some cookingexperience, but cooking really isn’t all that hard.

Money. Most of your food will come to you for nothing — that’s part of the point. Youmay, however, need some start-up money for pots and other equipment, and you’ll needto spend money occasionally on oil, rice, etc. Don’t turn down donations — you can putout a jar if you like (we prefer not to do it at regular servings because we don’t want anyone to feel bad about not making a donation, but we do put one out at special events).Other ways to raise money include benefit shows, yard sales of dumpstered items, andselling patches or other things . Don’t let lack of money keep you from starting a group —it will work out much more easily than you might think.

Permission. The only permission you need is the consensus of the group — you don’tneed approval from a central office or anyone else to get started. Some people worryabout the legal liability of giving away free food; you can explain to them that your activities are covered by the BQ1 Emerson Good Samaritan Food Act, a federal law protectingpeople who give away food from lawsuits. If you feel that you need a permit from yourcity to set up a serving in a park or other location by all means look into it, but mostgroups don’t bother — in fact, one of the underlying points of Food Not Bombs is that noone should have to ask permission to serve food to people who want it.

Just about anything can be soup. Saute onions and garlic in oil, add water (enough tofill up your pot about three quarters full), drop in chopped vegetables, bring to a boiland lower the heat to a simmer. Add spices, herbs, and salt to taste. For a thicker soupput in a handful of rice, some pasta, some lentils, or some diced potatoes. Takes aboutforty-five minutes.

Stir-fry is basically like soup without the water. Follow the directions above, using a bigfrying pan instead of a pot. Serve with rice or other grains. Takes about forty-five minutes.

Cut up any kind of greens besides lettuce, using everything but the stems, and putthem in a frying pan or pot with a little oil to prevent sticking. Add a tiny bit of water — the greens will give out their own moisture as they cook. Add a little vinegar totaste and season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg if you’ve got it. Fill the pot as full asyou can and keep turning the greens as they cook — they will shrink dramatically. Keepadding greens, stirring and turning occasionally. Turn off the heat before the greens arecompletely limp and colorless and cover the pot until you are ready to serve. Takes aboutthirty minutes.

Cut potatoes (you can use sweet potatoes as well as regular potatoes) into roughsquares; no need to peel them unless the skins are really dirty, but wash them first if youare leaving the skins on. Drop the potatoes in salted water and boil until they are softwhen you poke them with a knife. Drain the pot and mash the potatoes. Add margarineif you have it or oil if you don’t; moisten with soy milk or some of the cooking liquid froma stir-fry (liquid from greens is too bitter for mashed potatoes). Add salt and pepper totaste; parsley and garlic are good too. Takes about thirty minutes, or more if you’ve got alot of potatoes.

Account

A traveler kid had been hanging around town for a couple of weeks, coming to FoodNot Bombs every Thursday to cook and to eat. He wrote poetry; he’d been active in apoetry slam in his hometown and had even won a couple of prizes. He was surprisedthere weren’t any poetry slams in our town. We a 1 1 talked about it in the kitchen while wewere cooking, and someone said, “Why not have a Food Not Bombs poetry slam here!”We scheduled it for two weeks later and told the plan to everyone who came; the travelermade fliers and over the next two weeks we posted them and handed them out.Food Not Bombs When the day came, it looked as though the slam wasn’t going to happen — it was a254 sunny afternoon, and people seemed happy to just lounge around on the grassy bankoutside the church where we serve. The two tables set up by the church steps were filledwith dishes of stir-fry and potatoes and salad and bread and pastries; people refilledtheir glasses with ice water from the big orange cooler. Finally, one of the volunteerswho had come to cook said “Well ... and went out onto the sidewalk and turned toface the group. Suddenly the lawn was not just a lawn: it was a little amphitheater andthe sidewalk was the stage. She opened her pocket-sized notebook and read some ofher poems. Everyone cheered. Then another volunteer stood up and recited a poemfrom memory. Everyone cheered again. Then a man who had come to eat stood up andcleared his throat and read a poem he had written for a woman with whom he had oncebeen in love. After he had been applauded, another man — someone who had never beento Food Not Bombs before, who hadn’t come expecting poetry — stood up and recited alimerick. Passersby stopped and listened. People who had seen each other every Thursday for months began talking to each other for the first time. The poems went on; theeating went on. The late afternoon shadows grew longer. Finally, both the food and thepoetry had run out; people folded up their raggedy bits of paper, dosed their notebooks,and carried the dirty dishes back into the church.

As poetry slams go ours was probably not much. As a moment when people took theopportunity to surprise themselves and each other, however, it was wonderful. Food NotBombs is not a soup kitchen; it’s not a family; it’s not even a revolution. But when itworks, when it is at its best, Food Not Bombs is a place where people can be their bestselves to themselves and to others, where there is always room for surprise.

Appendix: The Anarchist Ice Cream Truck

The Anarchist Ice Cream Truck is perfect for hot summer days when people are hanging out on front porches, riding bikes in the street, and playing in the local swimmingpool or water park. Go around giving away free ice cream out of your homemade icecream truck.

Ingredients

• A decorated shopping cart or bike cart

• A large cooler or two

• Ice (dry ice works well and is fun to play with)

• Ice cream

• Ice cream cones

• Cherries

• Chocolate sauce

• A lot of people — biking, skateboarding, walking, juggling, stilt-walking, wearing colorful clothes, telling jokes, interviewing people, taking pictures, video-recording for a documentary, helping to serve ice cream.

Prepomtion

Ice cream: Having enough ice cream to pass out is possible with the help of free couponsfor corporate ice cream brands. One might write to these companies telling a sob storyabout a bad ice-cream-eating experience, or whatever else it takes to get coupons forcomplementary pints of ice cream, preferably the vegan stuff made out of soybeans orrice. Then with the help of photocopiers ... well, you know the rest — and if you makethem right, the bar codes still even scan! Take all the coupons for ice cream you canproduce and get as much ice cream as you can over the days before you roll out theAnarchist Ice Cream Truck.

Ice cream truck: The Anarchist Ice Cream Truck can be a walking truck made from ashopping cart; alternatively, you could use a bike cart, especially if you plan to coverbroad distances. You’ll want to attract attention, so attach things to the side of the cart,use bright colors, and bring along a boombox with music everyone can sing along to.

Execution

Sing, walk in the middle of the streets, meet your neighbors and be a part of your neighborhood, have a dance party in the middle of each intersection, get the media to coveryour story, get video coverage and vocal recordings and cover your own story, start anice cream fight, fly kites, bang on pots and pans, stop in local establishments and giveemployees a treat, eat lots and lots of ice cream!

Graffiti

Ingredients

• Different layers of clothing — in case you need to change your appearance quickly

• Shoes comfortable for running

• Bicycle, skateboard, or other getaway vehicle

• Latex gloves — to keep your hands paint-free

• Spray paint, house paint, paint markers, paint rollers and trays, stencils, other decorating supplies

Instructions Graffiti stands out among the countless methods of free expression (see Stenciling,Wheatpasting, Billboard Improvement, Asphalt Mosaics, Stickering, and Banner Drops andBanner Hoists) for its simplicity, directness, and time-honored traditionalism. You canbe sure Jews put up anti-Roman graffiti in Gaza two millennia ago, just as Palestiniansspray paint slogans there today.

There are many different occasions for which this tactic is appropriate. You can simply take a paint marker everywhere you go, adding little messages to mute surfaces.Sometimes,in a supportive crowd already engaging in illegal tactics (see Blocs, Black andOtherwise, pg. 127, and Marches and Parades, pg. 336), individuals can seize the opportunity to redecorate their surroundings on a grander scale; more frequently, graffiti is putup by small groups acting under cover of darkness, applying hit-and-run tactics.

If you are going to use the hit-and-run approach, your first task is to arrange a good disguise and cover story. Your presence should not elicit any attention, let alone suspicion,2 , g no matter how busy or deserted the area you will be working in at the time you strike. Ina neighborhood, you could go out walking a dog, or running in a sweat suit like a jogger;in a bar or university district, you could pose as an amorous, giddy heterosexual couple.

When choosing targets, weigh the visibility and aptness of each location against therisk of apprehension and the swiftness with which the artwork will be erased. The besttargets are in areas that are very busy during the day but practically deserted and unguarded at night. Failing that, watch for a place that is concealed from the immediateview of patrolling authorities, while still being visible to others. One-way streets can besafer than two-way streets, as traffic can only be expected from one direction. It’s oftenbetter to decorate a low-traffic area where your work will not be erased for months thanit is to hit a busy area where it won’t last a day. The best time to hit the latter sort of target is right before a big event: decorate Main Street the night before a street carnival orprotest, hit the mall the night before their grand opening. Consider the ways art haterswill attempt to remove your work, and take this into account in choosing your location:for example, they will often use a sandblaster to grind paint off brick, concrete, or stone,but they might hesitate before aiming it at the fancy plaque on a monument.

Make use of existing features in the environment, whether stop signs (see Stickering,pg. 520) or billboards (see Billboard Improvement, pg. 114) or absurd corporate logos. Ifyou want your additions to stop signs to last longer, paint them on in the same red asthe background; your message will appear in car headlights at night, as your paint isnot reflective, but will not otherwise attract attention. Some targets suggest themselves:corporate franchises, memorials to genocidal conquerors, nondescript buildings thatsecretly host animal testing, condominiums being built to gentrify neighborhoods. Beambitious: you could decorate the field of the football stadium before a televised game,or wow everybody by putting up animal liberation slogans inside cages at the zoo. At thesame time, keep in mind that little graffiti messages throughout an area could create amore impressive and lasting effect than one huge masterpiece.

As for hitting really impressive, death-defying sites like the tops of bridges or thesides of overpasses, don’t assume that because a place is harder to reach your work willbe sure to stay up longer. On the other hand, it might, and taking it down it will costmore trouble and money — and besides, freely offering installations that attest to truestories of courage and defiance is a public service, if anything is. Climbing gear — and agreat deal of practice with it- will help a lot for such endeavors; bring an equally experienced partner.

Scout the area of your target or targets in advance. Learn the layout of streets, alleys,fields, fences, and cover such as bushes and woods. Plan approach and escape routes(see Evasion, pg. 234) . Note the visibility of and from your chosen sites, the presence ofcameras or other surveillance measures, the frequency of foot traffic, automobiles, police, and other possible witnesses, and the proximity of police stations or other locationsfrom which a response will be launched if you are sighted. Keep an eye out for emergency hiding places: dumpsters, ditches, construction sites, friends’ houses, crowdedbars or subway stations.

You can work alone, but it’s often easier and safer to work with a few trusted companions (see Affinity Croups, pg. 28). Pick roles according to your tastes and skills: one ortwo people can stand lookout, perhaps another could be a getaway driver, and, if you’rehoping to put up a particularly large piece, you could divide action roles between two ormore individuals. It’s also a good idea for there to be someone at a phone number thatpeople can call if they get arrested or lost (see Legal Support, pg. 329).

Work out your slogans or illustrations ahead of time, so you don’t risk drawing ablank at the last minute. Familiarize yourself with spray paint at home, so using it willcome naturally in a high-stress situation. There are different tips available as nozzles forspray paint cans, providing different degrees of paint flow; as you become more experienced, you can explore these and choose your favorite effects. Some recommend dip-ontriggers, to make the spray paint easier to apply. Consider wearing a mask to protectyourself from the hazardous fumes of the aerosol can, as well as from identification byyour enemies. Test your paint cans before going out with them, and don’t risk runningout of paint in the middle of an important thought.*

You’ll want to keep quiet in the field; this is one advantage of paint markers . If you areusing spray paint, make sure to shake the cans in advance, and try to keep them warm ifit’s particularly cold out. If you need to shake your paint can in the middle of the action,roll the agitator ball gently in a circle at the bottom of the can. Work out a way to communicate quietly and subtly with your partners; if you can’t use words, consider codedgestures or animal calls.

Don’t take anything unnecessary with you that identifies you as a radical or vandal;if you are detained and searched, you should appear to be a law-abiding citizen. Makesure you keep paint off your hands, and your fingerprints off anything you might have todrop. If you feel you are in danger, get rid of everything incriminating; at the very least,toss away the tip from your spray paint can — if you do not have a way to apply the paintwhen you are arrested, that is one less piece of evidence to be used against you.

Act swiftly. If you are painting more than one target, don’t attract attention to yourselfby rushing around, but don’t linger in the area any longer than necessary, either. Takecare of your targets in ascending order of conspicuousness — a dozen little stenciled images on the sidewalk might not tip off the authorities that vandals are on the loose, butonce “police everywhere justice nowhere” is scrawled thirty feet long across the wallof the courthouse, you’d better be on your way home.

For particularly challenging missions in areas into which it is difficult to smugglelarge quantities of paint and equipment, you can stash your gear nearby ahead of time.In many situations, you should consider finding a hidden place to suit up just off-site,so you won’t have to leave your house looking the way you do when you are painting.

If you are working with lookouts, it may be wise to have separate escape routes, anddesignated points for regrouping. After the action, keep clear of the area for a littlewhile, keep your authorship to yourself (see Security Culture, pg. 461), and try not tomake it obvious if you do eventually return to admire your work.

For painting from a short distance — for example, putting a slogan on a tall billboardfrom the ground — attach a spray paint can to the end of a long stick and operate it bymeans of a lever (figure 10.2). Put a “spacer” extending from the business end of the apparatus, so you can keep the paint can a steady distance from your canvas; the spacershould slide smoothly across the surface. You can also use paint rollers on long poles.

To decorate from a greater distance, fill a “super soaker” squirt gun (figure 10.3) withpaint; precision is difficult with this method, to say the least, but sometimes all you haveto do to get your point across is make a mess. Better yet, find an old-fashioned pressurizedfire extinguisher — the chrome kind with the flexible hose, used for spraying water (figure10.4) . Make sure it’s empty, then use a funnel to refill it with a mixture of one part water toone part acrylic house paint. Make sure your mixture is not so thick that it dogs the spraying mechanism; if you’re using salvaged or otherwise lumpy or dirty paint, filter it throughpantyhose first. Pressurize the canister surreptitiously at a gas station, or with a bicyclepump. The fire extinguisher will either have a pressure gauge on it to indicate when it issufficiently pressurized, or a plaque listing the maximum pressure in pounds per squareinch. Using this, you can spray paint up to fifty feet; you could improve a billboard, orpaint the visors of a line of riot police, or detail an entire lot of suburban utility vehicles. Be sure to wash the extinguisher out thoroughly afterwards so you can use it again. Practicebefore using it in the field, so you’ll know how much paint you’ve got to use.

If you need to do your painting with projectiles, you can fill Christmas tree ornamentswith paint, or open up the bottoms of used light bulbs and do the same (figure 10.5). Bothcan be sealed with duct tape or candle wax, and carried in empty six-pack containers. Be sure not to get fingerprints on them — you shouldwear gloves while preparing any projectile. For maximum splatter, mixthe paint in equal parts with paint thinner (for oil paints) or water(for acrylic paints). Think in advance about which color paint will bestcomplement the color scheme of your target. To be sure a projectilewill not bounce off the target and break on you, throw at an angle;this will also ensure that the paint splatters away from you. To makea paint projectile out of wax, take a balloon filled with air and dip itin melted wax; let it cool, then repeat the process about twenty timesbefore extracting the balloon from the shell, filling it with paint, andsealing the hole with more wax. Much less than twenty dippings, and itmay break too early; much more, and it might not break at all.

You can also make paint bombs from balloons themselves. Use water balloons, which were designed to hold fluid: any other balloons maybe too small or weak, and can burst when you least expect it. Carefullyprotect the area in which you will produce them, as it’s easy to make abig mess; work with a partner. You need each balloon to have enough air in it that itwill break against the target, and enough paint that it will leave a mark without beingtoo heavy to throw. First, blow up the balloon to contain more air than you ultimatelyneed, as some of the air will escape during the filling process. Next, using a two cyclefuel mixer or some other tool that can function as an enormous syringe, fill the balloonwith the right amount of paint, supporting the bottom of the balloon as you do and being careful not to let too much air out {figure 10.6). When the balloon contains the rightproportions of air and paint, pinch its mouth, pull out the filling tool, and tie off the end.Make sure there’s no paint left on you from the production process when you go to applyballoon paint bombs. Transport them in sealed plastic bags, and throw them like youwould throw a football, so they roll off your fingers to spiral through the air.

Finally, if the target you have in mind is small or doesn’t need much paint, you canfire paint gun pellets from a slingshot.

Decorating Glass

You can find glass etching solution or cream at some arts and crafts stores, though itmay be locked up behind the counter. It can be used to frost glass — but be careful, youdo not want this stuff to touch your skin! You can put the liquid form in a shoe polishapplicator or similar device, and apply it through the sponge on the end to write a message or just make a smear across corporate windows you want replaced. It sure attractsless attention than a baseball bat! If you can’t get that dose, put it in a spray bottle. Toapply it from an even greater distance, you’ll need an eggshell or a light bulb — don’tuse a Christmas tree ornament, as they are so thin that the fluid eats through them. Ifyou’re using an eggshell, stick a hole in one end of the shell and drain it; fill it with thecream or fluid, and close the hole with electrical tape without wrapping the egg in it. Ifyou’re using a light bulb, unscrew the bottom of the bulb or pry a hole in it, fill it withthe etching solution, and use electrical tape to seal the bottom before throwing. Makesure not to leave any fingerprints. Consider using this method to frost the windshieldsof certain vehicles and the glass screens of certain machines, as well as the plate glassof corporate storefronts.

You can also wrap emery cloth around your finger to write quickly on glass or stain-less steel.

Refining Your Medium

Once you’ve been involved in graffiti long enough to get your bearings, consider gradnating from spray paint cans and prefabricated paint markers to making your own equipment and mixing your own colorants. The two most common media you can use for thisare bucket paints and irks or dyes. The two types do not mix with each other.

Bucket paint comes in a wide variety of colors; Rustoleum is one common brand. It isnot as permanent as many inks, but it usually will not weather away quickly. Make sureyou get oil- or “solvent”-based paint. You can’t put paint in most markers, so try puttingit in a shoe polish applicator or similar tool. If you want more drips, thin out the paintwith mineral spirits. Do not use a thinner, such as xylene, that destroys plastic, if youplan to use a plastic applicator.

Ink is known for staining harder than paint. In the United States, Marsh and Pilot aretwo well-known brands. Just about every ink is alcohol-based, as is leather dye. Ink generally looks good on a wall, flows well through a marker, and is difficult to remove. Byitself, leather dye doesn’t look very impressive, and doesn’t flow as well as irk, but youcan mix ink and leather dye together to get stunning colors that are extremely difficultto remove. Be careful when handling this mixture — it is as challenging to clean off asurface in your home as it is in the street. To take things even farther, you can add brakefluid. Brake fluid is corrosive and eats through paint, just as etching solution does toglass, making for an even more permanent mark. Make sure you get DOT3 brake fluid.Keep it off your hands, and don’t add too much to your mixture.

Try mixing different proportions of different inks and leather dyes with varying amountsof brake fluid, comparing the results for staining power, flow, and consistency. You cantry boiling them together and then using a thinner, as they may thicken when heated. Youcan also try adding brake fluid to bucket paint, and aluminum dust to make it shine. Ifsomeone else is using a paint recipe that interests you, which they refuse to divulge in full,get a sample and let it settle over time until it separates into its constituent parts.

Disguising Your Tools

If you are practicing freedom of expression in an area especially singled out for repression, it can be really inconvenient to have anything resembling a graffiti tool on yourperson. Here are two examples of ways one can camouflage painting equipment asharmless household items.

Appendix

Chapstick Container Marker

Ingredients

• Chapstick container

• Ink

• Candle and matches

• Felt chalkboard eraser

• An eyedropper — these come with many ink containers

Instructions

1. Clean the chapstick out of the container.

2. Melt some wax into it from the candle, so the bottom is sealed and won’t leak any ink.

3. Use the eyedropper to fill the container with your ink of choice.

4. Rip a strip from the felt eraser. Cut off about 1 14-inch of the strip. Push it into thecontainer, leaving enough space that you can fit the cap back on.

5. Get the eyedropper back out and drip some ink onto the eraser nib until it becomessaturated. Use it to write graffiti. When the nib gets dry, rejuice it with the eyedropperand ink.

VHS Cassette Paint Marker

Ingredients

• VHS tape with plastic sleeve

• Screwdriver

• X-ACTO knife or wire cutters

• Craft glue gun and glue sticks or epoxy

• Duct tape

• Ink

• Old sock or other filler

• Two chalkboard erasers

Instructions

First, pull off the piece that protects the exposed tape. This is where the chalkboarderasers will go. Next, unscrew the cassette casing and take everything out. Seal off theinterior with duct tape and epoxy so it won’t leak: use the duct tape to span gaps, and fillthem in with the epoxy. Don’t count on the duct tape to seal anything by itself. Using theutility knife or wire cutters, cut all the plastic entrails out of the container. Once there’senough space for the filler and eraser nib to fit inside, line the seams of the casing withepoxy, then dose it back up, sealing it shut. Now you have a completely sealed containerfor your ink.

Cut up your filler and stuff it into the case. Its role is to soak up the ink: the less youput in, the drippier your marker will be. Three-quarters of a container worth of fillershould work nicely. Now cut up the felt of the chalkboard eraser so it can fit into thespace where the tape was, to be a writing nib. It will take one whole eraser and part ofanother to fill the space there tightly. Epoxy all the eraser pieces together, for greater nibdurability, and then epoxy them into position. Make sure the epoxy makes a tight sealaround the nib, so all your irk doesn’t leak out when you try to write.

It wi11 take a lot of ink to fill this marker. Keep it in the original plastic case.

Other Applications

You can make a paint roller into a portable printing press. Use a razor blade to removethe fuzz in a reverse image of what you want to print. Dunk it in paint and roll it along asurface: your word or design will appear over and over figure 10.8). It might be possibleto adapt this method to bicycle tires or a cover that could be affixed to them, to printwhile riding.

You can use salt, lime, or other herbicides to write a big message in a green lawn. Foran even more delayed effect, plant flower seeds in a pattern.

To emphasize the socially responsible aspects of graffiti writing, write on dirty, mildewed sidewalks by cleaning them. Carry a small squeeze bottle of bleach and a scrubbrush; draw or write with the bleach, and agitate the lines with the scrub brush. As youare “cleaning,” you can try this in broad daylight.

You can paint a backlit mural on the illuminated surface of a beverage machine, if youlightly sand it first to remove the graffiti-proof coating.

For do-it-yourself, environmentally friendly spray paint, thin out acrylic paint withpure grain alcohol and apply it with a spray bottle.

In certain cases in which all you need to do to accomplish your objective is make abig mess — if a city is hosting a fascist rally or capitalist summit and you want to makethis expensive for them, for example — it may be sufficient just to carry a few full cans ofhouse paint to dump out everywhere or throw off a high place. Be careful not to spreadit in such a way that it’s hard for you or others you care about not to step in it- youwouldn’t want to mark yourselves as the culprits!

To make an oversize stamper, you can cut foam into the desired shape, mount it ona board, dip it in a paint tray, and press it to the surface of your choosing. This methodcould be used for stamping sidewalks through the false bottom of a box.

To airbrush on the fly, cany a compressed air tank in a hip pack with the coiled air-brush hose running inside your sleeve to the airbrush in your hand; at the first signof danger, release the airbrush so the tension of the coiled hose pulls it inside yoursleeve.

Guerrilla Performances

Ingredients

• A band, speaker, open mic circle, dance party, masked ball, etc.

• A location designated for uses that do not include the one you have in mind

Instructions

Perhaps you’ve heard of guerrilla theatre, in which vigilante thespians hit the streetsto drive their message home. Guerrilla theatre is dangerous because it takes drama offthe stage and deploys it in everyday life, where it has the power to unnerve and unmaskin ways that cannot be shrugged off as mere art. A guerrilla performance is similar: aconcert or party, which would normally take place in a carefully controlled, socially-designated area, occurs instead in an environment that is totally unprepared for it.

A guerrilla performance is essentially a Reclaim the Streets event (pg. 421), with twodistinguishing characteristics: first, there is a main act, and second, it may not be thestreets that you are reclaiming. Set your objectives: is your event for passersby, or for ahandpicked circle who will follow coded instructions to rendezvous at a secret location?Is it worth risking arrest? How will you deal with the police or owners, should they attempt to interfere? How will you protect equipment from them — can it be used from avehicle that could be started up and driven away at the first sign of trouble, for example?Where are the escape routes, if there are any? Select your location carefully for the perfect ratio of danger to potential. Subway stations, laundromats late at night, rooftops andbasements, public parks and parking lots, empty warehouses, a11 of these have qualitiesto recommend them, and risks or shortcomings to bear in mind.

Some well-known recent applications of this tactic include underground raves, danceparties held in warehouses squatted for the night; the Boston “T” parties, in which people occupy tram cars and throw parties in them; and the Rage Against the Machine concert in front of the Democratic National Convention in summer of 2000, a permittedevent that all the same ended in streetfighting with police. Set up a punk show on a boatto disrupt a riverside public event (like the Sex Pistols did), put on subversive puppetshows for the children of the bourgeoisie gathered at some wine and cheese event inthe park, hold weekly games of Capture the Flag downtown — just do what it takes to getentertainment out of the cage and into spaces where it can be vital again!

Account

The fliers read, simply, in huge letters, “USA IS A MONSTER 2:00 AM.” For months,J- had been supposed to book a show for this noise band, and never got around tothinking about it until a week before the date he’d promised them, when he realized hewas in trouble and started trying to come up with a solution. He hit upon Z-, the devil-may-care graveyard shi(f)t worker at the Handy Pantry, the all-night convenience storein our neighborhood.

Z- is one of those beautiful lumpen-proletariat guys who knows who his enemiesare and gets jobs just to fuck with his employers. I heard that when he was tired ofhis last job (night shift at UPS), he took a package being shipped by a chewing gumcompany, set it down in front of a surveillance camera, opened it up, took out a piece ofgum, and, looking straight into the camera, began chewing it. The next morning whenthe manager found the opened package still sitting there, he checked the tape and sawZ— staring him in the eye, smacking his gum.

J- went to Z- and told him that he’d forgotten to book a show for a band that would bearriving on Saturday. Z- drawled, “Well, I’m working every night this week,” and it wasarranged: USA Is a Monster would play at the Handy Pantry at 2 a.m. on Saturday night.

Now, the Handy Pantry is not some out-of-the-way convenience store. It’s in the middle of the main drag by the college campus, a center of Greensboro night life (to theextent that there is such a thing), next to all the coffee shops and restaurants, and itshares a parking lot with Kinko’s... and with the university police station. The policestation is about two hundred feet away: you can see it clearly through the windows of theconvenience store. So we weren’t even taking about a risky proposition, we were looking certain catastrophe in the eyes and offering it a formal invitation. I think that’s whatappealed to us most about this idea: more than any of the Reclaim the Streets or CriticalMass actions of the previous year, more than the noise parades or any of the nocturnalbreaking, entering, and exploring we’d done, this was something crazy enough that theoutcome couldn’t be foreseen or even imagined. We had to do it just to thrust ourselvesout into that dangerous space where everything comes as a surprise.

Word of the show spread long before J- put up the fliers, and by the last night everymouth was whispering about it. J- and I went to a going-away party for M- , who wasdeparting to spend the next month teaching art in another city, and then went to a showin nearby Winston-Salem, at the collective warehouse there, at which we were to meetUSAIAM themselves. They showed up around midnight, just when we were starting toworry, and we went out to the parking lot for a briefing.

They seemed like good kids, and they were trying as hard as we were to act like thiswas a normal thing for them — but, to our surprise, there were eight of them, includingtwo drummers with full sets, and a keyboard player with crazy electronic equipment.It wasn’t going to be easy to run their stuff out the back door when the pigs came — notthat there was a back way out of the lot behind the ‘Pantry, anyway. They followed usback to Greensboro in their van, and I spent the ride talking J— out of his apprehensions: “This is our chance to put punk rock where it was never supposed to be, whereit’s still dangerous . This is payback for all the nights we’ve had to walk around watchingthis town do nothing, man — this is revenge for that flag they put on the moon!” Whenwe arrived, he turned to me, reassured, and declared, “We’re going to make Greensboro history, man.”

I agreed. For the sake of everyone in that dead-end town, there was no choice but tomake Greensboro, as we’d all known and loathed it, history.

There were about sixty people from widely varied backgrounds (punks, art students,homeless people, a middle-aged professor “interviewing” people with a microphonethat wasn’t plugged into anything) lined up on the curb as we loaded two drum sets,four amplifiers and speakers, a vocal amp and borrowed microphone, and assortedother instruments and equipment into the store. The drummers had forgotten theirsticks, or lost them at earlier shows or something, so they ended up just beating on thedrums with various junk foods (beef jerkies, soda cans and bottles, popsides), grabbing a new one whenever one substitute stick broke or shattered or splattered. The firstnotes of the sound check were so loud that I couldn’t believe they were even going toget to play a minute.

Everyone pushed in, packed into the aisles, and the noise began. The members of theband were leaping around, smashing things and falling over each other like they mighthave at a normal house show, but here it was totally new and dangerous, visceral, andmusic that could have been standard somewhere else was suddenly the fiercest, mostvehement thing any of us had ever heard. At a normal show the band are the ones takingthe risk, but here everyone was at risk, just by standing there in the store — and not justbecause of the threat of the police, either. There’s no way I can describe what it felt liketo step out of reality as it had been and into that space, to fuse two separate parts of mylife (the passion of punk rock the lifelessness of convenience stores) that were neversupposed to meet ... everything was electrified, tense and intense, ten thousand yearsof culture turned on its head in an instant.

Amazingly, the band finished one song, the members all switched instruments whilethe scream of feedback tore the air, and then they shot into another one, knockingagainst the shelving, smashing into the drink coolers, pulling the cardboard displayposters over their heads and charging into people-all of us looking nervously back andforth between them and the police station out the window. A couple of civilians who hadcome up to buy cigarettes joined the crowd in total wonder. Some people were throwingjunk food, candy, breaking things, wrecking the place; this was the most controversialtopic afterwards, since the kids doing this were largely bourgeois children of the suburbs who had nothing at stake and weren’t worried about Z- ‘s welfare or anything else.Others, and this was much more beautiful to me, realizing that we owned the place fora moment and they could do whatever they wanted, were picking up candies and othercommodities, looking at them, and then just dropping them, realizing just how valueless they were at any price, especially compared with the lightning of what was actuallyhappening. Z—-, for his part, stood placidly in place behind the counter — for the onlysurveillance camera in the store was pointed there! The band switched instrumentsagain in the middle of the song, banging out random notes and screaming nonsensically — someone from the audience jumped behind one drum set, and started playingalong as natural as could be — others joined in — and then looks of terror spread throughthe room, as we all saw the flashing lights of an arriving police car.

And you know what? We got away with it. The pigs pulled up, looked in, and, seeingtheir favorite doughnut stop bursting with mayhem beyond anything in their job description, drove away in presumable despair or denial — basically giving us the go-aheadto take the city over: for if we could do this so easily, then what next? “Should we get outof here?” shouted a band member, clutching a cymbal stand. “Naw, man, they’ve justgone to get the Black Mariah,” drawled Z- , “keep playing.” The band played for anothertwenty minutes, until everyone was satisfied that we’d done what we came to do; thearrest wagons never did show up. Still spinning in a delirium of adrenaline, we hastilypacked all the equipment out the back door and into the van, while the locals driftedslowly off into the night, exchanging grins of disbelief and delight. For the next weeks,whenever two of us who had been there passed on the street or in a library or coffeeshop, we exchanged a knowing glance: we had seen that all the placid neighborhoodsand strip malls, even the convenience stores, were a mere front, behind which a wildworld lurked — just waiting for a chance to bust out.

Health Care

Instructions

Countless texts have been written on various forms of radical health care, including freeclinics, herbalism, needle exchanges, midwifery, feminist gynecology, and organizingstreet medic collectives for demonstrations. Here, we can only go over the broadestsmattering of topics not often covered in those treatises, to give a humble indication cfall there is to learn about health care outside the institutions.

Hijacking Conventional Health Care

If you need immediate medical treatment from a hospital but you can’t afford their exorbitant, extortionist fees, don’t despair. Emergency rooms are required by law to treat anyonein need regardless of their ability to pay. If you don’t want to deal with the hassle of billsand debt, give them a false name, a false address, and a false social security number.

Give a name that is familiar enough to you that you can respond to it instinctivelyand give it exactly the same way every time. Give an address that exists, so it will notbe obvious that it is made up, but cannot be tied to you. Give a social security numberthat has the same first five digits as your own or that of a friend of a similar age, butdifferent numbers for the last four — the first five digits designate the place and timeyou were born, so you don’t want to give a number that doesn’t represent a region orthat indicates you should be a much different age than you are. It might also help topresent yourself as homeless, jobless, and destitute, assuming your outward appearance gives the impression that this might in fact be the case; there may be drawbacksto this, too, however.

Unfortunately, this technique will not work for obtaining long-term therapy or treatment, but it will serve to get a broken bone set or a cut stitched; one of the crash testdummies who test-ran it in the field even had a ruptured appendix removed free ofcharge. Another option, which may help you obtain medication and other longer-termtreatment, i s to travel to a foreign country where health care i s available at more reasonable rates. A different crash test dummy got a whole mouthful of dental work done inMexico, and paid for his travel and living expenses, too, with less money than it wouldhave cost to get the work done domestically.

Developing Your Own Health Care: Taoist Lymph Pump

Did you ever notice how much chemistry is involved in healing? More often than not,getting well means swallowing something. The chemical goes “down there” to do (ornot do) its thing, while you do something else. In and of itself, herbal healing is notmuch different. While it may be your friend rather than some robot zombie doctor giving the prescription, herbs alone are just another thing to swallow. Whatever your experience with chemistry, it’s worth diversifying your toolbox. There are many sophisticatedand ancient schools of thought on healing and maintaining health through postures,movement, breathing, and massage. Any of these is worth a lifetime of study, but inthe meantime, here’s a simple technique for arousing the immune system that 1 haveemployed with great success.

When you think “circulatory system,” the heart and lungs come immediately to mind,but the body is composed of many circulatory systems. Your immune system, for example, is a circulatory system, though it doesn’t have a dedicated pump like the heart or diaphragm — instead, the lymph nodes serve as pumps. Your lymph nodes are located aroundyour joints — armpits, crotch, neck — and are pumped sympathetically when you move. Often sickness accompanies or follows a period of limited movement. Whatever the reasonyou feel sick, one of the first things you do is stop moving as much: you stay at home all day,skip the show, spend a lot of time in bed. No doubt you should get rest. But to your regimenof chemistry and rest, add the following simple exercise. It will help activate and circulateyour immune system without adding too much stress on a body that has its hands full.

Stand upright, with lightness in your head and your shoulders relaxed. Don’t forgetto breathe — from your belly, not your chest. Maintain long, slow, deep inhalations andexhalations. Your legs should be active, not locked or hyper-extended.

Now, with elbows straight, swing your arms forward and up, so that your handsclap together at around head level. Let your arms swing back down past your hips, andstraight up in the back. There’s no need to clap in the back. This is a very relaxed action;allow your arms to be pendulums and find their natural tempo. Do this for around oneminute four or five times a day when you are sick, when you have been exposed, whenyou are traveling with a lot of people such as in a tour van or in an airplane that you didnot build yourself. Let this be a starting point for researching and developing your ownpersonal philosophy and practice of health care!

How to Perform Your Own Cervical Exam

Have you ever seen your own cervix? Has anyone else ever seen your cervix? For mostpeople with a cervix the answer to the first question is “no” and the answer to the secondis “yes.” Regularly doing your own cervical exam is one way to begin to take control ofyour body and your health. You can learn what is normal for you throughout your cycleand not have to trust that what a doctor sees once a year is indicative of your ongoinghealth. In this way, you can challenge the physician’s role as sole healthcare providerand healer, and acquire knowledge about yourself that has been the doctor’s alone. Self-exams allow you to catch any irritations or problems before they become severe, and, ifyou do need to go to a physician, the familiarity self-exams give you with your body — inside and out — makes you an informed patient, able to ask the right questions and demand full information about your condition and treatment.

Ingredients

• SPECULUM-any gynecologist should be able to give you a plastic speculum at no cost, or you can order them in bulk over the internet Speculums come in three sizes; try out a medium, and if it feels too large, get a small If you can’t see all the way back to your cervix, get a large. The size of the speculum you need does not correspond to the size d the rest of your body.

• Mirror

• Desk lamp with flexible neck, or flashlight

• Lubricant or water (optional)

Instructions

Since you do them on your own, at your own pace, and in a comfortable, safe space, self-exams can be an important tool for survivors of incest or sexual abuse, people who donot have access to healthcare, and people who feel uncomfortable going to the doctor because of their sexuality, body type, herstory, or gender identity. With a self-exam, you candecide to stop if you do not feel comfortable. You can become familiar with the processof a self-exam so that you will know what to expect and be more comfortable if a doctordoes the exam. Self-exams also allow you to perform routine care on your own and notrely on doctors to treat simple problems like yeast infections or trichomonas. Cervicalexams can be awkward to perform on yourself, though, so another good option, if youare comfortable with it, is for trusted friends to learn how to do them on each other.

Before you do your own cervical exam, you may want to look at a book so that youknow what to expect. There are books available that include full-color pictures of variousvaginas and cervices in different stages of the menstrual cycle, and books that offer pictures of common infections and STDs so that you can identify them and treat yourselfwhen appropriate.

When you are ready to do your self-exam, find a comfortable, safe space where you willnot be interrupted — most people prefer to do self-exams on their beds. Get into a comfortable position: try leaning back on some pillows at about a 45-degree angle, with yourknees up and open. Remember to have your mirror and desk lamp or flashlight withinarm’s reach. Try opening and locking your speculum in position a couple of times beforeactually inserting it, until you are comfortable with how it works. Insert the speculum byspreading the inner lips of your vagina with two fingers of one hand, holding the hillsof the speculum tightly together with the thumb and index finger of the other hand, andguiding it into vaginal canal. You can use water-soluble lubricant or water to make insertion easier. You may want to insert the speculum sideways initially, then turn it with thehandles still pinched together until the handles are facing up. Once the handles are facingup, open the bills and lock the speculum in position. Do this by sliding the short handledown and the long handle up — when you hear a click, the speculum is locked into place.This will stretch the vagina open and reveal the vaginal canal and cervix. With the speculum locked, you can adjust the placement of the mirror and your light source. It is bestnot to leave the speculum unattended: the muscles in your vagina can push the speculumout even while it is locked open, which can be very painful. Keep one hand on it if you can!If you are using a flexible-necked lamp, aim the light at your vaginal opening and use themirror to see what it illuminates. If you only have a flashlight, hold it in your mouth andaim it at the mirror, which will reflect light into the speculum. With proper positioning ofthe mirror and light, you should be able to give yourself a thorough exam.

What you can see: vaginal walls, vaginal secretions (if any), cervix (the neck of theuterus), os (the opening of the cervix), and any irritations (e.g., yeast, trichomonas, bacterial infections). Throughout your monthly cycle, you can see changes in the color,texture, and secretions of your cervix: these are all indications of whether or not you arefertile, and where you are in your cycle. Take a look at the outside of the vagina and thevaginal walls. Become familiar with what this part of your body looks like, and look forany irritations, bumps, or blemishes. Next, take a look at your cervix. The cervix may notbe immediately in view: if you can’t see it, remove the speculum and try moving around,jumping up and down (really, this works!), or moving to a firmer surface. Your cervixmay be directly in line with the speculum, or it may be off to one side if you have what iscalled a “tipped uterus.” This is perfectly normal, as everyone’s uterus is tipped in someway. Your cervix might be pink and smooth, have reddish blemishes, or even be roughand splotchy. Depending on where you are in your menstrual cycle, there may be fluidcoming out of it (especially if you are ovulating) or it may be very dry.

If you see blemishes or bumps that worry you, go to a gynecologist and ask her to lookat them, and get a pap smear. Most likely, they are perfectly normal, and you will knowfor the future that these spots are just part of your body. Because of the changes thatyour body undergoes throughout your monthly cycle, you may want to do a self-exam atthe same time each month so you can spot irregularities. You may also want to do themat different times of the month, so you can watch the changes and become familiar withyour body throughout its cycle.

Self-exams can enable you to identify infections and STDs before you even feel them.Consult friends or a book to help you identify any problems. There are several booksand ‘zines that are good resources for identifying infections and treating yourself in safeand effective ways. Some of the infections you may be able to spot include: an infection(swelling) of the vulvovaginal glands ; yeast infections, which will result in heavy, clumpydischarge; trichomonas, indicated by yellow or greenish secretion, foul odor, and heavydischarge on cervix; non-specific vaginitis, which causes heavy or runny yellow or greenish discharge from an overgrowth of bacteria, usually with a strong odor; active herpessores; an infection of the cervical canal (bacteria from gonorrhea or another bacterialinfection can enter the cervical canal and cause the cervix to become red and tender andproduce a very heavy discharge); and cysts on the cervix, which can grow and shrinkthroughout the cycle, but generally do not hurt or cause problems.

Doing a self-exam with a group of friends can be a great way to learn more aboutyour bodies, share information, and be supported. You can observe and compare yourown and your friends’ vaginas, clitorises, and cervices. You can learn first hand aboutthe incredible variations between people’s bodies and the variations during the monthlycycle and different stages of sexual arousal. In comparing your bodies to illustrations inanatomy textbooks, you may notice that you and your friends have parts that are not inthe books. This does not mean that anything is wrong with you: it just attests to the factthat the medical industry often tries to simplify our bodies, which are in fact very diverseand complex.

A self-exam is a simple but empowering act-don’t keep this information to yourself!Do a workshop on giving self-exams; create a space for doing a group self-exam or forpeople who have done self-exams on their own to discuss what they saw; show yourcervix to your sexual partners (whether or not they have cervices themselves) or friends;take pictures of it; talk about your body; write a ‘zine about it ... For too long, our bodies have been represented and misrepresented by the medical industry. We have beenmade to feel disconnected from our bodies and to be passive about our health. For ourliberation and our survival, we must take back this knowledge and relearn ourselves.

Health Care and Resistance

Some communities include street medics, who provide health care and first aid to protesters; at demonstrations, such medics can often be identified by red crosses or othersuch insignias. If there are no such medics in your region and an action is coming up,it’s important that some people take classes and be prepared to handle any emergenciesthat might arise. An affinity group undertaking a dangerous project should considerhaving a medic of its own, as well.

The most fundamental rule for anybody considering medicine and health is do noham. This, of course, is a pretty fundamental rule in all aspects of life. In terms of medical care, doing no harm means never trying anything you’re not certain of, never beingashamed to admit that you can’t help a person, and never hesitating to ask for help. Getas much training in as many aspects of medical care and general health as you can andalways stay on top of your knowledge. It’s pretty easy to forget a specific treatment, soreview and practice. Always have your own health and the health of those around youforemost in your mind.

Put together a first aid kit, equipped according to the materials you know how to useand the injuries that are likely in a given area or situation, and keep it with you, or inyour vehicle, home, or communal space. Make sure to restock items you use and replaceitems when they become too old.

Preparing for Chemical Weapons Attacks

If you expect to be attacked with chemical weapons, wear a waterproof outer layer withtight cuffs and collar, and synthetic fibers under it. Cotton, wool, fleece, and just aboutanything else fuzzy soak up chemicals. Cover as much skin as possible. Before the action, wash yourself and all your clothes in fragrance-free, non-oil-based soaps. This getsrid of dead skin and the oils on you and your clothing, and will help prevent chemicalweapons from sticking and causing more pain. Don’t use any oils on your skin: thatincludes perfumes, lotions, deodorants, and most sunscreens. These don’t provide barriers; in fact, they’ll make tear gas stick to you like glue.

Don’t shave for about a day in advance. Shaving opens your pores and makes chemical weapons more effective; on the other hand, hair absorbs chemical weapons too —it’s a fine line to walk. Take out any piercings you can, and put band-aids over theothers so they don’t get hit or pulled out. Don’t wear tampons — they absorb chemicalweapons, and if you go to jail and they’re left in, you could get toxic shock. Do not wearcontact lenses. Chemical weapons get trapped under them and could even melt themonto your eyes.

If you wear a gas mask, choose one that won’t obscure your vision too much, withshatterproof lenses and replaceable non-asbestos filters. Alternatively, you can breathethrough a bandanna soaked in apple cider vinegar or lime juice — transport the bandanna to the action in a sealed bag, and carry a lime or two with you to keep it fresh — andwear swimming goggles to protect your eyes. These can be obtained in prescriptionform for those who wear eyeglasses; when not wearing them over your eyes, keep theminside out on your forehead so they won’t fog up. You can add a particle mask underneath the bandanna for extra protection. All fancy gear will make you a police target, sotry to keep it concealed.

Popular Chemical Weapons and their Effects

During chemical weapons attacks,you can blow your nose, rinse out your mouth, coughand spit, but don’t swallow or rub your eyes. If you are wearing contacts, “by to removethe lenses, or get someone to remove them for you whose fingers are clean and uncontaminated.

Pepper spray and mace are most often deployed in a foam or liquid spray from smallhand-held containers, or from larger devices that resemble fire extinguishers. Policehave been known to swab them directly into the eyes of protesters who were lockeddown and unable to resist, presumably for the sole purpose of demonstrating themselves to be truly despicable. You feel the pain immediately in your eyes or on yourskin, wherever the substance contacts you. The pain peaks in fifteen minutes and thenstarts to fade.

Tear gas is deployed in exploding canisters. It is an invisible substance, but policeoften mix it with a powder so it appears in an intimidating cloud. If the tear gas appearsin such a cloud, you can watch which way it blows in the wind, and try to stay upwind.If you can’t see it, you sure will be able to tell when it reaches you. Tear gas canisters arehot enough to burn you; do not touch them unless you are wearing protective material,and not before they begin emitting gas, as they could explode and injure you. You won’tnecessarily experience the effects of tear gas immediately; it could hit you up to five seconds after contact. Once you get out of the cloud, you’ll begin to feel better immediately,though it takes some time for your eyes to dear and the burning sensation to fade awaycompletely. The most common symptoms are tears and a running nose, to such an ex-tent that it can be impossible to see and difficult to breathe.

As with many repressive tactics, the use of tear gas is made most effective by the fearit inspires. The first time tear gas hits you, when you are still unfamiliar with its effects,it may seem more overwhelming than it really is; once you have been breathing it for acouple of days, and you know exactly what to expect from it, you’ll find that it is less debilitating than it seemed. In crowds fleeing from chemical weapons attacks, call out, “Walk,don’t run!,” and assist those in need, so panic does not result in trampling injuries.

Treatment and Decontamination

If someone has been sprayed in the eyes and mouth, you can flush out her eyes with water. A bottle with a squirt cap is ideal, but a spray bottle will work. Always irrigate fromthe inside comer of the eye toward the outside, with her head tilted back and slightly toward the side being rinsed. The flush needs to get into her eye to help, so if the sprayedperson is comfortable with it, you should try to open her eye for her. She most likelywon’t be able to open it herself, and opening her eye will cause her a temporary increasein pain, but it does help. This will work to rinse her mouth, too. During cold weather, doyour best to keep yourself and the victim dry.

Affected skin can also be cleaned with water. Some trained medics use mineral oil followed immediately by alcohol, but others insist this is too dangerous a treatment. To dothis, thoroughly wet a pad or similar material with mineral oil or, in a pinch, vegetableoil. Carefully avoiding the eyes, rub the exposed skin with mineral oil. Quickly wet another pad with rubbing alcohol, and vigorously rub off the mineral oil. This proceduremust be completed in its entirety with each victim so treated — leftover mineral oil cantrap any remaining chemicals on the skin.

If you have had any contact with chemical weapons, however superficial, assumethat you are contaminated and carry traces of the chemicals with you wherever you go.Do not go into a safe zone or public place where you could contaminate anyone else.Shower in the coldest water possible to dose your pores, and wash your clothes in theharshest nastiest detergent soap you can find. Sleep and drink water as much as possible. Good foods to eat after a contamination include miso, whole grains, brown rice,and citrus fruits, all organic of course. If you can find somebody with herbal knowledge,take dandock, burdock, and nettles to purge your liver and system.

In Case of Arrest

Plastic handcuffs can cause long-term nerve damage. If you feel any pain, numbness, ortingling, demand immediately, and keep demanding, that they be loosened. Don’t movearound too much; that can cause plastic cuffs to tighten. When being cuffed, flex yourmuscles as much as possible to take up extra space inside the cuffs until they’re on.

If you have medical problems or are in jail with anyone who has an injury or needsmedication, tell the police immediately, and keep reminding them. Use group pressure, and really keep at them. Days in jail with an untreated injury or without medication can be fatal.

If you are dependent on medication and are risking arrest, it is important that youhave a note from a doctor explaining how important it is that you receive it. The noteshould state your name, your diagnosis, what would happen if the medication wereinterrupted, whether any substitutions at all can be accepted, and that you have to keepthe medication on your person. Give copies of the note to the medical team, if you’re atan event at which there is one, and to your legal representation, and keep one on youwith your identification. Bring a few days’ worth of medication and keep it in the original container. If you absolutely do not want to give away your identity to the police, butstill need medication if you are arrested, you could request a note from your doctor withyour photo on it instead of your name, and cut your name off the label of the containerin which your medication was issued.

It may be possible to smuggle medication into jail. Place them in bags in your underwear or in obscure pockets, or in bodily orifices if need be.

When you get out of jail, talk about your experience before going to sleep. This significantly lessens the chance of post-traumatic stress. Eat easy-to-digest organic foods,such as whole grains and rice and cooked vegetables.

Hijacking Events

Ingredients

• A public event

• A Secret Plan

Instructions

The whole entertainment industry, including the underground punk and hip hopscenes, is basically a distraction, or at best a pressure valve: whether we’re staving offcravings for pleasure and togetherness until Thursday night at the bar, or channelingrage and ingenuity into folk songs instead of frontal attacks on the police state, theselittle opportunities for amusement and outlets for creativity keep us satisfied enoughthat we don’t do anything crazy — like demand such excitement and self-determinationin every moment of our lives.

At least that’s one version of the story. The other runs like this: coming together tocreate and celebrate, we develop a sense of what we’re capable of, which we can drawupon in broader struggles to take back more of our lives. Either way, it’s dearly notenough for subversive ideas and dance moves to remain in the clubs and basementsforever. Could there be a way to liberate them from those confines, to hijack the briefmoments of authentic living we’re permitted and turn them upon the status quo thatcircumscribes them?

Quite a lot of energy and expectation is invested in these moments; people whofind their daily lives boring and meaningless look forward to concerts and parties forweeks in advance, approaching them with all the reverence and sense of limitlesspossibility that pagan religious festivals once occasioned. To the hardened revolutionary, this can seem pathetic; but the excitement itself is authentic enough, and all thatremains is for it to be re-directed back to a subversive, liberating engagement with thetotal social environment.

This could mean inciting a crowd exiting a concert to a Reclaim the Streets action (pg.421), setting up an open mic circle around a campfire outside a predictably alienatingmusic festival, even turning a post-playoff victory celebration into a street riot in whichrival sports fans unite to fight the police. Rather than struggle to create a radical situation from scratch, one can take advantage of existing opportunities, adding whatever elements are missing to set off the bombs everyday events conceal. Rebellious tendenciesdiverted from revolutionary possibilities into institutionalized rituals can be redirectedback to them; the “real meaning” that punk rock, dance parties, picket lines, and actionmovies have had all along suddenly becomes clear to those who have enjoyed them, andthe desires they inhibited through programs of carefully controlled indulgence are realized as these forms are superceded.

Lets talk specifically about one of the more challenging examples of this, turningthe end of a show into an unpermitted march. It’s not easy to organize unpermittedmarches — if you announce them publicly, the police will be there from the beginning,making everything difficult, and only those who think of themselves as proponents ofdirect action are likely to show up. Taking advantage of an existing crowd to offer theopportunity for an unpermitted march, on the other hand, offers not only the benefit ofsurprise, but also can mean that many who would not otherwise have joined in get theopportunity to have an empowering, exciting experience. The police can’t watch everysingle show and public event for signs of “spontaneous” crowd activity; even if theycould, it would only provoke more resistance.

Rumors can be spread before the event that “something” will happen afterwards,to pique interest; make sure that no one cites specific individuals as the origins of therumors. It helps a lot to have the band (or performers, speakers, etc.) in on it; they canannounce that something will happen, or let others do so, or, best-case scenario, at theend of their performance, when they have everyone’s attention and an atmosphere hasbeen created, lead everyone out into the street.

The moment when people leave the sanctioned performance area is the critical juncture: the group must develop momentum, morale, and cohesion before malaise or lawenforcement can intervene. If a core group can be playing and distributing drums andother musical instruments, as well as masks and banners and so on, as people comeout into the street, this will help get things going; as the materials are distributed, itwill quickly become difficult to tell who the originators of the action were, protectingthem and helping everyone present share a feeling of ownership of the situation. Themarch should leave as soon as most people have made their way out to join the crowd,and to make this quick it helps if people inside exit the venue en masse or at least inrapid succession. Have a route planned in advance, if possible, perhaps with a surprisesomewhere along the way: a crowded district of thrilled onlookers who might join in, ora place where fireworks can be set off or fires set, or a target worthy of a little propertydestruction. Lay plans according the comfort level you anticipate in the participants —this should be a positive experience for them, especially the ones who would never havethought they’d do this.

As soon as illegal activities commence, begin a mental countdown to the time thepolice can be expected to arrive. Chances are, if they are unprepared for the event, they’llhave to hang back, at least for a while, but count on this at your own risk. Make sureyou don’t fail to think about where to disperse; if a march breaks up in a place wherethere are few escape routes, the police may take advantage of the opportunity to pick offstragglers, and if it comes back to its point of origin-or even if the police can determinewhat that was- they will harass people around their vehicles, or at least take licenseplates and perhaps follow cars. Make sure no one whose name the authorities can gettheir hands on could convincingly be held responsible for inciting a riot.

There are many pitfalls to be avoided in this kind of action; a “re-routing” goneastray can end catastrophically .Those who initiate it must not trick the crowd, or seekto control it; their role is only to open a door to another situation, to highlight optionsthat were already present. The re-routing must ultimately transpire as an informed,collective choice on the part of those involved; anything less is simply demagoguery,manipulation. It is critical that the action not endanger anyone who is unprepared —there can be risks involved, but they must be easy to recognize for what they are, andit must be up to each individual to choose whether to take them or not. At worst, thoseconscious of what they are doing can form a buffer zone between the police and theinexperienced or vulnerable, so if anyone gets into trouble it will be people who areprepared for it. It is also crucial that the hijackers not make enemies, nor disrespector derail projects into which others have poured well-intentioned efforts. If people donotice the role a person plays in a re-routing, they should feel only gratitude, not fearor resentment- or, for that matter, inordinate admiration. The most accomplishedre-routers act without attracting attention to themselves or assuming command overthe situation.

Account

The preceding day, the pigs had killed a man they were arresting on shoplifting charges,and that night a radical environmentalist band from a few years back was playing a re-union show. That meant there would be a lot of young people with anarchist leaningsin one place, and, as the show was scheduled to end early, there would be a lot of undischarged energy. We decided to take advantage of the opportunity to put the heat on the

police, to remind them that there was a whole city of people who were not going to sitidly by while they marauded and murdered with impunity.

Some people worked on a statement to the public, and mass-produced it as a flier.Others collected buckets and sticks. Still others went out to an abandoned house, whichstill had a pile of firewood under it, and collected the firewood; later that day, that firewood would turn up, wrapped in plastic to keep it dry in the rain, concealed in an unused, inconspicuous downtown doorway.

The show was inordinately expensive, and only two bands were playing; the secondwas a marching band that most of us were familiar with from their performances atvarious demonstrations. As people began to arrive at the show (a steady stream of themmaking their way in the back door, as they felt the door price to be insufferable), wepassed out our fliers describing the police killing and outlining our stance on the issue. A couple of us spoke with members of the marching band, telling them about thepreceding day’s events and asking if they would lead the audience out of the theaterand into the street during their last song. They had done the very same thing at earlier shows, and readily agreed, making it dear however that they wanted to be leavingshortly thereafter.

The headlining band played their reunion set. They were as talented as ever, butsomehow it felt like there was something missing, and the particularly macho energyin the male singer’s stage presence made some of us uncomfortable. No matter, wefigured — it’s not the responsibility of others to do things the way we would if we werethem, it’s our own responsibility to do those things ourselves. So as they played, bucketsand drumsticks were stacked up outside, and wheatpaste brewed over camping stovesin the bathrooms. They finished, and the marching band appeared; to those of us whohad already had our lives changed by songs about revolution and now were ready to livea little taste of it, it seemed like they would never begin their last number. Finally, theydid, and when they passed through the doors of the venue with the audience hesitantlybehind them, we were already in the street, banging our improvised plastic drums andheading off down a route that had been hastily charted a couple of hours in advance.

At first the concertgoers dallied around the front of the dub- years of concert goinghad taught that the excitement ends when the show is over — but when a few of therowdier ones joined us, the others followed, and a mass of hundreds swept into thestreet. A few of us walked in the front, doing our amateur best to beat our makeshiftdrums in time with the marching band behind; around them paraded the greater part ofthe former audience. The tentative remainder, not sure yet how to feel about what washappening, brought up the rear; they were soon joined by small groups of people whocame out of the bars to investigate. We hadn’t thought much in advance about scouts,an oversight we couldn’t have gotten away with in a larger city, but all the same a few ofus were on bicycles. It definitely helped that many of the fans of this band already hadyears of experience in street demonstrations and similar environments; for them, thiswas perhaps a welcome relief after a night in a club: the adrenaline of being out in thecity, making things happen, reclaiming space with only bravado for a permit. As we proceeded, a few little elves ran around the periphery wheatpasting posters about the eventsof the previous day on walls, telephone booths, and electrical boxes, so there would be adear explanation of this event the next morning.

Soon, we reached a central intersection downtown; suddenly, there was a big heapof firewood in the middle of the street, and then — flames. From out of nowhere, streetsigns — “road dosed,” “under construction” — appeared, barricading the street. Maskedfigures with chains were spinning fire, people were clapping their hands and dancing,and the bars were emptying as others came out to see what was going on. Everyone whoapproached got a flier. The police, finally, started to show up — perhaps twelve cars intotal, in two of the four streets ; but there was open field on two sides that they lacked thenumbers to block, and they had no buses for mass arrests, since this was an unexpectedevent. Besides, the last thing they needed in the midst of their current public relationsdebacle was a lot of news about an anti-police demonstration turning into a riot — theywere at a serious disadvantage here. Some of the people here had never been in such asituation, and were understandably nervous; but others had more experience in themthan any of the police officers present. It seemed, were we possessed of the desire todo so, that we could hold this intersection to dance and sing around the fire for a goodpart of the night — and there was in fact a precedent for this possibility: such things hadhappened before in this town.

But then, suddenly, the atmosphere changed. Someone grabbed a megaphone, andshouted, “Scatter! Disperse! Disappear on the four winds like the anarchists you are!”It was — did you see it coming? — the vocalist from the band playing the reunion, takingcharge. Many of us looked up in surprise — our sixth senses, developed through years ofgauging situations like this one, told us that there was nothing to fear yet, that this wasnot the time to retreat. But when a crowd takes over a street or carries off some similarly“impossible” action, all their strength comes from the sense that they can count oneach other, all their confidence depends on the confidence of their companions. Whata group, acting together, believes to be possible, becomes possible; what some believeimpossible, becomes impossible, and thus no one can believe in it to make it otherwise.And so, hearing one prominent personality loudly doubting the possibility of holdingthe intersection any longer, many suddenly doubted it themselves, and made ready toleave, as if taking orders.

Some of us who had more experience rebelled at this — it was ridiculous for us to leavenow, when we sensed no great threat and had barely begun to make our point! This guywasn’t even from here, he had no local perspective, nor any right to make decisions foreveryone — and to make things worse, his motives were questionable: “Stop drumming!Do NOT take this back to the venue!” he added, still shouting into the megaphone. Still,the damage was done, and there was nothing to do but make our way out of the inter-section with the others — though one last group did pull a dumpster into the middle ofintersection and set it on fire as a parting gift. That was lovely to see!

All in all, the night was a success — though, sadly, too late to do any good for the manthe police had murdered — and also an important lesson: we must be ever-vigilant, soself-appointed leaders cannot set the limits of our activities for us. Perhaps the bandsthemselves needed to leave at that point, but for that guy to assume that this meantthe event was officially over, or that in their absence the rest of us lacked the sense tokeep ourselves out of jail, was really presumptuous. It may seem ironic that we, havingdeployed a secret plan of our own that was not exactly “voted for” by all present at theconcert, would be frustrated with him for taking it upon himself to seize the reins; butthe critical difference is that we never gave any orders — we simply opened a window ofpossibility, leading with our own bodies and carrying out activities that left room for others to participate in whatever ways they felt comfortable. For a total, self-managed revolution to be possible, every individual must be versed enough in self-determination, andevery group experienced enough in quick collective decision-making, that no one canusurp control. In the meantime, those of us who want to see things happen need to beready to counter self-appointed leaders and “peace police” by presenting other optionsand keeping them visible and viable at a11 times. Had we immediately counteracted hisinstructions by loudly emphasizing that we could all remain in the intersection if we sochose, it would have been more likely that whatever happened next would have been theresult of reasoned individual decisions rather than mob psychology.

Speaking of the tensions and occasional contradictions between individual decisionsand group decisions — there was a little controversy over the dumpster, which, it turnedout, had been the dumpster used by a fair-trade coffee house that hosted liberal andsometimes radical meetings and performances. To my knowledge, no one ever foundout if the coffee house was actually inconvenienced by the lire; the dumpster itself wasseen in use on another street shortly thereafter, so I seriously doubt there were any consequences for the cafe. Such minor mishaps are inevitable, but it was humorous whatan obvious excuse we’d provided liberals to concentrate their criticisms on our tacticsrather than the offenses of the powers that be. Maybe next time someone should applyfor a grant with which we can rent a dumpster of our own to set afire?

Hitchhiking

Asking an experienced hitchhiker how to thumb is like asking a no-year-old womanhow to live long. She’ll say something like, “I’ve drunk a fifth of gin every day since I wasten years old!” Some other 110-year-old will swear it’s the companionship of cats. Andthat’s as dose as you’ll get to the secret of living long and riding with strangers: there’s alot of magic and luck involved, and hence, a lot of superstition. What works for me mayleave you, thumb high, frozen to death on the ramp. All the same, here are some tips;the magic, luck, and superstition parts are up to you.

Ingredients

• Road

• Thumb

• One of the six million cars that are being driven with empty seats in them at this very moment

• A map

• Thick black marker and cardboard for making signs

• Tools for self-defense — knife, pepper spray, burning cigarette etc.

Instructions

Find a Good Spot

It’s important to be visible, both to avoid getting hit and for exposure. You want to give every person driving by as much time as possible to decide whether or not they wantto pick you up; a few hundred yards of clear visibility only provides a few seconds inthe eyes of a moving driver. You also want to be in a place where a driver can easily and296 safely pull over.

The most common interstate launch pad is the on-ramp, because of its slower traffic,wide shoulders, and status as a semi-legal hitchhiking zone. If you can, be somewherewhere drivers paused at a light will have time to look you over. Hitchhiking on the interstate is much more dangerous. If s also illegal.

If you’re in Madison, Wisconsin and you’re headed to Homer, Alaska, you’ll be traveling west. Get to the western side of Madison. The further out you are the more likelyyou are to get people who are going far, not just to another part of the city. If you arestuck in town sometimes you can take a local bus to get near the highway. Let the busdriver know what you’re up to and you’ll probably get good advice. Pick a spot with a lotof traffic of the kind you think might pick you up.

Extend Your Arm and Point Your Thumb to the Sky

Next to the road, you are face to face with every imaginable social prejudice, and everyexception, too. How you want to play this is up to you, but keep in mind that the wayyou look, your entire presentation’s the only thing drivers have on which to base theirdecisions. Furthermore, in most scenarios the driver will have less than five seconds between noticing you and their last opportunity to hit the brakes. It’s probably a good ideato be the cleanest cut version of yourself you feel comfortable being, to keep the pool ofpotential rides at its widest.

Eye contact is an important part of your presentation. Eyes communicate a lot. Lookat drivers even when you can’t see who is driving a car; they can probably see you. Theenergy you communicate in your expression, your bearing, and your attitude is crucial,far more important than your physical appearance. You should radiate friendly, non-threatening self-assurance; not only will this identify you as a safe, amiable travelingcompanion, it also will decrease the chance that predatory drivers, should there be any,will identify you as promising prey.

Relax. My personal experience is that I don’t get picked up until I’ve been out longenough to settle in and stop being anxious. If I’ve been out there long enough to get tothe I-hate-everybody stage, I have to get to the laughing-to-my self stage in order to getpicked up.

Use a sign. This identifies you as a practical, experienced hitchhiker, as well as clarifying your needs. For long trips, bring a fat marker for making new signs. People aregoing fast, so make the sign big, even comically so. People will also be doing amateurhandwriting analysis, so don’t use that cool insane-asylum handwriting you developedin high school: use bold letters, write clearly, and spell correctly. Your sign should saythe name of a well-known place. If you are going to a small town, choose a city nearby.If you are going dear across the country, choose a major city a half-day’s drive away. Ifneed be, you can dear this up with the driver later. If your destination is simply “away,”put something interesting on your sign: “adventure,” “overseas,” “AD 2013.”

Always have your thumb out — it’s the international signal for “I need a ride.” Even ifyou have a sign, even if you have a twenty-foot-high flashing sign, stick out your thumb.The thumb shows initiative. Throughout history, the thumbs-up gesture has been usedto express “yes,” “life is good,” and “let the poor guy live,” all sentiments you want topersuade your driver to share.

Make a Decision

Tens, hundreds, maybe thousands of people have driven by, summarily rejecting youand your cause, so when someone finally pulls over you’ll be inclined to be quick andgracious about hopping in. Slow it down a notch — this is a crucial point in your journey.Ask yourself: Is the driver drunk? Why is this person picking me up? How many peopleare in the car? Do I feel safe? Ask the driver, “Where are you headed?” It’s a reasonablequestion. The answer will tell if the ride is practical. It will also tell you something aboutthe driver and give you one more moment to make your decision. A kindly driver won’t

be annoyed by the small delay. If you don’t feel safe, or if it’s not a good ride, don’t beafraid to decline. It’s awkward, but, unlike a bad ride, it’ll be over in a second. You canalways explain that the driver isn’t going far enough or dose enough to your destination.When you get in, keep your bag within arm’s reach, definitely not in the trunk.

The Ride

You’re cruising down the highway, feeling the surge of confidence and sense of accomplishment that accompanies triumphs like hitchhiking and dumpstering. It never getsold! Now what?

You have a job to do. You’ve joined the secret union of attention workers: bartenders,psychologists, waiters, and others whose job it is to listen.

Make conversation with your drivers. More often than not, they pick you up for this,and you have a duty to leave a good impression on behalf of hitchhikers everywhere. It’snot just a question of duty, though. Hitchhiking is one of the best ways to get perspectivesfrom a broad range of human beings; it’s also a reliable way to pick out the most interesting and generous people on a road — don’t miss this chance to learn from them!

Ask questions. Get ready to hear the life stories, crises, dilemmas. There are a lot oflonely people in the world; sometimes the best thing you can do to empower people issimply to listen to them. Occasionally, you will be encouraged to play personal storyteller for a bored or sleepy driver — you hitchhike, so you must be a maniac with ridiculousstories, right? Practice your skills: mystery, adventure, intrigue. Of course, the driverdoesn’t need to know anything more about you than you want to share.

Weather

Make sure you are prepared for the elements. You don’t want to get badly sunburned ifyou have to stand by the road all afternoon, and holding up that sign in a freezing windcan really be hard on your fingers. Your bags should be waterproof, in case the cloudsburst and you can’t get out from under them in time. Few drivers wi11 want to pick up ahitchhiker who is literally dripping wet, but mildly bad weather may win you sympathyand a sift rescue. Hobo folklore tells that in Alaska, it’s illegal not to pick up hitchhikers during the winter.

Maps

No matter how far you’re going, a good map is well worth the space it takes to pack. Ifyou don’t want to pay for one, go to a tourist spot: hotels, airports, bus stations, tourist information booths, and rental car places all may provide free maps. In choosing ahitchhiking map, find one that shows every road you’ll be traveling; a map that includesrest areas and gas stations is ideal. Your map will be important in your relationship withdrivers; you’ll frequently have to tell them where you want to be dropped off, and you’llwant to choose wisely and explain it precisely. From time to time, you may even have tohelp a driver navigate.

Truckers and CBs

When truckers are helpful, they can he very helpful. They are also quite familiar withthe cast of characters that live on the road. Truck stops bustle with drivers, prostitutes,wheel polishers, and, of course, hitchhikers. At larger truck stops, you will find just asmany drivers who are waiting until they are sober enough to drive again or until somewarehouse opens as drivers who are actually going somewhere. Even if a driver isn’t going your way, he might be willing to make use of his CB radio to advertise your plight,asking around the lot if anyone is going your way. Alternatively, bring your own CBradio and do the same! In common trucker CB radio talk, “hand” is the expression forhitchhiker. It can help to call out individual truck names as they’re driving off, askingthem which way they’re headed. If you sound like a trucker, or at least someone whoknows what’s going on, you’re more likely to get a ride. Listen to people speaking overthe CB , and learn what you can of the vernacular. “How ‘bout it, anybody out at this Pilotheaded north? Can you give a hand a lift?”

If you are working the truck stop route, you should know that “lot lizard” is the termfor prostitutes who hang out at truck stops. Don’t get in a truck with anyone who de-scribes you that way or is looking for one.

Bicycles

Hitchhiking with a bicycle limits the number of drivers who can pick you up; it can alsoget you rides from people who might not pick up ordinary hitchhikers, but make an exception for what appears to be a bicyclist in distress. A bicycle is certainly an invaluabletool when you are within a few miles of a truck stop or town, or trapped in the middleof one you want to leave.

Traveling Together

Traveling with a partner is always safer, and may not slow you down. Of course, if youare both large men with Manson beards and bleeding head wounds, you will have towait a long time for a ride; on the other hand, some men may find that they are pickedup more quickly when they hitchhike with a female partner. Whatever your team lookslike, talk about your approach before you go, be understanding of each traveler’s needs,and look out for each other.

Talking through the process in advance is especially important if one partner is moreexperienced hitchhiking, or feels safer with strangers than the other, or benefits fromsocial privileges that the other partner does not, as in the case of a man traveling witha woman or transgendered person. Before you set out, establish together what yourexpectations of one another are, how you will handle trouble, and how you will communicate your needs in the presence of others. During the trip, stay aware of your partner’scomfort level, and always defer to the less comfortable person’s judgment. This mightmean declining a ride that you would accept if you were alone; it might mean that youdo the talking or make the requests if the conversation takes an unpleasant turn, but itcould also mean not putting yourself in the role of protector unless you are invited to doso. Be aware that there may be vibes that your traveling partner is affected by that youdon’t notice. Never make someone feel foolish or cowardly for feeling unsafe.

Self Defense

Hitchhiking is considerably safer than it sounds in the lurid urban legends that our foescirculate to keep us afraid of one another; all the same, you may one day find yourself ina ride you don’t want. This may not be clear immediately, so pay attention. Know yourroute, and keep track of where you are going. If the driver changes course, ask why. Keepalert for conversational cues. A huge tip-off is frequent references to sex. It’s best to puta stop to this immediately. Change the subject, or casually mention some of your exoticdiseases. If the driver is persistent, don’t be afraid to insist, with whatever degree ofpoliteness seems necessary, that you’d like to talk about something else. If you becomeuncomfortable with a ride for any reason, ask to be dropped off at the nearest opportunity. It’s rare that I hear of an encounter that escalates to this, but it does happen. If adriver won’t stop, consider making a threat, hopefully one you’re able to enforce. “I don’tcare if we both die, but I will stab you to death if you don’t pull over right now!” got myfriend out of an uncomfortable situation unharmed once.

Many people hitchhike with dogs for safety reasons; a dog can provide the same protection a weapon would, and discourages predatory drivers from picking you up in thefirst place. If you pull out a weapon, you had better be ready to use it, with everythingthat entails. Carrying a knife for defense means you must be physically, emotionally, andspiritually prepared to cut a person. If you aren’t, pulling one out can only make thingsworse. Pepper spray is an alternative, but there are drawbacks to applying it while flyingdown the highway. Standard pepper spray may not be powerful enough to stop an attacker; ask for “law enforcement formula” pepper spray at military surplus stores.

Alternatives to the Thumb

If you don’t feel comfortable standing by the road letting drivers choose you, you canchoose them. Do some research beforehand, and bring a list of hostels along your route.Go there and strike up conversation with travelers; that way, you can form an impression of a person before you ask for a ride. If the hostel scene doesn’t sound right for yourneeds, think about other places you are likely to meet traveling people with whom youhave something in common besides a destination.

You can also hang out at a travel plaza, rest stop, restaurant, or gas station and approach drivers with whom you believe you would feel safe. Talk to each driver a bitbefore deciding whether to ask for a ride; this makes it easier for the driver to evaluateyou, too. Using this method, you can end up with kindly drivers who would never havestopped to pick you up by the road.

Bulletin boards are another recourse for travelers without a car. Universities oftenhave physical ride boards with separate sections for those needing rides and those driving. Online message boards can be useful, as well.

Some people hitchhike around the world, hitting the highway to seek their fortunes.Myself, I’m not so adventurous; I split my life between two small cities, and I use hitch-hiking to make the commute between them.

I’ve been doing this for a year and a half now, making the journey about twice a week.The average trip takes me two rides; in addition to advantageous departure points inthe cities I call home, I’ve found a busy on-ramp in a town between them that servesas a good midpoint. When I’m picked up by a driver not going all the way, I ask to bedropped off there; I usually turn down offers from drivers going shorter distances, sincethere aren’t any other points along the route as conducive to hitchhiking. Sun, rain, orsnow, it never takes me more than three hours to travel the sixty miles of my commute,and I’ve made it in a third of that before.

Account

To date, I’ve been picked up by well over one hundred different drivers, and I’mhappy to say that I’ve never had a single bad experience. I am a white male of smallbuild, now thirty years old, and surely that slants the results; all the same, I think thisrecord indicates that the line I get from every driver — “you can’t hitchhike anymore, it’stoo dangerous” — is sheer mythology. The only people with whom I’ve had unpleasantencounters have been the police officers who have harassed me on a couple of occasions(“What law am I breaking, exactly, ma’am?” “Oh, I’ll find something!”). I’ve learnedthat if I keep an eye out for them and pick up my bags and start walking away wheneverone appears, they won’t bother with me; apparently, it’s only the brazenness of trying tocircumvent capitalist economics in their presence that affronts them.

I’ve started to get repeat customers, drivers who have given me rides before and nowpick me up whenever they see me. If I made my commute at the same time every day,I’m sure this would happen more often. Drivers are glad to have company, and manydearly appreciate the opportunity to do a good deed; many of them have expressedgratitude that I choose to hitchhike instead of buying a car and creating more traffic andpollution. Hitchhiking has helped me get to know more about the people and culturesof my region; once people learn that I’m from the area, many want to talk about localissues and history. I’ve learned a lot from these conversations, and it helps that I’ve beenliving here a long time myself.

In my experience, hitchhikers are most likely to be picked up by drivers from demographics that resemble their own, so it makes sense to hitchhike at times and places thatprovide many such opportunities. All the same, I’ve received rides from everyone froman Indian professor of economics, who orated at length on the importance of mutualaid, to a teenage mother from Texas, who confided in me about her struggle to leave herabusive husband. One crippled Vietnam veteran explained to me that he picked me upbecause God told him to take me wherever I needed to go, and responded to my query

about the bullet-hole-riddled targets in his van with a sermon that warmed my atheistheart: “God is angry with the Federal Government! God’s not going to take it anymore!” Ablack man my age told me of the prison time he and his mother had done as a result oftheir efforts to provide for their family, and gave me precise details of when and whereto find him if I ever needed a ride again. A professional hula-hoop dancer who pickedme up went on to join me in organizing a social gathering.

So it is that hitchhiking not only reliably gets me where I need to go on a regularbasis, saving me hundreds if not thousands of dollars in the process, but also keepsthe journey interesting, and connects me to others of all walks of life. My friends andI were brainstorming challenges for each other recently, and here’s one m pass on toyou: spend a year hitchhiking everywhere you need to go, and form a revolutionaryorganization composed of everyone who picks you up. You’ll certainly have an easiertime engaging people than you would if you were to spend the year driving, separatedby metal boxes and furious with each other for congesting the highway!

Infiltration

Instructions

Going Undercover

Everyone is undercover. It’s just a matter of degree. Look around — just about everybodyyou see is in disguise, terrified of being unmasked as the complex human beings theyare. Street’s corporate murderers, after all, don’t wear their murder suits when theytake a vacation, nor do they wear their vacation suits when they’re certain they’re alone.Like shoplifters, stockbrokers wear certain things and act certain ways so they can movethrough a repressive social environment without arousing suspicion. Even in anarchistcircles, many adopt certain conformist postures, though we’ll save everyone the embarrassment of listing them here.

So everyone is an expert on acting; the distinction is that most are acting unconsciously, while the one who goes undercover does so deliberately to undermine the systems of control that necessitate acting and unconsciousness. If shoplifting a gallon ofolive oil from a supermarket for your local Food Not Bombs has become old hat, youmay be ready for more involved undercover work. Do you find yourself wishing thata passerby would take advantage of his squeaky-dean look to do some truly dastardlyrevolutionary deed? It’s time to become that squeaky-clean passerby yourself.

A demonstration of thousands outside an evil institution can be given teeth by oneundercover agent who asks an embarrassing question at the news conference, twoagents who drop a banner from atop the building, three who switch off the lights during the meeting, or four who mash pies in the faces of the directors whenever they getup to speak. There are all sorts of places and groups to infiltrate, and a wide variety ofr reasons to do so: to gather intelligence, to spread disinformation, to create disruption.

There are also different degrees of infiltration, and different extents to which it can betaken. Long-term infiltrators, sometimes called “moles,” must be extra cautious, whileshort-term infiltrators can essentially burn their bridges after their job is done.

Getting In

Before attempting to infiltrate a group physically, learn as much as you can about it bymeans of the internet and libraries and asking around, being careful not to attract anyattention to yourself in the process. It’s amazing how much background a few internetsearches can provide.

All the same, there are cultural details the internet won’t provide. Just as we identifypeople from our own communities through minute details in their behavior and dress,every other social group from Nazis to business executives has its own codes of behaviorand dress by which they recognize and assess each other. These details tend to be subtle:skinheads hint at their political views with the colors of their shoelaces, salesmen communicate their status through the brand names of their watches. It’s generally wisernot to attempt to camouflage yourself as a member of a social group whose intricateiconography you don’t thoroughly understand; if you don’t know which color sheet towear to the Klan rally, present yourself as a sympathetic journalist who wants to learnmore. Best-case scenario, you or a friend once legitimately belonged to the demographicyou are trying to infiltrate; for example, if you are trying to infiltrate a organization ofright-wing politicians, the best person for the job would be someone who was broughtup in a family with right-wing viewpoints and became an anarchist only later in life.In that case, many key words and signifiers would already be familiar to the infiltrator.Similarly, if you were trying to infiltrate a biotechnology conference, a dreadlocked punkrocker would probably suffer immediate expulsion, but a young college student with abackground in biology could speak the lingo and pass as someone seeking a job with abiotech company.

To go undercover, you must dress and act in character. To the extent it is possible,dress as someone you could be comfortable being. If you are going undercover in aregion unfamiliar to you, get your supplies and clothes there: dressed up and harmlessin Boston looks nothing like dressed up and harmless in Texas. Going undercover canbe expensive if it requires a new set of gear, especially if you are an impoverished revolutionary attempting to appear to be a respectable member of society. The suit, the car,the smell: these things are all important, and can be arranged given enough time andresources — but every civilian who goes undercover for work every day is trying to do soas cheaply as possible, just like you are, so it can be a challenge to afford the requisitecommodities without making the standard compromises. Pawnshops and thrift storesoften provide decent garb at affordable prices. Carry a prop: a clipboard for office environments, a wine glass for parties.

Spend time learning your character. If possible, don’t use a completely fabricatedidentity unless you have a very good one. Instead, borrow an existing identity, perhapsthat of a friend who is comfortable with this. Watch movies about your subject, talkto people about it. Pretend you are the best actor in the world, and you will eventuallybecome so. A good cover story for your behavior, into which you can slip comfortably,is absolutely vital. Think through possible questions you might be asked. Get in character and try the character out in non-threatening situations- say, while hitchhiking.Remember, never volunteer any more information than necessary, but have possiblestories ready so you’re not caught tongue-tied by an embarrassing situation.

All social groups are essentially networks of who knows who; from Congress to yourlocal drug dealers, people operate in networks of trust. Once you’ve entered such a network, a whole horizon of new contacts opens before you. To get in, you need a “hook,”some legitimate reason why you would be involved. If you’re going into an office, yourhook could be delivering a package; if you’re gathering intelligence on a company, youcould pretend to be a student writing a report about them. Drop names. You don’t necessarily have to know the person whose name you drop — just make sure they’re in a position of trust and respect within the network you’re trying to infiltrate, and that, if you arelying, the person to whom you are lying can’t easily determine this. Strike up conversation, subtly dropping in references that identify you as an insider. Always try to plungedeeper with your comments and questions, in what appears to be innocent chatter.

Lying

When you lie, there are telltale signs that many, particularly those well versed in interrogation, can recognize: nervousness, motion of the eyes, reddening or touchingof the face, tapping of the feet, a bit of sweat at the brow. The best lies, therefore, arenot lies at all, but half-truths. If you’re undercover as a delivery man at the office of amajor corporation and the security guard asks you what you’re doing snooping aroundsomeone’s desk, don’t run or make up some tall tale about how you were good friendswith that person back in high school. Instead, try something actually true, such as “Ididn’t expect to see you here — oh, I must be in the wrong office,” then walk calmly off.After all, you are metaphysically in the wrong office, and you did not expect to see thesecurity guard there.

If he grabs your shoulder, you may want to proceed to the next level, the plausible lie.“I must have been given the wrong office number... I’m sorry.” The key to a plausiblelie is that it explains away irregularities. It should be simple and succinct. If the web oflies you weave becomes too intricate, you will be more likely to tell lies that are implausible or that conflict with each other.

If the security guard demands to know “Who gave you the office number?,” remember one of the golden rules of lying: be vague. “The guy up front,” you explain. Try beingvague and ambiguous, you induce the person to whom you are lying to interpret thelie in the way that makes the most sense according to the workings of the world as heknows it. With any luck, the guard will interpret your statement as a reference to someone who legitimately gives out office numbers, such as a receptionist or boss.

If the clever guard suspects a ruse, he may ask for clarification. You should provide aslittle verifiable information as possible, while simultaneously making the best claim tolegitimacy you can. Any reference to authority is a good source of legitimacy; God is thebest one in certain circles, but He’s a bit too far out there for everyday lying purposes.

Never underestimate the power of sticking to your story. On the other hand, if the jigis finally up, it may make sense to surrender to the forces of the law without a struggleand once you do so, you must stop speaking altogether except to state that you wish tospeak to your attorney. If you’re only gathering information, the law you actually brokeis probably quite small; often, security guards will just kick you out of the building andtell you not to come back. Then again, if you can be tied to an act of hard-core propertydestruction that just took place, you’ll want to put into action some of the tactics coveredin the Evasion recipe on pg. 234.

Complications

If you’re going undercover, you must appear to be normal come hell or high water — butwhen that becomes utterly impossible, you might as well try the opposite. If thingsare only slightly weird, people will tend to search for a logical explanation for events.If things are so strange that they are off the charts, people may do their best to ignorethem — that’s a standard response to cognitive dissonance,as psychology students learn.Accordingly, one should either be completely undercover, or, when one’ s cover is blown,go all the way. Once, while fleeing through the woods from riot police, a friend and Icame to a road traveled by law-abiding civilians. At first, we pretended to be wholesomeyoung hitchhikers, and everyone smiled but passed us by. Soon, the police were closingin, and our nervous behavior freaked out the one driver who nearly picked us up. Realizing that our situation was too desperate for any pretext, we frantically flagged downan old couple and explained to them that we were anarchist fugitives from the nearbyanti-globalization protest, who were being chased by the police as we spoke and neededa ride as far away as possible at this very moment. While at first stunned, they immediately let us in the car. Once inside, we normalized the situation by talking about theweather, and they dropped us off with a smile.

Another good rule of thumb: quit while you’re ahead. If you have reason to believethat the situation is about to go horribly awry, get out. Don’t fear being abrupt — just doit. If you think you just need to cool off, to check on some data or re-establish your security, make a brief and reasonable excuse, such as going to the bathroom or on a familyvacation, depending on the time frame you’re working with; in the moment of calm thatprovides, you can figure out where you stand, and whether you dare go back.

There are two types of people: those who have good intuitions, and those who do not.Through experience, ascertain which type you are, and rely accordingly on gut feelingsor rational calculations. It is often useful to go undercover with at least one other person,so you can compare notes and balance out each other’s fits of paranoia and delusions ofinvincibility. If you operate mainly by intuition, bring along a rational thinker, and viceversa. If you are working with a partner who is nervous or panicking under the stress,engage in small talk, tell a funny story, be relaxing to be around.

Speaking of having a partner, nothing makes for a good cover story like being in ageneric love-struck heterosexual couple. This pretext enables everyone to assume theyalready know what you’re up to, not to mention why your palms are sweaty and you keepwhispering in each other’s ears. And just what are you two doing atop the courthouse,on this portentous night? “Oh, officer, I’m so sorry,” you gush, cologne in the air andlipstick on your neck, “we just came up here to ... admire the view!”

Counter-Surveillance

Counter-surveillance is the game of spying on spies. Any group that has valuable secretshas a stake in defending itself against infiltration. The amount of security depends onthe type of organization: a supermarket might only have a security guard and a fewcameras; a right wing hate group might have a group of bruisers to defend its turf, andprobably makes a practice of keeping up with the websites of hostile organizations; thegovernment has nearly infinite resources for counter- surveillance,and may well know alot about you, whether or not they’ve yet had occasion to make use of that information.If federal agents think you have lots of guns and are preparing for armed struggle, theyare likely to bum your house down with your children inside; if you are just causingminor disturbances by wheatpasting posters and Reclaiming the occasional Street, theyprobably won’t care enough to track you down, although their surveillance and counter-insurgency measures can be shockingly arbitrary. When in doubt, be careful-consultthe Security Culture recipe on pg. 461 for more specifics.

There are things you can do to trick infiltrators into revealing themselves. Send out anannouncement about a blatantly fabricated demonstration over a listserv, and take noteof who shows up. Bait fascists: insult them, and learn what you can from their angryresponses. Take circuitous routes when driving, so you can’t be followed without it being obvious. Before trying something really sketchy, do something moderately sketchyto see if you get caught for it. Never look directly at someone you suspect of followingyou. If you know you are being observed and you do not wish to let on that you know,pick your nose, talk to yourself, do something harmless but embarrassing.

Timing when to act on the information you glean from infiltration is also a fine art. Often spy intelligence, like revenge, is best served cold — not right after you have garneredit, when it could give away that you were the one who did so. Hold on to informationuntil the connection to you is implausible, until telltale data is cleared from surveillanceinfiltration^ videotapes and short-term memories. In some situations, if the intelligence is needed immediately or you feel you are in danger, it might make sense to broadcast whateverinformation you have to as many people as possible, obscuring the source from whichit came. Otherwise, keep what you know a secret and use it only when needed.

Deep Cover

In addition to single-goal infiltration missions, it can be worthwhile to position yourself in a milieu in order to obtain intelligence over a long period of time. The continual practice you get from being a long-term mole will keep your undercover abilities in top condition; however, as time passes and access to information increases, so do the chancesof being caught, so weigh carefully how far it’s worth going. Often, especially in the caseof political groups, it is enough to join listservs and go to meetings; never neglect thesmall things, like the visit to the bar after the group you are monitoring finishes its moreserious business. To build up trust, unassumingly do the jobs nobody else wants to do.If you are particularly ambitious and gutsy, you can even attempt to obtain a position ofauthority; with this, you can easily induct other members into the group. Think of thehavoc you can wreak if you build up trust and responsibility within a group over a longperiod until the perfect moment arrives!

At some point in your life you may have to go undercover and never emerge: this iscalled going underground, and we can’t tell you anything about it except that it is emotionally taxing and rarely ends well. You may want to adopt temporarily the behaviorappropriate to someone going underground, however, in order to carry out a projectthat you do not want linked to you, such as a direct action resulting in lots of financialdamages and a likely investigation. In such a case, always use cash to pay for food, hotelrooms, and other expenses, so there will be no check or credit card trail. Don’t use agas card, either, or a personal phone card, or a cell phone registered to your name. Rentor borrow a car, if you don’t want your vehicle’s motions to be tracked. Obey the littlelaws: don’t risk getting caught for speeding or jaywalking before or after robbing a bank.

Move within faceless masses, or far from the madding crowd and the surveillance cam-eras that attend it — never in between. Give your credit cards and cell phone to a friendto make a misleading paper trail far away, if you’re ready to back that alibi up underscrutiny. When you go undercover, you should be like Santa Claus: you have a mission,you’re never seen, and you’re in and out with the cookies and soyrnilk before anyoneknows what happened.

Account

While I’m not exactly the most organized of revolutionaries, I knew something had tobe done when I got wind that a group of fascists were having their national conferencejust a few hours away. The Anti-Racist Action email listserv to which I subscribe announced that the Council of Conservative Citizens was having their national meetingjust down the road from my hometown. The Council of Conservative Citizens was theabove ground political organ of the racist ultra-right wing, known for wining and diningsenators and holding public anti-immigrant rallies. Historically, they were descendedfrom the White Citizens’ Councils that were set up to oppose integration and aid theKlan. This was an opportunity to make their work more difficult, but it came with ahitch: while the webpage to which the email had directed me announced what city themeeting was in, it also proclaimed, “Because of extremist Lefties, the exact location ofour meeting only be announced to members.” “Lefty” or not, I was one extremistwho would not be put off. Clearly, I had to join the Council, and to do this I had only onemonth to transform myself from a black-dad scraggly anarchist into a passable good-ole-boy racist.

Luckily, I was born and bred a Southerner. My family on one side was descendedfrom farmers and cops, full of women named Bonnie — I even had an Uncle Buddy. Ihad spent my childhood going around to Civil War reenactments dressed as a miniatureConfederate solider, and worshipping at a back-to-the-roots apocalyptic church in whichthe United Nations were regarded as the Antichrist and the black helicopters were spoken of more often than Jesus’ love of all His little children. I had been fortunate enoughto come of age in a multiracial neighborhood, which gave me the perspective to realizethat some of my parent’s viewpoints about race were unwholesome and uninformed.All the same, whenever I spent enough time with my older aunts and uncles, who wereformer tobacco farmers with Southern accents as thick as grits, I could not only talk thetalk, but talk it with the proper accent! I may be a raging antifascist anarchist, but I’malso a Southerner by the Grace of ... hm, let’s not say God, but definitely genealogy.Anyway, I did what every self-respecting revolutionary would have done: I went homeand hung out with my family for a few days.

I spent an afternoon catching up with an old friend from my pre-radical high schooldays, who was working construction. It happened that he looked more or less like me.Despite my best attempts, he still had some ideas that I considered mildly racist — “Idon’t mind Mexicans, but there’s so many of them coming over the border it makesit tough for me” — but even mildly racist people often bear a deep and abiding hatredof fascist groups like the Klan. When I confided to him that I was trying to infiltrate agroup of neo-Nazis and Klan members, he was down to play a supporting role. He wastoo busy at work to take time off to help me infiltrate personally, so I asked if I could usehis name, and possibly his address or ID. if it was absolutely necessary. He agreed, onthe condition that I promise not to bring too much heat down on him. Presto, an instantnew identity: I was now “Bob Noble” (names changed to protect the innocent). A simple,unpretentious name, and not even imaginary. Remember, your enemies will often do abackground check on you, or at least see if you exist in the phone book.

The Council of Conservative Citizens had a national contact number listed on theirwebsite. Since there was still a month to go, a call to it by a complete stranger would notbe a dead giveaway that antiracists were trying to infiltrate their conference, so I gavethem a ring. After a few rings, an answering machine picked up and asked for my nameand phone number. I was not interested in leaving my friend’s contact informationon the answering machine of hatemongers, and as I was calling from a payphone at adeserted gas station, Caller ID. could have blown my cover quite easily. So I started outwith a grumbly drawl: “Well, I’ve just been reading your webpage for a long time and Iagree with your views, especially those about states’ rights and freedom of speech, andI was wondering..

As if by magic, the phone was picked up on the other end, and a not-so-Southernvoice addressed me: “Oh, sorry about that, we screen our calls. You know, there’s a lot ofwackos out there.” I had used a key phrase that the mysterious racist on the other endof the line had recognized, one that many born-and-bred liberals would never know toattach much significance to: “states’ rights.” This is the idea that states and other localauthorities should have more control than the federal government, which according tostandard racist mythology is infested with Jews, homosexuals, liberals, and even blackpeople. According to neo-Confederates,” states’ rights — not slavery — is the reason theSouth seceded from the Union, and as this is barely mentioned in history classes or leftist periodicals, only a true Southerner would use that phrase in everyday conversation.Also, freedom of speech, in particular the freedom to be a racist, sexist, and generallyvile spewer of right-wing madness, is of great concern to this crowd. My use of these keywords led to almost immediate acceptance.

“I know, I know, they don’t respect a man’s God-given right to speak his mind.”

“So, what did you want?”

Now, here was a critical moment. I could have asked directly for the location of theconference. That would have been far too obvious. It was wiser to put off demanding theactual information I wanted and just ask for a local contact, who might be less security-conscious. “Can I get a local phone number of someone to call to talk about how to takea more active role? I’ve been reading too long, and after what those terrorists did to uson September 11^th , it’s time for Americans like me to take a stand.”

Within a few seconds I had the local phone numbers of Council of Conservative Citizens members in my area, and the name of the high-ranking Council member who hadtalked to me on the phone. After a polite goodbye, I made another phone call to my localcontact. He wasn’t home. So I called another, and another. I kept getting answering machines; racists love to screen their calls. The next time an answering machine engaged,I finally spoke: “Well, I just talked to Mr. [name of high-ranking racist previously mentioned], and he gave me your number. I’ve been reading y’alls webpages, and I reallyenjoy the Alamance Independent ... ”

Bang. The receiver on the other end picked up. The name-dropping, combined witha reference to an obscure right-wing paper available online, had got me the next contacton my hit list. Now I was part of the right-wing scene!

“How ya doing? Sorry about that, I just sometimes am slow picking up the phone.. ”

Sure. Jeez, I wish anarchists had this measure of security culture on picking upphones. Given that, the ball was now in my playing field.

“Ah, I’m just wondering about how to get involved. I mean, I’ve never been muchon getting involved in politics, since I’m not a fancy type of man and always feel a bitconfused about things myself.”

“That’s how it is in these confusing times.”

“But, I dunno ... I just don’t feel right about the way this country is going. Why,people are even insulting President Bush, and after what happened in New York why,we’re under attack and these damn liberals keep trying to stop our good President fromdoing his job. And it seems like even our leaders are forgetting about states’ rights.”

“Have you read the latest article on the web about how the liberals with their left-wingagenda are demonizing us?”

“Sure ... I always read your website. That’s why I’m calling you. I’ve never ... well,I was in the Sons of the Confederacy, and I did do some reenacting for a few years backin [name of state even more southern than the one I live in], you know at Gettysburg,Bentonville, Spotsylvania ...yeah, those were good old times, but it was just kids’ stuff.I want to get serious about defending this country.”

‘You know, one of the biggest problems we face is immigration .. “ My host beganan impassioned tirade on how immigrants were ruining our nation.

“Well, I’m not racist, I’ve never considered myself a racist man,” It’s always good wheninfiltrating a group to come off as an honest, multifaceted, and even moderate human being, instead of some caricature of a white-hooded Klansman. “But I do know that if thesepeople are here illegally, that’s wrong, and I’m not in their country taking their jobs or nothing. I mean, compared to blacks, these immigrants are growing even faster... there’s noreason they shouldn’t have to go through the same procedures as the rest of us citizens.”

Our conversation went on and on. After referencing obscure historical trivia (“Youknow, the first slave ship landed in the North, in Marblehead, Massachusetts”) and confessing to bizarre fetishes (“I’ve always wanted a red shirt like our good Confederategeneral AP. Hill”), I had so thoroughly won the favor of this local fascist that he invitedme over to meet him at a bar for a few beers. I could almost see him salivating as he triedto turn my “honest” confusions to a more racist and fascist stance. Being a “quiet man,”I refused hi s offer of beer for the time being, and asked him if there was some C. of C.C.event I could meet him at. I was hoping I wouldn’t personally be required there, sinceas a fairly well-known anarchist, it would be riskier for me than it might be for someoneelse. Also, since this was an opportunity to slip in a long-term mole, I made sure to givehim no exact physical description of myself.

“Well, it’s a bit of a drive, but there’s this national conference coming up. I think youwould really enjoy it, and we can hang out there.”

“Can I just get the thing off your website?”

‘Oh, no. We gotta hide it from all those commies. But I’ll tell you. It’s at ..

Bingo. Mission accomplished. Neva* ask them for the information directly if you canavoid it. Have them give it to you out of their own free will. It will be a lot less suspicious.

A few days later, I sent out emails to nearby Anti-Racist Action chapters announcing this location and calling for a demonstration outside. I’d waited a few days so thatthe fascists, if they were monitoring our listserv, wouldn’t necessarily connect the ARAannouncement to the strange new guy who’d called them up. As wiser and more experienced antiracist activists started planning the demonstration,! decided we could do betterthan demonstrate outside. We should not only be on the outside, we should be inside.

I sent a few emails and hung up fliers around town announcing the formation of anew chapter of Anti-Racist Action. Right before the meeting, a strange older white guyshowed up. I got somewhat scary vibrations from him. He asked if he was at the rightmeeting location. Trusting my instincts, I told him I didn’t know and that the bookstorethe meeting was to be at was about to close, so he left — and just in the nick of time. Soonafterwards, about half a dozen people showed up, an interesting mixture of young whitepunks, black students, and one older white Southern woman. Although I was also a bithesitant about this woman, who fit none of my cultural stereotypes of antiracist activists, I followed my instincts again, and decided to take the risk. It turned out she wasa graduate student, writing her Ph.D. thesis on the radical right and antiracism in ourstate. I told everyone about the counter-demonstration, and after she recommended afew good books about the history of the Council of Conservative Citizens and the Klanto me, I decided to visit her in her office.

After some chit-chat, I popped the question. While we were outside demonstrating,would she mind dressing up and going inside the conference as our undercover spy,complete with camera and audio recorder? She was thrilled. After years of studying thedetrimental effects of racism in society, she could actually strike back. While the youngkids were out there fighting or at least intimidating the racists, she could sneak in anddo the more subtle but necessary intelligence gathering: she could get the names, faces,and personal details of every would-be white warrior there. All of her attributes — age,sex, harmless appearance — would be advantages in this situation, and her encyclopedicknowledge of the far right would make her nearly undetectable as an antiracist spy. Hercover story would be that she was the wife of the character I had played during my earlier conversations. Later that day, she called up my previous local Council of Conservative Citizens contact and registered for the conference.

The day of the conference, we all met up in a parking lot before heading off for ourseparate tasks. Our undercover agent was dressed as the very picture of the genteelSouthern woman, complete with broad-rimmed hat and a little umbrella with floral patterns. She took all the surveillance equipment, and we drove to the event separately. Shearrived earlier than us, in order to disassociate herself from the activities outside.

When we got to the location, a remarkably nondescript beige building beside a highway, I shuddered to think that a hotbed of white supremacy could be hidden behindsuch a bland exterior. In the parking lot, the race war was already beginning. A few olderwhite men, with the help of police officers, were holding off a small horde of antiracistactivists. Both sides were throwing insults, with the protesters being called things asdated as “race mongrels” and “communists,” and flinging equally vindictive vituperation back in return. The one thing that really seemed to terrify the racists was when oneARA. member took out his video camera and started getting everyone’s license platenumbers.

As they screamed at the “dirty Jew,” he laughed and continued to videotape them, daring them to step a bit Closer to prove their “racial superiority. “ Another antiracist activisttold the white homophobes that all their rude talk was exciting him, and he had alwayswanted to make out with a real honest to life Nazi; they seemed so revolted by this prospect a few actually fled. The ruckus was loud and went on for several hours, until finallythe conference dragged to its end and large numbers of racists started leaving, sneakingby our video camera into the parking lot.

Little did they suspect the spy within their ranks. At our next meeting, she presentedall the information she had managed to smuggle out of the conference. She had gotteninside without anyone blinking an eye, and audiotaped all the workshops, which rangedfrom a biblical case against racial mixing to a denial that the Holocaust ever happened.She had taken pictures of the various leaders of the conference, including not onlyCouncil members but also various Klansmen and neo-Nazis. She had approached manyof them and obtained personal contact information including phone numbers and bothemail and street addresses. She had collected armloads of their literature and even a fewmagazine subscriptions. As we reviewed the photographs and hours of video and audiofootage, making meticulous notes and working out who was friends with whom, it became apparent that we had indeed established the identities of most of the people thereand had valuable leads on the new campaigns of the extreme right. As we arranged ourfiles to be delivered to the Anti-Racist Action headquarters, we congratulated ourselveson a job well done. Who knows, maybe next time I will meet the Council of ConservativeCitizens at a bar, after all — and bring along all my fiends for a barroom brawl they’llnever forget!

Inflatables

Inflatable Bombs You Can Blow Up Again and Again, or, Civic Angioplasty for Heartbroken Towns

Angioplasty: A medical procedure for treatment of a heart attack. A tube is fed intravenouslyinto a blocked artery. A tiny balloon at the end of the tube is inflated to open the artery. When the balloon is removed, blood can flow freely.

Civic Angioplasty: A treatment for urban ennui. A space, empty of desire or creativity, issuddenly filled with these and more. The space is just as suddenly emptied, leaving a (more)conspicuous absence, a kind of newness, a sense of possibility.

Ingredients

Plastic painters’ tarp — This is available at any hardware store. You need a solid filmmaterial, not the woven variety with grommets for tying down. Rolls of plastic shouldindicate the weight (i.e. 2 mil, 4 mil, 6 mil) on the package. 2 mil is lightest and mostcompact, 4 mil is bulkier but more durable. You should never go heavier than 4 mil,unless you want your inflatable to be able to accommodate people, in which case youcan use S mil material for the floor. Plastic tarps vary in size; we suggest acquiringthe widest rolls possible (2o’x zoo’ is good).

Clear 2” packing tape — Don’t go budget on this, get the best name brand stuff. Startwith around 4 rolls. Avoid anything that is advertised as “Easy Tear”; if you are322 making a masterpiece, look for tape advertised as “long-lasting” or “U.V.-resistant.”

A box fan — Any 2-speedbox fan will do the job. Youte not going to need an industrialfan to inflate a huge piece. A desktop fan can inflate a 50’ sculpture — the onlyrequirementis constantairflow. The advantage of using a bigger fan is faster inflationtime. If time is of the essence, get an industrial fan.

A large, clean, flat space, preferably inside — This is the most difficult thing tocome by. It is helpful if one of your collaborators is connected with a school, becausea gym or auditorium stage is ideal.

A pattern — Among the most readily available patterns are stuffed animals . Every orificeof the world explodes with unwanted stuffed animals, so acquiring one shouldn’t bea problem. You can create your own pattern, but this requires extra skills. If you gothis route, make a paper model first, and throughout the remainder of this recipesubstitute the panels of the model for the parts of the stuffed animal.

• Tape measure

• Permanent marker

• Scissors

• Utility knives, X-acto knives, or razor blades

Instructions

For our demonstration we will be using a teddy bear because of its availability; there areplenty of simpler shapes to make, for which all these instructions also apply.

Begin by making a drawing of your teddy bear from the front and from the back Itdoesn’t have to look good; you just need it for reference after you’ve cut up the bear.

Measure the length, width, and height of the stuffed animal. Note these measurements on your drawing.

Carefully take apart and label each panel (e.g. right leg, left front torso). Indicate onyour drawing where each panel goes (figure 12. i). Do not skip this step — when all yourpieces are cut apart, it will be very hard to tell a right leg from a left front torso.

If you have not already done this, trim each panel along the seam line where it usedto be sewn together. The shape of the piece of fabric may be quite different from theshape outlined by the seam lines.

On graph paper, trace each panel (figure 12.2). These tracings will serve as your blueprint when you lay the shapes out on the plastic.

Now decide how large you want to make your inflatable, and work out the ratiobetween the length of your small teddy bear and the length that you want your inflatable. For example, the teddy bear we used was about eight inches long, so to enlargeit to 40 feet we made each square inch of our blueprint grid equal to five squarefeet of plastic.

Unroll and unfold your plastic; if you want to be especially conscientious,you canmake a grid of one-foot marks along all four sides of your floor so that you can easilyalign the uncut plastic. Make sure the grid you lay out is square (90 degrees).

Armed with your blueprint, permanent marker, and tape measure, transferyour small plans onto the plastic (figure 12.3}. With care you should end up with avery close (scaled up) duplication of the shapes on your graph paper.

Cut out the pieces ofplastic and label them as you go so you can remember howthey fit together and what part they belong to.

When all of your pieces are cut out, tape them together. I suggest doing the parts(torso, arm 1, arm 2, head, etc.) separately. When you have completed all of the pieces,assemble them into your final shape.

Taping is the most labor-intensive part of the project. We have developed a system oftaping in pairs while seated on the floor. Person One tears pieces of tape into 6” to 12 11pieces (12” for seams that are straight, 6” for seams that are curved). Person Two holdsthe two pieces of plastic to be joined flat together, like two pages in a closed book. Person One applies the tape lengthwise onto one piece of plastic, so that 50% of the width

hangs over (figure 12.4), and then folds the overhang onto the other side. When you openup the plastic, the two pieces should be joined edge to edge with the tape centered alongthe seam. While Person One is tearing off more tape, Person Two squeezes the seam tomake sure it is sealed tight.

When the inflatable is assembled, cut a round hole somewhere in the body, approxi-mately the diameter of the fan you will use. Make an air tube from another piece ofplastic and connect it to the hole. Be especially thorough with your taping; this will be ahigh-stress connection. Tape the fan to the other end of the air tube.

Blow up your inflatable by turning the fan on high. Once it is fully inflated, it is important to turn the fan to low. When your bear inflates for the first time, seams vilL popopen — this is normal. Leave the bear inflated, and have one person get inside while theother remains outside. Do not tiy to pull the ripped seams back together to tape them.Simply add patches to the inflatable that are the shapes of the holes. Small holes are notnecessarily a problem — the fan will constantly be pumping in air, and that air has to gosomewhere. If you want to leave some holes, just reinforce them with tape. We found thatthe older our bear got, the stronger her seams became; maybe tape gets stickier with age?

Your giant inflatable sculpture can roll up to an amazingly small size, and weighs very little.Recruit help to roll it- the more people you have, the smaller your inflatable can be packed.

Become a secret agent — stalk your city in disguise looking for lifeless spaces. They’reeverywhere: public parks, street comers, town squares, corporate campuses, municipallobbies, schools, children’s playgrounds ... Now pack up your giant teddy bear, fan, andextension cord, take it to your spot, and blow it up as if it were a bomb. This is poetic terrorism. Such transformation of the environmentis a gift to yourself and everyone whobears witness: make it an occasion. Dress up. Claim credit under a false name. Be legendary. Make art that is an event, then steal away in the confusion. Hammer out reports,dispatch bulletins; you are a phantom, a heroine, a soldier, a pillar of your community.

Other Applications

Watch for heating vents on buildings and sidewalks, hand-dryers in bathrooms, andother public sources of air that can be used to expand inflatables, which can be custom-made to fit these sites. One folk saentist made a series of inflatable tents that could beattached to the outtake ducts of building ventilation systems to provide housing andwarmth for their homeless occupants.

Account

We once made a full-size inflatable circus tent that could fit over two hundred peopleinside. It was floorless, a dome constructed from long panels of black plastic with aclear skylight at the apex, and weighted down around its circumference with chaintaped into the plastic. We made our pattern for it from the skin of half an orange.Once it was inflated, people entered by lifting up one side and swiftly getting in. Fromwithout, it looked like a titanic trash bag, but inside the atmosphere was strangelytransformed and the outside world seemed far away. It could be used to create amagical performance environment in any setting with a flat, spacious area. Though itserved us well on many occasions, we did encounter some challenges with it. On account of its great surface area, any amount of wind tended to buffet it or knock it over.On one occasion, we set it up atop a mountain in West Virginia, but the hundreds offeet of extension cord delivering the electricity to the fan diluted the power enoughthat we were barely able to inflate it. The acoustics inside were interesting — there wasa central point in which an echo could be heard from all sides — but the noise of thefan made it necessary to speak loudly when addressing a group. Finally, it trappedheat, which could make it uncomfortable in the summer. All the same, it was incredibly cheap for a movable structure of its size, and demanded attention wherever wedeployed it.

When we unfurled our circus tent at an anarchist convergence following a tour of theMidwest, our friends demanded to learn how to make their own inflatables. Some wentto scare up the necessary supplies, while others gathered around to discuss what wecould make. The ideas came quickly:

“Something people can get inside of.”

‘A prop for a performance. ”

“Something to make a presence when we go into town for Food Not Bombs.”

“An inflatable stage.”

“An inflatable television ...”

“... that we can get inside ...”

“..and be TV stars!”

It was settled. This time we weren’t just making idle threats, we were actually going toblow up a television. Three hours later we were putting the finishing touches on a blackand dear model, American-made, with a twenty-seven-foot screen. Despite its size, itpacked down into a milk crate for the ride downtown, so we brought along the circustent for good measure and threw in a few 100-foot extension cords.

The cooler of Food Not Bombs spaghetti hit the sidewalk. Public electrical outletswere located. The fan blades began to churn. Two massive forms began to rise from theconcrete like whales surfacing in slow motion.

Food Not Bombs was serving in a public plaza that happened to be across the streetfrom the aty’s event coliseum. As we ate, played music, and goofed off in our television,its vast flashing signs reminded us of that other world. One of those pop stars so famousas to go by her first name alone was to perform that night. Thousands of people wereabout to pay as much apiece to see her as the seventy of us had spent on food all week.It was a vivid juxtaposition of modes of life, and we thought it a fortuitous chance tointeract with the masses.

By the time the line of consumers had formed, we had been improvising togetherfor some hours on our homemade musical instruments and were eager to invite thenewcomers to join in. But as soon as we prepared to wheel our jerry-rigged drum machine across the street, the audio- van of the local corporate rock station pulled up on thesidewalk and cranked up its volume. The subtle sounds of the drum machine were lostin the din of blaring commercials.

It was war. Mustering our entire may of bucket drums, whistles, boviphonic ohmcannons, and other sonic weapons, we converged in all our numbers in the middle ofthe street beside the van and the column of concert-goers. Dancing and yelling ardently,we drowned out their sound system, and created what must have been a startling spectacle for the spectators, who looked on as though they’d never seen people enjoyingthemselves in public without buying tickets first.

Inspired, a few of us went to get the inflatable television from our base camp acrossthe street. We found another outlet on the wall of the coliseum, and plugged in the fan,only to be scolded by some petty administrator before our conversation piece was fullyinflated. Not to be denied, we plugged into an outlet on our side of the street, and ranextension cords all the way across it, holding the official at bay with references to our unintelligibly- worded permit. He went off in a huff, and a raging dance party commencedaround and inside the television.

Soon, corporate music fans were making their way up to us in twos and threes; ourweirdness and excitement were simply irresistible. Before the evening was through, several of them had joined us in dancing inside the television, and some had even electedto spend the night doing so instead of entering the coliseum. Never underestimate thepower of outlandish props and shenanigans — the masses want to join you m the streets,but they know it’s not their revolution unless they can dance.

Legal Support

Instructions

Before any risky action, you should prepare to minimize the impact of arrests. Thesepreparations will vary in scale according to the number of people involved in your action — you’ll need more lawyers and more phones at the legal aid number for an unpermitted march of thousands than you will for a five-person graffiti outing — but theessential structure will remain the same.

Find a sympathetic and trustworthy lawyer, or perhaps a few of them for large actions. Get general legal advice about the risks you will be running — to the extent you’reable without giving away anything sensitive-and let them know the dates and timesyou may require their services, but do not let them know anything that could implicatethem: in order to do their job, they need to be able to prove that they are not connectedto anything illegal.

Next, you need a legal aid number — this is the number those arrested will call usingtheir single jail-allotted phone call. The person who receives their calls at the legal aidnumber will then call the lawyer and inform him or her where arrestees are, so he or shecan spring into action on their behalf. It is important that this number not be used foranything else — you don’t want to be in jail, struggling to reach the legal aid number, getting a busy signal because it’s tied up by phone calls from affinity groups trying to figureout which of their members have been arrested or where they can get a good burrito.To answer such queries, another number should be set up and distributed in advance,the legal information number: the person receiving calls at the legal aid number cancall this number periodically, passing on the names of arrestees, and people can call thelegal information number to ask if their comrades have been arrested.

The legal aid number should be written in marker on a hidden part of the body ofanyone risking arrest, perhaps with numbers inverted or coded — it’s important that thisnumber doesn’t fall into the hands of anybody who might want to jam it, since the legalsupport of all arrestees depends on its staying open. Such provisions notwithstanding,the police will have the number as soon as it is dialed from their premises, and mayinvestigate it or even raid its location. For this reason, it’s important that the site of thelegal aid number be prepared for trouble, so the number will work come what may.Sometimes security matters will necessitate that the number not be connected to any individuals, lest they be investigated; for such actions, the number could be a public phoneof some kind — say, a payphone in the middle of nowhere that takes incoming calls,flanked by scouts who can announce incoming police. The drawbacks of this approachare obvious, so don’t employ tighter security precautions than your action warrants.

If potential arrestees plan to do “jail solidarity,” tying up the penal processing systemby not revealing their identities, the group handling legal support should have a secretlist of the identities and aliases of everyone risking arrest. Arrestees who call the legal aidnumber will give their aliases, and their true identities can then be passed on secretly totheir affinity groups, lawyers, and families. There’s little reason to try jail solidarity tactics unless you actually have enough people to tie up their system, so be conservative whenconsidering this tactic; if the authorities are expecting a demonstration or similar eventto result in arrests, they may be prepared to jail hundreds of people without difficulty.

It will happen that people will be arrested when no support structure has been prepared. In this case, the first challenge is for possible supporters outside to find out thatpeople have been arrested, and where they are. If you are being arrested and you don’tmind identifying yourself publicly, call out your name and a contact number to anyone who can pass word along for you — better yet, share this information in advance.Likewise, if you see others being arrested, you can offer to do the same for them, whilebeing careful not to get yourself arrested in the process. If nothing else, always have aperson in mind that you can use your one phone call to contact. If you know or suspectthat someone for whom you are willing to do legal support has been arrested, and youdon’t have reason to keep her identity a secret, you can call the precinct to which shehas been taken — or any precinct to which she may have been taken — and demand toknow whether she has been arrested, whether she is at the precinct, what the chargesare, what her arrest number is, and if she will be released from the precinct or taken toa central booking or holding location. If the authorities refuse to cooperate, tiy showingup in person — it always helps for the police to know that people are concerned about theindividual they are holding. Depending on the mood of the officer in charge, you maybe able to get your friend food or a note, pick up her belongings, or even see her. Collectmoney for bail, ifhecessary — you’ll probably need to have it ready in cash.

To bail someone out of jail, you can either give the entire amount of the bail to thecourt system, in which case you will presumably receive it back when the legal processis finally concluded, or you can go to a bail bondsman and pay 10% of that; in the lattercase, the bondsman’s fees may cost you a significant amount of money. If no one canpay bail for someone, they may sit in jail until their court date, although in the case ofminor infractions it can happen that police release people on their own recognizance soas not to have to deal with them.

Any community whose members may suffer arrest would do well to establish a bailfund in advance. This can save a lot of running around in the middle of other emergencies. Throw benefit shows, set aside infoshop profits, solicit donations from wealthysympathizers, and make sure that the fund stays with someone who is even-handed,trustworthy, and always easy to reach.

As arrestees are released from jail, greet them with food, drink, and open arms. Makesure they know when their next court date is, what their charges are, and the identity cfthe lawyer at their arraignment; make sure everyone in the community knows that theyare in legal trouble and need support. Get contact information for everybody involvedin the incident: these people may later be able to provide testimony or evidence, such asvideo footage, that will be important in the trial. Likewise, if you have any documentation or evidence that might help others, or you are willing to serve as a witness if othersgo to trial, track them down and offer your services. After any interaction with the policethat may result in legal proceedings, immediately write down every detail you remember about it that you would share with a court of law, including times, locations, names,words exchanged, and possible witnesses. Have witnesses verify the date and time youmade these notes.

Police will often charge arrestees with every crime they can thirk of, even thoughmost of these charges will not stick, just to frighten them. Don’t let them intimidateyou. Things may not be as bad as they seem. Consult “In Case of Arrest” in Health Care(pg.275) for more information about how to prepare for the possibility of arrest.

Shooting the Wounded

If you have been injured by the police or others and there is any chance that you mightbring suit or file a complaint against them or help someone else to do so, documentyour injuries as soon after they occur as possible. With the best possible camera, film,and lighting, start out with photos of your entire body, then take close-up shots of everywound. Don’t use the flash for the dose-ups, as it will create glare off your skin; includea ruler or item of standardized size in some close-ups to give a sense of scale. Continue taking photographs of your injuries as they heal, noting which pictures were takenwhich days and by whom. Take photographs of the scene of the injury, too, if possible,once again starting with a panoramic view and then focusing in on details. If you can,go to a doctor or free clinic and get official documentation of every injury. Save evidence.If you have bloody clothes, seal them in a plastic bag and keep it in a freezer. The samegoes for tear gas canisters, rubber bullets, and the like.

After Bailout

Remember, after you’ve bailed your friends out of jail, the most significant part of theirstruggle with the legal system remains ahead. Awaiting trial can be terrifying; provideas much emotional and practical support as you can through the entire process. Often,the trial will be postponed over and over, as a means of keeping the accused paralyzed.When planning actions that may result in lengthy legal proceedings,factor in the energyand effort that it will take to support arrestees; everyone who gets caught should havesuch a positive experience being supported by their community that no amount of in-timidation can shake them from their revolutionary commitments. Go with them to ev-ery single appearance in court, bake them treats, raise money to offset their legal costs,be there for them as emotional support. Don’t gossip about what happened to them — ifthe police beat your friend into unconsciousness, she probably doesn’t need to answerquestions about it all the time, and she might not be comfortable feeling that everyoneis talking about it behind her back. Don’t unthinkingly belittle anyone, either — “I can’tbelieve they beat her, she’s so small and gentle. “ After the legal struggles are over, don’tforget about them: if they’re in prison, write to them and visit often, and if they ‘re free,don’t assume that means they’re over the trauma. People willing to risk arrest to makethe world a better place are heroes, all of them, and should be made to feel that they are.

Account

When one of our members got arrested at a small demonstration at the United Nations,her legal support person got the word that she had been nicked and rode his bicycle tothe precinct. He persuaded the sleepy desk sergeant that he was her fiance, and got anote into the jail for her saying supporters were outside and providing the name andphone number of a lawyer she could call. She spread the word to the others in her cellwho had also been arrested at the action that supporters were outside and that they hada lawyer. Meanwhile, her contact person was able to find out her docket number andwhere she was on the list to be arraigned, so when she talked to her lawyer, she knewwhen she would be up. He also arranged to get her house keys so that her cat couldbe fed. When she was finally arraigned, her contact person and other members of heraffinity group were waiting with hugs, support, and Chinese take-out.

Marches & Parades

Instructions

Marches, from Permitted to Unpermitted

Permits are basically a scam by which the powers that be charge you for your right tofreedom of assembly, enlisting you in the process to inform them of what to expect andwhen to expect it — and also to monitor what happens on their behalf, since they nowhave you as a hostage. Indeed, it is typical of the permitted march organizer that hedevelops an authoritarian obsession with regulating the behavior of everyone in “his”march, since he can be held responsiblef or whatever happens by the next people up thechain of command. The permit system also helps the powers that be limit the option ofengaging in public activity to those privileged enough to speak the language of bureaucracy. All the more reason for us to build up enough social power to march wheneverwe want, permits be damned.

Still, it’s worth doing things to spice up permitted marches, since the poor organizershave their hands tied. At the very least, you can hand out leaflets informing other participants of more radical alternatives. Better, dress up in costume, and make your statementwith humor or theater; this can also be an unthreatening way to disguise yourself, whichyou may want to do for any number of reasons — just make sure your costume doesn’tgreatly hinder your vision or mobility, if any of your “reasons” require these. Puppets,too, can be festive and expressive, and they can function as shields, obscure police vision, or smuggle in useful resources, according to your needs and ingenuity.

A percussion bloc equipped with drums can really add atmosphere to any march.Drums can be made by affixing string shoulder straps to empty water cooler jugs, or tothose five-gallon buckets you find behind corporate businesses. Big traffic barrels canalso be requisitioned, equipped with wheels, and applied as bass drums. A little practice can produce a marching band to be reckoned with. You may not all need to bringdrums — street signs, dumpsters, police cars, all these make great percussion devices,and it can be inspiring for others to discover that the oppressive city environment isa veritable sea of musical instruments just waiting to be utilized. Don’t forget, either,the variety of other instruments that can be integrated into marching music, includingsaxophones, megaphone sirens, and whistles — the last of which can be clenched in theteeth of people who have their hands full drumming. Singing, topical or wordless andimprovisational,can really raise spirits, too.

Speaking of singing- chanting almost always breaks out at permitted marches. Youmay be one of those sheep-like sods whose heart thrills at the sound of a mass ofpeople repeating the same few inane syllables in brainless unison; but if you’re not,consider how you will handle the situation if it arises. At the very least, you can alwaysmake up your own: “Hey hey, ho ho, megaphones have got to go!,” “Rob the rich, armthe poor, social justice is civil war!,” “I say something, you say something: Something!(‘Something!’) Something! (‘Something!’) You say nothing, I say nothing! (‘Nothing!’)No, you idiots!” All this is not to say that there’s never a place for chanting — sometimesit can be an important affirmation, or exhortation — but there’s a big difference betweenshouting, “Whose streets? Our streets!,” as you sweep the police off the highway andmumbling those same words from the sidewalk.

Banners, on the other hand, serve a variety of important purposes in almost everymarch scenario. These can be made from painters’ drop cloth coated in white primerpaint and decorated with mis-mixed house paint, which you can find cheap or free atmost hardware stores. They can be reinforced with bamboo or other sturdy (but light!)materials. In addition to making your views more explicit to others , banners held firmlyalong the front and sides of marches will help keep police out and obscure their lines ofsight into your ranks. Remember, always aim the business end of a banner away fromyour fellow activists, in the direction from which the march is most visible to everyoneelse; it’s remarkable how slack people can be about keeping a banner legible to viewers.

Cloth banners have the benefit of rolling up easily, but if you can transport them andyou think you can get them in place without prematurely occasioning too much attention from the police, you can always make banners out of other materials. One grouptook six boards of tough cardboard insulation material, each four feet high and ten feetlong, painted messages on the fronts, and cut handholds on the sides. With chain orrope, these signs could be bound together, forming a virtually impregnable, mobile barrier up to sixty feet long. This barricade could be shifted at any one of five hinge-pointsto form any shape, and yet was light enough to carry for long periods. The material hadenough give that it could bear a few blows without breaking, and, carried by a minimumof seven courageous people (one at each joint), could secure a broad area from policeincursion. When these were deployed in a liberal town without much history of politicalstreet confrontation, the police didn’t know enough to seize them when they arrived atthe demonstration before they were safely in the hands of the crowd.

On the other hand, if the primary purpose is to maintain visibility and morale ratherthan secure and defend your space, consider a more unusual format. In another situation, our group painted a circle-A on a round piece of lightweight wood three and a halffeet in diameter and made a pair of wings for it out of stolen tablecloths, using fabricglue to cover them in cut cloth “feathers” spray painted white and blue. We set the wholething aloft on poles of PVC pipe, two for the big A and one at the end of each wing tohold them extended to their full twenty-three-foot span, so it could be carried up totwelve feet in the air, above all other banners and signs. Later, we replaced the PVC pipewith bamboo, which proved lighter and just as durable.

There’s more! You can decorate the convergence point or march route ahead of timewith graffiti, wheatpasted posters, or broken windows. This can raise morale, and helpless radical marchers get used to the idea that unlawful self-expression also has a legitimate place in the tactical toolbox. That’s starting small — if you feel your fellow marchersare ready for more, and you trust them not to betray you or have great faith in your ownpowers of blending and evading, you can use the crowd cover to spray paint throughstencils onto the street in the middle of the march, leaving radical messages behind asthe mass moves forward. If the sides of your march are not thoroughly lined with police,you can also drag barricades into the middle of the crowd, which can interfere with thepolice cars following behind.

Setting up barricades might be especially useful if you’re interested in turning yourpermitted march into an unpermitted one. Except in conditions of extreme surveillanceand police repression, such re-routing is not particularly difficult to achieve, providedyou have a small group ready to take the first risks. The police will be herding you alongthe prescribed route; at some point, they will leave a side street virtually unguarded, orattempt to steer everyone into a turn, leaving a thin line of gesturing police symbolically blocking the way forward. At this point, if a determined, tightly-hit group surgesforward, close enough together and fearless enough that the police cannot snatch upsome and thus intimidate the others, they can open a space for the rest of the marchersto follow. If you are attempting to reroute the entire march, hoping all those behindyou will follow, you should position your group at the very front; if you are breakingoff from the main body of the march with only those who are ready to contest publicspace actively, you might want to do so starting in the middle of the march, or eventoward the back. In the latter case, you can count on confusion among the surprisedand newly-divided police to give you something of an advantage, but you should alsobe prepared for much stricter repressive measures, as you are now isolated from yourlaw-abiding fellows. Make sure you have a few possible courses planned out, including escape routes, should your breakaway march be broken up; scouts and means ofcommunication are important for staying informed of the movements of the police onnearby streets. See Blocs, Black and Otherwise (pg.127) for more discussion of unpermitted group activities. This, like any tactic, should only be applied in a context in which itmakes sense, of course. Your goal, presumably, is to empower and inspire your fellowmarchers, even the more timid ones — not turn them against you by endangering themor making them feel disrespected.

All this assumes your permitted march is already in the street, which may not be thecase. If a line of police is confining you to the sidewalk, and your objective is to take thestreet, wait for a turn and suddenly flood out into the street, just as you would if youwere trying to reroute a street march.

Banners, especially reinforced or solid ones, will be especially useful in such a situation. If the banner-bearers can use them to block the street for a few seconds, and thecrowd is swift and decisive enough to fill t he space they open, this can provide the necessary opportunity. Banners can even hold police on motorcycles at bay, if brandishedbravely enough. Once you cross the line into unpermitted, unlawful activity, your courage and community spirit comprise your .new permit, and you’d better be ready to stickto them together.

Sanctioned Town Parades

It’s not hard to reserve a section in most town parades, and participation is often free.

Usually you just need to obtain a form from the city and fill it out with a (fabricated?)name and contact for your organization- call yourselves the [name of your aty] Buccaneers, if you can’t think of anything else. Such events, just like street fairs, are excellentopportunities to make the anarchist presence visible and welcome in communities. If340 people have seen you waving and giving out free food at every public event for a fewyears, they’re less likely to feel intimidated when they see you masked up in an unpermitted march — or to think you deserve it when the police beat you for marching andthen charge you with assault.

If you already have banners from other marches, you can bring them out on these occasions (don’t forget, also, that these banners can hang on the walls at every punk show,speaker event, and independent video night you put on) — but make sure you’re notneedlessly alienating your audience. Better yet, put together something fun and tailoredto the specific event — make a pirate ship float complete with eye-patched pirates flyingthe black flag, or, for the Christmas parade, put together a Santa Claus bloc of white-bearded, red-dad anarcho-communists distributing gifts and advocating the redistribution of wealth. Consider what you can give out to folks watching the parade — the fortunecookie model is hard to beat for combining sweet sustenance and information — andwhat kind of spectacle you can put on for their entertainment.

Account

For the July 4^th parade mentioned in the Banner Drops account (pg-75) we reservedspaces for two groups: a peace march with the usual signs and chants, and an anarchistcontingent featuring a marching band, crazy home-engineered circus bicycles, two fire-breathers, our flying circle- A with the 23-foot wingspan, and people giving out fortunecookies (in this case, vegan chocolate chip cookies in plastic baggies, each with a quoteof subversive implications from some “founding father” of the American revolution)and little fliers explicating anarchism. The peace march, being the only contingent inthe entire parade to take the year’s theme “celebrating our heroes” seriously, actuallywon a prize (“Best Use of Theme”)for their posters of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, andEmma Goldman. On the other hand, we anarchists unexpectedly turned out to be one ofthe most popular sections in the march, thanks to the liveliness of our approach. At onepoint, when I was carrying the pipe holding aloft one of its wings, a man in conservativedress there with his wife and child asked what the big A was for. “Anarchy,” I replied,and he nodded approvingly. After the parade, a street festival began at which we manneda table, giving out literature and recruiting for Food Not Bombs for the rest of the day.The next year, we participated again — and this time won “Best in Show,” of course.

Appendix: Noise Parades

Instructions

When you’re not interacting with an official city parade or a march called for by otheractivists, but you’re also not looking to provoke a confrontation with the powers thatbe, you can organize an event that isn’t illegal, strictly speaking, but still falls outsidethe bounds of the permissible and predictable. One of the models for such an event isthe “noise parade”: rather than fighting for the street, a group accepts the scant publicspace set aside for it, but transforms this space by means of entertaining or challengingsounds, visuals, theater, and so on. Such an action is bound to be fun at the very least,and can be good for starting conversations, achieving visibility, and startling slumberersfrom their ennui-induced sleep.

If such an event isn’t dosed to outside participation, it can engage passersby in transfiguring their own oppressive environments — e.g., a parade that goes up and down aboring teenage hang-out street until everyone has joined in. The absence of an explicitlypolitical message can often be a good thing — not everything we do has to be topical orreactive: it’s also important to be consistently present as a welcomed source of entertainment and good cheer.

Account

It was in the car on our way back from a Reclaim the Streets in Raleigh that a noiseparade was first suggested. “What can we do to shake things up?” Downtown Greensboro seemed the perfect canvas — a place designed for routine, for the soulless, lifelessexchange of capital, inhabited by robots, the businessmen and -women who’ve had alltheir creativity suppressed by a lifetime of bourgeois comfort and control.

So the idea was to create a breach, an interruption, by means of noise and costuming. To this end, we made elaborate noise devices; some were designed to be percussive, others to create droning, constant sounds. We made enormous, absurd costumeswith giant masks and metal frames; we devised bizarre uniforms and color-coordinatedprotest signs proclaiming nonsensical slogans. But our inventions and proclamationswere only instruments; the creative medium that really interested us was inside the onlookers. When we walked by and they said, “What the hell is that!?,“that would be ourpainting, that confusion our poetry, that curiosity, that disbelief, our sculpture.

And we couldn’t resist the opportunity to make demands. So we targeted the ownersof this town — the Jefferson Pilot Corporation, the only ones with enough resources tomake the necessary changes.

From the outset of the organizing, we realized that we needed a delicate balancebetween spontaneity and precise planning. We established an elite corps responsiblefor the planning, so the project would be focused and coordinated, and invited a largenumber of others — the “periphery” — to join at the last minute, bringing with them thefresh enthusiasm that can otherwise be destroyed by a month of weekly meetings.

The core group began meeting about a month and a half before the parade. Atour first meeting we established our responsibilities: which of us would make thesigns, who was in charge of costumes, and so forth. We chose a date for the parade,established a timetable for the coming meetings, and set deadlines. All our dates anddeadlines were pushed and pulled, of course, but we continued to meet weekly. TheSunday before the Thursday of our parade, we held a “stuff meeting,” and then a “final orientation” the night before. These last two meetings were more like art exhibitions than anything else, as our artists brought in their outlandish costume designsand noise instruments. We began to get excited, to feel like the event was actuallygoing to happen.

The periphery began taking shape less than a week before the parade. Most of thepeople involved didn’t come to a single meeting, they just showed up on Thursday morning, ready to make noise and get crazy. &/ noon, the preparation was over and the chaosbegan. We threw everything in the van and drove to the departure point downtown. Wedressed and got ready in the Food Not Bombs park, and set off down Elm Street around12:20 p.m.

All of us were dad in black choir robes that hung to the ground. A wore a backpackof percussion devices that jingled and boomed as she walked; one of them could be operated by a drawstring hanging before her. Mounted on J — ‘s shoulders was a geodesicdome that surrounded him to a radius of a few feet; a keyboard was built inside it forhim to play. I was blindfolded, playing a boviphonic ohm cannon (see Musical Instruments, pg. 383), with a camera on my head recording everything I did not see as a manin a gorilla mask led me through the streets. Three more of us bore an enormous drumon a stretcher. Others beat drums or brandished signs: “Just Married,” “You Can’t Pusha Rope, Nope,” “I Can’t Fly Either.” We had undercover agents planted in the lunch-rushmob, too: at one point, a man in conventional business-district attire leaped from thecrowd, shrieking, “Oh my god, what are you doing? What’s this about?” As the majority ofthe parade’s participants had not known this was planned, it made everything that muchmore intense for us as well as the onlookers. We maintained our monastic muteness, ofcourse, marching forward with only the cacophony of our instruments for an answer.

We paraded north into downtown, took a left on Friendly Avenue, and circled the block,arriving on the doorstep of the J.P. building on Market Street. We presented our ninety-five demands, which were printed on a Suzuki violin, and made our way back to the park.It was a quick in-and-out operation, lasting approximately 40 minutes, start to finish.

All in all, the parade was a great success. We got the reactions we wanted out of theshocked denizens of the business district, and in ourselves most of all- sweaty palms,pounding heartbeats, terror and exhilaration, tumult and exultation. There are thingswe could have improved on — better preparation, tighter marching formation, not forgetting the demands in the van and having to run back for them, and especially integrating the periphery more (bringing them in earlier?) so there would be no risk of anyonefeeling like a mere warm body in someone else’s project — but, overall, it was a good wayto challenge ourselves and escalate the tensions in Greensboro, maintaining the feelingthat something is happening.

Media, Independent

Why Do Media Yourself?

Creating your own media enables you to spread information without being censored ormisrepresented, freeing you and those you reach from dependence on corporate media.Independent media centers can be hubs of radical activity, drawing together otherwisedisparate groups and connecting the efforts of intrepid independent journalists. Anyonehas the potential to serve the public as a journalist, videographer, radio technician, computer technician, or photographer without going to expensive universities or speciallyschools. Stop waiting for the corporate media to cover your stories, and begin makingyour own media!

Ingredients

A GROUP OF ASPIRING ANTI CORP ORATE JOURNALISTS

Optional Ingredients

• Computer with internet access

• Video camera

• Video-editing software

• Digital camera or a scanner

• Microphone and audio tape recorder

Instructions

There’s Already Independent Media in My Town!

There may already be media outlets in your community that are independent to somedegree. While you can bet your bottom dollar that every nationally-affiliated news stationis utterly at the mercy of their corporate masters, there are often smaller venues thatmay have some integrity left. These can include public access TV channels, low-powercommunity radio stations, college radio stations, alternative websites, and local cultural,subcultural, and news magazines. Work out which stories they aren’t covering, and howyour independent media group could provide them with material no one else offers — local and global news from a revolutionary perspective, for instance. If there is already agroup working on radical media production, you may want to join their collective orat least build a relationship with them. Always welcome connections, and be on thelookout for new media activists and free or cheap equipment. At the same time, be warywhen considering joining an existing group; almost every established media institutionhas strings attached, just as almost every paid journalist has ulterior motives.

Becoming the Media

After checking out your local media scene, see if you can get a collective of radical mediaactivists together. As in all collectives, diversity is strength: in media work, a diversityof technical strengths and social backgrounds is a must. Media work can attract a widerange of people of differing ages and demographics — and beware, these people mayfight amongst themselves! One of the most difficult parts of working in your group maybe dealing with the wide variety of differing political beliefs and goals while keepingeveryone focused on productive activity.

It is essential for radicals to stick to their principles in media work. To protect yourgroup from being co-opted by liberal interests or internal hierarchies, be consistent inoperating by consensus and direct democracy and make a point of having no ties withthe corporate media.

Media Organizing and Focus

Many media groups use an open-membership collective model that allows anyone to attend meetings, present ideas, and participate in the production of media. These groupsoperate by consensus and encourage new individuals to join. Media affinity groups mayform for specific projects, such as covering an illegal direct action that cannot be announced in advance to the public or even to the rest of the media collective.

Once your group has gotten together, you will want to focus on your goals as a mediacollective. There are several options for making media: releasing information throughwebsites, producing videos for community screenings or public access television, producing newspapers and magazines, creating audio productions for pirate radio stations,low-power FM stations, even college radio. Anything is possible, provided your grouphas the time, proper organization, and skills or at least willingness to learn. Your groupshould discuss what equipment you can access, and what you will need to accomplishyour chosen projects. Always offer training to people who are interested in learning newskills: this will help to spread power and technical ability evenly both inside your groupand in the community around you.

Publicizing Your Media Outlet

It won’t matter how good your webpage or paper or videos are if people never see them.Especially at the beginning of your enterprise, you’ll do well to put as much energy intopromoting your news sources as you do into providing news through them. Peopleneed to be used to coming to them on a regular basis for information. Your long-termgoal may be to wean people off corporate media sources entirely, and if that’s the caseyou need to let the world know that you can offer everything the corporate media offersand more. Distribute your papers everywhere. Arrange for local establishments to carry them regularly, and get them into unexpected places, too (see Distribution, Tabling,and infoshops, pg. 210). Get other websites to link to yours, and put up stickers withits address everywhere. Promote showings of your videos, tying them to other eventsor making them into social gatherings with refreshments. Hold guerrilla showings inbusy public places, using a projector to show video or photos on the walls of buildings.Encourage activists who receive corporate press coverage to use it to direct people toindependent media coverage. Also, solicit constantly for people who might want to usethe means you provide to tell their own story, or make their own media.

Joining Indymedia

Indymedia is an example of an international media network. Much like Crimethlnc.,it is as much a brand name as it is an established body of media collectives; the mainadvantages it has to offer are the name recognition associated with its radical mediacenters and the opportunity to network with other media activists. The Indymedia network is composed of local Indymedia-affiliated Independent Media Centers (IMCs). AnIndependent Media Center operates by the principles of equality, decentralization, andlocal autonomy. If there’s no local Indymedia group you want to join, you can createone yourself. Provided that the collective agrees with the IMC Principles of Unity, ifyour group so wishes it can become part of the global Indymedia network. To join, youmust compose your own Mission Statement and Editorial Policy, which can easily beplagiarized from one of the hundreds of IMCs already out there, have representativesjoin various Indymedia communication email listservs, and set up a website. See www.indymedia.org for details.

Media Websites and Open Publishing

Starting a website is straightforward, provided that one person in your collective has acomputer with internet access. You do not personally have to be very skilled with computers; it is only necessary that you be willing to learn skills and ask people for help withyour problems. Free web space is available through various servers, including those ofIndymedia and other non-profit groups. You should use a fairly reliable server, with lotsof space if you’re doing video work or expect your site to be viewed during a major protest; you should have a backup site, preferably based in another country, in case government agents try to shut down your site. An obscure web server in a country like Vietnammay well just throw away letters from angry lawyers or foreign governments.

Just like the corporate news, a website should be updated constantly, providing up-to-the-minute coverage and interactive forums. Providing an open publishing newswire, aforum on which anyone can publish news and discussion, is one way to facilitate this.

Allowing anyone to post on the site enables Indymedia and similar sites to react morequickly than corporate news to events as they unfold. However, fascists, federal andcorporate agents, and other spammers may take advantage of the “open wire” to post toyour site. If your site is flooded with offensive posts, people who actually need to use itwill stop because they have to wade through so much filth to get to the news. The bestway to prevent this problem is to have a firm editorial policy banning racist, sexist, homophobic, and other rubbish from the site.

An open wire is not usually enough to get quality news coverage on your website; it helpsto have at least a couple of writers making a serious effort to report on events and issues.

Writing News Articles, Taking Photographs, Recording Audio

News articles should always cover the Who, What, When, and Where of an event first,and obey basic laws of grammar and spelling. It helps for them to be as concise as possible. This isn’t the corporate media, so you don’t have to be afraid to report some of yourpersonal experiences or opinions or to make articles exciting in other ways. Corporatenews definitely isn’t “objective,” and you shouldn’t pretend to be, either — be upfrontabout your stance, while avoiding rhetorical flourishes and rambling.

When it comes to getting good photographs, it helps to take as many as possible.Digital cameras are generally the easiest and cheapest cameras for this purpose. Takepictures from differing vantage points: get crowd shots, individual shots, shots of anything out of the ordinary. Take lighting into account, and aim for dean shots with thefaces at mid-level in the picture. All this goes double for video recording, and you alsohave to pay attention to your balance and steadiness in holding the camera. If you cankeep the camera in one place, consider using a tripod for extra stability. For audio recording, get the microphone as dose to each speaker as possible, and don’t be reluctantto tell an interviewee to pause if the audio tape is about to run out. With all electronicgadgetry, always check the batteries, and have replacements!

Video Editing

Getting into video production may seem difficult and expensive, but nowadays, thanksto new digital video cameras, non-linear editing systems, and public access television,almost anyone can begin to make their own videos. If you can find a good library, a col-lege media center wit h lax security, or a public access television channel, you can make avideo without a digital video camera, an expensive editing program, or even a computerof your own. The main obstacle to overcome is the large amount of space video takesup on a computer. Try getting an editing program from friends or off the internet; onceyou have a good one, learning to edit is not too difficult. If you complete a video, youcan hold public showings, book a tour around the country to show and speak about itin person, even syndicate it on an independent television station. All of these could alsofunction as fundraisers for your independent media center.

Public Access Television

Almost all communities have public access television stations that offer cheap or evenfree classes on video editing, television show production, and fieldwork. If your com-munity does not have a public access channel, find out who the local cable provider isand demand one. Many states have laws that force cable companies to provide public ac-cess channels for the communities they serve. Not only do public access channels offerclasses, once you have completed a basic course you can check out their equipment, usetheir video-editing suite, even sign up to host a live public access show.

Media Work at Direct Actions

Doing media work at direct actions is the lifeblood of many an independent mediajournalist, and it’s a thrilling and dangerous undertaking. It’s vital, since it’s often theonly way that news about a particular direct action will get out. If the direct action ishighly illegal and the participants want to remain anonymous, you will probably wantto remain anonymous as well, as any media work you do can tie you to the action. However, if you can upload your report and documentation from a computer that can’t betraced to you and isn’t watched by security cameras, you should be able to retain youranonymity. Be careful: if police or government agencies do investigate the action, theywill definitely make an effort to identify the person who sent out the communique orposted photographs. If the action is aboveground, on the other hand, you will probablyhave to compete with other news outlets — but if you are quick, you can break the newsfirst, and venues such as the open wire will provide an opportunity for radicals to telltheir own stories.

At any action, respect the desires of people who wish not to have their pictures takenor to be filmed or interviewed. Remember, many people rightfully want to hide theiridentities, at meetings and peaceful marches as well as during direct actions. Scuffleshave broken out before between black blocs and well-intentioned Indymedia reporters.It can be a good policy to keep your cameras aimed away from your comrades and at thepolice, as defensive weapons.

In the halcyon days before the Seattle World Trade Organization protests, a presspass and a video camera could often fool the police into mistaking you for a part of themedia establishment, but this is no longer the case: the police know very well that independent media are used by anarchists and other activists, and target independentmediaaccordingly. It is possible to rescue people from serious legal difficulties with the documentation provided by independentmedia work; it is also possible to document policebrutality, even get individual police punished or departments sued. Due to the possibility that footage will be used against them in court or on the corporate news, the policesometimes attack video camera operators and arrest media activists without provocationjust to get their hands on their videotapes or photographs and destroy them.

If you can afford it, insure your equipment against damages before any major protest,and always have a partner with you when you videotape. Change tapes often, giving footage to your partner to convey to a secure location. To help you see while videotaping,you can install on your camera a rearview mirror from a bike; to fool the cops, you canattach a dummy tape underneath the camera with Velcro. Wear a watch, and film yourwatch and road signs or other location markers frequently to show location and time ofspecific incidents. As in any direct action, know the area where you plan to shoot, andhave a safe getaway plan. You can put black electrical tape over the “record” light sopolice and other enemies can’t tell if you are shooting, but make sure you can still tell.For filming in sketchy situations, cut a camera hole in an old duffle bag. To get betteraudio, get a microphone that you can attach to your clothing. When in doubt, leave thecamera running. Have a press pass, a notebook, and a pen handy so you can give outyour contact details to people interestedin your footage, and keep a lawyer’s number onyou in case you’re arrested or hassled by the cops.

At large demonstrations, there is often an independent media center that provides internet access for posting reports and equipment for digitizing and editing video. Since theforces of darkness have realized that independent media serves as an important means ofcommunication, police often attempt to raid these centers. This makes it unwise to storeany video or equipment there. The same applies doubly for media work in internationalhotspots like Iraq or Palestine. Hide your media footage in clever places when crossingthrough military checkpoints or risking being stopped and searched. Speed is of the essence at these events: get your news and pictures out the day they were taken. If you editfootage for press releases and press conferences after an event, leave long shots to reassure viewers the footage has not been doctored. Cutting footage or adding in slow-motioneffects and music may make the news media reject your footage as “anarchist propaganda,” or get your evidence dropped from court proceedings. Always make copies of yourmasters and hide them in a safe place. Consult a lawyer before releasing controversialfootage. If it happens that you can sell footage to the news media, don’t let the evil corporations rip you off: learn their rates for purchasing video and use a standard contract.

Account

We arrived in Genoa a few days before the demonstrations were due to start, to help setup the Indyrnedia Center. I traveled in a tiny camper van with my friend Maria fromGermany. The border caused no problem — we told the border guards we were holidaying on the coast, giving each other a little knowing look. When we arrived in Genoa, theheavy police presence was immediately apparent.

The convergence center for the Genoa protests was being set up down near thebeach. At the stadium just a hundred yards away, there was a huge police headquarters. After wandering around for a while, we camped for the night parked out of sightbeside one of the big tents of the half-finished convergence center. In the morning,after meeting up with other groups, we made our way to the Indyrnedia Center situated in the Diaz School.

We found a place to stay in the Indyrnedia Center. The video room was fiil of technical equipment, but none of it seemed to be available for public use. Fortunately, twocomputers were “requisitioned’Trom other rooms and the neededvideo-editingsoftwareinstalled — although predictably one of the computers soon broke, never to work again.

Maria and I took to the streets to make the first report from the convergence center. Itwasn’t long before we were stopped and detained by a group of undercover police whilefilming. We were outside the main police accommodation stadium, which mysteriouslyhappened to be right next to the convergence center. We were held for a few hourswhile more undercover police arrived, until there were ten or twelve police and two carsaround us. They asked me for the tape in the camera, and I refused. They took downall our details and checked our passports — it became a bit nerve-racking. However, Isecretly filmed some of the secret police.

Maria recalls, “It was the first time I was in a big protest event like this, so I wasrather naive about what to expect... It felt like being suddenly inside a movie. Luckily,I found people explaining to me in detail what to expect from police during the day ofaction, how to deal with tear gas, and so on ... in that sense, the Indyrnedia Center wasa somewhat casual but rather helpful and warm place to be.”

We continuedto dodge around the streets, trying to filn the barrier being constructedthat would surround the G-8 leaders. We were stopped and detained twice, for an hourthe first time and nearly four hours the second time. Arguing with the police and attempting to exercise any civil rights proved fruitless. This was the first nagging Orwellian feeling that was reinforced over the week of demonstrations. The police were aState in themselves, and there was obviously no respect for the role of any other law intheir actions. Fear was starting to stalk the streets, encircling the meeting of the cabal ofworld power. All the same, we kept filming, to record the historic event.

Following a heavy day of rioting and police brutality, in which demonstrator CarloGiuliani was shot and killed. I headed back to the Indyrnedia Center. After the shooting,the tension was rising, along with paranoia about police repression. People began toleave both the Indyrnedia Center and Genoa. There was much discussion of what to do,but no firm consensus was reached. Many people made the decision to leave independently, to such an extent that at the Indyrnedia Center our numbers were cut in half asthe night wore on. More reports of police movements came in. Some protesters threwstones at a police car outside the IMC, which only heightened the tension and paranoia.We held a meeting to try to decide what to do with the video material and ourselves ifthe police did raid, which came to no conclusion. So Maria and I decided on our ownemergency plan: to hide out on the roof in a water tower.

At midnight, there were shouts that police were coming. I looked out the windowand was unable to see anything, but people started running around grabbing thingsand barricading doors. I ran to find Maria, and reminded her about the hiding place onthe roof I had checked out earlier. She grabbed the tapes and equipment and headedoff to the hiding place. Looking out a window, I could not see any police around thefront door, so I shouted this information to the people blockading the door, trying tocalm the situation.

I went up to the roof and filmed the carabinieri (Italian police) breaking into theschool building opposite our building. Things were getting out of hand across the street:a police van smashed through the front gate, and the police began breaking windowswith chairs and smashing down the doors with tables they found in the courtyard. Worried for my safety and for the safety of the video I had just recorded, I decided to headback downstairs to see if the police were coming after those of us in the IMC buildingas well.

Everything seemed calm down at the IMC. I wondered whether the police were going to invade this building. I decided to go further down and check. After two flightsof stairs, 1 turned a comer and came face to face with a policeman dressed in fill bodyarmor, his truncheon drawn, panting his way up the stairwell. I turned and flew up twoflights shouting, “They are in the building! “ I scrambled past the barricaded door to theIMC and up to the roof. Dodging the spotlight from the circling helicopter, I headedover to the window looking upon the water tower and lowered myself out, whispering,“Maria, it’s me.” No answer. Creeping in the darkness to the water tower, using only theinfrared beam of my camera to light my path, I made my way down through the corridorof water tanks. I kept whispering “Maria, are you there,” and started to panic that shewas not. A small and frightened voice finally said back to me, “Turn that light off.” Shewas hiding in the space behind the last water tank.

We waited. She had brought a bottle of water and supplies. We talked about what wewould do if the police came to our hiding place in the water tower. Would they come inand search?Would they throw tear gas in?Would they smash our equipmentand breakour bones? All of these possibilities were very real. Meanwhile, the helicopter circledvery low, its spotlight lighting up the water tower, the propellers shaking the building.

The screaming went for what seemed like hours. Maria remembers, “I was surethere were people being murdered. It was not just screaming in pain, it was screamingin fear of death. So I sat there waiting for my turn to scream. Then the noises mingledinto a frantic, maddening mixture of screams of fear, shouting of angry cries of “Assassini,” ambulance sirens, and helicopter motors just above our heads. Suddenly, wsheard noises of movement outside. Police were searching the roof. We kept very quietand still for nearly four hours. When the helicopter finally disappeared, we dared to exitthe warer rower.”

We met other survivors of the raid wandering across the rooftop in a daze. Crabbingour camera, we interviewed two English girls who had been in the Indyrnedia Center during the raid. Then we headed downstairs to survey the damage: doors smashedopen, computers dismembered, hard drives ripped out and monitors smashed. Acrossthe street, much worse was waiting. Blood covered the floor, congealing in puddles andsprayed upon walls. Trails of blood led into comers, clothes lav around in disarray, personal belongings covered the floor specked with bloodstains . Dazed people were searching through the piles as local reporters stood together in clumps. Up the stairs, bits ofskin and dumps of hair stuck to the walls along a trail of broken doors and hasty barricades. The police had ransacked cupboards and overturned desks, searching all theplaces where someone could have hidden. Heads had been bashed against walls and thesmeared bloody handprints left a distinct smell in the building. The carabinierihad lefttheir mark. We escaped with the footage of it all, and it spread all over the world.

Media, Mainstream

How to Write a Press Release and Talk to the Mainstream Media

Whatever your feelings about the mainstream press, chances are that sooner or later youwill be involved in something where you either want to draw or have drawn-desiring itor not — mainstream media attention. Once that happens, it’s not a question of how youfeel about participating in the society of the spectacle, but of how you will handle its attentions. It’s surprising that people will spend weeks setting up a Reclaim the Streets ora banner drop, will plan legal support, medical emergency support, escape routes, andeven the after-party, but will not do the basics to protect their control over the messagethey want to get out. Whether you like it or not, in the world of mainstream media it’sspin or be spun — or duck out of sight.

Ingredients

• Press contact list

• Dictionary or spell check

• Computer with internet access

• Fax machine

• An articulate and level-headed person to act as press liaison

Instructions

Know the Enemy

It is useful to bear in mind that the reporters you wi11 be dealing with are eerily like youin many ways. They don’t trust you; they are fully prepared to believe that you are lying;they hate to be told they can’t do something or go somewhere. They are persistent and ifneed be they will scam, lie, and charm their way to what they want. They’ve got axes togrind and their axes are by no means yours. Be forewarned.

Becalm the Media

The first questions any group should ask itself as it plans its approach to the media are: Do we want press attention? If so, why do we want press attention? and When do we wantpress attention?

Do we want press attention? A lot of actions are at base an attempt to manufacture news.If you are planning a demonstration, a Reclaim the Streets, an important Critical Mass,or a banner drop you may want to inaease its audience by drawing press attention — andeven if you don’t want to draw attention you probably will. By the same token, if youare doing something completely open and aboveboardthat makes you part of the widercommunity — setting up a free breakfast program, for instance, or opening a communityspace — you probably want people to h o w about it. On the other hand, however, thereare times — when you are, say, breaking into an abandoned building or holding an actioncamp in the middle of the woods — when you don’t want press attention and should eventake steps to guard against it. It’s best to h o w ahead of time which is which.

Why do we want press attention? The answers to this question may seem obvious untilpeople in the group start to talk about it, and then wildly different views may emerge.Some people feel that mainstream press attention helps to widen the circle and changepeople’s views; other people feel that the press is by definition manipulative and shouldbe treated as hostile and dangerous. Both are right, of course, but it saves a lot of troublewhen everyone in the group is telling essentially the same story. In preparingfor contactwith the press, make sure you understand at every step of the way what you want to getout of it, what benefit your project will gain from the attention. Chances are, the presswill be looking for the most sensational angle; you can decide whether you want to giveit to them. Say, for instance, you want people to h o w how angry you are about something: by all means mask up and yell. If, however, you are trying to get across a complexpoint about how IMF policies impact local migrant workers, it might be best not to wave Gainstmolotov cocktails and shout “Fuck you!”

When do we want press attention? The answers to this question can be broken down tobefore, during, and/or after.

Before: If you are planning a conference or big demonstration and are hoping for publicity ahead of time, it’s best to give the press at least two weeks notice; you may want tosend out a series of press releases and make some phone calls to keep interest up. Also,keep track of the deadlines for free events listings in local papers, and send stuff in whenit is appropriate. If a speaker or performer is coming to town, see if he or she might beavailable for a phone interview and make that offer to the press.

During: If you are planning a surprise action, you can send out a press release thenight before or early that morning ; if you think you might draw a brutal police response,it might not be a bad idea to have the TV cameras already rolling when the plastichandcuffs come out. If you draw police attention, the press is pretty sure to follow the action anyway, whether you invite them or not, so you should have a press statementreadyto hand out and a press liaison ready to answer questions and provide sound bites — thatis, unless you believe it really doesn’t matter what your action looks like in the news.

After: Once you are yesterday’s news, it is much more difficult to draw press attention, but there are times — an ongoing court case, for instance — when you might reallylike to stay in the headlines. Keep in touch with reporters who write sympathetic or atleast intelligent stories. Most especially keep up good relationships with the alternative press, who will often be much more receptive to covering something without waiting for a sensational news hook — that means alternative newspapers, public accessTV talk shows, Indymedia, low-powered FM community radio stations, and outletsthat serve a special community (African- American or Spanish-language newspapers,for instance).

Press Contact List

It’s worth the time it takes to put together a good press contact list and keep it current.Include on the list all the television stations, daily newspapers, weekly newspapers, anda selection of radio stations (especially NPR stations and college radio stations) in yourarea. Look in the yellow pages for listings, then check the websites of places you wantto reach. Most of them will have directions on how to send in press releases; put thephone numbers, fax numbers, and email addresses they provide on your list. Familiarize your self with daily newspapers, and note the names of reporters who cover the beatsthat might be useful to you (environmental, court reporting, etc.); look for regular columnists who might be interestedin the things you’re interested in. Newspaper websiteswill list email addresses and phone numbers for individual reporters and editors. If youcan’t find all the information you need online, call and ask.

The Press Release

Reporters get dozens of press releases every day. Yours will catch their attention if it isclear and easy to read and has something to say. Tiy to think like a journalist when youwrite your release: start with what, who, where, and when, and then give a clear andconcise why. Leave the inflammatoryrhetoric, wild unsupported claims, and angry rantsfor later-if you can’t entirely let them go, you can put them in as a direct quote. Here’sthe formula:

1. In the upper left-hand comer write for immediate release, and underneath writeany contact information you can give — name, phone number, email address, website.Leave this information off only if you want strict anonymity.

2. Give the release a title that sounds like a newspaper headline: CONFERENCE ONPOLICE BRUTALITY PLANNED FOR APRIL 3 Or PROTESTERS TARGET BIOTECH COMPANY. Keepit short, simple, and informative.

3. Load as much information as you can into the first paragraph: “Antiwar activistsfrom around the state will gather on the State House lawn on Saturday, February 15 toprotest the Bush administration’s policies in Iraq. The demonstration, which has beenendorsed by X, Y and Z, will begin at 10:00 a.m. and will include a march down MainStreet followed by an open forum. Organizers are predicting that the protest, part of aworldwide day of action, will draw a crowd of several thousand demonstrators ...”

4. Use the next few paragraphs for spin (try to keep the press release to one page ifyou can). This is where you build your argument, create context, and tell reporters whythey should care: “Hegemonic Industries, target of the protest, is the world’s third largest biotechnology company. It recently announced that it has developed a new strain of‘terminator seeds’ that it plans to market in Africa despite objections from an international coalition of small farmers. Terminator seeds, banned in Europe by the EuropeanUnion, have been called ‘a Pandora’s box; by the Council of Concerned People. ‘Hegemonic Industries is putting us on a slippery slope,’ said fctoy Wollstonecraft, a professor of biology at Local University and a member of the Council of Concerned People.‘The world’s food supply is not a plaything for irresponsible giants.’” Quote someonewho sounds like an expert if you possibly can — the quote itself doesn’t really even haveto make sense, so long as the quoted person has some credentials that apply to the situation. Note that credentials can be pretty flimsy if that’s all you’ve got — “long-time community activist,” “member of a local anti-police brutality group,” “dog owner.” There’sno explanation for why it works, but for some reason it does.

5. Stay away from outright lies, at least outright lies in which you can get caught, andunsupportable claims. If you promise reporters a major demonstration, then you’d bet-ter deliver a major demonstration — a dozen of your friends beating on plastic buckets isjust going to make them cranky. They may cover your protest on the nightly news, butthey’ll make you look like fools.

6. Check, double-check,and triple-check everything before you send your press releaseout. Make sure everythingis spelled correctly and that every sentence makes sense. Makesure you have included all the basic information of what, who, when, where, and why —and that you’ve gotten it right. Get someone else to read it before you click “send. ”

7. Most reporters accept email press releases, but in some cases you will just have tofax your release in. Important: If you are sending out a press release about a covert action,send it from a neutral computer, or most especially from a neutral fax machine (Kinko’shas fax machines; so do many truck stops). Faxes automatically include the phone numberfrom which they are sent; best not to have it be the phone number of your safe house.

Breaking News

So you’ve gotten the TV cameras to show up, and the newspaper reporters have their note-books out. Now what?This is where your level-headed press liaison comes in. Her job isto make the reporters’ job easy, but not too easy. The press liaison should have extra copiesof the press release, a printed statement that gives more informationif that is appropriate,and anything else that will keep the spin going in your direction. It is often helpful to haveagreed ahead of time who will be available for interviews and sound bites: you can’t stopreporters from talking to whomever they want, but you can certainly steer them towardthe more articulate and informed members of the group. The liaison should particularlykeep an eye out for reporters who seem to be singling out the youngest, angriest, or punkest people in the group — that’s a pretty clear signal that he or she is going to start the story:

“A small group of self-styled anarchists gathered at the courthouse today to make noiseand chant slogans. The group, part of the infamous Black Bloc, the organization creditedwith widespread violence at recent protests, was made up of mostly young people wearingdirty overalls and sporting a wide array of tattoos. While their message was unclear, theiranger was not: ‘This [expletive]sucks!’ shouted one masked protester, who gave his nameonly as Dogmeat. Police, who could have been performing heroic rescues elsewhere buthad to waste their time guarding the courthouse instead because a bunch of dirty, spoiled,middle-class white kids have too much time on their hands and don’t have to get a decent ^job as long as Daddy foots the bill, were commended for their restraint.” If it looks asthough that’s the way things are going, it’s perfectly OK: to go over and tell the reporterthat you have lined up an interview with a nun or a kindergarten teacher or a veteran ofthe Lincoln Brigade (obviously you should actually have done so!) and offer to escort himor her to where the interviewee is waiting. At all costs get him away from Dogmeat.

Be Interesting

A sound bite, whether it’s on videotape or in print, is just that: a very small forkful ofinformation. Your message won’t make it into print if it’s weighted down with grandiosegeneralities and meaningless statistics. Choose two or three points and stick with them,and present your points without shouting, crying, or swearing. At the same time, don’tfeel that you need to fill in the shades of gray — the victim of police brutality you arechampioning may indeed have been a bigamist or have passed a bad check, but it’s notyour job to point that out: the point you want to make is that he was unarmed and notcommitting a crime at the time he was shot. The biotechnology company you are target-ing may indeed fund community playgrounds, and the CEO may be a really nice guy,but that’s beside the point if they are putting fish genes in the tomatoes. You want to tella story that could be written on a 3”x5” index card; let the reporter dig up her own dirt.

Be Boring

On the other hand, there are times when you don’t want any press at all. If you look asthough you’ve got something to hide, if you act hostile, if you put your hand over the camera lens or give a reporter the finger, you’re only going to whet her appetite. Say you areat a convergence and an S W full of camera people and on-air reporters pulls up. This isthe moment when the press liaison puts on her other guise as someone so colorless anddull that the reporters lose interest and leave of their own accord. She should show herwillingness to answer questions, but give the most benign and long-winded answers shecan, sort of anti-sound bites. Slow the process down — ifthe reporters ask for access, thepress liaison (who dearly identifies herself as such and not a leader) says that your groupdoes not have a press policy yet and would have to decide that at a consensus meetingwhich won’t be held until the evening, but that she would be happy to answer questionsin the meantime. Treat inflammatory questions lightly and answer them with a friendlyhelpfulness. “Why yes, I know that some of the people here do identify as anarchists.Do you know the historical roots of the term ‘anarchism’? Well, ... If need be, answerthe question you wish the reporter asked, not the one he or she actually asked. Q: Whatare you people doing here? A: Our concern is with the spread of corporate globalization,which is destroying the environment and decimating Third World economies. Q: Areyou terrorists ?A: We are trying to spread our message through a series of puppet performances and music shows. In particular we support the efforts of indigenous people tocontrol access to water and native medicinal plants. Q: Who is the leader of your group?A: Our philosophyis based on the principles of consensus and non-hierarchical organizing. Q: Why won’t you let me come in and filmyour camp? A: We are here to expressour concern with the spread of corporate globalization, which is destroying the etc., etc.Remember you’ve got more to lose than the reporter does — all she has to do is make youangry and she’s got a story, but it’s not the story you want out there. Be boring.

Don’t Overlook the Obvious

Indy media: Most sites have an open wire where anyone can post stuff; many have cal-endars as well. Get to know members of the local Indymedia collective (or become oneyourself), and let them know what your group is up to.

Email: Rewrite your press release so it’s a little less dry, and send it out to everyoneyou can think of with the heading Please Forward And Post Widely. Don’t abuse yourfriends or your listservs, but take advantage of the technology whenever you can.

Links: Get your story on a website, or put up your own website, and get as many othersites to lirk to it as you can.

Mental Health

If you are experiencing a breakdown at this moment, skip to the section entitled “Crisis. “

It is important to break the silence surrounding the struggles many of us face with thestates of being commonly characterized as mania, depression, schizophrenia, panic disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. We need to establish networks of support andguidance for those who are suffering in these ways and are understandably distrustfulof the psychiatric industry.

There are no correct or incorrect ways to develop a healing process. My experience,like yours, validates itself. I do not claim to be an authority on these matters, nor doI believe in institutional diagnostic treatment for mental and emotional problems. Ihave lived and am living through what I write about, and I offer the strategies that havehelped facilitate my healing. Compare everything here to your own experience and seewhat resonates with you.

Instructions

Your Body

When I’m at my worst, I can’t feel my limbs. My skin goes to sleep; I only experiencesensation if I really concentrate. I totally separate my mind from my body. When I’min that place, I eat nothing but sugar, I never drink water, I seldom move, and I barelyeven notice — the lack of awareness just feeds itself So many people in our society livethis way. The behavioral patterns of self-neglect and dissociation from our bodies thatmany of us are taught from birth are reinforced by depression, and vice versa. We have66 to break these patterns. Our bodies need us ! We must come back to ourselves.

A reintegration of mind and body must be the first step in a healing process. Manyof us envision methods of healing consisting of hours of introspective writing, intimateconversations with trusted friends, crying, screaming, laughing, dancing, exorcismthrough art and music — but we can’t do any of these things if we don’t eat. And often,no one ever taught us how.

There has been a lot of research done about how different diets regulate neural-chemical and hormonal activity, and there are books in which you can read about this. Learning how to nourish your body is a conscious process that demands full-time commitment. It can actually be fun to look inward and notice how each different kind of foodmakes you feel — it’s a way to get to know yourselfthatmost people never think of trying.Your body has likes and dislikes, just as your mind does.

It can be difficult to meet all your nutritional needs through dumpster diving (seeDumpster Diving, pg. 219). One solution to this problem is government food assistance.Food stamps are issued and regulated by federal, state, and local governments; if you arein a low-income bracket, you are eligible for food assistance. If you live collectively, youcan get most of your produce through dumpstering or from local farmers (see Unemployment, pg. 576) t and have one person apply for food stamps to provide for the house’snutritional needs that can’t be served by other means. If this person exceeds the incomelimit and gets cut off, another person can take this role, or more than one person canand you will live with great bounty and much rejoicing.

A few more tips on eating. Don’t work for six hours, realize you haven’t eaten, andthen gorge yourself really fast. Don’t get famished, fill your belly, and fill it up again assoon as there’s a little room in it. It really is true what they say: multiple small servings,eaten slowly and chewed thoroughly. Extract every drop of nourishment from each bite.Don’t forget to make it taste good.

Another important way to re-inhabit your body is exercise. All you have to do is get yourheart rate up, break a sweat, and sustain it for twenty minutes. It doesn’t matter what youdo. You could take a hard bike ride, get a good pair of shoes and try some combmationof walking and running, dance alone in your room, go for a vigorous hike, play drums,whatever. You will have so much more physical, mental, and emotional energy you won’teven know what’s going on. For this reason, it’s probably best to do it first thing in themorning: it wakes you up, switches your system on, and gives you a feeling of vitality.

I can’t write about health and wellness without mentioning yoga. As a practice of being present in your body, yoga is indispensable. It retrains your entire system, correctsbad alignments, builds strength and flexibility, even teaches you how to breathe. Yogaschools often have free introductory classes, so you can learn a few postures and practiceat home. You can get books on yoga, but it’s best to learn from someone with a littleexperience, because if you learn a posture wrong and do it a lot you can seriously injureyourself. The principle of holism is a big part of yoga; it trains us to reintegrate body,mind, and spirit into one whole being.

One more thing about reintegration: if you work, try to find a job that allows you tobe outside using your body. Those of us who were brought up middle-class have beenconditioned to believe that mental work is for the evolved and physical work is for theunderlings. In addition to perpetuating class oppression, this belief encourages us to beeven less present in our bodies. You can build trails for the parks department; you cando freelance construction or painting or landscaping; you can work at organic farms orbe a migrant laborer. YouH learn your body’s Hits — believe it or not, most people neverdo! -and you’ll exhaust yourself, which can feel really good. Even if you have to be out inthe cold and the rain, it can feel more fulfilling than waiting tables, or making fancy coffeedrinks for rude yuppies, or selling your plasma. Please don’t sell your plasma. What agrotesque example of an exploitative industry literally sucking the life out of the poor!

I have only recently discovered the power of lists. Most people I have talked to about Listsmanaging depression have a really hard time just taking care of day-to-day tasks. Making a list of things I have to take care of really helps everything seem less overwhelming.Get one of those little writing pads and carry it with you wherever you go. Make a “todo” list each week. When you finish an item on the list, put a line through it — this is sogratifying. If you don’t get everything on your list taken care of, just transfer the leftoversto the next list, but take the time to make a fresh list every week. If I look too much at alist I can never seem to finish, it makes me feel more depressed. It reinforces my beliefthat I can’t ever get my act together, and then, of course, that belief manifests itself inreality. The notepad itself is a great tool. You can also use it to write down those crazyideas and fleeting fantasies you dream up when you’re gardening or working or walking around in the rain. You can use it to write haikus about that suicidal squirrel thatalways waits until a car is about to come before it darts across the street with an acorn inits mouth. You can draw little sketches of all the weird people on the bus. After a whileit becomes a really familiar and reliable way to interact with your environment and bepresent in your lived experience.

More on lists: write down everything you can think of that is beautiful, that makes youfeel alive, or that you simply like. It’s so easy for us to forgetthese things when we’re in ourlows, and just naming them can help bring them back into our lives. Here are a few of thethings on my list: moments of total silence on a aty street; freshly opened lilacs; the smellof old books; drinking water when I’m really thirsty; cobalt blue glass; really good letters;the color of my skin under a full moon; wind; the color green, deep, deep green; cool velveton my ears and cheeks; the smell of sheep; fresh, dean socks. This is the comfort food ofmy life and I had more or less forgotten about it, all of it, until I wrote it all down.

In addition to the list of things to live for, compose a list of actions you know will help ^to pull you out if you’re in a bad way. This could include anything from taking a walkaround your neighborhood to eating a good meal or spending time with your dog. Givecopies of this list to your close friends, so they have some idea of how to help you whenyou’re in trouble. Another good tool to give to trusted allies is a list of warning signsthat you’re having a hard time. These could be subtle, like circles around your eyes fromlack of sleep, or they could be blatant, such as not leaving your bedroom for days. Evenif these symptoms seem obvious to you, it’s important that you identify them to yourfriends, so they’ll know to come to your aid when they first start to appear.

There is one more list that you cannot do without: a list of the people you vfll contactwhen you are having a hard time. Compose this list when you’re in a relatively levelheadspace; if you try to do it when panic is asphyxiating you or you’re paralyzed bydepression, you will have a very hard time thinking of anyone, and this will make youfeel ten times worse. Keep this list accessible — laminate it with packing tape and stickit to your phone or bathroom mirror, make a few copies in case you lose one. Even if itdoesn’t sound important now, believe me, it will be.

Create!

This almost goes without saying, but people who struggle with depression or other mental and emotional challenges can be gifted with tremendous creative energy. Perhapswhen everything else seems totally out of control, people naturally gravitate to thosethings that can still be given order: words, notes, colors, shapes. When you are havinga hard time, focusing on creative pursuits can be tremendously therapeutic. If you canshift your concentration from your feelings of panic and paralysis to arrangements oflanguage, sound, image, or movement that express these feelings, this can enable youto regain your balance and your agency. Don’t force this, or let your self-image come tohinge on your creative production — everyone gets writer’s block, everyone experiencesat Heafth different phases of creativity — but don’t underestimate its power, either.

Crisis

This is the best method I can think of to deal with a panic attack or similar situation. Itis what I wish someone had told me to txy when I was collapsing under the weight offear and despair:

1) Breathe. Put your right hand on your belly and breathe into it deeply, feeling it expand. Now exhale for twice as long as you inhale. Count the seconds if you like. This willbring your heart rate to a steady pace and will keep your system from getting overloadedwith oxygen. Repeat this process. Stay conscious of your breathing. Remember: if you’restill breathing, you’re still alive.

2) If you are not at home, if you are at a show or a restaurant or are traveling and arein common space at a stranger’s house, quietly leave the room. When there are lots ofpeople around me and I feel the way you’re feeling, it generally makes it worse. If you’rewith a friend, ask them to come with you; if you’re alone, that’s OK, too. Go out to theyard or into an empty room, perhaps the bathroom, somewhere you won’t attract a lotof attention and where you are not in physical danger. Don’t move very far. Don’t crossany streets.

3) Now, come back to your body. You might not be able to feel your limbs, or your skineither. This is a reasonable response to fear, but returning awareness to your body willdo a lot to make you feel safe. If you have someone you trust dose by, ask them to holdyou, very gently. Focus on their arms supporting you, keeping you safe. If you’re alone,wrap your own arms around yourself.
Sit down somewhere, a soft place if you can find one, and slowly, gently, rock backand forth. Your body remembers this from when you were a baby and it will comfort younow just like it did then. Keep breathing, exhaling twice as long as you inhale.
If you are still feeling disconnected from your body, dose your eyes and imagine youare filling yourself back up again. Imagine a warm, white light pouring into your feetand filling you up, moving through your legs, up your torso, into your shoulders — keepbreathing — down your arms and into your hands, up your neck, into your face, all theway up to the top of your head. Now you are full. Rock gently back and forth until therhythm naturally slows itself, until you are still and safe. Keep breathing, exhaling twiceas long as you inhale.

4) If you’re alone and still having a really hard time, find your list of people to callwhen you feel like this. If one does answer, call the next person, and then the nextone. Go down the list, all the way down and back up to the top if necessary, until youreach someone. Tell them exactly what’s going on with you.

5) Don’t fight it. I cannot stress enough that the only way to get through difficultfeelings is to let yourself feel them. Trying desperately to hold at bay everything raginginside you will only intensify the storm. You must move through these feelings. Don’tdeny the experience, acknowledge it for what it is. Name it: “I feel really scared rightnow,” “I feel like the walls are dosing in on me,” “I feel like I’m sinking.”
And just hang out with it. Don’t let it consume you, don’t let it be everything that youare. Recognize it for what it is, a feeling, and then let it move through you. Soften intoit and be with it and it wi11 pass through ten times more quickly and cleanly than if youclench onto it.

If You’re Experiencing a Breakdown

If something in your life causes you to experience an emotional or biochemical shift,or the memory of a serious trauma begins to be released, the result can be emotionalfragility, deep depression,and generalized anxiety and suspicion. If you are undergoingthis, you may feel as though you are falling apart.

The aforementioned guidelines can help you maintain your overall health and wellbeing, and can bring you to a better understanding of your natural rhythms and cycles.At the same time, it can also be unhealthy to focus all your energy on preventing yourself from experiencing a breakdown.

People come undone sometimes; this is inevitable and natural. Decomposition is avital process in the cycle of life: everything falls, returns to the soil, is broken down, andbecomes a part of life’s renewal. We are no different — this pattern repeats itself over andover again throughout our lives.

This might sound absurd, but there’s a certain skill to falling apart — it is possible todo so gracefully and with care. This is not to suggest that the process of unraveling canbe painless or easy, or that you should be able to keep your life from becoming a messwhen you’re going through it; but there are ways to come undone without losing sightof your needs or those of others.

It is your responsibility first and foremost to be honest and real about what is goingon with you. You may not know why you feel the way you do, but that isn’t the most important question. What you can know, and must always try to acknowledge to yourself,is what you are feeling. Really try to be inside the feelings that you have. I’m not talkingabout developing a romantic attachment to craziness, inhibiting your ability and willingness to heal. I’m talking about eroding the resistance you have to feeling what youfeel. I really believe it isn’t depression itself that wrecks people’s lives, but rather theirresponses to it: their fear of it, their unwillingness to deal with it and the problems itcreates. Be honest with yourself.

The second task is to reach out to others. You may have already worked out an agreement with your trusted friends or housemates that they will act as support people foryou when a situation like this arises. It is crucial that you have more than one personsupporting you, especially if you are living with a romantic partner. It can be easy todevelop patterns of insularity and dependence with a partner when times get tough,and if you put the entire weight of your recovery on one companion it can destroy therelationship, romantic or not. This stuff is hard work for everyone involved; don’t forgetthat your supporters are going to need to support each other, too.

If you made lists of warning signs that you’re not doing well and ways to help you feelbetter, these can be very helpful. When thiigs are especially hard, it may be necessaryfor your supporters to be there for you around the dock. You must not refuse their help,even if it seems like they’re making sacrifices for you — you’d do the same for them,wouldn’t you?

It’s just as vital that you be honest with your friends as it is that you be honest withyourself. Let them how what you’re experiencing, how you feel, and the way their actions make you feel. If they’re being patronizing, let them how. They have made acommitment to support you, and any feedback you can give them will make the processeasier for everyone. If you aren’t able to talk, or if you really just need to be alone, try toexpress this to your supporters as best you can. Don’t reproach yourself for not pullingyour weight, or tell yourself you’re being a bad friend. Forgive yourself — you haven’tdone anything wrong by feeling this way. You have to focus on getting through this, andthat may be hard work enough.

The capitalist machine does not permit those inside it to break down, ever. If someone does, they are ejected from its ranks and excreted into a psych ward or a welfareline or some other prison. As anarchists, we should be working to create a world inwhich people are allowed to fall apart when they need to. If you are in a situation inwhich you are falling apart and you feel you are being emotionally neglected or shut offby the people who are supposed to be your supporters, if you have made it dear thatyou’re going through something really serious and they are still not giving you the support you need, look for it somewhere else as soon as you can. You might want to stay ata friend’s house or with family for a while until you have built up your strength a little.If you remain in a bad situation when you are experiencinga breakdown, it can prolongthe process and worsen the pain. You owe it to yourself to get through this smoothlyand without guilt or resentment.

Try to see your experience as something necessary and natural, as a kind of wake-upcall, an opportunity to make positive, fundamental changes in the way you live your life.After all, it takes a total annihilation to find out what is truly indestructible. Ask for whatyou need. Be honest. Let yourself feel it. You will make it through this.

As a supporter, the most vital tool available to you is empathy. Try to bring yourself backto a time when you were struggling like your friend is struggling now. Remember howit feels to need support. You will need patience, and a dear idea of what you can andcannot do, which you must communicate to your friend.

It can get really hard and really scary; there will be times when you don’t know whatto do, or if there is anything you can do to help this person you care about so much. Doyour support work in a team — this is the best way to preserve your own mental health,and it relieves a lot of pressure. YouH need breaks from the whirlwind, and time for caring for yourself. Meet with the other supporters and check in with each other: updateone another on developments, discuss things that need to change. It can really help tobe organized about this.

If You Are Supporting a Friend

As a supporter, some of your responsibilities might include getting your friend to eat,go outside, get enough sleep, and take care of himself in other simple ways. A personwho is living through a breakdown can’t be expected to have healthy habits; as healthyhabits will help him get through this, you might have to be the one to initiate and insiston them, at least in the beginning. If your friend has made cards with advice on howto pull him out of despair, use them. You may need to take the initiative in getting yourfriend to see his counselor or go to yoga class. If he is on medication, make sure he takeshis drugs at regular times each day; if he runs out, you may have to make an appointment with a psychiatristfor him. Approach his family or a friend who’s known him foryears and ask how they’ve dealt with situations like this in the past.

It is not appropriate for you to try to fix your friend — don’t take away his agency likethat. He has to fix himself, that’s why he’s falling apart in the first place. As a supporter,it is your job to create a safe environment for your friend to experience what he needsto, not to make his problems go away.

Try to restrain yourself from judgment. Focus on your empathy, no matter how hardit gets. When things are difficult, remind yourself of your love for this person, of everything he gives you when he is well enough to give. At the same time, be careful not tooverextend yourself You will do yourself, the person you’re supporting, and everyoneelse in your life a disservice if you take on more than you can handle. The part you playin his well-being should be a gift you give, not a burden you shoulder. Stay open and behonest, with yourself and everyone else, about your needs and limits. Keep the lines ofcommunication open, especially if you’re nearing the end of your rope.

Medication

This is a very sensitive subject among people dealing with these problems, particularlythose of us who have been through the psychiatric system. Some feel that psychoactivedrugs are purely an oppressive tool of the State, others have no doubt they would havekilled themselves had they not gone on medication, and are grateful for it; still othersreject the idea that they need drugs to maintain mental clarity and emotional stability,while acknowledging the ways drugs have helped them reclaim their lives. It’s a complex issue, one best not portrayed in black and white terms.

It’s true that psychoactive drugs are the first card drawn by the mental health industry, and often are seen as a suitable replacement for therapy, lifestyle changes, and otherforms of healing. This is typical of the tendency in Western medicine to treat only symptoms, not addressing the root causes of problems. Many drugs can cause side effects:emotional numbness, liver problems, nausea, insomnia, fatigue. Every individual’s response to a given drug is unique.

I believe medication is a potent tool to be used when appropriate and then discardedwhen no longer needed. The thing is, you have to work on healingif you ever want to getoff medication. I’ve been told repeatedly by therapists and psychiatrists that I am like adiabetic in that my brain doesn’t produce certain chemicals I need to survive, so if I stoptaking my medication the result will be the same as for a diabetic who stops taking insulin: I will die. Now that I have met people (includinga diabetic, by the way!) who haveused nutrition and a conscious lifestyle to regulate their various chemical imbalances, Iknow that it is possible to live without my drugs, and am developing a program to endmy dependence upon them.

No one is entirely sure how most psychoactive dmgs work. Psychiatrists will tell you,for example, that some regulate the levels of serotonin in your brain; how, they don’tknow. One thing I can tell you from personal experience is that the drugs called SSRIs(Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors) are bad news. They have a way of deadening people, whitewashing their emotions, drastically altering their personalities. Theireffects are very hard to predict. A few of the most common SSRIs are Prozac, Celexa,Zoloft, Effexor, Lexapro, and Paxil (which has a page-long list of side effects and withdrawal symptoms, including” electric-feeling shocks throughout the body” and “scratching sounds within one’s head”). Keep in mind that almost every name-brand drug alsohas at least one generic version, so if you’re being prescribed medication be sure to askyour doctor if the drug is an SSRI. If it is, ask for something else.

Wellbutrin has worked really well for me when I’ve needed it. It’s not an SSRI and itdoesn’t numb me or sap my energy the way Prozac did. I liken it to a pair of water wings:it keeps me afloat just enough to prevent me from drowning, and I have to do the restof the work on my own. If I’m taking my medication, I don’t have to worry that I’m going to collapse on the floor thinking the walls are closing in on me, or hear voices in myhead telling me to kill my lover, or become consumed by a delusional panic, certain thatat any moment I’m going to die and anyone who touches me will die too. It took feelingthings like that every day for a few weeks for me to agree to go back on my medication,just to stabilize. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. It came from a place ofself-preservation, the closest I could get to self-esteem.

I’ve been on Wellbutrin for a little over a year now, and have experienced no sideeffects. I still get depressed, I still feel all my emotions. The difference is that instead offocusing all my energy on desperately keeping myself alive, I can step back, just a littlebit, and allow myself to live.

So how do anarchists with no money get prescription drugs? I can think of a fewways. The first is to ask a trusted supporter who has a job that provides health insuranceif she will help you hoodwink a psychiatrist. Get to know the details of her coverageand make sure the company will pay for psychoactive drugs before you do anythingelse. Youll need to know how much the deductible is (how much your agent will haveto pay the doctor or pharmacist before the insurance company picks up the bill), andhave this money available. Send your agent, insurance card in hand, to a psychiatristor psychopharmacologist to report that she has been having problems. For all intentsand purposes, she will be impersonatingyou. Coach your agent in advance about whatkinds of problems you are having, including how much sleep you’ve been getting, howyour moods have been fluctuating, what emotions you’ve been feeling, what you’ve beeneating and how much, how you’ve been behaving socially, how well you’ve been able toconcentrate, how you’ve been performing in a work environment, and how long thishas been going on. You need a pretty specific set of circumstances to pull this off; it maysound far-fetched, but I know it can work because it’s what I do to get my medicine.

Another idea is to get on Medicaid, or whatever public health plan is available in yourstate, assuming any are. You might be able to get help at a free clinic or communitymental health center. If none of these resources are available to you, public hospitalshave psychiatric walk-in clinics and emergency rooms (see Health Care, pg. 275). andsome have crisis teams who will send a social worker or psychiatrist to your home.

Counseling

I believe in counseling because I believe in teachers and healers, and these are the rolesserved by a good counselor. It is strange to have a person in your life with whom youshare the most intimate details of your life, to whom you expose the most frightenedand broken and cruel places inside you, but with whom you have no outside socialcontact whatsoever. However, this can make the work you do together feel safer thanit would if you were confiding in a friend. There are things I can talk about with mycounselor, suicide being an example, that would be too loaded to discuss with many ofmy friends or any of my family. The sense of responsibility! s different than in other relationships: if you stand up your counselor, you are not letting her down, only yourself.The relationship is entirely focused on you and your healing, so you don’t have to fearthat you are demanding too much.

My counselor is an amazing person. She listens to me, really listens. She doesn’t letme get away with anything, but she never makes me feel attacked or violated. She’s aqueer mother who identified as an anarchist before I was even born! And she’s connected to an entire community of healers and old-school activists that I never even hewexisted. She works on a sliding scale, as many good counselors will, and has a reallysharp critique of the psychiatric industry and all its exploitative tendencies — and shetreats me with respect, as a peer.

In this society, we’re never taught how to care for ourselves physically, mentally,emotionally, or spiritually. Healing is a skill we have to learn. We can wing it, teachingourselves as so many anarchist musicians and bike mechanics have, but the stakes arehigher. For those of us who suffer from serious chemical imbalances like manic depression, or are trying to recover from intense traumas like sexual abuse, the risks wetake when we strike out on our own as if we already know how to heal wounds this deepare serious indeed. Counseling can equip us with tools to use in our own self-guidedhealing processes.

Accept Yourself

Here’s a crazy idea: what if all your problems, your manias and phobias and dysfunctions, are actually natural, healthy reactions to a manic, paranoid, dysfunctional world?What if you are not messed up after all, but totally normal, and the hard things youare feeling are exactly what you are supposed to be feeling under these circumstances?Instead of thinking of yourself as a broken thing that needs fixing, consider what ahealthy person would do if he or she were feeling this way. Rather than enthroningyour problems as permanent fixtures in your life, accepting yourself can actually helpyou feel more capable of self-determination and transformation. Besides, who saysthat everyone has to be the same to be healthy, that mental health is a one-dimensionalstandard by which everyone can be judged?The idea that you are flawed, that you arecrazy whiie everybody else is sane, can be paralyzing; it also sounds suspiciously likecapitalist propaganda.

Talk of so-called self-improvement can reinforce the feeling, so prevalent in this society, that who we are and what we have is never enough. It’s possible to become obsessed to an unhealthy degree with taking better care of yourself, being in better physical shape, doing better introspective work, becoming a better communicator. The harderyou press yourself, the further these ideals seem to recede before you. As in dieting andbodybuilding, the pursuit of perfect mental health can degenerate into self-abuse.

Just as writers, painters, and musicians experience creative blocks, all of us havetimes when we feel lost and jaded. Everything waxes and wanes; that natural patterngoverns our lives just as it does the moon and ocean. If you feel stagnant, the worstthing you can do is dwell on your perceived insufficienaesutil you have entrenchedyourself in total hopelessness. When something isn’t working, don’t beat yourself upabout it; accept that it’s not working for the time being, and focus on something else.

Sometimes the most healing thing you can do is simply be still, be present and in yourbody without any goals or intentions or pressures. Through the eyes of our competitiveculture, this can look like indolence, but in truth, it’s impossible to do nothing. Even ifyou’re lying down, not thinking or hatching plans or dreaming, things are still shiingand growing inside you. Sometimes what you need is to regenerate, to let yourself restand revive, and this can be as conscious a process as yoga or therapy or writing.

The Healing Revolution

Ultimately, mental health, like freedom, desire, culture, and everything else, is not produced individually, but by entire civilizations. No one can be wholly sane in an insaneworld. Discussion of mental health should not be limited to those who identify as mentally ill: it concerns all of us, for everyone is crazy to some extent. Treating mental healthissues as identity politics, as if it were only a question of how the “normal” majorityshould take care of the mad minority, creates a false dichotomy; in truth, we all canbenefit from self-care and self-healing.

If any of us are to heal, we have to heal our damaged, destructive society. Still, justas it can be unhealthy to fixate on self-improvement, we have to be careful to providefor our own emotional health and well-being in the process of fighting the system thatundermines these. Capitalism is characterized by an inhuman emphasis on productivity and efficiency; naturally, we internalize this, and it infests our personal lives anddreams and political projects. Overworking ourselves in our struggles to abolish work,disregarding each other’s needs in the heat of our battles against the heartless establishment, we replicate the virus of self-destructionin our efforts to eradicate it.

Revolution is fought on two fronts, one outside, one inside. We won’t be able to overthrow capitalist! util we heal ourselves and each other, and we won’t be able to finishhealing ourselves and each other without overthrowing capitalism. Don’t mistake thestruggle in the streets for the only struggle, or misunderstand the time we must take tonurture ourselves and one another as a distraction from i t Healing is a form of revolution, just as revolution is a forift of healing, and doing what it takes to heal yourself canbe truly revolutionary.

Musical Instruments

Seizing the means of production doesn’t just entail occupying the factories; it alsomeans getting familiar with the more modest machines that produce our living environments, like musical instruments. Nothing liberates you from the dictates of a giventechnology like learning how it works and reworking it. You can make your own drums,didgeridoos, upright basses, and drum machines, not to mention instruments not yetinvented — and when you do, please let us know, so we can compare notes. Here are justa few examples of our latest discoveries in the field.

Boviphonic Ohm Cannon

We reverse-engineered this holy terror from a children’s toy. The toy said “tweet, tweet!”Someone at the lab accidentally dropped a decimal point and now it says “MOO, MOO.”If you can use it as a musical instrument, you are possessed of pure genius. However,anyone in the world can use a boviphonic ohm cannon to make raucous bass blasts ca-pable of calling cows (no shit!), rupturing internal organs (uh, not really),and adding alovely ambiance to any public gathering.

This recipe is extremely forgiving. Alter any measurements you want. Any alterationwill produce different tones and notes.

Ingredients

• Plastic or sturdy cardboard tubes — The length determines the pitch (the longer thetube, the lower the note), the diameter determines tone. We’ve used tubes anywherefrom 1 to 4 inches in diameter and 1 to 16 feet long.

• Steel can — Food cans work well. The diameter of your can must be slightly smaller than that of your tube.

• Plastic bucket — The bucket should be sturdy. Its diameter needs to be at least four inches bigger than that of the tube you have selected.

• Plastic film — Almost any plastic works, as long as it doesn’t have holes: try tarps, drop cloths, grocery bags, garbage bags. Some plastics last longer than others, and each will make a different tone. Plastics that are not stretchy, such as acetate, sound particularly nice and last long.

• Steel strapping — This is the stuff that is used to strap pallets of bricks. You can find iton construction sites, or just ask for some at a lumberyard.

Instructions

Cut a hole in the bottom of the bucket. Using pliers to hold the can, heat the rim, whichmust be of slightly smaller diameter than your tube, over a gas stove or propane torchuntil it glows bright red. Use the can to melt through the bottom of the bucket. If youfail to melt a11 the way through, you can finish the job width an X-acto knife.

Shove the tube through the hole. It should fit tightly. The purpose of this is to create areasonably tight seal between the bucket and tube that will still allow you to move thetube back and forth. If it is too tight, use the side of a razor blade to scrape the inside ofthe hole to the proper size. If the hole is slightly too large, wrap the area to be sealed withplastic packing tape until the joint is smooth and snug.

Add stabilizers. Push the tube through the bucket, so you can work on the end withoutthe bucket getting in the way. Using the tin snips, cut three lengths of the steel strap.The straps will keep the tube centered in the bucket while allowing it to slide a fewinches forward and back; accordingly, each strip should be long enough to span fromthe outer wall of the tube to the inner wall of the bucket, with a few extra inches so it canbe bent and attached at both ends.

Attach the straps to the tube. The straps should be spaced evenly around the tube.Screw or rivet the straps in place on the tube, then bend the straps out like spokes. Nowmake another go-degree bend in the straps where the tube reaches the inside of thebucket, so you have tabs to fasten the straps to the bucket.

Attach the straps to the inside of the bucket. Push the tube back so the end of the tube iseven with the mouth of the bucket. The straps can be attached to the inside with rivetsor screws. Drill the appropriate-sized holes through the bucket, and use them to fastenthe straps {figure 13.1). Work from the outside of the bucket, so the outside remains assmooth as possible. The stabilizers make the boviphone more reliable and allow you toget cleaner, brighter notes, but they are not absolutely necessary.

Install sandpaper. Glue strips of sandpaper to the outside of the top of the bucket, withthe abrasive side facing out; it is best to rough up the plastic surface before gluing. Thesandpaper provides friction that will help keep the plastic skin tight. Wait for the glue todry thoroughly before applying any stress.

Drill a blowhole. You can either cut a hole with an X-acto knife or use a drill. A one-inch hole will do nicely.

Make straps. Cut the inner tubes and tie them into two bands that fit very tightlyaround the top of the bucket. Do not put them on yet.

Add the plastic skin. First, make sure the end of the tube is even with the mouth of thebucket. Cut a piece of plastic that is about a foot larger than the diameter of your bucket.

Place the plastic over the end of the bucket. Fold the plastic over the bucket, then add therubber straps. The plastic should be held tightly between the straps and the sandpaper.Adjust the plastic so that it is flat and tight across the mouth of the bucket. Now gentlypush the tube forward so that the end of the tube seals tightly against the plastic skin{figure 132).

Put your mouth to the blowhole and blow hard!

Tips

To produce lower notes, add length to the tube — but be warned, the longer your tube,the more air it takes to create and sustain a note. If you go low enough, use a foot pump,vacuum cleaner, or electric leaf blower to provide airflow. If you have access to a car, connect the exhaust pipe to the blowhole ... my friend, you will not be disappointed! If yourplastic gives out when you use powered blowers, experiment with something tougher:blue tarp material, acetate, or rubberized fabric.

Two-by-Four Marimba

This is an easy-to-make, loud, tonal percussion instrument, perfect for parades, rock bands, and your Mad Max junkyard percussion kit.

Ingredients

• A two-by-four

• String

• Foam rubber

• Drill

• Band saw — you can substitute a reciprocating saw like a Sawzall or a bayonet saw, but theblade needs to be longer than the width of a two-by-four (which is, of course, 3.5”)

Instructions

Cut the two-by-four into different sizes, ranging from a foot to two feet long.

Use the saw to remove the middle of the underside of the board. Depending on thelength of your two-by-four, leave two to four inches of unmodified board on either side33s of the chunk you remove. This should leave your two-by-four flat on top and curvedunderneath, looking like a bridge. Repeat this process with each of your lengths of two-by-four. These are your keys.

Drill a horizontal hole across the end of each key. The hole should be big enough forstring to pass through.

Place the keys on the foam rubber in the order you want them. Sew each one in placeby passing the string up through the bottom of the foam, through the end of a key, thenback into the foam. Leave the string loose; the keys should be able to slide around on thefoam a bit.

Bang on your marimba with sawed-off broom handles.

When fixed to a surface, these little discs turn vibrations into a tiny signal that can beamplified by guitar amplifiers and PA systems. Tape them to your temples when youare eating. Glue one to the bridge of your acoustic guitar or bass. Swallow one and letthe wires run out of your mouth to your amp while you digest this book. Stick one to asmall, quiet percussion device.

Piezo Buzzer — You have most likely seen these things before. They are thin and flatbrass discs about the size of a quarter. Ycu see them inside telephones, where they actas speakers, microphones, and ringers; they also serve as speakers for musical greetingcards. If you can’t scavenge one, it is best to order them. Radio Shack offers a wideassortment of them, but they all come encased in a plastic housing that is hard to openwithout causing damage; these also have an unnecessary circuit board attached.

1/4” jack — These can usually be scavenged from old guitars, stereo equipment, deadamps, mixers, or similar musical equipment — basically anything that uses guitarcords or 1/4” headphone jacks. They can also be found at electronics stores.

Piezo Buzzer: Contact Microphone

Ingredients

• Flux-core solder — thin solid-core solder with an electronics fhx paste will also work

• Insulated wire — Stranded is better than solid wire because it is more flexible and easier to solder. Thinner is better; don’t go too much thicker than the wires that are inside telephone cords.

• Soldering iron

Instructions

If the piezo buzzer comes with its own wires already on, solder these wires to the twoleads of your 1/4” jack. If you have a piezo disc that has no leads, strip the ends of twowires and solder them to the two contact points that ought to be obvious on the disc.Solder quickly, avoiding heating up the disc too much. Discs are really delicate — you canexpect to ruin a few before you get the hang of this.

Mount both disc and jack securely to the item that is to be amplified. It is best toglue the disc directly on a surface. If that is impossible, use a tight rubber band. It isimportant to attach the mic firmly it will pick up its own rattling if it isn’t secure. Attach your jack securely to a place where it will not interfere with vibrations. Plug the1/4” instrument cable into your device and an amplifier of some sort, and you shouldbe in business.

Piezo pickups are extremely sensitive. The signal is very crisp and tinny, so you maywant to play around with the EQ. When you get it sounding sweet, turn the little “mastervolume” knob on the front of the amp up to eleven and make friends and enemies danceand give up, respectively.

This bow will work on most any stringed instrument, cymbal, or musical saw, and isexceptionally easy to make.

Instrument Bow

Ingredients

• Glue

• A Wood File

• Drill

• A thin, flexible piece of wood the length of the bow you want

• A spool of thin monofilament fishing line

Some dry pinbsap for rosin — I get mine from a building downtown where a hugepine board perpetually leaks sap; you can also spot it bubbling from wounds in livingpines. You want it to be a bit sun-dried, not runny or sticky. When it’s dry, you can crackit off with a knife.

Instructions

Your piece of wood should be thin enough that it bends easily, but is not floppy. A sturdywooden yardstick can work, but you’ll probably want to cut it shorter. If you are using asoftwood lie pine, 1/4-inch thick by about 3/4-inch wide will provide plenty of spring.File a notch in each end of the wood, as shown. The notch should be about 1/2-inchwide, or as wide as the bowstrings will be. Drill a small hole in one end of the wood. Tiethe fishing line through the hole. Start wrapping the line around the wood, the long way.When you wrap the line, keep it taut, with the bow slightly bent.

As you wrap, move from one side of the notches to the other. After you have wrappedone layer of line, apply glue to the two ends of the wood where the line wraps around. Applyenough to soak through the line to the wood. Continue wrapping so that each successivelayer is submerged in glue. After you have built up a sufficient mass of line — about threelayers — pass the end through the hole, tie it off, and add a little glue for good measure.

Before the glue dries, wedge some small pieces of wood between the bow and thebowstring at one or both ends so there will be more clearance. Pieces of wooden pencilswork well for this. Add more glue so these will be more likely to stay in place. Now setthe bow aside so the glue can dry completely.

Apply rosin to the strings, liberally. Try to avoid touching the strings; finger oil willprevent rosin from sticking or defeat the extra friction of the rosin, which is the wholepoint. Now play for us, won’t you?

Phone Ocarina

Ingredients

• Handset from an old-school rotary-dial or push-button telephone

• Hand drill with drill bits of a few different sizes

Instructions

1. Remove the cord from the handset.

2. Unscrew the mouth- and earpiece covers, and remove all the entrails: speaker, microphone, wires, plug jack and any pieces of foam. Save these for other projects, of course.

3. Drill eight or fewer holes along the spine of the handset. Start at the mouthpiece end,where the jack is, and dill progressively larger and more widely spaced holes down thelength of the handset. Don’t go so large that you can’t cover a hole with one finger.

4. Replace the mouthpiece cover on the end with the empty jack hole. If you like, replace the earpiece.

5. To play your homemade ocarina, seal off the little holes in the mouthpiece cover withthe palm of one hand. Blow across, not into, the cord hole, just as you would blow acrossthe mouth of a bottle. You can generate different notes by covering and uncoveringdifferent finger holes.

The Strax

Instructions

1) Walk into a fast food franchise, ask for a drinking straw, buy nothing.

2) With a pair of scissors, make two slices in one end of the straw to form a point likethis: >

3) Pinch the side of the straw near the other end and cut a hole in it — it doesn’t have tobe round, but your finger has to fit over it to close it completely.

4) Repeat step three a bit higher.

5) Repeat again until you don’t want any more holes, or you run out of fingers or spaceon the straw.

6) Roll your lips into your mouth to cover your teeth.

7) Put the pointy end of the straw in your mouth.

8) Cover all the holes with your fingers.

g) Blow into the straw and wiggle your fingers!

Diddley Bow

Instructions

The diddley bow is a simple stationary instrument that you can install anywhere you’dlike to play. Drill a screw into the top and the bottom of a wall, door, or tabletop. Tie aguitar string or some similarly strong wire to both screws. Wedge pieces of wood underthe string at both ends so the string becomes tight. Move the wood bridges closer to thescrews to increase tension on the string. You can play a diddley bow with a pick, changing notes by holding a chunk of metal or glass against the string like a slide.

Newspaper Wraps

Ingredients

• Newspaper wrappers

• Vehicles

• Quarters

Optional Materials

• Newspaper dispenser key

Instructions

A newspaper wrap is a great way to get a message out and in the process lampoon themedia who refuse to share the means to do so. It gives the lie to the rhetoric aboutfreedom of the press by taking that freedom by storm from the cartel that monopolizesit — and simultaneously entertains, informs, and empowers witnesses. It gives the underdog leverage in social struggles, proclaiming: Don’t think you can keep misrepresentingthe facts — well hijack your channels & dissemination if you wait tell our side cf the story.

First, pick your target, accordting to your goals — is your wrap intended to front andthus confront a certain established newspaper, or is it an all-purpose broadside to wrapevery paper in town? The former approach is more effective for subtle parodies, andprovides an excellent opportunity for humor; if people begin reading your wrap withoutrealizing it is not the “real” cover of the paper they picked up, they will at first acceptwhat they see with the same attitudes with which they receive mainstream media reports — and the shock of figuring out they’ve been duped just might jerk them out of putting unqualified faith in any such paper again. The latter approach — making a wrap togo around every paper in town^s more straightforward, and at least has the advantageof being universally applicable, if ubiquity is one of your objectives. Your layout will varyaccording to your approach — the former option requires a much greater degree of precision, of course, if the wrap really is meant to be mistaken for the object of your satire.

You can do almost anything with the content: just think, what would you say to theworld if you ran the newspapers? Or, for that matter, how can you reveal what the newspapers are really saying with every front page, how can you make the implicit explicit?Humor can help keep the as-yet-unconverted readimg after their i tial curiosity is satisfied, as long as it isn’t so heavy-handed as to alienate them. Alternatively, if you feelup for the challenge, you can try to make your content so convincing that it will notbe recognized as a spoof, and thus precipitate a useful scandal around the resultingrumors, misinformation, and hysteria. It can help drive your message home to includeas many local references as possible; better yet, you could illustrate some of the articleswith, say, photos from recent actions or interventions, to emphasize the contestation ofpower that is taking place in your area. For example, if somebody managed to put someclever graffiti on a well-known, well-guarded public monument, but it unfortunatelyonly stayed up for a day (as the local authorities were intent on not letting anyone seethat such a challenge to their power was possible),a picture taken that day could make alovely cover illustrationfor a newspaper wrap; many people take the media representation of their home streets more seriously than their actual experience of them, and youcan help them to feel they live in a liberated territory (or a police state, or a war zone)by capturing that moment in time. A photograph of a beating the police deny ever happened would also go nicely on the front cover of a newspaper wrap.

Find a local newspaper printing company. Youll want to use a false name in yourdealings with them, just to be on the safe side. Most of the cost of newspaper production is in the start-up fees, so you might as well make a lot, unless you’re so lazy theextras will just sit moldering somewhere until they are seized as police evidence. Youcan make a single newspaper sheet to simply go around the front, or a two-page spreadto wrap the entire first section of the paper. Make sure you’ve got the dimensions rightfor your target(s)!

You won’t need more than a couple of people to pick up the papers from the printerand chart the location of every newspaper dispenserin your town or borough, but you’llprobably want to invite a couple dozen friends to join in the deploying — you’ll have to bequick and numerous to get it all done in the brief window of time between the deliveryof the day’s newspapers and the hour people start picking them up. Papers are usuallydelivered around four in the morning, but you’ll want to check this for yourself in yourtarget area. The people delivering them are generally folks just like you, with vehiclesnot unlike your own (no, not the one with the stenciling all over it), so rest assured —chances are you won’t look out of the ordinary carrying out your mission. They go frombox to box, putting in a special key that opens them, taking out the old newspapers andputting in the new ones; you’ll do the same, using quarters to open the boxes if youhaven’t managed to snag or replicate the special key, taking out the unwrapped papersand putting wrapped ones in their place. The most efficient method is three people toa car: one driver, one clean-cut person to go to each machine and exchange the pile ofunwrapped papers within for a pile of wrapped ones, and one maniac in the back frantically wrapping away. At the very end of the trip, you can go back to the first box, whereyou got your first pile of unwrapped papers, and put in the last wrapped ones. Needlessto say, this process works best if you’re wrapping just one brand of newspaper; if you’retrying to hit every one of a number of different newspapers, and there isn’t enoughspace in the back seat to keep several separate piles going at once, you can either divideup the different newspapers between different vehicles, or just take each pile of papersback to the vehicle to wrap before returning them. It’s been known to happen that people have participated in newspaper wraps on bicycles, leaving each box jammed openwhile they wrap its papers nearby; this is less efficient, however, and may be riskier, asit requires two trips to each box- or one long stay at each, in fiill view. Whatever yourmethod, chart your route so it’ll be least likely that anyone will catch on to what you’redoing until you’re done.

Bicyclists are best suited to going driveway to driveway, adding the wraps to individually delivered papers. Playing this role, they can round out the work of the drivers; insome areas, few people use newspaper dispensers, but if the wraps also appear in thefront yards of the suburbs it will seem they are everywhere. If you can’t hit every driveway in the city, pick out a few important neighborhoods — and perhaps the drivewaysof a few significant people (say, editors at the targeted newspaper or rival newspapers,key players in the issues you’re addressing, etc.). This can help ensure your action willachieve the notoriety and reaction it deserves — just be especially careful while carryingout this phase, so you don’t get caught red-handed.

Afterwards, if it won’t attract the wrong kind of attention, your leftovers can bedropped off in coffee shops, dentists’ waiting rooms, and so on. Congratulate yourselveson a job well done, and don’t ever talk about such things again — until it’s time to roundfolks up for the next activity.

Account

At the conclusion of the second war with Iraq, we deaded to do a newspaper wrapto push the citizens of our liberal college town toward more radical responses to ourtyrannical government. We composed a satirical text with local reference points andphotographs, including a redecorated stop sign across the street from the town councilbuilding. It cost us a little over a hundred dollars to make a few thousand papers, andwe collected near that amount in change for the dispensers, as well.

We chose to spring into action the night before a well-attendeddowntown street fair,so our papers would be out during a period of especially high foot traffic. We’d solicitedvolunteers through the usual channels, taking people aside at potluck dinners and soccer games and so on. People were a little slow to show up at our convergence point, andwe had to really hurry to get the routes divided up and set out in time. Six vehicles wentout, two to three people in each, and a few pairs of bicyclists too; routes were chosenaccording to level of risk of the areas, level of experience of the participants, and distinctiveness of the vehicles. There were a few situations in which our delivery people wereintimidated by police cars circling on their nightly beats, but every box in town was hitand nothing went wrong. A couple of hours later, the vehicles had all completed theircircuits, and their occupants, on bicycles or on foot, were working on the driveways ofthe suburbs.

The next day, we walked about and saw people everywhere gathered around copies ofour newspaper, laughing and pointing things out. The paper we had focused most onwrapping printed a peevish complaint on the editorial page, citing some other examplesof direct action around town that would never otherwise have gotten coverage! All in all,it seemed like such an easy and effective project that most of us felt that, were we ableto raise the money, we should do it every weekend.

Non-Monogamous Relationships

So You Want to Have a Non-Monogamous Relationship

... or two! Well, don’t expect this text to be of much assistance — every relationship isdifferent, and there is no system, no perfect procedure, guaranteed tomake anyone “work.”Besides — being non-monogamous, one might say, is about dispensing with protocol, nottrying to make relationships “work” according to any standard: accepting them as theyare and as they change. All the same, one can’t deny that some approaches and behaviorstend to result in healthy dynamics, and some don’t; and since most of us didn’t grow upwith many good examples of non-monogamous relationships to learn from, the more wediscuss and compare our experiences the better-equipped we’ll be to chart this unknownterritory together. Shaking off conventional pair-bonding programming is nothing if not afirst step toward being able to be good for others and help them be good for you.

Ingredients

• At least three people

Instructions

Being Honest in a Dishonest World

The first thing to emphasize is that being non-monogamous is not a way to sidestep theneed for honesty in a relationship. If anything, it’s a way to promote honesty. Monogamy, not in individual instances but as a monolithic expectation in a constraining culture,discourages honesty by punishing any desires or truths that fall outside the traditionalromantic model. Non-monogamy is intended to open a space in which honesty is possible, but it also depends o n honesty to make such a space possible at all.

This is not to set a new rule, that all lovers must share everything with each other,detail by detail; but share whatever you agree to share, and be dear about what youneed, too, including what you need to be sure you’ll be able to be honest. The wholeidea of being involved without attempting to impose a template upon your relations isto be able to be what you are without lies, guilt, or dissembling. All the same, many ofus who grew up struggling in the monogamy model still retain all the bad habits welearned from it: dishonesty, shame, avoidance, fear. Even when we’re in a relationshipthat provides room for our “dangerous desires, “ we tend to wreck that space by not trusting it and thus losing the trust that sustains it. Push yourself to be honest, always — withhonesty, you can have everything you want in the world, or at least all of it that the worldcan actually offer. If you can’t be honest, try to work on that before you’re involved deeplywith others. Nobody should be involved with anyone that can’t be relied on to share important truths — specially frightening ones.

Establishing Expectations

Check in at the beginning of any relationship, or any interaction (like having sex for the first time) that puts the relationship on a new footing, about what your individual needs and expectations and comfort levels are, and make sure you’ve worked out a common understanding of them before you go any further. This will save a lot of headacheslater! If your needs change, or it turns out you feel differently in a situation than youexpected you would, it’s nothing to feel guilty about — but you’d do well to let your loverknow about it. In fact, you’d probably do well to check in with your lovers occasionallyregardless, just to make sure their feelings haven’t changed without them recognizingor articulating it.

It’s probably just as common for lovers in a non-monogamous relationship to feelinsecure about their longing for monogamy, or at least some of the reassurances it professes to offer, as it is for them to feel ashamed of their desires for others. It is importantthat we avoid developing a competitive culture of non-monogamy, in which people mustfeel shame for wanting anything “bourgeois” or “traditional.” Everything, every desireand need, has to be respected, or else this is no revolution after all, just the establishingof a different norm. If it’s important to you that you’re non-monogamous, you may wellhave developed a insistent or even confrontational attitude about it, in the face of thisunwelcoming society; make sure that this doesn’t translate to you making others feelthey must live up to some standard around you. Accept whatever others tell you abouttheir needs supportively — they are doing you a favor by being up front with you. Maybethe differences in what you want mean you can’t be involved in certain ways, at least forthe time being. That’s still better than making each other miserable, struggling to geteach other to change or denying your needs for one another.

The terms your relationship starts on wi11 probably set the tone for it for a long time tocome. Lovers who begin on shared terms of non-monogamy and successfully establishtrust with each other will probably have little trouble maintaining a healthy non-monogamous relationship for as long as both desire to. Lovers who start out in a monogamous relationship and decide to change the terms to non-monogamous, however, maywell encounter difficulties, as their expectations and ways of feeling safe and loved mayalready be tied to the question of the other partner’s “faithfulness.” Now, if you reallywant to wreck a relationship, start it out on monogamous terms (or simply leave theissue unaddressed, so assumptions can develop unchecked by reality),then sleep withsomeone else, and afterwards tell your partner you want to be non-monogamous; formaximum destruction, don’t even confide that you’ve slept with or are sleeping withsomeone else — let your partner discover it as a surprise. Obviously, this is not the wayto go about having a healthy love affair.

Handling Jealousy

Never give one lover cause to feel threatened by another’s place in your life or heart.In this society, we are constantly being made to feel that we are in competition withone another, so we feel threatened by others. Healthy non-monogamy should disprovethis conditioning, not reinforce it. Make it dear, in actions as well as words, that yourrelationship with each person (lover or not!) depends only on itself, not on the way itcompares with other relationships. Hopefully, you’re not cruising for the perfect wife orhusband or trophy lover, picking up and discarding people as you hunt down the ultimate commodity on the partner market; instead, you’re cultivating life-long, adaptablerelationships with individuals you love and treat with respect, in which you enjoy yourselves consensually and maybe even support one another’s life projects. * Lovers, in sucha scenario, should have no more cause to fear or be jealous of one another than friendsdo — indeed, one good reason to be non-monogamous is to foster in your love affairs thequalities that make your friendships work, or, better, to blur the lines between the two.

ML the same, since you grew up in this society, there are going be situations in whichone or both of you feel jealous. There are many things you can do to address this whenyou feel it yourself. First, try to separate and identify your different feelings, so youknow what you’re reacting to or acting on. The most prevalent cause of jealousy is insecurity: to be in any successful relationship, non-monogamous or not, you need to begrounded, you need to feel good about yourself and have a sense of your own worth andattractiveness. In this sense, leading a life that helps you respect yourself is practicallya prerequisite for any intimacy with others. At the same time, you should be able to askyour lover for reassurance whenever you needit-don’t be timid about this: if your loverloves you, he or she will want to let you know, and it’s a lot better to speak up when youneed it than to restrain yourself from “putting pressure” on him or her, only to explodeor implode later on. To return to the subj ect of self-confidence, loving yourself will makeit a lot easier to believe other people’s reassurances.

Insecurity can manifest itself in projection: it may be easy to imagine that your lover’sother lover, or cm sh, or potential crush, is absolutely perfect. Try to get some perspective; it may well be that you spend more time thinking about the other lover than your lover does.No one’s perfect, anyway, not even the Other Woman; and, being in a non-monogamousrelationship, you have less to fear than you would in a monogamous couple: your lovercan experiment with others and enjoy being with them without having to feel that he orshe should leave you. Outside the couple paradigm, no one can steal a lover from you — theextent to which you’re good for a person determines how much he or she will stay withyou. If you have a longstanding or strong love, no fling or flirtation can endanger it.

Insecurity may not be the only thing you’re feeling, either. You might also feel judgmental of your lover — you might be disappointed in her or him for being attracted tosomeone you deem unworthy or you might feel protective for similar reasons. Eitherway, you have to trust your lover to know what’s good for himself or herself — there’sno way around that. Your partner probably can sense what he or she needs much betterthan you can, and the decision is not yours to make, anyway.

Jealousy can also proceed from feelings of competitiveness with other lovers, especially members of the same sex — these are fostered in this society, and often serve toisolate u s from potential comrades . Again, hopefully you tru s t that whomever your lovertrusts is worthy of respect; remember, whatever really is good for your lover is, in somesense at least, good for you. Being able to see your lover’s lovers as friends or at leastallies can be revolutionary, in a society that would have us turn against each other overromance.

It might also be that your jealousy is caused by instabilities or incongruences in therelationship itself, which may need to be addressed. Jealousy isn’t always a merely irrational, destructive feeling; often, it can be a useful barometer with which to gauge whatis going on within and between people.

When you are feeling jealous and insecure, it may help to remember that the degreeof freedom your lover has is extended to you, too. If you wouldn’t want to constrained,be glad the two of you are not constraining each other. If you’ve had relationships withor been attracted to others besides your lover, ponder those experiences for perspectiveon what your lover is feeling; if those dalliances didn’t decrease your lover’s importanceto you, these probably won’t come between you, either.

When your lover is jealous, try not to feel accused or attacked. Try not to fall into thedefault setting of accusations, denials, attacks, defenses, suspiaons, recriminations andself -recriminations. Step back and make sure it is clear how important your lover is toyou; emphasize that no other attraction or relationship can threaten the one you share.(On the other hand, of course, don’t ever say this if it’s not true!) If the terms of the relationship or your mutual expectations have to be re-negotiated, don’t put it off or skirtaround the issue.

Here’s another worst-case scenario: you’re involved with two people, and they take anintense disliking to each other. This can be really unpleasant for everybody. There arestill a few things you can do to keep things as smooth as possible, though. Don’t takesides — refuse to sit as a judge while one tries to convince you of the other’s wrongdoing.Have your own opinions of how they are conducting themselves, of course, but emphasize that you’re not interestedin being persuaded to be partisan. Emphasize to each thatboth are important to you — make it dear there’ll be no choosing of one over the other,and that if either relationship ends it will be on account of factors internal to it, notexternal. Encourage the two of them work things out like adults, if possible. Don’t ferrymessages back and forth between them. Definitely don’t let yourself make decisions toappease either of them, even unconsaously — this will only make you resent them, anddisappoint yourself, in the long run.

Resisting Hierarchy

You may have heard about the “primary partner” model, one of the most widely discussed schematics for non-monogamy. Some feel such schematics suggest hierarchyor protocol: they hold that each person should be his or her own primary partner, andendeavor to be committed to all the partners with whom he or she shares life, whateverroles they play. Indeed, we risk a lot by not letting those roles be fluid enough to accommodate all the changes that relationships, needs, and expectations are always goingthrough. It’s important that people in a relationship know what to expect from oneanother, but formal titles should not be necessary for this.

Speaking of a hierarchy of partners — in addition to atavistic dishonesty and shame,another leftover behavior you may have carried with you from the monogamy ghetto isa tendency to treat lovers besides your “primary partner” with less respect or sensitivity.This is something people, especially men, do when cheating in monogamous relationships: motivated by guilt, they mistreat their fellow adulterer, as if to show that, thoughthey are cheating on their partner, they still value him or her above all others. Non-monogamy is supposed to mean everyone in every relationship gets treated with respect:every plant and animal in an ecosystem is equally important, regardless of how great orsmall a role it plays.

Working Things Out

No one should pressure others into a relationship model with which they don’t feelcomfortable. That can only make both parties unhappy. At the same time, you’re notforcing others into anything by making your own decisions about what is right for you.You make your decisions, let others make theirs; where there is common ground, youcan meet. Ideally, every couple should have the same idea of what they want their relationship to be; realistically, people have to make compromises — just try to make surethey’re mutually beneficial compromises. Again, there’s no perfect model: each couple,threesome, and community must work out for itself how to get along and be happy together. What works for one may not work for another — it might not even look healthyor sensible to another, but that’s the way it goes.

“I have one last question. If I have more than one lover at a time, won’t I end up calling them by the wrong names in bed andgetting in trouble with everybody?”

Actually, my experience is the opposite: when you’re used to being sexually involvedwith more than one person, lovers’ names cease to be noises you make out of habitwhenever you’re aroused and come to refer to the actual individuals in question. Beingnon-monogamous, you may discover that when you’re in bed with someone, you’represent with that person as an individual, rather than as a role in your life, more so thanyou would be with a girlfriend or boyfriend. If that doesn’t prove to be the case for yon,there’s nothing that says you have to go to bed with more than one person at a time tobe non-monogamous — or even with anyone, for that matter. Non-monogamous andcelibate, that’s a legitimate option, too, with a lot to recommend it.

Parties

Ingredients

• A bunch of people who don’t know eachother but should

• Creativity

• Follow-through — optional, but a nice bonus

Instructions

All of us know a few people who would be the best of friends if they only knew eachother. One fun way to take care of a lot of these introductions all at once is to throw whatI’ve dubbed a Mutual Strangers Party, in which you gather them all in one room in adeliberate attempt to provide a catalyst for a blossoming and long-lasting friendship orseveral. You can announce these intentions of yours, if you have a sort of social-activist motivation, presenting a manifesto or otherwise making explicit your goals for theparty; or you can simply provide the crudites or crumpets, and let your guests do thework. The problem with friendships born in this way, of course, is their fragility, andthe likelihood that one or both parties will fail to pursue each one, so you might want tothink of some ways to encourage your guests to make solidfriendshipsof these tentativebeginnings; some rapidly brainstormed suggestions include supplementary activitiesscheduled for a later date, a list of names and phone numbers to distribute, a homeworkassignment such as a gift exchange ... At the very least, with so many wonderful peoplein one room, it should be a fabulous party!

Account

I was handed a mysterious folded up sheet of paper at a Rah Bras show, and instiuctednot to open it until I was alone. It turned out to be an invitation to come in disguise toan appointed place at an appointed date and time, and to tell no one of the invitation.When I got there, wrapped in scarves on a murderously hot North Carolina evening, Iwas blindfolded and led into a darkened room, where I was placed kneeling on the floor.I could feel other people around me, could hear them breathing, shifting their weight,but we had been instructed not to speak. Eventually, after listening to others being ledinto the room, I heard the door dose and silence descended. The sound of running water began, and then I could hear someone playing a saw. It was soothing and eerie. Thisquiet was harshly interrupted by flashing lights, startlingly bright through the blindfold,and loud noises, and the smell of burning. A woman (the same friend who had givenme the invitation) talked about how contexts shape human interactions, and suggestedthat by placing people in unexpected and unusual contexts we can breakdown some ofthe barriers between us, “break the silence of isolation.” She paused. “There’s tea andcoffee in the other room.” We remove our blindfolds, and for a second I don’t recognizeanyone through their disguises. Then identities begin to come into focus: some womenI know, including my three housemates, some women I recognize but have never met,and some women that are complete strangers to me. In the kitchen, over tea and coffee,the woman responsible for all of this revealed that she wanted to do it because she feltthere were so many amazing women in town, but no real network of female friendships. We agreed to try to reinforce our vague acquaintances and other associationswith powerful bonding and energizing f un , and deaded that our first activity would be amassive game of Assassin, carried out over the next couple of weeks, in which we wereall assigned victims and tried to avoid getting “killed” ourselves. My housemates and Iendured a series of threatening phone calls and letters (cutout of magazines, naturally),a doll tattooed to match one of us and hanged in a tree outside our door, and nerve-racking trips to the grocery store. I managed to kill off two people, but one got me at the finalshowdown, in the dub where we’d agreed to meet for another show to find out who’dsurvived to the last.

In the end, nothiig more came of that party. We never got together again. ChapelHill/Carrboro’s female population is perhaps even more loosely connected now than itwas then. We were busy, active women, and we didn’t follow through on the initiativeour friend had shown. But I still thii it’s a fantastic idea, even if none of us ever makesit work perfectly.

Pie Throwing

Ingredients

• Deserving target

• Crazed, pie-slinging assaiiant(s)

• Pie — see below for recipe and packaging options, and factors to consider in choosing

Optional Ingredients

• Diversions

• Witnesses

• Photographers

• Scouts

• Getaway Driver

Instructions

Pieing, like property destruction, demystifies and undermines the power structures ofour society by showing that icons and idols are not unassailable or above ridicule. It’s likeburning someone in effigy, only better, because it reveals how, in this media-addledsoaety,public figureheads are nothing more than effigies of themselves, ripe for the roasting.

First Things First...

Choose a worthy target. It could be a specialist, CEO, or head of state — pie terroristshave already hit all of these on various occasions to great effect- or a less obviousquarry who nonetheless represents social forces imbued with a seriousness that mustbe undercut. Hitting a reporter during a live media event, for example, could send animportant message.

The other question is when and where. Striking while your target is onstage givinga speech delivers the maximum shock and awe; on the other hand, it also involves themaximum danger of being caught, so if you’re not eager to go to court and perhaps jail,you could try striking somewhere between the chauffeured car and the red-carpeteddoorway and then making a break for it. Be on the lookout for perfect opportunities;don’t force things, they’ll present themselves sooner or later. As you balance riskversusaudience and humiliation potential, factor in local legal precedents, the prevailing political climate, and the competence of your lawyer. Don’t expect justice, but don’t let thepolice state keep you down.

Dress the Part

It doesn’t take an economist or espionage expert to figure out that if you try to entera meeting of the pretentious and portentous with metal spikes in your nose and pie-stains on your t-shirt, you may not be admitted. Shave, put on a suit, wear an Americanflag pin, keep your hair short — you’ll be able to go anywhere! More important than theaccessories, however, is the vibe you project: you should radiate confidence, comfort,and a sense of purpose, as if you not only belong there but serve an important organizational role. It can be shockingly easy to sneak into high-security events: a few weeksago, my student friends got in free to a top dollar fundraiser at which the Vice President was speaking, simply by introducing themselves at the door as the local YoungRepublicans group. They would have been able to stay for the whole event, had theYoung Republicans themselves not eventually shown up! For more on such matters,see Infiltration, pg. 306.

As for the pie, carry it in a bowling ball bag, or keep it in a container with a plasticlid and carry it in a nondescript briefcase or top-secret spy satchel under your coat.The type of pie will dictate the details of concealment and delivery, while the environment will dictate your subterfuge; at a press conference, you might want to smuggle itin inside a smart attache case or large notebook, while on the street you could carry itin a pizza box, same as you would Stencils (pg. 5L6)or Asphalt Mosaics (pg. 66) anotherevening.

The Meringue Is the Message

The experienced pie assassins of the Biotic Baking Brigade use whipped cream on paperplates whenever possible: whipped cream makes a dramatic mess, and paper plates areharmless projectiles. On the other hand, if your target is surrounded by security personnel,you probably won’t be safe stopping to fill a plate with whipped cream at the last moment;in such a situation, something with enough internal coherence to be kept sidewise utdl themoment of truth, such as a tofu cream pie, will serve better. Old-fashioned apple or cherrypies have a certain nostalgia value that can sometimes outweigh their unwieldiness.

Try not to do anything that will actually injure your target — your goal is to humiliate, not hospitalize, or else you’d be using a crowbar. If your target is wearing glasses,unless you are indeed using whipped cream on a paper plate or something similarlyfluffy, try to hit from the side, avoiding the eye area. As for ingredients, staying awayfrom animal products is not only eco-friendly, but also saves you the trouble of researching whether your quarry is lactose intolerant. Some pie fillings can look likeblood on the recipient’s face, so stay away from those unless that’s the image you wantthe world to see.

Launch

Should you throw your missile, or mash it right in the victim’s face? The former is lesscertain to succeed, but safer for the target, and more breathtaking to behold when itworks; the latter is harder to carry off in the midst of high security, especially if you’rehoping to escape. If you may indeed have to throw the pie, make sure you get plenty ofpractice in advance.

If there are armed guards present, “by to make it clear at the last instant that yourweapon is a pie and nothing more: hold it high and move with steadiness and confidence — no desperate lunges! You want to retain just enough of the element of surpriseto hit your object, without getting shot full of bullets as a result. It never hurts to have aclever quip prepared, either: “It’s a good day to pie,” etcetera.

How many assailants is enough? Having several ready can increase the odds that onewill succeed, but it might be easier to stay inconspicuous if only one or two people aresneaking around where they shouldn’t be. If a diversion draws everyone’s attention in onedirection, the lone pie-slinger can approach from the other side. Again, the terrain willdetermine what works ; if you have to cover a broad area and don’t know where your quarrywill show himself, a dozen groups of three might fan out to be sure one could do the job.

Pies on Prime Time

A funny, dramatic photo and a witty press release (see Mainstream Media, pg. 358) willget you a long way, whether your intention is to get coverage in the corporate press orjust inspire your fellow radicals through underground reports. To this end, having yourown photographers on hand can be a good idea — if you do succeed in acting with theelement of surprise, they’ll probably be the only ones ready to snap the pictures at thebig moment, unless you’ve interrupted a photo session to make your hit. A good imageof a successful pieing can make it into commercial outlets that would otherwise neverpublish anything compromising the dignity of dignitaries. If you’re set on making thishappen, get your image and press release out the instant the event takes place, and havea press liaison ready to answer questions immediately about why anyone would want topie your chosen target. Even if you’re trying to get media attention, don’t rely on thosedeceit-spewing mercenaries — make sure you’re putting the necessary energy into supporting independent media networks that are ready to tell the truth for its own sake.

Account: A Pie Never Thrown

The President of the United States was running for re-election, and showed up at a cityin our territory for a fundraising luncheon. Quite a few of the state’s wealthiest and mostconservative businessmen came to pay thousands of dollars a plate to hear him speak,a far greater number of angry protesters showed up to boo him, and the city brought inmassive numbers of police to assist the Secret Service in protecting our Campaigner inChief. The stage was set for something to happen — but what?

The character of the pre-protest rally was dictated by the “opposition” party, which wasas repugnant as the incumbent himself. None of us had made it out in advance to beautify the terrain, and though there were some radicals present, there was no frameworkfor militant action organized, either. Things only got a little interesting when everyoneconverged around the convention center at the end of the luncheon; finally, there was alittle noise and spirit. The police had us lined up behind a metal fence on one side of thebuilding, however, and it was still one of those disempowering, demoralizing situationswhere the best you can hope for is to perform your posed discontent for a camera crew.

I ran around to survey the area, and figured out which route the President’s motorcade would be using to leave. The police had blocked all access to it except for an alleythat could be reached by passing through a hotel parking garage. I slipped back to themain group, and let the drummers know about this; they proceeded there, to see themotorcade off. I was about to join them, when I spied a small group of men in expensivebusiness suits. They were walking down the street in the opposite direction, right pastthe protesters and away from the police lines, receiving attention from no one. In twosand threes behind them, more such groups were leaving the building and walking out ofthe area, presumably back to their cars. These were the men who had paid to attend thefundraiser. I decided to let the drummers handle the going-away party and investigate.

I accosted the next pair of businessmen, looked deep into their eyes, and raised myfingers in their faces in an insulting gesture. This did little to advance the struggle forsocial liberation, though it did prompt the Muslim minister who had been the only evenvaguely radical speaker at the pre-protest rally to point me out to his friends and give mehis card. I took a different tact with the next capitalist who came along — I fell in besidehim, and began interrogating him about his social role and political goals. Well-practiced as his kind have to be in evasiveness and prevarication, he was nearly a match forme in the rhetoric department, and I hadn’t quite finished converting him to anarchismby the time he got to his car.

At that point, we were quite far from the protest and the police — looking around theempty streets, I saw only a few figures, al I of them other bourgeois pigs leaving the luncheon! Christ, I realized, this is where the action could have been, if only we’d prepared.Fuck the big guy, with his millions of dollars of security — he only has power becausethese people pay so much to come to his luncheons, and here they are totally unprotected! If we had come in small groups with cameras and pies, we could have provided apersuasive deterrent to these folks showing up to future such events, and quite probablygotten away with it, too. I guess there’s always next time — and yes, kids, if there’s ever anoxious political fundraiserin your area, please do this at home!

Portrait Exchange

Ingredients

• A pad of paper to draw on

• Pencils, pens, or other drawing tools

• An eraser (optional)

• Reciprocation device (in this example, the “Grievance Board”)

• A bicycle or other honorable means of transportation

• Solid listening skills

• A table, portable easle, chair, etc. (optional)

• Drawing ability- moderate to jaw-dropping; confidence may compensate for lack of skill

• A reasonably open mind — a tendency to give people the benefit of the doubt

• A tendency towards extroversion

Instructions

Foundation

Here’s the short version: set yourself up in public spaces drawing free portraits for passersby, as a way to initiate interaction. Read on to learn about one agent’s experiencesinventing and testing this method.

It was my growing frustration with drawing in an isolated studio that led me to packup some supplies and do my first “Portrait Exchange” experiment in the middle of thecity. I was learning a great deal in my studio, but I felt disconnected from others, fromthe city, from the very system I was attempting to understand, critique, and change.Besides, I wanted people who didn’t like galleries to see my drawings — some of mydrawings don’t like galleries. I wanted people to own my work without paying for it. Iwanted to involve others in the process of making art, a process I find so wonderful thatI would recommend it to a stranger on the street.

In the middle of a workday, I biked up to a commercial block where I was a guest/stranger and whose supporting community I knew little about. I set up my portableeasel on the side of a sidewalk block and, once I got the nerve, began hawking my “freeportraits” shamelessly. I had no idea whether I would be embraced or booted off theblock. I had a hand-drawn sign that said, “Free Portraits, 3 Minutes or Less, No Gimmicks!” People were naturally confused. I could follow the progression of their conceptions of who I was very easily by reading their faces as I patiently explained the projectand waited for their furrowed brows to relax. I found that emphasizing “free” and “threeminutes” was helpful in getting my point across quickly. The time constraint was necessary because most of the people passing me were going somewhere and I knew Icouldn’t expect to engage them without a time limit. Once they calmed down and werespeaking with me and being drawn, the actual drawing could take much longer thanthree minutes. I never really timed them.

The energy was electric. Sharing three minutes of intimacy with a stranger is exciting, and the speed with which anonymity melts is breathtaking. All sorts of personalitieswere captivated by the prospect of waiting away with a portrait, particularly a half-decentone. Some people hung around to be cheerleaders, professing my skills to new passersby. Some people hung around to talk shit, to see if they could get under my skin, tosee what I was made of. All the while I was having the time of my life, busting my assin an effort to do justice to each new curious face.

I had prepared a “Grievance Board” which I intended to use to collect people’s grievances with the area or community that they lived in. This wasn’t something that I wanted to push on people, so I went out of my way to explain that it was optional, but if theyso desired they were more than welcome to add something to the Grievance Board. Tomy pleasant surprise people were all too eager to express themselves, to present bothminor annoyances and major complaints. From the rotting produce at the local grocerystore to the lack of strong interracial communication, the Grievance Board soon came tobe a portrait of the neighborhood.

After some two hours my drawing hand was starting to cramp up and I knew it wastime to go — I needed work on my endurance. I waited for the fluctuating crowd aroundme to die down long enough to rip my sign off the brick wall and start folding up myeasel. A few minutes later I was back on my bike, heading home with the satisfaction ofhaving drawn 30 portraits, the elation of giving them all away, and the weight of a limpleft hand and a thousand new ideas.

Further Articulation

It tookme alittle while to comprehend just how successful the experimenthad been. I’dbeen unsure if people would embrace me or beat my ass, but I put myself out there, andin doing so I was completely transformed. An experiment became a launchpad. It wasimmediately apparent to me that this project was ripe with potential far beyond what Ihad expected. I viewed this concept of a Portrait Exchange as not iust a self-containedartwork, but also, and more importantly, a tool, a simple but potent invention teemingwith uncharted uses and destinations.

For many reasons,my portrait-drawingenabled many different people to open up to me,to allow me inside their lives during a three- to five-minuteblip in their daily routine. Theirgrievances were a documentation of existence at specific points along my path, specificpoints in speafic neighborhoods of a speafic city that is supposedly indexed thoroughlyby the Census Bureau, life-affirming and captivating as the personal interactions betweenmyself and those I drew were, I wanted the ‘Exchange to fulfill a greater function. Myambition was brewing. I began to thdrfc of myself as some kind of bastardized statistician,some Census Bureaucrat with an unhealthy human streak and a penchant for accuracy.

The next step in the process for me, the tangent I decided to follow, was to “test” theCensus data for the city of Pittsburgh neighborhoods. I did a little research at the publiclibrary in a room devoted to local and state-based information. Taking a look at the portraits that the Census draws of different neighborhoods,! quickly realized that, whoeverthose people are, they can’t draw for shit- Neighborhoods and boroughs are categorizedby a few simplistic statistics, revolving around race (black, white, and other!), income,and level of education. What can possibly be learned from such portraits? I began tothink about the ones who look at those statistics... property owners? businesses? politicians? Perhaps it would be wrong of me to call these statistics outright racist and classist, but they perpetuate a system of categorization that ends up being racist and classist.Either way, I realized that with my shiny new tool, the softly sharpened 3B pencil, I couldgather data about neighborhoods that would be more representative of the people asindividuals. By offering to take down people’s grievances about their community I couldaccumulate “data” that would be insightful and relevant to humans, not just business. Icould reshape the landscape of the city by presentinginformation that would completelydwarf the significance of the census. It could lead to a new convention, even, of the cityhiring rambunctious portrait artists every few years to gather the consensus.

I had to start small, though. I chose the most statistically dramatic neighborhoods asmy first destinations. The richest, the poorest, the blackest, the whitest, the most educated, the least. I brought a different Grievance Board to each place, labeled with the name ofthe neighborhood. I set up in spots that appeared to have a lot of foot traffic, mostly nearcommercial areas, and I opened my big mouth and asked if anyone wanted free portraits.The range of responses was tremendously diverse. Here follow a few anecdotes ...

As a white guy in the blackest neighborhood (98.6%black), the skepticism was thickas I walked along the road looking for a place to set up my easel. As I found out later,white people in that neighborhood are most often police. Once I found a good spot toset up my easel, a young man approached and asked what I was doing. I told him Iwas drawing free portraits. He started to get agitated, assuming it was a business strategy ... “Oh, I see, so you draw a few for free, and then we gotta start paying.” Makessense — why the hell would someone from outside the community come in and drawfree portraits? I explained that they really were free, and he immediately read that I wasbeing honest, and expressed complete support of my endeavor.

The rest of the day was amazing. People thought it was the greatest thing, linesformed, and many would come by just to watch. At one point, an older guy came by andstood right beside me, quietly watching me work. When I finished the drawing and gaveit to the woman I was drawing, he looked at me and asked, “You’re done with that? “Heproceeded to critique my style, explaining details like how I shouldn’t erase my initialsketch lines, because “you can use those.” During the middle of the next portrait, I lethim take over. He was skilled, using a much more graceful style than my own harshmarks, and applying careful layers of shading with the side of the pencil. However, hisportrait probably tookfifteen minutes, and the woman who was standing patiently whilehe drew called him out: “How many years have you lived here and you never came outside to do this?”

In the most well-educated neighborhood, I was invisible. I was amazed at how manypeople passed up free portraits. The area was thriving, with successful businesses hawking their wares all around me — perhaps in a neighborhood where money’s not thattight, a free portrait really isn’t that mouth-watering. Nonetheless, once I got a few people curious and started churning out drawings, a high level of interest ensued. I met alot of older people I normally would never encounter: an ex-music professor and rabidvinyl addict who gave me an open invite to his listening study, for example, and an artprofessor who was curious how I got permission to do public art (“Well, I wasn’t reallyaware that I needed permission”). The grievance list was laughable in comparison tothe lists I had already accumulated from rougher neighborhoods characterized by anoverzealous police presence: noisy radiators, inconsiderate dog owners, and the like.

I didn’t draw anyone over 3 o in the whitest neighborhood. It was probably my timing,but also perhaps my location, two variables I am still learning to adjust for. This neighborhood seemed incredibly isolated, on the outskirts of the city in a particularly vacantarea. I drew a lot of listless kids. For about an hour I was essentially hanging out witha crew of teenagers who were having a lot of fun gettmg their portraits drawn, complimenting my skills and calling their friends on cell phones to tell them to come on out.They were disappointed when I told them I’d only be there for a few hours. They thirkthis shit is easy!

The project is far from over. I want to compile information about humans that is ashuman as the humans who offered it up. At the same time, I want this information to beconsidered on the same terms as existing Census statistics, so that it may compete withand combat Census dominance. I haven’t yet found the way to have it both ways. Howcan I collect non-standardized information and compile it so that it can be analyzedefficiently? Maybe it can’t be done. Much of the “post production” is still up in the air.This recipe is fresh like mom’s bread, and can surely be sliced in many different ways.

General Cooking Instructions

Understand the difference between a park and a busy street, and the different attitudesthat people may have toward your work depending on the time and place when andwhere they approach you. The only areas you want to avoid are those where you wouldsimply be a novelty (such as a park area).

Be honest with the people you meet. Don’t feign nonchalance if you’re actually thereas part of a multi-person effort to index the town based on human input. People deserveto know who you are, where you’re from, and why you’re doing what you’re doing. Noteveryone will love you for sticking your neck and your nose out. There are several excellent sociopolitical critiques of the motivation for this project. It’s important to acceptthem, but not get paralyzed by them.

Don’t step on anyone’s toes. If you set up in a neighborhood and people make itclear to you that you’re not wanted (i.e. , they tell you that directly), then pack up and goelsewhere. Maybe it’s just one particular person, and you can come back on another daywhen things are a little warmer. On a personal note, I have never ever had a hostile situation arise, and I’ve drawn in many different types of neighborhoods.

Don’t accept any money. It will be tempting, particularly because some people willfeel intrinsically incapable of accepting your drawing without paying for it. And hell,you probably could use the cash — you’re an artist, right?The problems with paymentare serious, though. It sets a precedent of expectation both for you and for those beingdrawn. Placing your artwork within a financial framework will force a cold professionalism onto your intentions, and before long you’ll lose context and become just anotherstreet vendor. As if that’s not reason enough to avoid the green, the moment you accepta cent from anyone you play safely into the game of law enforcement. Any cop can thenforcibly remove you from the premises for soliciting business without a license.

Strategize what can be done with the information you collect. My recipe, in this way,I is gloriously unfinished, I’m sure there are dozens of possible ways to see this throughI to beautiful and effective conclusions .

Reclaim the Streets

Ingredients

• Lots of fun people

• Material por roadblocks — e.g. couches, junker cars, tripods and experienced people to be on the tripods

• Well-scouted meeting spot, route, and destination

• Handbills, posters, and other publicity announcing the event

• Fliers to pass out to passersby during the event, inviting them to join in and explaining the event

• Bullhorns

• Banners and flags bearing messages

• Chalk, spray paint, stencils

• Mobile sound system — this could range from a truck with a disc jockey and sound system inside to a bike cart with a boombox; remember, whatever it is, it could be confiscated by the cops

• Decorative props — e.g., inflatables, puppets, flags, enormous metal icosahedrons, large paper mache suns, moons, and animals

• Games — e.g., Twister, jump rope

• Polaroid camera and photos to give away — and perhaps stickers to put on them

• Free food, massages, etc.

Instructions

A Reclaim the Streets action hijacks public space to show some of the ways it can beused that are more creative, exciting, and community-oriented than mere commerceor traffic; essentially, it is a radical, do-it-yourself street carnival. It is not a protest confronting the authorities who inhibit such activities so much as it is a demonstrationthat sidesteps their control to provide a temporary example of what we’re all missing.This can be an excellent way for a radical community to have a good time and practicereinterpreting and rearranging public life, while breeding new desires and an expandedsense of the possible in passersby.

The most basic element of such an action is a terrain to be reclaimed. Before youselect a location, determine how much of a challenge you’re ready to take on. There aremany parks and sidewalks that deserve to have new life breathed into them, and it’swise not to overextend at first: if your city or town is devoid of social life, it’s probablybetter to start out getting people together in a risk-free, low-key manner than it is to cutimmediately to big confrontations with police. At the same time, if your community isready, there’s a lot to be said for highly visible, ambitious takeovers of areas that no onecould imagine being used for anything other than the purposes to which capitalism hasconsigned them. One hundred people dancing, playing kickball, and picnicking in themiddle of the freeway while everyone else sweats and swears in traffic certainly puts theconflict between the partisans of business and pleasure in clear terms. Such an occupation is bound to be frustrating for at least some of those who have cast their lot with thestatus quo; as a rule of thumb, it’s generally best to go ahead and piss off the bosses andbureaucrats, while being careful to entertain and engage Joe and Jane Public instead ofinfuriating them.

Regardless of how disruptive you plan your event to be for business as usual, it shouldtake place at a location where people naturally congregate, at a time when they will bemost likely to stick around to see what’s happening. Thus, if you’ve chosen a businessdistrict, the end of the Friday workday might be perfect, while a Saturday afternoonwould be better for a downtown square. At their best, Reclaim the Streets actions arenot invitation-only festivals of interference for an insider elite, but surprise parties withthe public at large as the guests of honor, Thii throughout the planning about how youwill make strangers feel welcome participating in your event-if you do your work well,they will find themselves joining in before they’ve stopped to think about it.

When it comes to promotion and publicity, a Redaim the Streets action, like anyunpermitted action, presents something of a double bind in that it needs to slip underthe radar of the authorities while being conspicuous to everyone else. Even if you’replanning an event in a public park, you’ll find that the rules surrounding the use of bothprivate property and public space are rigged to prevent people from getting together outside the circuitry of commerce and consumption. Applying for a permit will most likelyonly incur more official attention and consequent attempts to prevent your event fromhappening at all, unless you’re really ready to go that route the whole way and have therequisite legal counsel, financial resources, free time, and privilege to be respected bythe authorities. This means that the right to organize public events is reserved for thosethat most resemble corporations and government agencies, so it can be worth doingthings without a permit just for the sake of setting a precedent in favor of free speech.

If you work without a permit, you had better have the advantage of surprise, so thepolice won’t be ready to shut your event down immediately. If you only publicize yourwent through channels that won’t reach the ears of the authorities, this can secure youthat advantage, but it will also limit participationto an invite-only aowd plus passersby.Alternatively, you can keep the location of the event a secret until the moment it begins,or somehow attract so many more people or display so much more energy and cleverness than anyone expected that the police won’t be prepared to stop you.

According to your plan, you will either need to advertise your event selectively andsecurely, or as widely as possible. One way to combine the two approaches is to advertisethe event with a slew of different posters — *open drum circle to welcome spring,” “jointhe radical drum corps,” “art bike rally” — while spreading the word to everyone youtrust that these events will all fuse into a Reclaim the Streets.

If you must keep your target area a secret, but you want to promote the went widely,advertise a meeting point alone. Everyone can gather there, then proceed to the secretdestination. If necessary, have the mass that assembles break up into many small groups, each led by someone in the know, so the police will be hard-pressed to keep up with them all; the groups can all converge suddenly at the same location and time, and the party begin. A bicycle parade (see Bicycle Parades, pg. 100) can also take place, to scout the area, keep police befuddled, and add to the festive atmosphere.

You may need to blockade the area you have selected (see Blockades and Lockdowns, pg. 162). It’s generally better to reroute traffic than to stop it cold, both to maintain pleasant relations with other citizens and to make your event sustainable. Traffic signs and cones hunted andgathered from urban environments will give an official air to your barricade, while couches and easy chairs will emphasize the disjunction between work space and play space. You can buy old junker cars — paying in cash, leaving no record of how they were acquired — and disable them in the middle of key intersections. Ambitious, large-scale Reclaim the Streets actions have used tall tripods with people atop them to secure space before; this is dangerous, of course, and should only be hazarded by those with a lot of experience. If you want to reserve an area usually filled by parked cars, park your own cars in all the spaces in advance, then move themall at once, leaving the spaces occupied by the materials unloaded from the cars for theevent. Alternatively, a truck filled with such materials can drive by at the critical momentand be unloaded by the crowd. Materials can also be concealedin an alley nearby — in adumpster, if need be, assuming you’ve done your homework on trash collection times!

That’s the difficult stuff. Now think about all the fun, exciting things you can do inyour liberated zone! Roll out the red carpet, set up a sandbox, tie ribbons around everything, drop banners (see Banner Drops and Banner Hoists, pg. 75), throw flowers (seeDumpster Diving, pg. 219), decorate every surface with sidewalk chalk — decor counts fora lot when it comes to reinventing a space and setting a new tone for what can happenin it. Stage theatrical weddings, puppet shows, poetry readings, games of limbo, satirical political speeches, drum circles, street theater. Set up tables with free food, fortunecookies, literature (see Distribution, Tabling, and Infoshops, pg. 210), massages, portraits(see Portrait Exchange, pg. 415}, or palm reading. Lay down a mat for breakdancing. Bringstilt-walkers, DJs spinning danceable tracks, live musiaans, guerrilla gardeners planting fruit trees and vigorous weeds, jugglers and clowns. Arrange performers throughout the space in such a way that they won’t interfere with each other’s acts. Broadcast pirate radio programs to inform and invite those nearby.

Electrical outlets are not hard to find in public areas — try lampposts or even stores.These will be useful for powering musical equipments, fans to blow up inflatables, projectors and lights, and other crazy machines.

To emphasize this once more: write walk-on roles into your street party! For example,you could paint a funny image on a wooden backdrop with holes cut into it, and giveout free Polaroids to people who want to pose with their faces in the holes, slapping asticker on each bearing the punch line for the image, information about the event, orthe address of a relevant website. Also, have handouts ready for the crowd of onlookers,explaining the meaning of the event from the various perspectives of those involved.

Figure out ways to invite and involve people from every walk of life. For example, ifyou are teaching a class of kids, bring the class, with something for them to perform ordo for the occasion. The presence of students may help to defuse the dangers posed byemotionally stunted law enforcement agents.

The police, once they arrive, will ask who is in charge. Make sure everyone involvedknows to say they are just random passersby who happened to join in. The longer theauthorities are confused and unsure of what to do, the longer your event can go on. Atsome point, once they’ve gotten oriented, they will close in to force people out of thearea and perhaps make arrests. It’s usually best to end things just before this happens,in order to come out ahead and ensure a positive experience for everyone — but remember, police will often try intimidation tactics before they do anything else, so it’s goodto develop an instinct for when they are bluffing. Make sure that everyone can dispersesafely from the area, and that the police won’t know which cars parked nearby belongto people attending the event. When it’s time to go, precious materials can be secretednearby and picked up later if need be.

Have a legal group ready to bail out anyone who is arrested, and if possible a lawyer tohandle cases related to the event. At the beginning of the event, cards can be distributedwith a number to call in case of arrest.

One more hint: during the preparation process, on top of everything else you have todo to get ready, let your collaborators know you will be bringing a special surprise to theevent. Challenge them to reciprocate.

Account

In DC, we have had two Reclaim the Streets actions (and a few other actions that werenot specifically billed as RTSs, but fashioned similarly.) This is an account from the firstDC Reclaim the Streets, which took place on Saturday, June 23, 2001.

A small group of us started planning for the action a couple of months before theaction date. During the first two meetings we talked about our vision for the event andhow to organize it. In the second meeting we broke into working groups: outreach, tactical (and blockading, which in this case meant cars), art, and fun and games. The groupsmet independently and shared information with the other groups on a need-to-knowbasis. For example, I was in the core organizing group, but not in the tactical group, soI didn’t know until the morning of the event what the final destination was- and onlylearned it then because 1 needed to drop off some supplies in advance. Others in thecore groups did not know the location until we arrived. This was very important: forour plan to succeed, we needed the element of surprise so we could set up roadblockswithout the police knowing what was happening.

The outreach group made hundreds of full-color posters and fliers. The front ofthe fliers read, “Street Party! Converge at Dupont Circle, 3 p.m., Saturday, June 23,Featuring: DJs [followed by the names of the five DJs], Free! Reclaim the Streets!”and featured our web address and a picture of people dancing. The back read, “Featuring live DJs, dancing, music, street theater & soccer. Bring chalk, toys (especiallywater toys and Frisbees),boomboxes, banners, signs, and costumes. Stepping off thesidewalks and into the streets brings us together and allows us to challenge the dehumanization of our lives. A street party is a liberated zone, where we can practice lifeas we’d like it to be — full of color, community, and mutual aid.” We wanted the posterto be appealingto abroad range of people, from rave kids and activists to parents andchildren. We also made 11” x 17” posters and hung them on lampposts all over townusing wheatpaste (see Wheatpasting,pg. 598).

The tactical group was in charge of deciding where to hold the event, what route totake to get there, and how to blockade the road so we could hold the area we wantedfor as long as possible. In our larger group, we chose the meeting point for the action,Dupont Circle. This convergence point was publicly announced on the fliers. We choseDupont because it was a public park where a large number of people could converge ona summer day without attracting too much attention, it was accessible by public transportation, and, as a number of roads departed from the circle, it would be difficult forthe police to block our exit from it.

A subgroup of the tactical group was the car group, who were responsible for findingand getting old cars that could run enough to get a few miles but were such junkersthat it would be no loss to leave them behind. They ended up paying a couple hundreddollars, in cash, for two cars. The previous owners signed over the titles to the cars tothe fake names the buyers gave them; for a later action, we were able to get cars for freewith a little more time and searching. It was also members of the car group who, on themorning of the action, drove the cars to the two ends of the street we were to reclaim,acted as if the cars had broken down in the middle of the street, and then pretended tolook to see what was wrong with the cars while actually disabling them so they would bedifficult to move. Later, their tires were slashed, too. Only the tactical group knew whowas in the car group, since the car people were in a high-risk position.

The arts group spent the months leading up to the event making beautiful bannersand flags, which were carried in the march to the RTS destination and hung over thebroken-down cars and at the entrance to the party. They also made large paper macheprops — including a huge sun, moon, and lightning bolt (the RTS symbols),which werecarried in the parade and used to decorate the party.

The fun and games group gathered lots of games and props to be used during the party — including multiple games of Twister, hundreds of water balloons, chalk, spray paint,jump ropes, and noisemakers. This group also spent some time dumpstering couches,chairs, road cones, and general junk for decorating the site and helping to block the road.

We probably should have had a fundraising group, since we did shell out a good dealof money and fundraising did not end up happening in a very organized way. We wereable to collect quite a bit of money, though, by walking around the RTS with large trash-cans suggesting that people “throw their money away”!

A big problem with our organizing that we have tried to address since our first RTSis gender and experience divisions between the working groups. To illustrate, the tactical group was made up entirely of men who were experienced activists and friends,while the other grougjs were made up of women and many of the men who were lessexperienced in activism. This division, in which men do the “sexy” up-front work whilewomen do the behind-the-scenes preparatory work, was fairly common in some of DCsactivist groups. Having experienced people who know each other do high-risk actionstogether can make sense, but it can also be an excuse to avoid sharing skills, diffusingpower, or taking on more thankless jobs. Each action should be an opportunity for newpeople to learn new s lis and new challenges, and to challenge gender, racial, and otherbarriers to taking on new roles.

On the day of the event, between one and two hundred people met at Dupont Circleand walked en masse to our destination. During the walk, one Starbucks coffee shopwindow was broken. Our destination was a busy street with lots of pedestrian traffic, ina moderate-income neighborhood with a diverse population that included many peopleof our own demographic (so we weren’t taking over someone else’s neighborhood). Thethree-block area we occupied had lots of independent businesses and some corporateones, and would be great as a pedestrian walkway- so thafs what we created for one day.The ends of the street were blocked off with the cars, couches, and other “junk” but weleft one alley open through which we could escape or at least get the DJ equipment out ifthe police came in, and which cars that were “trapped” in the area could use to exit.

From most standpoints this RTS was a great success. Pirate radio people set up abroadcast simultaneous with the action to announce the events, encourage participation, and provide music for the walk to the end point. We had perfect weather, a mobilesound system and DJs, drum circles, free food from Food Not Bombs, Twister games,chalk and spray paint art, stilt walkers, propagandists, literature inviting onlookers tojoin, banners proclaiming “Free the City, Kill the Car, Reclaim the Streets,” skateboarders who used the old cars as ramps, children playing double-dutch, and more. ,

Of course, we also had some police nearby — but surprisingly, they did not break upthe RTS or come inside our temporary autonomous zone. As this was the first RTS inDC, the police were totally confused by what was happening. I overhead some cops discussing the situation: “They must have a permit. I mean, they wouldn’t do this withouta permit... would they?” It took them a couple of hours to figure out that yes, we wouldand were holding a street party without a permit. They then informed the crowd that wehad to leave at six p.m. or they would arrest everyone. Since our purpose for this actionwas to have a day party and we were not prepared to hold the area longer than that, weagreed, but said that we would walk together (in the streets!) to a park about eight blocksaway so people who wanted to could continue to hang out there. So, after four hours ofreclaiming that space, we went mobile again, waked to the park, hung out, and thendispersed at our leisure from there.

How to Build a Rocketstove

This is an amazingly efficients ay to extract the maximum amount of energy from limited stove fuel resources. In our final testbefore composing this, we made a large potof old-style whole oat cereal boil fortwo hours with just a three-foot two-by-four that weyanked off a pallet.

Ingredients

• Five steel food cans. (Two 15-Ounce cans — the most common size of vegetable cans. One 26-Ounce can — this less common size is proportionately taller than regular cans; beans often come in cans this size. Two one-gallon cans — these can be found in restaurant dumpsters, especially those of pizza restaurants.)

• Annealed tie wire — available at hardware stores by that name; this is made for tyingrebar together in steel-reinforced concrete

• Insulation — You can use cob, a mixture of clay, sand, and straw, but ashes work better. If you don’t have enough, you can add perlite or vermiculite, which are both available atgarden stores as soil additives.

• Can opener

• Tin snips

• Pliers

• Drill with hole-saws (optional)

• Permanent marker

Instructions

Using the can opener, cut off the top and bottom of the two IS-ounce cans, makingthem into tubes; cut off the top of the 26-ounce can; cut off the top of one one-galloncan; cut off the top and bottom of the other one-gallon can. Save the top from one ofthe one-gallon cans.

Remove the labels, glue, and food residue from all cans.

Hold the bottom of the 26-ounce can to the side of one one-gallon can, about one inchfrom the bottom. Trace the circumference of the smaller can onto the side of the largercan so you will know what size hole to cut. Use your tin snips to cut the hole in the one-gallon can. You may want to cut the hole slightly small at first, then remove more if needbe; you want these joints to be fairly tight.

Hold the 15-ounce can to the side of the 26-ounce can — all the way at the bottom thistime- and trace it. Use tin snips to cut the hole in the 26-ounce can. Make sure thesmaller can fits snugly in the larger can.

Make a two-inch cut lengthwise in one of the two 15-ounce cans. This will allow thecan to squeeze and fit snugly in the end of the other. Now you have a steel tube abouttwo cans long. This is your chimney.

Cover the bottom of the one-gallon can with insulation. The insulation should comeup to the level of the bottom of the hole you have cut.

Put the 26-ounce can through the hole in the one-gallon can so that the hole you cutis in the center facing up. This is your firebox.

Squeeze the chimney cans into the hole in the 26-ounce can. Adjust the position ofthe cans so the chimney is in the center of the one-gallon can. Make sure you haven’tshoved it so far into the 26-ounce can that it blocks too much airflow. You can also cuta bit of material away from the bottom of the chimney to further accommodate airflowwhen there is a fire.

Pack the remaining space between the inner cans and the one-gallon can with insulation. If you have used cob for insulation, it will take a whiie for this to dry and begin toinsulate. You can speed this process by poking holes in the one-gallon can, leaving it inthe sun, or running the stove. If you run the stove with wet insulation, you will get lessheat to the pot and there will be less “draw w — the flames will not be as readily sucked upinto the chimney where you want them. This should improve greatly as the cob dries.

Use the lid that you saved from the other one-gallon can to make a shelf for the fire-box. The shelf should be a bit lower than the middle of the firebox. It should also beshorter than the firebox, so the space directly under the chimney is undivided. Fuel willgo on top of this shelf; ash will fall down and collect underneath.

Your rocket stove is now complete, except for a pot rack. That is what the second one-gallon can is for. Cut a series of large holes along the top of this can so air can flow, but leaveenough space between the holes that the can remains strong. Slice the can lengthwise so itcan expand to fit over the other can, and slice a few inches off its bottom all the way around.Slide the sliced can over the other gallon can, so the former extends one or two inchesabove the latter; this is the rack on which your pot will sit. The chimney is your burner.

Wrap tie wire around the sliced can, and use pliers to twist it tightly so it is squeezedfirmly around the other gallon can. You should tie at least three wires to hold the rack.Remember, the weight of your pot and food will rest on this rack.

To use the stove, place it on a level, steady surface that is high enough off the groundthat you have easy access to the firebox. Use a hatchet to make small pieces of wood.Wood should be up to the diameter of a finger. Use paper and smaller wood kindling tostart the fire. You can set and light the fire at the opening of the fire box, then shove it tothe back under the chimney when it gets going. Be careful not to choke the stove — keephalf or more of the volume of the firebox open to airflow.

When your fire is established, you can begin to cook. This is probably a two-personjob: one to cook, the other to stoke. The stove bums the small pieces of wood very fastand requires constant attention. If your insulation is good and you are burning hotenough, the stove will produce very little ash. You shouldn’t have to empty it until theend of one cooking session.

Tips

To further increase efficiency, put a lid on your pot and pile bricks onto the lid — themore, the better. This creates a low-tech pressure cooker, decreasing cooking time.

You can use longer pieces of wood by letting the wood hang out of the firebox, advancing the pieces into the fire as they are consumed.

Sabotage

Instructions

If you are going to be involved in sabotage, you should remove yourself from high-profile activism, resolve old warrants and speeding tickets, and otherwise arrange toappear to be a law-abiding citizen. You should be able to glide through a routine trafficstop without occasioning any suspicion. Anyone can engage in everyday resistance, butif your chosen approach to subversion includes serious illegal activity, you’ll do well tomake things as difficult as possible for those whose job it is to catch you. As they say,sometimes you have to obey the small laws to break the big ones.

Brainstorming

Before you even consider carrying out an act of sabotage, you presumably have established your general goals as a political activist or subversive. The possibility of sabotagecomes up when you move on to working out a strategy to achieve those goals. Perhapsyou need to draw the public eye to an injustice that would outrage everyone, if only theyheard about it; perhaps you want to destroy the means by which a corporation or institution is carrying out its misdeeds, or at least provide it with a deterrent; perhaps you wantto inspire your fellow activists or dissidents, and demonstrate a model for resistancein the process. If sabotage seems like it could be an effective element of your strategy,consider the possible targets, the actions you can take against them, and the means bywhich to do so.

Your action should be in proportion to the seriousness of the issues, the importanceof the target, and the means at your disposal, and you should be prepared to handle allthe potential consequences. If the effects of your action will be publicized, take into account the ways different tactics will play out in the public eye. Think hard about how tominimize risk, expense, and difficulty whiie maximizing effectiveness; through everystep of the planning, consider if there is a simpler, safer way to achieve the same ends,and whether you are prepared for the risks you will run.

Consider the effects of your action in a broader context. Who will it inspire, who willit intimidate? Will it provoke more surveillance or repression of your community, orinfighting within it? If so, is it worth it, and how will you deal with these consequences?Don’t draw attention to an important target with a small action if you or others maydesire to do something more serious with it later. Recognize that the authorities canuse your acts of sabotage as propaganda to their own ends; think about how to offset orundercut this.

Reconnaissance

From the time you begin considering a target to the moment before you strike, youwill be doing reconnaissance, and the quality of this preparatory work will determinewhether your action is a success or a failure. First, research the target and everythingrelated to it — from a computer in a public space, for example, or by stopping by a touristcenter or signing up for a guided tour. Be sure that anyone who does such investigationcannot be connected to the act of sabotage later.

Gather maps; if possible, get aerial photographs of the area and floor plans of any buildings. You can often obtain these on the internet. Make your own maps, combining thefeatures of the maps you assemble with the information your scouting missions provide.Carefully check these maps against reality on subsequent scouting missions. Don’t riskconspiracy charges by keeping maps of or notes about potential targets in your home.

To the extent that it’s possible without attracting attention, become intimately familiar with the site of your intended action and the area surrounding it. It may be mostadvantageous for the people who do the bulk of the scouting not to be involved in theaction; all the same, everyone who will be on the site in the action should spend timethere, not just the scouts. Ideally, conduct a dry run, with everyone who will engage inthe action participating. If need be, take photographs to study, but do so very subtly, anddon’t develop them in such a way that there is evidence of your reconnaissance.

While scouting, make note of schedules, security, random traffic, and the nearness ofand travel time from locations such as police stations that may launch a response. Staffhours, garbage collection, janitorial service, the times at which trains pass by — anythingpertinent should be known to you. Trash can often provide important intelligence on acorporation or institution (seeDumpster Diving, pg. 219) . Keep an eye out for items in thearea that can be applied in your action; the less you have to take in and out on the bigday, the better. Survey the surroundings: are there heavy woods that could provide cover,or consumer outlets where people can be camouflaged as customers?Pay attention tochanges in the area over the course of successive scouting missions, to minimize thechances that any significant ones will occur unexpectedly between the last scouting mission and the action. Scout at various times of day and night, but especially at the time ofday when your action wi 1 1 take place; if need be, post a full-time watch. You may need totest whether and where there are security systems, and measure the speed and scale ofthe response; be careful not to give anything away in the process. Since your action likelydepends on the element of surprise, you should probably cancel your plans if anythingcompromises this at any point during reconnaissance.

Finally, consider precedents for your action. Chances are someone has attempted something similar; learn what you can about how it went, and lay your plans accordingly.

Sometimes you can carry off a simple act of sabotage or subversion on your own. In other cases you will need a team to do so. This team should consist of the smallest numberof people necessary to accomplish all of the tasks involved; the fewer people involved,the smaller the risk of misunderstandings and individual mistakes, and the strongereach participant’s sense of personal responsibility. In larger groups, some people maydrop out of the project in the course of your preparations, so be sure there are enoughof you to provide for this possibility. If only a few people are needed, your affinity group(see Affinity Croups, pg. 28) should suffice; if more are called for, consider inviting otheraffinity groups to collaborate with you. Any large group working together should divideinto smaller sub-groups, to simplify organization and decision-making.

You should only invite people to work with you that you have reason to trust deeply.Every person you invite who opts not to participate is another needless security risk, sochoose with care. Approach people with general questions first, in a private environment, and only make your proposal if they express concrete interest in doing something.Individuals who aren’t going to be working with you shouldn’t even be aware of yourinterest in illegal activities; innocent speculations as to who carried out a well-known action can be extremely dangerous. The team that forms should be capable of cooperatingamicably in the most harrowing of situations.

Bringing in others means respecting them as equal participants in the project, withan equal say in how it will be carried out. Don’t invite people to work with you unlessyou respect their judgment and are willing to adjust your plans according to their perspectives. Inevitably, some individuals will have more experience in a given field thanothers, and will be able to offer more pragmatic advice. At the same time, avoid a dynamic in which everyone in the group counts on one or two members to get the dirtywork done; this centralizes skills that are better developed by all, and can result in yourgroup developing an unhealthy, hierarchical structure.

Security

Planning and carrying out acts of sabotage requires tight security; before even considering such an action, a group should be thoroughly versed in Security Culture (pg.461).From the very beginning, you’ll need to establish safe meeting places to lay plans.Ideally, these will be outside, or at least in a safe space not under any kind of surveillance or connected to any known activists. You may want to develop a cipher for communicating about the action, or a pretext for getting together; but beware, a clumsycode is worse than none at all, and saying you’re going to a wedding when no weddingis taking place can arouse more suspiaon than it dispels. Keep your interactions withlong-term companions in illegal activity to a minimum; go to see them in person whennecessary, so there is no record of your association. It can be surprisingly easy to keepcertain relationships and meetings secret simply by never mentioning them over emailor telephone lines.

If everyone is really concerned about information leaks and has great confidence in asmall team of organizers, this team can withhold the identity of the target until the lastpossible point in the planning phase. The drawback to this approach is that it centralizes important information, which can unbalance group dynamics, increase risks, andput off possible participants. It is most useful for low-risk actions that are open to manyparticipants, or high-risk actions to be carried out by a tight-knit team; for newer groupscarrying out actions of mid-level risk, it can be important that everyone involved participate in every stage of the discussion and planning.

Planning

As soon as the core group of participants is established, you can begin holding meetings. Make sure everyone is happy with the format you choose for these (see “Facilitating Discussions” in Affinity Groups, pg. 28), and that it is efficient and goal-oriented. Atthe first one, you should establish the target, goals, security culture, and maximum levelof risk, and work out how you will continue to get together. In the following meetings,scouts can share intelligence, and individuals can make tactical proposals for the groupto amend until they comprise a plan with which everyone is comfortable.

Such a plan must cover the full range of scenarios from best to worst case; the groupshould establish in advance under what circumstances they will call off the action. Don’tunderestimate our power — small numbers of people with little funding can accomplishtremendous objectives — but be realistic. You should also establish structures to meetthe needs of the action group; these can include communications, scouting, legal support, supplies, food and housing, and media work. Individuals can choose roles withinthis framework, and sub-groups can form to focus on bottomlining specific tasks. Avoidletting routines develop in which the same individuals always take on the same tasks;the more skills each participant develops, the better.

If the group organizing the action is composed of people from different regions, thelocals will bear a larger portion of the responsibility to cany out reconnaissance;it mayconsequently be easier for them to compose plans, as well. Locals should be consciousof the potential imbalance of power this can create, and take care to extend to otherswhatever information and control they can. For security reasons, it can be wise to establish an exchange program, in which one group organizes an action in its local area foranother to carry out, and vice versa. Repression will be directed at those activists closestto the target area, but they can have airtight alibis in place.

Action Camp

In the last few days before a serious action, there is often a lot to do. This is particularlychallenging when security concerns dictate that you and your companions should notbe seen together during this period, especially not hard at work on some mysteriousproject; it may even be necessary to hide the presence of participants who have amvedfrom far away. To solve these problems, you can organize an action camp: in a securelocation, such as the private lands of a trustworthy individual who can be counted on notto notice anything, or a forgotten zone suitable for squatting or camping, get togetherfor a short period of intensive preparation (see Thinktanks, pg. 550). In urban areas,the home of a vacationing trustworthy friend may suffice. Everyone should have analibi — and not the same one! — going into the action camp. Organizing food and shelterfor a group over a period of time can be taxing in itself; individuals who desire to playsupport roles can take responsibiity for delivering food and other resources. Make surethat traffic in and out of the camp does not attract undue attention.

Legal Preparations

During the planning phase, establish the potential legal repercussions of every actionyou are considering, so you can weigh these as you make decisions. If you’re not readyto do the time, don’t do the crime. Before carrying out any serious illegal act, you shouldhave a legal support structure in place in case anyone is arrested (see Legal Support, pg.32–9). Be sure there are people not directly involved in the action who can provide legalsupport to arrestees, so no immediate link between them, the people supporting them,and the action can be made.

Conditions

Sometimes weather will be integral to your plans — you might need a full moon forcross-country travel, or a new moon for cover of darkness or a rainstorm to soften noise.Snowfall can make it impossible to pass through an area without leaving a track, whilehot weather might make you look more suspicious in your disguise. Schedule accordingly. Stay abreast of other developments; if there’s a manhunt on in the area of yourtarget the night of your action, you’d better know about it before you head out.

Communications

Unless your action is to be carried out by one or two isolated individuals, you will needa secure and reliable system for communication and counter-surveillance. This couldrange from simply having the option for an emergency cancellation to be announcedat the last minute, should something go awry, to several groups staying in close contactthroughout the action. The more elaborate your communications structure, the morecoordinated your activitiescan be; on the other hand, the more you rely on communications technology, the greater the chance that your transmissions can be monitored, andthe greater the confusion should communication break down. The simpler your communications structure is, the safer it is, and this goes for your plan in general.

Scouts can be posted at entry points to await and announce police response, or canrove the area to keep tabs on security and passersby. A police scanner can be used tomonitor police interactions, though it is illegal to use them from vehicles. A communications center can be established, to which scouts and action groups report, and which isresponsiblefor contacting other groups to pass along news and announcements; alternatively, information can be distributed by means of a “phone tree,” in which each personor group that receives a message is responsible for passing it on to a few others.

Communications technology is constantly evolving, as are police surveillance techniques; keep up to date on your options. Two-way radios come in varying ranges; theycan be monitored easily enough, especially if police are prepared to do so, and oftenfail to work when they are most needed, but they can be used to contact a number ofdifferent people instantaneously, and ifunmonitored they leave no record of use. Cellphones work more reliably and over much longer ranges, and are not quite as easy tomonitor, assuming they are not already tapped; on the other hand, they leave a permanent record of where, when, and to whom calls were made. A cell phone borrowed froma noncombatant or registered to a fictitious owner is much safer than a personal cellSabotage phone. This is the only kind of phone you should use in a serious action.

Action

On the day or night of the action, go over every step of the plan together, with each participant describing his or her role. This will provide crucial clarity and reassurance.

Your plans should specify the order in which activities are to be carried out; theyshould take into account the amount of time each activity will require, providing fortransportation time as well. Everyone whose actions are to be coordinated should havesynchronized watches. A full route, including alternate escape routes (see Evasion),should be charted for everyone involved — not just in and out of the target site, but allthe way from the starting point of the day’s events to their conclusion when everyone issafely dispersed. This route should be planned so as to leave as little record as possibleof the movements of those who participate in the action; avoid toll roads, for example,and surveillance cameras at gas stations.

If there are getaway drivers, it’s better for them to return at a predetermined timeor when called for than to wait around attracting the attention of neighbors or passingpolice. Have your time budgeted in advance, and adjust your plans as you go in orderto avoid awkward situations. If you have a time established in advance to be picked up,and it takes longer than you’d expected to get onto the site from your drop-off and pick-up location, set aside the same amount of extra time for getting back, and subtract thatfrom the time you had planned to have on the site.

You should have backup plans worked out, in case something goes wrong, and establish what conditions will prompt you to switch from one plan to the next. Everyoneshould have an alternate mode of transportation available in case they cannot leave thearea by the planned means, and should carry cab or bus fare if applicable.

Make sure you have the necessary tools for the job, but take nothing extraneous withyou — nothing potentially incriminating, nothing needlessly heavy, nothing you might accidentally lose. After the action, destroy all the tools you used, or, if you’re sure the action was not dramatic enough to provoke a serious investigation, keep them far away fromany space associated with you. Make sure all other evidence is destroyed-every last map,every scribbled note, every piece of clothing you might have been seen wearing.

Have an alibi prepared: arrange to have been seen in public, or to have a record — suchas a parking lot ticket, movie stub, or campground receipt from a location you are certain is not under surveillance — of your activities away from the scene of the crime. Don’tever speak of the action again, except within the group with whom you accomplished it,and even then only under secure conditions. There are two exceptions to this: if you arecaught, tried, and sentenced for an action, you can speak about the actions for which youwere convicted, on the condition that you not give away anything about anyone else; andif you succeed in overthrowing the government and all other oppressive institutions,you and your friends and everybody else like you will finally be free to own up to havingparticipated in subversive activities back in the bad old days. Imagine the stories well allhave to tell then!

Communique and Press Coverage

You may want to disguise your strike as an accident or a random act of vandalism, so asnot to help investigators by narrowing the pool of suspects. On the other hand, if one ofyour goals is to attract public attention, you will do well to take publicity into your ownhands. The best of sabotage actions can go unnoticed or even be deliberately covered up,unless they are accompanied by compelling and wide-ranging media campaigns.

The simplest way to do this is to issue a communiquk. This is essentially a press release (see Mainstream Media, pg. 358): it should begin by coveringthe who, what, when,and where of an action, then explain why it was carried out and elaborate on the broadergoals behind it. It should be written simply and preasely, in a generic writing style thatwill not give away the identity of the author or authors. Mainstream press coverage willinclude a sentence or two of the communiquk at best, so make sure every line of it iseloquent and capable of standing alone. Sometimes humor can be helpful for getting

your point across and maintaining readers’ attention; this is most useful if your communique is going to be published in full somewhere, such as on an independent newswebsite. Include a link to an informative webpage or two, ifpossible, keeping in mindthat this can also bring attention or repression to those who host them.

Sending a communique can be one of the riskiest parts of an action. It should go outfrom a one-time-only email account on a public computer, and the person who sendsit should be careful not to be detected approaching, using, or leaving the computer. Atbest, it should be sent from an area far away from the action and the homes and hauntsof those who carried it out. Alternatively, it can be sent through the mail — but the textshould not be composed on a computer tied to any of the participants, and the paper,envelope, and stamp should never be touched without gloves on.

A simple text communique is often not enough to capture attention or convey themagnitude of an action. If possible, include photographs or video footage. One or moreof the individuals involved in the action can be responsible for taking these during or after the action (see Independent Media, pg. 346). Be careful that such footage doesn’t provide investigators with any useful information about your group. Independent mediaoutlets are more likely to provide thorough and sympathetic coverage than mainstreammedia; if you don’t know any independent media journalists you can trust to approach,you can anonymously tip them off or otherwise solicit their coverage.

In addition to seeking mainstream and independent media coverage, you can alsoarrange to have news and explanations of your action presented directly to the publicthrough autonomous means (see Banner Drops and Banner Hoists, pg. 75; Graffiti, pg.258; Newspaper Wraps, pg. 392; Stickering, pg. 520; Wheatpasting, pg. 598; also considerpirate radio). Consider how these can be used to communicate the necessary information without implicating those who apply them in greater crimes.

Afterwards

Immediately after an action, make sure that everyone is safe and emotionally cared for,and that anyone who was arrested or injured receives support. Aside from taking careof this, split up and get quickly back to the business of being unremarkable law-abidingcitizens. Resist the urge to rush to find each other and compare notes. Eventually youmay want to meet again, either in small groups or all together, to trade perspectives onwhat happened, but this will require at least as much security as your planning meetings did, since you may now be under suspicion. Consider limiting your involvement inaboveground political activities, but don’t make any sudden dramatic changes in yourlifestyle or commitments. It is less incriminating to maintain a visible routine than todrop out of sight completely. Keep your secrets to yourself and your wits sharp; often,the authorities won’t strike until months or even years after an action, when they’ve hadenough time to gather intelligence and prepare a case.

Appendix: Approach and Entry

If you have to pass fences, consider going through them rather than over them. If youhave bolt cutters, this may take no longer than scaling them, and involves less risk ofbeing spotted. With chain link fences, just cut the same thread of wire in the fence top,bottom, and three or four places in between, then pull out the wire with your pliers. Thefence will then just fall into two. Keep in mind that a cut fence, if discovered, will immediately alert an otherwise unsuspiaous person.

If you have to walk, try to stay off roads. If you need to drive, be aware of all the waysyour vehicle can be tracked, including traffic cameras. Consult the recipe for Evasion (pg.234) for more details about transportation and getaway driving.

If you have to cross a wall, you may need extra equipment. The simplest way is tobring your own ladder; if you leave this at your point of entry, however, it can attract attention, and if someone removes it you may be trapped.

Ditches and rivers can provide good cover, but it’s always “better to work dry, so planon exiting through one rather than entering, if possible. Remember that mud recordsfootprints and other signs of human passage.

If a gate is padlocked, use bolt cutters to remove the lock. If you have the option, itis easier to cut a chain than a lock, and easier to disguise. Never leave a cut padlock orchain in new — it’s a sure sign that someone’s inside. If need be, replace a cut lock withan identical padlock of your own.

You can cover a window or a portion thereof with duct tape before breaking it, if youwant to do so quietly and without making a mess.

Doors are often protected by alarms. If in doubt, you can always try going through thedoor itself, but the cutting operations will be noisy.

Roofs can provide numerous access points. Watch for heating and air conditioningducts, ventilation fans, attics, and crawlspaces.

Avoid open areas, especially around factories and offices: they are likely to be undercamera surveillance.

Account

In winter of 1992, my cell of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF)was waging a directaction campaign against the North American fur farm industry. Our targets were thehalf-dozen recipients of funding from the Mink Farmers Research Foundation, a furindustry group sponsoring research to enable the intensive confinement of mink. Therecipient of the greatest amount of funding was Richard Aulerich, the head of MichiganState University’s Experimental Fur Farm program. For the past thirty years, he had addressed the problems of disease encountered by the nation’s then 600 fur farms.

No one in our group had ever been on M SU’s campus; for security reasons, we kept allthe information we gathered on paper. Our goal was to destroy as much research as possible, thereby setting back the efforts of mink researchers intent on further domesticating and enslaving a native North American predator. If we decided it was safe, we would Sabotageemploy property destruction, specifically arson, to accomplish this end. We planned areconnaissance mission for late February, when we would be driving across country.

After a short visit with family friends in Michigan, another cell member and I cruisedthe MSU campus on a Sunday afternoon when it was less populated. A staff directorygave us the location of Aulerich’s office in Anthony Hall. I entered the stone buildingand waked around until I discovered that the rooms of the hall were separated fromadjoining research offices by the old building’s brick walls. This fact, and the generalemptiness of the building during odd hours, indicated that it was safe to use arson todestroy the records.

Next, we drove off campus to the surrounding countryside of East Lansing, wheremost of MSU’s agricultural research facilities were located. At Oregon State University,we had found the Experimental Fur Farm near the poultry research farm, and in Michigan it was the same: the long barns of the poultry and mink farm were hidden againstnearby woods, only a hundred yards from a state highway where a person or team couldbe dropped off and picked up.

We decided that the action could be carried out with only two people. Security was laxenough that minimal reconnaissancecould determine our entry and exit points, as wellas the frequency of security patrols and the direction from which a response would bemounted from the police station. We rented a car similar to those in MSU’s own motorpool, and watched Anthony Hall all night from a parking lot on the same day of the weekthat we planned to carry out our action. I noticed numerous ground floor windows in thebuilding that could be unlocked from inside easily and without attracting any attention.

Earlier the same night, I had been dropped on the shoulder of the state highway adjacentto the wooded area behind the Experimental Fur Farm and research barn. In the dead ofwinter, the facility had no electronic or physical security beyond the nightly random patrolsof campus police, who we never saw entering the long dirt road leading to the facility.

As I neared the complex of buildings, I began by scouting the perimeter for signs ofsophisticated motion detectors or infrared detectors; there were none. Next, I examinedthe construction of the research barn that we wanted to enter. Avoiding windows anddoors, the most likely places for alarms, I climbed onto the roof of the building anddiscovered that the corrugated sheet metal panels comprising the roof could be partiallyremoved, enough to allow me to crawl into the attic space and then into the building viaan access door in the ceiling.

The heart of our target was Aulerich’s office, which we knew would contain the records of his ongoing research. Nonetheless, this might be the only time his researchwould be attacked, so we decided we should cause as much damage as possible by alsoremoving the breeding records of the 250 breeder mink Aulerich had on the farm, destroying farm research equipment, and, if time permitted, rescuing a few hostages.

After the night’s reconnaissance, we completed the journey we had told friends wewere taking, arriving in Washington D.C. from Michigan as planned. After we’d established a local presence there among aboveground activists, one cell member and I droveback to Michigan. We rented a hotel roomtfriity miles from MSU, with outdoor accessso no one would see us coming and going. Even during our earlier trip, we hadn’t somuch as gassed up in East Lansing, not wanting to be seen by surveillance cameras orpeople in the same town as the college we intended to strike.

On the day of the action, in a car rented by a local friend who wouldn’t ask questions, we drove the route of our planned approach and escape to ensure there were nochanges. Next, my comrade tested the police scanner, which was programmed with thefrequencies of the MSU Police, while I went to work assembling a timed incendiarydevice out of components purchased far away while on the east coast.

All the ingredients were nationally distributed items; I removed all identifying serialnumbers, such as the one on the kitchen timer. Once the device was completed, I gentlypacked it with its battery disconnected into a small Tupperware container, and threwaway all the remaining electrical wire, soldering gun, and wire cutters — all traceableitems, and none as valuable as freedom.

After years of breaking into buildings, I had refined my fanny pack toolkit to includejust a few items: a small pair of “Vise-Grip” locking pliers, indispensable for removing small screws such as those in the roofing material; a Leatherman-type multi-tool;a small pry bar or large screwdriver; a flashlight that could be held in the mouth; and aknife with a serrated edge for cutting screen, insulation, sheetrock, or even steel cableand sheet metal. Last but not least, I carried the official ALF key, a small pair of bolt cutters for small locks such as those on the mink barns and file cabinets.

With just two people, there is less room for mistakes. First, we would visit the Experimental Fur Farm. We had agreed on the pick-up spot, and planned only to use ourreliable radios as a backup. I would have my radio on at all times with silence being thecontinuing signal for “all dear. M If I needed more time, I would take it, and radio whenI was ready to be picked up. My driver would be listening to the police scanner whilewatching for abnormal activity.

At 11:30 p.m., I was dropped on the shoulder of the state highway behind MSU’sExperimental Fur Farm. In just a few minutes, I was approaching the main researchbarn; it was black against the moonless night. Taking a ladder from the farm, I climbedonto the roof and quickly used my small locking pliers to remove enough sheet metalscrews to pry back the panel enough for me to crawl through. One last glance to ensureI hadn’t been seen, and I was in. I crawled through the attic, removed a ceiling panel,and shone my flashlight into the darkened research bam. The room was filled with feedmixers, refrigerators, and other fur farm equipment. I lowered myself from the ceiling,dropped into the room, and listened to my radio for any sign that I might have set off amotion-detectingalarm.

It was still silent. I moved to the small office in the comer of the research barn, andinspected the thin hollow-core wooden door for an alarm. None was visible, so I pulledthe pins from the door’s hinges with my multi-tool, then removed the entire locked doorwithout a struggle.

All the breeding records and other data necessary for the fur farm’s operation wereinside the office. I dumped computer discs, slides, and paperwork onto the floor. In afreezer, I discovered dozens of softball-sized balls wrapped in aluminum foil. I openedone; it contained an otter’s head.

Everything inside the freezers and refrigerators went onto the floor. Lastly, I pulleda can of red spray paint from my pack and wrote, “MICHIGAN MINK MILITIA,”“AULERICH TORTURES MINK,” and “WE WILL BE BACK FOR THE OTTER” onthe walls. The last statement referred to the lone otter I had found in a long concretecage among the mink barns. On my way out of the barn, I poured two gallons of hydrochloric acid I had found inside into the machinery and electrical equipment and overthe paperwork on the floor. Knowing now that there were no alarms, I left the buildingthrough a door.

The last stop at the experimentalfur farm was the mink barns, where I stripped eachcage of its breeder identification card. With the cards stuffed in my pack, I picked twomink to rescue, and transferred them into their detachable nest boxes. By the time I hadset these boxes in some bushes dose to the state highway and radioed for a pick-up, anhour and a half had passed since I was dropped off. Within minutes, my getaway driverwas flashing the brights of the car, signaling before pulling to a stop.

After a quick stop at a gas station to dump the breeding cards, I exchanged my packfor the one containing the incendiary device, and we drove to the MSU campus. Mydriver dropped me behind Anthony Hall, and parked at the spot across from the building from which we had done our reconnaissance. Walking briskly in the late winternight did not look suspicious, as it was cold. After glancing behind for anyone watching,I walked across the front of Anthony Hall to a ground floor window that was unlatched.I pulled the window open, lifted myself inside, and shut it behind me.

I peered around the comer, then climbed the flight of stairs to the first floor whereAulerich’s office was located. I pulled a ski mask over my face, as this was the time I wasmost vulnerable to being seen. Kneeling before the door to the office, I pulled the smallpry bar from my pack and broke the wooden ventilation slats in the door, then reachedinside to unlock it. Although I had inspected the office as best as I could from the outside windows, it was still possible that breaking in would trigger an unseen alarm. Mydriver had the scanner, though, and would hear any university police dispatch.

I stepped into Aulerich’s office and went straight to work scavenging wood to serve askindling once the incendiary device ignited. I pulled every file drawer out so the recordswould be destroyed by the firefighters’ water, if not by the fire. I didn’t bother destroyinganything else, as the noise might attract attention and the fire would hopefully take careof everything. I placed the incendiary device below a pile of desk drawers, set the dialon the one-hour timer for 54 minutes, and set the exposed light bulb “trigger” on anopened Stemo liquid fuel can. Just above the can were two two-liter plastic bottles filledwith a mixture of fuel and oil; when they melted, they would dump the flammable liquidover the wood.

Suddenly, I saw the familiar reflection of red and blue lights from the road that passedin front of Anthony Hall. I didn’t panic, though I knew a University Police cruiser wasclose enough that I could yell to the cop from Aulerich’s window. I trusted that mylookout would radio if there were a threat. It was a routine traffic stop, and after a fewminutes, both the police officer and the driver he had pulled over were on their way. Ire-set the timer to its maximum, connected the 9-volt battery to the incendiary device,and exited the way I had come.

Looking like a student returning from a late night of studying, I walked across thelawn of Anthony Hall to the sidewalk; within seconds my ride pulled past, slowing downenough for me to climb in. We drove straight to the state highway, where we collectedthe two patient mink that still awaited the final stage of their liberation. When dawnbroke, we were hiking along the shore of Muskrat Lake, carrying the two nest boxes.Beside a creek, we opened the boxes and watched the mink swim in moving fresh waterfor the very first time in their lives.

At approximately 4:35 a.m. on February 28, 1992, a fire tore through the offices ofRichard Aulerich destroying thirty-two years of accumulated and ongoing mink industryresearch worth an estimated two million dollars. At the Experimental Fur Farm, irreplaceable breeding records were stolen or destroyed, along with over $125,000 in researchequipment, $100,000 of which was not insured. The two missing mink were never seenagain. Later, a communique relayed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wouldannounce that the Animal Liberation Front had accepted responsibility for the fourth attack in eight months on a recipient of Mink Farmer Research Foundation funding.

Back at the hotel room, the mission accomplished, I penned a press release and included it in a FedEx box containing slides, a videotape, computer discs, and research records from Aulerich’s office. As I approached the Fedex drop-off box, the driver arrivedto pick up the packages; our eyes met, and I knew then that I had made a crucial mistakethat might cost me my freedom.

The package was addressed to a house that, unbeknownst to me, was also a safehouse for ALF material including my own hand-drawn maps of a primate researchfacility I was casing, and other equipment including night vision goggles. The packagenever arrived; it was intercepted and turned over to the FBI, due to the expired accountnumber I had used. What did arrive at the house was a FBI task force with search warrants, who kicked in the door and seized our gear.

The action was a success, but I’m only able to tell you this story because I made a mistake that resulted in my being convicted. Luckily, it only cost me four years of freedom.Federal agents may not be that smart, but they are patient, waiting for your cell’s onefatal error. Don’t be discouraged: our enemies still have weaknesses, and even the mostfortified target has its weak lirk. Find it, break it, and continue forward!

Screenprinting

Ingredients

• Frame

• Silkscreen mesh

• Staple gun and staples

• Photo emulsion kit — comes with photo emulsion and sensitizer

• Tablespoon

• Bowl

• Squeegee

• Darkroom or closet

• Fan

• Transparencies

• Clear tape or clean heavy piece of glass

• Shower or hose

• Two 100- watt bulbs and lamps

• Ink — If you are printing on fabric, you will need acrylic textile ink or oil-based textileink (also called plastisol) and paint thinner or turpentine. Basic acrylic inks and paint work for posters and similar media.

• Fabric, cardstock, or some other material to be decorated

Instructions

Preparing an Image

Design or choose an existing high-contrast black and white image. This image shouldconform to the same parameters as an image you could make into a stencil (see Stenciling, pg. 516); the differenceis that with saeenprinting, you can print much finer detail,and even make areas appear gray by use of dots.

You might have to make a negative of the image. Some self-serve photocopiers havethis function; if not, ask the people behind the counter at a photocopy shop to do it.

Basically, whatever is black on your starting image will be the printing area on yourfinished screen. Whatever is black will be dark.

You need to consider what color irk you will use on what color fabric or paper beforedetermining whether the image should be printed or should be formed out of negativespace. It is very important to get this right, especially when dealing with pictures.

Next, make a transparency of the image — you might have to ask for help from thepeople behind the counter again. Make sure the black parts are dark. For larger designs,you may need to tape two or more transparencies together; if so, be precise.

Making a Screen

This is a job for two. Acquire a frame. You could buy one already made, but what are you, a consumer? Reuse old frames, cutting canvas off them if need be, or dumpster wood that you can cut to size. Worst-case scenario, buy wood at a hardware store or lumber yard, and have them cut it for you. Miter the corners by cutting the ends at 45-degree angles (figure 16.1).This will make a super-study frame.

Staple the frame together on every side that you can. Try to do this on a level surface: the frame must lay totally flat. Stretch the screen mesh over the frame. You will needapproximately two inches extra to work with on every edge, so keep that in mind whilecutting. Have one person stretch and the other staple. I have found the best way tostaple is by stapling alternating sides (figure 16.2). This enables you to stretch the screenevenly. Put in one staple every inch and a half or so the first time around. Leave the corners for last. You should stretch it so tight your fingers start to hurt. Once you’ve stapledaround the frame once, go around a second time. This time, stretch the screen tight between every two staples with your thumb, pointer, and middle fingers, and add anotherstaple (figure 16.3) Last, stretch and staple the comers. Feel the screen; it should feeltight with no bumps or slack. Wherever these appear, repeat stretching and stapling.

When the screen is totally stretched, you can trim the extra mesh around the edges, butleave at least 1/4” from the staples so the screen won’t tear.

Applying Photo Emulsion

Prepare a darkroom. It needs to be pretty dark, but a crack of light here or there is allright. I use my closet. Set up the fan in the darkroom so that it can blow on your screenwhen you put it in there.

This next step you can do vith the lights on, but you must work quickly because themixture you are about to make will become light-sensitiveas soon as it starts drying. Forscreens sized to print one or two shirts at a time, mix 4 tablespoons of photo emulsionand 1 tablespoon of sensitizer in the bowl. For larger, smaller or multiple screens, youjudge how much emulsion you will need — the ratio of emulsion to sensitizer will alwaysbe 4 to 1. Make sure the emulsion is well mixed. Apply the emulsion to the screen with aspoon and squeegee (figurel6.4)Itwill be messy. Squeegee the front and the back of thescreen evenly. Go over it repeatedly to work the emulsion into and through the screen.Find a balance between too thick and too thin — this will come with practice. Try to prevent the emulsion from seeping under the frame; if it does, it will drip down later. Youcan leave the edges bare and cover them with masking or packing tape later, if you like.

Lean the screen against a wall in the darkroom to dry, with the fan blowing on it.Leave the room with as little light exposure as possible, and wait about 15 to 25 minutesbefore flipping the screen to dry the other side. In another 15 to 25 minutes, carefullyfeel the screen to see if it is dry. If it is wet anywhere, wait longer.

Setting Up Your light

While the screen is drying in the darkroom, set up your lamps. Set these up so that thelight falls evenly where the screen will be. You should lay the screen on a flat surface solight will only shine on the top of the screen. For bigger screens, you may need to shiftthe light every 5 minutes so that all areas will be evenly exposed. The lights should bebetween 12” and 18” from the screen. Practice will help you know the best distance foreach different exposure.

Exposing the Screen

When the screen is totally dry, bring it out of the darkroom into a work area that is as dimlylit as possible, or turn on a dim light in the darkroom. Place the transparency on the topside of the screen. You need to put it on reversed, so if you were to look through the screenfrom the other side, the image would be facing the correct way. Try to lay it as square aspossible with the frame, so it will be easy to line up when you print. Lay your glass over thetransparency, or tape the transparency flat to the screen exactly where you want it.

Place the screen under the lights (figure 16, 5). You will need to expose it for ao to 40minutes, although if your image has many tiny details you should expose it for a bit less,as light can seep under and expose small lines in your design. Once again, practice willhelp you to determine the length of time for different designs. “Try 30 minutes for yourfirst screen. Make sure the comers of the screen get enough light, and that the center ofthe screen doesn’t get too much. You can shift the lights around periodically to balancethe exposure. During this part of the process, the light will “cook” the exposed emulsiononto the screen, so you will be able to wash off the parts that were hidden from the lightby your transparency.

After exposure, turn the lights off. Try to prevent the bottom of the screen from being exposed to direct light. Bring the screen into the bathroom or to a hose and turn thewater on cold. Remove the transparency and run the screen under the water. The waterby itself should take off most of the unwanted emulsion; the rest you will have to rub offgently with your fingers. Do this on both sides. Hold the screen up to the light and checkwhether the emulsion has been totally removed in the areas that were blocked (figure16.6). If any remains, repeat the washing and rubbing process. Dry the screen with thefan again. You should let it completely dry — this will take about an hour.

Printing

Whenever you print, you should do two or three preliminary prints on scrap fabricor paper, to look for flaws — which can sometimes be fixed with tape on the top of thescreen — and work the ink through the screen.

Lay the screen on the fabric, top side down. Take a spoon and put a generous amountof ink along the top of the design. If s best to have two people for this step too, one to holdthe screen and one to squeegee. Take the squeegee and gently cover the design with athick layer of ink — you should not be able to see the design through the ink. Next, apply agood amount of pressure as you push the squeegee over it again. This time you are pushing the ink through the screen (figure 16.7).Swipe over the design two or three timeswith good pressure. You can go in different directions, too. Every design is different — youwill have to experiment to work out the right number of times to squeegee over it.

To remove the screen, hold the fabric down with one hand and gently lift the screenwith the other. You will be able to determine if you are using too much or too little inkby looking at the prints. If the prints start to become distorted, you will need to wipe offthe top of the screen with a rag; if you’re using oil-based ink, use a bit of turpentine orthinner to do this. Also, after a lot of prints, say thirty or so, the irk may start to harden,so you might want to take a break to wash and dry the screen.

Cleanup

Clean off acrylic ink with the cold spray of the shower or hose. It is important that youdean the screen and tools immediately when using acrylic, as it dries swiftly.

Clean up oil ink with paint thinner or turpentine and a bunch of rags. You can takeyour time with most oil ink, as it will take quite a while to dry on its own. Be aware,though, that there are air-drying oil inks that dry as quickly as acrylic.

Let acrylic ink on textiles or paper dry on its own. It could take between 15 minutes and2 hours depending on the ink, the material you are printing on, and the humidity. Youcan speed this process up with a hair dryer if you want.

Oil ink will take weeks to dry on its own, so place your printed fabrics in the oven,and don’t use oil inks on paper unless they are air-drying. After much experimenting,I have found that 5 to 10 minutes at 250–300 degrees Fahrenheit works well. You canput fabrics on a cookie sheet or tinfoil, or straight on the oven racks. Make sure nothing is hanging onto the element. M/ dad has a theory that if you’re supposed to bakesomething for 2 o minutes at 2 o o degrees, you can instead bake it for 10 minutes at 40 odegrees. This was proven wrong when I set two Catharsis hoodies on fire. Check on yourmaterials often until you determine how many minutes it takes to dry them. You canalso use a heat gun, available at hardware stores for peeling paint, to dry oil inks.

Heat-Setting

You need to heat set printed fabrics so that the ink doesn’t come off in the wash. Iron theprint on the reverse side for half a minute or so.

Multi-Color Printing

Two-color designs require two screens, and three-color designs, three screens. It is thesame process, but you will have to line up the second print carefully You can get hingesand make a press so that you can know exactly where the screen will fall.

Security Culture

Instructions

A security culture is a set of customs shared by a community whose members may engage inillegal activities, the practice of which minimizes the risks of such activities. Having a security culture in place saves everyone the trouble of having to work out safety measuresover and over from scratch, and can help offset paranoia and panic in stressful situations — hell, it might keep you out of prison, too. The difference between protocol andculture is that culture becomes unconscious, instinctive, and thus effortless; once thesafest possible behavior has become habitual for everyone in the circles in which youtravel, you can spend less time and energy emphasizing the need for it, or suffering theconsequences of not having it, or worrying about how much danger you’re in, as you’llhow you’re already doing everything you can to be careful. If you’re in the habit of notgiving away anything sensitive about yourself, you can collaborate with strangers without having to agonize about whether or not they are informers; if everyone hows whatnot to talk about over the telephone, your enemies can tap the line all they want and itwon’t get them anywhere.

The central principle of all security culture, the point that cannot be emphasized enough, isthat people should never be privy to any sensitive information they do not need to know. Thegreater the number of people who know something that can put individuals or projectsat risk — whether that something be the identity of a person who committed an illegalact, the location of a private meeting, or a plan for future activity — the more chancethere is of the knowledge getting into the wrong hands. Sharing such information withpeople who do not need it does them a disservice as well as the ones it puts at risk: itplaces them in the uncomfortable situation of being able to mess up other people’s liveswith a single misstep. If they are interrogated, for example, they will have something tohide, rather than being able to honestly claim ignorance.

Don’t ask, don’t tell. Don’t ask others to share any confidential information you don’t needto know. Don’t brag about illegal things you or others have done, or mention things thatare going to happen or might happen, or even refer to another person’s interest in beinginvolved in such activities. Stay aware whenever you speak, don’t let chance allusionsdrop out thoughtlessly.

Ycu can say no at any time to anyone about anything. Don’t answer any questions you don’twant to — not just with police officers, but also with other activists and even close friends:if there’s something you don’t feel safe sharing, don’t. This also means being comfortable with others doing the same with you: if there’s a conversation they want to keep tothemselves, or they ask you not to be part of a meeting or project, you shouldn’t takethis personally — it’s for everyone’s good that they’re free to do so. For that matter, don’tparticipate in any projects you don’t feel good about, or collaborate with anyone you feelill at ease with, or ignore your gut feeling in any situation; if something goes wrong andyou get into trouble, you don’t want to have any regrets. Youte responsible for not lettinganyone (not even yourself!) talk you into taking risks you’re not ready for.

Don’t ever turn your friends over to your enemies. If captured, never, ever give up any information that could endanger anyone else. Some recommend an explicit oath be sworn byall participantsin a direct action group: that way, in a worst-case scenario, when pressuremight make it hard to distinguish between giving up a few harmless details and totallyselling out, everyone will know exactly what commitments they made to each other.

Don’t make it too easy for your enemies to figure out what you’re up to. Don’t be too predictable in the methods you employ, or the targets you choose, or the times and places youmeet to discuss things . Don’t be too visible in the public aspects of the struggle in whichyou do your most serious direct’ action: keep your name off mailing lists and out of themedia, perhaps avoid association with aboveground organizations and campaigns entirely. If you’re involved in really serious clandestine activities with a few comrades, youmay want to limit your interactions in public, if not avoid each other altogether. Federalagents can easily get access to the phone numbers dialed from your phone, and will usesuch lists to establish connections between individuals; the same goes for your email,and for that matter the books you check out from libraries . Don’t leave a trail: credit carduse, gas cards, cell phone calls all leave a record of your motions, purchases, contacts.Have a cover story, supported by verifiable facts. Be careful about what your trash couldreveal about you — dropouts aren’t the only ones who go dumpstering! Keep track of every written documentand incriminating photocopy — keep them allin one place, so youcan’t acadentally forget one — and destroy them as soon as possible. The fewer there arein the first place, the better- get used to using your memory. Make sure there aren’t anyghosts of such writing left behind in impressions on the surfaces you were writing on,whether these be wooden desks or pads of paper. Assume that every use of computersleaves a track, too.

Don’t throw any direct action ideas around in public that you think you might want to tryat some point. Wait to propose an idea until you can gather a group of individuals thatyou expect will all be interested in trying it; the exception is the bosom companion withwhom you brainstorm and hash out details in advance — safely outside your home andaway from mixed company, of course. Don’t propose your idea until you think the timeis right for it to be tried, to minimize the length of the vulnerable period during whichthe idea is out there without being put into action. Invite only those you are prettycertain will want to join in-everyone you invite who doesn’t end up partiapating is aneedless security risk, and this can be doubly problematic if it turns out they feel yourproposed activity is laughably dumb or morally wrong. Only invite people who can keepsecrets — this is critical whether or not they decide to participate.

Develop a private shorthand for communicating with your comrades in public. It’s importantto work out a way to communicate surreptitiously with your trusted friends about security issues and comfort levels while in public situations, such as at a meeting calledto discuss possible direct action. Knowing how to gauge each other’s feelings withoutothers being able to tell that you are sending messages back and forth will save you theheadache of trying to guess each other’s thoughts about a situation or individual, andhelp you avoid acting strangely when you can’t take your friend aside in the middle ofthings to compare notes. &/ the time you have convened a larger group to propose anaction plan, you and your friends should be dear on what each other’s intentions, willingness to run risks, levels of commitment, and opinions of others are, to save time andavoid unnecessary ambiguity. If you haven’t been part of a direct action planning circlebefore, you’ll be surprised how complicated and convoluted they can get even wheneveryone does amve prepared.

Develop methods to establish the security level d a group or situation. One quick procedureyou can run at the beginning of a larger meeting at which not everyone is acquainted isthe “vouched for” game: as each person introduces himself, all who can vouch for himraise their hands. Hopefully, each person is connected to the others by some link in thechain; either way, at least everybody knows how things stand. An activist who understands the importance of good security will not feel insulted in such a situation if thereis no one present who can vouch for him and the others ask him to leave.

Meeting location is an important factor in security. You don’t want a place that can bemonitored (no private residences), you don’t want a place where you can be observedall together (notthe park across from the site of the next day’s actions), you don’t wanta place where you can be seen entering and leaving or that someone could enter unexpectedly — post scouts, lock the door once things get started, watch out for anythingsuspicious. Ill never forget exiting an ultra-high security meeting in a university basement only to discover that while we’d been locked in, a crowd of liberal student protesters had flooded the adjoining room to watch a slideshow — which all the organizers ofthe next day’s militant black bloc had to wade through in embarrassment! Oops! Smallgroups can take walks and chat; larger groups can meet in quiet outdoor settings — gohiking or camping, if there’s time — or in private rooms in public buildings, such aslibrary study rooms or empty classrooms. Best-case scenario: though he has no ideayou’re involved in direct action, you’re close with the old guy who runs the cafe acrosstown, and he doesn’t mind letting you have the back room one afternoon for a privateparty, no questions asked.

Be aware of the reliability of those around you, especially those with whom you might collaborate in underground activities. Be conscious of how long you’ve known people, how farback their involvement in your community and their lives outside of it can be traced,and what others’ experiences with them have been. The friends you grew up with, if youstill have any of them in your life, are the best possible companions for direct action,as you are familiar with their strengths and weaknesses and the ways they handle pressure — and you know for a fact they are who they say they are. Make sure only to trustyour safety and the safety of your projects to level-headed folks who share the same priorities and commitments and have nothing to prove. In the long term, strive to build upa community of people with long-standing friendships and experience acting together,with national and international ties to other such communities.

Don’t get too distracted worrying about whether people are infiltrators or not; if your security measures are effective, it shouldn’t even matter. Don’t waste your energy and make yourself paranoid and unsociable suspecting everybody you meet. If you keep all sensitive information inside the circle of people it concerns, only collaborate with reliable and experienced friends whose history you can verify, and never give away anything about yourprivate activities, agents and police informers will be powerless to gather evidence to useagainst you. A good security culture should make it practically irrelevant whether thesevermin are active in your community or not. The important thing is not whether or nota person is involved with the cops, but whether or not he constitutes a security risk; ifhe is deemed insecure (double meaning intended here), he should never be permittedto end up in a situation where anyone’s safety depends on him.

Learn and abide by the security expectations of each person you interact with, and respectdifferences in style. To collaborate with others, you have to make sure they feel at homewith you; even if you’re not collaborating with them, you don’t want to make themuncomfortable or disregard a danger they understand better than you. When it comesto planning direct action, not abiding by the security culture accepted in a given community can blow not only your chances to cooperate with others on a project, but thepossibility of the project happening at all — for example, if you bring up an idea otherswere planning to try in a setting they deem insecure, they may be forced to abandon theplan as it may now be associated with them. Ask people to outline for you their specificsecurity needs before you even broach the subject of direct action.

Let others know exactly what your needs are when it comes to security. The corollary of abiding by others’ expectations is that you must make it easy for others to abide by yours. Atthe beginning of any relationship in which your private political life may become an issue, emphasize that there are details of your activities that you need to keep to yourself.This can save you a lot of drama in situations that are already stressful enough; the lastthing you need on returning from a secret mission gone awry is to end up in a fight withyour lover: “But if you trusted me, you would tell me about this! How do I know you’renot out there sleeping with...!” It’s not a matter of trust — sensitive information isn’t areward to be earned or deserved.

Look out for other people. Make explicit to those around you what risks you may pose tothem with your presence* or with actions you have planned, at least as much as you’reable to without violating other precepts of security culture. Let them know to the extentyou’re able what risks you run yourself for example, whether you can afford to be arrested (if there are outstanding warrants for you, if you are an illegal alien, etc.), whatresponsibilities you have to be free to keep up with, whether you have any allergies.Don’t imperil others with your decisions, especially if you’re not able to provide concretesupport should they somehow get arrested and charged on account of your behavior.If someone else drops a banner in an area immediately adjacent to a fire you set, thepolice might charge them with arson; even if the charges can’t stick, you don’t want torisk their ill will, or accidentally block their planned escape route. If you help initiate abreakaway march that leaves the permitted zone, try to make sure you keep your bodybetween the police and others who have come along but aren’t necessarily dear on therisks involved; if you escalate a spontaneous parade by engaging in property destruction,make sure others who were unprepared for this are not still standing around in confusion when the police show up. Whatever risky projects you undertake, make sure you’reprepared to go about them intelligently, so no one else will have to run unexpected risksto help you out when you make mistakes.

Security culture is a form of etiquette, a way to avoid needless misunderstandings and potentially disastrous conflicts. Security concerns should never be an excuse for making others feel left out or inferior — though it can take some finesse to avoid that! — just as no one should feel they have a “right” to be in on anything others prefer to keep to themselves.Those who violate the security culture of their communities should not be rebuked tooharshly the first time — this isn’t a question of being hip enough to activist decorum tojoin the in-group, but of establishing group expectations and gently helping people understand their importance; besides, people are least able to absorb constructive criticismwhen they’re put on the defensive. Nevertheless, such people should always be told immediately how they’re putting others at risk, and what the consequences will be shouldthey continue to do so. Those who can’t grasp this must be tactfully but effectively shutout of all sensitive situations.

Security culture is not paranoia institutionalized, but a way to avoid unhealthy paranoia tyminimizing risks ahead of time. It is counterproductive to spend more energy worryingabout how much surveillance you are under than is useful for decreasingthe danger itposes, just as it is debilitating to be constantly second-guessing your precautions anddoubting the authenticity of potential comrades. A good security culture should makeeveryone feel more relaxed and confident, not less. At the same time, it’s equally unproductive to accuse those who adhere to security measures stricter than yours of beingparanoid — remember, our enemies are out to get us.

Don’t let suspicion be used against you. If your foes can’t learn your secrets, they will settle for turning you against each other. Undercover agents can spread rumors or throw aroundaccusations to create dissension, mistrust, and resentment inside of or between groups.In extreme cases, they will falsify letters or take similar steps to frame activists. The mainstream media may participate in this, too, by reporting that there is an informant in agroup when there is not one, by misrepresenting the politics or history of an individual orgroup in order to alienate potential allies, or by emphasizing over and over that there is aconflict between two branches of a movement until they really do mistrust one another.Again, a shrewd security culture that fosters an appropriately high level of trust and confidence should make such provocations nearly impossible on the personal level; when itcomes to relations between proponents of different tactics and organizations of differentstripes, remember the importance of solidarity and diversity of tactics, and trust that others do, too, even if media accounts suggest otherwise. Don’t accept rumors or reports asfact: go to the source for confirmation every time, and be diplomatic about it.

Don’t be intimidated by bluffing. Police attention and surveillance is not necessarily an indication that they know anything specific about your plans or activities: often it indicatesthat they do not and are trying to frighten you out of continuing with them. Develop aninstinct with which to sense when your cover has actually been blown and when yourenemies are just trying to distress you into doing their work for them.

Always be prepared for the possibility that you are under observation, but don’t mistake attracting surveillance for being effective. Even if everything you are doing is perfectly legal, you may still receive attention and harassment from intelligence organizations if they feel you pose an inconvenience to their masters. In some regards, this can be for the best;the more they have to monitor, the more thinly spread their energies are, and the harderit is for them to pinpoint and neutralize subversives. At the same time, don’t get caughtup in the excitement of being under surveillance and begin to assume that the more theauthorities pay attention to you, the more dangerous to them you must be — they’re notthat smart. They tend to be preoccupied with the resistance organizations whose approaches most resemble their own; take advantage of this. The best tactics are the onesthat reach people, make points, and exert leverage whiie not showing up on the radar ofthe powers that be, at least not until it is too late. In the best-case scenario, your activities will be well known to everyone except the authorities.

Security culture involves a code of silence, but it is not a code of voicelessness. The stories of our daring exploits in the struggle against capitalism must be told somehow, so everyone will know resistance is a real possibility put into action by real people; open incitements to insurrection must be made, so would-be revolutionaries can find each otherand the revolutionary sentiments buried in the hearts of the masses find their way tothe surface. A good security culture should preserve as much secrecy as is necessaryfor individuals to be safe in their underground activities, while still providing as muchvisibility for radical perspectives as possible. Most of the security tradition in the activistmilieu today is derived from the past twenty years of animal rights and earth liberationactivities ; as such, it’s perfectly suited for the needs of small groups carrying out isolatedillegal acts, but isn’t always appropriate for more aboveground campaigns aimed at encouraging generalized insubordination/insurrection. In some cases it can make senseto break the law openly, in order to provoke the participation of a large mass that canthen provide safely in numbers.

You should always balance the need to escape detection by your enemies against the need to beaccessible to potential friends. In the long run, secrecy alone cannot protect us — sooneror later they are going to find all of us, and if no one else understands what we’re doingand what we want, they’ll be able to liquidate us with impunity. QiZy the power of aninformed and sympathetic (and hopefully similarly equipped) public can help us then.There should always be entryways into communities in which direct action is practiced,so more and more people can join in. Those doing really serious stuff should keep itto themselves, of course, but every community should also have a person or two whovocally advocates and educates about direct action, and who can discreetly help trustworthy novices link up with others getting started.

When you’re planning an action, you should begin by establishing the security level appropriate to it, and act accordingly from there on. Learning to gauge the risks posed by an activity or situation and how to deal with them appropriately is not just a crucial part of staying out of jail; it also helps to know what you’re not worried about, so you don’t waste energy on unwarranted,cumbersome security measures. Keep in mind that a given action mayhave different aspects that demand different degrees of security; make sure to keepthese distinct. Here’s an example of a possible rating system for security levels:

1. Only those who are directly involved in the action know of its existence.

2. Trusted support persons also know about the action, but everyone in the groupdecides together who these will be.

3. It is acceptable for the group to invite people to participate who might choose notto — that is, some outside the group may know about the action, but are still expected tokeep it a secret.

4. The group does not set a strict list of who is invited; participants are free to inviteothers and encourage them to do the same, while emphasizing that knowledge of theaction is to be kept within the circles of those who can be trusted with secrets.

5. “Rumors” of the action can be spread far and wide through the community, but theidentities of those at the center of the organizing are to be kept a secret.

6. The action is announced openly, but with at least some degree of discretion, so asnot to tip off the sleepier of the authorities.

7. The action is totally announced and aboveground in all ways.

To give examples, security level #1 would be appropriate for a group planning to firebomb an SUV dealership, while level #2 would be acceptable for those planning moreminor acts of property destruction, such as spray painting. Level #3 or #4 would beappropriate for calling a spokescouncil preceding a black bloc at a large demonstrationor for a group planning to do a newspaper wrap, depending on the ratio of risk versusneed for numbers. Level #5 would be perfect for a project such as hijacking a rockshow: everyone hears in advance that the Ani DiFranco performance is going to end ina “spontaneous” antiwar march so people can prepare accordingly, but no one knowswhose idea it is, so no one can be targeted as an organizer. Level #6 would be appropriate for announcing a Critical Mass bicycle ride: fliers are wrapped around the handlebars of every civilian bicycle, but no announcements are sent to the papers, so the copswon’t be there at the beginning while the mass is still vulnerable. Level #7 is appropriatefor a permitted antiwar march or independent media video screening, unless you’re sodysfunctionally paranoid you even want to keep community outreach projects a secret.

It also makes sense to choose the means of communication you will use accordingto the level of security demanded. Here’s an example of different levels of communications security, corresponding to the system just outlined above:

1. No communication about the action except in person, outside the homes of thoseinvolved, in surveillance-free environments (e.g. the group goes camping to discussplans); no discussion of the action except when it is absolutely necessary.

2. Outside group meetings, involved individuals are free to discuss the action in surveillance-free spaces.

3. Discussions are permitted in homes not definitely under surveillance. appears.

4. Communication by encrypted email or on neutral telephone lines is acceptable.

5. People can speak about the action over telephones, email, etc. provided they’re careful not to give away certain details — who, what, when, where.

6. Telephones, email, etc. are all fair game; email listservs, fliering in public spaces, announcements to newspapers, etc. may or may not be acceptable, on a case-by-case basis.

7. Communication and proclamation by every possible medium are encouraged.

If you keep hazardous information out of circulation and you follow suitable securitymeasures in every project you undertake, you’ll be well on your way to fulfilling whatearly Crimethlnc. agent Abbie Hoffman described as the first duty of the revolutionary:not getting caught. All the best in your adventures and misadventures, and remember — you didn’t hear it from us!

Sex

Instructions

Lovemaking should be an uncomplicated matter of people enjoying themselves and eachother however they like. Unfortunately, patriarchy and, more recently, capitalism havemade this yet another site of domination and exploitation in our society and personallives; we can still have a wonderful time together, but we all have to be careful on entering into any sexual engagement that we make sure it’s good for everyone involved.

The first and most important matter in bed (or the stairwell of the parking deck, orwherever you are) is the question of consent. Most of us were raised by a society thatdidn’t provide us with any skills for communication, one that in fad has constructed usin such a way that honest communication is very difficult for us . If you don’t want something, or you’re not sure if you do, make it clear immediately, and talk with your partnerabout what you’re feeling. If a person tells you to stop and you don’t abide by his or herwishes, that’s sexual assault, and if you beg and pressure, that’s borderline coercion; butthe absence of refusal does not necessarily equal consent, either. For all you know, yourpartner might not be into it and afraid to tell you, or just plain unsure. At every thresholdin a sexual interaction, especially with someone you don’t know intimately, you shouldask out loud “do you want to — — “ or at least “is this OK?” Better yet, also ask what yourpartner is interested in, what he or she likes, and advice as to how to go about it. Somepeople may be too shy to speak about their tastes or pleasure, or bring these up; at theleast, you can encourage them to let you know when you’re doing something enjoyable,as well as make sure that they do indeed want to be engaged sexually with you, shy asthey may be. Make sure also to be vocal about what you like in them, what you findbeautiful, what they do that feels good and what else you might want or not want!

Remember that many of us in this society, damaged as we are by its mutilations andhumiliations, use sex and sexuality as ways to hurt and punish ourselves; unless youdon’t mind risking enabling someone you presumably care about to do this, it mightmake sense to hold off on getting into it with them until you feel like you know themwell enough to sense where they’re coming from. That goes both ways, too — make surewhen you pursue sex with someone that you’re not just using sexuality as a way to provesomething to yourself or others, or get attention that it would be healthier to pursue inother ways, or make yourself feel bad.

Before any kind of sexual activity that could enable disease transmission, you shouldcheck in with your partners. You needn’t necessarily demand that they lay out theirsexual histories for you in their entirety; someone who has been raped or abused maynot feel ready to share this. What you need to establish is exactly what levels of risk youare exposing each other to, and what your needs are when it comes to protection. Italmost goes without saying that it’s a bad idea to be intimate in this way with someoneyou don’t feel you can safely trust to tell you the whole truth.

It’s also critical that, if your lovemaking could result in pregnancy, you both be clearin advance about whether you want children, how you feel about abortion, and how certain you are about these feelings. Too many people have failed to have this conversation,and ended up unprepared parents! If a woman becomes pregnant, it is ultimately herchoice whether she or not has the child, so men have to be particularly careful that theyunderstand what their female partners’ feelings are about parenthood, and that they areready for surprise fatherhood if a partner changes her mind. Long-term partners shouldnot assume that once this matter has been discussed, it is permanently resolved; checking in from time to time will help to protect you both from the development of assumptions on one side and reticence about bringing up changes on the other.

Many people use intoxicants as a means to get over their inhibitions and into bed witheach other; this is a real problem, because intoxication interferes with people’s abilitiesto think clearly, express themselves, and understand others. If you must have drunken,blundering sex, do it with a partner you how well and share a high level of trust with;otherwise, if s more responsible not to at all.

Just as refusing to regard the products of animal exploitation as food can help you rediscover your ability to feel compassion in a desensitized society, it can be a worthwhileexperiment to avoid pornography and conventional representations of sex. These generally reinforce the notion of sex as a performance of domination and submission, andlust as a desire for objectified bodies that conform to unhealthy beauty norms — to suchan extent that when two people who have spent their lives being conditioned by themcome together in bed, it is not an intersection of two individuals, but of the images theyput in place of themselves and each other. As my friend who counsels perpetrators ofsexual abuse and domestic violence tells them, if all your sexual encounters have takenplace under the influence of hierarchical programming, you’ve never made love-youdon’t know even how what it is.

Don’t regard your desires as fixed imperatives; explore, experiment, challenge yourself. Don’t take for granted that sexuality is limited to the bedroom alone; dancing, conversing, exploring rooftops in the rain, all these can be thrilling ways to express eroticenergy. Be honest with others — and, at least as important, supportive enough that theywill not fear to be honest with you. All this is basically common sense, but it’s anotherthing entirely to put it into practice. Best of luck!

Account

Wouldn’t you like to know!

Shoplifting

Ingredients

It’s been said that a capitalist will sell you the very rope with which to hang him; thatmay be so, but he sure won’t sell it to you at a price anyone but a fellow capitalist couldafford. Don’t despair, though: what you can’t buy, you can steal.

Shoplifting has some drawbacks. It can be more dangerous in terms of legal repercussions than other alternative means of gathering, and it doesn’t discourage mass-production — or, for that matter, mass-consumption. All the same, sometimes what youneed can’t be found in the dumpsters — and if you’re going to shoplift from time to time,it’s good to stay in practice.

Zen and the Art of Shoplifting

There is a spiritual side to shoplifting. Being calm is important; it may even help toemploy meditation techniques. Try method acting: be the harmless customer you arepretending to be. Be friendly when you interact with employees, ask questions if youneed to, smile. Unless you are actually seen secreting items in your clothes, you willonly be suspected if employees find you suspicious.

Just the same, there is no standard appearance for shoplifters. Corporate researchshows that teens shoplift the most, with middle-class, middle-aged women as a dosesecond. Who would have thought? Maybe you wouldn’t have, but any savvy securityperson knows this. Dress as yourself if you were a shopper, so you’ll feel comfortable,but don’t get lazy and assume you will be ignored.

Store detectives and undercover employees don’t have a particular look, either. Youcan be busted by any of a whole cast of totally unexpected characters, some employed bythe store, some not. Your best bet is to not let anyone observe your activities.

Confidence is an asset, but be careful not to get cocky. Your ability to shoplift is a limited resource; the more you do so, the higher the probability that you will eventually getcaught. When this happens, your captors will probably try to make things difficult foryou. If you get caught several times, you may feel compelled to stop shoplifting. Don’tlet that be the moment you realize it is better to have a long career supplying yourselfand your community with necessities than it is to go out in a blaze of hubris trying toacquire more luxury items than the next consumer.

When you work with a partner, make sure to find someone whose style is compatiblewith yours, so you won’t have to deal with any stressful misunderstandings or disagreements in the midst of an already stressful mission.

Surveillance Cameras

When you are in a store, keep track of cameras, but don’t get intimidated. It is true thatcameras get people busted, but research shows that they work best as deterrents. Keepin mind that most stores with dozens of cameras don’t have dozens of employees studiously watching dozens of video monitors. More likely, it’s one person watching one ortwo monitors, either rotating between cameras or split-screen viewing with nine cameras per monitor. If this dimestore Big Brother gets interested in your activities, he canfollow you from camera to camera through the store, but even then the cameras havewide angles and low resolution. Keep your movements subtle and casual. No store isfree of blind spots. Find one and do your concealing there.

The cameras covering the registers at the front of the store are called “hold-up cameras.” The silly notion of an Old-West-style stick-up at a super-mart provides a feebleexcuse for the store to aim surveillance at its own employees, who are inevitably the maincause of what is known in the industry as shrinkage. Shrinkage research shows that halfof what stores report as shoplifting loss is actually due to employee theft and damage tomerchandise. See, the store doesn’t trust its workers any more than it trusts you. Researchalso shows that when employees are paid well and cared for, theft drops significantly. Ifyou are in a store with massive amounts of cameras on employees, you can be sure thatthe employees are poorly treated and probably don’t give a damn about the company.

Be respectful of employees. Don’t be too obvious — this makes them feel like youthink they’re stupid. They may well not care if you steal, but for civility’s sake you shoulddo it subtly.

Decoys, Devices, Distractions

If you’re stealing a lot of stuff, it’s a good idea to purchase at least one item; the securityguards will be less suspicious if you go out through the checkout lane.

Alternatively, after you’ve pocketed what you need, you can ask an employee up frontfor an item that is unavailable-for instance, in a grocery store, ask if they have kerosene. This will give you an excuse to walk out without buying anything.

There are several variations on this theme. After you’ve got what you need, you couldbring an item without a tag up to the front and ask its price; when your question is answered, comment that it is too much, and leave. You could also fill your backpack andpockets with what you need, and a shopping basket with random items ; when you havebeen rung up in the checkout line, explain that you’ve forgotten your wallet at home andyou’ll be right back.

If you go shoplifting with a partner, one of you can dress nicely, and the other as ashifty-eyed thief. Walk in separately; the one in hoodlum drag should sneak aroundlooking suspicious, distracting security, while the well-dressed one fills up her bag andexits the store. In a variation on this method, one shopper fakes an epileptic seizure orsimilar crisis, while the other takes care of business.

If employees or customers are aware of you but not paying dose attention, it is a goodidea to take two of an item you need off the shelf, then put one back. This can be a goodmaneuver to fool surveillance cameras, too; their resolution is usually too low to showthe number of items in your hand.

At office supply stores with self-serve copiers, you can steal books, paper, or large flatitems. Bring a backpack with some of your own books from home. Nonchalantly bringitems you are going to steal over to the copy machines. Spend some time making photocopies from your books. When no one is watching, slide items between the books andinto your backpack. Pay for the copies and leave the store.

If you have a cell phone, use it as a prop. Arrange to get a call while you are in linefor the register with everything you need in a hand basket. Clamping one ear to thephone and the other hand over your other ear, stomp outside for some peace and quiet,perhaps forgetfully toting your basket along. Outside, finish your conversation, and, ifno one has followed you, get into your BMW and drive off. If you are followed, it’s cool,you just need to finish this call — Jeeeez!

You can ask prudish employees about specific brands of “embarrassing” commodities; afterwards they may avoid you. Better yet, find an employee and ask for assistancewith something perfectly ordinary. With the employee close by, looking at the shelf orleading you to the location, you will be less monitored by security guards and other employees. Use this opportunity to conceal items.

A couple can pose as distracted lovers, giggling, making out, and fondling in a waythat makes people embarrassed to watch, and take advantage of this embarrassment togrope products into place inside each other’s clothes.

This one’s good for stores with two exits, or at busy times: get a few bags from thetrash with the store’s name on them, and fill them up in the comer of the store somewhere. Have a receipt of some sort in your hand with a few bills and coins. Scrutinizethe receipt and count your change while casually walking out.

Concealing

Since women often have handbags, it’s easy to walk in a store with a bag in the front ofthe cart and fill it up with items. Keep in mind, though, that if you are suspected any bagon your person will be the first thing searched.

A clipboard is a scary accessory used by authority figures. People treat me differentlywhen I carry a clipboard, no matter what I’m up to! In a store, a clipboard can be very useful; dip a shopping list to it for a pretext. Security cameras are usually up high; carry theclipboard in a way that allows you to remove packaging and magnetic strips in its shadow.Position the clipboard as if you are scrutinizing your list, while you slip something into yourpants or under your arm . Conceal flat items under the clipboard; you can grip both with onehand and either exit the store or go through the line with an inexpensive product.

To open and remove heavy-duty packaging unobtrusively, tape a razor blade or X-actoknife tip to the end of your finger, with the blade just barely out; it should look like youare wearing a bandage over a minor injury.

Take in a stroller with you with a child or two in it — the bigger the stroller, the better.Shop with a store handbasket on your arm while pushing the stroller and quietly fillingits compartments.

Install a zippered opening on the side of your backpack that lies against your back;this can be perfect for secreting items. You can steal zippers from craft stores; get aquiet, smooth-moving one.

Cargo pockets can provide good hiding spots, but there are a thousand other options.Tuck in the bottom of your shirt and slide things through your collar; while wearing abaggy hooded sweatshirt, suck in your stomach and slide flat items halfway into yourpants, using the elastic of your underwear and the waist of your pants to hold them inplace; put stuff in your sock while bending down to tie your shoe; slide items down thesleeves of puffy jackets with tight cuffs; slip small items into an opaque water bottle witha wide mouth; cut a hole in the bottom of a jacket pocket so you can slip larger itemsthrough into the lining; sew extra pockets into your clothes. If you wear a coat or sweat-shirt that zips up in front, you can slip small items inside the coat and press them underyour arm with lightning quickness.

You don’t have to conceal items to steal them-sometimes it works better to walkright out like you own them. In a grocery store, there may be a side door you can rollyour fall cart through and into the parking lot.

To apply the same principle on a smaller scale, carry an expensive item in your lefthand or grip it under your left arm while you pay for a cheap item with your right hand.Incredibly, employees will not notice the other item. I had to do this by accident before Icould believe that it works, but it does. The best part is that you have not concealed anything — if the cashier notices, it looks like an honest mistake, and you can purchase theitem, assuming you have the money to. If not, you had it separate from the other itemsbecause you needed to get a price check. Silly you. One tip: when you use this technique,have the correct amount of money ready before you get in line; you don’t want to befumbling for your cash one-handed.

Of course, if you can use or consume the item inside the store, you needn’t worryabout getting it out in the first place.

Scams and Tricks

If you need cash or an item that is too difficult to shoplift, you can take a stolen itemto the returns desk, claiming to have bought it; fewer and fewer stores will give you arefund or exchange unless you present a receipt, but there are ways to get those, too.I’ve found that with return scams, it is less suspicious to place the item in some sort ofbag or in your backpack, get in a normal line, and ask, “Can I make a return here?” Theywill send you over to the return desk; this looks better than just walking up to the returndesk from inside the store. Even better, get the item out of the store altogether and havea friend go in and return it, or come back another day. That way, the most you can getbusted for is shoplifting, which is usually less serious than “obtaining property or cashunder false pretense.”

Women’s underwear and accessories are perfect items for men to return. The stereotypical man always screws up when buying stuff for his girlfriend, wife, or mother.When it comes to lingerie, ifc easy for a guy with a rueful look to get sympathy and aquick exchange or refund. like most exchanges, this works particularly well aroundChristmas time.

You can slightly damage or scratch an item you need and sneak it up to the frontdesk. Attempt to return the item, and let the employee find that it is damaged and refuseto take it back. Act like an irritated customer and leave the store with the item. If theemployee doesn’t notice and gives you store credit or cash, you can go back and get anunscratched one, if you’re so inclined. Alternatively, just damage an item or throw it intothe trash inside the store and wait for it to show up in the dumpster.

You can remove an expensive item from its box and place it in a box with a cheaper priceon it. Be prepared to play the irritated customer if the cashier notices this. Don’t do thiswith shoes — employees sometimes check inside; instead, you might be able to try themon, leave your old shoes in the box, and just walk right out. It also might be possible toconceal one small, expensive item in another big, cheap one before purchasing the latter.

At many stores, you can go to the stocking areas in the back and ask for boxes formoving. Have a few people ready to cany lots of empty boxes, except for one or two thatyou will quickly fill up before walking out the door. Don’t make them too heavy — theyhave to look light as air as you carry them away.

Two people can work together, one gathering items, removing their tags, and stashing them somewhere, the other coming in afterwards and taking the prepared itemsout swiftly.

Dressing rooms are a great place to cut off security tags. You can sew up the holeslater. If a salesperson counted your items on your way in, make sure you still have theitem you want in your hand as you walk out.

Finally, if you are a computer hacker or graphic designer, you could print your ownbarcode stickers. To obtain items at cheaper prices, substitute the barcode for a similaritem; to wreck a store’s checkout system, distribute the stickers randomly on productsthroughout the store.

Precautions

Since laws vary from state to state, it’s good to know the local laws and penalties. For instance, if you are in an area where it is a felony to shoplift a value of $100 or more, youmight choose to steal no more than $99 of merchandise at a time.

Look through the windows of a store for cameras before you enter; make note ofalarm sensors, security personnel, and receipt checkers. If you look to the ceiling forcameras while you’re inside, move your eyes, not your whole head.

Often, it’s wise not to pocket an item until you have moved away from the place youpicked it up. Consider which areas of the store will be under special observation — departments with small, expensive items prized by shoplifters, for example. Take youritems to aisles stocked with bulky, inexpensive items. For example, throw the toothbrush in your cart while you are in the medicine and beauty product aisle, unwrap andconceal it in the toilet paper aisle.

Always look for security tags inside packages — inside the boxes of CDs, for example.If you see that the store has an alarm system, it is usually safer to take items out of theirshoplift^ packaging entirely.

When leaving a store with security tags, time your passage through the sensors tocoincide with other shopper traffic. If you set it off, keep walking. False alarms are notuncommon, and the more customers there are, the more confusion there will be tocover your getaway.

Look out for vigilante customers who may turn you in or attempt a citizen’s arrest.

Flat mirrors are almost always two-way. To be safe, assume that somebody is indeedwatching you. As for the round ones, if you can’t see the employee, she can’t see you —but be careful, sometimes they have cameras behind them.

Trouble in Paradise

If you set off alarms, keep walking and ignore them; employees are often slow to react,used to false alarms, or too timid to accuse people of stealing unless they act guilty. Ifnecessary, you might be able to walk into a nearby store and ditch the item.

If you are caught and there is any heavy-handedness on the part of the store detective, employee, or rent-a-cop, get indignant and make a racket about a lawsuit. Lawsuitsbrought by shoplifters whose rights have been violated in apprehension represent alarge cost for major retailers, and threats may put them back on the defensive. If youplan to go this route, it’s best to know your rights to the letter so you can strike fear intotheir hearts with chilling accuracy.

You might want to bring enough money with you to purchase the item in the event thatyou get caught. Sometimes the store will settle on that and leave the authorities out of it.

If employees see you with your hands in your pockets, try pulling out some money tocount or a shopping list to look at.

If you are doing a return and they are treating you like a thief, stand your ground.Remember, you are a customer who bought the wrong item and have no thought ofswallowing that cost. If the manager is brought in and begins to say no, don’t walk awaylike a whipped dog. Ask to see a copy of the store return policy. Get mad: you are goingto complain in writing; you are calling the Better Business Bureau; you are writing a letter to the editor; yon have been a loyal customer for years; you don’t want an exchangeanymore, you want a refund so you can take your business where it is appreciated. Ofcourse, don’t pull any of that nonsense unless you stole the item on a different visit orfrom another store.

If a store detective is onto you, don’t let on that you know. If you have to dump stuff,do it as carefully as you concealed it- you don’t want to be caught dumping. If you arecaught dumping, never let a store detective know it was because of them. Claim a mistake or a guilty conscience and stick to your story.

Experts advise store detectives and managers to look out for abnormal eye and neckmovements. Darting, shifting, jittery eyes give everything away. Experts also warn aboutshoplifters who run reverse surveillance, looking all over the store, particularly at ceilings where cameras may be. A nervous thief may startle easily even when approachedcasually. A nerve-racked thief may look back or pause briefly before exiting or passingalarms, or yawn or otherwise fidget in exaggerated composure. Stay conscious of allsuch behaviors. At the time you leave, you are either suspect or you are not; one wayor another, it’s a done deal. If you’re not under suspicion, don’t attract it at the last moment; if you set off an alarm or are chased, one last look before exiting isn’t going to doyou any good.

Coordinated Strikes

If enough people are ready for war, you could skip the subterfuges and mount a fullfrontal offensive. Have everyone dress as unremarkably as possible, and filter into thestore one by one. When everyone is inside with their baskets full, someone sets off thefire alarm or creates some similar distraction, giving the signal for everyone to chargethe gates — Such an aggressive tact is bound to provoke the most aggressive responsethe corporation can muster, but it does put the issue of access to material goods on thetable, and it may inspire others or even enable them to get away without paying, too. Aslong as you were careful not to give away your plan in advance, you could combine thistactic with an advertising campaign on their behalf: “Thursday, May ist is free shopping day at Commodity Consumption Incorporated! Come take advantage of our lowest prices ever, and enjoy this show of appreciation to all our customers. Offer limitedto one hand basket per shopper, between the hours of one and five p.m. — 100% off,everything must go!”

Smoke Bombs

You can buy professionally made smoke bombs from fireworks vendors; they might evenwork better than homemade ones. But making them yourself is cheaper, can leave less of atrail, and involves you in the process, so you can manufacturethem according to your needs.

Ingredients

• Saltpeter

• Sugar

• Old cooking pot

• Spoon

• Stove

• Bowls or ice cube tray

• Cigarette lighter

Instructions

Mix two parts sugar to three parts saltpeter in the cooking pot. Heat this over a low flame,stirring constantly until it melts; this will take several minutes. Pour the mixture into anice cube tray, or into bowls, depending on the size you want to make the smoke bombs.Allow them to cool and harden, and remove them from your molds. Once dried, they mayget sticky in warm, humid weather — they’re partly sugar, after all — but they will still work.

To apply one, light it with a cigarette lighter; this may take up to fifteen seconds. Wedon’t recommend using matches to light them, as it is difficult to keep matches burningthis long unless there is no wind. These smoke bombs bum like sparklers, rather than exploding suddenly. Once lit, they can be thrown without going out. A smoke bomb the sizeof an ice cube will bum for perhaps twenty seconds. We made one the size of a fist, andwhen we tested it outside we were sure the fire department was going to come. One sourcerecommends embedding matchsticksin them before they have dried, to aidin the lightingprocess; there are bound to be ways to arrange a delayed ignition, as well.

Solidarity

Instructions

The heart of anarchy is solidarity: people helping each other. While lonely capitalistsview their fellow creatures as potential enemies, anarchists see others as potentialfriends and allies — and these different visions are self-fulfilling prophecies (see SpellCasting, pg. 501). Solidarity actions are a means of ushering potential friendships intoexistence, and making the world a friendlierplace in the process. After all, you can neverhave too many friends, especially not if you live under the threat of state repression. Ifyou want to break out of the system of competition, in which people only thrive to theextent that they make others suffer, your life will depend on networks of friendship andmutual aid — and nothing makes friends faster than helping others. Every one of us hassome kind of resource that can be shared — what do you have that other people need?

Let’s say, for example, you are part of a predominantly young and white anarchist community, and a black man has just been shot down in cold blood by the police. You couldcontact his family and offer to screenprint shirts or posters for them to use for raisingmoney and awareness (see Screenprinting,pg. 455), or you could use your graffiti skills topaint the town with his name, so the media can’t sweep the whole thing under the rug (seeCroffiti, pg. 258). Or let’s say you are a tenured professor at a university, and know of a people that are being displaced from their lands by a petroleum corporation. You could offer tohost speaking events for them, organize trips for students and others to visit their lands towitness what is happening, and campaign to force your university to cut any financial tiesit has with the corporation. Nobody can do everything, but everybody can do something.

Solidarity Begins at Home

When considering your options for solidarity actions, never underestimate your powers. No life is too mundane, no skillset too limited, no gift too humble for one person tobe of assistance to another. The most important forms of solidarity are the daily ones:babysitting, providing emotional support, sharing food and goods. You might not call itan Action to spend an evening babysitting your neighbor’s children, but it is such modest deeds that make communities of resistance possible. The everyday affairs of being areliable friend, a gentle lover, and a courageous ally form the bread and butter of revolution — after all, our friendships form the foundation of our affinity groups.

Many clashes between capital and community do not have glory, fame, or glamor associated with them, but that doesn’t make them any less important. If everyone moved toChiapas to take part in the Zapatistas’ struggle while ignoring the struggles taking placein their own backyards, our chances of creating global change would be slim indeed.The Zapatistas probably don’t need too many anarchists wandering aimlessly aroundtheir villages and getting lost in the jungle, anyway! As they’ve said themselves: Whatis required is that revolutionaries live and fight the system everywhere — and that includeswherever it is that you live. The exotic attraction that faraway struggles exert is a relativematter, after all: for a young white college student, helping translate the demands ofHispanic janitors into English can be a whole different world, just as a jaded Zapatistasoldier might find it romantic and adventurous to help defend the century-old homesteads of Appalachian mountain families against coal companies.

There are probably opportunities for solidarity actions right down the street fromwhere you live. You may be the only one knows about them, or the only person whomight help; don’t miss the chance to do so while fantasizing about aiding revolutionaries on the other side of the planet! If you take a local issue seriously enough, it mighteven come to be known around the world — and then perhaps others will show up fromfar away to act in solidarity with you.

Traveling to Solidarity Actions

Local solidarity is important — but that being said, it can also be good to travel to shareresources with people in other lands and circumstances. From time to time, you mayneed to leave home, anyway, and if you’re going to visit another locale you might as wellmake yourself useful there! Traveling to distant places to offer solidarity can give youa wider base of experience to inform your participation in local struggles; it can alsoprovide a welcome breath of fresh air when your struggles at home have become mo-notonous or seem hopeless.

Great distances and time-consuming voyages often discourage people from going tofar-off places to participatein solidarity actions. However, when it comes to travel, manyanarchists have options others do not. The secret weapons of unemployment, hitchhik-ing, and trainhopping can offer the free time and free passage to get almost anywhere.Those who possess the opportunity to use such means should apply them for the goodof all. Obtaining overseas plane tickets can be more challenging, but you can look intostandby fares, courier fares, and student discounts. If you have access to a car, you canpack it full of people — one of whom should have at least rudimentary knowledge ofautomobile repah — and take it great distances, sleeping in it when need be.

Many people think that not knowing a foreign language disqualifies them from doingsolidarity work in other nations and cultures. For many actions, you don’t necessarilyneed to know the local language yourself, you just need to be part of a group with atleast one member who can serve as a translator and doesn’t mind doing so. Of course,wherever you go, you should always make an effort to learn everything you can of thelanguage and customs; many people will be happy to help you learn their native tongue,especially if you are willing to return the favor. Immersion is the best way to learn a language, anyway. Still, groundingyourselves in the basics of a language and culture beforeleaving to do solidarity work in a foreign context viH make you more effective and yourtime much more enjoyable.

Remember that many things you take for granted about yourself may affect the wayspeople treat you in another culture. For example, white skin often denotes “rich tourist,”so if you have it, expect people to attempt to get money from you no matter how longyou’ve been an unemployed full-time revolutionary. In some cultures, sexism may be sodeeply ingrained that people will routinely ignore you if you are a woman. Often yourown assumptions will be challenged: while there aren’t many older revolutionaries inthe United States, in indigenous cultures it is often the oldest people who are fightingthe hardest while their children embrace the North American way of life. Openly bribing cops may be unheard of where you come from, but in some societies it is a crucialelement of survival. Read up in advance, talk to people who’ve been where you’re going;if you can, go with someone who has already been and made connections. No matterhow distant the place or how foreign it seems, don’t let the unknown intimidate you outof undertaking worthwhile solidarity actions.

Offering Skills and Resources

Once you feel ready to undertake a solidarity action, think about what you have to share.Having access to computers or vehicles, knowing how to communicate with the media,being from North America or Western Europe — many people take privileges like thesefor granted, but they can be absolutely vital to helping out other communities. Free time(see Unemployment, pg. 576) is itself a very valuable resource. Having no steady job, ora job with very flexible hours, can give you the opportunity to help people; so can beingwilling to risk arrest.

Sometimes all that is needed is a group to occupy a liberated space in danger of being evicted or destroyed, such as a squat, tree-sit, land occupation, or community centeror garden. You may be called on to obstruct invaders (see Blockades and Lockdowns, pg.162), hold them at bay (see Blocs, Black and Otherwise, pg. 127), or get the word out (seeSoudan^ Wheatpasting, pg. 598; Graffiti, pg. 258; and Distribution, Tabling, and Infoshops, pg. 210).

In other situations, you may just be needed as a helping hand, to cook food, tutor children, or even herd sheep.

In some parts of the world, you can help by being an international observer. Thisinvolves no greater technical skill than simply staying at a place under threat and watching what happens. In places like Palestine and Chiapas, the forces of repression will beless likely to murder people or bulldoze their houses if they know international visitorsstaying in the community might witness these atrocities or, worse, be injured in them.This is not always risk-free — in Palestine, for example, the Israeli occupying forces havebegun callously killing even international observers.

The world is full of injustices and liberation struggles that are not receiving the attention they warrant, so knowing how to do basic media work can be really important. Thismight mean anything from posting information or personal accounts on the internetto writing press releases (see Mainstream Media, pg. 358) or doing video documentation (see Independent Media, pg. 346). Many communities can’t afford or obtain videocameras, computers, and other such equipment; delivering them as gifts, or bringingthem to share while yon are present, can be of great assistance. Technical skills such asautomotive or computer repair can be useful, too, as can a willingness to run errands.Whatever you have or can do, somebody somewhere is in need of it.

Making Contact

Establishing contact with the group you want to support can be a task in itself. You’llprobably need a point of connection, if not through someone who is already linked tothe community, at least from an existing support group whose goals and tactics meshwith your own. In long-distance or international solidarity work, phone calls or emailsusually suffice, but if you are attempting to reach a group that is in a place without reliable email access, you should be prepared to wait quite a long time for a response. Manygroups are so overworked and overextended that they may lose track of your contactinformation, fail to write back to you, or forget you are coming, despite being in direneed of your support. Dealimg with you and your needs may not be their top priority; bepatient, and don’t make unnecessary demands on their time.

While some action-hungry anarchists might not be inclined to wait around for direction, it’s infinitely better to wait for guidance from locals than to rush into a situationyou don’t fully understand. When you finally manage to get in touch, be as open andhonest as possible, and ask what they would most like to see done. Often, groups willnot give you the hardest or most needed work right away; they need to see what you’recapable of, and build up trust with you. Remember, many people have had bad experiences with incompetent, easily distracted, or self-serving radicals. Be patient, reliable,and respectful, and do good work; over time, you’ll earn the respect and trust necessaryto become a true friend and ally.

Arriving

If you’ve traveled a long distance to get to the site of your planned solidarity action, youmight be exhausted when you amve. Sometimes you will find your self in the thick ofthings immediately, and there won’t be a moment to lose before you are climbing ardent redwoods or chaining yourselfto a gate. However, if time permits, take some timeout to ground yourself and get acclimated.

If you are working with a “respectable” group, you might want to clean up your appearance, but this is not always the case. Your social status as a rough-and-ready dropoutrevolutionary may actually be part of what you have to offer. Whatever the situation,there’s no sense posing as something you’re not — you’re trying to build relationshipsbased on honesty and mutual respect, right?

For better or worse, anarchists are occasionally in the news attacking policelines or breaking windows. While this sort of coverage is intended to scare people out of assodating withus, many people know better than to trust the corporate media, and some respect anarchistsfor taking a stand against this bankrupt system, even if by means of tactics they may notendorse themselves. Don’t attempt to disguise yourself or downplay your beliefs, don’t pressure yourself to make a particular impression. Be open about your passions, background,and skills. The people you are working with will let you know what they need from you.

Working Out the Cvntext

In one of the most common contexts for solidarity actions, some nefarious corporation or government is in the process of isolating and maltreating a community. Divideand conquer is their specialty; the last thing they want is for someone else to show upto expose or oppose their misdeeds. Often, throwing a few outsiders into the mix canchange everything, bringing injustices to the attention of the outside world and providing crucial backup for the community.

Sometimes things are as simple as they appear, but don’t count on it. Never assumethat the community to which you are trying to offer solidarity is one homogenous whole.Just like all communities, it is a diverse assortment of individuals with differing viewpoints about the situation and, for that matter, about you. Resist idolizing communities,and resist writing them off. Take the time to get to know the individuals with whom youhope to show solidarity; this is the best way to learn about their situation. If you can, goto the area where the struggle is taking place, and investigate everything for yourself.

It may happen that whatever forces you are fighting have bought the allegiance ofsome of the people suffering on their account. This can lead to confusing situationsin which a once-united community is divided and fighting within itself. If it’s obviouswhich side is in the right, ally yourself with them, but in some situations it will be confusing. If you don’t understand the internal dynamics of a community, don’t pretendyou do, and never assume anyone to be a sellout without good reason. If you feel thatyou are making the situation worse, or that most of the people you would like to helpwant you to leave, it’s time to go.

Remember, while you can go back to your home, the locals will have to live with theeffects of your decisions. Always imagine yourself in their shoes before making choices,and think through the long-term results of your actions. At the same time, never underestimate how radical people can be. Many a liberal activist secretly dreams of storming theWhite House; an elderly indigenous man may have fought hand-to-hand with the Canadian army — and may be ready to do it again, or at least support you doing so in his stead.

Being Consistent

We need to build networks of mutual aid that can last through years of government repression. Occasionally stopping by for a solidarity action will not suffice to accomplish this: it demands staying in touch, building up long-term relationships, and providingconsistent support.

A great part of this can be achieved by spreading awareness of faraway struggles toyour own town, not to mention bringing together local struggles that are not yet connected. Educate people about the issues, and about what they can do. Sometimes it isactually easier to get people involved in local struggles by awakening their interest infaraway ones, and then proposing the possibility of local solidarity actions.

When you’re not engaged in solidarity actions far from home, there are countless waysyou can show solidarity locally. You can set up video showings and other educationalevents to raise awareness, and host speakers and other travelers from distant places. Youcan hold benefit dinners and parties to raise money for groups that need funding. Youcan organize demonstrations at or otherwise attack the embassies of nations involved inunacceptable activities; it can happen that unstable foreign governments will take thesewarnings seriously, and decrease the heat on the community you are supporting. Even ifthere is no embassy, consulate, or other obvious target in your town, there’s bound to besolidarity some corporate outpost implicated in injustice. By means of picketing, boycotts, property destruction, and sabotage, let them know there are consequences to their misdeeds.

Regardless of the details of your activity, keep your eyes on the prize of establishinglong-term, reliable, global networks of solidarity. We’re all in this together. Solidaritywork is not charity work: our own undertakings, and with them our very lives, depend onthe mutual success of our combined efforts against capitalism. While no one whose lifeis on the line respects liberal do-gooders, people will respect you if they can tell you areas invested in their struggles as they are. Whatever aid we offer other communities withour solidarity work, we take home experiences and friendships that are worth far more.

Account

We received a spectral smoke signal of nybbles and bytes requesting our presence in thecold plains of Oneida, New York Not knowing what to expect, our hearty band of improbable and impermissible white wanderers from the flatlands of the South journeyedto the snowy plains of Oneida. Following directions hastily and poorly translated overan obscure payphone, we came onto a stone longhouse, the home of the Onyota’aika,the traditional Oneida of the Standing Stone. We pried open the heavy wooden doorsand peered inside.

A mighty elder, Clanmother Maisie Shenandoah of the Oneida, greeted us with openarms and a broad smile. A powerful woman, she had seen generations come and go,and she feared that this would be the last to live in freedom. She explained that thesethirty acres of land we were now on — and the homes upon it — were the last of thesovereign nation of the Oneida people, subject to no law except their own. This proudpeople and their land were under assault from without and within. One of their ownhad gone to Harvard, gotten himself a business degree, and incorporated the tribe as acorporation, building a financial empire spanning mid-state New York. This was OneidaNation, Inc. — an independent fief dom with its own laws, its own taxes, its own courts,its own (mostly white) police, with Judge, Jury, Executioner, God, and State wrapped upin one man: Ray Halbritten

Known among the locals as “No-Face Ray” for cursing the ways of the Oneida anddeclaring himself against all sanity and tradition “Chief for Life,” Ray was attemptingto develop this pocket of land, the thirty acres of the traditional Oneida, the last remaining sovereign Oneida land. Women had been evicted by Ray’s private “Housing Inspectors,” and seen their houses bulldozed before their children’s very eyes. Shoppingmalls were to rise up, following the pattern of twisted and temble progress familiarto any denizen of Western capitalism and civilization. If you stood on the edge of thethirty acres, you could already see the future: a giant casino, sprawling across the landlike a bloated carcass.

Ray’s private army was patrolling the thirty acres, and we were told that the official explanation for our presence was that we had been invited to a tribal dance. Dancing it was.One bv one, all the Oneida families of the thirtv acres crowded into the little lonehouse,and with them they brought a never-ending procession of all sorts of food and drink.After a rousing meal, during which Ray Halbritter’s name was cursed into the highestheavens and the deepest hell, one of the older men stood in the middle of the room andbegan chanting in a tongue my ears could not comprehend, a sound rich with dignitybeyond compare. Children lined up behind his booming bass voice, providing a brillianttreble. Soon the entire room, except for us white folk, was dancing up a storm. They absolutely refused to allow us to remain mere spectators, grabbing us hand in hand untilwe were all danang side by side, some of us with considerably less skill than others.

When the dance came to an end, an old man with white hair pulled two of our bandoff to the side. “Did you bring baseball bats!” he asked. We weren’t sure what he meant,so we said that we were “ready for whatever it took,” an equally coded answer. He thenstarted telling us stories about bingo parlors burning and Mohawk revolts, about thefirst winter snow and Ray’s mother’s facelifts. After considerable mystery, he left us witha simple message: “Gringo Windshield.”

Ray Halbritter was going to enter the thirty acres to hold a meeting of his cronies inan ancient longhouse that he had closed to the community long ago. His private army ofgoons was to be there to strike fear into the locals’ hearts. In the morning the old man’swords rang true . A small line of u s in full black bloc regalia surrounded the larger crowdof traditional Oneida, who were for the first time in years going to contest Ray openly.We prayed that our threadbare patches of anarchy and punk would protect us from bullets. Ray scurried into the longhouse at our approach, and his goons tried to arrest oneof our burly black-masked friends. 1 screamed, “Let him go!”

Magic.

Ray’s police did let him go. We were shocked. Since we weren’t Oneida, Ray’s policehad no legal right to arrest or even touch us. Bristling with badges, guns, and clubs, theyiust told us to leave. We began laughing in their faces and mocking them. “Police? Youaren’t even real police! Come on, just touch me!” “So how does it feel to beat up womenin front of their children for a living?” “Don’t feel so high and mighty now, do you!”

The traditional Oneida were delighted, and began joining in the taunts. Under cover ofthe commotion outside, they sent their children through the back door of the longhouse.Inside, Ray and the world he represented found themselves emperors without clothes,as little children ran around in the meeting openly defying him and giggling at his self-important madness. Soon, the commotion got so out of hand that the local city policeshowed up, along with reporters — an unheard of event in Ray’s territory. The traditionalOneida took the police and reporters aside, showing them their home videos of Ray’s police beating women and destroying their homes. Smiles broke out on all our faces whenRay turned tail and fled. The ice that separated us from the Oneida began to break.

There we stood, two tribes — one ancient and the other new — united against a common enemy. The ancient tribe was fighting for survival, and, unlike our ancestors atWounded Knee, we turned our backs on allegiance to race, nation, and other fictions

to join them in arms. This alchemy released magic — police unable to police, childrenridiculing kings. The Oneida’s struggle against extinction goes on, as does ours. Let ushope it goes on together, as we realize the possibilities of tribal alliances that can overcome our loneliest moments and the most impossible of odds. Let us struggle — anddance — together.

Spell Casting

Ingredients

• Desire

• Faith

• A personal mythology

• A process that nurtures the developments thereof

Instructions

When it comes to really making things happen, you’ll probably find it’s more effectiveto come up with crazy schemes with a couple of friends and believe in them so intenselythat everyone else begins to as well (“Hey, did you hear what’s going to happen ... ?”)than it is to meet in big groups and struggle to hit on some plan that somehow satisfieseverybody. The scale of the latter kind of plan is usually limited to the lowest commondenominator of what everyone considers possible, and such approaches rarely lead beyond the narrow confines of the status quo.

To pull off a revolution on any scale, you have to be able to believe outside the box.Reality, both present and future, is created by mass consensus: consensus about whatis worthwhile (a house, a husband and kids, a retirement plan), about the meaning ofthe surrounding world (“Downtown is for shopping, highways are for driving, Fridaynight is for drinking...”}, about what can and will take place (“If we all simultaneouslystopped paying rent and docking in, it could work, but that will never happen...”) Evena small group of people who believe against the grain can call an entire world-systeminto question, not to mention liberate themselves from its supposed inevitabilities. Ifthe alternate world they consider themselves to inhabit is convincing, and more appealing than the one everyone else accepts, the future itself can be hijacked by the desiresthis minority trusts and thus unleashes.

To speak on a smaller scale, perception and reality influence one another, and believing that something is possible is generally a prerequisite for being capable of bringingit about. In this sense, whether a desire for revolution or anything else is “realistic” is amoot point: for the individual who does not wish to cripple herself, the question is notwhat to believe in as “the” truth but what beliefs render which truths possible. Beingpragmatic is often the least pragmatic way to approach life.

But how does one go about believingin one’s crazy schemes in a psychotically sanesociety? That’s where the science of spell casting comes in.

The simplest way to cast a spell is to begin to act “as if: as if there are others who feelas you do, as if you are possessed of great powers, as if you are the protagonist of a storywith a happy ending. Do what it takes to position yourself far enough from the madding crowd that you can establish contact with other realities — stop watching televisionand reading newspapers, travel far from home and outside the circuits set out for yoursocial class, do the unthinkable in your own life so you can think the undoable in sociallife. Practice believing, as the queen in Alice in Wonderland recommended, at least siximpossible things every day before breakfast. When you truly believe something and actaccordingly, your conviction takes the form of a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Typically, for better or for worse, people use this power accidentally: the self-destruction of a relationship, an instance of good luck, a project undertaken with no initialresources except determination — for which all the essentials appear, one by one. Theseare all great and wondrous occurrences, though no greater than we should expect fromthis world! But a person spell-castingunconsciouslyis a baby with a machine gun — lookout. To make spell casting into a conscious process is not to be superstitious, but to dodeliberately what one would otherwise do haphazardly.

Speaking of making spell casting into a conscious process, it can be helpful to externalize the process in ritual. In rituals, faith and desire are projected into the externalworld, where they become tangible; in the process, they inevitably become more real.Similarly, it is empowering to develop a personal mythology based on one’s own experiences. If the dominant mythos paralyzes us by making us believe ourselves to betrapped in the chains of certain causes and effects, then a necessary part of liberationis investing oneself in a dissident causality. Again, this does not mean replacing actionwith superstition, as in applying pins to dolls of politicians instead of throwing piesin their faces; rather, it means recognizing and respecting what so-called superstitionshave to offer to action. The would-be pie assailant who has spent months visualizingand enacting her victory, and whose personal mythology gives her assurance that she isdestined to succeed, has a better chance of doing what it takes to strike her target thanthe one who eschews all such frivolities, hands down.

The Genius’s Guide to Spell Casting

Step 1: Spells can only be cast in a magic world, but take heart: we live in a magic world. In day-to-day life, we are bombarded with magic — to be more precise, with the surpriseintersections of people, feelings, and events sometimes called coincidences. We do noteven notice the great majority of these, but life is absolutely overflowing with them. Lifeis also full of patterns, symmetry, foreshadowing, symbolism, irony, dramatic lighting,indispensable props, crucial characters, and moments of truth. One can shrug all theseoff as accidents, but in so doing one loses all the benefits to be gained from investing them with meaning. Deciding to view the world through a frame that accounts formagical developments makes aspects of life visible that would otherwise “not exist,” andprepares one to work in the medium they provide.

Step 2: Begin to take notice of magic occurrences. Here are a some small-scale but common examples to get you started: synesthesia, the crossing of the senses; feeling peoplein a house without seeing or hearing them; feeling that someone is watching you andturning to meet their gaze; spontaneous perceptions of distant events; sensing the location of lost objects; opening books to the exact passage sought; perceiving in a personundisclosed feelings, traits, or possibilities for development; sensing a numinous presence; seeing something familiar as if for the first time; feeling the presence of someone distant or dead; experiencing images of internal body structures; correctly intuitingsomeone’s feelings or thoughts about you; saying something in unison with someoneelse; writing a friend with whom you have not communicated in years to find that theyhave just written you; sensing who is calling you on the phone; thinking of someone andthen having them call; feeling united with your lover during sex; feeling the pains of adistant friend, then discovering they are injured; feeling what someone else is thinking;sensing the mood and intention of an animal; having the same dream a friend has; feeling great warmth on cold days; experiencing immense energy; remaining free of infection despite the presence of contagious diseases; experiencing a transfer of energy whentouching another person; feeling energized from contact with the Earth; sensing danger;anticipating events before they happen; apprehending a situation or place as if you hadbeen there before; apprehending a complex and original set of ideas spontaneously; remembering complex material perfectly; waking from sleep at a designated moment without use of an alarm; spontaneously healing an injury or sickness; access to abnormal orunexpected strength or endurance; spontaneously adapting to great heat, cold, or otheradverse conditions; rising above thirst or hunger with no loss of strength; spontaneouslycausing harmony or discord in communities; experiencing oneness with another being;realizing profound self-confidence; experiencing a oneness width surroundings; goingwithout sleep for extended periods with no loss of vitality; executing movements beyondyour normal abilities; feelings oflightness or heaviness; out-of-body experiences; extraordinary pleasure in movement; correcting a machine’s malfunction by mental intention;leaving a strong mood in a room; promoting or inhibiting plant growth in an extraordinary fashion; drawing a person into or out of your life without obvious communication;the conscious mind yielding control to the instincts in a dangerous situation.

Stey 3: Chronicle and share stories of magic. Create stories that enshrine within vourpersonal mythology events in which hidden power was evoked and awe was experienced. Recognizing and recording these moments will sensitize you to them and enableyou to derive strength from them. One must be constantly sowing life with languagethat allows magic to be recognized and named. If such language is not developed, potentially powerful events are exiled to the realm of silly or, worse, normal experiences;with language that provides for them, such events can not only be discerned but alsodeciphered and even precipitated.

Step 4: Mix your expanded sense of what is possible with a particular desire. Express thosetogether in a process that you have invented.

Account: A true story about spell casting (not to mention the sheer profligacy of our society)

Universe had become such a home for us that we felt free and faithful. Faithful that tomorrow and tomorrow’s tomorrow would supply as much nourishment and adventureto our clan of gatherers as yesterday and yesterday’s yesterday. And it did.

On that day we reclined in the grass near the garbage can that played our host, andfelt fear slipping away. It was the age-old fear that if we didn’t work we would starve todeath or go insane, and it seeped out of us into the warm grass beneath. And that lead-heavy effluvia was silently replaced by the serene notion that Universe meant to takecare of us.

Universe made good on this promise that very afternoon when we noticed an art gallery reception with cake and wine. We stayed and stayed and found that we could havethe uneaten vegetable tray and the picked-over plate of cheese. Feeling bold and beloved,we imagined that Universe might like to give us a refrigerator that we could use to storeour bounty. We discussed the idea and decided to make a formal request. We would usethe same magical language of symbols and signs that Universe used to speak to us.

So humbly, and at first tentatively, we began a practice of visualization. Every day, eachof us took time to imagine the refrigerator of our dreams. We agreed that it was a whiterefrigerator with two doors: one a freezer, the other a refrigerator proper with shelvesand drawers. We envisioned our refrigerator as smallish and nicely styled with a chromehandle and perhaps an insignia on its enameled metal face.

But soon we began to worry that our visions might not be enough. After all, Universewas rarely subtle in its giving. So we began to draw our little refrigerator on our skin.We invented refrigerator movements and our movements became refrigerator dances:we danced our refrigerator. We made up refrigerator sounds and our sounds becamerefrigerator songs: we sang our refrigerator. Feeling proud of our game we made graffitilike cave paintings. In our paintings, little people, successful in their hunt, draggedhome refrigerators by their cords: we laughed our refrigerator.

And so our senses would not become dull, so our festivities would not drown out thevery Universe to which we were appealing, we walked the mazes of the town, we keptour eyes sharp and our noses to the wind.

It was on the third day that our festivities were interrupted by our object. It was awhite refrigerator with two doors: one a freezer, the other a refrigerator proper withshelves and drawers. Our refrigerator was smallish and nicely styled with a chromehandle and a little insignia upon the enameled metal of its face. After an hour of scrubbing, a shine appeared on its surface.

That was long ago. Today our refrigerator is comfortable in the comer of our room,its shelves piled high with subsequent offerings, its doors covered with drawings andpictures.

Squatting

Squatting covers a wide range of actions, from two people maintaining a garden inthe grassy area behind the strip mall to fifty facially-tattooed warriors locking down toplatforms in the branches of a national forest, but the idea behind it is all the same:land should belong to those who use it, and we all have the basic right to food, shelter,and safety. Of course, there’s no hard and fast recipe for how to squat: it all depends onyour circumstances, and what you want to accomplish. This is the barest of outlines forsquatters, urban and otherwise.

Ingredients

• Abandoned building, lot, attic, boat, unused room in a university, treehouse etc.

• At least one reliable cohort (optional, but very helpful)

• Means of entry — e.g., an unlocked or broken window, lock picks, bolt-cutters, or a crowbar

• Miscellaneous tools: flashlight, claw hammer, screwdrivers, hacksaws, any kind of tool for home improvement ... pliers and an adjustable wrench can be handy for turning on water, screwdrivers for installing new locks

• Cleaning supplies

• Access to food and water

Instructions

Squatting Buildings for Residential Purposes

Think about your goals and needs before you even look for a location. Are you hoping tostay in the building for a week, a month, the next ten years? If you’re desperate for shelter and your first priority is to avoid getting kicked out, you’ll probably want a secludedplace with low- visibility access. If you want to set yourself up in a homey situation, maybe you should checkout residential neighborhoods where you can pass yourself off as arenter or somebody who bought the place cheap. If you’re planning an overtly political,public action for which you want high visibility, you’ll want a public, visible location, notto mention a plan for how to deal with the cops. Of course, you can never know exactlywhat will happen, but knowing what you’re after is the first step to getting it.

Think carefully about who you want your companions to be in a squatting action;you’ll be dealing with high-stress situations with them as well as living with them, areally demanding combination. Make sure the group dynamics are healthy and the relationships durable, and that your goals are complementaryif not identical. Consider thedemographics of the area in which you will be squatting; your group will not only haveto relate internally, but also to the community around your squat. This will certainly beeasier if you share a common background with the neighbors — and remember, thereis such a thing as gentrification. Also, you may want to establish a set of house rules inadvance — e.g., no hard drugs, violence, bigotry, or theft — and a sense of how these willbe enforced. As you will be living outside the law with people who are still damaged bygrowing up under its heel, you will have to work out conflicts internally.

Scope out the building or land, preferably over a period of at least a few weeks. It’sgood to get a sense of who’s coming and going, if the owners or neighbors are checkingup on the place, and what else is going on in the neighborhood-especially if you’re newto the area. Talk to locals: you’ll need friends, especially among the people who hang outregularly on the block, if any do. Check to see if the power meter is running, and if thereis mail in the mailbox. If you can’t hang around to watch if whether anyone enters orleaves the building, leave a toothpick or twig wedged between the door and the frame,and check on it periodically. You can call the county assessor’s office to find out whetherthe building is owned by an individual, bank, or development corporation, and whetheror not the taxes are paid up. The city takes possession of a building when its owner failsto pay taxes on it, and it can be much harder to be evicted from a city-owned buildingthan from a privately-owned one. On the other hand, an owner who pays the taxes buthas otherwise totally abandoned a property might make the perfect landlord.

It’s a good idea to go inside and inspect the building before you occupy it, to knowwhat you’re getting into: whether the water and electricity work, how trashed the placeis on the inside, if other people are or were staying there. When exploring a building,calmly announce your presence as you go, in case others have already squatted it. Lookout for holes in the masonry too big to fix, signs of bulging or sagging in the walls,significant water damage to floors and ceilings, wood rot in structural elements — theseare all potential signs that you’ve picked the wrong place, if you’re hoping to make ahome there. To test wood rot, push a sharp knife into the wood; it shouldn’t go in morethan an inch.

Again, consider your goals when deciding how to move in. If you’re going to pose aslegal occupants, you might want to go in at night and unlock the doors from the inside,then just roll up in the morning in a van with your stuff and take some cookies to theneighbors when you go introduce yourselves. If you’re doing anything that could beconstrued as breaking and entering, go in at night and cover your tracks immediately — ifyou break a window, dean up the glass. Be well-apprised of local laws; in some states, justbeing caughttrespassingin possession of burgling tools such as crowbars can get you arrested for intent to perform burglary, which is a felony. Often there’s no need to go downthat road: windows are frequently left unlocked, especially above the ground floor, andone small person can squeeze in and open up a door from the inside. Try getting up tothe roof if there seem to be no easy entrances at the ground floor. Long before the testingand developmentfor this cookbook began, this author and a friend once found our wayin states in which carrying lock intQ a vast abandoned building by enteringthe sub-basement coal shaft through a grate down an alley. If you’re going to be loud, choose a rainy night. If youre working with a grinder, cover it and the person using it with a large piece of dark cloth, to hide sparks.

Once inside, it’s wise to clean up immediately — nothing makes a place feel like homeas much as making it clean and comfortable. Change the locks as soon as you can; ifthat’s impossible, install your own front door and frame, or, failing that, at least puncha hole in the door and on the other side of the doorframe and run a chain secured by apadlock through the holes. Making the place homey before the police amve can meanthe difference between getting thrown out without a hearing and forcing the city to gothrough the whole eviction process- or avoiding it entirely. Likewise, you need yourneighbors to trust you and feel that you are a positive influence in the neighborhood.

The toilets may be smashed, but if the pipes are still in good condition, you can getrunning water. You may be able to access the water pipes in the basement, if not onthe back of the building. If these are in the basement, there will probably be two setsof pipes coming in and out from the street; the larger pipe is probably for sewage. Youmight be able to open these pipes with a wrench; if you succeed, look for leaks in therest of the building, and leave the water on at a trickle in the winter so the pipes won’tfreeze and break. Even if you can’t get the inflow pipes open, the sewage outflow pipemay still work. If you can’t get any of the pipes working, you’ll have to use five gallonbuckets filled with sawdust for toilets, and dump your waste waters in storm sewagegrates or on the limousines in the corporate business district. If you can’t find sawdustfor the composting toilets, you can use any other organic matter — e.g., ash, shreddednewspapers, hay, or grass clippings. Wetted newspaper can also stand in for toilet paperin a pinch.

Fix all holes in the roof as soon as possible, and make sure the roof drains are notclogged; if need be, spread thick plastic over the roof until you can get around to fixingit. Watch out for asbestos and other dangerous dust particles; call around to see if a localorganization can test materials for them. You can keep such dust out of the air temporarily by keeping the materials in question wet. Lead paint is also dangerous, especiallyfor children; keep it wet, as well, when sanding it off. If you can’t get trash pickups atyour place, and there’s a lot of rubble or garbage in the house, designate a room for ituntil you can move it out.

You can check to see if you have electricity by switchingthe breakers off and on; if youhave a power meter on the back of your building, you may be able to activate it yourself(see Utilities, pg. 585). but this should only be attempted with extreme caution. Piratingelectricity may be as simple as running an extension cord out to an outlet at the foot of astreetlight, but if it’s not, don’t attempt it unless you are a trained expert; the same goesfor messing with damaged wiring. If you have no heat or electricity, insulate the wallswith carpet or similar material, and use thick plastic to make tents for sleeping. Youcan use candles and kerosene heaters and lanterns, but don’t store kerosene near themor leave them burning while you are asleep or absent. Steal a fire extinguisher or two,or leave around buckets of sand or water, and put up smoke detectors. You can make awood stove out of a discarded steel drum, if you can attach a safe chimney for the smoke.To discourage vermin, hang your food and trash off the floor by wires. As for getting aphone connection, you may find that telephone companies are more willing than otherutility providers to activate or install lines in unusual contexts, though it’s just easier touse a cell phone.

If you’re in a district where you face the risk of break-ins or violent eviction andyou’re not trying to pretend you bought the place with your arts association, keep thewindows barred or covered with plywood, anchor broken glass in cement atop walls,secure the place. Don’t leave the building unattended, especially not soon after movingin. Make sure no one you don’t trust knows the location of your squat; the last thingyou need is a lot of disrespectful uninvited guests showing up. Don’t let police or cityofficials in without a warrant; don’t identify yourself to them unnecessarily, either. Theonly officials you are required by law to admit without a warrant are the fire departmentand child services.

Legally, police aren’t supposed to regulate trespassing on private property withoutexpress direction from the legal owner, nor are they to adjudicate on property disputes;so, assuming you’re not obviously breaking any other laws and you say you have thelegal right to be in the building, the cops are supposed to leave it up to the courts. Butsince when do police abide by their own laws? In all likelihood, the more legitimate yourpresence appears to be, the less harassment you will face. All the more reason to fix upthe place! To that end, it’s worth checking out books on do-it-yourself home remodelingand repair from the library, and talking to folks at the local reuse and salvage center, ifthere’s one in your town — these are invaluable resources, and will give you much morepractical information than could fit here.

Take before and after photos to show off the improvements you’ve made to the building. Scavenge at construction sites for materials. Although, as described, you can getutility services without paying for them, obtaining them through the official channelscan bolster your case as residents . The same goes for receiving mail at your squatted address. To facilitate this, make an effort to befriend your mail carrier; failing that, you canhave your mail held for you at the local post office. As well as utility bills and receivedmail, voter registration, shipping receipts, library cards, and state IDs will all bolsteryour case that you are a legal resident. You might want to begin gathering these beforeyou move in, so if the police show up you will be able to persuasively argue that you arethe legal resident.

On the other hand, it might be wise to attempt to avoid interacting with authoritiesall together. You could create a hidden entrance to your squat, through which you comeand go quickly and quietly: for example, a window that appears to be boarded up butactually swings open on hinges. If you’re going to go this route, barricade any entrancesthrough which police and city workers might try to enter. Electrical cables can be hiddenin empty pipes, across ceilings, and under piles of junk, just as rooms can be hiddenbehind false walls or covers.

Eviction notices come in the mail, so be careful not to sign for any registered or certified mail until you are sure it’s not from the city government. If an eviction notice doescome, make sure there is at least one person with proof of residence whose name isn’ton it — that way the police will not be able to seal the building after those of you namedon the notice are evicted, and eventually you can move back in. If an eviction or othertrouble looms, use a phone tree or email list to invite as many supporters or witnessesas possible. Take the names and badge numbers of police and videotape them. Neveradmit to having leaders.

Other Applications

There are countless other variants on the squatting theme. You can plant secret or public community gardens; in the latter case, a well-publicized day of guerrilla gardeningmight be the perfect way to get started. You can squat openly as a way to attract attentionto the absurdity of homelessness when so many buildings stand empty; prepare a lotof legal support and a media blitz, and be warned that if you do hold the building, thepolice may try to starve you out, so get in there with a lot of resources and have a plan forhow to smuggle more in. You can covertly squat a building for one night to hold a party,dance, or show (seeGuerriiia Performance pg. 269) — invitationsshould direct people toa starting point, from which the crowd will be led to the target building or location. Youcan squat a rooftop: block the doorway or hatch behind you, drop banners for a11 the cityto see, have a liaison ready to explain to the owner, police, and media that you are non-violent but will not be leaving until your week-long occupation is concluded. A squat,secret or public, could provide housing and an additional point of militant confrontationduring a mass mobilizationfor a demonstration.Treehouse squats can go unnoticedo nthe margins of suburbia for long periods of time; they’ve also been used militantly as anobstacle to logging in forests. You can establish a residential squat for a short time, justto demonstrate the tactic to a circle of learners without risking any serious costs in theprocess- seethe account following the Festivals recipe (pg.241).

Account

I’d spent a few months living in wild, crowded squats in Barcelona before I moved onto London and hunted down an old friend at the squatted funeral parlor at which she’dbeen staying. Tired of constant travel, short on cash and solid plans, we decided toopen up our own place. Lisa knew a few people living in flats in an empty housing project fact, one of the three buildings was already being demolished, and the crashof wrecking ball into brick and mortar became the backdrop to the next few months ofour lives.

Lisa had checked out the place a few times before I got into town; she’d kept her eyeon a flat with months-old mail cascading out from under the front door, and after looking around a bit we decided that was our best bet. By that point, the buildings had stoodmostly empty for months, and the council wasn’t paying a bit of attention to them; a fewof the original tenants had hung on past their eviction dates and just stopped payingrent, but the complex had been left to go derelict until the demolition crews got aroundto it. All the main entry locks were destroyed or missing, so actually cracking the squatwas shockingly easy: we borrowed a crowbar and a chair from our new friend Duncan inthe next building over, popped the transom window above our front door, then crawledthrough and unlocked the door from the inside.

Over the next few days an experienced neighbor helped us rewire the electricity tobypass the meter, and we durnpstered some furniture and made ourselves at home.This was a particularly — and peculiarly — low-key situation,as far as my experience withsquatting goes. In Barcelona, early-morning full-scale police raids were common, andthe threat of potentially violent eviction was constant. Here, none of the authorities werelikely to bother with any of the two dozen squatters in the neighborhood;all the workerson the demolition site waved hello as we came and went with armloads of trash from thelocal market. But we were short-termers, in town for a few months at the most; when thewrecking ball swung over to our building, Lisa and I knew we’d probably pack up ourluck and move on to another buildingin another town — while the family of East Africanimmigrants living downstairs would quite likely be homeless.

Stenciling

Instructions

Stenciling is the poor person’s printmaking. It is the easiest and cheapest way to printthe same image over and over on different surfaces and in different places.

First, you need a design. You shouldn’t feel like you have to be an artist to make one.One of the great things about stencils is that since each print looks the same and consists of only a positive and negative, it makes almost all designs look really sharp andgood. If you are looking to turn an image that is not already in solid blacks and whitesinto a stencil design, you could trace the basic forms and lines and blacken them in, orphotocopy it over and over on a high-contrast setting; there are also graphic design computer programs that can do this for you. Remember, you can’t have any floating negativespace inside your printing area, unless you want to try to suspend the pieces of stencilthere with tight string or something.

Next, you need a material to cut into a stencil, one thin enough to cut and carry butdurable enough to last. Photocopying shops and other places that do lamination oftenhave large quantities of surplus laminate on hand that you can obtain for free. Laminateis easy to cut into stencils: put it on top of an image and start cutting immediately. Cardboard works, too, though most experienced stencil artists abandon it for materials thatare less bulky and more durable. Manila file folders, posterboard, and vinyl sheet flooring are all options. For larger stencils, you can use wallpaper, adding contact paper on„ 6 the back for more durability. You can also use the plastic boarding on which some photocopying stores print their larger in-store advertisements, or the advertisement boardsslipped into the frames inside subway cars in some cities. If you are going to be makinga really large stencil and desire a high degree of precision, you can use an overhead projector to project the image onto your material while cutting.

When it comes to cutting out your stencil, the sharper and more precise your tool, thebetter. X-acto knives are the most common tools, though even scissors can suffice. If youare using transparency sheets or some simiiar plastic, you can cut them quickly with asoldering iron; using the same iron, you can melt them together at the edges to form alarger stencil.

The most usual medium for stenciling is spray paint. Different nozzles providedifferent paint flows and speeds, which enable you to achieve different effects. Manyrecommend using matte paint instead of glossy paint. You can also apply paint with apaint roller. When doing so, be careful to apply the roller in the same direction that anylittle pieces or strips on the stencil extend, so it won’t bend them the wrong way. You candesign multicolor stencil artwork, in which two or more stencils are applied to the samearea; beware, light colors may be lost if spray painted onto dark colors. For preasion, itcan help to have registration marks built into your image, so you know where to holdsubsequent stencils after the first layer. If you are doing multi-stencil artwork in an areathat the powers that be would keep art-free, you can lay down several prints of each layerat a time, starting over with the next layer of paint when they have dried, or do the samething with a partner.

You can use a spray adhesive to stick your stencil to a wall — this will decrease paintleaking around the edges, and enable you to apply it with your hands free- or just usestrips of tape to do the same thing. For detailed stencils that tend to be too flexible, youcan build little “bones” onto the side from which you spray, to make the stencil morerigid and keep all the parts against the surface you are decorating. When stenciling inthe field, wear disposable latex gloves, and get rid of them before you are stopped, sothere is no telltale paint on your hands.

For transporting and applying your stencil, it can help to have it built into the bottomof a shopping bag, backpack, or pizza box: you set the item down on the ground, use thespraycan inside it to apply the paint, and appear from a distance to simply be rummaging around in it. If your stencil has two different color regions, you can build a dividerinto the bottom of the bag or box, and cany two cans of spray paint in it. Failing that, asmall stencil can be kept in a notebook, or plastic bag. A larger stencil can be carried i nan artist’s portfolio, if you look like the type who might be in art school. Large stencilstend to bend more; it is important that they be kept stiff so they will work.

Chalk Stenciling

In many contexts, it is legal or semi-legal to write on the walls and sidewalk with chalk,but not with paint. If you want to avoid immediate legal trouble while still putting up adesign, tiy stenciling in chalk.

Crush up chalk, adding charcoal powder to make the color darker if you want. Sprayadhesive across the site, then put your stencil on it. Roll a paint roller in the chalk dust,and then across your stencil. This works best for large designs without much detail; itcreates a temporary image that will wash off easily.

Other Applications

Once you’ve gotten familiar with the little ones, you can make a stencil one hundredfeet long! Get a roll of painters’ drop paper of that length, and cut letters and designsinto it. Get a can or three of “mis-mixed” paint at any local hardware store (these arecheaper than other paint, or free), and a broad paint roller. Late one night, with threepeople for maximum speed, deploy the stencil on a concrete surface: one person unrolling it, one person rolling the paint over it, and the third person rolling up the paperbehind them. Engage lookouts if you have a couple more people interested. Providedthe fire department isn’t called in to wash the paint away before it dries (as happenedto the feminists who tried this in Boston a number of years ago),there will be an exciting new message to the world downtown — and another message inside of it: publicspace can be reclaimed.

You can also use stencils to print designs on paper or fabric, where screenprinting wouldbe too involved: use a sponge to apply the appropriate paint through a stencil onto your material. You can mix a textile medium in equal parts with acrylic paint to print on clothing.

Stickering

Ingredients

You can make short-lived paper stickers out of address labels with a computer printer,or save money on the upscale version by screenprinting vinyl sticker sheets yourself,but there are craftier options. Stickers can be obtained for free from a number of sources-try the post office, for starters — and if you don’t want your design to integrate theoriginal content, just cover them in a coat of white paint. Designs can be stenciled orscreenprintedon such stickers, or just scrawled if you’re lazy. If you want to get reallyfancy, form a long piece of stiff wire into an image or word in script, cut open a shoelaceon one end and pull it over the wire, and dip it in paint — the shoelace will absorb paint,enabling you to use the wire as a stamper. Clear packing tape can be put on any paperstickers to make them more waterproof and durable.

Vinyl stickers look fancy, but can be easy to remove. To make removal more difficult, makea grid of slices across each sticker once it is applied, so it can only come off in tiny pieces.

Clear adhesive envelopes can be obtained free at unmanned Federal Express stations;you can put them up on the walls of city streets, corporate elevators, or gas station bathrooms with seaet instructions or maps to buried treasure inside.

Locations

Stickers can go anywhere graffiti would, and have the advantages of looking more officialand taking less time to deploy. Utilize stop signs (tocall for opposition to the outrage ofyour choice),dead end signs (to do the same), telephones (“this phone is tapped”), vending machines and the like (“out of order”), newspaper dispensers (“lies”), gas pumps(“certified 100% Iraqi blood”),trash cans (“ballot box,” with an arrow), advertisements at EHHbus stops (add speech bubbles), automobile bumpers (“ask me why I’m destroying theenvironment 11 ), food in grocery stores (“WARNING: this package contains the slowlyrotting corpse of a tortured, deformed bird”), automatic teller machines (“can you buy freedom?”), over gas tank caps on cars (a sticker of the earth, which must be torn to access the tank), elevators (duplicate the emergency warning: “don’t wait for emergency, take steps!” with an image of a figure running up the stairs with fire), anywhere people might forget they live in panopticon (“you are under surveillance”).

For maximum impact, pick a certain theme and target and get a few friends togetherto cover an entire area in a matter of hours; immediately following a certain election, ateam in a large city changed all the street signs on Bush Street to read Puppet Street, toname one example.

An Advanced Technique: Aluminum Stickers

This is a technique for making beautiful aluminum foil posters for public surfaces. They can be easier to install at the site than wheatpasted posters, and are extremely difficult to remove.

Ingredients

• Cheap aluminum foil — The heavy-duty stuff is easier to handle, but also easier for art haters to remove.

• Wax paper or Teflon sheet

• Scissors

• Foam rubber craft brush

• Floor tile glue — This is a heavy-duty dry-mount adhesive that is made for gluing down vinyl and linoleum floors. It comes in one-gallon plastic buckets. It is available at most hardware stores for under $15. A gallon seems to be a near-bottomless supply. The stuff cleans with water when it is still wet; when dry it’s hell to remove.

• Materials for printing a design on the aluminum — see Stenciling (pg, 516) andScreenprinting(pg. 455) recipes- you can use either If you use spray paint, we’ve foundthe slow-drying Rustoleurn-stylestu^is the most robust, but anything will do. If youscreenprint your design, use an oil-based ink.

Instructions

Decorate your foil (see Stenciling, pg. 516, and Screertprinting, pg. 455 recipes — you can useeither). Aluminum foil has a shiny side and a matte side. We have settled on putting thedesign on the matte side, because it has a texture that seems to hang on to paint and inka little better. Still, the shiny side is pretty, and may suit you better. Experiment with both.

Be very careful with the aluminum foil! As you apply your design to the aluminum,it is crucial to handle the foil as gently as possible. Even moving it through the air has atendency to make it bend, crease, and bunch up. It is imperative that this not happen.Small creases become weak spots, and can cause big problems when you go to installyour masterpiece. If any tear or nick develops, you must discard that sheet.

Leave a margin around your artwork, a 1.5-inch space between the edges of yourdesign and the edges of the foil. Most foil comes in 12-inch- wide rolls; given that, youshould limit your design to around 7 inches wide and probably not more than 10 incheshigh. This is especially true for your first tiy.

Apply floor glue to the back. After much experimentation, we’ve found that cheapfoam-rubber-on-a-stick craft brushes work best. Use one to apply a thin, even layer ofglue to the back surface (figure 18.1). Be especially neat with the glue, as thick spots,ridges, and errant drips will make your life miserable later. Keep the glue at least half aninch away from the edges of the aluminum foil.

Allow the glue to dry. Depending on the usual factors of temperature, humidity, andhow thickly you applied it, glue will take about one hour to dry. Wet glue is opaque, dryglue is translucent.

Once the glue has dried thoroughly, you can apply wax paper to the back of yoursticker. This protective backing can enable you to transport the poster to its new home.Do not press the backing down, as it is quite hard to remove even wax paper, especiallysince aluminum foil is so prone to tearing. In developing this recipe, our main challenge has been figuring out how to cover the glued side of the stickers during transportation without ruining them when it’s time to remove the backing. If you encountergreat difficulties removing wax paper backings, you could tiy using Teflon sheets. Seethe “Hints” section below for ideas on how to avoid this step.

Trim the excess foil. Use sassors to cut around your design so that glue covers everythingup to the edge of the aluminum sticker. If you are using a wax paper backing, leave onecomer untrimmed so you can easily separate the layers when it is time to apply the poster.

Deploy your work of genius. The adhesive packaging says you have a twenty-four-hour window of optimal stickiness, but it’s more like twelve hours. Take the piece outwith you in a book (if you’re using a backing) or a pizza box (if you’re not), making surenot to wrinkle it too much. Peel the aluminum off the wax paper or Teflon, if applicable.Use a shirtsleeve or bandanna to clean dust or dirt off your selected surface — if time andsecrecy are of the essence for your target, you may want to do this on a separate, earliertrip. Place the poster, then thoroughly burnish it into place with your bandanna-coveredpalm. Make sure all edges are sealed tightly to the surface. Youte done!

Hints

The aluminum sticker is tried and true for postering on certain surfaces: painted metal, Hintsplastic, painted wood, polished concrete, aluminum, glass. It will not be as reliable onraw wood surfaces like phone poles or siding. You can experiment with rough concretesurfaces, so long as they are fairly dry.

The most difficult aspect of using these stickers is transporting them to installationsites. The wax paper method described above leaves much to be desired, as it can bequite difficult to separate the aluminum from the wax paper. If you can avoid this step,things will be much easier. If you have a vehicle available, build a shelf like a drying rackwhere glue-coated posters can rest without sliding into other posters. If you are going onfoot, use a pizza box or other flat box. Perhaps there are materials more freely availablethan Teflon that have slicker surfaces than wax paper. Brainstorm, experiment, and letus know what you find!

If you’re really coordinated and you want to avoid the difficulties of transporting stick-ers with glue on them, involve two teams for a long night of decorating. Plot routes thatpass by a few dozen deserving installation sites. Have one team set out cleaning eachsite, then coating it with the appropriately sized area of glue. A few hours later, the sec-ond team heads out with foil posters to apply to the dry glue.

Supporting Suwivors of Domestic Violence

Helping Womyn and Society Escape Violent Relationships

Womyn exist in a “domesticated” combat zone. On any given day in the United States,an average of 480 womyn will be raped, 5,760 womyn will be assaulted, and 4 will bemurdered by a male partner. Domestic violence is an assault on womyn’s bodies andminds by those who claim to love them and love to claim them. The success of thisviolence depends on the compliaty of community. If we intend to bring about true liberation, we must foster explicitly antiauthoritarian behavior in both personal and political life. No hierarchy is acceptable and no domination is justifiable-not even “behinddosed doors.” Because one in four womyn wi11 be assaulted (likely including someoneyou love), we must wage war on domestic violence. We serve to empower our communities best by fighting the violence and hierarchy closest to home ... or in the home.

Ingredients

• Outreach materials

• Shelter

• Childcare

• Basic safety materials — pepper spray, whistles, deadholts, phone

• Knowledge of local resources

• A network of safe communities/spaces for womyn

• Personal dedication to the complete annihilation of authority

Instructions

Stage One: Helping Her Educate yourself.

Domestic violence (DV)is rarely a single instance of battery, but instead a pattern of power and control. It may involve sexual or physical violence, or it may be a complex web of threats, property destruction, isolation, and emotional, financial, and mental abuse. Understanding this will help you recognize abuse if it comes without physical bruises.

If you are truly ready to have your mother, friend, or daughter tell you what is happening in her private life, invite her to come to you. If you are speaking against violence and rape, she will know you are ready. Wheatpaste neighborhoods with postersabout domestic violence, hold street fairs against violence in residential neighborhoods, plaster infoshops and collective homes with signs that invite womyn into asafe space. If she, her children, or her animals are in immediate danger, however,you may need to approach her. Never approach the abuser: most abusers are paranoid and will quickly assume their victims have exposed them, and may retaliate against them.

Follow her lead. The most important thing you will do is be there for her, even if youfeel useless. Trying to be a hero can only undermine her autonomy. Le