Recipes for Disaster: an anarchist cookbook

You can turn absenteeism into a radical tactic: get together a group to volunteer individually for supporting roles at a corporate or political convention, and all call in sick at the last minute?or hire on as scabs during a worker strike at a company, and join the picket line?or, v/hen a new corporate franchise opens, apply for jobs there, so on their opening day you can accidentally lock the boss in the closet and leave.

Hijacking Events 28g

stragglers, and if it comes back to its point of origin?or even if the police can determine what that was?they will harass people around their vehicles, or at least take license plates and perhaps follow cars. Make sure no one whose name the authorities can get their 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" gone astray can end catastrophically. Those who initiate it must not trick the crowd, or seek to control it; their role is only to open a door to another situation, to highlight options that 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, and it must be up to each individual to choose whether to take them or not. At worst, those conscious of what they are doing can form a buffer zone between the police and the inexperienced or vulnerable, so if anyone gets into trouble it will be people who are prepared for it. It is also crucial that the hijackers not make enemies, nor disrespect or derail projects into which others have poured well-intentioned efforts. If people do notice the role a person plays in a re-routing, they should feel only gratitude, not fear or resentment?or, for that matter, inordinate admiration. The most accomplished re-routers act without attracting attention to themselves or assuming command over the situation.

Account

Hijacking Events 290

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 reunion show. That meant there would be a lot of young people with anarchist leanings in 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 opporturnty to put the heat on the

police, to remind them that there was a whole city of people who were not going to sit idly 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, which still 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 second was a marching band that most of us were familiar with from their performances at various demonstrations. As people began to arrive at the show (a steady stream of them making their way in the back door, as they felt the door price to be insufferable), we passed 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 the preceding day's events and asking if they would lead the audience out of the theater and into the street during their last song. They had done the very same thing at earlier shows, and readily agreed, making it clear however that they wanted to be leaving shortly thereafter.

The headlining band played their rexmion set. They were as talented as ever, but somehow it felt like there was something missing, and the particularly macho energy in the male singer's stage presence made some of us uncomfortable. No matter, we figured?it's not the responsibility of others to do things the way we would if we were them, it's our own responsibihty to do those things ourselves. So as they played, buckets and drumsticks were stacked up outside, and wheatpaste brewed over camping stoves in the bathrooms. They finished, and the marching band appeared; to those of us who had already had our lives changed by songs about revolution and now were ready to live a little taste of it, it seemed like they would never begin their last number. Finally, they

Hijacking Euents

You can write harmony parts for