by Crimethinc. Workers' Collective
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On the other hand, if the primary purpose is to maintain visibility and morale rather than 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 half feet in diameter and made a pair of wings for it out of stolen tablecloths, using fabric glue to cover them in cut cloth "feathers" spray painted white and blue. We set the whole thing alofi: on poles of PVC pipe, two for the big A and one at the end of each wing to hold them extended to their full twenty-three-foot span, so it could be carried up to twelve feet in the air, above all other banners and signs. Later, we replaced the PVC pipe with bamboo, which proved lighter and just as durable.
There's more! You can decorate the convergence point or march route ahead of time with graffiti, wheatpasted posters, or broken windows. This can raise morale, and help less 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 marchers are ready for more, and you trust them not to betray you or have great faith in your own powers of blending and evading, you can use the crowd cover to spray paint through stencils onto the street in the middle of the march, leaving radical messages behind as the 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 the police cars following behind.
Setting up barricades might be especially useful if you're interested in turning your permitted march into an unpermitted one. Except in conditions of extreme surveillance and police repression, such re-routing is not particularly difficult to achieve, provided you have a small group ready to take the first risks. The police will be herding you along the prescribed route; at some point, they will leave a side street virtually unguarded, or attempt 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-knit group surges forward, close enough together and fearless enough that the police cannot snatch up some and thus intimidate the others, they can open a space for the rest of the marchers to follow. If you are attempting to reroute the entire march, hoping all those behind you will follow, you should position your group at the very front; if you are breaking off from the main body of the march with only those who are ready to contest public space actively, you might want to do so starting in the middle of the march, or even toward the back. In the latter case, you can count on confusion among the surprised and newly-divided police to give you something of an advantage, but you should also be prepared for much stricter repressive measures, as you are now isolated from your
On a big day of political action, you can draw the police away from other events by applying for a permit for a demonstration described in terms that attract their attention, and promoted by a website calculated to send the Threat Assessment Unit into hysterics. The event, of course, is in a district far from the real action, and turns out to be attended by a handful of weil-behaved citizens.
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law-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 of communication are important for staying informed of the movements of the police on nearby 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 it makes sense, of course. Your goal, presumably, is to empower and inspire your fellow marchers, even the more timid ones?not turn them against you by endangering them or making them feel disrespected.
All this assumes your permitted march is already in the street, which may not be the case. If a line of police is confining you to the sidewalk, and your objective is to take the street, wait for a turn and suddenly flood out into the street, just as you would if you were 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 the crowd is swift and decisive enough to fill the space they open, this can provide the necessary opportunity. Banners can even hold police on motorcycles at bay, if brandished bravely 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 stick to them together.
