Recipes for Disaster: an anarchist cookbook

enough before the fascists would cross from the parking lot to the rally site that we could stop them, but not so far in advance that the police could force us to disperse first, or that too few potential participants in our action would have arrived (since, unfortunately, those promoting the permitted event had announced the protest as starting at the same time as the rally, which would be too late to interfere wdth it). Until that moment, we would be scattered into couples and tiny groups, in hopes of avoiding premature police attention. Our scouts would inform those of us with communications equipment if anything unexpected developed?say, the fascists were heading to the rally site earlier than expected, or there was already a police presence at the site of our planned convergence?and these spokespeople would pass word around to others, so we could react quickly.

We arrived a couple of hours before the rally was to begin to find the entire area swarming v^dth police in and out of uniform, massive metal fencing surrounding the rally 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 a helicopter overhead. It was intimidating, and there was litde sign of other protesters. Our scouts reported that fascists had already arrived, and were fraternizing with police officers in a couple of areas; however, there didn't seem to be much chance of catching them alone, so we stuck with plan A.

We were all dressed as nondescript civilians, but carried bandannas and sweatshirts wdth which to render ourselves anonymous. Walking around the vicinity, we met people we recognized from other demonstrations and shows, and passed on to those we trusted the time and location of our convergence point?and maps, for those who had come from out of town. When the time came, we all made our way to the designated area, A ff ' tArf doing our best to appear to be nothing more than small groups moving randomly, and

56 hoping not to hear the familiar thunder of helicopters overhead.

The moment was upon us?we pulled up our masks, grabbed the banners from their hiding place, and tied them together as we formed our bloc and made swiftly for the parking lot. There were perhaps forty of us, and we were going to take on at least one hundred and fifty police, not to mention the thirty-odd fascists that had occasioned all this trouble. One of us had a great bass drum with which to maintain morale?morale is critical 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 hands free (though you should be carefid not to damage your hearing with them, if playing for a long time). Later in the day, the drums turned out to be extremely useful for centering our group when it was spread out, and directing motion en masse. More drums and drummers might have been even more effective at these purposes, and at least would have 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 with our banners around us. At this instant, remarkably, we had the element of surprise on our side. Since neither the police nor the fascists were expecting us, we were throwing them into an unexpected situation and thus off-balance; the initiative was ours. For the rest 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 made at this juncture was not to cross the street to the parking lot before the police reached us. In discussions after the action, it came out that those who had thought to shout out that 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 probably had enough coherence as a group that we could have prevented police from snatching supposed leaders; but the real solution to such a problem is to have the feeling of entitlement to make recommendations more evenly distributed among participants. This happened as the day wore on and all of us developed more confidence; unfortunately.

You can pose as an injured or handicapped person in order to get crutches through police checkpoints to be used as weapons later: imagine the bad press authorities would risk by attempting to confiscate them!

Antifascist Action 57

police preparations increased at the same pace our morale did. Strike all at once and go for it while you have the chance, that's the moral of the story.