Recipes for Disaster: an anarchist cookbook

a time, the drummer was silent, out of respect for her request. Some tempers did flare in the midst of the fray, it's true, and it is possible that others exchanged harsh words at some point during the day. It's very important that those of us who practice direct action demonstrate the utmost in civility and sensitivity in the process of doing so, so there will never be any question about what part of our hearts such actions proceed from, or whether 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 actually shutting down the rally, many of us made our way back up the perimeter toward the parking 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 time involving mounted police as well. There were some blows and angry words exchanged between poHce officers and protesters?the latter now including a broad diversity of individuals, not just the organized demographic that had initiated direct action at the beginning of the event. Yet again, those the pohce grabbed were pulled free, but our progress was blocked. All the same, some individuals, moving stealthily outside the mass, 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 scuffling and chasing ensued. The individuals involved managed to get away, but the rest of us on the corner could have done better to support them by making another charge at the police 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 the result of individuals walking around apart from the masked bloc while still wearing their masks. This made them obvious targets for pohce. Clearly, we should have gone over that lesson more thoroughly beforehand: wear your mask with "die others in masks who can protect you, and change your appearance radically when you leave their company. One individual's collarbone was broken in the process of the arrest, thanks to a policeman's

overzealous tackling. All those arrested were bailed out of jail by that evening; an experienced civil rights lawyer volunteered to take their cases gratis, and succeeded in slipping them 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 as they were returned to the parking lot. It was time to quit while we were ahead, before any more arrests could be made. Those of us in masks and sweatshirts melted into the larger crowd, swiftly changing our clothing outside the view of the police, and then made our way in ones and twos out of the area as protesters from the permitted protest did the same. We suffered no more arrests in this process; we had successfully delayed the state-subsidized fascist rally, decorated the walls of the state political district with politics of our own, fought over a hundred and fifty thoroughly equipped riot pohce, and lived to tell the tale.

Most mainstream media coverage of the event was deceitful, to say the least. They drastically underestimated the number of protesters, misrepresented the atmosphere by describing people as practically being amenable to the fascist presence, and made little to no mention of the way we delayed the rally or the violence with which the police responded. The fact that the mainstream cameras and reporters were the only ones allowed inside the police hnes with the fascists was as teHing as the spectacle many of us witnessed of the police chief and the fascist top dog smiling and laughing and chatting together 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, this demonstration had not been the appropriate time for direct action. Such a statement is g^"*^^'"'* ^^""^