Recipes for Disaster: an anarchist cookbook

It is also difficult to predict what your charges will be when you are arrested at the end of 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 your body. The use of lockboxes is not a separate crime, though the police may make threats or 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 used the lockboxes we would be charged with an additional PIC offense, but of course, as police 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 ready to provide immediate legal support (see Legal Support, pg. 329).

Committing to a lockdown is a serious matter; you must be prepared for the ordeal of 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 arrested and 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 you think you might be there for a long time, wear an adult diaper!

You can heat rocks in a fire and use them to blockade a road or thoroughfare. Use porous rocks, as nonporous rocks will simply explode, and be sure to identify them for everyone's safety. For the sake of convenience, you could set the fire, rocks within it, at the location to be blockaded, so as not to have to work out how to move them.

Blockades and Lockdowns

Other Blockading Methods

You can obtain a lengthy audience

with an otherwise unavailable public

official or similar personage by

handcuffing yourself to him or her.

Blockades and Lockdowns

1J2

There are many other ways to create blockades. The most traditional is to build a barricade (see Blocs, Black 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 individuals from them, taking the civil disobedience of lockdovms to another level. Dirt roads can be blockaded 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 armous or confused enough, they may block off an area for you.

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

Don't forget that quick-drying concrete can effectively seal many gates and other means of access. Mix nuts and bolts or other material into it for greater durability. For a humorous effect in a low-risk environment, you can brick up the door of an office or business. 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. You don't want to let traffic in, but you also don't want to trap civilians?or yourself. Always make sure that you are not blocking access to a hospital or similar establishment.