"An Anarchist Cookbook" To Replace Bibles in Motel Rooms

By Kirsten Anderberg (www.kirstenanderberg.com)

If you buy one book this year, I suggest it be Crimethinc's "An Anarchist Cookbook: Recipes for Disaster" (www.crimethinc.com/a/cookbook). I have not read such an inspiring book since Abbie Hoffman's "Steal This Book" back in the 1970's. This book should be in every motel room replacing bibles. This book belongs in your medicine cabinet. It is the strongest of anti-depressants. The reason this book is so very important is two pronged, in my opinion. For one, it is based on cheap ingredients so poor folks can play. Many of the things used in the recipes for disaster in this book can be salvaged as society's waste. And that is part of the point, using the excesses capitalist societies produce in its own monkeywrenching. It is social aikido. The second importance of this book is its emphasis on direct and immediate action. Much as it is hard to stand still when a good beat is going, it is seriously hard to stay home after reading chapters of this book. It inspires to action, and that is priceless.

Who does not enjoy the image concocted when reading about dressing up like Santa, going into a department store, handing out presents to the kids, and then watching their confusion as the store manager explains the kids have to give back the toys Santa just gave them (Guerrilla Performances Chapter)?! That is some precious imagery. Even thinking it breaks old prisons of thought in our minds. The ability to repeatedly think outside the box is a strong point throughout this book. Everyday scenes are repeatedly tweaked, creating political art and agit-prop at every turn. Many of the chapters brought me to tears due to their depth and sincerity. The class consciousness present throughout, for example, was refreshing, and endearing. I found the chapter on Portrait Exchanges, about giving away portraits on the street while providing community grievance boards in a social class experiment, and the chapter on Surviving Felony Trials to be quite touching, for instance.

The chapter on Mainstream Media was hilarious. The author recommends being really boring for the mainstream press so they do not get a chance to exploit folks when reporting on protest actions. I also liked the suggestion to just answer the question you wished the reporter asked! The chapter on Effigies had me rolling with laughter. The author reports on an effigy they made of Bush and how the crowd shocked them with their violence towards the figure. "With a little coaching and encouragement, chuckling liberals would give a symbolic tap on the nose - but most folks took it to the Prez with vicious abandon. The tightly fitted mask was knocked clean off the "dummy" too many times to count." The moral of the story? "As keen observers, we feel that it is our patriotic duty to report what could be construed as latent feelings of violence, resentment, and readiness to brawl directed at the President of the United States of America." Ah, those wide "no protest zones" that follow Bush around are making more sense every day!  

It is comforting to know there are people thinking outside the box, but it is also comforting to know you are not alone. To know you are not the only one who sits around thinking up wild things to do on the street for public education and edification is a form of sanity. Much of the depression and frozen inaction in modern society is the disempowerment we get from being isolated and marketed as competition against each other at every turn. To derail from the corporate machine, to go out with crude materials, and make art that makes people think, for free, is beautiful. To see, and to do. Even viewing such art has a participatory feel to it. It takes away the disempowerment feeling, the isolation feeling, which lifts the depression. Many of the actions outlined in this book are like secret messages scrawled on the streets for anyone who can read the code of freedom. Which is why I say this book is one powerful anti-depressant. I went through some serious depression while reading it, and it never failed to lighten my mood and give me endurance, patience and perseverance, not to mention it emboldened me to stand up to oppression publicly, creatively, and aggressively. This book is dangerous shit for that reason alone. It teaches us to enjoy each other, it teaches us to create our own entertainment and art, it reinforces fearlessness and guerrilla media, it teaches us to stop consuming and wasting, and it teaches us to SHARE. Nothing could be more dangerous to Homeland Security.

Often people just need to know of the existence of something to do it. I did not street perform until I saw a street performer. Many of the underground experiences I have had required exposure to an alternative grassroots culture. I did not even know midwives existed growing up, but once I found out about them, I did not want, and would not settle for, anything but a home birth. I grew up on fast and frozen foods but as soon as I was exposed to wholesome food and proper health knowledge, I began to eat consciously right away. And I have to admit, I have upped the quality of my activist imagination and actions after reading this book. I mean, why write in chalk on sidewalks, when you could permanently impale a tile-asphalt graffiti piece right into the street (Asphalt Mosaics Chapter)?

This book does a good job at embodying the feel of, and therefore exposing people to, the current underground direct action culture. This is a handbook about anarchist collective beliefs, humor, lifestyles, and tactics. This book really is a historical document in that way. It is one of the best documentations of the anarchist and radical political underground I have seen. It is not bogged down in impenetrable jargon. It is written in everyday speech, yet, I have to say, these street activists are a damned literate bunch! The editing and voices throughout the book are professional quality and provide a smooth and humorous read. Even the writing style in this book is indicative of the underground DIY political culture prevalent right now. This book is basically the narrative of a political revolution brewing under the skin of society, internationally, and off the radar, being fueled by the Bush regime's escalating insanity, and the desperateness of the poor people of the world, to find ways to organize and make their voices heard over loud bombs and media censorship.

"Make the lackeys of capitalism regret they ever let you get out alive, and the communities you care for grateful you managed to survive." - Recipes for Disaster

So enough gushing about this book's utility, importance and profundity. What the hell is this book about?! It is about health (mental health, relationships, sex...), living together on earth (collectives, coalition building, thinktanks, hitchhiking, parades, festivals...), DIY media (billboards, banners, fake newspaper covers...), and direct action tactics (wheatpasting, stenciling, stickering, shoplifting, squatting...). The book is full of practical advice such as putting a line of cayenne pepper at your door to confuse police dogs, throwing carpeting over barbed wire to make it more accommodating, and planting flower seeds in a pattern to make living graffiti. Practical advice borne of experience lines the margins, such as the advice to paint the red circle with a line through it, before the image you are protesting. The book recalls one protester who got high atop an area in plain sight of all at a demonstration, drew a swastika, and then ran out of paint for the circle to say NO! to fascism! And who does not crack a smile at the thought of putting hand-written "Out of Order" signs on Coca-Cola machines, to help the boycotts in solidarity with Columbia Coca-Cola workers, etc.?    

Aren't some of these activities illegal? Yes. There are illegal things mentioned in this book, just as there were in Abbie Hoffman's "Steal This Book," which is sold on Amazon.com and housed in the Library of Congress, and is considered a classic. But there are many more legal activities mentioned than illegal in this book. Every person has to weigh out what they are willing to live with. Is the Iraq war illegal? Yes, in my opinion. So is a strong anti-war action that breaks the law really "illegal?" Hmmm. These are the choices each person must make for themselves. Civil disobedience is a longstanding protest technique. Abbie Hoffman was a master at the type of direct action that much of this book outlines, and he is considered a respected and essential historical figure now. The folks who take action now are part of the stepping stones for our future and are creating history. What you do today DOES affect our future, whether you take direct action in protest or follow the mindless consumer sector, your actions and inactions today matter. And thus, you need to decide for yourself what you are willing to risk, in all directions. You also need to know what your own required safety level is. For instance, I would not feel comfortable, myself, with the torches made from the book's instructions because I am not familiar enough with fire on cloth like that. But others may be more comfortable with that. You need to judge for yourself. That is the beauty of free speech, free thought, and self-rule.

Are you willing to trade your own personal safety for a few days, years, or decades, for the planet's environmental health for millennium? Are you willing to trade following laws in America to allow your country to break laws internationally? And how much isolation, depression, oppression, and poverty are you willing to accept? How much freedom, empowerment, courage and creativity are you willing to court, dance and give birth to? How much fear are you willing to be crippled by? How much does freedom excite you, lure you, lead you, towards creating your own reality, your own world, your own life? This book is more than a guidebook for political actions, it is a blueprint to free your mind, and that is why this is one of the most dangerous books on the market today.

"Motherf*cker, you're already caught. Better ask yourself - what if you get free?" - Recipes for Disaster