With the a “state of emergency” declared in Ferguson outside of St. Louis and protests announced across the United States to coincide with the upcoming announcement of a grand jury decision in the police shooting of Michael Brown, it seems appropriate to feature a zine pertaining to street tactics.

In recent years, one of the best new primers to come out was the newspaper “Blockade, Occupy, Strike Back.” Originally released as a newspaper during the student strikes in Montreal in 2012, this zine formatted version includes helpful tips on forming crews, occupying buildings, security awareness, and participating in militant street protests.

You can download the zine or order it from us.

We also have a ton of other zines on street tactics, protests, etc, in our catalog, especially in the “direct action” section.

Excerpt from “Blockade, Occupy, Strike Back”:

INSTEAD OF HOPING FOR A BUREAUCRATIC organization to do something for us, we can take our lives into our ow n hands by self-organizing. The formation of a crew is a step in th is direction. A crew is a collection of close friends that trusts one another enough to organize together. This means having shared intentions, ideas, and practices, having each other’s backs, and never talking to police. In other words, this means sharing affinity. Some people refer to crews as affinity groups. While who is in your crew can be somewhat flexible depending on what you’re trying to do, it does imply having people wi th whom to consistently participate in social struggles and develop a more long-term term strategy. It often involves sharing your day-to-day life and knowing people well. This means knowing what is shared, but even more importantly, knowing where real political differences exist.

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As people realize their own power as individuals an d communities, the power of those in authority (i.e. the administration, the politicians, the police, and the bosses) weakens. This is what happens in any community garden, any occupation, and any riot. Individuals see that they can grow their own food and help others do the same; they see what they can do with just a few others. They see that they can take and hold space, and make entirely new ways of interacting together possible, while fighting off the institutions that stand in their way. When space is liberated, when we fight authority, we see that capitalism is not absolute. We realize that most of the things around us that we value are of our own creation. Contrary to the widespread myths, authority is in fact unnecessary and harmful.