Review: Recipes for Disaster by the CrimethInc Ex-Workers’ Collective
This is a handbook for direct action. It’s not the only one – there are thousands: every gardener’s guide is a direct action handbook, as is every cookbook. Any action that sidesteps regulations, representatives, and authorities to accomplish goals directly is direct action.


I have been intrigued by the writings of the CrimethInc (Ex-)Workers’ Collective since their previous missive, Days of War, Nights of Love. That collection encouraged me to think deeply about issues scampering through my mind (identity, capitalism, plagiarism, technology). I adopted some of their suggestions, ignored others, and modified some. This is part of what CrimethInc expects of you – to use their ideas as a starting point, make them your own, and then teach others how to use these skills to re-gain control over their lives.

In their new brick-like book (600+ pages bound along the short side and weighing two pounds), Recipes for Disaster, CrimethInc presents a portable skillshare of techniques for direct actions. Recipes for Disaster is not necessarily to be read linearly, from cover to cover, but consulted for ideas, instructions and inspiration. It’s extremely engaging reading, especially the “Accounts” of the direct actions in action (especially those of Antifascist action, Infiltration, Classroom Takeover and Newspaper Wraps). Above all, it’s a handbook, an idea book, a D.I.Y. manual that you should highlight and scribble in the margins of (nice and wide!), dog-ear and just plain use. It should be marked up, bent back and battered.

Recipes for Disaster provides instructions and advice for an alphabet of direct actions, from A (Affinity Groups, Antifascist Action, Asphalt Mosaics) to… W (Wheatpasting). (A minor quibble: Where’s Z for Zine? Guess I’ll have to write that one myself.) Clear instructions are provided, and diagrams when needed. Some of the direct actions are more physically extreme than others (e.g. Blockades and Lockdowns, Infiltration, and Utilities (hijacking of)), but there is a myriad of techniques presented, so there’s sure to be something for everyone to try. You’re not going to agree with every recipe presented – and that’s fine. There are many actions here that I am not extroverted, skilled, or ballsy enough to perform myself. The recipes that I’m excited about are crafty ones, such as Stickering, Screenprinting, Newspaper Wraps and Stenciling, just to list a few. However, if I ever want to organize a Reclaim the Streets party or make an Effigy, I’ll at least have basic guidelines.

Also included are discussions of topics that do not at first seem to fall under the category direct “action”, such as Health Care, Behavioral Cut Ups and Unemployment. The Mental Health chapter is especially balanced regarding their opinions about medication and therapy. A significant portion of Recipes for Disaster is dedicated to building various forms of community, stressing the importance of working together through Affinity Groups, Coalition Building, Collectives, Solidarity, Thinktanks and more. Most every recipe benefits from group direct action, as opposed to working solo. The CrimethInc contributors are aware of dissent and discord among activist groups – even if the end result or benefit is the same, people have different views of how to accomplish it. In the Preface, the contributors refer to this as a “Diversity of Tactics”. In part (a bit lengthy, but important):

Communities that practice direct action are often plagued by conflicts over which tactics are most effective and appropriate. Such debates are usually impossible to resolve – and that’s a good thing. Instead, to the extent it is possible, the activities of those employing different methods and even those pursuing different goals should be integrated into a mutually beneficial whole.

Accepting a diversity of tactics provides for the broad diversity of real human beings. Every individual has a different life history, and consequently finds different activities meaningful and liberating. Insisting that everyone should adopt the same approach is arrogant and shortsighted – it presumes that you are entitled to make judgments on others’ behalf – and also unrealistic: any strategy that demands that everyone think and act the same way is doomed to failure, for human beings are not that simple or submissive.
…
Honoring a diversity of tactics means refraining from attacking those who chosen approaches seem to you to be ineffective, and instead focusing on what missing elements you can add to make their efforts effective. This, it reframes the question of strategy in terms of personal responsibility: at every juncture, the question is not what somebody else should be doing, but what you can do.

Although not a formal “recipe”, this discussion of diversity of tactics may just be the most important part of this book. After all, cooking is much more fun and rewarding with friends working together.

Recipes for Disaster is a welcome addition to any activist’s book collection, but why stop there? Give it to people who don’t expect it.

Then see what happens. You might be surprised.

(Recipes for Disaster is available for $12 postpaid from Crimethinc Far East, PO Box 1963, Olympia, WA 98507. You can order it online from CrimethInc, Microcosm Publishing or Clamor infoSHOP.)
- posted by Synd-e @ 10:10 AM