Disrupt (v) : to interrupt (an event, activity, or process) by causing a disturbance or problem; to drastically alter or destroy the structure of (something)
This is a step-by-step guide published by CrimethInc. detailing how to stay safe in the streets when engaging in direct action. Information on how to dress appropriately, prepare oneself, organize, and engage with law enforcement is included in the document.
This is a step-by-step anonymous guide published on CrimethInc.’s website detailing how to throw a squatted dance party. Information on gear, location, how to promote the event, handling the authorities, among other important instructions are included in the document.
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the US during the 1960s that sought to establish a New Left focused on civil rights, peace, and universal economic security. In 1965, SDS held a mass sit-in at the White House to protest the Vietnam War. This document is a flyer for the event, detailing the various demands, plans, and sponsors of the group.
This letter was released by Students for Justice in Palestine on April 21, 2024. In the document, SJP lays out its mission, sets forth various demands, expresses solidarity with SJPs across the country, and makes clear its determination to reclaim student power on campus to pursue justice and liberation for the people of Palestine.
This is a full pdf of CrimethInc.’s book, Recipes for Disaster: An Anarchist Cookbook. This novel serves as a tactical handbook for direct action and includes images, step-by-step instructions, firsthand accounts, among other important resources.
This is the third edition of the newsletter written by a compilation of individual authors and published by the National Students for Justice in Palestine. The importance of discomfort, the global struggle against imperialism, information on the Palestine Solidarity Movement, accounts of personal experiences, various calls to action, and other important topics were included in the newsletter.
This is the second edition of the newsletter written by a compilation of individual authors and published by the National Students for Justice in Palestine. Smiling as an act of resistance, Palestinian educational institutions, the role of US students and workers in the struggle for Palestine, decolonization as a practice, recommendations for student organizing, and other topics were included in the newsletter.
On April 29, 2024, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) released a statement defending the right to free speech and peaceful protest on college campuses, condemning the militarized response to these forms of student activism, expressing solidarity with all AAUP chapters and members nationwide who have supported these student groups, and calling on others to sign the statement.
This is a guide published by CrimethInc. on how to form an affinity group. Information on tactics, decision-making, organization, security, and more is included in the document.
A communiqué is a report on direct actions that is typically shared either online or in print publications. This is a guide on how to submit an anonymous communiqué online. Key terms, step-by-step instructions, relevant websites, and other important information is included in the document.
Wheatpasting is a low-effort and low-risk direct action technique used in social struggle to spread new ideas across large spaces. This is a step-by-step guide that includes ingredients and directions on how to create wheatpaste.
This is a detailed guide published by Montreal Counter-Information, an anarchist and anti-authoritarian news source, on how to conduct a street demonstration.
This is a guide that was distributed by anarchists during the 2012 student strikes and social conflicts in Montreal. The document provides step-by-step instructions on how to form crews, how to create paint bombs, how to occupy a space, how to conduct a street demonstration, as well as other important tactics.
This is a statement made by the Students for Justice in Palestine at Bucknell University (BUSJP), located in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. The group set forth four demands for the university including disclosing the identities of all donors and investment portfolios, divesting from companies that fund the Israeli government, denouncing Israel and the repression of university students across the country who support Palestine, as well as detaching from corporate partnerships that support the genocide. Additionally, BUSJP calls on everyone at the university to join the student movement and participate in the strike by withholding their labor.
This is the first edition of the newsletter written by a compilation of individual authors and published by the National Students for Justice in Palestine. The right to resist, a history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, information on the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) and the Palestinian Feminist Collective movements, accounts of personal experiences, various calls to action, and other topics were included in the newsletter.
This is a screenshot of an excerpt from a 1924 newspaper on the proposed May-Day strike by French postal workers. In an effort to obtain a raise in wages, these postal workers sought to disrupt the operation of the mail service by enforcing all minor regulations, thus slowing down the service.
In this piece, Palestine Solidarity Groups at Harvard University take a stand against the violence committed against Palestinians and call on the Harvard community to take action. This is a part of a string of pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses across the United States against both the Israel-Hamas War and the financial ties these various universities have with Israel.
This is a press release from the Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine’s Twitter page. In the document, the organization demands their voices be heard, likens their quest for liberation to that of the Civil Rights Movement and other anti-war protests, as well as vows to remain in place until their demands are met. These demands include a complete divestment of all finances linked to the Israeli apartheid in Palestine, complete transparency of all of Columbia’s financial investments, and amnesty for everyone at the university who has been penalized for participating in the movement for Palestinian liberation.
This was a call to action posted on the social media accounts of the National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) on April 19, 2024. In the document, the National SJP criticizes the decision of the universities to choose profit and reputation over the lives of those in Palestine and the will of the students. The organization expresses solidarity with other chapters of SJP across the nation and calls on them for continued action.
Over the past weeks at various universities across the United States, students have erected encampments to demand action to end Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip. These protests have arisen on the campuses of some of the US’ highest academic institutions, including Harvard and Columbia. This document is a press release from The New School Students for Justice in Palestine, a student-organization at The New School in New York City. In the press release, they expressed their solidarity with other student protesters across the country, described why they established the encampment, detailed the rich history of student protest at the school, and set forth a list of demands for the university. Some of these demands included a complete divestment from all corporations that benefit from and are complicit in the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people, greater protection for pro-Palestinian protesters, a full academic boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions, among others.
The Berkeley Tenants Union was established in 1969 and sought to organize low-income tenants to join in protest against rent increases, eviction, and poor housing conditions. This document is a flyer produced in 1969 by the union explaining the reasoning, goals, and strategy behind the city-wide renters strike as well as the various risks activists might face for carrying out these direct actions. Flyers such as this one began distribution during the end of 1969 and continued up until February of 1970, when the strike formally took place.
This is a call to action by the Network Against Psychiatric Assault, to join them in their direct actions against the psychiatric treatment program at St. Mary’s McAuley Neuropsychiatric Institute in San Francisco. In the document, NAPA brings attention to the inhumane and coercive techniques employed at St. Mary’s against patients, some of which include sheeting, sleep therapy, work tasks, among others. Additionally, NAPA has expressed its intent to theatrically demonstrate the sheeting practices of St. Mary’s in front of television cameras to draw awareness to the practice in an act of further resistance.
This document is a letter from the Philippine Solidarity Network and Coalition Against the Marcos Dictatorship requesting support for opposing the state visit of the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos. The letter focuses attention on Marcos’ track record of grave human rights violations and details the role of the Philippines as the United States’ strategic mainstay for military strategy in the Pacific. The organization calls on supporters to attend their direct action campaign at the Philippine Consulate in San Francisco and to take other resistance measures to oppose Marcos’ state visit.
The John Brown Anti-Klan Committee, founded in 1978, was an anti-racist organization within the United States that took direct actions against the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist organizations in addition to publishing literature on the subject. This document, published by the organization, details 29 ways to resist racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of discrimination.
The Unlock Apartheid’s Jails Campaign, initiated by The Africa Fund, fought for the release of detainees and political prisoners in South Africa. This compilation of documents included a letter from Dumisani S. Kumalo, a coordinator of the campaign, as well as various newspaper articles attached by him that detail the success of the campaign on focusing the nation’s attention on South Africa’s prisoners of conscience.
This document, written by Native American Warriors from South Dakota, was addressed to Prairie Fire, the Weather Underground, and all third world and anti-imperialist allies. The Native American Warriors called on these groups to help them liberate their homelands and connected the Vietnamese victory in Vietnam to their struggle against US empire and imperialism.
In 1955, the African National Congress (ANC) sent out 50,000 volunteers to various townships and rural areas throughout South Africa to gather “freedom demands” from average people. The ANC was tired of the repressive government and its desire to quell dissent. The demands made by the people of South Africa were synthesized into a document that was adopted later that year and became known as the “Freedom Charter.” This document is significant in that it was the first time in which the people were actively involved in creating their own vision for an alternative society.
This document is a statement of solidarity for Occupy Oakland from the Occupy Wall Street General Assembly after the occupiers were forcefully evicted from their two-week old encampment. In the statement, the GA condemns the violence of the Oakland police department, calls for an immediate release of all detainees with all charges dropped, as well as demands that the mainstream media accurately report the events that ensued.
“WE WILL NOT LET INJUSTICE AND VIOLENCE DESTROY OUR SOLIDARITY AND STRENGTH. RE-OCCUPY OAKLAND! OCCUPY EVERYTHING!”
On June 21, 1990, U.S. political prisoners sent a statement to Nelson Mandela, who, at the time, was the Deputy Vice President of the African National Congress. In the statement, US political prisoners compared the criminalization of radical and progressive movements for social and political change within the US to what was happening in South Africa as well as contrasted the ways in which racism presents itself in both countries. They seek to relate to Mandela as because of his political views and activities on behalf of the African American community, he was a political prisoner himself. Additionally, they express solidarity with those in South Africa, who like them, are fighting a struggle for freedom against racial oppression.
In October 1968, Al-Fateh delivered a statement at the 23rd session of the General Assembly of the UN. In this statement, Al-Fateh compared the Palestinian resistance movement to those against German occupation during WWII, declared the continuance of this struggle against the foreign occupation of Palestine no matter the time taken, rejected the proposed Security Council resolution, called on the United Nations and the peoples of the world to take a stand in respect to the cause of the displaced Palestinian people, in addition to making various other demands.
The Iranian Green Movement, also known as the Persian Awakening or the Persian Spring, came to existence after the June 12, 2009 Iranian Presidential Election, in which activists demanded the removal of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from office. On February 4, 2023, the leader of Iran’s Green Movement, Mir Hossein Mousavi, released this statement, calling for a “fundamental change” in Iran based upon “Woman, Life, Freedom.” He argues for the drafting of a new constitution as well as a transition towards democracy led by an “assembly of founders.” Mousavi notes that Iranians have stopped believing in the government’s ability to reform itself, and instead calls for a referendum for Iranians to vote on both a new constitution and a new government rooted in democratic ideals.
This is a communique published by Occupy Oakland in solidarity with Longshore workers in Longview, Washington. Occupy Oakland strongly condemns the actions taken by Export Grain Terminal (EGT), as the company has engaged in union busting as well as repression and recrimination against Longshore workers. Additionally, Occupy Oakland cites these actions by EGT as the reason for why it mobilized to shut down the Port of Oakland and concludes by declaring its solidarity with Longshoremen and commitment to shutting down the 1%.
Occupy Oakland, a part of the larger Occupy Movement, published this piece calling for a blockade of all the West Coast Ports in order to shut down operations and disrupt the profits of the 1%. They reflect on the success of the Oakland Port shutdown that had occurred the previous month, highlighting the effectiveness of solidarity and uniting together in struggle.
In 2010, anti-Afghanistan War activists turned Parliament Square in London into a protest camp, renaming the square “Democracy Village.” Over the course of the occupation, between May 1st and July 20th, other groups joined, including climate change activists, pro-democracy campaigners, anarchists, the homeless, and more. This piece came from the anti-war activists. They described what they were fighting for as well as the importance of taking direct action to resist injustice and tackle the problems that plague society.
In this document, Tecumseh, a Shawnee chief and warrior, details a message of both resistance and spirituality. He writes to a community larger than just the Shawnee, calling on all the “red men” to unite and to reclaim the land that has been stolen from them by the “white people.”
“The way, and the only way, to check and to stop this evil, is for all the red men to unite in claiming a common and equal right in the land, as it was at first, and should be yet; for it never was divided, but belongs to all for the use of each.”
During the aftermath of the Great Recession, between September 17 and November 15, 2011, the Occupy Wall Street movement occurred in opposition to economic inequality, corporate greed, money in politics, and big finance. This document was drafted by the Call to Action Working Group and ratified by the New York City General Assembly on September 29, 2011. The piece explained who the occupiers were and why they were taking up public space. A list of grievances are included in the document as well as a call to action for all communities to take action to assert their power.
Jeunesse Communiste Révolutionnaire, a French Trotskyist organization, wrote this piece, describing the transition from a student revolt into a general strike of workers contesting capitalist society during the May 1968 events. The organization included a list of demands and called on other workers and students to join them in the future actions they will take in their fight against the current system.
This document is a firsthand account of the events that occurred in Paris, France during the May 1968 time of unrest. The anonymous author describes the various strikes, occupations, and other actions taken by workers and students between the period of May 3rd to May 18th.
Paris, France, beginning in May of 1968, was a city filled with general strikes, demonstrations, and occupations of universities and factories by students and workers. In this piece, the Enragé-Situationist International Committee Council for Maintaining the Occupations calls for the creation of workers councils as the solution to gain working-class autonomy in the proletariat revolutionary project. They reflect on the way in which their occupation of factories and public buildings has brought the economy to a halt and led to a widespread questioning of society, calling on the international proletariat to join in the fight for this transformation.
“This is the beginning of a revolutionary movement, a movement which lacks nothing but the consciousness of what it has already done in order to triumph.”
On December 2, 1964, Mario Savio, an activist and key member of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, gave an address on University of California, Berkely’s campus at the Sproul Hall sit-in. Many students, including Savio, had spent the previous summer in Mississippi, participating in what became known as the “Freedom Summer” and helping to register Black sharecroppers to vote. These students then began fighting for the necessity of Free Speech on college campuses. In this address, Savio detailed two different ways in which civil disobedience can occur and previewed the direct actions that were about to take place in the storming of Sproul Hall to fight against the restrictions on political speech and actions on campus.
“There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!”
Amnesty International published a detailed guide that contains instructions on when and how to carry out acts of civil disobedience. Definitions, guiding principles, information on the decision-making process, steps for engaging in civil disobedience, and other important material is described and illustrated in the document.
This piece is an excerpt from the book, One Life at a Time, Please, written in 1988 by Edward Abbey, an American author and essayist. In this excerpt, Abbey writes on the various ways in which power corrupts and is exercised in society. Additionally, he illustrates the importance of resisting such forms of power that deviate humans from what he sees as their true state of freedom.
“New dynasties will arise, new tyrants will appear–no doubt. But we must and we can resist such recurrent aberrations by keeping true to the earth and remaining loyal to our basic animal nature. Humans were free before the word freedom became necessary. Slavery is a cultural invention. Liberty is life: eros plus anarchos equals bios.”
This piece is an excerpt from the book, Confessions of an Eco-Warrior, written in 1991 by Dave Foreman, a co-founder of Earth First!. In this excerpt, Foreman details the principles, practices, and goals of Earth First! activists.
“It is through becoming part of the wild that we find courage far greater than ourselves, a union that gives us boldness to stand against hostile humanism, against the machine, against the dollar, against jail, against extinction for what is sacred and right: the Great Dance of Life.”
This piece extends the framework of the author’s Riot.Strike.Riot, adding the “reproduction struggle” to the pairing of circulation and production struggles. A paradigm of the reproduction struggle can be found in the practical encampments that accompany, constitute, and help propagate land occupations and blockades, providing the persistently gendered features of social reproduction: food, shelter, care, community. The essay identifies these encampments as nascent communes, and in turn offers the commune as a feature within the repertoire of social contest: not a utopian withdrawal, not an alternative to the militancy of direct antagonism, but a necessary aspect of that antagonism that both enables other forms and, in its character as “counter-reproduction,” carries within it the kernel of a social existence beyond colonial capitalism.
This Introduction summarizes the book in full, offering a comprehensive theorization of changes in the repertoire of social contest in the early-industrializing west since the medieval period. It situates the core categories of “production struggle”” and “circulation struggle” in relation to capitalism’s leading orientations within any given period, arguing that the compulsions of accumulation help shape the repertoire of social struggle. It concludes that the deindustrializing present, with its growing “surplus population” excluded from production along racialized lines, offers proletarian struggle increasingly likely to take the form of riots, similar to and distinct from the era of the classical bread riot.
On July 20, 2009, workers of the Vestas Wind Systems factory in Newport, Isle of Wight, occupied the factory after finding out that more than 525 jobs from both the Isle of Wight and the Southampton factories were moving abroad. In their statement, the occupiers called on the government to nationalize the factory, arguing that keeping it open is necessary for the livelihoods of the workers as well as for the health of the planet.
On February 6, 2020, Indigenous youth in Canada began their occupation of the ceremonial gates and steps to the B.C. Legislative Assembly in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en Nation, who were resisting an encroachment on their sovereign territories by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). The RCMP sought to seize the land to allow for the construction of Coastal GasLink’s new fracked gas pipeline. The Indigenous youth issued a statement on February 26, 2020, laying out their demands for Canadian officials and calling on them to stop the human and indigenous rights violations by the RCMP happening in Wet’suwet’en territory.
This document is a written account by Jorge Martin, the International Secretary of Hands Off Venezuela, of his November 2008 visit to PT Istana, an occupied and now worker-run factory in North Jakarta, Indonesia. The story of how employees of CV Melody occupied the factory in an effort to fight off attacks by the company for their decision to unionize as well as how they began worker-controlled production are detailed in the piece.
In the past two years Les Soulèvements de la Terre, a network of ecological activists and groups, has used direct confrontations with polluters and developers to threaten industrial agriculture’s monopoly on the French countryside.
