Insurgent American’s 35-Point Practical Guide for Action

[NightWatcher]

A X-post from Activist HQ, since not that many people often venture off the main forums.


http://www.insurgentamerican.net/intellectual-hardball/insurgent-americans-35-point-practical-guide-for-action


A good primer on where everyone should be in their heads... The complete list and details are at the site.

1) Make food. Even if its a windowsill or roof garden with a couple of tomato plants. Make a yard garden. Grow your own food, just a bit. You can expand on this later. Check out Food Not Lawns for inspiration. Start small, and don’t over stretch yourself. Succeeding early is important.

(2) Take “one more step” to oppose militarism. If you are not sporting a button or bumper sticker against the war, then start doing that. if you’re doing that, but not writing — Congress, letters to the editor, op-eds, email lists — then start writing. If you’re doing that, then give money to an antiwar effort. If you’re doing that, then start to attend local meetings. You get the idea. Take just one more step. Stopping this war will have unimaginably good ripple effects and empower all people’s movements everywhere. More ideas and up-to-date info at Bring Them Home Now!

(4) Commit to study.

(5) Surf the Web Anonymously Its a good idea to put a layer of protection between you and the world online.

(6) Learn to fix something new. Divesting of our dependency means becoming better McGivers. We have to learn how stuff works, and how to tinker with it.

(8) Join a local organizing effort.

(9) Plan your way out of debt.

(10) Contribute to the nearest Environmental Justice effort.

(11) Conduct a banner drop. A banner drop is a tactic whereby a big cloth banner is made, then publicly opened “dropped” without prior warning, often in violation of some kind of law. If you are kind of attracted to risk, if you are an effective planner, and if you have a small, reliable crew, banner drops are a good way to learn basic, small-unit, tactical planning. If you have a crew that has done it more than once, others will rely on you as the specialists to employ this tactic as part of larger campaigns. Banners can be very simple to very fancy. Just remember that it will not stay up forever. Hostile civilians or cops will take it down by-and-by. Code Pink has actually developed a pretty good primer. Cell phones or walkie-talkies (cheap nowadays) should always be used to post lookouts at all avenues of approach into the drop site. Banners should be constructed (especially if dropping over a freeway overpass) to ensure they can’t fall and cause an accident. At rush hour, in the right place, with a website url for follow-up, this is a very effective (and kind of fun) tactic. A good crew can organize and conduct one every two weeks if they make this their raison d’etre.

(13) Get a bicycle and use it.

(14) Try a 100-mile diet.

(15) Learn to orienteer. Orienteering can be competitive (as a sport) or recreational (more often simply called land navigation). It means learning to read topographical maps and using them in conjunction with a compass and protractor to actually navigate, on foot, over land.

(16) Visit a Congressperson.

(17) Visit a State Representative. .

(18) Learn to shoot. Don’t be afraid of firearms.

(19) Use Social Network websites to organize.

(20) Back up your computer files then encrypt them.

(22) Become a paramedic or licensed practical nurse.

(24) Design a single-residence water conservation system.

(26) Organize a community garden.

(28) Develop and implement an energy conservation plan for your home.

(33) Use the closest farmers market.