If you are reading this and consider yourself an individualist ”insurrectionary” anarchist then this is for you. Perhaps you are part of a cell, some kind of liberation front, informal network or fire-brigade. (http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/Police-treating-St-George-car-fires-arson/story-21318510-detail/story.html)

Maybe you are a squatter, readying your black bloc crew for the next mass mobilization, or just drunk with some of your friends and looking for some action… either way this is not an attempt to encourage you to abandon your philosophy/activities. Instead think of it as a more strategic use of your time. So rather than gluing ATMs, firebombing/damaging SUVs and Hummers, smashing windows at your local starbucks/bank or the banner drops that will remain for only 20 minutes and no one will read, here is a list of alternative things that would probably be more useful:

1) Graffitti

The best thing about this propaganda of the deed is that it is a deed that creates propaganda.

Now I know you might think that you have done this. But have you done it every week? How about multiple times a week? Do you have that special spot where you drew a circle A with a sharpie? Instead, wouldn’t it be cool if anyone could walk downtown and think “wow, no one can miss all of the anarchist slogans and support for political prisoners no matter where they walk/drive”. Maybe you can set up a mural brigade or spraypaint teams. Doing successful political graffiti takes perseverance and could reach far more people than a random manifesto posted on the internet.

2) Expropriate money

Now I’m not talking about stealing a few items from your local convenience store… I mean stealing a lot of money! This could come in the form of bank robberies like those carried out by the Black Liberation Army, the MIR, Tupamaros, FAI, and other flashy groups you might have heard about. Or it could come about by some long term scheme of ripping off your job. I mean why risk felony charges for smashing bank windows and burning things when you can risk similar charges for larceny and have the utility of tens of thousands of dollars for the revolution?

With this money you could really give a huge boost to your local anarchist organizations, organize housing units for thousands of homeless, and acquire social spaces and equipment for free clinics and breakfast programs. Think about how your local Anarchist Black Cross will feel when you stroll in with $20 thousand or how you can save the day for a struggling anarchist bookstore.

3) Get a job

Dont worry, this isn’t some sarcastic right wing or bougie comment. Try finding a job in a strategic sector like the arms industry or railroads and think about how useful you could be if there was a strike. You could do all the sabotaging and smashy smashy you always want but can destroy the states capacity to wage war abroad and at home…maybe even help some other folks out.

According to Voltarine de Cleyr: Now everybody knows that a strike of any size means violence. No matter what any one’s ethical preference for peace may be, he knows it will not be peaceful. If it’s a telegraph strike, it means cutting wires and poles, and getting fake scabs in to spoil the instruments. If it is a steel rolling mill strike, it means beating up the scabs, breaking the windows, setting the gauges wrong, and ruining the expensive rollers together with tons and tons of material. IF it’s a miners’ strike, it means destroying tracks and bridges, and blowing up mills. If it is a garment workers’ strike, it means having an unaccountable fire, getting a volley of stones through an apparently inaccessible window, or possibly a brickbat on the manufacturer’s own head. If it’s a street-car strike, it means tracks torn up or barricaded with the contents of ash-carts and slop-carts, with overturned wagons or stolen fences, it means smashed or incinerated cars and turned switches. If it is a system federation strike, it means “dead” engines, wild engines, derailed freights, and stalled trains. If it is a building trades strike, it means dynamited structures. And always, everywhere, all the time, fights between strike-breakers and scabs against strikers and strike-sympathizers, between People and Police.

4) Acquisition, maintenance, storage and training in the use of weapons

Its a good thing that we already covered money, because you can utilize some of it to buy some truly insurrectionary materials.

According to the CNT/FAI defense committees (who evolved from the Spanish Anarchist Action Groups): “There can be no revolution without preparation. We have to put an end to the prejudice in favor of improvisation. This error, involving confidence in the creative instinct of the masses, has caused us to pay a heavy price. We cannot obtain by means of a process of spontaneous generation the indispensable means necessary for waging war on a State that has experience, heavy weaponry, and a greater capacity for offensive and defensive combat”.

In all seriousness, organized anarchism requires the need of prepared action groups that can help build capacity in semi-legal or nonlegal ways. Anarchists in the US cant afford being stuck in symbolic activity and if you disdain broader anarchist organizations, then utilize your smaller groups more effectively. For some minor reading on defense committees and how insurrectionary preparation is more useful than symbolic actions: http://libcom.org/library/cnt-defense-committees-barcelona-1933-1938-interview-agust%C3%ADn-guillam%C3%B3n

That being said, it is hard to imagine how isolated attacks on institutions of power will propel anarchism without substantial organization to create the culture, knowledge, experience and capacity to ensure its victory. So join forces or at least stop burning the churches so that you can use the buildings.