Remedial Civil Disobedience

REMEDIAL CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE "Cindy is our head- wound expert," John said. Cindy turned a quick half smile in response to John and talked about how a cop hit her in the head at a demonstration. It wasn't a horror story or something she was bragging about. It was an anecdote, meant to illustrate a point.

Cindy and John, along with their colleague Tim, are teaching a class on direct action. Tim wears a studded bracelet, John has a goatee, Cindy has waist-length hair pulled back with a bandana. They are seasoned protestors, patient and thorough in their presentation. The eight people watching are attentive and respectful, only occasionally interjecting. The vibe is tight, but loose.

The teachers tell stories, distribute literature and ask rhetorical questions. The lesson plan hangs on the wall, outlining the three-hour session's agenda in one- and two-word bullet points. The whole thing has the tone of an arts-and-crafts seminar.

Although hands-on techniques are touched on, the focus for the first class meeting was organization and preparation.

"We want to make sure that people who are thinking about doing some kind of direct action or civil disobedience think about it properly," John told me. "We want to make sure that everything is safe and the focus is out there."

As the monthly classes progress, they will explore techniques for blockading and planning big actions.

One topic is making decisions in a group. Sitting on the floor, writing with a marker, Cindy creates a flow chart about consensus decision making, circling words and connecting them with arrows. Once Cindy has taped the page to the wall, she, Tim and John explain each stage in the process.

Direct action is sometimes conducted in teams called affinity groups, where decisions are usually made through processes that are hyper-democratic, and ideas are shaped into a form that the entire group can accept.

John speaks as Tim hands out a list of individual roles within these groups, including fundraisers, coordinators, writers and artists, etc. John winces when mentioning "vibes watchers," the people in charge of the group's psychological well-being. (Tim notes that the term is more popular on the West Coast.) John looks more comfortable talking about "arrestables"—defined by the affinity group role sheet as "people intending to risk arrest and commit civil disobedience."

The second half of the class is more technical. They discuss lockboxes—arm shields composed of metal or PVC pipes and hiking clips. They perform a role-playing exercise, with the students acting as a blockade line and the teachers acting as cops.

"We don't want people to get caught up in the excitement of a protest," John tells me later. "We don't want them doing things they haven't thought about beforehand."