Steal This Book

1. Survival is Resistance: Exploit the System for Free Necessities

To not steal from the institutions that are the pillars of the Pig Empire is equally immoral.

Live off the system. Amerika, seen as a prison run by corporate feudalism, has abundant resources ripe for the taking. Survival means learning to exploit the existing structures that hoard wealth and goods, viewing this as a moral act against oppression rather than a crime against individuals. The goal is community within our Nation, chaos in theirs.

Free food hacks. Restaurants, supermarkets, and wholesale markets are prime targets for obtaining food without payment. Techniques range from finishing leftovers and using slugs at automats to shoplifting with rigged clothing or distracting partners. Large-scale operations involve befriending fishermen or butchers for scraps, collecting discarded day-old goods, or even impersonating clergy for donations.

• Finishing leftovers in restaurants
• Shoplifting with modified clothing or partners
• Collecting discarded food from supermarkets/markets
• Impersonating clergy for donations
• Befriending workers for free scraps

Clothing, housing, and more. Obtaining free clothing is often easier than food, using methods like shoplifting, collecting abandoned items during moves or at the end of college terms, or claiming lost items at transportation hubs. Housing can be found through squatting, joining communes (urban or rural), or hustling temporary stays in places like college dorms or hotel rooms (taking items upon leaving). Assorted freebies include pets from the ASPCA, posters from tourist agencies, and even free burials or diplomas.

2. Hack Transportation: Travel Anywhere Without Paying

Hitch-hiking is legal in most states, but remember you always can get a "say-so" bust.

Travel for free. Getting around without paying is essential for mobility in the "prison that is Amerika." Hitchhiking is a primary method, requiring strategic positioning, awareness of local laws (and how rarely they're enforced), and sometimes adopting disguises or stories to avoid hassle or attract rides. Traveling light and knowing routes are key.

Trains and automobiles. Riding freight trains offers a free, albeit bumpy, way to cover long distances, often easier at night and with the help of friendly railroad workers. Empty boxcars are preferred. For cars, auto transportation agencies provide free use of vehicles for cross-country trips if you meet age/license requirements and appear "straight." Siphoning gas or rigging pumps are options for fuel.

Buses and airlines. Swiping rides on buses can involve claiming the bus left without you or using the "hopper-bopper" method of buying a short-hop ticket and staying on. Airlines, despite high prices, can be flown free using stolen tickets (exchanged quickly), ordering tickets billed to corporations, or boarding without a ticket by flashing an empty envelope. More complex methods involve ticket/receipt switching or even skyjacking (though with significant risks).

3. Liberate Communication: Create Your Own Media and Networks

If you don't like the news, why not go out and make your own?

Control the message. In a world saturated with corporate media, creating independent channels is vital for revolutionary propaganda and education. This involves guerrilla theater, creative disruption (like throwing money at the Stock Exchange), wall painting, and using symbols like the Nation's flag. Dramatic press conferences can turn events into news.

Print and broadcast. Starting a printing workshop (mimeo, duplicator, silk screening) allows for cheap production of leaflets, posters, and newspapers. Underground newspapers are crucial community hubs, providing information and organizing support. Guerrilla radio is possible legally with low power transmitters or illegally with higher power, while guerrilla television involves adapting cameras and amplifiers to broadcast on unused channels.

• Starting printing workshops (mimeo, duplicator, silk screen)
• Publishing underground newspapers
• Creating high school and G.I. papers
• Operating low-power radio transmitters
• Rigging TV cameras for broadcast

Telephone networks. Ripping off the phone company is a common act of revolutionary love. Pay phones can be tricked with pennies, washers, or bobby pins. Long-distance calls can be charged to phony numbers, made collect to pay phones, or faked using recorded coin sounds. Home phones can be used for free by stopping payments, making small payments with excuses, or even rewiring into main trunk lines. Telephone trees and switchboards provide vital community information hubs.

4. Financial Freedom: Rip Off Money, Welfare, and Goods

It's easy to get on welfare that anyone who is broke and doesn't have a regular relief check coming in is nothing but a goddamn lazy bum!

Get free money. Obtaining money without traditional work is a core survival skill. Welfare and unemployment benefits are readily available resources, requiring knowledge of state rules and a convincing story (physical/mental disability for welfare, job search excuses for unemployment). Panhandling is a basic hustling art, requiring assertiveness and understanding human motivation, often enhanced by street theater or fake charity canisters.

Rip-off techniques. Various scams can yield cash or goods. Overdrawing bank accounts by small amounts, claiming lost change from pay phones, or willing your body to a medical school for an advance are options. Universities can be ripped off via student loans. Airlines pay for lost luggage, which can be faked using a friend to collect bags and then filing a claim.

• Overdrawing bank accounts
• Claiming lost pay phone change
• Willing body to medical school
• Faking lost airline luggage
• Selling newspapers from vending machines

Currency exchange. Exploiting vending machines, pay phones, and turnstiles is possible using foreign coins or washers that match the size of U.S. currency or tokens. These are cheap to acquire in bulk and harder to detect than slugs. This "International Yippie Currency Exchange" allows for free access to various services and goods, turning everyday transactions into acts of communal liberation.

5. Dope is Free: Acquire, Grow, and Distribute Drugs

Eternal vigilance and constant mobility are the passwords of survival... nowhere do they apply more than in the world of dope.

Navigate the dope world. While illegal, dope is a significant part of the counter-culture economy and survival. Buying requires vigilance against being "burned" (sold fake product or robbed), emphasizing dealing with trusted sources and never fronting money. Sampling is crucial, especially for acid. Black lights can check coke purity.

Selling and giving. Dealing can be a tax-free way to survive, starting by buying larger quantities and selling to friends. Safety increases with fewer contacts and avoiding dealing from home. Prices vary by market, heat, and connections. Honest dealing is advised. Giving dope away is a revolutionary act, supporting the "new Nation" through voluntary taxation, mass mailings, or free distribution at events.

• Buying from trusted sources
• Never fronting money
• Sampling product before buying
• Dealing smaller amounts to friends
• Giving dope away at events or via mail

Grow your own. Cultivating marijuana is a practical way to ensure a free supply. Seeds can be sprouted and transplanted outdoors (camouflaged with sunflowers) or indoors using artificial blue and red lighting. Proper soil, watering, and light cycles are necessary. Harvesting and curing (drying, adding alcohol) increase potency. Burying grass or using dry ice are other methods to enhance quality.

6. Direct Action & Trashing: Engage in Street Fighting and Property Destruction

Remember, pigs have small brains and move slowly.

Unleash rage. Trashing is a form of direct action combining street fighting with property damage, born from frustration with state violence. It's distinct from rioting or guerrilla warfare, often relying on speed and simple tools. Strategy involves group coordination, buddy systems, and avoiding close quarters. Fighting "dirty" is encouraged against the oppressors.

Targeting property. Property destruction should be politically motivated, targeting symbols of state and corporate violence like banks, federal buildings, police stations, and military-linked businesses. Random violence is discouraged. Setting fires in trash cans or pulling fire alarms can create diversions for targeted trashing.

• Targeting banks and corporations
• Attacking federal buildings and police stations
• Damaging military/ROTC facilities
• Using spray paint for slogans
• Creating diversions with fires or alarms

Street fighting tactics. While pigs have weapons, their formations can be disrupted with cunning (e.g., using bullhorns). Simple weapons like slingshots, slings, or boomerangs are effective and often legal. Defensive tools include spray cans (insecticides, Drano), flash guns, and personal tear gas/mace. Anti-tire weapons like roofing nails can disable police vehicles. Studying police tactics is crucial.

7. People's Chemistry & Weapons: Make and Use Simple Tools for Fighting

Molotov cocktails are a classic street fighting weapon served up around the world.

Homemade tools. Basic chemistry can produce effective tools for disruption and defense. Stink bombs (buteric acid or egg/Drano mix) can target areas deemed corrupt. Smoke bombs (sugar/saltpeter mix or commercial flares) provide cover or confusion. CBW (Chemical/Biological Warfare) can involve mixing LSD with penetrating agents for psychological effects or coating darts.

Explosives. Simple explosives like Molotov cocktails (gasoline/styrofoam mix in bottles) are classic weapons, requiring careful preparation and ignition methods (rag fuse, cancerette fuse with firecracker). Sterno bombs, aerosol bombs (empty cans filled with powder), and pipe bombs (threaded steel pipes with powder and fuse) offer varying degrees of concussive force and fire spread.

• Making stink bombs
• Creating smoke bombs
• Preparing Molotov cocktails
• Assembling sterno bombs
• Constructing pipe bombs

Weaponry basics. Familiarity with firearms is necessary for self-defense. Handguns (.38 Special, .357 Magnum, 9mm automatic) are for short ranges. Rifles (semi-automatic like M-1 carbine or AR-18, or bolt action) offer accuracy at distance. Shotguns (12 gauge pump action with buckshot) are ideal defensive weapons for close combat due to pellet spread. Training is essential, often possible at firing ranges or with experienced individuals. Knowledge of gun laws is also important.

8. Legal Self-Defense: Navigate the Legal System and Avoid the Draft

When you get busted, rule number one is that you have the right to remain silent.

Know your rights. When arrested, remain silent except for providing name and address (potentially a friend's). Avoid resisting arrest, even passively, as it's a separate charge. Police can pat you down for weapons but need probable cause or a warrant to search. Don't carry incriminating items. Insist on calling a lawyer immediately.

Court and bail. If unable to reach a lawyer, one will be assigned at arraignment (Legal Aid). Bail is set based on charges, record, and judge's discretion. Bail can be paid with collateral or a percentage cash alternative. Bail bondsmen can cover high bail for a fee. Once bailed, contact a private or movement lawyer. Don't consent to searches without a warrant at home or in a car.

• Remain silent upon arrest
• Provide only name and address
• Insist on calling a lawyer
• Understand bail procedures
• Do not consent to searches without a warrant

Beat the draft. Avoiding military service is a responsibility. Explore medical deferments (document chronic illnesses/physical issues) or psychiatric deferments (feign mental instability, use hospital stays). Conscientious Objection status based on sincere moral objections is increasingly recognized. Practice your story for physicals, emphasizing anti-military views or personal issues. Transferring to more lenient draft boards is an option.

9. Build the Underground: Create Community, Support Fugitives, and Disappear

The entire youth culture... all of us have an obligation to support the underground.

Support fugitives. As repression grows, so does the need for an underground network of revolutionaries. Fugitives from injustice are the vanguard, and supporting them is an obligation. This includes providing safe houses, money, and resources. Taking down wanted posters or putting up posters of war criminals are symbolic acts of defiance.

Going underground. If forced underground, consider moving to a new location where heat is less intense. Develop a good disguise, potentially abandoning outward youth culture appearance depending on the severity of charges. Authorities often catch fugitives on minor offenses, so having good phony identification and avoiding small violations is crucial. Carrying cash can help bail out quickly if caught on a minor charge.

• Provide safe houses and resources for fugitives
• Take down wanted posters
• Develop effective disguises
• Obtain phony identification papers
• Carry cash for quick bail

Secure communication. Maintaining contact while underground is psychologically necessary but risky. Avoid phones unless using pay phones with precautions (disguised voice, gum in mouth, short calls). Use intermediaries for personal meetings. Develop secure mailing systems. Communicate to the aboveground movement through coded messages, tapes, or interviews to show continued struggle and inspire comrades. Exile is an option (Sweden, Canada, certain other countries), but comes with its own challenges and isolation from the domestic struggle.

Last updated: July 11, 2025