July 6, 2022 • 39 mins
Robert sits down with representatives from the Dallas-based Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club to talk about their recent defensive actions to oppose right wing attacks on the local LGBT community.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to it could happen here. I am Robert Evans Uh,
and this is a podcast about things falling apart and
sometimes how to put them all together. And you know,
today we're actually going to be talking more about the ladder,
which I know is revolutionary for us. We're usually just
kind of like getting way more into the duomer stuff.
But I think there's been more than enough of that,
(00:26):
particularly in the wake of several horrific Supreme Court rulings
that I don't really need feel the need to go
into detail on, but one of the things that has
happened in the wake of these rulings this this like
kind of liberal reaction to the fact that to the
fact and they're right to be angry about the fact
that they're being essentially governed by a small minority of
people who are very densely geographically located in the South,
(00:47):
that is where like the bulk of the support for
the hard rights policies comes from, um and it's led
to this like fuck Texas, fun Florida. Fuck uh, these
these quote unquote like red dates, these regressive states, which
is this deeply problematic for a number of reasons, including
the fact that you know, if you just want to
look at it in terms of party politics. Uh, there
(01:09):
were more people who voted for a Democrat in Texas
in the election than live in either the state of
Oregon or Washington. UM. These are densely populated places with
tremendous amount of people who are people of color, who
are trans who are you know, in some way threatened
by this weird Cristo fascist bullshit that is increasingly clamping
down on the country. And so today I wanted to
(01:30):
talk with some folks who will live in and around
the Dallas, Texas what we call the df W area
Dallas Fort Worth, UM, and who have lately been organizing
to kind of both confront this, uh, this rising Christo
fascist like the street aggression portion of it, and to
provide support in defense um for people who are are
(01:50):
being victimized by it. So I'd like to welcome some
representatives of the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club to
the show. Hey, y'all, yeah, do to kind of introduce
yourselves to to start, however you'd like to be known
on the show. I'm Satan, I'm bubble Satan and bubble
um and how long have y'all been like doing? Because
(02:15):
there's there's two specific things that kind of I don't know,
I became aware of y'all and and we had some
brief interactions, right, It's some brief interaction with some of
your folks during the the snow thing that that destroyed everything, um,
and so I've been kind of watching y'all socials ever since.
And there were a couple of things recently that struck
(02:37):
me as very uh worth discussioning actions that you y'all
were a part of. One of them was there's a
neighborhood in Dallas called Oak Lawn that is kind of
colloquially known as the gighborhood. It is like the um,
the gay neighborhood in Dallas obviously, and so it's a
place that you know, even before kind of things got
a little easier after twenty um, it was kind of
(03:01):
a safe place and a little bit like of a
of a of a fortress for like people who are
not you know, straight and cist gender, which is and
kind of are you know, for for an idea of
how aspects of the df W area can be. The
town I grew up in, Plane, Oh, had a condoms
to go move in and within like two nights of
(03:22):
setting up shop and plane, somebody fired a nine millimeter
handgun through the window. Like it's not a it's a
place where it could be difficult. Um. And so obviously
repression and kind of violence and fears of vigilante violence
UM from folks who are queer has is understandably amped
up in the wake of everything that's been happening. And
y'all carried out an action where a sizeable group of
(03:46):
leftists marched armed through the gighborhood. Um. The one of them,
there were a couple of different chants that that I
was hearing. One of them was, um about bashing back
something like that. You want to talk a little bit
about like that action and what actually went to out. Um. Sure,
So at the beginning of Pride Month, we had a
(04:07):
large group of fascists come to the gahborhood. Um, you know,
they were shouting groomer, they were telling us the fist
of Christ is coming down on you soon, and um,
you know, making really out their threats. So we discussed, um,
you know, what we could do to be proactive to
(04:27):
make sure that doesn't happen again. Um, And we ended
up getting together some groups who were interested in an
armed demonstration, which even here in Texas is not something
you see too often. Um. And we decided to march
through the gahborhood. You know. Um, I would say a
majority of the people that we know are LGBT and
(04:54):
it's our neighborhood. So you know, we put on this
demonstration there and it was, you know, kind of incredible.
We got some looks, but we also got a lot
of support. Um, we had a lot of great chance. Um.
You know, bottoms tops, we all hate cops. There we go. Yeah, yeah,
(05:16):
that was the that was the one that was in
the video. Um. And so what was the uh I'm
interested in kind of because I think this is the
kind of thing that is potentially very useful. We we
have seen. One of the things that I have personally
observed and that has been observed by a number of folks,
is that when these kind of right wing mobs who
(05:38):
primarily want people who cannot defend themselves, who don't have
the numbers to defend themselves, they want to like beat
the ship out of people in a gang, right Like,
that's that's the proud boy thing, that's the Patriot prayer thing.
That's all these weird little groups. Primarily what they want
to do. They don't want a fair fight, and when
they are confronted with organized people on the left who
(05:59):
are armed, that tends to scare the ship out of them.
And if I'm not mistaken, during that day where you
had those Christian fascists kind of coming after um that
Queer family event, like one of the one of the
live streams that one of the right wingers had, people
were some of them were like commenting on the fact
that there were people leftist open carrying and like how
unsettling they found that. Um So, I'm interested in kind
(06:22):
of how the idea to we're gonna do this, have
this kind of a march, you know, through this neighborhood
we're going to make sort of a show beforce. How
that idea kind of came together? And then what logistically
did y'all like feel the need to set up, Like
I'm gonna guess it wasn't as simple as like hey,
everybody with a gun, like come come meet here and
we're gonna have us a walk. Um So, I'm interested
(06:44):
in kind of what the logistics are because I think
this is the kind of thing that people other people
are going to want like find useful to do, like
statements of we are here, we have the tools to
defend ourselves, and we're not going to just passively let
you run through our neighborhoods fucking with us. UM. I
think logistically one of the big things was just making
(07:05):
sure that you know, everyone who was carrying was carrying properly,
and then also to protect our own selves, making sure
that whoever was carrying was also protecting our identity by
wearing essentially full black walk UM, which that in itself
sends a message. You know, a bunch of queer people
marching through the streets of Dallas and full black walk
(07:28):
with guns UM sends a message like we're not going
to take your ship. We're done. You know you're not
gonna mess with our bodily autonomy. UM. That march happened,
We had planned it to be on that day originally,
and that happened to be the day that Roby Wade
was overturned UM, and it essentially just evolved that morning
(07:51):
to a more intersectional body bodily autonomy march. But really
logistically it was mostly about protecting ourselves and making sure
that people who weren't carrying the firearms were also protected
from our firearms. Yeah, I want to dive into that
a little bit because that's such an important aspect of it,
is the ensuring. Say, I have seen a lot of marches,
(08:14):
and I will be honest, I've seen a lot of
people being armed on on both sides politically who have
done things with guns that I would consider reckless. Probably
the top moment in my mind is during a big
march in Portland somebody leaned over and a glock fell
out of the front pouch of their hoodie that they
were just head loose in there. Um yeah, um. So
(08:35):
obviously it is not as it should not be as
simple as like, you know, load up on guns and
bring your friends, so to speak. How do you attempt
to ensure like how like how do you actually go
about handling the safety aspect? Is it? Like? Are you
appointing essentially kind of like range officers? Before the march,
we were keeping an eye on ship like what does
that actually look like? Um? I want to I want
(08:57):
to give two examples for the march we did the neighborhood. Um,
it was different in that it wasn't publicly announced wearing
um who was going to be. So it's kind of
by invitation only demonstration, so we knew pretty much everybody
that was coming, except for people in the neighborhood who
kind of joined ad hawk. UM. So that's one way
(09:19):
that we've done things. When we do more of like
uh protest security for other actions. UM. You know, there
are different people who will feel motivated to bring UM
arms and usually they know what they're doing pretty well.
In a couple of instances where someone is being unsafe, UM,
(09:42):
you know, one of us will just go over there
and talk to them, you know, like, hey, you you
really need a sling uh for this, or you know,
don't don't be uh pointing it in any way at
a building. UM. Just little tips like that too, you know,
resolve the behavior. So when it actually comes to like
(10:11):
uh because because one of the things like whenever you
have sort of a gathering like this is de escalation
and even within people within the march potentially like dispute
resolution and that sort of thing, what was the how
how did you kind of organize for that, Like what
was the planning on that? And like, um, I think
that's a really important question. One of the first things
(10:31):
that we decided pretty early on is that we are
not there to police any protesters. So you know, if
someone is is doing something illegal, uh, And no, at
no point where we you know, tell them to stop
or try to make them stop. We may move away
from the area or something like that, but we're not
there too police our people at all. When it comes
(10:55):
to like counters coming up in antagonizing, the main thing
we do is try to put ourselves between them and
any people they're targeting. Um. And you know, we have cameras,
we have less than lethal, we have different tools to
try to deescalate that. Yeah, And so when it comes
to like, uh, I guess training on that and did
(11:16):
you kind of did you have any sort of like
um um infrastructure, human infrastructure what not set up prior
to this to like make sure people who were like
doing de escalation were folks that you knew, you know,
had some level of understanding of it, or folks that
you could trust. Like how was the actual how do
you actually because I mean it strikes me that there
is a great deal of like trust that's necessary to
(11:37):
put together something like this. To be able to meet
up with folks and and like march armed together requires
probably a little bit more in in the way of
of of trust than you know, just showing up at
a protest um that's kind of more conventional. Um. Was
there sort of some in any kind of like I
don't know, system or or like yeah, train or what
(12:00):
not that y'all had four specifically like how to behave
how to de escalate all that kind of stuff. Or
was it just like folks that kind of you knew
from from prior events were good at that sort of thing.
I mean, as far as our group goes, UM, I
can speak for myself personally and say that I trust
each one of our people with my life. UM. And
(12:22):
I think because of that, and because we were really
the ones putting it on, like we knew that if
something were to go down, one of us would get
in the middle of it, and we all trust each other.
I think that in any sort of organizing environment, trusting
trusting the people that you're working with is one of
the most vital things that you can do because they're
(12:45):
going to be the ones beside you when a proud
boy rolls up, and you want the person beside you
to be someone that you can trust. UM, And we
do that. We do have you know, we we do practice,
and we do train together, and um, we also have
fun together. And having that certain level of trust means
the world when you're putting yourself out there in that way.
(13:09):
And how long of the folks that are kind of
like you, we're most affiliated with like making this happen.
How long have y'all been sort of organizing and doing
stuff together. I would say most of us met, since
a lot of us met in organizing different facilities during
after the Droid Floyd protests and then through ye just
(13:32):
to boom in mutual aid that happened in DFW after that,
whether it was through homeless outreach or uh, you know,
bail bonds or however we met each other, it was
mostly through that mutual aid community and getting out in
the our communities and organizing ourselves and trying to find
like minded people who wanted to see the same change happened. Now. UM,
(13:58):
I think one of the uh, one of the things
that's been on my mind a lot lately, and that
that y'all particularly bring up, is the challenges of organizing
in parts of the country where not just you know,
the police who are always pretty regressive, but the entire
legal structure is set up to as Florida has increasing
(14:19):
the dosal number states have done like punished protests, penalized
activism make things more dangerous for for for people who
are like going out there in public in addition to
doing things to try and criminalize you know, people who
are are are not uh straight, you know, white Christians. UM. So,
when you look at like kind of the challenges of
(14:40):
organizing in a place where it's more dangerous, and obviously
it's it's not particularly safe to be organizing against you know,
the l A p D. But the court system in
California is broadly speaking less stacked against you. Um So,
if you had advice to give to people who had
don't have this group of friends and people they've been
organizing with for a couple of years already, but they
(15:01):
want to have that, they want to build that in
their community, where would you suggest they start? Um? I
always tell people that it starts by showing up um
to all kinds of events, you know, supporting a broad
range of groups. And you know, if you're at the protests,
if you are at the feedings, the distributions, um, You're
(15:23):
gonna meet people and you're gonna build trust um, mutual
trust there UM, so that you know, when you want
to start a project, you want to start a group,
you'll have those people that know you. Um. It is
very dangerous. Uh. I think it's always important to tell
people to watch your op set. You know, don't be
re sharing all kinds of activists stuff with your personal
(15:46):
profile that has your name and your birthday and all
of that. But yeah, it really goes to meeting people
in person, I think. Yeah, And um, I mean that's
such a difficult part of it because I think for
a lot of people, particularly maybe are living in rural
areas who are living, um, kind of outside of places
that have well formed protest communities, social media and the
(16:08):
internet is is a lifeline for them and often in
a lot of cases like how they came to a
lot of the political beliefs in a desire to do something. Um.
But you're right, like you can't. You have to actually
get like face to face on the ground with people
to actually build the kind of relationships that can lead
to the sort of activism that y'all are doing. And
that's that is a tough needle for a lot of
(16:29):
people to threat I think, and you know, in those
more rural communities, if there's not already those systems in place,
you know, set up a monthly male distribution with the
local homeless shelter or the local homeless camp, and if
you you know, can get a few friends, more people
(16:49):
will show up and you can build that community yourself,
even where it's not existing already. UM. It's more about
just finding those like minded individuals that are are existing
in your community and getting to know your neighbors. Yeah.
I think to trust your neighbors. I think that's a
great as far as the plan of action goes as
good as you can get for at least starting down
(17:11):
that road. UM. Before we kind of move on from
this specific action, I did want to talk a little
bit about the conversations you had both with like people
who lived in Oaklawn and also with um, you know,
passers by. I'm wondering, like, UM, did you have any
that particularly surprised you or that particularly stick out to
you right now? I personally was a little bit more
(17:32):
surprised with the amount of support that we received. UM,
just because while Oaklawn is the neighborhood is generally more
blue liberal, yes, part town, very anti gun typically, Yeah,
very Yeah, to see you know, people sitting on the
patios of the bars carrying for us while we were
(17:54):
walking by. Especially as someone who has been you know,
grown up in that area, it meant a lot. You know.
It really shows almost like the cultural shift that we're
going as far as let this politics go, if people
are going to be supportive of us. Yeah, that's really
interesting to hear. And now I were there, did you
(18:16):
have any kind of interactions with sort of I don't know,
people who were who were more conservative or more on
the on the center right side of things. I think
we had a couple of people who were kind of
filming and frowning. It's always hard to tell. Yeah, in
that case, but no one really said anything to us.
That's interesting. Yeah, And now that was that what that
(18:39):
kind of brings me to the next topic, which is
how how how did Dallas how to DPD handle this
um even hardly out of our cars and multiple police
cars surrounding us while we were just unloading UM. They
were constantly trying to guess where we were going with
the mark um by cutting off streets and trying to
(19:03):
like escort us and like you know, blocking traffic and
things like that. But but we were there less than
five minutes before I would say at least four police
cars were surrounding us asking us questions. They were pulling
out their guns like we were a threat. Geez. Um, well,
(19:26):
I mean, yeah, that's that doesn't surprise me. Um. Did
you have any kind of like direct is did they
send like the p I O s up to try
and you know, talk with organizers or whatever? Um? So
they did right at the beginning, and I think that
interaction went really well, um because they approached us as
we were getting ready, and they said, you know, what
(19:48):
group is this, Who's in charge, who's who's leading? What
are your plans? And you know, every single person who
was there was disciplined enough to either say nothing or
say no plans, there's no group, there's no leaders. And
you know after that, they kept their distance. They did
not really interfere more. Yeah, I mean that that is
(20:11):
one of those things, um, that police I don't know.
I've always found it useful too when you are having
when you have to have an interaction with a police officer,
and um, sometimes it is unavoidable, like you need to
kind of focus on like what are the things that
they need to hear for this interaction to like end
(20:33):
um and d you know, not in them getting violent. Um.
And I think it sounds like, yeah, you you y'all
handled it perfectly, like that that was the right way
for everyone to react, like you were. It is Texas,
Like it's not like it is at all illegal to
walk around with guns. Um. So yeah, I mean that
that sounds that sounds again I'm impressed by kind of
(20:55):
both the boldness of the action but also the discipline
that that was required to actually that was required like
from the ground up right, not not because like there
was some sort of like vanguard leadership exerting force downward
in order to actually make this work safely and in
a way that that left hopefully and it seems like
this is the case people who live in the area
(21:18):
feeling broadly speaking pretty good about it. I would say that,
you know, since the march, in particular just in DFW
and its entirety, the support that we have received has
been almost overwhelming. Um. You know, people now recognize the
people in black Walk as being safe and they're going
(21:40):
to help us. If I need something, I can go
to them, and that's the whole purpose of community defenses.
Having Michael would be to have everyone be that person.
Now the other thing I would wonder because it's I
you know, I've spent a lot of time at black
block protests, but generally the in Portland, Oregon, where a
(22:01):
hot day is like eighty degrees, Um, y'all are in
fucking dfw UM. Those those summers are no joke. And
wearing the gear that y'all are wearing, is UM a
potentially dangerous thing? Right? Like was there was there? Was
it kind of individual or left up to affinity groups
to like figure out hydration and stuff, or did you
have people who are kind of watching folks and reminding
(22:23):
them and like trying to ensure that like that part
of it was handled. Because that does strike me as
a specific risk in this case, most of us do
have UM at least minor street medic training UM, as
well as our own hydration kits, and we all carry
extra electrolytes and things like that for people who may
not be part of our group who may also need assistance. UM.
(22:45):
That's the big part of it here in Texas is
that's that's the main risk with protesting the summer is
the hydration heat exhaustion stroke. Yeah. You know, we do
recommend that the people who are in black block where moisture. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
Marino is your friend if you can get it. Yeah.
(23:07):
But you know, we all of us are you know,
at least trained enough to recognize those symptoms. We make
scenes that we can pass out to people, UM about
how to protest safely in the summer, in the heat specifically.
That's great, so much more dangerous. Now. One of the
things I've been seeing recently, and this is I'm guessing
(23:28):
from a more recent march, was that the photo going
around that's kind of kind of viral on right wing
social media of UM. It's a black and white photo.
There's uh an individual UM with a plate carrier and
an a r UM and another individual with UM like
a chest rig and what I think is a baretta
um carbine um and uh, both of them are at
(23:51):
a reproductive rights march. UM. And there's a mix of
really interesting reactions from the right like on this UM
and I'm in just didn't kind of yeah your thoughts there. Yeah,
so it's it's been really weird. UM. We try to
track whatever is being posted about us. UM. Sometimes they
can give us intel on people who might want to
target us. UM, but we've been noticing, you know, it's
(24:14):
like a solid third of right wing comments are kind
of broadly supportive. I think it really throws them for
a loop. Um. You know, we we've even seen people saying, actually,
bodily autonomy is a lot like gun rights and things
like that. It's been really weird. I think, um, being
(24:37):
armed might kind of humanize us for some of those
people in a way. It's it's been a weird thing.
I have thought a couple of times that, I mean
a number of times I talked about this on the
first season of It could happen here. I think that
there is some like potential to bridge some divides there
with kind of the existence of of a of an
increasingly prominent left wing gun culture. You know. One of
(24:57):
the comments I saw was somebody like going through the
gear displayed and being like, actually, no, they're they're reasonably
well set up, and like everything seems like this is
this is exactly how you'd you know, want to have
it done, and just people being like actually appreciative. And
I guess maybe there's a degree to which, like if
you're if you're in that community from a right wing side,
but not like a straight up fascist side. Maybe there's
(25:20):
a potential for like more commonality and like you said,
the idea that like, oh maybe some of them will
actually broaden their support for reproductive rights. Um, you know,
or at least consider it. You know, I don't know
that that doesn't strike me as like a negative move
and it it um is, particularly in a place like Texas,
you have to try to at least um have some
(25:42):
sort of common ground with people who are are more
on the right wing side of things, because they's so
damn many of them. Yeah, so I think, um, it's
one of those cases where when ideological where when ideology
gets atomized to just like guns good. You know, that
is like a core belief for some people. Yea, that
can draw them to being supportive of pro choice marches
(26:05):
in a in a weird way. It's it's kind of
a pretty specific kind of brain worms. But seeing it
a lot, Yeah, I wouldn't like call it necessarily a
positive like it's a it's an aspect of things that
are negative, but it's something that also can be like
useful and and potentially positive. Like even though if you
get into what's leading someone to like, Oh, I really
(26:26):
I re examined my beliefs on reproductive rights because I
saw some people marching with guns. That's not like a
sign of of a series of thought process that I
think is like wildly positive. But at least somebody maybe
came around on something better than going the other way.
(26:46):
You know, we've been talking about the effects of getting
all this right wing attention, and uh, you know, in
a way, that's what we want. We want to advertise
that we have strong community defense, and the flip side,
you get all these supportive comments and hopefully those people
don't want to kill me anymore. So it's just positive,
(27:07):
we think, Yeah, you're I mean, one of the ways
in which these kind of protests can increase security for
a community, Like one way is that maybe there are
people who will get scared off because they don't want
to risk like getting shot, And the other is that
maybe some people will re examine their opinions on that
community because it's now more familiar to them because there
probably way too into guns. But yeah, absolutely, so let's
(27:40):
talk about um. There there was a specific action um
that kind of the thing that was going around on
Twitter was these proud boys trying to get into it
believe it was a library, and like a line of
parents squaring off with them to like stop them. Um.
Can we talk a little bit about that. Yeah, that
was in McKinney. Um. It was the day after through v.
(28:02):
Wade got overturned, and we honestly didn't know what to
expect when we got there because of mcknny. We were like,
are we gonna be very much so outnumbered in this?
And when we arrived there was already about thirty to
forty people who were either parents or friends of the
(28:22):
library there in support and maybe only fifteen or twenty
people in opposition. Um. So it was, you know, a
pretty good welcoming, supportive environment. Um. And about thirty minutes
after we got there is when the Proud Boys arrived.
And we just really only had to tell two people, hey,
(28:43):
they're Proud Boys. And before I, before we could even
get over there to like block them off ourselves, there
were like eight to ten soccer moms in their flip flops,
Nike shorts and handmade signs standing in front of them
and blocking them from coming any closer. Um. And of
(29:03):
course they did get closer as people were leaving the
library and the event was ending and things like that,
but it was one of those things where it just
organically happened, and it was it was beautiful, like in
a place like McKinney, of all places like ip Texas,
like place I would expect to find, Like a soccer
(29:26):
mom in Nike shorts asked, like, thanking me for bringing
my gun to the library. Yeah, that's that's wonderful to hear.
I mean, and people who are not in the d
F w U area won't understand this, but like, yeah,
I spent a significant chunk of my early life in McKinney,
and I would not have expected that reaction there. Um, yeah,
(29:47):
that's really really good to hear. And it also is
you know. I'm I obviously have been supportive of a
number of tactics to confront fascism, including people showing up
in block and stuff and and protest or or or
confronting them physically. But I don't think there's any more
durable kind of community self defense than than that, than
than a than a group of people who are just
(30:10):
kind of live in an area and around and curious
realizing there's a threat and immediately acting against it, like
that's such a that's such a powerful thing. Yeah, saying no,
not in my neighborhood. And you know, again, like we
didn't expect to have that reaction, which made it that
(30:31):
much better when we saw it. And you know, having
those people for the first time in their life maybe
even can face to face correctly with fascists probably has
a lasting impact on them as well. Like I hope
that they keep going to more events like that and
keep going and protecting their community from these people. Now,
(30:51):
let me ask you, when you have these kind of
interactions with folks and when you had these specific interactions
with those specific folks, is there kind of is there's
sort of an information spreading thing afterwards? Is they're like, hey,
here's who we are, and like where you can find
out more about us, um like kind of attempts to
like let people know who you are and what you're
doing and how they can you know, follow you and whatnot.
(31:14):
Like is that a is that is that a part
of the activism or was it more just like we're
showing up to kind of provide a barrier for these
people and like that's not this is not the time
or place for that. It's a little bit of both.
A lot of these actions we are invited to, we
have kind of made it a point to be known
(31:34):
as we are here to help UM. So a lot
of times we will get invited or people will send
us an event and we will we do usually try
to get in touch with you ever's organizing the event
to make sure that they are comfortable with us, either
open carrying or what they prefer to can still carry
and things like that, UM, because it is still necessary
(31:57):
to be polite UM. But then also when we do,
we always meet people at these actions who are wanting
to get more involved than just that one time, and
we do have ways for them to get involved in
their community and learn from us. Obviously, Dallas is UM.
(32:18):
Its nickname for a long time has been the City
of Hate UM, and it is a place that is
I mean the city itself is fairly blue, but there
is I mean, even within the Dallas area proper a
tremendous amount of people who are like extremely conservative. Obviously,
I mean we I don't want to be harping on
this too much, but is there a degree to which
you are concerned about like attempts at at infiltration and whatnot?
(32:42):
Are attempts to yeah, like kind of like you know,
to do sort of the the fascist equivalent of what
a lot of anti fascists do with right wing groups.
There's a lot of concern about that. Um. We just
you know, we do the best we can. We think
we've done a pretty good job already. Clearly, Yeah, very
careful with um, you know, who were who were in
(33:03):
contact with, who were working with. UM. We've had to
you know, stop working with abusers a few times. That
is a tough one. We don't expand nearly as much
as we could, given all the people who want to
be part of this particular group. We believe more in
you know, many strong groups and try to help people
(33:28):
do that. Um. But yeah, it's a tough struggle. Yeah,
I mean that's a that's an interesting because I think
maybe a better question for me to ask is is
not like, how do you avoid that? But how do
you avoid like? Because because the if you look back
at the actual history of color Intel pro right and
the ship that like Hoover and his his goons were
(33:49):
saying to each other, like, the goal was not to
infiltrate every left wing movement. The goal was to make
people be so afraid of infiltration that they weren't able
to effectively organize, and so that that is I guess
kind of the real trick is this. Obviously there's a
degree to which you want to be on your guard.
You need to be careful. It's it's it's important to
be not just ethical, but but like responsible in your
(34:11):
op set. But you also can't let like fear of
that sort of thing happening just because you're you know,
kind of surrounded in a place like North Texas. You
can't let that fear stop you from from trying, right,
I think, Um, A big part of that is it
goes back to the trust thing. You know, we don't
really let people into the close folds until they've come
(34:37):
to a few actions with us and they've you know,
proven that they're not you know, spilling the beans all
over Twitter, and yeah that you know, we know who
they are and know what they're about, and then we
involved them a little bit more. Um, it's all about
building that trust with the people you're working with. It
just goes right back to that is, you know, trust
(34:59):
and filts over time. Um, and the longer we all
know each other, the more we trust each other and
then you know, we are able to have those conversations
about welcoming more people in and um, you know, setting
up the processes for that now has just on a
logistical standpoint, that kind of notoriety i'll have have gained
(35:21):
because of some of these actions. Has it sort of
led to like difficulty in terms of we we're dealing
with like so many much interest, so many people reaching
out to us, like how do you how do you
actually like organize kind of that, like how you how
you respond to people when ship goes viral? You know,
I I know how overwhelming that can be. Yeah, that's
(35:41):
been pretty new to us. Um. We've been more used
to being kind of your local crew that does things
no one ever talks about. And uh, having a larger
profile now is a challenge because we do know, you know,
attracting a lot more attend shin you know put some
(36:02):
constraints on us. Um, but I think that goes back
to why it's important to have a lot of different
groups doing a lot of different stuff. Um. You know,
you can't just have one uh group, uh doing all
the organizing that needs to be done in an area.
It's just a bad idea. You know, if a group
gets taken out for a variety of reasons. You don't
(36:25):
want everything to fall apart. Yeah, so I guess kind
of as we come to probably close to the end
of this where there were there are things that I
didn't get into that you wanted to talk to about
what y'all are doing and kind of what you want
other people know, particularly folks who I don't know we're
in in Louisville or and you know, fucking Idabelle, Oklahoma,
and UM kind of want to feel want to build
(36:49):
UM or at least help to help to protect their
community in a place that UM, there's additional challenges in
doing so. Yeah, I've seen that recurring events no matter
what it is, you know, book club distribution, if there's
a place that people can find you regularly, that's a
great way to have the kind of people you want
(37:11):
to meet, you know, just just walk up and talk
to you, UM for me what you know, watching your
ops set and also compartmentalizing your information, like if I
don't need to know something, I don't want to know it, UM.
And that's a good way to stay safe while also
you know, being able to organize and take action because
(37:31):
like you said, earlier. The most important thing is the
will to do something. If you're just you know, the
safest thing you can do is stay in your basement,
But then no one will do anything. Yeah, exactly right. Um,
was there anything else either of you all wanted to
get into. I guess I also want to plug passing
on training. So whatever skills you have, we've taught, um,
(37:53):
medical stuff, how to do an oil change, um, how
to fire guns stuff, martial arts, you know, unarmed fighting
is also important. Um, share knowledge with each other, you know,
make each other more powerful in that way. Yeah, that
is a I think a great line to end on. Um,
(38:14):
thank you everybody else and um yeah, um you can
check out. Actually, you guys want to plug your your
your socials, you can follow me at bubble Break on
Twitter and um it's kind of out now, but you
can follow Anarco air softest we have trained on there
(38:35):
excellent and then of course Uhport John Brown Gun Club
on pretty much all platforms. Yeah. I never got into
TikTok either one of these days. All right, everybody, that's
the episode it could happen. Here is a production of
(38:55):
cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check
us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts, you can find sources
for It could happen here, Updated monthly at cool zone
media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
Welcome to it could happen here. I am Robert Evans Uh,
and this is a podcast about things falling apart and
sometimes how to put them all together. And you know,
today we're actually going to be talking more about the ladder,
which I know is revolutionary for us. We're usually just
kind of like getting way more into the duomer stuff.
But I think there's been more than enough of that,
(00:26):
particularly in the wake of several horrific Supreme Court rulings
that I don't really need feel the need to go
into detail on, but one of the things that has
happened in the wake of these rulings this this like
kind of liberal reaction to the fact that to the
fact and they're right to be angry about the fact
that they're being essentially governed by a small minority of
people who are very densely geographically located in the South,
(00:47):
that is where like the bulk of the support for
the hard rights policies comes from, um and it's led
to this like fuck Texas, fun Florida. Fuck uh, these
these quote unquote like red dates, these regressive states, which
is this deeply problematic for a number of reasons, including
the fact that you know, if you just want to
look at it in terms of party politics. Uh, there
(01:09):
were more people who voted for a Democrat in Texas
in the election than live in either the state of
Oregon or Washington. UM. These are densely populated places with
tremendous amount of people who are people of color, who
are trans who are you know, in some way threatened
by this weird Cristo fascist bullshit that is increasingly clamping
down on the country. And so today I wanted to
(01:30):
talk with some folks who will live in and around
the Dallas, Texas what we call the df W area
Dallas Fort Worth, UM, and who have lately been organizing
to kind of both confront this, uh, this rising Christo
fascist like the street aggression portion of it, and to
provide support in defense um for people who are are
(01:50):
being victimized by it. So I'd like to welcome some
representatives of the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club to
the show. Hey, y'all, yeah, do to kind of introduce
yourselves to to start, however you'd like to be known
on the show. I'm Satan, I'm bubble Satan and bubble
um and how long have y'all been like doing? Because
(02:15):
there's there's two specific things that kind of I don't know,
I became aware of y'all and and we had some
brief interactions, right, It's some brief interaction with some of
your folks during the the snow thing that that destroyed everything, um,
and so I've been kind of watching y'all socials ever since.
And there were a couple of things recently that struck
(02:37):
me as very uh worth discussioning actions that you y'all
were a part of. One of them was there's a
neighborhood in Dallas called Oak Lawn that is kind of
colloquially known as the gighborhood. It is like the um,
the gay neighborhood in Dallas obviously, and so it's a
place that you know, even before kind of things got
a little easier after twenty um, it was kind of
(03:01):
a safe place and a little bit like of a
of a of a fortress for like people who are
not you know, straight and cist gender, which is and
kind of are you know, for for an idea of
how aspects of the df W area can be. The
town I grew up in, Plane, Oh, had a condoms
to go move in and within like two nights of
(03:22):
setting up shop and plane, somebody fired a nine millimeter
handgun through the window. Like it's not a it's a
place where it could be difficult. Um. And so obviously
repression and kind of violence and fears of vigilante violence
UM from folks who are queer has is understandably amped
up in the wake of everything that's been happening. And
y'all carried out an action where a sizeable group of
(03:46):
leftists marched armed through the gighborhood. Um. The one of them,
there were a couple of different chants that that I
was hearing. One of them was, um about bashing back
something like that. You want to talk a little bit
about like that action and what actually went to out. Um. Sure,
So at the beginning of Pride Month, we had a
(04:07):
large group of fascists come to the gahborhood. Um, you know,
they were shouting groomer, they were telling us the fist
of Christ is coming down on you soon, and um,
you know, making really out their threats. So we discussed, um,
you know, what we could do to be proactive to
(04:27):
make sure that doesn't happen again. Um, And we ended
up getting together some groups who were interested in an
armed demonstration, which even here in Texas is not something
you see too often. Um. And we decided to march
through the gahborhood. You know. Um, I would say a
majority of the people that we know are LGBT and
(04:54):
it's our neighborhood. So you know, we put on this
demonstration there and it was, you know, kind of incredible.
We got some looks, but we also got a lot
of support. Um, we had a lot of great chance. Um.
You know, bottoms tops, we all hate cops. There we go. Yeah, yeah,
(05:16):
that was the that was the one that was in
the video. Um. And so what was the uh I'm
interested in kind of because I think this is the
kind of thing that is potentially very useful. We we
have seen. One of the things that I have personally
observed and that has been observed by a number of folks,
is that when these kind of right wing mobs who
(05:38):
primarily want people who cannot defend themselves, who don't have
the numbers to defend themselves, they want to like beat
the ship out of people in a gang, right Like,
that's that's the proud boy thing, that's the Patriot prayer thing.
That's all these weird little groups. Primarily what they want
to do. They don't want a fair fight, and when
they are confronted with organized people on the left who
(05:59):
are armed, that tends to scare the ship out of them.
And if I'm not mistaken, during that day where you
had those Christian fascists kind of coming after um that
Queer family event, like one of the one of the
live streams that one of the right wingers had, people
were some of them were like commenting on the fact
that there were people leftist open carrying and like how
unsettling they found that. Um So, I'm interested in kind
(06:22):
of how the idea to we're gonna do this, have
this kind of a march, you know, through this neighborhood
we're going to make sort of a show beforce. How
that idea kind of came together? And then what logistically
did y'all like feel the need to set up, Like
I'm gonna guess it wasn't as simple as like hey,
everybody with a gun, like come come meet here and
we're gonna have us a walk. Um So, I'm interested
(06:44):
in kind of what the logistics are because I think
this is the kind of thing that people other people
are going to want like find useful to do, like
statements of we are here, we have the tools to
defend ourselves, and we're not going to just passively let
you run through our neighborhoods fucking with us. UM. I
think logistically one of the big things was just making
(07:05):
sure that you know, everyone who was carrying was carrying properly,
and then also to protect our own selves, making sure
that whoever was carrying was also protecting our identity by
wearing essentially full black walk UM, which that in itself
sends a message. You know, a bunch of queer people
marching through the streets of Dallas and full black walk
(07:28):
with guns UM sends a message like we're not going
to take your ship. We're done. You know you're not
gonna mess with our bodily autonomy. UM. That march happened,
We had planned it to be on that day originally,
and that happened to be the day that Roby Wade
was overturned UM, and it essentially just evolved that morning
(07:51):
to a more intersectional body bodily autonomy march. But really
logistically it was mostly about protecting ourselves and making sure
that people who weren't carrying the firearms were also protected
from our firearms. Yeah, I want to dive into that
a little bit because that's such an important aspect of it,
is the ensuring. Say, I have seen a lot of marches,
(08:14):
and I will be honest, I've seen a lot of
people being armed on on both sides politically who have
done things with guns that I would consider reckless. Probably
the top moment in my mind is during a big
march in Portland somebody leaned over and a glock fell
out of the front pouch of their hoodie that they
were just head loose in there. Um yeah, um. So
(08:35):
obviously it is not as it should not be as
simple as like, you know, load up on guns and
bring your friends, so to speak. How do you attempt
to ensure like how like how do you actually go
about handling the safety aspect? Is it? Like? Are you
appointing essentially kind of like range officers? Before the march,
we were keeping an eye on ship like what does
that actually look like? Um? I want to I want
(08:57):
to give two examples for the march we did the neighborhood. Um,
it was different in that it wasn't publicly announced wearing
um who was going to be. So it's kind of
by invitation only demonstration, so we knew pretty much everybody
that was coming, except for people in the neighborhood who
kind of joined ad hawk. UM. So that's one way
(09:19):
that we've done things. When we do more of like
uh protest security for other actions. UM. You know, there
are different people who will feel motivated to bring UM
arms and usually they know what they're doing pretty well.
In a couple of instances where someone is being unsafe, UM,
(09:42):
you know, one of us will just go over there
and talk to them, you know, like, hey, you you
really need a sling uh for this, or you know,
don't don't be uh pointing it in any way at
a building. UM. Just little tips like that too, you know,
resolve the behavior. So when it actually comes to like
(10:11):
uh because because one of the things like whenever you
have sort of a gathering like this is de escalation
and even within people within the march potentially like dispute
resolution and that sort of thing, what was the how
how did you kind of organize for that, Like what
was the planning on that? And like, um, I think
that's a really important question. One of the first things
(10:31):
that we decided pretty early on is that we are
not there to police any protesters. So you know, if
someone is is doing something illegal, uh, And no, at
no point where we you know, tell them to stop
or try to make them stop. We may move away
from the area or something like that, but we're not
there too police our people at all. When it comes
(10:55):
to like counters coming up in antagonizing, the main thing
we do is try to put ourselves between them and
any people they're targeting. Um. And you know, we have cameras,
we have less than lethal, we have different tools to
try to deescalate that. Yeah, And so when it comes
to like, uh, I guess training on that and did
(11:16):
you kind of did you have any sort of like
um um infrastructure, human infrastructure what not set up prior
to this to like make sure people who were like
doing de escalation were folks that you knew, you know,
had some level of understanding of it, or folks that
you could trust. Like how was the actual how do
you actually because I mean it strikes me that there
is a great deal of like trust that's necessary to
(11:37):
put together something like this. To be able to meet
up with folks and and like march armed together requires
probably a little bit more in in the way of
of of trust than you know, just showing up at
a protest um that's kind of more conventional. Um. Was
there sort of some in any kind of like I
don't know, system or or like yeah, train or what
(12:00):
not that y'all had four specifically like how to behave
how to de escalate all that kind of stuff. Or
was it just like folks that kind of you knew
from from prior events were good at that sort of thing.
I mean, as far as our group goes, UM, I
can speak for myself personally and say that I trust
each one of our people with my life. UM. And
(12:22):
I think because of that, and because we were really
the ones putting it on, like we knew that if
something were to go down, one of us would get
in the middle of it, and we all trust each other.
I think that in any sort of organizing environment, trusting
trusting the people that you're working with is one of
the most vital things that you can do because they're
(12:45):
going to be the ones beside you when a proud
boy rolls up, and you want the person beside you
to be someone that you can trust. UM, And we
do that. We do have you know, we we do practice,
and we do train together, and um, we also have
fun together. And having that certain level of trust means
the world when you're putting yourself out there in that way.
(13:09):
And how long of the folks that are kind of
like you, we're most affiliated with like making this happen.
How long have y'all been sort of organizing and doing
stuff together. I would say most of us met, since
a lot of us met in organizing different facilities during
after the Droid Floyd protests and then through ye just
(13:32):
to boom in mutual aid that happened in DFW after that,
whether it was through homeless outreach or uh, you know,
bail bonds or however we met each other, it was
mostly through that mutual aid community and getting out in
the our communities and organizing ourselves and trying to find
like minded people who wanted to see the same change happened. Now. UM,
(13:58):
I think one of the uh, one of the things
that's been on my mind a lot lately, and that
that y'all particularly bring up, is the challenges of organizing
in parts of the country where not just you know,
the police who are always pretty regressive, but the entire
legal structure is set up to as Florida has increasing
(14:19):
the dosal number states have done like punished protests, penalized
activism make things more dangerous for for for people who
are like going out there in public in addition to
doing things to try and criminalize you know, people who
are are are not uh straight, you know, white Christians. UM. So,
when you look at like kind of the challenges of
(14:40):
organizing in a place where it's more dangerous, and obviously
it's it's not particularly safe to be organizing against you know,
the l A p D. But the court system in
California is broadly speaking less stacked against you. Um So,
if you had advice to give to people who had
don't have this group of friends and people they've been
organizing with for a couple of years already, but they
(15:01):
want to have that, they want to build that in
their community, where would you suggest they start? Um? I
always tell people that it starts by showing up um
to all kinds of events, you know, supporting a broad
range of groups. And you know, if you're at the protests,
if you are at the feedings, the distributions, um, You're
(15:23):
gonna meet people and you're gonna build trust um, mutual
trust there UM, so that you know, when you want
to start a project, you want to start a group,
you'll have those people that know you. Um. It is
very dangerous. Uh. I think it's always important to tell
people to watch your op set. You know, don't be
re sharing all kinds of activists stuff with your personal
(15:46):
profile that has your name and your birthday and all
of that. But yeah, it really goes to meeting people
in person, I think. Yeah, And um, I mean that's
such a difficult part of it because I think for
a lot of people, particularly maybe are living in rural
areas who are living, um, kind of outside of places
that have well formed protest communities, social media and the
(16:08):
internet is is a lifeline for them and often in
a lot of cases like how they came to a
lot of the political beliefs in a desire to do something. Um.
But you're right, like you can't. You have to actually
get like face to face on the ground with people
to actually build the kind of relationships that can lead
to the sort of activism that y'all are doing. And
that's that is a tough needle for a lot of
(16:29):
people to threat I think, and you know, in those
more rural communities, if there's not already those systems in place,
you know, set up a monthly male distribution with the
local homeless shelter or the local homeless camp, and if
you you know, can get a few friends, more people
(16:49):
will show up and you can build that community yourself,
even where it's not existing already. UM. It's more about
just finding those like minded individuals that are are existing
in your community and getting to know your neighbors. Yeah.
I think to trust your neighbors. I think that's a
great as far as the plan of action goes as
good as you can get for at least starting down
(17:11):
that road. UM. Before we kind of move on from
this specific action, I did want to talk a little
bit about the conversations you had both with like people
who lived in Oaklawn and also with um, you know,
passers by. I'm wondering, like, UM, did you have any
that particularly surprised you or that particularly stick out to
you right now? I personally was a little bit more
(17:32):
surprised with the amount of support that we received. UM,
just because while Oaklawn is the neighborhood is generally more
blue liberal, yes, part town, very anti gun typically, Yeah,
very Yeah, to see you know, people sitting on the
patios of the bars carrying for us while we were
(17:54):
walking by. Especially as someone who has been you know,
grown up in that area, it meant a lot. You know.
It really shows almost like the cultural shift that we're
going as far as let this politics go, if people
are going to be supportive of us. Yeah, that's really
interesting to hear. And now I were there, did you
(18:16):
have any kind of interactions with sort of I don't know,
people who were who were more conservative or more on
the on the center right side of things. I think
we had a couple of people who were kind of
filming and frowning. It's always hard to tell. Yeah, in
that case, but no one really said anything to us.
That's interesting. Yeah, And now that was that what that
(18:39):
kind of brings me to the next topic, which is
how how how did Dallas how to DPD handle this
um even hardly out of our cars and multiple police
cars surrounding us while we were just unloading UM. They
were constantly trying to guess where we were going with
the mark um by cutting off streets and trying to
(19:03):
like escort us and like you know, blocking traffic and
things like that. But but we were there less than
five minutes before I would say at least four police
cars were surrounding us asking us questions. They were pulling
out their guns like we were a threat. Geez. Um, well,
(19:26):
I mean, yeah, that's that doesn't surprise me. Um. Did
you have any kind of like direct is did they
send like the p I O s up to try
and you know, talk with organizers or whatever? Um? So
they did right at the beginning, and I think that
interaction went really well, um because they approached us as
we were getting ready, and they said, you know, what
(19:48):
group is this, Who's in charge, who's who's leading? What
are your plans? And you know, every single person who
was there was disciplined enough to either say nothing or
say no plans, there's no group, there's no leaders. And
you know after that, they kept their distance. They did
not really interfere more. Yeah, I mean that that is
(20:11):
one of those things, um, that police I don't know.
I've always found it useful too when you are having
when you have to have an interaction with a police officer,
and um, sometimes it is unavoidable, like you need to
kind of focus on like what are the things that
they need to hear for this interaction to like end
(20:33):
um and d you know, not in them getting violent. Um.
And I think it sounds like, yeah, you you y'all
handled it perfectly, like that that was the right way
for everyone to react, like you were. It is Texas,
Like it's not like it is at all illegal to
walk around with guns. Um. So yeah, I mean that
that sounds that sounds again I'm impressed by kind of
(20:55):
both the boldness of the action but also the discipline
that that was required to actually that was required like
from the ground up right, not not because like there
was some sort of like vanguard leadership exerting force downward
in order to actually make this work safely and in
a way that that left hopefully and it seems like
this is the case people who live in the area
(21:18):
feeling broadly speaking pretty good about it. I would say that,
you know, since the march, in particular just in DFW
and its entirety, the support that we have received has
been almost overwhelming. Um. You know, people now recognize the
people in black Walk as being safe and they're going
(21:40):
to help us. If I need something, I can go
to them, and that's the whole purpose of community defenses.
Having Michael would be to have everyone be that person.
Now the other thing I would wonder because it's I
you know, I've spent a lot of time at black
block protests, but generally the in Portland, Oregon, where a
(22:01):
hot day is like eighty degrees, Um, y'all are in
fucking dfw UM. Those those summers are no joke. And
wearing the gear that y'all are wearing, is UM a
potentially dangerous thing? Right? Like was there was there? Was
it kind of individual or left up to affinity groups
to like figure out hydration and stuff, or did you
have people who are kind of watching folks and reminding
(22:23):
them and like trying to ensure that like that part
of it was handled. Because that does strike me as
a specific risk in this case, most of us do
have UM at least minor street medic training UM, as
well as our own hydration kits, and we all carry
extra electrolytes and things like that for people who may
not be part of our group who may also need assistance. UM.
(22:45):
That's the big part of it here in Texas is
that's that's the main risk with protesting the summer is
the hydration heat exhaustion stroke. Yeah. You know, we do
recommend that the people who are in black block where moisture. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
Marino is your friend if you can get it. Yeah.
(23:07):
But you know, we all of us are you know,
at least trained enough to recognize those symptoms. We make
scenes that we can pass out to people, UM about
how to protest safely in the summer, in the heat specifically.
That's great, so much more dangerous. Now. One of the
things I've been seeing recently, and this is I'm guessing
(23:28):
from a more recent march, was that the photo going
around that's kind of kind of viral on right wing
social media of UM. It's a black and white photo.
There's uh an individual UM with a plate carrier and
an a r UM and another individual with UM like
a chest rig and what I think is a baretta
um carbine um and uh, both of them are at
(23:51):
a reproductive rights march. UM. And there's a mix of
really interesting reactions from the right like on this UM
and I'm in just didn't kind of yeah your thoughts there. Yeah,
so it's it's been really weird. UM. We try to
track whatever is being posted about us. UM. Sometimes they
can give us intel on people who might want to
target us. UM, but we've been noticing, you know, it's
(24:14):
like a solid third of right wing comments are kind
of broadly supportive. I think it really throws them for
a loop. Um. You know, we we've even seen people saying, actually,
bodily autonomy is a lot like gun rights and things
like that. It's been really weird. I think, um, being
(24:37):
armed might kind of humanize us for some of those
people in a way. It's it's been a weird thing.
I have thought a couple of times that, I mean
a number of times I talked about this on the
first season of It could happen here. I think that
there is some like potential to bridge some divides there
with kind of the existence of of a of an
increasingly prominent left wing gun culture. You know. One of
(24:57):
the comments I saw was somebody like going through the
gear displayed and being like, actually, no, they're they're reasonably
well set up, and like everything seems like this is
this is exactly how you'd you know, want to have
it done, and just people being like actually appreciative. And
I guess maybe there's a degree to which, like if
you're if you're in that community from a right wing side,
but not like a straight up fascist side. Maybe there's
(25:20):
a potential for like more commonality and like you said,
the idea that like, oh maybe some of them will
actually broaden their support for reproductive rights. Um, you know,
or at least consider it. You know, I don't know
that that doesn't strike me as like a negative move
and it it um is, particularly in a place like Texas,
you have to try to at least um have some
(25:42):
sort of common ground with people who are are more
on the right wing side of things, because they's so
damn many of them. Yeah, so I think, um, it's
one of those cases where when ideological where when ideology
gets atomized to just like guns good. You know, that
is like a core belief for some people. Yea, that
can draw them to being supportive of pro choice marches
(26:05):
in a in a weird way. It's it's kind of
a pretty specific kind of brain worms. But seeing it
a lot, Yeah, I wouldn't like call it necessarily a
positive like it's a it's an aspect of things that
are negative, but it's something that also can be like
useful and and potentially positive. Like even though if you
get into what's leading someone to like, Oh, I really
(26:26):
I re examined my beliefs on reproductive rights because I
saw some people marching with guns. That's not like a
sign of of a series of thought process that I
think is like wildly positive. But at least somebody maybe
came around on something better than going the other way.
(26:46):
You know, we've been talking about the effects of getting
all this right wing attention, and uh, you know, in
a way, that's what we want. We want to advertise
that we have strong community defense, and the flip side,
you get all these supportive comments and hopefully those people
don't want to kill me anymore. So it's just positive,
(27:07):
we think, Yeah, you're I mean, one of the ways
in which these kind of protests can increase security for
a community, Like one way is that maybe there are
people who will get scared off because they don't want
to risk like getting shot, And the other is that
maybe some people will re examine their opinions on that
community because it's now more familiar to them because there
probably way too into guns. But yeah, absolutely, so let's
(27:40):
talk about um. There there was a specific action um
that kind of the thing that was going around on
Twitter was these proud boys trying to get into it
believe it was a library, and like a line of
parents squaring off with them to like stop them. Um.
Can we talk a little bit about that. Yeah, that
was in McKinney. Um. It was the day after through v.
(28:02):
Wade got overturned, and we honestly didn't know what to
expect when we got there because of mcknny. We were like,
are we gonna be very much so outnumbered in this?
And when we arrived there was already about thirty to
forty people who were either parents or friends of the
(28:22):
library there in support and maybe only fifteen or twenty
people in opposition. Um. So it was, you know, a
pretty good welcoming, supportive environment. Um. And about thirty minutes
after we got there is when the Proud Boys arrived.
And we just really only had to tell two people, hey,
(28:43):
they're Proud Boys. And before I, before we could even
get over there to like block them off ourselves, there
were like eight to ten soccer moms in their flip flops,
Nike shorts and handmade signs standing in front of them
and blocking them from coming any closer. Um. And of
(29:03):
course they did get closer as people were leaving the
library and the event was ending and things like that,
but it was one of those things where it just
organically happened, and it was it was beautiful, like in
a place like McKinney, of all places like ip Texas,
like place I would expect to find, Like a soccer
(29:26):
mom in Nike shorts asked, like, thanking me for bringing
my gun to the library. Yeah, that's that's wonderful to hear.
I mean, and people who are not in the d
F w U area won't understand this, but like, yeah,
I spent a significant chunk of my early life in McKinney,
and I would not have expected that reaction there. Um, yeah,
(29:47):
that's really really good to hear. And it also is
you know. I'm I obviously have been supportive of a
number of tactics to confront fascism, including people showing up
in block and stuff and and protest or or or
confronting them physically. But I don't think there's any more
durable kind of community self defense than than that, than
than a than a group of people who are just
(30:10):
kind of live in an area and around and curious
realizing there's a threat and immediately acting against it, like
that's such a that's such a powerful thing. Yeah, saying no,
not in my neighborhood. And you know, again, like we
didn't expect to have that reaction, which made it that
(30:31):
much better when we saw it. And you know, having
those people for the first time in their life maybe
even can face to face correctly with fascists probably has
a lasting impact on them as well. Like I hope
that they keep going to more events like that and
keep going and protecting their community from these people. Now,
(30:51):
let me ask you, when you have these kind of
interactions with folks and when you had these specific interactions
with those specific folks, is there kind of is there's
sort of an information spreading thing afterwards? Is they're like, hey,
here's who we are, and like where you can find
out more about us, um like kind of attempts to
like let people know who you are and what you're
doing and how they can you know, follow you and whatnot.
(31:14):
Like is that a is that is that a part
of the activism or was it more just like we're
showing up to kind of provide a barrier for these
people and like that's not this is not the time
or place for that. It's a little bit of both.
A lot of these actions we are invited to, we
have kind of made it a point to be known
(31:34):
as we are here to help UM. So a lot
of times we will get invited or people will send
us an event and we will we do usually try
to get in touch with you ever's organizing the event
to make sure that they are comfortable with us, either
open carrying or what they prefer to can still carry
and things like that, UM, because it is still necessary
(31:57):
to be polite UM. But then also when we do,
we always meet people at these actions who are wanting
to get more involved than just that one time, and
we do have ways for them to get involved in
their community and learn from us. Obviously, Dallas is UM.
(32:18):
Its nickname for a long time has been the City
of Hate UM, and it is a place that is
I mean the city itself is fairly blue, but there
is I mean, even within the Dallas area proper a
tremendous amount of people who are like extremely conservative. Obviously,
I mean we I don't want to be harping on
this too much, but is there a degree to which
you are concerned about like attempts at at infiltration and whatnot?
(32:42):
Are attempts to yeah, like kind of like you know,
to do sort of the the fascist equivalent of what
a lot of anti fascists do with right wing groups.
There's a lot of concern about that. Um. We just
you know, we do the best we can. We think
we've done a pretty good job already. Clearly, Yeah, very
careful with um, you know, who were who were in
(33:03):
contact with, who were working with. UM. We've had to
you know, stop working with abusers a few times. That
is a tough one. We don't expand nearly as much
as we could, given all the people who want to
be part of this particular group. We believe more in
you know, many strong groups and try to help people
(33:28):
do that. Um. But yeah, it's a tough struggle. Yeah,
I mean that's a that's an interesting because I think
maybe a better question for me to ask is is
not like, how do you avoid that? But how do
you avoid like? Because because the if you look back
at the actual history of color Intel pro right and
the ship that like Hoover and his his goons were
(33:49):
saying to each other, like, the goal was not to
infiltrate every left wing movement. The goal was to make
people be so afraid of infiltration that they weren't able
to effectively organize, and so that that is I guess
kind of the real trick is this. Obviously there's a
degree to which you want to be on your guard.
You need to be careful. It's it's it's important to
be not just ethical, but but like responsible in your
(34:11):
op set. But you also can't let like fear of
that sort of thing happening just because you're you know,
kind of surrounded in a place like North Texas. You
can't let that fear stop you from from trying, right,
I think, Um, A big part of that is it
goes back to the trust thing. You know, we don't
really let people into the close folds until they've come
(34:37):
to a few actions with us and they've you know,
proven that they're not you know, spilling the beans all
over Twitter, and yeah that you know, we know who
they are and know what they're about, and then we
involved them a little bit more. Um, it's all about
building that trust with the people you're working with. It
just goes right back to that is, you know, trust
(34:59):
and filts over time. Um, and the longer we all
know each other, the more we trust each other and
then you know, we are able to have those conversations
about welcoming more people in and um, you know, setting
up the processes for that now has just on a
logistical standpoint, that kind of notoriety i'll have have gained
(35:21):
because of some of these actions. Has it sort of
led to like difficulty in terms of we we're dealing
with like so many much interest, so many people reaching
out to us, like how do you how do you
actually like organize kind of that, like how you how
you respond to people when ship goes viral? You know,
I I know how overwhelming that can be. Yeah, that's
(35:41):
been pretty new to us. Um. We've been more used
to being kind of your local crew that does things
no one ever talks about. And uh, having a larger
profile now is a challenge because we do know, you know,
attracting a lot more attend shin you know put some
(36:02):
constraints on us. Um, but I think that goes back
to why it's important to have a lot of different
groups doing a lot of different stuff. Um. You know,
you can't just have one uh group, uh doing all
the organizing that needs to be done in an area.
It's just a bad idea. You know, if a group
gets taken out for a variety of reasons. You don't
(36:25):
want everything to fall apart. Yeah, so I guess kind
of as we come to probably close to the end
of this where there were there are things that I
didn't get into that you wanted to talk to about
what y'all are doing and kind of what you want
other people know, particularly folks who I don't know we're
in in Louisville or and you know, fucking Idabelle, Oklahoma,
and UM kind of want to feel want to build
(36:49):
UM or at least help to help to protect their
community in a place that UM, there's additional challenges in
doing so. Yeah, I've seen that recurring events no matter
what it is, you know, book club distribution, if there's
a place that people can find you regularly, that's a
great way to have the kind of people you want
(37:11):
to meet, you know, just just walk up and talk
to you, UM for me what you know, watching your
ops set and also compartmentalizing your information, like if I
don't need to know something, I don't want to know it, UM.
And that's a good way to stay safe while also
you know, being able to organize and take action because
(37:31):
like you said, earlier. The most important thing is the
will to do something. If you're just you know, the
safest thing you can do is stay in your basement,
But then no one will do anything. Yeah, exactly right. Um,
was there anything else either of you all wanted to
get into. I guess I also want to plug passing
on training. So whatever skills you have, we've taught, um,
(37:53):
medical stuff, how to do an oil change, um, how
to fire guns stuff, martial arts, you know, unarmed fighting
is also important. Um, share knowledge with each other, you know,
make each other more powerful in that way. Yeah, that
is a I think a great line to end on. Um,
(38:14):
thank you everybody else and um yeah, um you can
check out. Actually, you guys want to plug your your
your socials, you can follow me at bubble Break on
Twitter and um it's kind of out now, but you
can follow Anarco air softest we have trained on there
(38:35):
excellent and then of course Uhport John Brown Gun Club
on pretty much all platforms. Yeah. I never got into
TikTok either one of these days. All right, everybody, that's
the episode it could happen. Here is a production of
(38:55):
cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check
us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts, you can find sources
for It could happen here, Updated monthly at cool zone
media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
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Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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