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