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   Elm Fork JBGC (efjbgc@denton.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Aug-2023 02:40:59 JST Elm Fork JBGC

   The tools and tactics used to oppress people when you have a whole hierarchical military will be different from what works for anarchists to liberate communities using the resources they have. There's a wealth of knowledge in self defense and protest tactics that has been developed by and for radicals. Hong Kong, Iran, France, the US civil rights movement... that's who we should be learning from. We already have a strong lineage of people fighting oppression and learning how to do so

   • novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️ repeated this.
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     Elm Fork JBGC (efjbgc@denton.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Aug-2023 02:41:19 JST Elm Fork JBGC

     in reply to

     The oppressive, hierarchical nature of the military is deeply embedded in the tactics themselves. Military tactics only work for their goals because you have small teams and chain of command, you can't just change the language and use it for liberation. Successful resistance has worked because it is decentralized and built around solidarity to work with massive crowds. E.g. it's common wisdom that a confrontational action or radical group shouldn't have a "leader" because this presents a target

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     GNU Too (gnu2@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Aug-2023 02:42:24 JST GNU Too

     • novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️
     @anarchopunk_girl @efjbgc all I learned from my time in the USCGR is that the government sucks.
     Elm Fork JBGC likes this.
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     Elm Fork JBGC (efjbgc@denton.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Aug-2023 02:51:56 JST Elm Fork JBGC

     in reply to

     • Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

     @wednesday ADMIN: tl;dr, I agree with you, we lost our way into gun culture, and I hope whatever takes shape next will be more focused on community defense including guns, rather than focused on being a gun club

     That said, other JBGCs are doing amazing work, especially CTJBGC, RIJBGC, and PSJBGC that we know of. They have an approach and philosophy that hasn't lost its way the way we did, so don't be put off by the name, they're true community defense

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     Elm Fork JBGC (efjbgc@denton.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Aug-2023 02:51:57 JST Elm Fork JBGC

     in reply to

     • Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

     @wednesday ADMIN: We lost our grounding in community and the history of militant leftist organizing, and became a genuine "gun club" where much of the focus was on the type of training I'm criticizing in this thread, with little thought towards whether it was actually making people safer in real situations. As a more experienced organizer and self defense instructor who initially had little knowledge of guns when I joined, I saw the issue but didn't feel I could point it out

     (Continued)

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     Elm Fork JBGC (efjbgc@denton.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Aug-2023 02:51:57 JST Elm Fork JBGC

     in reply to

     • Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

     @wednesday ADMIN: More recently I started to voice my concerns, and most of EFJBGC is in agreement with what I've said here, however we failed to actually resolve the conflict before reaching emotional burnout. As a result, most of us have left our group chats and other spaces, and we mostly decided to leave our socials and emails up for people who contact asking for advice. The majority of the artist formerly known as Elm Fork is working on something new that, I hope, will be more grounded

     novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️ repeated this.
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     Elm Fork JBGC (efjbgc@denton.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Aug-2023 02:51:58 JST Elm Fork JBGC

     in reply to

     • Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

     @wednesday At the time, that part of the name was our way of having a connection to other JBGCs doing good work and to show our belief in the idea that arming targeted people was part of breaking the state's monopoly on violence. We initially split off from the SRA, which does amazing work but can be very flawed in the ways we mentioned in this thread. As time went on, we became more and more focused on the guns, and mutual aid and community started to be neglected

     (Continued)

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     Elm Fork JBGC (efjbgc@denton.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Aug-2023 02:51:58 JST Elm Fork JBGC

     in reply to

     • Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

     @wednesday The rest of this response comes from the admin of this account as an individual, not speaking for the group: We've had a lot of conflict internally around certain things recently, but largely around this. We as a group started to put way too much stock into the ideas and training of a single person because they were ex military and used that to gain credibility and end up in a position of authority in things related to training, organizing, and self defense

     (Continued)

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     Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (wednesday@ni.hil.ist)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Aug-2023 02:51:59 JST Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

     in reply to

     @efjbgc

     i don't mean this in a critical way but just as a general question: do you think the entire concept of a ‘gun club’ reifies the attitude you're objecting to here? like... could we imagine a way to do what a gun club does without making it specifically about guns? are people already doing this?

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     Elm Fork JBGC (efjbgc@denton.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Aug-2023 02:51:59 JST Elm Fork JBGC

     in reply to

     • Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

     @wednesday No, we appreciate you pointing that out and welcome criticism. We've been talking about this a lot recently. When we started, we were very clear anong ourselves that "gun club" was just the name, but really it was about community defense. That was probably before you or almost anyone had heard of us, when we were still wearing red bandanas and doing more mutual aid, as opposed to wearing plates and carrying rifles at drag shows

     (Continued)

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     Elm Fork JBGC (efjbgc@denton.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Aug-2023 02:52:00 JST Elm Fork JBGC

     in reply to

     In short, you as a radical will never be in a situation where four-person squad tactics or room clearing or whatever are the best way to accomplish the goals of community defense and liberation. Promise. There are much more important things to spend our time learning

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     Elm Fork JBGC (efjbgc@denton.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Aug-2023 02:53:02 JST Elm Fork JBGC

     in reply to

     • SocialistStan

     @SocialistStan We can show you multiple examples of someone responding to a shooting without using small unit tactics, incl the Portland protest shooting a while back. Can you show us a single example of civilians successfully executing something like that? If you're someone who wants to know how to react to a mass shooting, know that it requires quick reactions and seeing an opportunity, not being some kind of wannabe operator. If you want to use small unit tactics, go play airsoft

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     SocialistStan (socialiststan@mymastadon.link)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Aug-2023 02:53:04 JST SocialistStan

     in reply to

     @efjbgc If you're not learning how to do small unit tactics then how do you think you're going to be able to protect a drag show? If there had been shots fired in this incident would you have even known how to react?

     https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2022/12/31/all-ages-drag-show-roanoke-texas-protest/10929001002/

     novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️ repeated this.
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     novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️ (anarchopunk_girl@kolektiva.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Aug-2023 02:56:36 JST novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     • SocialistStan

     @SocialistStan @efjbgc just because they aren't training in a specific rigid military-wannabe way doesn't mean they aren't training or that what they're doing won't work, and just because the tactics you train with are "real" because they're military doesn't mean they'll actually work for the purpose and context you're in, did you even read this thread?

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     SocialistStan (socialiststan@mymastadon.link)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Aug-2023 02:56:38 JST SocialistStan

     in reply to

     @efjbgc I've trained in small unit tactics for real, if you're going to present as a rifle squad without the training to back it up you're just fools.

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     novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️ (anarchopunk_girl@kolektiva.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Aug-2023 03:15:59 JST novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     • SocialistStan

     @SocialistStan @efjbgc lmao yeah totally. Not training in military style explicitly hierarchical (and assuming a greater hierarchy) tactics totally means you'll be completely ineffective. Maybe you should rethink your brainworms

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     SocialistStan (socialiststan@mymastadon.link)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Aug-2023 03:16:00 JST SocialistStan

     in reply to

     • novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

     @anarchopunk_girl @efjbgc They just said they refuse to train in small unit tactics because it's 'hierarchical', so when they roll out dressed and equipped like a rifle squad it's just for show. They wouldn't know how to coordinate during an actual incident.

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     novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️ (anarchopunk_girl@kolektiva.social)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Aug-2023 03:21:12 JST novatorine 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     • SocialistStan

     @SocialistStan @efjbgc they didn't say they weren't training ANY tactics for small units to work together, just not necessarily ones from the military, *which they gave specific examples of*. And they didn't say all small unit tactics were hierarchical, just ones based on how the military does things. It seems like you have it in your head that "how the US military does things" is the only way to do things.