We are the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in so called Texas. We live on stolen Tawakoni, Comanche, and Caddo land and through this lens we guide our mission of anti-colonial, abolitionist principle.
Our mission is to build a liberatory framework to promote autonomous defense of our communities from violent repression by the state, its agents, and other fascists. The brutality of capitalism and commodification of survival inherently faces all people with the choice to buy in or die and we seek to make this economic system reliant on oppression obsolete. We commit to checking ourselves and demonstrate the willingness to introspect. We commit to building a loving and comfortable culture inhospitable to abuse and neglect.
Anti-capitalism– We seek to empower the collective bargaining leverage of the working class through militant organization, as a class. Acknowledging the dilluting and capitalist influence of business unions, we seek to organize workers as a class, rather than by industry, into collectives. This includes supporting tenant unions, worker-led pickets/strikes, defending unhoused communities from sweeps, etc.
We oppose hierarchical capitalist designations of human worth based on margin of output affected by physical and mental differences. We reject the stigma and judgement of these differences and seek to build a lasting bond of dignity, empowerment, and self worth for all judged by the ownership class. Whereas liberatory movements and bureaucratic processes themselves act as stalwart obstacles to class organization, we commit to deconstruct obstacles to participation and build a pathway of inclusivity for all community members.
Community Defense– We believe in empowering communities to militantly protect each other from being deprived of their basic human needs by coercion and violence on the part of the state and those who are served by oppressive power structures. Evictions, sweeps, artificial scarcity of medication and food, domestic violence, political violence plagues our community and we are committed through action to oppose them. We do not seek to impose an ideology on others; doing so would make us no better than the authoritarians we oppose. We seek instead to build a foundation where our multiple worlds can coexist.
Abolition– from the beginnings of policing as runaway slave patrols and union busters to the modern day militarized agents of capital exchange, police have never existed as more than agents of white supremacy and the mass incarceration of the working class. As a group we are opposed to any collaboration with police. This includes applying for permits for protests, sharing Intel on fascists with police, attending events sanctioned and planned alongside police, etc.
Universal Liberation– We commit to always punching up, never punching down. We recognize that white supremacy and capitalism are intertwined and the abolition of capital and the abolition of racism are inextricably linked. We believe that while many groups of people, both ethnic and religious, are subjugated by the state worldwide, the direct and indirect acceptance of anti-Blackness permeates liberatory movements to the core, and we must work to eradicate this erasure and center the voices and work of Black liberation movements. We acknowledge that is not enough to be opposed to racism in all forms, we must be actively anti-racist by eradicating the unconscious racist in our head.
We are a feminist organization with no tolerance for misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, or egoist machismo. The erasure and subjugation of feminity is a crucial component of fascism, nationalism, and conservatism. The fight against fascism and the feminist struggle are intertwined and all members are expected to commit to promoting a welcoming and inclusive space for femme members.
Egalitarian– We are committed to the working equitably both internally and externally insofar as rejecting hierarchy in any form so that all work may have the most effective focus from all contributors.
Solidarity– For the foundations of these structures to survive, we must build bridges of trust with the community and collaborate rather than compete. We are only one part of the solution, to that end we must support existing programs aligning with our points of unity rather than fracture resources and decrease efficiency.
Direct Action– We reject the masquerade of representation of electoral politics and instead will fight to defend our communities directly ourselves and with the solidarity of our allies. We recognize that electoral politics is a tool of the ownership class to pivot militancy to false representation and will not allow elected representatives of the state within our organization to prevent altering trajectory from liberatory practices.