Rev Left Radio - Socialist Rifle Association: Firearms Education, Mutual Aid, & Disaster Relief

Episode Date: October 1, 2018

Breht O'Shea and Dr. Bones (Breht's co-host on The Guillotine) interview Faye and Alex from the Socialist Rifle Association (SRA). Learn more about, support, *and JOIN*, the Socialist Rifle Association here: https://www.socialistra.org/ Learn about and support Mutual Aid Disaster Relief here: https://mutualaiddisasterrelief.org/ Intro Music by Captain Planet. Listen to, and support, his music here: https://djcaptainplanet.bandcamp.com/ Outro Music by Ramshackle Glory, find and support their music here: https://ramshackleglory.bandcamp.com/ Get access to the video version of every episode as well as our new monthly bonus episode by supporting us and donating to our Patreon: Patreon.com/TheGuillotine Support the show (at whatever tier you prefer) at: Patreon.com/RevLeftRadio Make a one time donation to our PayPal at: PayPal.me/RevLeft  

Hello everyone and welcome to a guillotine slash revolutionary left radio crossover, strange, new, unique episode. So the idea behind this episode was that Dr. Bones and I were going to interview the Socialist Rifle Association for our Patreon account. We're doing a new thing on our guillotine, Patreon, where we're offering a monthly bonus episode. But this is the first one we're ever doing, so instead of just keeping it behind the paywall, especially given the fact that we want to get the word about the Socialist Rifle Association out to more people, we decided to release this publicly, both on guillotine and Rev Leff's public feed, as well as our Patreon feeds. Ideally, we would like folks who already support the guillotine or want to support the guillotine at a higher tier to see that this is the sort of stuff we're going to begin offering on a monthly basis.

But even just outside of that, I just wanted this interview. view to get out to as many people as possible because it's something that I care a lot about. It's topical. It's important. We talk about the organizational dynamics of being able to defend your projects and your communities with firearms, if necessary, going forward. So yeah, we're releasing it to everybody. But again, this is the sort of stuff that you'll get if you are a Patreon supporter of our sister podcast, the guillotine, which you can go to find support, et cetera, at Patreon.

patreon.com forward slash the guillotine. Now, I know the big thing on everybody's mind is that the guillotine recently made it onto Infowars. Alex Jones did an entire segment about the guillotine and Dr. Bones's Twitter page on InfoWars, and he was all up in arms about it. Black helicopters, you know how the whole schick goes. So I'm not going to say anything really about it right now. I think that's best left to Bones and I dissecting it and how.

having a lot of fun with it on the next episode of the guillotine. So I'm just acknowledging that, yes, that did occur. And absolutely, yes, we will cover it on the guillotine on our next episode. So if you want to hear about that, including the full clip as well as Bones and I's reaction to it, check out the next episode of the guillotine. But yeah, I've said enough. Let's get to this wonderful interview with the Socialist Rifle Association, interviewed by me and Dr. Bones back and forth.

It's a great one. Here it is. Ladies, gentlemen, non-binary folks and comrades of all stripes, it is time for a little extra of that oh so dangerous material you crave, which, by the way, has been officially endorsed by far left watch with numerous other conservative media outlets. Yes, folks, we are giving you racist uncle nightmares that you can be assured of. So, this is the first episode of some wonderful bonus material that we'll be having for our wonderful supporters that make this show possible. The goal of this bonus material is to give you detailed physical advice on basically how you can bring your radicalism into the world. And today, we are joined by two comrades that have done amazing work. we're going to call them

Faye and Alex Faye Alex how you doing Hi it gets me on your show Very excellent Except for the sinuses Except for the sinuses Now I'm no doc Well I am a doctor

But I'm pretty sure And I think Neil degrass Tyson said this the other day Actually That sinuses were actually Caused by too much phlegm In the humor system So you probably want to go

Get an Exorcist or something like that I know to clear you it right out I don't think he said that. Good mainstream science right there. So, you two comrades are members of the Socialist Rifle Association. Today, we're going to be, Brett and I are going to be asking some questions in relation to that organization and your work with it. Brett, since I've basically hogs a little bit of the space here, you want to open up with the first question? Sure.

Well, before we get in, Fay and Alex, would you like to say a little bit about maybe yourselves and how you got into the SRA, etc? what an egoist I am DC I can't stop thinking about myself here that's all right bones I got you sure thing so my name is Faye I'm on the central committee of the socialist rifle association I'm a queer trans libertarian communist and I have a lot of the back end administration you know I really got in sort of at the ground floor of our formal organization shortly after Charlottesville which was what really shocked me to realize and that we need to take actual material action in our communities and that we can't just keep being extremely online.

So I've been with the org for almost a year at this point. And I'm Alex. I'm also on the central committee of the SRA. I got involved probably in March and really latched on to the organization really quick that I was looking into different gun organizations I could join. And it was actually when I was research,

searching the NRA and their various nasty politics that the Socialist Rifle Association came up in the recommendations. So even at that stage, it was getting in the search results. Now, I am involved in the leadership. I'm involved in organizing the Wichita chapter here in Kansas. I do a podcast for the community for the SRA. And I'm not sure what my official role is besides person with some vagabwe. out of power but perfect we haven't kicked you out yet well you know bones and I on the guillotine have really seen the rise of the socialist rifle association as well as some other you know similar

sorts of groups and we've definitely been you know encouraging of these organizations we think they're incredibly important given the times we live in before we get into the questions though because we're going to be talking about some of the disaster relief work that that you've done recently so before we get into the questions for people that might not know what went down recently can one of you kind of give some background on what happened regarding the natural disaster and what the sra's response was the response to hurricane florence uh this was something that just kind of developed organically um i i know from the onset of the wichita chapter i had always given our location here in tornado alley and the severity of strikes that can happen here i'd always kind of

really wanted to emphasize at least at the chapter level of doing disaster relief stuff of getting training in that area but opportunities never really arose the wichita chapter's been kind of slow to take off but when hurricane florence was reported and we saw what could happen from it the central committee and some other members of the community kind of just organically came together and said hey we should do something about this different proposals were thrown out we ended up settling on starting a go fund me to raise donations from the membership and from the public at large to get supplies to do whatever we could. There were different plans in the beginning of,

are we going to go deep into the affected areas? Are we going to be getting a boat? Are we going to be chainsawing people out of their homes? We ended up not getting quite as actiony as that, but we still ended up raising $1,200 that was spent on a lot of supplies at Costco. Fantastic bulk services. remember no ethical consumption under capitalism that's right so we welded up the truck

we had great support from our north Georgia chapter two of the members from our north Georgia chapter blended their time and their services and won their trucks to this cause we drove up into South Carolina we stocked up two shelters that were needing food and then we ran away

right before the hurricane hit I don't know if the committee process was quite as formal as that I sort of jumped the gun, setting up the go-fundly and calling out for volunteers, but you know, just that Monday before the storm, seeing the news, seeing weather channel reports that, you know, for a while it looked like the storm was going to go out to sea, but they confirmed that night that it was going to hit the Carolinas. And that's when I knew that we had the ability to do something to help these people in these harsh conditions. And I thought that

we were obligated to help. So, you know, I put out the call for action, set up the go-fund me and started fundraising. And thankfully, the rest of the leadership wasn't too mad at me for skipping the bureaucracy. But we got everything set up really quickly. And I'm really proud of Alex and the North Georgia chapter for getting out there on the ground and helping out people in need. Absolutely. I think one of the most impressive things was just how fast, how quickly the SRA was able to respond. And, you know, when these hurricanes are developing, as you were alluding to, you're not quite sure if they're going to hit land,

if they're going to take a turnout to the sea. You don't know exactly how big they're going to be until they're really close to land, et cetera. So being able to raise the funds and have that level of organization just go into action at such short notice was, you know, one of the things that caught our eyes. And I think something that is incredibly impressive, and we hope that other organizations around the country

kind of take that task and that idea of having the structures ready to go when something, when the shit hits the fan, basically. But I guess kind of getting into the first question, and I'll start this off, and then me and bones will kind of ask questions back and forth. But I guess what compelled an ostensibly gun education organization like the SRA to pick up the task of disaster relief? And how do you view the intersection of gun education

and other forms of radical organizing broadly? I see it really as, I see disaster relief as a core component of community defense. And that's really sort of the philosophical standpoint from which we approach gun ownership. You know, we're not really into the whole, you know, egoistic, ultra, you know, defend yourself, defend your life at all costs. It's really about defending your community, particularly if you're in a vulnerable community, working class, working poor, or a minority. We know that the state, as Bones likes to put it, doesn't give a fuck about you. and so it's up to us to band together and defend for ourselves in these situations and so you know having a gun and gun training and everything is great and that's what we organize around

but i really view disaster relief as an extension of that mission of helping people to be more resilient in their communities without needing to rely on the state yeah i think that the building off of what fay said that we we exist as a a gun education organization, but at the same time, I feel like I've always been the big believer in firearms the most expedient way to defend yourself, and that's why we're a gun organization. But even in our foundational statement, we're for the self-defense and community defense of the working class. And I think people, when they see self-defense and community defense, of course, your mind goes to defending yourself against people trying to take advantage of you.

it goes to defending yourself against foreign oppressors. But at the same time, community defense, I feel like it's such a broad thing that we can do so much more than something, an organization like the NRA, which is just going to be dedicated towards Herp Herp, we have to get, we have to make sure you have your guns, but only the guns for the people we like. Community defense is so much more than just having a neighborhood patrol, keeping your community safe. that's keeping your community safe means having food for your community it means having

structures in place that what what is a good defense if you don't have supplies and defending against anything and everything we think we jump to human on human conflict but this is a man versus nature conflict as the literature professors might say that you have to be able to defend yourself against everything and hurricanes are no different you need you need supplies to be able to handle that. Yeah, and I think everybody kind of realize or should recognize the absolute absence of an organization like the NRA, who, you know, when these things hit, are nowhere to be seen while the SRA picks up the burden and goes to work. I mean, and, you know, community self-defense, there's a long line going all the way back to, you know, the seminals and beyond, but even more recently, the Black

Panther parties who took up the work of community self-defense in the face of brutal police, oppression and violence and murder. So it's a long leftist tradition and you folks are certainly carrying it forward. Bones, you want to go ahead and start with question number two? Oh, yeah, although I'm just going to say, Brett, I mean, I'm sure the NRA was very busy during the hurricane soliciting money from their membership to, you know,

keep their gigantic, monolithic money pit of an organization going. The NRA, you know, continually begs for money all the fucking time. And as we've seen, literally does jack shit with it. The NRA begs for money so that they can send out more flyers and mailers begging me for more money. Yeah, it's always, and, you know, they got their own fucking wannabe TV channel, but, you know, they always make it sound like they're like two dudes in a cardboard box, like barely holding this fucking thing together. But I wanted to ask, specifically, let's say someone's listening to this broadcast,

you know, they may not be a member of the SRA, but they're really, really inspired by this kind of work. how difficult was it getting those supplies into that area and say a listener hears this in a storm or disaster hits them what are some of the first steps they can take to really start getting things together and forming an immediate response so i'd say as far as if somebody's listening and disaster strikes tomorrow whatever disaster it may be there's a few important things so i'll address the the getting surprise there first i'm not going to try to make it out to be some Herkulean effort. We mostly just drove on the highway is the answer to that. We drove down the highway. We were in South Carolina. We were there before the hurricane hit. We drove away right as the hurricane was heading just outside of Charleston, I believe. So the getting supplies to those shelters were because we did kind of plan it in advance. Though, I mean, her forecast was changing every day, so plans had to stay fluid. where we're even playing on supplying Atlanta because the initial projections said that it might hit Atlanta.

As far as the logistics of getting there, if you can get it before the storm, that's always best to always be able to bunker down before the storm. Always be able to have your supplies before the storm. The problem is for working class individuals who don't have the money to go out to Costco and buy $1,000 of food to stock up on and water, things that you can do as a working class individual, if the storm is imminent or the storm has arrived, of course, always prepare in advance. Prevention is the best cure. Even if you can't afford bottled water, find some kind of vessel, be it old milk jugs, wash out old milk jugs and put some tap water in there. I don't drink tap, but in an emergency situation, I'll drink tap water to keep myself alive but don't do it after the storm has arrived because the storm surge will

pollute the water and that won't be good for you as far as food the stockpiling those basic rations cheap things like peanut butter a six kit a six dollar jar of peanut butter will last you a long time it's it's not going to be very fun but it'll help you keep by it's a good source of protein things like that real basic cheap staples preferably things that don't require cooking or otherwise can be steeped in water so that they can soften up and be easier to eat, things of that nature. For a working class individual, unfortunately, we don't have a lot of these opportunities that richer individuals have, that they can flee, that they can go to a hotel somewhere, that they can get luxurious experience.

Well, everyone else is hunkering down in their house, waking things out. But just basic things like bottling water in any way possible and getting those basic supplies I would say is the most important thing in any disaster situation. I would add on to that to say that if you are staying behind in a hurricane area, if you can't afford to leave, walk around your neighborhood, talk to your neighbors, see who else is staying, see if there's anyone else in a more vulnerable position, someone who doesn't have supplies or can't afford them, someone who's elderly, who's been left behind people who've left their pets. You know, see what you can do to help other people in your community who may not be as well prepared

or people who might not be able to get prepared. So, you know, maybe even invite people into your home if you have the room and if you have the means, you know, it's, that's really sort of the core of like community solidarity. You know, living in a suburb or an apartment complex, it's extremely alienating. It's isolating. People today don't talk to their neighbors. We need to overcome that. Talk to your neighbors, especially in an imminent disaster situation.

You know, find out who they are and what they need from you, what you can do to make them more resilient through these disasters. Definitely. Yeah, and I just wanted to say really quick, just kind of thinking about all of this, especially when you have organizations in coastal regions that have been known to, you know, be hit by hurricanes. Planning ahead, like knowing these hurricanes will be an annual event and will get only worse with time because of climate change. Regardless of what you're organizing is structured around, to always have that in the background. The SRA is a gun education organization, but when the hurricane was coming, they went ahead and took their resources and their structure and put it towards disaster relief. And I think any organization, regardless of what your main focus is, should have this on the background. And then on the West Coast where maybe hurricanes don't really occur like they do on the East Coast.

There's also the problems of earthquakes. I mean, the San Andreas fault goes right down the coastline, and it's only a matter of time before something bad. happens on that front. So any area, depending on where you live, has unique and natural disaster threats that organizations on the left should take seriously and sort of prepare in advance if possible for. Absolutely. Bones, do you have anything, or do you want me to go ahead and move on? Well, I've got a couple more questions, but we're doing that back and forth thing, right? Yeah, yeah. Have that it there, calling boy. Don't ever call me that?

You better leave that in there. Edit that out. David, edit that out. all right um go i gotta take a piss again please don't please don't all right moving on to the next question and kind of broadening out to gun culture and gun education broadly you know gun shows and shooting ranges

are often bastions of reaction and as such they can be extremely intimidating to leftists especially those without a lot of skills who just kind of want to learn in a safe and nurturing environment how have you all navigated this reality and what advice do you have for those who want to get involved but are worried about this very issue.

It's sort of a tricky problem because so much of the infrastructure of the gun community is in the hands of these reactionary people. There was a situation just recently, I believe it was the Missouri chapter of John Brown Gun Club. They went to a gun range in a very large party, you know, dozens of people. They went out and they shot and they had a good time. And after they left, the proprietor of the range posted on their Facebook talking about how all these evil Antifa people showed up to my range under false preteacher. and, oh, I called the FBI on them and, oh, they're terrorists in training, you know,

really just the most absurd right-wing paranoia towards leftists. This was a big stir in the online, you know, left gun-owning community in general. It really comes down to we can, you can do a bit, you can try to be covert and not display your political beliefs. You can try to find non-political ranges. That's a project I'm trying to do here in L.A., find out which ranges are explicitly owned by right-wingers and which ranges are, and gun stores, which ones are more politically neutral. But in the long run, I think the left is going to have to build its own, it's going

to have to build its own gun capital. We're going to have left-wing gun stores and left-wing ranges and left-wing gun clubs and organizations like SRA and like John Brown Gun Club. This is something that we're going to have to build for ourselves because, you know, we can fly under the radar for a while, but in the long run, I'm not sure that we are really going to be welcome throughout the existing gun culture. Absolutely. So just a quick point of clarity, that was the New Orleans John Brown Club. I just went up.

Oh, sorry, my God. It's okay. Just putting that out there, New Orleans. But I think as far as individuals going to gun stores and being concerned about people not liking their political leanings, I can completely understand that. And especially here in Kansas, I mean, obviously the climate here is already not favorable in a lot of ways for this sort of thing. And especially at gun stores, you tend to have this very hardcore right-wing pro-police situation set up. At the same time, I would always encourage people to go to public ranges, one, because they're usually free.

And two, because people are less likely to give you trouble. Usually it's just some board attendant that's keeping watch over things. I think it's also damaging, though, to do this in secrecy. And I say this not to shame anyone. I don't want to put that across that if you don't feel comfortable with people knowing your political beliefs, don't put that out there. That is your right to keep your views to yourself. And there's a lot of reasons to do that.

At the same time, I do feel like by doing that, it becomes a sense. self-fulfilling prophecy of there's no leftists at the gun store. So why would there ever be a change in the discourse for that? I think by having groups like the SRA becoming more popular, people recognizing the name by putting that in the social consciousness, much like how socialist used to be a dirty word in the U.S. and in some ways still is. But at the same time, a lot of people don't react the same way they would have 10, 20, 30 years ago upon hearing that you're a socialist. A lot of people now are like, oh, that's one of those new things. It's a lot, it's been, it's being de-thained in the popular consciousness.

And the part of that is people like Bernie Sanders, who is definitely no socialist, he is a social democrat, but by him, by him dressing himself in that terminology, has put it in the popular consciousness and now people are more willing to listen to what used to be this radical fringe unpopular belief and i feel like the same culture change needs to happen in gun culture absolutely well and speaking of gun culture you know a lot of uh listeners to the show they're definitely interested in arming themselves a lot of people have expressed the fact that you know simply put they just don't know where to start they don't know really where to begin so if i can ask both of you, what firearm do you recommend, or what kind of firearm maybe, or somebody who

probably has, you know, very little experience and maybe has a pretty small budget? What should people who may be unfamiliar with firearms at all look into getting for their first sort of foray into this? In my opinion, the best firearm for someone who's new to shooting, who doesn't have a lot of experience, by far the best gun you can own, is a 22-caliper rifle or pistol. You know, something like the Ruger 1022 that's easy to shoot, that's, you know, depending on your state, you can get reasonable size magazines for it. It's not the most powerful gun. It's not, you know, a tactical AR-15 sort of thing. But if you're just starting out and you don't have a whole lot of money and you don't have any imminent threats that you're defending against, but you want to get into guns, then I would recommend a 22-caliber rifle or possibly a pistol.

However, if you are on a budget, sometimes you need a gun that you can use to learn with that also has a practical application for defense. In that case, a shotgun or a full-sized 9-millimeter pistol, you know, something with some mass to it to mitigate some of the recoil. So something like a full-sized Glock or Smith & Wesson 9-millimeter pistol or something else like that, that can be had in a $400 or a shotgun in the $200 to $400 range. I think that those would be good choices as well I would recommend I second that recommendation of a 10 by 22 Ruger I used to be of the mind that shotguns were a good first gun because they're just so simple

and shotguns are just especially like a pump action shotgun the mechanics of it are exceptionally simple you can look at all the parts you can know all the parts you can figure out all the parts really easy as to how it works at the same time I feel like shotguns also sometimes put people off of firearms because even just a little 12 gauge is going to give you a good

recoil. That's true. Make a lot of noise. Yeah, we'll make a lot of noise. If you don't do it right, and I've seen people do it, thankfully not in any range days I've conducted, but I've seen people at the range who are new who get a shotgun in their shoulder and they don't pocket it correctly.

It throws their shoulder out of whack. It's a bad first experience. especially for somebody who's never done this before. I would say, and that includes pistols too, that a 22 pistol is going, obviously, have a lot less recoil than a 9mm or anything higher, but even pistols, if you don't have good stance, and even this is something I did when I started shooting pistols,

when I did offhand shooting, I broke my thumb open because I had my thumb behind the rail. And that's something really easy for somebody who's never done it before, and it sliced me good. So I would recommend a 20, 22 rifle. 22 is cheap to do. I buy literally a bucket of bullets off the internet. It ships to me in a bucket and it's just filled with 22s. And it's great. It's cheap. It's easy to shoot. It's 10ies, a shot, less than that even. I personally, I would say a 10 by 22 is good. You can get it bold action. That's a simpler gun. I personally am a big advocate of the Mossburg 47. It's a knockoff AK that's in a 22. That gun has never let me down. I've abused it.

I haven't cleaned it as much as I should. It's never failed to fire a shot for reasons of the gun. Sometimes I get bad bullets, but the gun has never failed me. I got it for $250 on mine, and it's just a reliable gun. Plus, it looks like an AK, so that's always great. Yeah, absolutely. Now, I got to ask, because I have a comrade who swears by this ugly brick thing, and I had someone

when I was talking to them about the SRA and introduction of firearms they brought up because they were like oh isn't there like this really ugly cheap pistol so what is your official stance on the shooting brick known as the high point is that

is that something that people should you know maybe if they're like look I ain't got a lot of money and I want like some kind of pistol here because I don't know what the going rate is right now but I think someone mentioned that it might have been at least like a little under 200 again I'm not really familiar

know you're with them other than my friend's gigantic one that he brings out and it's pretty ugly and massive. Is that something you would recommend or should people kind of stay away from High Point? Well, a High Point is a functional firearm. It works. It's not high quality. It's not the most reliable gun. But if you only have $100 or $150 and you need a pistol right now, you could do worse. Yeah, you could get one of those cobras, right? Yeah, yeah. Don't get a cobra. Don't ever get a cobra, folks. Stay away from those. But a high-point pistol, they're ugly, they're heavy, they're chunky, but that also has benefits.

The weight really helps reduce the recoil of a 9mm cartridge. Having a big heavy brick in your hand, it just absorbs all that recoil energy. You know, it's, I think they're technically a blowback design. so there aren't a whole lot of complicated moving parts in there so it's a very simple gun which is what allows it to be kind of reliable despite being crap quality it works it works

you can always beat someone to death with it it's that heavy though I will say for the love of God just be aware that in the United States a lot of forensics they actually all go to high point manufacturing plants to learn about the firearms forensics and stuff like that So please, God, just be aware of that people. One of the big things about our show that I think sets us apart from a lot of people is that we really go and try to bring leftism into the heart zone.

We want people to feel these things. So what did it feel like on a very personal, emotional level to bring those supplies to those people? What was it like? What did it feel like? how do you feel about yourself now that you've pulled this operation off you know that's a difficult question for me because i'm as far as my role in it i was on the ground as they're in the supply train and it's difficult because i'm the sort of guy that i get emotional over some things and then other things it just doesn't hit me very much and like i think

what's hit me more is of course in the moment it was kind of just almost kind of zone out and you just do your thing and get get the situation done afterwards you know it I think it also didn't help that I had an accident going back home so like a lot of my memories of it are now filled with me slamming into a side rail on the side of the hills so that's kind of just taking up that brain space but I will say that like the emotional reaction after the fact of hearing people talk about this. I get a literally defeatist on myself sometimes and I can think, well, we could have done so much more, we could have bought so much more, we could have delivered so much more. But then seeing at the same time, no, we helped people, people see that we helped people, people see the results that this had. We had great moments like when we went to that Red Cross shelter and the Red Cross leader there, whoever wasn't charged that shelter was like oh who are you again and we had to explain the we're communists moments like that i feel i feel really good about i feel really good about that it's like we helped

people and at the same time we showed people who was helping them we made no secret of who we were we weren't like oh we're just we're just coming in we're just dropping our stuff and leaving we may know secret of who was helping and i uh not to be like, oh, these are your saviors, but more so that, hey, we exist. People are out there that help you. And I think that in our society, that the biggest emotional reaction for me has been seeing how well people responded to that, but how well people respond to other people coming and help them.

Because so often in society, we shun that we have this individualistic mindset, and so often we can get angry at these things. well and but it wasn't we had overwhelmingly positive reaction that we helped people and now those people know that there are others out there that do care about them that just because they're in some random town in south carolina doesn't mean that nobody's going to help them absolutely awesome yeah so i was um like i said i was sort of on the back end doing the fundraising so i wasn't on the ground and I didn't have that sort of experience. But I really feel with Alex with the idea that, you know, there's always there's always the

feeling that we could have done more. If we could have raised another thousand dollars, if we could have gotten another truck out there, if we could have gotten a boat and maybe gone into some of the areas that were more directly impacted, there's always the drive to do more, to help more people. And I hope in the future that we can build towards that. But I really do think it's important for socialists and anarchists and leftists of all stripes to get out and do solidarity actions in the world, whether it's disaster relief or whether it's distributing Narcan in opiate affected areas, whether it's doing a potluck and feeding the homeless,

whatever it is. Getting out there and helping people are in need and identifying yourself as socialists is so important. That's what builds. That's what builds the left. That's what brings people to our cause, seeing that there's an alternative to this mindless, individualist, selfish, capitalist system that we live in, that, yes, people can help each other out of the goodness of their hearts and out of their desire to help others. I think that's really the core of what we tried to do here to show people that we're communists and we're here to help you. Yeah. Well, I just wanted to say, like, as far as thinking, you know, we could have done so much more, et cetera. I mean, that is kind of a natural feeling, especially for people who, like you all, that give a fuck

about other people and want to help as many people as possible, you're always going to ask yourself, what can we do more? But I kind of see it in this broader sort of rebirth of American leftism, where we're all sort of trying to figure out ways forward. And in a moment like this, even with its limitations, is a breakthrough for the left in this country. I mean, yes, it's happened before. But I think more and more people are funneling in, more and more people are paying attention. More and more people have an understanding of what climate change means for communities on these coastal lines. And so this was one of these first attempts. Like look what we were able to do on such short notice. Imagine what we can do if we actually plan for this long term. If more organizations get

involved, there's coalitions of organizations with different focuses that can come together in times of disasters to put all of our resources together and help even more people in the future. So as far as like progress for the left, I think this is a really beautiful defining. moment. And so for that alone, I think, you know, you should be really proud of yourselves. We're certainly proud of you. Thank you. Definitely, 100%. But I also want to give a shout out to disaster relief mutual aid up in North Carolina and the efforts that they did. We actually donated the leftover money from our fundraiser towards Appalachian Medical Solidarity, which was a part of that coalition.

I just wanted to mention them again and the amazing work that they did with the actually airlifting supplies into these isolated, flooded communities. That is really incredible. And I think in the future, we might try to put some of our SRA chapters in touch with those organizations and see if we can combine our efforts into a larger effort. Yes, absolutely. All right. Well, just as sort of a way to end it, how can listeners start a new chapter in their area if they're interested in that? And then more broadly, where can folks find more information about the Socialist Rifle Association online? Yes, so starting a new chapter. I had experience with this doing it in Wichita, getting started about at the genesis of this organization's legal existence.

And if you're looking to start a chapter, first, we've got a lot of people at the national level that can help you. We've got Georgia Marxist, one of our North Georgia chapter guys. he is a very valuable resource he's actually in charge of keeping chapters going helping chapters wherever he can he's he's a very good resource for that to talk to as far as getting people involved getting people interested unfortunately that's one of the things of organizing that you got to go out and talk to people and that's the biggest thing that you know i i had a twitter account from day one for the chapter and I ended up

that Twitter account never got me anything as far as people who show up to meetings good to have it for memes and to post updates or whatever but your social media isn't going to get people to sit down and talk to each other. It's gone go out, it's talking to people

it's organizing within the national organization finding out people who are already members who maybe aren't in a position where they can do that and getting the logistics worked out for them to be able to come out and help? So if you want to start a chapter of the Socialist Rifle Association, first thing to do is to go to socialist r.org. That's our website.

And you can sign up through our membership page. It's an annual due of $25 a year. We try to keep it as low as possible to reduce the financial burden on people who, you know, maybe aren't in a great situation. So you can join up through our website. It'll get to a membership card and access to internal chats, both a national chat for general conversation and organizing, as well as encrypted regional chats,

which are pseudonymous, and it's meant for people to get to know other members in their area, get to know each other, bet each other, meet up in real life, talk about what they want to do. Once you do meet together, you know, and maybe he's set up a range day, at that point, It's just a matter of going out, talking to other leftists in your area and organizing. Definitely.

And before we wrap up, I just want to reiterate the shout out to Georgia Marxist, a friend of the show, one of the people instrumental in putting together this interview. Another shout out to Mutual Aid Disaster Relief, who did amazing work on this front as well. And I just want to sort of re-emphasize the idea that, you know, social media for, you know, all of its proclaimed wonders is really incredibly limited when it comes to any sort of organizing, as Alex alluded to before. So, you know, really got to think about going out, meeting your neighbors. Face-to-face, you know, interactions are always better than anything you can ever do on online.

Online is extremely limited, and that should be, you know, something that everybody sort of internalizes. Bones, do you have any last words? And after that, you just want to go ahead and take us out, brother? Yeah. Well, again, you know, y'all are doing some amazing work. I'm super excited to see this organization rise up. And again, one of the things that I find really unique about it, And I think one of the things that's super special about it is the focus on actual groundwork in education rather than, you know, straight up, bang out, you know, we're going to do this, this, you know, aggressive action or whatever.

It's about basically bringing the knowledge and the education back into the hands of the people where it should have been a long, long time ago. But, you know, during the 60s, the whole, you know, leftism kind of took a big shit when it came on the fence. But that's neither here nor there, I guess. Thanks a lot. Oh, you hippies. But really, I guess the last word should be turned over to them. Is there any kind of last sort of thrilling statement you'd like to make to the folks, something to really get them right in the heart?

I mean, that one thing you guys churned out about the hurricane relief, that one quote about how, you know, you came to the people as socialists. I mean, that was fucking, that was fire, straight fire. Beautiful. Any last words are really yours. I'll reiterate every time somebody compliments me for that quote I just I feel myself sinking a little bit further into my chair as I grapple with the fact that the we're out there doing stuff and people take notice of it but I would say as a thrilling end statement I guess I'll show myself a little bit I have a podcast where being Faye a lot of the time phase my unofficial co-host we we talk about lefty news we we try to keep keep it gun oriented for most of the show, talking about guns from a leftist perspective that you don't really see as much, and we do that for the community. I would also say, if you get

involved, I mean, that's the biggest thing. You have to get involved, regardless of what you do, people who sit at home and do nothing, and this isn't to say, we are all judged by what we can do. And so if you can't do it, then there is no judgment for that. If you are not able-bodied, If you are not in the capacity to be able to do this stuff, then there is no judgment for that. But if you have the capacity, if you have the will, if you have the resources to be able to help, get involved in some way. If guns aren't your thing, go to your local DSA. The DSA gets a lot of flack online from the leftists who just want to be negative about everything. But I've had great experiences with my DSA.

Get involved there. They have tons of resources. get involved with the IWW. Organize your workplace, if you can. Be smart about it, but these things start from the bottom up. There is no, I feel that people expect

a savior or a Messiah to come down and save them. And it's exactly what Eugene Deb said, that I am no Moses, you have to lead yourself out of this desert, and people have to take that initiative. Incredibly well said. Thank you so much

Faye and Alex for coming on. We really appreciate you guys taking the time to come out here and get the word out about the SRA and all these wonderful ideas. You have two comrades here at the guillotine forever, and we really appreciate your work. Keep up the great work, and we'll be keeping an eye on the Socialist Rifle Association going forward and doing anything we can to get the word out and help spread. That's sort of organizing because, you know, we think it's absolutely essential. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having us on. Absolutely. Solidarity. Thank you very much. Solidarity. Love and solidarity.

Dahlia never showed me nothing to kindness. She would say I know how sad you get. And some days I still get that way. But it gets better. It gets better. Sweetie, it gets better, I promise you. And she tell me, she tell me. heart is a muscle, the saucy of your fix, keep on loving, keep on fighting, and hold on, and hold on,

hold on, hold on for your life. In plus a cabin in the ones to live in, for years terrifying, noise is kept in my bed night, with a 12-day, dunderless pillow, swimming in Boston, Now going to art school I'm forgiven, I'm forgiven Hell I'll admit it I'm proud of him So he's an architect and a carpenter She's such a feminist

She says she isn't one Because goddamn a gender shouldn't matter Motorcycle blinds through the streets of Providence Down to the warehouse district The paid job is a stunning ad They're now a stupid, evil building techniques. Your heart is a muscle, size of your face. Keep on loving, keep on fighting.

And hold on, and hold on. Hold on for your life. This one goes out to Jordanios, you know, it's gotta dance, but he's beautiful, fuck anyone insists otherwise. It's God I love you when you make me glad to be alive. to be alive, I promise that I'm gonna pick you back. You always know how funny everything is, even when I'm so serious,

that's gonna be the death of me, like a time that our friend Chuck came over to our house. He said he needed somebody to take care of his bets, because he was going out of town. I asked him where, and he said, New Mexico. I asked if I could get a ride. He said, no, you don't want to follow me. Where is I'm going?

You backed out of the driveway. It was the last time we saw him. Because he drove straight to his parents' cabin and put a bullet in his head. Your heart is a muscle the size of your fist. Keep on loving, keep on fighting. And hold on, and hold on. Hold on for your life.

For your life. Your heart is some muscle, size of your fist, keep on looking, keep on fighting, and hold on, and hold on, hold on your life. You know what I'm going to be.