What is Community Defense, in my definition? It is a holistic and militant movement for the total defense of working class people, from hunger, toil or violence, whatever it is. It is the highly organized and regimented cousin of Mutual Aid, and they overlap.

A CDer fills in the miserable gaps that a Mutual Aid scenario might miss. Things that require an extraordinary level of organization, commitment, team work or are just so shitty nobody will volunteer. But it doesn't stop there.

A CDer always creates opportunities opportunities make themselves unnecessary. Community Defenders share their skills and abilities relentlessly, broadening the communitts ability to triage its own problems.

A CDer leaves a space better prepared than they found it.

A Community Defender might organize a soup kitchen during the week and train as a sharpshooter on the weekends.

They stay useful and helpful to the cause but during a moment of crisis they are prepared to come together in ad hoc or organized networks to respond.

Whether it's a flood or mass violence, the Community Defender is a trained and organized, reliable member of the community who can provide immediate labor and access to wider networks of logistics and organized communications.

In my definition, a Community Defender can exist in totally horizontal moments of immediate response but can also create the structure for a lasting, stay-behind effort to see programs through after popular action subsides.

After say, a flood, a Community Defender can be immediately useful transporting people or goods in the short term, transitioning to a skills trainer in the medium term and leading a reconstruction effort in the long term.

A CDer should know firearms and weapons, tactics as well as combat medicine and communication. They should be prepared and trained to do those things but that is not what Community Defense is.

Most of us will never fire our weapons with malice.

The enemies most present in our daily lives are hunger, exhaustion, a lack of things. We need more time in the day, we need more active support.

A Community Defender treats an empty belly, a broken limb or a violent attacker with the same level of militant commitment.