Speaker 1: If I know one thing about diseases, it's that their
Speaker 1: home bodies. No, it's fine, we make it. They just
Speaker 1: want to netflix and chill. You just line up the
Speaker 1: entire population of the US in a line across the
Speaker 1: US and we shoot any deer that tries across the line.
Speaker 1: I think we should do the reverse and have deer
Speaker 1: shoot people who tried across the line. It's the only
Speaker 1: thing that can protect us from the dangerous east. No, No,
Speaker 1: that look, look, well, I guess it works in east
Speaker 1: and in the west. We have to maintain the right
Speaker 1: to arm bears. Yeah, I'm I'm of the opinion, given
Speaker 1: how dry it is in New Mexico, that we need
Speaker 1: to sink every part of the country east of New
Speaker 1: Mexico to give it a coast that can that can
Speaker 1: keep it moist. I wonder how much of this is
Speaker 1: going to get in the final cut. Well, if you
Speaker 1: live east of New Mexico, welcome to the ocean. That's
Speaker 1: my suggestion. Um, speaking of people east of New Mexico,
Speaker 1: this is it could happen here a podcast where some
Speaker 1: of the listeners are east of New Mexico. Even though
Speaker 1: I don't recommend that. Um, I'm Robert Evans on on
Speaker 1: the call with me is Christopher Wong, Garrison Davis, Sharene,
Speaker 1: Lnnie Units, and then our producers Sophie. Today we're talking
Speaker 1: about terrorism. Yeah, we can do it in a little
Speaker 1: NPR voice. So uh recently, the same week as the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court leaked a document stating that they would be
Speaker 1: taking out Roe v. Wade and ushering in an era
Speaker 1: of theocratic fascism in a number of states. UH, an
Speaker 1: individual or individuals unknown in Wisconsin attacked an anti choice
Speaker 1: headquarters building with a Molotov cocktail and spray painted graffiti
Speaker 1: on the side saying if abortion isn't safe, then you aren't.
Speaker 1: Either that same group or individuals claiming to be from them,
Speaker 1: UH later reached out to me through an intermediary and
Speaker 1: sent a manifesto of sorts about the attack, promising follow
Speaker 1: up attacks within thirty days. But they wrote, but they
Speaker 1: wrote in cursive, so who can say, who can say
Speaker 1: if this actually happened. So we'll talk first. I want
Speaker 1: to just go over first what what happened in like
Speaker 1: factual terms, and then we'll talk about the discourse around it.
Speaker 1: So basically, there's this attack on this um anti choice
Speaker 1: like advocacy organizations, headquarters and fucking Wisconsin. UM. It was
Speaker 1: seemed to be a pretty good molotov and that, like Garrison,
Speaker 1: you and I have watched a number of people failed
Speaker 1: to properly utilize. I watched a few people get get ignited.
Speaker 1: I've seen a couple of not cops get ignited by
Speaker 1: molotsovs UM. They're they're they're not like people can suck
Speaker 1: them up easily. Whoever did this did not suck them up.
Speaker 1: It was seemed to be at the moment, no one
Speaker 1: has been arrested. Now, it's possible by the time this drops,
Speaker 1: Wisconsin police will be like, oh no, there was totally
Speaker 1: surveillance footage and they fucked up and we just caught them. UM.
Speaker 1: But at the moment, it doesn't look like that's the case.
Speaker 1: So it looks like this is somebody who carried out
Speaker 1: or some buddies, because it's entirely possible is multiple people,
Speaker 1: but carry it out UM a very effective like action
Speaker 1: that did material damage to UM, part of kind of
Speaker 1: the physical infrastructure of the anti choice movement UM and
Speaker 1: ended without anyone getting caught. So that's the fact of
Speaker 1: the actual attack itself. UM. A person who claiming to
Speaker 1: be affiliated with the individuals or group here did this.
Speaker 1: Reached out to a source of mind who I'm keeping anonymous,
Speaker 1: but somebody who I've known for a while with a
Speaker 1: very good track record of being accurate, and said, hey,
Speaker 1: these individual slash individuals have a communicate they would like
Speaker 1: put out UM and I was sent on a non
Speaker 1: files link, which is a link. If you view it
Speaker 1: in a normal browser you'll get some fucked up ship.
Speaker 1: Don't put it in a normal browser, I specified like
Speaker 1: you're supposed to. If you put it in Tour, it
Speaker 1: will download a text file, right, UM. And the text
Speaker 1: file is the communic A. So using the Tour browser
Speaker 1: for that link, you can get a text file in
Speaker 1: which they lay out number one. They named themselves UM
Speaker 1: and the name they've chosen for their group is Jane's Revenge,
Speaker 1: which is a reference to the Jane Collective UM, which
Speaker 1: was a pro choice group in the late sixties early
Speaker 1: seventies that UM provided women with access to contraception and
Speaker 1: abortion illegally. A bunch of them went to jail. Uh
Speaker 1: they were pardoned after Roe v. Wade. If I'm not
Speaker 1: mistaken or at least the click yeah, yeah, very well timed. UM.
Speaker 1: So they're calling themselves Jane's Revenge, and they basically said, hey,
Speaker 1: if you are an organization in the anti choice movement,
Speaker 1: you have thirty days to close down your operations otherwise
Speaker 1: there will be follow up attacks. They specifically noted the
Speaker 1: long and it's at this point like a forty years
Speaker 1: long history of tear wrist attacks from the anti choice movement,
Speaker 1: many of which have assassinated doctors, something like sixteen people
Speaker 1: have been killed, UM, dozens of bombs and bombing attempts,
Speaker 1: something like a hundred acid attacks. So they made a
Speaker 1: note of all that and said that like, basically we
Speaker 1: will be UM, we will be responding in kind and
Speaker 1: UH attacks after this initial attack will be correspondingly more severe. UM.
Speaker 1: They also claimed to have a pretty wide geographic reach,
Speaker 1: said they had folks in a number of cities, UM,
Speaker 1: and that yeah, there's going to be follow up attacks UM,
Speaker 1: and they're prepared to defend their bodily autonomy with violence.
Speaker 1: So that's that's the gist of what was claimed in
Speaker 1: the communic a UM. In terms of what I think
Speaker 1: about its legitimacy, UM, I don't have any reason to
Speaker 1: believe they're not representing the individual or individuals who carried
Speaker 1: out that attack in Wisconsin, based on the timing of
Speaker 1: when the communic was made, and based on the fact
Speaker 1: that the community is pretty consistent with what we saw
Speaker 1: from the actual action. Right, So, among other things that
Speaker 1: you can tell from the physical action that was taken
Speaker 1: is that, um, the individual or individuals who did this
Speaker 1: were pretty well organized. They carried out a competent action,
Speaker 1: and they thought there was a value in very clear
Speaker 1: messaging because there's clear messaging surrounding the attack. The communicate
Speaker 1: is very clear messaging. It does not sound like a
Speaker 1: right winger writing up a fake communicate. It's very um.
Speaker 1: It takes great pains to both connect itself to history,
Speaker 1: to frame its violence within the context of the violence
Speaker 1: perpetuated by the anti choice movement for decades UM, and
Speaker 1: just in general, it's the communication seems consistent with the
Speaker 1: action that we saw in Wisconsin. Now cannot say, we
Speaker 1: cannot say, I cannot say to a statement of certainty
Speaker 1: whether or not it's legitimate. One helpful thing they did
Speaker 1: is place state that there would be another more attacks
Speaker 1: in thirty days. So we're kind of waiting if thirty
Speaker 1: days pass and there's never any kind of follow up
Speaker 1: attacks by this group, then we can probably assume that
Speaker 1: this was either somebody bullshitting or that the heat got
Speaker 1: to too much for them and they decided not to
Speaker 1: carry out follow up attacks. UM. But we're all kind
Speaker 1: of in this holding pattern now to see what happens.
Speaker 1: My personal speculation is that UM, they were exaggerating a
Speaker 1: number of things. UM. I think that the their claims
Speaker 1: about having members in a number of states in a
Speaker 1: capacity to strike in a number of states was more
Speaker 1: aspirational than literal UM. In that I suspect the people
Speaker 1: behind this attack, in this communicate are hoping that by
Speaker 1: UM carrying out attacks, they can inspire other people to
Speaker 1: carry out attacks and credit it to the same organization, right,
Speaker 1: which is not an uncommon tactic in the history of terrorism.
Speaker 1: And again, this is terrorism. Like that doesn't mean I
Speaker 1: don't think, uh, there have a point or that it's
Speaker 1: like fundamentally unjust. Terrorism is just like a set of
Speaker 1: tactics that different groups can use, and it can be
Speaker 1: ethical or unethical depending on how you you choose to
Speaker 1: do that. You can attack purely infrastructure, UM in a
Speaker 1: terrorist manner, And I don't think that's necessarily unethical. And
Speaker 1: you can also attack civilians um in a terrorist manner,
Speaker 1: and I think that is unethical. At this moment, these
Speaker 1: people have not done anything I view is inherently unethical.
Speaker 1: They burned a building, um, which I think is often
Speaker 1: justified and is in this case justified. So that's that's
Speaker 1: my opinion on the matter. Let's open it up on
Speaker 1: the point you kind of closed with. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: they showed effective direct action. They did a physical thing.
Speaker 1: Maltovs are not the best way to do like to
Speaker 1: like arsenal building, but they are good for a very
Speaker 1: quick attack. Um. It caused this whole media thing, right,
Speaker 1: there's a lot a lot of people talking about it,
Speaker 1: then releasing the communicate through someone who can give it
Speaker 1: a lot of visibility. Uh, and then by by doing
Speaker 1: it with this with this name Jane's revenge and saying
Speaker 1: in thirty days there will be more attacks in different cities,
Speaker 1: the messages that yeah, like you can One way to
Speaker 1: look at this is if if they don't have tons
Speaker 1: of like you know, members are allies that they know
Speaker 1: across different cities, is that and anyone can do this,
Speaker 1: Like anyone can do this and call themselves by that
Speaker 1: name and be a part of this larger thing like
Speaker 1: it's you if you, if you spread it around, then
Speaker 1: that it can become like this, this thing that anyone
Speaker 1: can gloam onto. It doesn't need to be you don't
Speaker 1: need to be a part of a member of a
Speaker 1: specific group. You can just do stuff and release communicates
Speaker 1: safely and add add on to the to the to
Speaker 1: the specter. Yeah. Um, it's not hard to set up
Speaker 1: like a text drop in the same manner that did
Speaker 1: they did. It is relatively secure. Like there's no perfect
Speaker 1: if you are committing terrorism, there is no perfect manner
Speaker 1: to issue a statement. Um, but of the different things
Speaker 1: they could have chosen, this is relatively secure, especially doing
Speaker 1: it through an intermediary. I haven't had direct contact with
Speaker 1: these people, but um, we should probably note that there's
Speaker 1: a huge discourse that started before the communic A came
Speaker 1: out arguing that this is like a false flag attack. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's yes, that in a long line of calling a
Speaker 1: pretty pretty well planned out direct action. When it actually happens,
Speaker 1: people will defalse to calling it an op. We're calling
Speaker 1: it a false flag from a very people like there's
Speaker 1: there's like there's like libs who say, oh, this is
Speaker 1: a staged thing to make our movement look bad. There's
Speaker 1: tank kis who think it's like the CIA planning something.
Speaker 1: There's random other folks who are like, hey, I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's legit. I think maybe it's like some
Speaker 1: it's a lot of people get verius various justifications for
Speaker 1: calling pretty effective acts of direct action UM and questioning
Speaker 1: questioning their legitimacy. I think some of this comes from
Speaker 1: because there's obviously there's the bad faith elements of this UM,
Speaker 1: but I think the good faith folks who questioned it,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of learned helplessness. There this idea that
Speaker 1: because somebody did carry out a pretty successful direct action
Speaker 1: attack that kind of did what its intention was, then
Speaker 1: it has to have been the FBI or whoever, right,
Speaker 1: because obviously the left could never have pulled off something
Speaker 1: as as cunning as throwing a single molotov at a
Speaker 1: building and spray painting the side of it, you know, UM.
Speaker 1: And I I do think that that's a problem. Whether
Speaker 1: or not you think the solution to issues like the
Speaker 1: right wing attack on reproductive healthcare come from direct action.
Speaker 1: The fact that folks almost can't conceive of effective action
Speaker 1: being taken by the left without the FEDS being involved.
Speaker 1: Is really an issue. Yeah, and this was a huge
Speaker 1: thing during one of the things that we saw there.
Speaker 1: There were so many just weird conspiracy theories, and then
Speaker 1: the every thing that happened very quickly was people became
Speaker 1: convinced almost immediately that any one doing anything was it
Speaker 1: was a federal infiltrator. And you've got people, you got
Speaker 1: crowds turning people over to the the police. You got people
Speaker 1: on Twitter like trying to track down um, like who
Speaker 1: was throwing malltops and videos and like one of the
Speaker 1: people they caught they turned over the police it turned
Speaker 1: out had been had been the girlfriend is someone who
Speaker 1: got killed by the cops. And so, I mean the stuff,
Speaker 1: this stuff has has, the stuff has real world consequences.
Speaker 1: It has already like sent people to jail, it has
Speaker 1: it has this normostmobilizing effect of me, I don't remember people.
Speaker 1: Two people remember the okay, the two to two big Okay,
Speaker 1: the two big Twitter conspiracies were um bricks bricks and
Speaker 1: Who's yeah, yeah, yeah, there's hoping that people like people
Speaker 1: would see a powers never seen right next to a
Speaker 1: next to a construction site, Like, how are all these
Speaker 1: pallets of bricks showing up this? There's like a construction
Speaker 1: side of block away. You're like, who's distributing the fireworks?
Speaker 1: How do these fireworks get here? Never mind June. The
Speaker 1: history of like like the FBI, some people will mistakenly
Speaker 1: like throw the CIA in there. The CIA doesn't really
Speaker 1: tend to do like the domestic facory. Um, they're international facory.
Speaker 1: But like, if you look at the history of the
Speaker 1: FBI fucking with left wing social movements, it's not by
Speaker 1: handing out brick palettes. Yeah, but that's not what they do.
Speaker 1: We have a lot of documentation about what they do
Speaker 1: and it's not bricks. And if there is some secret
Speaker 1: group who's maliciously giving out bricks so people attack, throw
Speaker 1: them through windows or throw them at cop cars, like
Speaker 1: who cares? Like bricks are getting throw a cop cars.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter where they come from like that, people
Speaker 1: are still choosing to do action. Yeah. The best example
Speaker 1: of this is is the Russian Revolution n No. Five.
Speaker 1: The Russian Revolution of N five was started by a
Speaker 1: guy who was a police agent. Like his whole thing
Speaker 1: is he was he was he was working to create
Speaker 1: like like you is that could be controlled by the state.
Speaker 1: An he marched a bunch of people into a square
Speaker 1: and the police shot them. And that's how and that's what.
Speaker 1: That's literally how the Russian revolutions started. Like it doesn't.
Speaker 1: It doesn't like there's there's a there's a point. Okay,
Speaker 1: they're they're like, there's two layers of this. One is
Speaker 1: that like they're they're almost is never a conspiracy going
Speaker 1: on into If the conspiracy is we want to push
Speaker 1: people towards doing things, it almost it doesn't. There's a
Speaker 1: point at which it stops mattering because a lot a
Speaker 1: lot of people forget about atoms rights. When you're talking
Speaker 1: about these types of things. Usually the more simple the answer,
Speaker 1: the more likely it is. The more the less involved parties,
Speaker 1: the more likely the more likely it is. So if
Speaker 1: there's a choice between rad people fucking up an anti
Speaker 1: choice headquarters versus a government conspiracy to do false league
Speaker 1: operations to make the anti choice to make the abortion
Speaker 1: movement look bad, like one of those is much more
Speaker 1: simple and much more likely, And it's people just deciding
Speaker 1: to do stuff because guess what you can you can
Speaker 1: actually do that you don't need to allow these these
Speaker 1: weird narratives to to like to justify your uncomfortableness at
Speaker 1: like at forms of radical direct action, because it's it's
Speaker 1: people use that false flag idea, so so they don't
Speaker 1: need to actually engage with what direct action will mean
Speaker 1: and if it is someone's moral imperative to physically attack
Speaker 1: like physical manifestations of these sources of oppression. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think you're right on the money there. I think one
Speaker 1: of the things that's most frustrating to me about this
Speaker 1: is it kind of suggests that a sizeable chunk of
Speaker 1: people who ostensibly consider themselves on the left are like
Speaker 1: focusing their time not on doing anything and not on
Speaker 1: taking any action to materially change the conditions they're angry
Speaker 1: at um, but are instead looking for reasons to disavow
Speaker 1: other folks on the left, And that that's like the
Speaker 1: primary which is if you again, if you like, look
Speaker 1: at what we know Herbert Hoover. Herbert Hoover was saying
Speaker 1: about the FBI's co Intel Pro program was the all
Speaker 1: of co intel Pro, Right, that's what if That's what
Speaker 1: exactly what I was thinking. I'm just like, I feel
Speaker 1: like this promotes I don't know a morality like race
Speaker 1: or like just like competition where the only thing it
Speaker 1: does is just promote in fighting. When you have this,
Speaker 1: like you're on your morality horse. But I think if
Speaker 1: you actually support real change, you have to come to
Speaker 1: terms with like you have to do illegal things and
Speaker 1: like holding on too, like these made up laws that
Speaker 1: someone made up about like how to achieve change is useless.
Speaker 1: And there's I mean, like dividing up a side that's
Speaker 1: supposed to be going for the same thing. Like that's exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just it's a missing point and people don't really Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you look at the right, you've got all these
Speaker 1: folks who were like legal and whatnot, uh proponents of
Speaker 1: of ending reproductive health care access and any of the
Speaker 1: folks who are doing repeated acts of terrorism. And the
Speaker 1: folks who were on the legal side of things didn't
Speaker 1: disavow those people. They were often affiliated with churches that
Speaker 1: did shoot like auction off the possessions of like extremists
Speaker 1: who had murdered doctors and ship like they were like
Speaker 1: even the most they would do is just not directly
Speaker 1: talk about those people. They didn't disavow them. They didn't
Speaker 1: like attack it because they understood that a diversity of
Speaker 1: tactics was going to be how they achieved their goals.
Speaker 1: That it was a mix of pushing for these legal
Speaker 1: changes and carrying out so many terroristic attacks that it
Speaker 1: frightened people away from supporting um abortion service providers and
Speaker 1: other kind of reproductive health care service providers. US difference
Speaker 1: between the right and the left, though, like Democratic Republicans
Speaker 1: are really good at uniting on this big picture, and
Speaker 1: I feel like Democrats are not. I feel like they
Speaker 1: just uh, I don't know. It's too there's too much
Speaker 1: in fighting, and that's why it's always fractured. Part of
Speaker 1: it is that on the Republican side you have Republicans
Speaker 1: and you have the far right who are also Republicans.
Speaker 1: And even though a lot of folks on the far
Speaker 1: right bitch about the centrists in their up like the
Speaker 1: folks who are closer to the center, they all get
Speaker 1: in line for really radical stuff, Like the center of
Speaker 1: the Republican Party always yields to the radicals, whereas Democrats
Speaker 1: do not acknowledge leftists as having anything to do with
Speaker 1: with the Democratic Party or democratic politics other than the
Speaker 1: yell at them when they don't vote. Um. And on
Speaker 1: the other hand of things, there's a lot of folks
Speaker 1: on the left who hate liberals more than they hate fascists,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, and it's it's I think one of
Speaker 1: those is a bigger problem than the other. I think
Speaker 1: that the failure of the democratic establishment to like deal
Speaker 1: with the left at all, um or make any kind
Speaker 1: of progress, uh, that could be seen as as actually
Speaker 1: left wing actually much more um. Yeah. But but I
Speaker 1: think I think there's they're they're I think they're structural
Speaker 1: reasons for that, which is okay. If if you look
Speaker 1: at what is the basis of conservative alliance, right, if
Speaker 1: you're a conservative, you know, okay, if if you're from
Speaker 1: this sort of like moderate business wing at the party,
Speaker 1: if you're from the fascist wing at the party, right,
Speaker 1: you can have one judge who gives both of you
Speaker 1: the things that you want, right, Because if you're if
Speaker 1: you're like the Koke brothers, the thing that you want
Speaker 1: is the regulation. Right, you want to be able to
Speaker 1: just like dump poison into the environment. If you're ON,
Speaker 1: If you're ON, if you're an evangelical, the thing that
Speaker 1: you want is uh, you know, to no one can
Speaker 1: ever have an abortion again. And you know if if
Speaker 1: if you're like a fascist, I don't know, maybe you
Speaker 1: want like we don't give food to immigrant children anymore,
Speaker 1: so they start to death. And one judge can give
Speaker 1: you all of those same things because the the sort
Speaker 1: of the the class and social issues of the Republican
Speaker 1: base can all be fused together without harboring each other.
Speaker 1: But the problem with with with this with the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party is that like the Democratic Party's basis is like
Speaker 1: what's left of the union movement, but then also like
Speaker 1: a bunch of corporations to banks and like weapons manufacturers
Speaker 1: and stuff. But then also like a bunch of angry
Speaker 1: students and also like a bunch of people from different
Speaker 1: minority groups, and all of these people like have different interests,
Speaker 1: and you know, in the Democratic Party ultimately like the thing,
Speaker 1: the thing that they care about is keeping capitalism going.
Speaker 1: And you know, if if they have to like if
Speaker 1: that means that yeah, I mean, well okay, if if
Speaker 1: your things you want to keep capital isn't going, like
Speaker 1: of course you're just gonna throw your left wing out
Speaker 1: to the wolves, right like it. It makes sense for
Speaker 1: them to do this because because the part of their
Speaker 1: base that actually matters. Isn't like the labor movement, it's
Speaker 1: like it's Goldman Sachs. I think that one of the
Speaker 1: other things that that causes people to have this like
Speaker 1: immediately anyhow someone does someone does. Like people remember like
Speaker 1: when when Nancy Pelosi's driveway got graffitied, like that was
Speaker 1: like that's never never, that's horrible. Don't graffiti and Nancy
Speaker 1: pelosis driveway, that's evil? Yeah, like it's nicest you did
Speaker 1: nicest there. Yeah, everyone lost in mind and was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is obviously a false flag, and it's like what
Speaker 1: you know. But the reason they do this is because
Speaker 1: they have they have like democrat optics brain where like
Speaker 1: instead of anything being about politics, every everything is just
Speaker 1: about optics and optics and how does it look? How
Speaker 1: does it look? How does it look? Like? The only
Speaker 1: people who care about this are like weird pundits. But
Speaker 1: because because everyone's so sort of absorbed in like the
Speaker 1: Twitter media spear, like they think that like the actual
Speaker 1: general public cares about the things that pundits care about
Speaker 1: because the only thing they're seeing is pundits writing angry articles.
Speaker 1: But like nobody cared like zero people, especially the graffiti thing.
Speaker 1: Because man, people like dissect how someone sprayed an anarchist a.
Speaker 1: It's like if you're not aware, like a chunk of
Speaker 1: the discourse, are e it being a false flag or whatever?
Speaker 1: Was that the Yeah, but that they did they did
Speaker 1: as they did like the key a inside the inside
Speaker 1: the circle. Um. And it's wild because I mean spray painting.
Speaker 1: What they said like if if abortions aren't safe, then
Speaker 1: you are either in cursive is a genius move. It's
Speaker 1: great because if you spray painted in some like random
Speaker 1: punk fond that's easy to be ignored like oh, it's
Speaker 1: just people doing like whatever. People pray many stuff, but
Speaker 1: doing it like methodically in cursive is is actually a
Speaker 1: really good choice because you're like, oh, it's like we're
Speaker 1: dealing with adults. It's like like the type of things
Speaker 1: that people will go through their minds when they look
Speaker 1: at it is great. Um. And it's just a weird
Speaker 1: denial to assume that no one who takes radical direct
Speaker 1: action whatever write in cursive. It's just it's like the
Speaker 1: most the most brainworms thing. And it's also like it's
Speaker 1: also very clear, like like okay, so I am very
Speaker 1: bad at spray painting, right, but like I have I
Speaker 1: have used a spray paint can and well, this isn't
Speaker 1: I was I was I was making I was making
Speaker 1: banners for stuff. So this wasn't even like this wasn't
Speaker 1: even crimes. But this is just like regular spray painting.
Speaker 1: It's like that is hard, Like writing that incursive and
Speaker 1: having it look that nice with the spray bait can
Speaker 1: is like difficult, which you know, if if if you
Speaker 1: think about this about five seconds, this makes it more
Speaker 1: likely that has actually left as doing this because it's
Speaker 1: like what, okay, hold on, So the anti abortion people
Speaker 1: have one person who's really really good at graffiti and
Speaker 1: this person that they've beside. Yeah, they anchist school and
Speaker 1: secret to like learning. It's like it's nonsense, but it's
Speaker 1: like people. People just people want everything to sort of
Speaker 1: like like And I think this is the other angle
Speaker 1: of this is that people think that like have this
Speaker 1: wild overassessment of the capacity of the state. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they think that anytime something looks slightly weird, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it must be the state. Like like one of the
Speaker 1: one of the things that happened with with the Brooklyn
Speaker 1: shooting tube was like you had all these people that
Speaker 1: there's a tweet going around that was like, Oh, the
Speaker 1: cameras just happened. All all the cameras, all the cameras
Speaker 1: in New York were working except the exact one that
Speaker 1: would have caught the shooter. And this is this is
Speaker 1: like you want circled around this And everyone was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this is a false flag. And then
Speaker 1: know it turned out that like the guy had literally
Speaker 1: called the police, but the police were so incompetent that
Speaker 1: like other people like saw him on the street and
Speaker 1: got to him before like the cops did. And and
Speaker 1: like the camera it turned out wasn't even like the
Speaker 1: camera that was out wasn't even the camera that like
Speaker 1: like they had him on camera. It was a different camera.
Speaker 1: But it was like everyone everyone just immediately has this
Speaker 1: like conspiracy brain thing where they see like one thing
Speaker 1: out of context that looks slightly weird and they go,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this whole thing is is is a
Speaker 1: state like c A like so depressing. It's so depressing
Speaker 1: because it's such it's so depowering your specific You're like
Speaker 1: it ties into the learned helpless this thing that Robert mentioned,
Speaker 1: like you're convincing yourself that we don't have power to
Speaker 1: change things that we cannot take any physical action to
Speaker 1: change things. UM. And that's not great mentality to have
Speaker 1: if you want to improve the world or if you
Speaker 1: want to if you want to destroy the things that
Speaker 1: harve you, UM, you do. You don't want to fall
Speaker 1: into that that specific like I don't have any power
Speaker 1: mindset because you turns out you can do stuff. Things happened,
Speaker 1: you can. People threw a ball off and broke windows
Speaker 1: and cool people sometimes do cool things, yes, just like
Speaker 1: the past people stuff Yes. Plug Sophie, Sophie, Sophie, Sophie, Sophie.
Speaker 1: One of the things that's interesting to me, and it
Speaker 1: it might hold some lessons for folks thinking about radical
Speaker 1: direct action and what gets attention and what doesn't. So
Speaker 1: obviously this attack has garnered a lot of national attention,
Speaker 1: right the fact that I think it's because there was
Speaker 1: both an attack and a message was another attack. And
Speaker 1: it's not a that this had anything to do with
Speaker 1: the pro choice movement, UM, but I suspect it does.
Speaker 1: The Attorney General Virginia Jason Miarez UM on the tenth
Speaker 1: of May there was a someone shot into his office,
Speaker 1: like a bullet was found in the office. Um, it
Speaker 1: was probably fired when no one was there. We don't
Speaker 1: really know more than that. It is unclear as to
Speaker 1: whether or not this is involved with things. But three
Speaker 1: days before the shot was fired into his office, he
Speaker 1: had basically Catholic groups had been planning big masses to
Speaker 1: celebrate the leaked draft opinion, and protesters had been organizing
Speaker 1: to protest the Catholic masses, and he had threatened to
Speaker 1: charge people who protested masses. Um, because he believes the
Speaker 1: right to freedom of religion trump's the right of free speech.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like a fucked up situation. People
Speaker 1: got angry at me ares um. And it seems kind
Speaker 1: of noteworthy that someone shot into this office three days
Speaker 1: after this. I mean, also, I mean there's been a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff, like on on May eight, there was
Speaker 1: an attack on the organ Rights to Life building. Yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: there was certainly a pro choice Yeah, yeah, there was there.
Speaker 1: There was There was at least two multop cocktails throne
Speaker 1: and there was a break and inside. So it's like,
Speaker 1: you can do things. You don't have no power, like
Speaker 1: you can physical you can interact with the politics in
Speaker 1: a physical way. Um, people do interact with politics in
Speaker 1: a physical way. Yeah, and and people people have this
Speaker 1: assumption that like this is going to be incredibly unpopular.
Speaker 1: And again I want to point out burning the third precinct.
Speaker 1: How to higher approve of rating that both presidential candidates,
Speaker 1: which I mean I I again tend to advocate in
Speaker 1: we should elect the burning of the third Precinct in
Speaker 1: Minneapolis as president. Look every look, the way that works
Speaker 1: is the burning of the precinct takes office and then
Speaker 1: every day you burn another precinct. That's so that you
Speaker 1: can actually have a president. Well, that is how you
Speaker 1: fill the cabinet. Yeah, there needs to yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you have to eat well. Yeah, all all all the
Speaker 1: staff positions filled with the health and the Health and
Speaker 1: Human Services Secretary will be the West Los Angeles police
Speaker 1: station and so forth. Yes, I'm really excited to see
Speaker 1: which one gets picked for the Housing Secretary. I am
Speaker 1: just on my on my toes, just exciting. Democracy can
Speaker 1: be quite far. Electoralism has some has some really cool,
Speaker 1: really cool points. Yeah, hey, you you too could go
Speaker 1: in front of the National Labor Relations Board, and the
Speaker 1: National Labor Relations Board is just seven is just seven
Speaker 1: on fire police stations, charred really win. So yeah, we
Speaker 1: just we just want we wanted to at least talk
Speaker 1: about this because if whenever a cool thing happens and
Speaker 1: a large swath of of of people who are ostensibly
Speaker 1: leftists or even or even anarchists default to calling anything
Speaker 1: cool of all flag or up, it's like, well, like
Speaker 1: what do you want? Like you want people just to
Speaker 1: stay at home all the time and not do anything? Like,
Speaker 1: what's what's the end goal here? If you're calling everything
Speaker 1: that happens enough. Yeah, and also just like if you're
Speaker 1: going to if you're worried about ops and thinking of
Speaker 1: suggesting that something might be what is your line? Is
Speaker 1: it just that people broke a law? Are you saying
Speaker 1: that if people do illegal things, that's always like a
Speaker 1: government op? Because that doesn't seem like yourself an anarchist,
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like a good strategy. Yeah, especially when it
Speaker 1: comes to reproductive rights, like you're gonna have to do
Speaker 1: illegal things if people are gonna have to break exactly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: pick and choose. I'm a hundred percent convinced that like
Speaker 1: all of these people, if they'd seen John Brown would
Speaker 1: have been completely convinced the John Brown, Oh John Brown
Speaker 1: was for sure the FBI. He founded it the original
Speaker 1: op John Brown. I think that there's an aspect there
Speaker 1: of also like okay, if if if you're on Twitter right,
Speaker 1: mostly are not doing politics, and the thing that you're
Speaker 1: actually doing on Twitter is trying to feel smarter for
Speaker 1: everyone else. And if you're the person that's like, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: look all these people believe that this thing wasn't an
Speaker 1: OP or like oh I yeah, it's like and it's like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: you you very quickly like spiral into just like every
Speaker 1: all all the all the sheeple tours smart fight this suspicious.
Speaker 1: You're like it's it's like it's it's just a bad
Speaker 1: like looking at an element of event and going oh,
Speaker 1: this is weird, but in a way that is oh hauh,
Speaker 1: isn't this weird? It must be the government, Like that's
Speaker 1: that's just a bad way of thinking. Like in in
Speaker 1: the mirror hours, in the mirror minutes after anonymous people
Speaker 1: broke into the Portland Plice Association headquarters back in I
Speaker 1: think was July, just in mirror hours, people were calling
Speaker 1: it a false flag, that the police were dressed up
Speaker 1: the black block the people and started protesting the FEDS yes,
Speaker 1: they alleged that this was like I guess the FBI
Speaker 1: or Homeland Security trying to get protesters angry at the
Speaker 1: cops again, which is I mean, for one thing, if
Speaker 1: actually happened, if there were to be a point where
Speaker 1: the left wing had the FBI fighting or the FBI
Speaker 1: or Homeland Security whatever, fighting with local police over who
Speaker 1: was getting protested, that's a win, that's a that's a big,
Speaker 1: solid capital dub for the But people like the FBI
Speaker 1: is a block breaking into the police union building and
Speaker 1: trying to light it on fire, you're like, well doing
Speaker 1: doing less physical, let's be honest, doing less damage to
Speaker 1: that police union building that I have seen my friends
Speaker 1: do when attempting to deep fry French fries, Like I
Speaker 1: have watched people do more damage to their living rooms
Speaker 1: than that protested to the people. Astonishing because like there
Speaker 1: was so many people at that act, so many people
Speaker 1: using the moment to to actually gain like physical political
Speaker 1: power for a brief a brief moment um, and to
Speaker 1: take that away from them is just as a bizarre impulse,
Speaker 1: and I would like to see it end, especially as
Speaker 1: we're going to see, hopefully see that people will realize
Speaker 1: that that that direct action is going to become more
Speaker 1: and more important for securing your personal rights and securing
Speaker 1: your personal freedom. And also I would say these people, Okay,
Speaker 1: if you want to be completely sure if that something
Speaker 1: is happening is not an OP, do it yourself. Stop
Speaker 1: yelling about it on Twitter. Do it yourself. Then you'll
Speaker 1: know it's not an OP as a general rule. As
Speaker 1: a general rule, look at France. What do the French
Speaker 1: do whenever something they consider a right gets taken away
Speaker 1: from them? They burn downtown Paris down, They light banks
Speaker 1: on fire. They like Paris. Everyone who has gets selected
Speaker 1: to a position of power in France knows that if
Speaker 1: they cross certain lines, the capital will be ungovernable. Um
Speaker 1: and there's a reason why French people have such quality healthcare.
Speaker 1: Well with with with that note, I mean, I can't
Speaker 1: believe we're ending on the note be be like the French.
Speaker 1: I just is the friendship made a lot of good calls,
Speaker 1: a lot of bad ones to not trying to whitewash France,
Speaker 1: but there's a there's a number of things they got
Speaker 1: spot on. Anyway, we will we will be counting down
Speaker 1: the days until that thirty day marker, and who knows,
Speaker 1: maybe other attacks will happen with people also calling themselves
Speaker 1: Jaan's revenge because and obviously this is something that we
Speaker 1: as journalists have no opinion on one way or the other.
Speaker 1: We're just reporting, just pure reporting. Anyway, Listen to listen
Speaker 1: to people who did cool stuff, to to hear about
Speaker 1: the Jaane collective, and maybe also recreationally read about what
Speaker 1: different civilian groups are doing in Ukraine and the degree
Speaker 1: to which of wide variety of incredibly available tools um
Speaker 1: can can be repurposed in neat ways. All Right, I
Speaker 1: think I think that I think that's the stude. That's
Speaker 1: a good d It could happen here as a production
Speaker 1: of 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,