Jane's Revenge

and in the west. We have to maintain the right to arm bears. Yeah, I'm I'm of the opinion, given how dry it is in New Mexico, that we need to sink every part of the country east of New Mexico to give it a coast that can that can keep it moist. I wonder how much of this is going to get in the final cut. Well, if you live east of New Mexico, welcome to the ocean. That's my suggestion. Um, speaking of people east of New Mexico, this is it could happen here a podcast where some

of the listeners are east of New Mexico. Even though I don't recommend that. Um, I'm Robert Evans on on the call with me is Christopher Wong, Garrison Davis, Sharene, Lnnie Units, and then our producers Sophie. Today we're talking about terrorism. Yeah, we can do it in a little NPR voice. So uh recently, the same week as the Supreme Court leaked a document stating that they would be taking out Roe v. Wade and ushering in an era

of theocratic fascism in a number of states. UH, an individual or individuals unknown in Wisconsin attacked an anti choice headquarters building with a Molotov cocktail and spray painted graffiti on the side saying if abortion isn't safe, then you aren't. Either that same group or individuals claiming to be from them, UH later reached out to me through an intermediary and sent a manifesto of sorts about the attack, promising follow

up attacks within thirty days. But they wrote, but they wrote in cursive, so who can say, who can say if this actually happened. So we'll talk first. I want to just go over first what what happened in like factual terms, and then we'll talk about the discourse around it. So basically, there's this attack on this um anti choice

like advocacy organizations, headquarters and fucking Wisconsin. UM. It was seemed to be a pretty good molotov and that, like Garrison, you and I have watched a number of people failed to properly utilize. I watched a few people get get ignited. I've seen a couple of not cops get ignited by molotsovs UM. They're they're they're not like people can suck them up easily. Whoever did this did not suck them up. It was seemed to be at the moment, no one

has been arrested. Now, it's possible by the time this drops, Wisconsin police will be like, oh no, there was totally surveillance footage and they fucked up and we just caught them. UM. But at the moment, it doesn't look like that's the case.

So it looks like this is somebody who carried out or some buddies, because it's entirely possible is multiple people, but carry it out UM a very effective like action that did material damage to UM, part of kind of the physical infrastructure of the anti choice movement UM and ended without anyone getting caught. So that's the fact of the actual attack itself. UM. A person who claiming to be affiliated with the individuals or group here did this.

Reached out to a source of mind who I'm keeping anonymous, but somebody who I've known for a while with a very good track record of being accurate, and said, hey, these individual slash individuals have a communicate they would like put out UM and I was sent on a non files link, which is a link. If you view it in a normal browser you'll get some fucked up ship. Don't put it in a normal browser, I specified like you're supposed to. If you put it in Tour, it

will download a text file, right, UM. And the text file is the communic A. So using the Tour browser for that link, you can get a text file in which they lay out number one. They named themselves UM and the name they've chosen for their group is Jane's Revenge, which is a reference to the Jane Collective UM, which was a pro choice group in the late sixties early seventies that UM provided women with access to contraception and abortion illegally. A bunch of them went to jail. Uh

they were pardoned after Roe v. Wade. If I'm not mistaken or at least the click yeah, yeah, very well timed. UM. So they're calling themselves Jane's Revenge, and they basically said, hey, if you are an organization in the anti choice movement, you have thirty days to close down your operations otherwise

there will be follow up attacks. They specifically noted the long and it's at this point like a forty years long history of tear wrist attacks from the anti choice movement, many of which have assassinated doctors, something like sixteen people have been killed, UM, dozens of bombs and bombing attempts, something like a hundred acid attacks. So they made a note of all that and said that like, basically we will be UM, we will be responding in kind and

UH attacks after this initial attack will be correspondingly more severe. UM. They also claimed to have a pretty wide geographic reach, said they had folks in a number of cities, UM, and that yeah, there's going to be follow up attacks UM, and they're prepared to defend their bodily autonomy with violence. So that's that's the gist of what was claimed in

the communic a UM. In terms of what I think about its legitimacy, UM, I don't have any reason to believe they're not representing the individual or individuals who carried out that attack in Wisconsin, based on the timing of when the communic was made, and based on the fact that the community is pretty consistent with what we saw from the actual action. Right, So, among other things that you can tell from the physical action that was taken is that, um, the individual or individuals who did this

were pretty well organized. They carried out a competent action, and they thought there was a value in very clear messaging because there's clear messaging surrounding the attack. The communicate is very clear messaging. It does not sound like a right winger writing up a fake communicate. It's very um.

It takes great pains to both connect itself to history, to frame its violence within the context of the violence perpetuated by the anti choice movement for decades UM, and just in general, it's the communication seems consistent with the action that we saw in Wisconsin. Now cannot say, we cannot say, I cannot say to a statement of certainty whether or not it's legitimate. One helpful thing they did is place state that there would be another more attacks

in thirty days. So we're kind of waiting if thirty days pass and there's never any kind of follow up attacks by this group, then we can probably assume that this was either somebody bullshitting or that the heat got to too much for them and they decided not to carry out follow up attacks. UM. But we're all kind of in this holding pattern now to see what happens. My personal speculation is that UM, they were exaggerating a

number of things. UM. I think that the their claims about having members in a number of states in a capacity to strike in a number of states was more aspirational than literal UM. In that I suspect the people behind this attack, in this communicate are hoping that by UM carrying out attacks, they can inspire other people to carry out attacks and credit it to the same organization, right, which is not an uncommon tactic in the history of terrorism.

And again, this is terrorism. Like that doesn't mean I don't think, uh, there have a point or that it's like fundamentally unjust. Terrorism is just like a set of tactics that different groups can use, and it can be ethical or unethical depending on how you you choose to do that. You can attack purely infrastructure, UM in a terrorist manner, And I don't think that's necessarily unethical. And you can also attack civilians um in a terrorist manner,

and I think that is unethical. At this moment, these people have not done anything I view is inherently unethical. They burned a building, um, which I think is often justified and is in this case justified. So that's that's my opinion on the matter. Let's open it up on the point you kind of closed with. I mean, yeah, they showed effective direct action. They did a physical thing. Maltovs are not the best way to do like to like arsenal building, but they are good for a very

quick attack. Um. It caused this whole media thing, right, there's a lot a lot of people talking about it, then releasing the communicate through someone who can give it

a lot of visibility. Uh, and then by by doing it with this with this name Jane's revenge and saying in thirty days there will be more attacks in different cities, the messages that yeah, like you can One way to look at this is if if they don't have tons of like you know, members are allies that they know across different cities, is that and anyone can do this, Like anyone can do this and call themselves by that name and be a part of this larger thing like

it's you if you, if you spread it around, then that it can become like this, this thing that anyone can gloam onto. It doesn't need to be you don't need to be a part of a member of a specific group. You can just do stuff and release communicates safely and add add on to the to the to the specter. Yeah. Um, it's not hard to set up like a text drop in the same manner that did they did. It is relatively secure. Like there's no perfect if you are committing terrorism, there is no perfect manner

to issue a statement. Um, but of the different things they could have chosen, this is relatively secure, especially doing it through an intermediary. I haven't had direct contact with these people, but um, we should probably note that there's a huge discourse that started before the communic A came out arguing that this is like a false flag attack. Yeah, that's yes, that in a long line of calling a pretty pretty well planned out direct action. When it actually happens,

people will defalse to calling it an op. We're calling it a false flag from a very people like there's there's like there's like libs who say, oh, this is a staged thing to make our movement look bad. There's tank kis who think it's like the CIA planning something. There's random other folks who are like, hey, I don't know if it's legit. I think maybe it's like some it's a lot of people get verius various justifications for calling pretty effective acts of direct action UM and questioning

questioning their legitimacy. I think some of this comes from because there's obviously there's the bad faith elements of this UM, but I think the good faith folks who questioned it,

there's a lot of learned helplessness. There this idea that because somebody did carry out a pretty successful direct action attack that kind of did what its intention was, then it has to have been the FBI or whoever, right, because obviously the left could never have pulled off something as as cunning as throwing a single molotov at a building and spray painting the side of it, you know, UM.

And I I do think that that's a problem. Whether or not you think the solution to issues like the right wing attack on reproductive healthcare come from direct action. The fact that folks almost can't conceive of effective action being taken by the left without the FEDS being involved. Is really an issue. Yeah, and this was a huge thing during one of the things that we saw there.

There were so many just weird conspiracy theories, and then the every thing that happened very quickly was people became convinced almost immediately that any one doing anything was it was a federal infiltrator. And you've got people, you got

crowds turning people over to the the police. You got people on Twitter like trying to track down um, like who was throwing malltops and videos and like one of the people they caught they turned over the police it turned out had been had been the girlfriend is someone who got killed by the cops. And so, I mean the stuff, this stuff has has, the stuff has real world consequences. It has already like sent people to jail, it has it has this normostmobilizing effect of me, I don't remember people.

Two people remember the okay, the two to two big Okay, the two big Twitter conspiracies were um bricks bricks and Who's yeah, yeah, yeah, there's hoping that people like people would see a powers never seen right next to a next to a construction site, Like, how are all these pallets of bricks showing up this? There's like a construction side of block away. You're like, who's distributing the fireworks?

How do these fireworks get here? Never mind June. The history of like like the FBI, some people will mistakenly like throw the CIA in there. The CIA doesn't really tend to do like the domestic facory. Um, they're international facory. But like, if you look at the history of the FBI fucking with left wing social movements, it's not by handing out brick palettes. Yeah, but that's not what they do. We have a lot of documentation about what they do

and it's not bricks. And if there is some secret group who's maliciously giving out bricks so people attack, throw them through windows or throw them at cop cars, like who cares? Like bricks are getting throw a cop cars. It doesn't matter where they come from like that, people are still choosing to do action. Yeah. The best example of this is is the Russian Revolution n No. Five. The Russian Revolution of N five was started by a

guy who was a police agent. Like his whole thing is he was he was he was working to create like like you is that could be controlled by the state. An he marched a bunch of people into a square and the police shot them. And that's how and that's what. That's literally how the Russian revolutions started. Like it doesn't. It doesn't like there's there's a there's a point. Okay,

they're they're like, there's two layers of this. One is that like they're they're almost is never a conspiracy going on into If the conspiracy is we want to push people towards doing things, it almost it doesn't. There's a point at which it stops mattering because a lot a lot of people forget about atoms rights. When you're talking about these types of things. Usually the more simple the answer, the more likely it is. The more the less involved parties,

the more likely the more likely it is. So if there's a choice between rad people fucking up an anti choice headquarters versus a government conspiracy to do false league operations to make the anti choice to make the abortion movement look bad, like one of those is much more simple and much more likely, And it's people just deciding to do stuff because guess what you can you can actually do that you don't need to allow these these weird narratives to to like to justify your uncomfortableness at

like at forms of radical direct action, because it's it's people use that false flag idea, so so they don't need to actually engage with what direct action will mean and if it is someone's moral imperative to physically attack like physical manifestations of these sources of oppression. Yeah, I

think you're right on the money there. I think one of the things that's most frustrating to me about this is it kind of suggests that a sizeable chunk of people who ostensibly consider themselves on the left are like focusing their time not on doing anything and not on taking any action to materially change the conditions they're angry at um, but are instead looking for reasons to disavow other folks on the left, And that that's like the primary which is if you again, if you like, look

at what we know Herbert Hoover. Herbert Hoover was saying about the FBI's co Intel Pro program was the all of co intel Pro, Right, that's what if That's what exactly what I was thinking. I'm just like, I feel like this promotes I don't know a morality like race or like just like competition where the only thing it does is just promote in fighting. When you have this,

like you're on your morality horse. But I think if you actually support real change, you have to come to terms with like you have to do illegal things and like holding on too, like these made up laws that someone made up about like how to achieve change is useless. And there's I mean, like dividing up a side that's

supposed to be going for the same thing. Like that's exactly. Yeah, it's just it's a missing point and people don't really Yeah, if you look at the right, you've got all these folks who were like legal and whatnot, uh proponents of of ending reproductive health care access and any of the folks who are doing repeated acts of terrorism. And the folks who were on the legal side of things didn't

disavow those people. They were often affiliated with churches that did shoot like auction off the possessions of like extremists who had murdered doctors and ship like they were like even the most they would do is just not directly talk about those people. They didn't disavow them. They didn't like attack it because they understood that a diversity of tactics was going to be how they achieved their goals.

That it was a mix of pushing for these legal changes and carrying out so many terroristic attacks that it frightened people away from supporting um abortion service providers and other kind of reproductive health care service providers. US difference between the right and the left, though, like Democratic Republicans are really good at uniting on this big picture, and I feel like Democrats are not. I feel like they just uh, I don't know. It's too there's too much

in fighting, and that's why it's always fractured. Part of it is that on the Republican side you have Republicans and you have the far right who are also Republicans.

And even though a lot of folks on the far right bitch about the centrists in their up like the folks who are closer to the center, they all get in line for really radical stuff, Like the center of the Republican Party always yields to the radicals, whereas Democrats do not acknowledge leftists as having anything to do with with the Democratic Party or democratic politics other than the

yell at them when they don't vote. Um. And on the other hand of things, there's a lot of folks on the left who hate liberals more than they hate fascists, you know. Um, and it's it's I think one of those is a bigger problem than the other. I think that the failure of the democratic establishment to like deal with the left at all, um or make any kind of progress, uh, that could be seen as as actually

left wing actually much more um. Yeah. But but I think I think there's they're they're I think they're structural

reasons for that, which is okay. If if you look at what is the basis of conservative alliance, right, if you're a conservative, you know, okay, if if you're from this sort of like moderate business wing at the party, if you're from the fascist wing at the party, right, you can have one judge who gives both of you the things that you want, right, Because if you're if you're like the Koke brothers, the thing that you want is the regulation. Right, you want to be able to

just like dump poison into the environment. If you're ON, If you're ON, if you're an evangelical, the thing that you want is uh, you know, to no one can ever have an abortion again. And you know if if if you're like a fascist, I don't know, maybe you want like we don't give food to immigrant children anymore,

so they start to death. And one judge can give you all of those same things because the the sort of the the class and social issues of the Republican base can all be fused together without harboring each other. But the problem with with with this with the Democratic Party is that like the Democratic Party's basis is like what's left of the union movement, but then also like a bunch of corporations to banks and like weapons manufacturers

and stuff. But then also like a bunch of angry students and also like a bunch of people from different minority groups, and all of these people like have different interests, and you know, in the Democratic Party ultimately like the thing, the thing that they care about is keeping capitalism going. And you know, if if they have to like if that means that yeah, I mean, well okay, if if your things you want to keep capital isn't going, like of course you're just gonna throw your left wing out

to the wolves, right like it. It makes sense for them to do this because because the part of their base that actually matters. Isn't like the labor movement, it's like it's Goldman Sachs. I think that one of the other things that that causes people to have this like immediately anyhow someone does someone does. Like people remember like when when Nancy Pelosi's driveway got graffitied, like that was like that's never never, that's horrible. Don't graffiti and Nancy

pelosis driveway, that's evil? Yeah, like it's nicest you did nicest there. Yeah, everyone lost in mind and was like, oh, this is obviously a false flag, and it's like what you know. But the reason they do this is because they have they have like democrat optics brain where like instead of anything being about politics, every everything is just about optics and optics and how does it look? How does it look? How does it look? Like? The only

people who care about this are like weird pundits. But because because everyone's so sort of absorbed in like the Twitter media spear, like they think that like the actual general public cares about the things that pundits care about because the only thing they're seeing is pundits writing angry articles. But like nobody cared like zero people, especially the graffiti thing.

Because man, people like dissect how someone sprayed an anarchist a. It's like if you're not aware, like a chunk of the discourse, are e it being a false flag or whatever? Was that the Yeah, but that they did they did as they did like the key a inside the inside the circle. Um. And it's wild because I mean spray painting. What they said like if if abortions aren't safe, then

you are either in cursive is a genius move. It's great because if you spray painted in some like random punk fond that's easy to be ignored like oh, it's just people doing like whatever. People pray many stuff, but doing it like methodically in cursive is is actually a really good choice because you're like, oh, it's like we're dealing with adults. It's like like the type of things that people will go through their minds when they look

at it is great. Um. And it's just a weird denial to assume that no one who takes radical direct action whatever write in cursive. It's just it's like the most the most brainworms thing. And it's also like it's also very clear, like like okay, so I am very bad at spray painting, right, but like I have I have used a spray paint can and well, this isn't I was I was I was making I was making banners for stuff. So this wasn't even like this wasn't

even crimes. But this is just like regular spray painting. It's like that is hard, Like writing that incursive and having it look that nice with the spray bait can is like difficult, which you know, if if if you think about this about five seconds, this makes it more likely that has actually left as doing this because it's like what, okay, hold on, So the anti abortion people have one person who's really really good at graffiti and this person that they've beside. Yeah, they anchist school and

secret to like learning. It's like it's nonsense, but it's like people. People just people want everything to sort of like like And I think this is the other angle of this is that people think that like have this wild overassessment of the capacity of the state. Yeah, and they think that anytime something looks slightly weird, it's like, oh,

it must be the state. Like like one of the one of the things that happened with with the Brooklyn shooting tube was like you had all these people that there's a tweet going around that was like, Oh, the cameras just happened. All all the cameras, all the cameras in New York were working except the exact one that would have caught the shooter. And this is this is like you want circled around this And everyone was like,

oh my god, this is a false flag. And then know it turned out that like the guy had literally called the police, but the police were so incompetent that like other people like saw him on the street and got to him before like the cops did. And and like the camera it turned out wasn't even like the camera that was out wasn't even the camera that like like they had him on camera. It was a different camera.

But it was like everyone everyone just immediately has this like conspiracy brain thing where they see like one thing out of context that looks slightly weird and they go, oh my god, this whole thing is is is a

state like c A like so depressing. It's so depressing because it's such it's so depowering your specific You're like it ties into the learned helpless this thing that Robert mentioned, like you're convincing yourself that we don't have power to change things that we cannot take any physical action to change things. UM. And that's not great mentality to have if you want to improve the world or if you want to if you want to destroy the things that

harve you, UM, you do. You don't want to fall into that that specific like I don't have any power mindset because you turns out you can do stuff. Things happened, you can. People threw a ball off and broke windows and cool people sometimes do cool things, yes, just like the past people stuff Yes. Plug Sophie, Sophie, Sophie, Sophie, Sophie. One of the things that's interesting to me, and it it might hold some lessons for folks thinking about radical

direct action and what gets attention and what doesn't. So obviously this attack has garnered a lot of national attention, right the fact that I think it's because there was both an attack and a message was another attack. And it's not a that this had anything to do with the pro choice movement, UM, but I suspect it does. The Attorney General Virginia Jason Miarez UM on the tenth of May there was a someone shot into his office, like a bullet was found in the office. Um, it

was probably fired when no one was there. We don't really know more than that. It is unclear as to whether or not this is involved with things. But three days before the shot was fired into his office, he had basically Catholic groups had been planning big masses to celebrate the leaked draft opinion, and protesters had been organizing to protest the Catholic masses, and he had threatened to

charge people who protested masses. Um, because he believes the right to freedom of religion trump's the right of free speech. So it's kind of like a fucked up situation. People got angry at me ares um. And it seems kind of noteworthy that someone shot into this office three days after this. I mean, also, I mean there's been a lot of stuff, like on on May eight, there was an attack on the organ Rights to Life building. Yes, yes, yes, there was certainly a pro choice Yeah, yeah, there was there.

There was There was at least two multop cocktails throne and there was a break and inside. So it's like, you can do things. You don't have no power, like you can physical you can interact with the politics in a physical way. Um, people do interact with politics in a physical way. Yeah, and and people people have this assumption that like this is going to be incredibly unpopular. And again I want to point out burning the third precinct.

How to higher approve of rating that both presidential candidates, which I mean I I again tend to advocate in we should elect the burning of the third Precinct in Minneapolis as president. Look every look, the way that works is the burning of the precinct takes office and then every day you burn another precinct. That's so that you can actually have a president. Well, that is how you fill the cabinet. Yeah, there needs to yeah, yeah, yeah,

you have to eat well. Yeah, all all all the staff positions filled with the health and the Health and Human Services Secretary will be the West Los Angeles police station and so forth. Yes, I'm really excited to see which one gets picked for the Housing Secretary. I am just on my on my toes, just exciting. Democracy can be quite far. Electoralism has some has some really cool,

really cool points. Yeah, hey, you you too could go in front of the National Labor Relations Board, and the National Labor Relations Board is just seven is just seven on fire police stations, charred really win. So yeah, we just we just want we wanted to at least talk about this because if whenever a cool thing happens and a large swath of of of people who are ostensibly leftists or even or even anarchists default to calling anything cool of all flag or up, it's like, well, like

what do you want? Like you want people just to stay at home all the time and not do anything? Like, what's what's the end goal here? If you're calling everything that happens enough. Yeah, and also just like if you're going to if you're worried about ops and thinking of suggesting that something might be what is your line? Is it just that people broke a law? Are you saying that if people do illegal things, that's always like a government op? Because that doesn't seem like yourself an anarchist,

doesn't seem like a good strategy. Yeah, especially when it comes to reproductive rights, like you're gonna have to do illegal things if people are gonna have to break exactly, Yeah, pick and choose. I'm a hundred percent convinced that like all of these people, if they'd seen John Brown would have been completely convinced the John Brown, Oh John Brown was for sure the FBI. He founded it the original

op John Brown. I think that there's an aspect there of also like okay, if if if you're on Twitter right, mostly are not doing politics, and the thing that you're actually doing on Twitter is trying to feel smarter for

everyone else. And if you're the person that's like, oh, hey, look all these people believe that this thing wasn't an OP or like oh I yeah, it's like and it's like, yeah, okay, you you very quickly like spiral into just like every all all the all the sheeple tours smart fight this suspicious. You're like it's it's like it's it's just a bad like looking at an element of event and going oh, this is weird, but in a way that is oh hauh, isn't this weird? It must be the government, Like that's

that's just a bad way of thinking. Like in in the mirror hours, in the mirror minutes after anonymous people broke into the Portland Plice Association headquarters back in I think was July, just in mirror hours, people were calling it a false flag, that the police were dressed up the black block the people and started protesting the FEDS yes, they alleged that this was like I guess the FBI or Homeland Security trying to get protesters angry at the cops again, which is I mean, for one thing, if

actually happened, if there were to be a point where the left wing had the FBI fighting or the FBI or Homeland Security whatever, fighting with local police over who was getting protested, that's a win, that's a that's a big, solid capital dub for the But people like the FBI is a block breaking into the police union building and trying to light it on fire, you're like, well doing doing less physical, let's be honest, doing less damage to that police union building that I have seen my friends

do when attempting to deep fry French fries, Like I have watched people do more damage to their living rooms

than that protested to the people. Astonishing because like there was so many people at that act, so many people using the moment to to actually gain like physical political power for a brief a brief moment um, and to take that away from them is just as a bizarre impulse, and I would like to see it end, especially as we're going to see, hopefully see that people will realize that that that direct action is going to become more and more important for securing your personal rights and securing

your personal freedom. And also I would say these people, Okay, if you want to be completely sure if that something is happening is not an OP, do it yourself. Stop yelling about it on Twitter. Do it yourself. Then you'll know it's not an OP as a general rule. As a general rule, look at France. What do the French do whenever something they consider a right gets taken away from them? They burn downtown Paris down, They light banks

on fire. They like Paris. Everyone who has gets selected to a position of power in France knows that if they cross certain lines, the capital will be ungovernable. Um and there's a reason why French people have such quality healthcare. Well with with with that note, I mean, I can't believe we're ending on the note be be like the French. I just is the friendship made a lot of good calls, a lot of bad ones to not trying to whitewash France, but there's a there's a number of things they got

spot on. Anyway, we will we will be counting down the days until that thirty day marker, and who knows, maybe other attacks will happen with people also calling themselves Jaan's revenge because and obviously this is something that we as journalists have no opinion on one way or the other.

We're just reporting, just pure reporting. Anyway, Listen to listen to people who did cool stuff, to to hear about the Jaane collective, and maybe also recreationally read about what different civilian groups are doing in Ukraine and the degree to which of wide variety of incredibly available tools um can can be repurposed in neat ways. All Right, I think I think that I think that's the stude. That's a good d It could happen here as a production

of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It could Happen here, updated monthly at cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening,