A little Emo fun

[Dave W]

Maggie Thatcher!  Find me a women like that and I'd vote for her in a heartbeat!   

Let's steer this away from politics and back to emo and goth.

Or are you having fantasies involving Maggie Thatcher and a leash? 

[PhilT]

Or are you having fantasies involving Maggie Thatcher and a leash? 

I am, but her feet aren't touching the ground.

[Dave W]

I am, but her feet aren't touching the ground.

I just knew at least one of our UK members could be counted on to chime in. 

Seriously, I know how controversial she still is, that's why it's best to avoid a row.

[pamlicojack]

Isn't having "emo" and "fun" in the same sentence an oxymoron?

[Dave W]

Isn't having "emo" and "fun" in the same sentence an oxymoron?

Only if you're emo. 

[TBird1958]

I'm not deep into Seattle's Goth scene, I do however know a few girls and guys.....they really tend to be pretty down to earth folks, I've never felt threatend in any way. here anyway its alot about fashion, and alternative sexual lifestyle....kinda gets rolled into one. And since I really only see them out at clubs.....well the local mall is far too lame to even think of being seen at!
I love goth girls!
 

This girl is a model for the place in Berlin that I buy my hair from, I think she is....lovely

[uwe]

German girls don't look like they used to.

[Dave W]

German girls don't look like they used to.

You're just longing for the good old days when they looked like Ulrike Meinhof.

[uwe]

Your mention of Ulrike beckons the question: Did you find out about her too that fateful night you fled the premises of the female Che Guevara fan? How you continue to surprise me Herr Moderator!

But I always found Gudrun Ensslin (in fact the female leader of what was known as the Baader Meinhof Gang which by all rights should have been called the Baader Ensslin Gang) more appealing, she certanly had emo chic already:



that hunger strike look (Andreas Baader, the male leader took that pic of her with a camera sneaked into jail, she certainly could still work up a smile for her great love):



Ulrike was warmer, bit more matronly (and in line with that not as tough as Gudrun, her suicide was desperation, Gudrun's suicide along with two other terrorists in Stammheim jail in 1977 a coldly planned "political statement" after the government refused to release them in exchange for airline passengers from a hijack):





But when it comes to terrorist woman/early emo chic, Patty Hearst is probably still the icon:

[Dave W]

Your mention of Ulrike beckons the question: Did you find out about her too that fateful night you fled the premises of the female Che Guevara fan? How you continue to surprise me Herr Moderator!

That was in 1969 (boy, do I regret telling you about that!). We hadn't even heard of Baader-Meinhof in the US at that time. There was some publicity about the shooting of "Red Rudi" Dutschke but IIRC that was before Ulrike was involved with the gang.

You really think she committed suicide? I'm not so sure, but then the details published over here were pretty sparse. I remember there was suspicion that she was murdered. I did hear several years ago about the controversy over her brain being removed at the autopsy and kept by someone all these years.

Patty Hearst may have been more chic but she was just window dressing, a publicity tool used by the SLA. If she had really been one of them, she'd be dead or in prison like the rest of them.

[uwe]

Sigh - I thought political posts were disallowed here? 

Ulrike, mother of two children she left behind to "go underground", committed suicide/hung herself in 1976, quite aptly on Mother's Day. By that time she was alienated from other RAF (= Rote Armee Fraktion, the moniker the terrorists had given themselves) members, mainly Baader, her former love, a ruthless and charismatic man, and Ensslin, Baader's new "wife" and a fanatic for him and the cause. They constantly sniped at her as a "traitor swine" and "weakling" who should "do the movement a favor" by killing herself. Even the usual suspects of leftist conspiration circles no longer assume that Ulrike was murdered by the state. Instead her former husband from pre-terrorist days now argues that she was psychologically coerced into killing herself by peer group pressure or - even worse - that other RAF members staged her suicide. But the assertion that four other terrorists - Baader, Ensslin, Raspe and Möller - were subject to state assasinations still lingers in some circles ...

IMHO the "state initiated execution of Baader, Ensslin, Raspe and Möller in 1977 following the rescue of the Landshut aircraft passengers" is a leftist urban myth. 0nly Irmgard Möller, after inflicting multiple knife stabs on herself, survived

her mug shot



and around the time she was pardoned




and was pardoned some  12 years ago, a broken woman, even though she still swears she did not stab herself that night, but was stabbed "by uniformed men", she's as loony as a bat and by now probably actually believes it herself. It's a nice conspiracy theory, especially for the time, the new "only mock-democratic Bundesrepublik baring its old Nazi fangs" and hey, didn't the CIA kill Che Guevara (he of refrigerator door fame  ) and Salvador Allende too? I never believed it, even at the time, and remember having heated discussions about it because you were supposed to believe in the "state murder theory" if you were left-leaning. Even without help of the CIA, German authorities would have been more creative at murdering the prisoners than just shooting ot stabbing or hanging them in their cells. All four wanted to be flown out in a helicopter after the Landshut hijack, it would have been easy to orchestrate an "accident" then without ever any trace of evidence appearing. Why do it in the cells and then in a way that invites conspiracy theories (Baader, Ensslin and Raspe all killed themselves in a way to make it appear/seem possible that there was third party interference - they had agreed on that). Why let Irmgard Möller survive - she could have surely "succumbed to self-inflicted wounds" in the hospital had a job needed to be "finished" - only to let her go free 23 years later (still raving about how she was allegedly almost murdered in that night)?

Were the authorities aware that the prisoners in solitary confinement were actually communicating with one another (via their radios which they had manipulated)? Definitely, they took it as a welcome chance to listen in. Were they  aware that Baader and Raspe had guns in their cells? More recent historical research seems to indicate yes (not all tapes have yet been released to the public, their prison cells were bugged). Were they aware of concerted suicide plans if the prisoners were not released? Probably yes as well. Were a couple of people thinking "let them go ahead and do it if they want, one less issue to think about ...". Probably so, their wellbeing wasn't high on most people's agenda back then. But that still isn't a "state execution".

Irmgard will of course say, I wasn't there to witness ...

[Dave W]

As long as governments lie and cover up things, there will be conspiracy theories. And a few of them will eventually be found to have at least some truth to them.

Jack Ruby's gun wil be going on the auction block soon. Whatever it fetches, you can bet it's worth more than it would be if the government hadn't been so secretive.

Now -- we've gone from emo fun to Jack Ruby in one thread. What next?