[lbo-talk] Baader-Meinhof

[heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk]

Did "it" better. When the "it" is a moronic attempt to leap over the
problem of getting popular support by blowing up stuff, then that is not
much to be proud of. As a teenager I was convinced that the authorities
had murdered Ulrike Meinhof, but unhappily Stefan Aust's book makes it
pretty clear that she was suicidal because she had worked out just what a
crackpot venture it all was. The appearance of radicalism that the
quasi-militant tactics gave the Baader-Meinhof group was sadly undermined
by the childish tantrum that their political programme was. Guy Debord's
group had a more practical political programme. The essence of their
proposition was that Germany was dominated by American imperialism and had
to be freed from Nato, and, contrarily, and Oedipally, that their parents
were all Nazis under the skin. A bit like the insight of "The Nasty Girl"
- only with bombs.

Needless to say their characterisation of the German people as hopelessly
wedded to Fascism and Nato made it entirely justifiable in their eyes to
kill people indiscriminately.

It is impossible to read the story of their training with the PLO without
squirming with embarrassment at the spoilt rich kids playing at being
"freedom fighters".

Dennis

"Baader Meinhof/RAF made the Weatherpeople look like wimps. Once again,
Europe did it better."