pieto the media ecologist

Dec 16

[video]

Burial of RAF Members Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe (October 27, 1977) After the “second generation” of the Red Army Faction (RAF) failed to force the release of the imprisoned founders of the terrorist group through violence and extortion (e.g. the kidnapping of Hanns-Martin Schleyer and the hijacking of the Lufthansa plane “Landshut”), the original RAF leadership (Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe) committed suicide in Stuttgart’s Stammheim Prison. The three were buried in a common grave in the city’s Dornhalden cemetery. Photo by Abisag Tüllmann (October 27, 1977). via

Burial of RAF Members Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe (October 27, 1977)

After the “second generation” of the Red Army Faction (RAF) failed to force the release of the imprisoned founders of the terrorist group through violence and extortion (e.g. the kidnapping of Hanns-Martin Schleyer and the hijacking of the Lufthansa plane “Landshut”), the original RAF leadership (Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe) committed suicide in Stuttgart’s Stammheim Prison. The three were buried in a common grave in the city’s Dornhalden cemetery. Photo by Abisag Tüllmann (October 27, 1977).

via

Dec 15

Wanted Poster: “Baader/Meinhof Gang” (c. 1972) On May 14, 1970, Andreas Baader was violently freed from a correctional facility in the West Berlin neighborhood of Tegel. This paved the way for the birth of the first generation of the Red Army Faction [Rote Armee Fraktion or RAF], which crystallized around Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Ulrike Meinhof, Holger Meins, und Jan-Carl Raspe. Their first programmatic statement was Ensslin’s call to arms, “Build up the Red Army!” [“Die Rote Armee aufbauen!”], which was issued in June 1970. The group first referred to itself as the “Red Army Faction” in Meinhof’s text “The Urban Guerilla Concept” of April 1971. (The group is also commonly referred to as the “Baader/Meinhof Gang,” after its two leading members.) After a series of bank robberies, car thefts, and document thefts, the RAF carried out a string of bomb attacks in May 1972, targeting the headquarters of the 5th U.S. Corps in Frankfurt am Main (May 11), the local police headquarters in Augsburg and the Bavarian state police headquarters in Munich (May 12), federal judge Wolfgang Buddenberg, the Springer publishing house, and the Heidelberg headquarters of the U.S. Army in Europe (May 24). Most of the RAF’s first-generation members were arrested and jailed in June 1972. The wanted poster below shows (from the upper left to the lower right): Ulrike Meinhof, Andreas Bernd Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Holger Klaus Meins, Jan-Carl Raspe, Ilse Stachowiak, Klaus Jünschke, Ronald Augustin, Bernhard Braun, Ralf Reinders, Ingeborg Barz, Irmgard Möller, Brigitte Mohnhaupt, Axel Achterath, Katharina Hammerschmidt, Rosemarie Keser, Siegfried Hausner, Heinz Brockmann, Albert Fichter. The heading reads: “Violent Criminal Anarchists – Baader/Meinhof Gang.” The text begins as follows: “The following persons are being sought for their participation in murders, bombings, bank robberies, and other criminal acts.” It continues, “Reward money in the amount of 100,000 Marks is being offered for tips leading to the capture of these persons. The reward does not apply to civil servants whose professional responsibilities involve the prosecution of criminal behavior. The award and distribution of this money will proceed without the possibility of recourse to legal action. Information can be handled confidentially upon request and is being collected by: Federal Police Headquarters – Security Group53 Bonn-Bad Godesburg, Friedrich-Ebert-Straße 1 – Telephone: 02229/53001and by every police station Beware! These violent criminals will make ruthless use of guns!” via

Wanted Poster: “Baader/Meinhof Gang” (c. 1972)

On May 14, 1970, Andreas Baader was violently freed from a correctional facility in the West Berlin neighborhood of Tegel. This paved the way for the birth of the first generation of the Red Army Faction [Rote Armee Fraktion or RAF], which crystallized around Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Ulrike Meinhof, Holger Meins, und Jan-Carl Raspe. Their first programmatic statement was Ensslin’s call to arms, “Build up the Red Army!” [“Die Rote Armee aufbauen!”], which was issued in June 1970. The group first referred to itself as the “Red Army Faction” in Meinhof’s text “The Urban Guerilla Concept” of April 1971. (The group is also commonly referred to as the “Baader/Meinhof Gang,” after its two leading members.) After a series of bank robberies, car thefts, and document thefts, the RAF carried out a string of bomb attacks in May 1972, targeting the headquarters of the 5th U.S. Corps in Frankfurt am Main (May 11), the local police headquarters in Augsburg and the Bavarian state police headquarters in Munich (May 12), federal judge Wolfgang Buddenberg, the Springer publishing house, and the Heidelberg headquarters of the U.S. Army in Europe (May 24). Most of the RAF’s first-generation members were arrested and jailed in June 1972. The wanted poster below shows (from the upper left to the lower right): Ulrike Meinhof, Andreas Bernd Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Holger Klaus Meins, Jan-Carl Raspe, Ilse Stachowiak, Klaus Jünschke, Ronald Augustin, Bernhard Braun, Ralf Reinders, Ingeborg Barz, Irmgard Möller, Brigitte Mohnhaupt, Axel Achterath, Katharina Hammerschmidt, Rosemarie Keser, Siegfried Hausner, Heinz Brockmann, Albert Fichter.

The heading reads: “Violent Criminal Anarchists – Baader/Meinhof Gang.” The text begins as follows: “The following persons are being sought for their participation in murders, bombings, bank robberies, and other criminal acts.” It continues, “Reward money in the amount of 100,000 Marks is being offered for tips leading to the capture of these persons. The reward does not apply to civil servants whose professional responsibilities involve the prosecution of criminal behavior. The award and distribution of this money will proceed without the possibility of recourse to legal action.

Information can be handled confidentially upon request and is being collected by:

Federal Police Headquarters – Security Group
53 Bonn-Bad Godesburg, Friedrich-Ebert-Straße 1 – Telephone: 02229/53001
and by every police station

Beware! These violent criminals will make ruthless use of guns!”

via

“The Example of Angela Davis” (June 3-4, 1972) The American civil rights activist and writer Angela Davis first met the German philosopher Herbert Marcuse at Brandeis University, where he taught from 1954-1965. After graduating from Brandeis, Davis decided to attend philosophy classes at the University of Frankfurt, where Marcuse had first achieved international recognition as a member of the famous Frankfurt School. During the 1960s, Davis became actively involved in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Black Panther movement. In August 1970, she was implicated in a deadly attempt to free black activists from a California jail. After spending eighteen months in prison, Davis was cleared of all charges on June 4, 1972. Her incarceration generated a massive outpouring of international support and solidarity, as can be seen in this photograph of the “Solidarity Congress” held in Frankfurt am Main around the time of her acquittal. A large crowd gathered on the city’s Opernplatz to hear a speech by her former mentor Marcuse. Photo by Abisag Tüllmann.   via

“The Example of Angela Davis” (June 3-4, 1972)

The American civil rights activist and writer Angela Davis first met the German philosopher Herbert Marcuse at Brandeis University, where he taught from 1954-1965. After graduating from Brandeis, Davis decided to attend philosophy classes at the University of Frankfurt, where Marcuse had first achieved international recognition as a member of the famous Frankfurt School. During the 1960s, Davis became actively involved in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Black Panther movement. In August 1970, she was implicated in a deadly attempt to free black activists from a California jail. After spending eighteen months in prison, Davis was cleared of all charges on June 4, 1972. Her incarceration generated a massive outpouring of international support and solidarity, as can be seen in this photograph of the “Solidarity Congress” held in Frankfurt am Main around the time of her acquittal. A large crowd gathered on the city’s Opernplatz to hear a speech by her former mentor Marcuse. Photo by Abisag Tüllmann.  

via

[video]

Dec 14

[video]

Dec 13

“The chapters in this book explore many processes of politics at levels usually not acknowledged or reported and indeed repressed and denied. Normally, these deep political processes are not brought to the public eye: for example, the way in which major drug traffickers are recurringly protected by the U.S. Justice Department, or the way in which some of the top traffickers have been recurringly named in connection with the systematic sexual corruption of members of Congress. Such ­arrangements are in fact widely known, but rarely written about. One way or another, scholars and journalists learn to back off. The resulting social system is relatively stable, and the fact that cer­tain procedures are repressed from public consciousness becomes itself suppressed. Occasionally, however, such “connections” between overworld and underworld impact radically upon the public realm, and we have unexplained crises such as the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, and Contragate. One thesis of this book is that, because of the underlying continuities of deep politics, such crises are interrelated. To study any one of them is to acquire knowledge about some of the principal players, and their procedures, in the others. In this way we become aware of a violent mi­lieu underlying American politics, including the ex-CIA Cuban exiles and their American handlers (such as the Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis, who earlier, as we shall see, had figured in the Warren Com­mission files on the Kennedy assassination).” from Deep Politics and the Death of JFK Scott defines deep politics as “all those political practices and arrangements, deliberate or not, which are usually repressed rather than acknowledged.”  What makes Scott so compelling is that he searches for information that is buried deep in the archive.  So, for example, rather than trying to figure out “who killed JFK” he rigorously compares the Warren Commission (1964) to the House Select Commission on Assassinations and finds the FBI lied to the Warren Commission on several occasions about Jack Ruby.  There is no recourse in his writing to a “shadow government” in control but the recognition of a political spectrum that runs from the public state to the deep state that is usually not acknowledged by mainstream political science or journalism.  As Scott explains about his methodology,   “The deep-politics paradigm… is essentially an extension of conventional political investigative methods to consideration of a much larger field of evidence, including, but not restricted to, the unacknowl­edged processes and events which conventional decorum excludes from our current ‘political science’ textbooks. By thus examining overt events in this larger field of deep political arrangements, it breaks down the distinction between overt and covert power, and thereby hopefully avoids the frequently asked question: Which forces are in control, the public or shadow powers? Here is an intrerview with Scott on UCTV’s Conversations with History w/ Harry Kreisler.  Scott is talking about his book The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire and the Future of America. 

“The chapters in this book explore many processes of politics at levels usually not acknowledged or reported and indeed repressed and denied. Normally, these deep political processes are not brought to the public eye: for example, the way in which major drug traffickers are recurringly protected by the U.S. Justice Department, or the way in which some of the top traffickers have been recurringly named in connection with the systematic sexual corruption of members of Congress. Such ­arrangements are in fact widely known, but rarely written about. One way or another, scholars and journalists learn to back off.

The resulting social system is relatively stable, and the fact that cer­tain procedures are repressed from public consciousness becomes itself suppressed. Occasionally, however, such “connections” between overworld and underworld impact radically upon the public realm, and we have unexplained crises such as the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, and Contragate.

One thesis of this book is that, because of the underlying continuities of deep politics, such crises are interrelated. To study any one of them is to acquire knowledge about some of the principal players, and their procedures, in the others. In this way we become aware of a violent mi­lieu underlying American politics, including the ex-CIA Cuban exiles and their American handlers (such as the Watergate burglar Frank Sturgis, who earlier, as we shall see, had figured in the Warren Com­mission files on the Kennedy assassination).”

from Deep Politics and the Death of JFK

Scott defines deep politics as “all those political practices and arrangements, deliberate or not, which are usually repressed rather than acknowledged.”  What makes Scott so compelling is that he searches for information that is buried deep in the archive.  So, for example, rather than trying to figure out “who killed JFK” he rigorously compares the Warren Commission (1964) to the House Select Commission on Assassinations and finds the FBI lied to the Warren Commission on several occasions about Jack Ruby.  There is no recourse in his writing to a “shadow government” in control but the recognition of a political spectrum that runs from the public state to the deep state that is usually not acknowledged by mainstream political science or journalism.  As Scott explains about his methodology,  

“The deep-politics paradigm… is essentially an extension of conventional political investigative methods to consideration of a much larger field of evidence, including, but not restricted to, the unacknowl­edged processes and events which conventional decorum excludes from our current ‘political science’ textbooks. By thus examining overt events in this larger field of deep political arrangements, it breaks down the distinction between overt and covert power, and thereby hopefully avoids the frequently asked question: Which forces are in control, the public or shadow powers?

Here is an intrerview with Scott on UCTV’s Conversations with History w/ Harry Kreisler.  Scott is talking about his book The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire and the Future of America.