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Biggs, Spaggiari, & Jesse James

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Varicose Brain

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Hello from the not so sunny west coast of the US. I noticed a Biggs thread while surfing around & reading up on the Great Train Robbery. It seems there are some well informed people here. So, on to my point-question about all this, there seems to be 2 perceptions about these 3 aforementioned personas, a dichotomy of sorts. on one hand, people think of them as free spirited Rogues who beat the system, on the other side, they are considered self serving thugs with little regard to the safety of human beings..................................................... The problem with Jesse James is that there are 2 strong versions of who he was, & why he did what he did, some say the Railroads ran people off their land & paid them nothing, so he & his gang got even, & even gave a large sum of money to the Benton family. When Jesse surrendered at the end of the Civil war, he was told his position in a guerilla warfare outfit meant he was not recognized as a legit military person, & he gave them his rifle & rode away & they shot him in the back. A non plussed person politically a safe bet. Spaggiari so they say gave money, 3 mil, to a children's charity. Then we have Biggs who sang on a pistols song & lived off of telling his story about the crime for many yrs in Brazil, even today, the Great Train Robbery sells newspapers., just won't go away. In all 3 cases, they are considered folk heroes in their respective countries, ( I had a French room mate who was 13 at the time of Spaggiari's bank job ). In a recent program, a photo of Jesse holding a 1886 model rifle came to discussion, he was supposed to have died in 1882. Just like Biggs, he won't go away. Now, my final thought on all this is that Scarface & Pimps in my country are revered by younger generations, & my 2 cents is pimps are the absolute bottom of society. So what is the verdict? re Biggs, Spaggiari & Jesse? Thugs, Robin Hoods? or a mish-mash of both? Are they a cut above Scarface & pimps? Or are the cut from the same cloth etc etc.
 
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Addendum re James & Spaggiari...........
Jesse & Frank stopped at a farm for dinner, & the lady was a widow, husband lost in the war, she looked very sad, & Jesse asked what was the matter? She said the Sheriff was coming to collect the deed to the farm the next day. Jesse asked, how much do you owe? 800$, Jesse gave her the money & left next morning. The sheriff then came & she paid him, & on the way back to town, Jesse & Frank robbed him & took back the 800$


The Benton family maintains that Jesse and his men stopped at Nancy’s home, ate a meal, and left a large sum of money. Whether Jesse helped her with the mortgage is unknown since the widow Benton was always reticent to talk about the matter. ................................................................................................................. Spaggiari had a beef with his government, the way the story goes is that he was a paratrooper in Viet Nam, & after his tour he & his outfit were sent to jail. He specifically targeted the higher ups in the south of France & posted naked photos of some of these politicians he found in their safe deposit boxes. I admit the amusing details of all 3 of these persons are entertaining to many, but again the question remains, should they be admired or despised. The Easy Way
 
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Varicose Brain said:
I would have been happy to respond if the query were more polite. It is somewhat similar to an earlier thread posted here about Ronnie Biggs, my apologies if it isn't to your liking.
Click to expand...
If you introduce some paragraphs it might look less suspiciously cut and pastey....
 
Urban, given the wide range of life experiences of the people here, will never give a consensus on whether the people you mention are good or bad.

You also have to acknowledge the part the media plays in either romanticising some forms of criminality based on the crime itself and/or the gender, race or age of criminals themselves.
 
The media does perpetuate & dramatize these people without doubt. Ronnie Biggs was flat broke in Brazil, couldn't work or even get a drivers license. An Argentinian newspaper came & asked for an interview, he said sure for 200$, then a Japanese crew came & he said 1000$, they said ok. But the public buys the articles, so here we are. Athletes would make better idols or persons to live vicariously through, but the element of danger I suspect is one of the main facets of it all that makes the readers return again & again to these outlaws. Geronimo, Max Manus & Doug Bader will be with us on that score as well for eons. Not comparing them to the above 3, except in the one aspect of danger. My heroes are Hendrix & Page, but as an amateur history buff, these above 3 are in the mix of interesting topics to learn about. Of the 3, only Spaggiari can claim zero violence. He enjoyed outwitting the police & French authorities, even wrote a book & returned to France to sign autographs in broad daylight & got away with it. Whether he is in the right, or in the wrong is a topic of merit, but one cannot ignore that his short time in French history was a trip out of the mundane & a better story than most Hollywood stories. Thomas Crown Affair, Green Ice & so on.
 
The two people I have known with a serious interest in Jessie James were or went-on to become rar-right fucknuggets. So I’d tend to be a bit wary myself.
 
Only one working class hero in the Train Robbery. Jack Mills, spent a life in public service working his way up in the railways to be a train driver. Beaten about the head with a metal bar when obviously unarmed by greedy cowards trying to make a quick buck for themselves. He suffered serious brain damage and never really recovered. Paid a tiny £250 compensation it was left to the fucking Daily fucking Mail to raise a public subscription so Jack and his wife didn’t have to live in complete abject poverty, thanks to the tossers at the railway. He never recovered and then he died.

The train robbers were a bunch of selfish violent cunts who preyed mostly on their own class.
 
Yes the train driver had headaches & got the shakes, his son said he was never the same after that. Plus an innocent man went to jail over the train robbery. They made some pretty bad mistakes also, not burning down the hideout. It was a huge amount of money, & this is perhaps why it was called the "great": train robbery. It wasn't as clever or as well done as Spaggiari's job. Spaggiari did hate communism, beyond that, I have no definitive data. He gave a load of money to children's charities so the story goes. Beyond the job itself, it is the motivation that makes it interesting. Andre Stander another guy that was interesting from that angle. Henry Starr it is said robbed more banks than Jesse James, 2 on the same day in the same town, but nobody remembers him.
 
Varicose Brain said:
Yes the train driver had headaches & got the shakes, his son said he was never the same after that. Plus an innocent man went to jail over the train robbery. They made some pretty bad mistakes also, not burning down the hideout. It was a huge amount of money, & this is perhaps why it was called the "great": train robbery. It wasn't as clever or as well done as Spaggiari's job. Spaggiari did hate communism, beyond that, I have no definitive data. He gave a load of money to children's charities so the story goes. Beyond the job itself, it is the motivation that makes it interesting. Andre Stander another guy that was interesting from that angle. Henry Starr it is said robbed more banks than Jesse James, 2 on the same day in the same town, but nobody remembers him.
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Jack Mills, that was ‘the train drivers’ name had more than ‘headaches and the shakes’ . His life and health were destroyed by the selfish cunts.
 
For those not familiar with Spaggiari, a Canadian program called Masterminds does a fairly good job, although it claims 12 mil was the take, other sources say 60 mil. 18 minutes in, you can see his 2nd floor window escape.
 
jesse james was a slave-owner, war-criminal & murder who married his cousin. not much to admire there, though he did frustrate the pinkerton scabs.

'no definite data' on spaggiari beyond 'did hate communism'? 'it's the motivation that makes it interesting'?

spaggiari was a member of oas, did time for printing leaflets for them. he was associated with dina - pinochets killers. his self-proclaimed motivation behind the heist was to finance an international support organisation for fascists, catena.
one of the reasons he got caught was that he contacted the cia & offered his services in blowing up embassies & communists, citing his part in the break-in as his credentials.
his lawyer was active in the front nationale...

then again, a lot of his claims (cantena, could've killed degaulle, found mengele in south america, maybe even his leading role in the heist) is pure fantasy or at least extremely unlikely. but at least he robbed a brothel in vietnam...

what's not to admire?

btw, in 1982 a french paper managed to bring biggs & spaggiari together for a cock-measuring contest in rio. might be of interest.

www.parismatch.com

En 1982, Paris Match réunissait les deux malfrats - Spaggiari et Biggs, le match du siècle

Dans les années 1980, les deux hommes revendiquent le «casse du siècle». L'attaque du train postal Glasgow-Londres en 1963 pour Ronnie Biggs, le cambriolage de la Société Générale de Nice en 1976 pour Albert Spaggiari. Tous deux vivent en cavale. Tous deux aiment se vanter de leurs exploits...
www.parismatch.com www.parismatch.com
 
Some of that was informative, I did detect some negative vibe however, I came here as it appeared there were some people with interesting knowledge, but like most forums, personal attack is a seemingly standard feature. Um, not into penises thankyou, but I have to wonder at how you were aware of such a thing that perhaps 99% of the rest of us would have no knowledge of or interest in. 1st 2 threads & I got snipes in plural, I'll be on my way now.
 
Varicose Brain said:
Some of that was informative, I did detect some negative vibe however, I came here as it appeared there were some people with interesting knowledge, but like most forums, personal attack is a seemingly standard feature. Um, not into penises thankyou, but I have to wonder at how you were aware of such a thing that perhaps 99% of the rest of us would have no knowledge of or interest in. 1st 2 threads & I got snipes in plural, I'll be on my way now.
Click to expand...


The negative vibe is caused by U75 seeing too many new people coming here with an agenda. It's a defensive mechanism, and is usually warranted. Don't let it put you off, though.

Please stay....people have posted on the thread, so this is a plus.

I have no knowledge about your post, just wanted to say relax and get to know us. For all we know, you could be one of us.



I have a soft spot for Americans....I think we need more of them.
 
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