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Minstrel Boy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-17-04 02:01 PM
Original message
new to my blog: "Unknown Knowns"
Edited on Tue Aug-17-04 02:15 PM by Minstrel Boy
Unknown Knowns

It seems often said of the things that consume me, "We'll never know what really happened." Think of the murder of JFK, and lately the events of September 11. The suggestion is that we who feel something is not right have little more than our unease to guide us, and that the facts are buried daily by the piling upon of time, ignorance and disinformation.

Remember these words from the Pentagon's Baron Sardonicus:

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.

It's always great fun to make sport of a Rumsfeldism, but I find myself ashamed to admit I understand what he was saying. Though true to form, he didn't say enough. Rumsfeld neglected to add that there are also unknown knowns. That is, there are things we don't know we know.

Since the mutation of America into the National Security State, it has been bedeviled by dark magi with deep bags of tricks: masters of sleight of hand, misdirection and persuasion, who dazzle their citizen-audience and leave them gasping, Now how'd they do that? And while the tricked try to figure out the mechanics of deep black illusions, the magi have been getting away with murder for years. And they will continue to do so, until enough people take their eyes off the tricks, and look at the tricksters.

Someone pretending to be Lee Harvey Oswald made an incriminating series of telephone calls between September 28 and October 1, 1963, allegedly to the Cuban and Soviet consulates, and one supposedly between the Cuban and Soviet consulates at a time when the Cuban consulate was closed and empty. In one of the calls, the Oswald impersonator mentions having met with Valery Kostikov, a man known to the CIA as the chief of KGB assassination operations in the Western hemisphere.

The CIA has lied about the tapes for decades. It claimed they were routinely destroyed before the assassination. But FBI documents have been uncovered which detail how at least two of the tapes were listened to after the assassination by Bureau agents familiar with Oswald’s voice, who determined it wasn't Oswald. There is a tape of a telephone conversation between J Edgar Hoover and Lyndon Johnson, made days after the murder, in which they discuss this monkey wrench. And the Assassination Records Review Board found CIA documents in which the CIA itself states that some of the tapes were reviewed after the assassination, contradicting its long-held public position.

Grassy Knoll or sewer grate? Three shots, four shots or five? It doesn't matter. The CIA was lying about Oswald before November 22, 1963, creating a legend for him that would be used to frame him as the sole assassin. That alone should be enough to open the eyes of all but the most wilfully blind.

We need to return to what first troubled us, because that should inform us what we ought be doing now to put things right. And the most troubling aspects of modern American history are the unrequited demands of justice. This, I believe, is where the investigation into the first Kennedy assassination faltered. Researchers got down on their knees on the knoll, examining blades of grass and calculating trajectories. They became consumed with the minutiae; with the how. After a little while of this, the murder of a President became a puzzle instead of a crime; a pursuit of hobbyists. And it's what I fear for the 9/11 truth movement.

At a certain point, when a critical mass of evidence was reached - and it may have been as early as Ruby silencing Oswald - Americans should have known enough, to say Enough, already. And they should have brought the United States to a standstill until they saw something like justice done.

Americans will only wake from their nightmare of watching their finest liberal leaders, witnesses to high crimes and sundry victims getting lonegunman'd, suicide'd and accident'd, treason unpunished and mass murder rewarded, if they learn that "We'll never know what really happened" is irrelevant. Because these are not puzzles: these are crimes. And crimes are never, in the end, How done its. They are Who done its. And here's the singular unknown known: we know enough, and have for years, to know who.

Now, do something about it.

http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/
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Eloriel Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-17-04 02:05 PM
Response to Original message
1. Brilliant
Just brilliant.
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seventhson Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-17-04 02:06 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. I second that
and nominate it
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anarchy1999 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-18-04 05:48 AM
Response to Reply #2
15. I second it three times. Wow! El said it best, Brilliant!!!!!!
Thank you for being so succient (sp?).
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bobthedrummer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-17-04 02:11 PM
Response to Original message
3. Just visited, you've done a very good job, Minstrel Boy!
You didn't waste much time getting it going after your decision either.
Great links and information-good luck and thanks.
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merh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-17-04 02:11 PM
Response to Original message
4. You do remarkable work, this is wonderful...
I have gone to your blog and I see others share the view that you are brillant.

Thank you for your efforts. :thumbsup:
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Minstrel Boy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-17-04 02:40 PM
Response to Original message
5. Thanks for the encouragement.
The world is pretty much blogged out, but I'm enjoying it.
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TNOE Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-17-04 03:10 PM
Response to Original message
6. Minsrel Boy
I just read your article at Rigorous Intuition - and immedately went and made a bunch of copies. Have already handed most of them out. That was really a BRILLIANT piece of work! I can't wait to see the reactions I'm going to get. You set that up like a beautiful piece of art! Good job.
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Selwynn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-17-04 03:17 PM
Response to Original message
7. Rumsfeld is actually right, NOT a stupid statement - give him credit
A group of psychologists from Cornell University published an article in the December '99 volume of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. It was called "Unskilled and Unaware of it: How difficulties in Recognizing One's own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments."

The thesis was that "people tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains...this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in this domains suffer a dual burden: not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the meta-cognitive ability to realize it."

Now, if that isn't a description of Bush and Rummy I don't know what is. So Rummy actually dropped a pearl of wisdom without even realizing it. He described the "unskilled and unaware" crowd, who don't know that they don't know anything. :)
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Minstrel Boy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-17-04 03:22 PM
Response to Reply #7
8. I know. That's the premise: I grok Rumsfeld.
Whatever that means.
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Minstrel Boy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-17-04 05:58 PM
Response to Original message
9. Wow, that was unexpected:
Fintan Dunne just interviewed me for http://www.breakfornews.com/.

Thanks, blog!




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slaveplanet Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-17-04 06:45 PM
Response to Reply #9
10. I was just going to tell
you to check out Hopsicker's lastest interview over there,Interesting stuff on there about Florida county that just got hit hardest by the hurricane. Fintan has a great site, and now so do you...
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RebelYell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-17-04 07:31 PM
Response to Original message
11. A+
Congrats! Very well done.
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seemslikeadream Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-17-04 10:58 PM
Response to Original message
12. Sir, there's something I think you should see
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Karenina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-18-04 03:49 AM
Response to Reply #12
13. Kick!
:kick:
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tkmorris Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-18-04 04:34 AM
Response to Original message
14. Ya know, I have to admit......
I saw your post announcing that you had joined the already swelled ranks of bloggers and I thought "Geez. Not only are you late, you post this here at DU like anyone would care. I've seen vanity posts before but this one is a tad over the top".

Then you post this, and I decide to give it a read. It's good, it's VERY good. So I read your prior blog post, and it's even better. So all I have left is a question.

WHAT THE FARK TOOK YOU SO LONG?

You're good mate, very, very, good. Keep writing man, we need you.
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