Continuation Part 3 - Discussion of the Amanda Knox case

[smkovalinksy]

One additional remark about that quote from PMF, which Humanityblues was kind enough to bring to our attention: It sort of clears things up for me. For a long time, I had pondered the passion that sites such as PMF, TJMK, and even some posting members of websleuths, harbored for MK and against the 2 defendants.

Surely some sort of universal symbolism must be at work, I had thought, but could not pin it down.

But this post nails it for me: Somehow, they have projected onto AK and RS the destruction of Western Civilized values, of classical values, and have conversely projected onto the victim - despite the fact that I believe she herself would protest vehemently - their preservation. Representation is behind it all. Just as Ann Coulter made the absurd claim that it was liberalism which sought to free Knox and Sollectio, even so, the PMFers et al believe the same.

Mignini stands for the old world, the classical world, the values of Augustine and Aquinas- waging war against what Howe and Strauss call the unraveling of the Third Turning of history: decadence and feminism and liberalism run amok.

Were it not so absurd, I would have sympathy for it. Okie, well, at least I have it cleared up in my own mind now.

 

[Freddy]

One additional remark about that quote from PMF, which Humanityblues was kind enough to bring to our attention: It sort of clears things up for me. For a long time, I had pondered the passion that sites such as PMF, TJMK, and even some posting members of websleuths, harbored for MK and against the 2 defendants.

Surely some sort of universal symbolism must be at work, I had thought, but could not pin it down.

But this post nails it for me: Somehow, they have projected onto AK and RS the destruction of Western Civilized values, of classical values, and have conversely projected onto the victim - despite the fact that I believe she herself would protest vehemently - their preservation. Representation is behind it all. Just as Ann Coulter made the absurd claim that it was liberalism which sought to free Knox and Sollectio, even so, the PMFers et al believe the same.

Mignini stands for the old world, the classical world, the values of Augustine and Aquinas- waging war against what Howe and Strauss call the unraveling of the Third Turning of history: decadence and feminism and liberalism run amok.

Were it not so absurd, I would have sympathy for it. Okie, well, at least I have it cleared up in my own mind now.

That really isn't fair to Augustine and Aquinas, who as far as I know never advocated railroading innocent people. A better comparison is the witch-burning villagers from Monte Python.

 

[smkovalinksy]

That really isn't fair to Augustine and Aquinas, who as far as I know never advocated railroading innocent people. A better comparison is the witch-burning villagers from Monte Python.

True. But I was in fact thinking of the values of Augustine and Aquinas, in terms of being at odds with liberalism (feminism, hedonism, etc.)- they would not have railroaded innocents, but they also would not have upheld certain postmodern European ideals, either.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Black Adder

That really isn't fair to Augustine and Aquinas, who as far as I know never advocated railroading innocent people. A better comparison is the witch-burning villagers from Monte Python.

Or Black Adder.

 

[smkovalinksy]

Or Black Adder.

Yes. Black Adder resonates with Mignini.

 

[GreyFox]

I love when they(lousy reporters) give there email address ! Hint Hint !

 

[Bruce Fischer]

I don't have an answer. But I do think we need a Michael/Fulcanelli's greatest hits tribute page. He's had some great ones.

Oh the memories! Remember when Michael/Fulcanelli argued passionately that the appeal would last only 5 days?

The best one for me was that mixed blood is like wine and cake mix.

But have some sympathy for the guy, he was thrown out of his own castle by Queen Ganong in a quest for power. Someone should probably tell the queen that the kingdom has crumbled so that she can take a break from barking out rants to no one.

 

[Rolfe]

Sorry, catching up with the thread after getting home from holiday, but saw a couple of posts I wanted to respond to.

Actually, this division between "proven innocent" and "innocent" should be abolished from any law, since it violates the former suspect's right to be viewed as innocent in case he or her is found not guilty. It also a violation to human rights in article 6 of the European Convention. Italian law should also get rid of this bizarre calunnia business, since it seems to be used unfairly, suppress a free debate and free speech.

Italian justice is certainly in need of reform, not to say there are no problems elsewhere in the world, of course.

Would you agree?

Speaking as a Scot, I agree entirely.

Scots law has the concept of the two "not-guilty" verdicts, and I think it's pernicious. I get a lot of flak for saying so, because my compatriots like to think we're "speshul" in having this distinction. But it's corrosive.

It began as mere semantics. In Scots law there were originally two verdicts: "proven" and "not proven". This is entirely correct. The prosecution has either proved its case or it hasn't. If it hasn't, end of story. No need to debate how may angels are dancing on the head of that particular pin. However, at one particular trial, the innocence of the accused was really striking, and the jury insisted on recording a verict of "not guilty" to reflect the fact that they were certain of innocence beyond reasonable doubt.

This created a precedent, and a bad precedent in my opinion. We now have "not guilty" in the sense that it's used in England for example, as the normal acquittal verdict. And we still have "not proven", which should mean exactly the same thing but no longer does in the minds of the public (who make up the juries). It is now seen as implying that the accused is guilty on the balance of probabilities but not to the standard of beyond reasonable doubt.

I think this is pernicious, as I said.

A friend who is a lawyer often defends the "not proven" verdict by pointing out that it's the historical Scots "not guilty" verdict and should be seen as no more than that - that the prosecution has not proved its case. I don't disagree, and answer this by saying that the "not guilty" option needs to be abolished. It is the two-tier acquittal which is pernicious, not what you call it.

Raffaele is way too young. I like Maresca's hair, but Dalla Vedova is the one I really have my eye on.

Raffaele is OK if cradle-snatching's your thing. Hands off Dalla Vedova, I saw him first....

Rolfe.

 

[Bruce Fischer]

More Nonsense

Its impossible to be shocked by anything coming from the Michael/Peggy/Quennell clan. One of the highlights came when they embraced the views of an astrologer calling himself "Ergon.” Here are a couple of excerpts from Ergon’s analysis featured on Quennell’s website:

“The day of the murder saw widespread stressors on all their horoscopes which would lead to murder, detection, conviction and imprisonment. The Astrology even shows Raffaele’s drug dependency and mental confusion on the night of the murder, the conflict between Amanda and Meredith, and the violence and rage that simmered just below the surface of Amanda Knox’s psyche.”

“And the night of the murder, November 1, 2007, saw Saturn and Venus in the house of emotional excess, Uranus in the house of sudden death, and Jupiter/Pluto, in the sexual house, in an almost exact T-Square to each other. The close conjunction of Pluto to the Milky Way’s Galactic Center shows the potency of this murder in attracting the public imagination, and also, the trigger for the murder.”

Why wasn’t this brought up at trial? It all makes sense when you listen to the pro-guilt experts. Everyone knows that murders are more likely to occur when there is a close conjunction of Pluto to the Milky Way’s Galactic Center!

 

[Freddy]

True. But I was in fact thinking of the values of Augustine and Aquinas, in terms of being at odds with liberalism (feminism, hedonism, etc.)- they would not have railroaded innocents, but they also would not have upheld certain postmodern European ideals, either.

There is nothing postmodern about demanding that conclusions be based on evidence. Classical and modern thinkers believed this; they just didn't have our scientific knowledge. Sure, their values were different as well. But I don't think this is a useful paradigm for thinking about the guilters. One can think that having lots of sex and doing drugs are morally wrong, while scoffing at the suggestion that they are any indication of the capacity to brutally murder an innocent person. Something can be wrong but not all that serious. Mignini was probably influenced to some degree by his belief that having sex and smoking pot made Raffaele and Amanda bad people, but still I think that clinging to his crazy theory was more a matter of saving face than belief in traditional morals.

Don't forget that postmodern values were largely behind the rush to judgment in the Duke Lacrosse case, where the facts were subordinated to notions of group membership and privilege. How many of those Duke professors who signed that statement asserting the guilt of the accused have since apologized? That's because they still cling to the belief that those guys deserved what they got. And the reason for that sure isn't that they have rejected postmodern values and clung to traditional morality.

 

[smkovalinksy]

Sorry, catching up with the thread after getting home from holiday, but saw a couple of posts I wanted to respond to.




Speaking as a Scot, I agree entirely.

Scots law has the concept of the two "not-guilty" verdicts, and I think it's pernicious. I get a lot of flak for saying so, because my compatriots like to think we're "speshul" in having this distinction. But it's corrosive.

It began as mere semantics. In Scots law there were originally two verdicts: "proven" and "not proven". This is entirely correct. The prosecution has either proved its case or it hasn't. If it hasn't, end of story. No need to debate how may angels are dancing on the head of that particular pin. However, at one particular trial, the innocence of the accused was really striking, and the jury insisted on recording a verict of "not guilty" to reflect the fact that they were certain of innocence beyond reasonable doubt.

This created a precedent, and a bad precedent in my opinion. We now have "not guilty" in the sense that it's used in England for example, as the normal acquittal verdict. And we still have "not proven", which should mean exactly the same thing but no longer does in the minds of the public (who make up the juries). It is now seen as implying that the accused is guilty on the balance of probabilities but not to the standard of beyond reasonable doubt.

I think this is pernicious, as I said.

A friend who is a lawyer often defends the "not proven" verdict by pointing out that it's the historical Scots "not guilty" verdict and should be seen as no more than that - that the prosecution has not proved its case. I don't disagree, and answer this by saying that the "not guilty" option needs to be abolished. It is the two-tier acquittal which is pernicious, not what you call it.




Raffaele is OK if cradle-snatching's your thing. Hands off Dalla Vedova, I saw him first....

Rolfe.

Interesting points. Hope your vacation was great (after having been so rushed the day of the verdict! )

 

[smkovalinksy]

There is nothing postmodern about demanding that conclusions be based on evidence. Classical and modern thinkers believed this; they just didn't have our scientific knowledge. Sure, their values were different as well. But I don't think this is a useful paradigm for thinking about the guilters. One can think that having lots of sex and doing drugs are morally wrong, while scoffing at the suggestion that they are any indication of the capacity to brutally murder an innocent person. Something can be wrong but not all that serious. Mignini was probably influenced to some degree by his belief that having sex and smoking pot made Raffaele and Amanda bad people, but still I think that clinging to his crazy theory was more a matter of saving face than belief in traditional morals.

Don't forget that postmodern values were largely behind the rush to judgment in the Duke Lacrosse case, where the facts were subordinated to notions of group membership and privilege. How many of those Duke professors who signed that statement asserting the guilt of the accused have since apologized? That's because they still cling to the belief that those guys deserved what they got. And the reason for that sure isn't that they have rejected postmodern values and clung to traditional morality.

Excellent points well taken. And I am sure saving face probably factored in to a large degree with Mignini.

However, I still believe that posters on pmf and tjmk are extremely passionate in their contempt for AK and RS, and their exultation of MK. Something must be driving that.

As MK was called "morally upright" by the Polizia in the original investigation, I assume this is what caused the original igniting of the passions of these posters. In the Lindy Chamberlain case, I read that the working professional women in Australia had a suspicion of this religious, stay at home mother of a brood, and wanted therefore to view her as guilty. I think some ideology is always behind things when there is such hatred and blood-lust involving defendants.

I am really curious: In YOUR own opinion - as you have given a good motive for the Duke passion, which I agree was post-modern in its origins - what IS the driving force of the guilters in this case??

 

[smkovalinksy]

Its impossible to be shocked by anything coming from the Michael/Peggy/Quennell clan. One of the highlights came when they embraced the views of an astrologer calling himself "Ergon.” Here are a couple of excerpts from Ergon’s analysis featured on Quennell’s website:

“The day of the murder saw widespread stressors on all their horoscopes which would lead to murder, detection, conviction and imprisonment. The Astrology even shows Raffaele’s drug dependency and mental confusion on the night of the murder, the conflict between Amanda and Meredith, and the violence and rage that simmered just below the surface of Amanda Knox’s psyche.”

“And the night of the murder, November 1, 2007, saw Saturn and Venus in the house of emotional excess, Uranus in the house of sudden death, and Jupiter/Pluto, in the sexual house, in an almost exact T-Square to each other. The close conjunction of Pluto to the Milky Way’s Galactic Center shows the potency of this murder in attracting the public imagination, and also, the trigger for the murder.”

Why wasn’t this brought up at trial? It all makes sense when you listen to the pro-guilt experts. Everyone knows that murders are more likely to occur when there is a close conjunction of Pluto to the Milky Way’s Galactic Center!

 

[Freddy]

I am really curious: In YOUR own opinion - as you have given a good motive for the Duke passion, which I agree was post-modern in its origins - what IS the driving force of the guilters in this case??

That's one swamp I'm very hesitant to wade into, but I'll give it a shot. I think there are several different types of guilters. I think that for some it is the tendency to view all criminal defendants as guilty and all acquittals as the work of sleazy, high-priced defense attorneys (see Grace, Nancy).

I think that for others the power of first impressions, which in this case came from tabloids repeating what prosecution sources were telling them, also goes a long way toward explaining the guilters. I think the prosecution leaks were designed to create such a first impression. I think the goal was to win the case. I think that this type of guilter is the most likely to come around.

Still others are just trolls looking for shock-value. I put Coulter into this category. I don't think she cares whether they're guilty or innocent.

I suppose there probably are some who see "University of Washington" and the sex and the pot and think that she must be guilty because she's a depraved liberal. But I think this is by far the smallest category, at least among American guilters. I can't think of anyone who I would definitely say believes this. Perhaps Ann Coulter, but as I said I view her more as an attention-seeking troll. I tend to view Mignini's comments along these lines as primarily a cynical ploy. Though I don't doubt that he views drugs and premarital sex as depraved, I think his main motivation was personal aggrandizement. He wanted to win an infamous case. If Rudy Guede acted alone, it was too mundane, despite the brutality of the crime.

I can't speak to the Italian guilters' motivations, except to say that to acknowledge innocence is to acknowledge how dysfunctional the Italian justice system is. Maybe a significant number of them think that sex and marijuana turn people into brutal murderers, but I kind of doubt it.

 

[smkovalinksy]

That's one swamp I'm very hesitant to wade into, but I'll give it a shot. I think there are several different types of guilters. I think that for some it is the tendency to view all criminal defendants as guilty and all acquittals as the work of sleazy, high-priced defense attorneys (see Grace, Nancy).

I think that for others the power of first impressions, which in this case came from tabloids repeating what prosecution sources were telling them, also goes a long way toward explaining the guilters. I think that this type of guilter is the most likely to come around.

Still others are just trolls looking for shock-value. I put Coulter into this category. I don't think she cares whether they're guilty or innocent.

I suppose there probably are some who see "University of Washington" and the sex and the pot and think that she must be guilty because she's a depraved liberal. But I think this is by far the smallest category, at least among American guilters. I can't think of anyone who I would definitely say believes this. Perhaps Ann Coulter, but as I said I view her more as an attention-seeking troll. I tend to view Mignini's comments along these lines as primarily a cynical ploy, though I don't doubt that he views drugs and premarital sex as depraved.

I can't speak to the Italian guilters' motivations, except to say that to acknowledge innocence is to acknowledge how dysfunctional the Italian justice system is. Maybe a significant number of them think that sex and marijuana turn people into brutal murderers, but I kind of doubt it.

Thanks for that very apt response. I think what got me questioning along these lines, were the amount of extreme emotional posts I viewed on certain sites, wherein Knox and Sollecito were vilified, and Kercher, turned into an almost saintly creature. I found it odd, because Kercher herself drank, smoked pot, and engaged in pre-marital sex.

But there seemed to be a desire to pretend that because Knox and Sollecito had presumably chosen her as their victim, that she somehow was a throw-back to another era. The Seattle Generation X Nirvana vibe seemed to hover over Amanda (in their minds, not to my thinking).

I think you are right that certain persons such as Coulter and Mignini are just being strategic in all of this. But I still have the sense that the reason the original "Foxy Knoxy" stories were so titillating and so believed, is because the time had come to believe them, psychologically speaking. It is as though Mignini's theory should have been true, to satisfy the psyche. And that is likely why Coulter's demonizing of liberals finds an audience as well.

 

[misteratunta]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...nd-enjoys-days-freedom.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

This is all that matters really.

Heart warming.

Ignoring the Daily Mail's bizarre ongoing obsession with her of course.

 

[Justinian2]

More bad reporting on the case

http://www.hannibal.net/opinions/x1...ty-overshadows-facts-in-Amanda-Knox-acquittal

Here are a couple of Wendy's points for guilt:


2. Knox’s DNA was found mixed with the victim’s blood in many different locations at the murder scene where Knox had lived with Kercher for only a few weeks before the crime took place. Knox told cops there was no blood from either her or Kercher in any of the rooms where the mixtures were found prior to the night in question. Without an innocent way to explain this DNA evidence, Knox’s involvement in the crime cannot be doubted.

3. Knox changed her story several times, initially claiming she was at Sollecito’s apartment at the time of the crime –– until cops told her that other evidence, including phone and computer records, disproved her alibi. Knox then confessed that she was present at the murder and could hear the victim screaming –– but she couldn’t recall much because she was under the influence of drugs. Many of the details she could recall about the crime were correct and could only have been known by someone who was there because the facts had not yet been publicly released.

I have already replied to that author and told her as nicely as I could why she is stupid. I was wondering whether to use the word 'ignorant' or the word 'stupid'. I chose the word 'stupid' because her ignorance of the subject matter about which she writes and teaches is profound. She should have learned something about the case in four years - especially since 20 books have been written on the subject.

 

[smkovalinksy]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...nd-enjoys-days-freedom.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

This is all that matters really.

Heart warming.

Ignoring the Daily Mail's bizarre ongoing obsession with her of course.

Aww, great to see her out and about!

 

[Antony]

I'm still spending far too much time reading this forum, and although (for example) the argument over Machiavelli's "interpretation" of the rights of suspects has been entertaining, it isn't as informative as when things were happening in the case.

What I'd like to know is, when are we going to see the wrongs of the case put right? Why are Amanda's lawyers not taking action to shut down the malicious, libellous websites? Only yesterday TJMK put out an article claiming "the evidence still points to Amanda Knox" - how is it possible for them to go on making false accusations like this?

What is the chance of seeing an enquiry into police and prosecution misdeeds? Do we have to wait until the Hellmann motivation report and the Supreme Court ruling before anything else happens?

 

[smkovalinksy]

I have already replied to that author and told her as nicely as I could why she is stupid. I was wondering whether to use the word 'ignorant' or the word 'stupid'. I chose the word 'stupid' because her ignorance of the subject matter about which she writes and teaches is profound. She should have learned something about the case in four years - especially since 20 books have been written on the subject.

Wendy Murphy is a fanatic, and truly, an idiot. She is willfully ignorant, and her victims' advocacy creates more victims than it saves. She was the one who believed Casey Anthony had been selling her daughter out to pedophiles. Such people will never listen to reason.

“I am frustrated with what I would describe as the lack of full disclosure of the full truth,” said Wendy Murphy, a legal analyst, law professor and victims’ rights advocate specializing in child and sexual abuse cases, regarding the Casey Anthony murder trial.

“I read thousands of pages and covered the case and read everything carefully from day one,” said Murphy. “My concern is that this trial was not about the truth. Much of the case remains under seal.”

Murphy told Scott Hennen Show listeners that there is “an awful lot of evidence in this case” under seal suggesting that Casey Anthony was involved in prostitution and pimping out Caylee for child porn purposes. “There was child porn, prostitution and a lot of sex stuff behind the scenes, the back story in terms of what Casey was doing and how she was making a living.”

http://plainsdaily.com/entry/child-...les-legal-expert-demands-records-be-released/

See also:

Wendy Murphy's advocacy for junk science

http://www.cyberussr.com/hcunn/witch/murp-junksci.html