Topic Posted by: Duffy
Date Posted: Fri Jun 26 10:19:25 2009
Additional Comments:
Just in the interest of gaining some perspective here, could we talk? As a disclaimer, neither of these men mean squat to me, dead or alive, so I have no ''side'' to defend, other than the side of fairness and impartiality which seemingly are always victims when it comes to fame and fortune.
On the one side, you have a governor who does not sing and dance and entertain us, is not rich and famous, who has an adulterous affair with a woman he seemingly loves rather than a prostitute, who is obviously guilty of dereliction of duty, who admits it and tells us more than we need to know and who then is pilloried in the media and on this board.
On the other side, we have someone who DOES sing, dance, entertain us, sell millions of albums, and is known for very strange behavior, to say the least. However, strange behavior is not a crime but child molestation is. The charges against him surfaced as early as 1993 and the case was settled out of court. In 2003, he admits on a tv documentary that he has sleepovers with young boys and is arrested on child molestation charges. Is there anyone on God's green earth who thinks a grown man has sleepovers with young boys and it is all just innocent? If so, that person's naivete verges on mental deficiency. But because this person is rich, famous, entertaining, he is given a pass on his ''sins'', which in my eyes are far worse than anything the above much-criticized governor did. Destroying the innocence of a child, or in this case, children, is unforgivable. I believe any poster on this board would say the same, so I don't get this disconnect here. I do not wish any pedophile to ''rest in peace'', no matter how rich and famous they are.
Posted by: dbrv Date posted: Fri Jun 26 19:06:57 2009
Message:
Oh, for Pete's sake. Again, we get people desperately playing the game of "What so-and-so did was bad, but so-and-so over here did something WORSE, so stop paying attention to so-and-so Number 1."
One issue has absolutely nothing to do with the other.
More to the point, most people who commented about Michael Jackson were praising his TALENT, not praising his behavior.
There's no way around it--he was a kind of genius. Most geniuses are NOT perfect people. Some are horrible creeps. Some are criminals. That doesn't negate their talent, and MJ WAS a once-in-a-lifetime kind of talent, and that is why his passing is getting so much attention.
And as Ricky pointed out, many of us are old enough to remember the endearing little boy who now seems like a total disconnect from the incredibly strange man-boy he became in his later years.
He was vilified when the scandals and trials happened, he didn't get a free pass, and he deserved it. Maybe he deserved more. We really don't know that for sure.
As for your declaration that only parents understand this issue, I would point out that the children who slept in the bed with Michael Jackson were permitted to do so BY THEIR PARENTS.
Something I would have fought tooth and nail if my sister had wanted to let my nephew do it.
You don't have a corner on understanding, empathy or caring about children's well-being just because you're a parent.
Posted by: CleoJ Date posted: Fri Jun 26 16:51:05 2009
Message:
On Facebook, there is a poll circulating about which Michael Jackson do you prefer and it breaks hit down into childhood Michael, Thriller Michael, Tabloid Michael, etc. I point this out because almost everyone who is grieving MJ today is grieving childhood and Thriller Michael. For most of us, those personas are completely separate from Tabloid Michael etc. It might seem odd but it is true.
As for him being a pedophile, I am not sure. I think most feel that way. No one has ever defended him sleeping in the bed with young boys and he has been the object of much well-deserved derision for the past decade or so. I'm gathering you think his fame and money has led many of us to forgive criminal behavior. It hasn't; we just don't know. We know something was very, very wrong but was he truly molesting young boys? I am not prepared to try him on this message board although I have always found it odd that his only two accusers seemed to have a monetary motivation for his accusations versus seeking justice. They never seemed that injured. I don't know what really happened; his life was extraordinarily bizarre and he lived a lifestyle that is beyond my comprehension.
In the coming decades, there will be a multitude of accusations, tell-alls, unauthorized biographies, lawsuits and conspiracy theories. If you are concerned that MJ will be canonized, don't be.
As for what this has to do with Governor Sanford???????? That portion of your rant makes NO sense whatsoever.
Posted by: Donna7888 Date posted: Fri Jun 26 13:17:30 2009
Message: Duffy, your post is excellent. Very well thought out and written - and I wholeheartedly agree with you one hundred percent.
Posted by: Ricky Date posted: Fri Jun 26 12:42:04 2009
Message:
The sleepovers were absolute lunacy --- no question about that. But never having met Michael Jackson personally, I wouldn't begin to guess what happened in the bed at Neverland. He might have been buggering little boys, or he might he might have been innocently using them as Living Teddy Bears. There's simply no telling. When it came to little boys, Michael Jackson gave the public impression of being completely insane. Maybe he really was insane in that regard, or maybe he merely gave that impression as part of his public personae. I have no idea.
What I do know is that in the coming weeks and months, there will undoubtedly be a barrage of young men who pop into the spotlight and claim some form of molestation when they were minors, with Jackson no longer personally around to defend himself and hand-select a high-powered attorney to shoot down the testimonies of the alleged victims. Some of the young men might have valid claims; others might simply lie in order to achieve their fifteen minutes of fame and a quick grab at some cash (if there's any cash available).
The sad part is that Michael Jackson's parents and siblings will have to suffer through these ordeals periodically over the next several months (or years) while still grieving the loss of their son and brother.
My favorite writer is Tennessee Williams. He was a brilliant talent from the late 1930s until the early 1960s, and then he was a weird old lunatic from 1963 until his death in 1983. I remember Williams fondly, not for the nuttiness and drug abuse of his later years, but in appreciation of the talent he displayed in his earlier years. He was a genius, and I don't think America has ever produced another writer of his calibre.
When I think of Michael Jackson, I don't think of that strange cartoon character in the 1990s and 2000s who hosted sleepovers at his ranch, or who used morbid cosmetic surgery to blur the image of his original gender and race. I think of the sweet, talented boy who entertained me in my teenage years. And I don't see anything wrong with praising him for what he did accomplish in his early years. There will be plenty of time later for the media and the historians to sort through the strange wasteland of his declining years, and determine what crimes he might (or might not) have been guilty of.
Posted by: farmer brown Date posted: Fri Jun 26 12:05:39 2009
Message: I would hardly call the absolute barrage of attention Michael Jackson received during his arrest and trial -- WHACKO JACKO ring a bell? -- as being given a pass. That's to say nothing of his years of negative attention for other strange behavior.
The difference is the man died unexpectedly less than 24 hours ago AND he had been out of the spotlight for the past few years. Few people outside of South Carolina and hard-core politicos had heard of Gov. Sanford until this week.
You could compare apples and oranges and have two closer things than trying to extrapolate meanings in the coverage and reactions to these two completely different news events.
Posted by: Glitter Date posted: Fri Jun 26 11:09:20 2009
Message:
Michael Jackson had his trail.. and was acquited .. it's time to stop crucifying this man..it's done, it's over he's dead!
I knew this was going to be brought up over and over again.. beating a dead horse. Anyone can accuse someone of abuse..thing is show me the facts, hard copy, video tape.. audio tape. I find this interesting.. someone else accused him of abusing a child..lied about having a video tape.. he sued them for slander and WON! They LIED! just like all the rest.. this was about MONEY! When he won this case.. it was printed on the back pages of the news papers. They talked about this on the E channel gosip show.
It's a proven fact.. kids lie about abuse all the time.. parents lie about abuse to get even with each other.. teenagers have been caught lying about sexual abuse to get even when parents get divorce or they cant get their way.
I never believed those allagations against Michael because it was too easy, it's the oldest trick in the book. I know what it's like when someone believes a horrible lie. I was a victim of a girls' lie that the whole town believed.. she started a rumor that I had a sex change opperation and they believe her because she was white! Even the police belived this w!ore! She was the kind of bitch that would cry "rape" in the old days when lynchings was legal.. I could've been a victim of a horrible hate crime because of this bitch.. I never knew this girl.. we used to go to the same collage club to watch local rock bands play.. I knew all the bands in the area. This was pure racist hate.
No! I will never believe this old tired s!it about Michael either.. it's the same hate here.
Posted by: DebS Date posted: Fri Jun 26 11:04:28 2009
Message:
Duffy, I have been one of MJ's biggest critics over the past 15/20 years or so. But I think the main difference here is that MJ is dead and that SC governor is not.
I think many people, like myself, have a policy where no matter how they feel about someone, they at least refrain from speaking ill of them immediately after they have died. Let his family mourn. LEt his fans mourn. Let the funeral take place. And then let the media get all of the excessive coverage (which is drowning out the coverage of Farrah Fawcett) out of their systems.....
So I'm just remembeing the good things about him. He was an amazing performer, regardless of how much I tried to resist that fact. And he was electrifying on stage. His music was not so bad either (most of it, anyway).
Seriously, give it a few more weeks, you'll hear all kinds of things coming out about MJ - probably more things than ever came out before - because he's now dead and people will be more willing to come forward.
And I too, will resume my criticism of the man. But now is not the time.
Posted by: topcat Date posted: Fri Jun 26 10:43:51 2009
Message: Micheal did not know where in the world he fit in. In the end he was and will always be remembered for his greatness and his badness. No one can really know what the truth was about his problems if they really existed with children. Was he charged with molestation for money gain by those who wanted to be rich and figured it was a way to get that after they allowed their children to stay at the home of someone they wanted to use to that end. We really don't know the answers. We can only hope those involved will find peace at last. If it really never happened as claimed...hopefully they will come forward and say so. I hope it never really happened but I don't know.
Posted by: Elaine Date posted: Fri Jun 26 10:40:35 2009
Message: As the Bible tells us, we should hate the sin but love and forgive the sinner. We don't know the 'whole story' on the child molestation charges. As a fellow human being of MJ, I only wish him God's mercy because we are all sinners in our own way.