It takes faith to believe in Santa Claus. And in Michael Jackson. Reminder: keep your kids away from the latter.
When Jacko was on trial in 2005 for molesting children, I'm proud to say I showed great restraint. My lips were sealed throughout virtually the whole circus -- though, to be honest, that was mostly to keep my lunch down.
The icing on the cake appeared on Jackson's official web site. With Quintessential Kitsch and vintage Jackson hyperbole, it compared his acquittal to the fall of the Berlin Wall and Nelson Mandela's release from prison. Jeezus, dudes, you gotta rein it in. This is the real world, not Pluto.
Is there anything lower on the human food chain than a pedophile? Not even in prison, a ringing indictment if ever there was one. And within the (yuck, this is getting nauseating) human food chain of pedophiles, is there anything lower than a privileged pedophile who has the means to alter his behavior yet does nothing? Not according to most offenders, who say they want to stop but get little genuine support.
Jacko was declared innocent by a jury of his peers. Gives you pause right there, doesn't it? Let's face it, the only place you could find this guy's peers is on Pluto. But the jurors interviewed on the news about the verdict actually sounded fairly lucid. And apparently far more reality-based than most of the witnesses at the trial.
The case against Jackson, especially the witnesses-particularly the chief accuser's mother-just simply weren't credible enough. And they were almost as creepy as Jacko himself.
Is Michael Jackson twisted? Probably. But he's not your low-profile garden variety pedophile who can lurk around playgrounds-or, say, churches-unnoticed. The pop star is still a huge entertainment icon, and so over-the-top bizarre there's literally nowhere he can hang out anonymously to select his targets -- so how does he get them?
This, I bet, is what bothered the jury most. The young victims were brought to him on a platter -- usually by their parents. Who are stone idiots. All of them. They sold their children. Innocent, helpless children -- who should have been "cherished" and protected by their families-not by MJ-in the first place.
Here's my advice for parents of all Jackson's potential new victims:
1. What are you, nuts? Don't leave your kids alone with him!
2. After you've sacrificed your little lambs and milked the goat for the big bucks, don't expect to get anywhere with future claims of victimization.
If Jackson is really and truly sick with a lung disease, too bad. That's what you get from inhaling too much cotton candy.
A word to the wise: if there's a pitter-patter on your roof tonight, make sure you hear HO HO HO in a deep baritone. Not a creepy falsetto asking, "Where are the luscious little kiddies?"
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Max Rivlin-Nadler
drlaura2
Kristina Lakes
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Jane Brogan
Salon.com
Comments
Sally--thanks so much for so much that is beyond words. Roger
Happy Holidays Sally! :)
At some level, Jackson is to be pitied. He is a classic example of how a distant parent who is a firm - very firm - believer in corporal punishment can totally screw up their child(ren).
Same goes for stage mothers and fathers whose thwarted ambitions infect their children with neuroses -- or worse, and in this case, much worse. To trade your child's innocence for a script for a really, really bad movie, as was alleged -- well, that parent deserves prison even more than Jackson.
As for Jackson's acquital, as was the case with OJ, the prosecution did not make their case as well as the defense obfuscated. That's all too often the outcome when a defendant can afford really good attornies. See Phil Spector, a man at least as weird as Jackson, who should be rotting in jail this Christmas. At least Jackson has killed anybody -- that we know of.
All that being said, Jackson should not be left free to exercise his perversions. Excorcise them, yes, but not exercise them.
Gut Yontif to my favorite haimisher mensch. :-D
Roger and Mama, I couldn't help it, just had to write about the little elf. He's so, you know, tinsel-y.
Tom, WTF?
Parents screw up their children every day. Some of those children get help and lead healthy productive lives. Some can't afford help, or don't want it and still live relatively okay lives. Some, like MJ, bring their sickness into adulthood and abuse themselves and others with it. Alcohol, drugs, food, sex, plastic surgery ...pick your poison or mix and match... or much, much worse. Murder, suicide, battery, pedophilia.
Yeah, a lot of the rich and famous get away with it. My bigger point is that they have the resources to deal with it, to get help, TRY TO STOP. The parents of the young and famous should step in. The adult offenders should do it themselves. Those in the know report that MJ never did. We can't forever blame our bad childhoods.
Bill, we're on the same page. Gut Yontif to my favorite haimishe mensch and all the menchkins.
Wow, I wonder if this mysterious "lung infection" is pneumocystic pneumonia... oy vey, maybe he has AIDS. A bigger tragedy for any child he ever touched.
Very funny!
Yeah, Michael Jackson is a sad case. Never before has anyone been so talented and so twisted.
I wouldn't have any problem with Michael Jackson if he left the kids alone. He'd just be another rich weirdo. But the Pedophilia really grosses me out. As do parents who knowingly let their kids near him. Thumbed
nevermind!
Rich, I said what I believed. A jury did find him innocent. I blame the parents.
noah, that's it exactly, which is what I'm saying in this post. Parents who served their kids up to MJ or anyone under a cloud should be spanked.
Servant: "Mr. Jackson, you're not well, we've called the paramedics!"
Jacko: "Okay. Could you ask them to take me to Children's Hospital?"
Because he was rich and famous, parents who should have known better let their kids play with him.
Were they blinded by celebrity?
Or were they exploiting their kids as much as he did?
http://open.salon.com/blog/bstrangely/2009/06/27/smooth_criminal_mindreaders
it's really sad that you can't think about the fact that this man has a family, his own natural kids, and they're probably going to find this post. there was no evidence that michael did anything to anyone.
i believe the one thing lower on the chain than a pedophile, is the person who fantasizes about them.
As far as food chains go, is there anything lower than a pedophile apologist?
Fantasizes?? Are you freakin kidding me??? I wrote this during his trial. Even if his family sees this, they'll see --and have seen-- far worse. I feel for their loss but it's not my job to protect them. And, hello? It was the PARENTS who should have protected their kids from him.
Freaky, sorry I inadvertantly used your name in this post. And you made the perfect reply. Excuse me while I go wash my brain from bs's bs.
i'm just saying, unless you know this person, you are fantasizing. you're imagining what the jury thought and was disturbed by. and these kinds of posts make me really sad. it's what i was responding to when i wrote my post, which i linked.
really, i hope you read it.
As Freaky says, it's about the evidence presented. And as I said above, it's about what the jurors actually said after the trial. They did not find the witnesses credible, especially the main one. They felt, as I do, that the parents willingly offered their kids to Jackson for sexual purposes and then cried foul to get money from him.
The DA couldn't prove conclusively any wrong-doing. Which doesn't mean there wasn't any. The Jackson trial was OJ-squared.
Michael Jackson freely admitted he enjoyed having children in his bed. Unsupervised and unaccompanied by their parents. He claimed it was innocent and playful.
I --along with most people not blinded by his celebrity-- believe that innocence is forfeit in such a circumstance. NO child should ever be in a bed with a strange man. And I do mean strange in both senses of the word. It's inappropriate at best and incredibly dangerous at worst.
We are talking about CHILDREN. Good parents always err on the side of caution. They certainly don't rish or sacrifice their children for monetary gain... or fame. It's unthinkable.
Children, I should point out, don't develop thick skins until they are adults. Unless they're abused.
HELLO EVERYBODY: THIS POST IS IN THE FEED BECAUSE OF MICHAEL JACKSON'S FUNERAL. According to BBE, some posts show up based on the number of Google IMAGE searches, and I've apparently got a good image here.
FYI, I stand by this post, but not in today's context. I certainly wouldn't intentionally speak ill of the recently dead.