Some people are not mourning Michael Jackson. Fine. I don’t care.
Some of those same people are criticizing others’ mourning him by screaming that he was a child molester. That, I do care about.
I would like to reiterate that he was not a child molester.
He was found innocent, remember? There was never any proof, remember? And many, many people have had their lives destroyed by false accusations from children, at the behest of money hungry parents, over zealous social workers and authority abusing police detectives. Or sometimes because the kids themselves are just liars.
I don’t need to give you examples, do I? You’ve got Google.
Let me ask you this: if your son came to you and told you that a man molested him, would you accept that man’s substantial amount of hush money and disappear or would you want to see him burn – either at your hands or at those of a jury? I’d like to inform you that if you chose the previous, you are shitty parent, although I suspect you knew that already.
I do not believe that boy was a victim of Michael Jackson. I believe he was the victim of his money hungry father (remember, the mother always said Jackson was innocent). I believe the second little boy was full of shit too. Maybe his parents were hip to the ‘let him be strung up and found guilty and then will sue him for everything he has in civil suit’ method? Who knows.
I believe they killed him. Or we did. Either his addiction to those drugs he began taking to deal with the pain and stress of those accusations, or his desire to have the public that he spent his entire life pleasing love him again – one of those things killed him, that’s pretty clear.
I think that Michael Jackson was a lonely man. One that was a victim of severe abuse and one that wanted nothing more than to have a normal life, to recreate a childhood that he always dreamed of. I believe that he used his money to try to relive his existence, make one of his own. I believe that the emotional and physical abuse he suffered damaged him and his decision making abilities. If we were to round up and shoot all the people that did dumb shit in the world, we’d all be in line for that execution, yes?
Does no one ever stop to consider why he shielded his children so adamantly? Maybe because he didn’t want them to grow up the way he did. He didn’t want the piranhas and vultures of media and society ripping them apart like they did him. Maybe he was determined to give them a real childhood, one that he never had, so that they wouldn’t end up twisted and confused like he did.
I understand why some people think he was guilty, I do. All I’m saying is for me personally, I don’t take accusations like that lightly, and I am not willing to say that he did anything like that, with the little bit of knowledge we have about the situation, paired with my own ability to use my common sense and reasoning skills.
I believe that he was innocent.
Maybe he wasn’t – I don’t know, just like you don’t. We can sit around and debate all the ‘facts’ all we want to. He’s dead, and I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt. We don’t know shit about that man. We never did. We knew what we saw. We knew what we were told. We knew what many mocked and ridiculed. We knew what he gave us, what we took from him.
I will mourn Michael Jackson without any qualms or hesitation. I will remember him as a man that changed music. That changed history. As a great musician and humanitarian. As a good heart, as someone who brought joy to millions of people, all over the world. I will remember and mourn him as just Michael Jackson. Because he was innocent: never proven guilty. Because I believe that he never hurt a child. Because he himself was a victim, of his father, of his life, of himself, and of us.
by Maria on December 6, 2008
in blogging
I love you.
No, not you.
Them.
Behind you.
Made you look!
My posting has been sporadic at best. I don’t mind. I don’t have as much to say, but I’m still always in my head, figuring out the best way to transfer my thoughts into words. I think it’s different as well. It’s not so much engaging and inviting of discussion; more so declarations of my brain through my fingertips into my editor and purged onto the screen. Whether that’s good or bad yet, I don’t know. I appreciate the community, I just feel I’ve been too wrapped up in it.
My commenting has been even more lax. I still read as fervently as ever, and I’ve realized that not pressuring myself to comment has enabled me to absorb your words more and remember them longer. There was a subconscious rush to my journey through my Google reader before: me reading but not retaining what you wrote because I was too worried about making sure I had the time and energy and desire to read and comment the next person as well.
I find this a fair trade off. I hope you can accept that less frequent comments from me are not a bad thing, that it means that I’m actually taking you farther in than I probably used to. I’m not concerned with my own numbers – I’m proud to say that neither Woopra nor Statcounter have been opened in months. Yes, monthssss. I don’t care. Numbers don’t matter to me. I hope that if you read me reciprocally that you stop now because the reciprocation is probably going to anyway. My feelings won’t be hurt.
I’m totally uninhibited. Emails sit for not minutes, but sometimes days before I respond and I don’t flip out. My nights are not consumed by Plurk and I barely log onto my social networking sites. I’ve officially broken out of my cage, my prism that was holding me hostage, my internet obsession. I am glad. I enjoy my internet time again, wasting it exploring Flickr and Tumblr and ffffound, and finding new blogs to read because I actually have time to absorb myself in more.
I have not asked any more questions. I have not drafted a blog post in which to showcase the already received answers. The response was overwhelming and my creativity is lacking, there was no way I could think of to properly give you what I promised. So, I’m sorry that I wasted your time. Feel free to take your question and turn into blog fodder of your own.
My recent post about some republicans/conservatives pissed a lot of people off. I don’t think I’ve ever received so many emails on a post. All of them I took time to respond to and most of the correspondence ended on a positive note, without me rescinding one word because I still stand by every single thing I wrote. No, I don’t want people to be angry or hurt, but after I emailed back, my hands were clean whether they were happy or not. Feels good to be confident in my words, no matter the reaction. I hope those people and I are cool, but if not…*shrugs* It’s my blog, and I can throw a ridiculous temper tantrum here if I feel like it. I don’t think I’ve ever given the impression that this was a blog to come to for fluff or cute stories or feel good anecdotes. It’s not, and there are many like that that I can direct you to if that’s what you’d prefer. This is real, it’s me, it’s good, it’s bad, it’s nice, it’s bitchy, it’s over the top, it’s vague, it’s bullshit, it’s mine.
I’m in a good place right now. A place of truth and good times, of nonchalance and self-absorption. Where I belong and feel best. I’m staying here.
Oh and a list of changes to the blog itself:
- I changed my blog theme, obviously, unless you’re feed reading. I like it. It’s clean and simple, but has room for the shit in my sidebar which, save the ads, is still pretty basic.
- I updated my blogroll [ finally! ].
- I took my tagline back to the old standard ‘you don’t have to agree with me‘. It rings truer today than at any other time.
- I moved my comments over to the Disqus system. I really like it, and I suggest you make a profile there so people can find out more about you by hovering over your avatar.
- I disabled the passwords on all the old posts, except for one that was written by a guest who requested it be protected. No more hiding anything.
- I bought a camera [finally], so I added a Flickr widget to my sidebar as well.
That is all.
Hope you’re well.
