NastradumasKid said:

while many might not like Mj but was the Most influential black artist ever, Hon, there was a time where MJ was the only western artist known outside the U.S , especially in the middle east, far east and Africa, that’s the thing , he was influential around the globe ,he impacted everyone ,race , and culture , people in refugees with No T.V know the man and his dance moves ,anyone who says the contrary is on denial, the jealous bitch was so jealous of that , she didn’t even make a statement when he passed away, can you believe that? She did an interview with him in 1993 which was very important point in her career, yet she didn’t make a statement….

Prince who is a genius musician was never like that………leave Prince out of the discussion please

She is a ghost of jealousy.
[Edited 4/2/10 15:50pm]

I Was *Wrong* About Michael Jackson - Why I Now Believe He Was Innocent (And Feel Like An Idiot) by Craig C.

Last week when the news of MJ's passing hit, I looked around at what people and the various news outlets were saying and entered a mild state of shock.

How could the same people who were making MJ jokes just a few weeks ago - and the same news outlets who couldn't wait to break negative stories about him - now all-of-a-sudden FORGET all of that upon his passing and start worshiping him like some kind of God?

It just didn't make sense.

So I decided to say something about it.

I updated my Status to read:

"I don't know if he was guilty or not... but my gut feeling is that he was... and if he *was* indeed guilty then I am GLAD he is dead and hope it was painful. Death to child molesters!"

What happened next was even more surprising...

I was expecting to get DOZENS of comments saying things like, "Exactly!", "Amen", "High five", etc.

And many of those I got.

But I ALSO received a lot of comments of a different sort.

Along with several text messages, phone calls, and heart-felt personal emails... not from the people on my friend list of whom I tend to disagree with... but from a lot of people who's opinions I tend to REALLY respect.

And these people thought I was DEAD WRONG.

Yet still, my stubbornness led me to feel that even these respected friends of mine were also were being distracted from real issue by the outcropping of SUPPORT the people and media now all-of-a-sudden had for this man they had so recently scorned. So I decided to update my Status again:

"I predict this same thing will happen when O.J. dies. Everyone will be like, 'Oh poor OJ, he was such a great running back!' After all, he was found innocent too, right?"

This brought about more of the same - a MIX of positive and negative comments from my friends.

And of course, my first thoughts were, "How can these smart people STILL be so pro MJ after I just hit them with that AMAZING analogy??"

And that was when I stumbled upon this blog by Andrew Jackson:

Thinking About Michael

There are two things to say about him. He was a musical genius; and he was an abused child. By abuse, I do not mean sexual abuse; I mean he was used brutally and callously for money, and clearly imprisoned by a tyrannical father. He had no real childhood and spent much of his later life struggling to get one. He was spiritually and psychologically raped at a very early age - and never recovered. Watching him change his race, his age, and almost his gender, you saw a tortured soul seeking what the rest of us take for granted: a normal life.

But he had no compass to find one; no real friends to support and advise him; and money and fame imprisoned him in the delusions of narcissism and self-indulgence. Of course, he bears responsibility for his bizarre life. But the damage done to him by his own family and then by all those motivated more by money and power than by faith and love was irreparable in the end. He died a while ago. He remained for so long a walking human shell.

I loved his music. His young voice was almost a miracle, his poise in retrospect eery, his joy, tempered by pain, often unbearably uplifting. He made the greatest music video of all time; and he made some of the greatest records of all time. He was everything our culture worships; and yet he was obviously desperately unhappy, tortured, afraid and alone.

I grieve for him; but I also grieve for the culture that created and destroyed him. That culture is ours' and it is a lethal and brutal one: with fame and celebrity as its core values, with money as its sole motive, it chewed this child up and spat him out.

I hope he has the peace now he never had in his life. And I pray that such genius will not be so abused again. "

Wow.

In my quick-to-judge analysis of MJ... it had never occurred to me that maybe HE was the one who was abused... and maybe THIS explains some of his bizarre behavior...

This line also hit me pretty hard:

"He had no real childhood and spent much of his later life struggling to get one."

Looking at things from this perspective made me see that maybe the reason he built Neverland was not to get kids to come over to his place with bad intentions... but to create the childhood he never had for himself.

Armed with this new perspective, I started to feel stupid for buying into the notion that he was guilty without doing any of my own research. So I decided to dig into the cases themselves...

I did so STILL expecting to discover that my assumptions were correct, and to re-affirm my belief that he was guilty.

All the years of MJ jokes and tabloid covers had taken their toll on what my mind.

But as I began pouring through all information on the cases available online... much to my surprise... I couldn't find a single shred of evidence that suggested he had molested a child.

Not one.

Here are some of the main facts that swayed me in the opposite direction (skip this if you already believe him to be innocent):

1. BOTH of the kids who accused him were - at the time of the said molestation - 13 YEARS OLD.

Now, I don't know about you... but when I was 13 I was a full blown TEENAGER - not a kid... and I went through puberty late.

NO ONE was touching me against my will at age 13. That is 7TH/8TH GRADE. There wasn't a single kid in my Junior High School at that age that could have been touched without his consent... even... if he was drunk!

2. The father of the child in the first case, Evan Chandler, was tape-recorded on a phone call saying this:

"There was no reason why he [Jackson] had to stop calling me...I picked the nastiest son of a bitch I could find [Evan Chandler's lawyer, Barry Rothman], all he wants to do is get this out in the public as fast as he can, as big as he can and humiliate as many people as he can. He's nasty, he's mean, he's smart and he's hungry for publicity. Everything's going to a certain plan that isn't just mine. Once I make that phone call, this guy is going to destroy everybody in sight in any devious, nasty, cruel way that he can do it. I've given him full authority to do that. Jackson is an evil guy, he is worse than that and I have the evidence to prove it. If I go through with this, I win big-time. There's no way I lose. I will get everything I want and they will be destroyed forever...Michael's career will be over."

In the same conversation, when asked how this would affect his son, Chandler replied, "That's irrelevant to me...It will be a massacre if I don't get what I want. It's going to be bigger than all us put together...This man [Jackson] is going to be humiliated beyond belief...He will not sell one more record"

I'm sorry, but these are not the words of a man who's son was molested... and definitely not the words of a man who would have anything against using his own son for monetary gain.

3. Evan Chandler was a dentist, and his son Jordan was found to be under the influence of the controversial sedative Sodium Amytal when he claimed Michael Jackson touched his penis. Experts state that the drug sodium Amytal "makes patients extremely susceptible to suggestions", and Evan Chandler was later forced to admit that he administered the drug to his son.

2003 Case:

1. Again the accuser Gavin Arvizo was 13 at the time.

2. In August 1998 the Arvizo family was detained on a shoplifting charge at a J. C. Penney department store in West Covina, California. According to J. C. Penney, Gavin and Star Arvizo were sent out of the store by their father with an armload of stolen clothes

Yes, you read that right. The father SENT HIS KIDS OUT OF THE STORE WITH STOLEN CLOTHES.

3. The accuser's mother, Janet Arvizo, contacted an ATTORNEY before contacting the police about her son. The attorney was Larry Feldman... the same attorney who had represented Jordan Chandler in the 1993 case... and he sent Gavin Arvizo to the same psychologist that he sent Jordan Chandler to in 1993 for evaluation.

+++

After doing my own research, I felt like such a fool.

In my opinion, there is ZERO credible evidence against him.

I feel he is 100% INNOCENT.

And I feel like such an idiot for choosing the easy, uneducated way out and writing him off as what I feel to be the worst type of human being imaginable - a molester - before I studied the facts.

I also feel like an idiot for not realizing all of the good he brought to the world.

Aside from his music, he supported 39 different charities.

Along with Loinel Richie, he co-wrote the song "We Are The World", which sold 20 million copies and raised millions of dollars for famine relief.

And that's just the start.

He also personally suffered from some of the worst child abuse imaginable.

His father would watch him and his brothers rehearse with a belt in his hand, and if they performed in a way he didn't like, they were beaten unmercifully.

Michael mentioned in his interview with Oprah that as a child he often cried from loneliness... and would start to VOMIT upon seeing his father.

Upon discovering all of this I began crying uncontrollably (serious). The tears are coming back in my eyes now I as am writing.

Despite all MJ went through as a child, he arouse from the hell and violence to become a true angel on earth who changed the lives of BILLIONS.

I feel like such a fool for jumping to conclusions about him... and to all of you that set me straight, thank you.

R.I.P. Michael. You will be missed but not forgotten.

C.

P.S. While I have changed my stance on Michael, I have NOT changed my stance on child molesters. I still feel they should die painfully... along with rapists and child abusers... such as Michael's father, Joseph Jackson.

P.P.S. I'd like to end on a positive note and share 2 of my favorite Michael performances.

Here he is at around 13 years old.

This is LIVE, and recorded in pre-lip-sync days. Think about how this compares to the American Idols... or even today's established singers. His voice is simply memorizing...

http://www.youtube.com/wa...Sqo17o2a1w

Did I mention he was *13*? It's erie how the lyrics - while not written by or about Michael - seem to describe the one thing he was missing in his life to a tee.

This next one is from the 1988 Grammys. He is around 30 years old.

They say you become reasonably good at something after 3 years of practice.... very good after 5 years... and at about 10 years is when you start to reach the level of "mastery"...

At this point MJ had been crushing the stage for nearly 20 years.

He was in his PRIME.

A seasoned veteran, nothing left to say, nothing left to prove... and his subtle mastery of song and performance is just RIDICULOUS.

It is beautiful to witness the master at work. While you're listening again think of how your average pop star would have sang it and FEEL the differences Michael made.

Here is how it was meant to be done... and how it will never be done again...

http://www.youtube.com/wa...zpTQCQEFhg

Janet on Oprah and talking about Michael's "drug abuse"

http://www.cnn.com/2010/S...index.html
[Edited 4/2/10 17:09pm]

When was Michael the only Western star known in Africa? To the best of my knowledge, such a time never existed. Not to pick at that point, but that's some hyperhole right there.

MyMyMy said:

What I meant by that ,is that he impacted every culture, race and language, he was able to reach to those places (Middle east, africa,Far east) while others weren't able to achieve that,thats nothing new, if there was someone before him then post his/her name.
[Edited 4/2/10 17:21pm]

seeingvoices12 said:

Tell me something I don't know. :eye:

MyMyMy said:

Yeah, Muhammad Ali has been very popular over there too. But besides them....I'm not sure. So instead of one, it's only TWO Western stars widely known in Africa before Pres. Obama.

I think James Brown is known in Africa. I know he performed there.

WaterInYourBath said:

Yeah but I said " an artist" , I know about muhammad ali already.

I do think Michael Jackson was one of the few American musicians to be known in Africa.

Muhammad Ali is a boxer so yeah lol

bboy87 said:

I think the biggest misconception is what an "addict" is....When you have a chemical dependancy on anything whether its coke, heroin, alcohol or prescription pills you are indeed an addict...

And MJ was no different...You don't have to be in a alley somewhere begging for crystal meth...There are house wives in the Mid West who are hooked on pills who look normal...MJ's addiction lead to his need for Murray to be put on the team in the first place...

But just as Janet said on a recent visit on Oprah, Murray still is the main reason for Mike's death...That can't be debated...

But as Janet also said, she knew her brother had a serious problem....
[Edited 4/2/10 17:39pm]

But lemme ask you something, when you watched "This Is It", was it the look of a person who had problems - which no one can deny - just not to the extent that some of his siblings are trying to say.

Timmy84 said:

Maybe, but on a large/huge scale? I don't think so.

seeingvoices12 said:

Yeah I know. I doubt too many people know who James is more than they know MJ.

murph said:

MJ had a problem but that was in the past, Janet doesn't know shit, because simply, the factual official autopsy reports contradict her statements, last time she saw Mj was 2 days before her brithday on may 16-13? Mj died on june 25.

Timmy84 said:

I've had family members on drugs...And i can tell you it's not about how one looks....Do you know how many rock stars are addicts?...You wouldn't even know it...Lindsay Lohan is an addict...There's a death watch out on her...But other than her stumbling into a bush, she doesn't "look" like an addict...

And I love how we as fans can actually downplay what the Jackson family says about MJ...Janet has always been the fair minded one out of the bunch...She has never had an agenda...And yet she has made it known that not only did MJ have a real drug problem, but he wouldn't admit it, even when he was approached by his the people who were closest to him..

And still, even with all his problems MJ will still go down as the greatest pure entertainer of his generation...

There are two sides to the story and we know Murray's defense is gonna say the same thing the Jacksons are alleging. I don't know, but that autopsy only proved MJ was taking those pills to sleep. They didn't have a clear timeline on how long he took them.

seeingvoices12 said:

Come on homie...Don't let your hatred for Janet keep your eyes off the prize...Everyone knows that MJ was working on controlling his drug problem...And from what has been reported, he was winning that battle over the last five or six months leading up to the This Is It rehearsals..

So yes, the autopsy showed he was indeed healthier than in the past...But being an addict is an ongoing battle to the day you die...And the fact that Murray was brought on the team was proof that MJ still needed help controlling his addiction. Unfortulately, they chose a hack Doctor who tragically killed MJ...

murph said:

I understand that murph, but what about someone who has medical issues (such as the ones Michael had) and has to use prescribed medication?

The problem people have with Janet's accounts aren't if they happened, but when they happened because she's hazy about when they happened and the other siblings have different accounts.

And considering from Janet's own words, she and Michael barely spoke these past couple of years since the trial and before also so it's up in the air

Timmy84 said:

Again...here's the question you have to ask yourself....What is Janet Jackson getting out of this by saying that her brother had an addiction? Hell, in the very same interview she said Dr. Murray was responsible for her brother's death..

And MJ was taking pills to sleep because he was dependent on those pills...The tragic part is he was doing much better and seemed on the road to beating his addictions until getting hooked up with that shady doctor....

murph said:

Dude was around that "doctor" for a long while though. That's why I said the timeline's messed up...especially if Murray's folks are gonna do what I know they're gonna do anyway.
[Edited 4/2/10 18:01pm]

bboy87 said:

I feel where you guys are coming from....It's tough sometimes to admit when the greats have personal issues...But Janet said she saw him a month before his death at a party...And they talked for a while. And she said MJ looked like he was dealing with some major problems...Addicts have their off days and on days....

Bottom line: MJ is still MJ, even with his past flaws..He's still a GOAT....I think the fans need to understand...

murph said:

Homie.

Hatred for Janet? I didn't expect that, I'm a janet fan I don’t have something against her

And murry was physician ,MJ hires a team if he decides to do a tour or something, its not like Mj hired Murry to help him with his battle with addiction, WTF, he hired him because its well known fact that Mj always suffers from trouble sleeping in tours and rehearsals…..that’s nothing new.

Murry was never brought in to help MJ with his battle with addiction, he was brought in to help him to sleep .



What your saying is just pure speculation dude…

Yeah. And if he was addicted, I would think it would take years. The way the timeline looks, it only look like months. Plus Murray was saying three or four different things.

i'm tired.

murph said:

you know me, man. I try to stay levelheaded
I can admit he had problems, the brotha had a rough life and went through alot

I just want people to understand him and all that went through in the proper context, ya know? I don't want people out there to take it and overexaggerate or use it to degrade him. It's the same way I feel about James Brown or Sammy, and others I admire

babybugz said:

Is that John Cena in your avatar?

seeingvoices12 said:

Nah...I'm just dealing with reports...

I think the main problem is folks have an over-the-top view of what "addiction" is...

bboy87 said:

Yes and is there a problem??

babybugz said:

yes!