Michael Jackson is "evil"

Thomas Dolby weighed in last night, at some length. He hung out with MJ a bit over the years. His post is on his FB.

On the web we have these things called uniform resource locators that allow one to reference a document on a remote server that can be retrieved with a specified protocol.

people also take stuff down all the time so why don't i just c+p Dolby's reminiscence:

We met a few times, including once in private at his house on Hayvenhurst (on an evening when he was surrounded by young boys in pajamas) and we talked a few times of the phone. Those encounters are well covered in my book The Speed of Sound—which I guess is why people have been asking me what I think of this documentary.
What little I saw at MJ’s house of his interactions with the kids was not inconsistent with the (non-sexual) activities documented in Finding Neverland. Across the board, observers describe MJ as someone with the emotions of a young child himself, and that’s what I saw. Undoubtedly the boys were his playmates. Now grown up, these two men Wade Robson and James Safechuck are certainly victims of their association with Michael. He had a lonely, persecuted and haunted lifestyle, and there was plenty of collateral damage to those around him. I recognize most of what’s in this documentary as the truth. Still, I find it hard to believe these two accusers on the subject of the sexual abuse. Here’s what I think and why:
Almost all aspects of the two accusers’ stories can be independently verified, except for the sex. There are photos, videos, letters, presumably security logs, and eye witnesses from staff. With Michael deceased (and unless some other third party witness comes forward) the only possible testimonies as to the sex are from the victims themselves. So let’s assume the rest, at least, is true: it’s true that each of these boys were very much in MJ’s inner circle, he loved them, they loved and adulated him. It’s also true that each had a very ambitious ‘stage mother’, who wanted to launch lucrative careers based on their sons’ association with Michael; and each had a family who for a while at least, were thrilled with the first-class treatment they received as MJ’s guests.
Assuming all the ‘daylight’ stuff to be true, now let’s address two different hypotheses about what happened behind closed doors: (a) MJ had sex with the boys (b) MJ did not have sex with the boys.
In support of (a): The documentary paints a very believable picture of the adoration of two boys for their hero, and the giddy excitement of their families at being courted by a millionaire megastar. It fully explains why the boys were attracted to him, why they sought sanctuary in his bed, and why no-one raised the alarm, including their relatives. It shows the harrowing effects of the experience on the boys and the families, especially when their time in MJ’s limelight was up. It makes a good case for why their abuse was never proven in court while MJ was alive, and has only come to light since his death.
In support of (b): All of the above would still hold true even if there was no sex. The two accusers originally swore there was none at all, and it is not clear why they are only claiming now that he abused them. Granted, childhood abuse victims often only come forward in middle age, as we’ve seen with the Catholic Church scandals. But getting it off their consciences, or just ‘doing the right thing’, is that a strong enough motive in itself?
Allow yourself to consider this for a moment: the entire lives of these men (sex or no sex) have hinged around their association with MJ. His affection for them is clear. But he tossed them aside, and left them nothing, no legacy, no cash. Their showbiz careers faltered, and their family lives were devastated. Meanwhile, they’ve watched Michael’s estate reap the rewards of his endless, massive earning power, unable to claim even a penny for themselves. Just being victims of his fickle affection, and the fact he hurt took advantage of them at a young age and hurt their feelings, does not in itself give them any claim to a piece of his fortune.
The only way they can receive reparation for the hurt they feel, is to add a piece of fiction to the whole story: that Michael abused them sexually. (Again, I am hypothesizing here.)
Ever since they were MJ’s child buddies, people have been asking the two accusers if he ever touched them. Provoking them to spill the beans. The papers and the Internet sites talked as if MJ was already a proven 100% pedophile. It was assumed the two men were lying if they claimed otherwise. Maybe there came a point where it was just easier to give in and say, yes, he did abuse them sexually. That’s a story many would readily believe. Their two stories are directly parallel, giving them more than double the credence. Now there’s a documentary filmmaker and a cable network willing to pay them handsomely to co-operate; they get paid either way; and look at the potential upside—they could end up with millions in damages from the estate, and be set up for life.
You could argue that the accusers’ testimonies were carefully fabricated to add damning incrimination. He taught them how to masturbate, he showed them porn, he warned them their lives would be over if anyone found out, etc. It’s a pattern we’ve all heard before, and we all recognize, and abhor it. If this really happened, MJ wouldn’t be the first pedophile in history. Yet it’s also such a formulaic pattern, it’s almost too formulaic to match everything else about MJ, which was anything but.
Either hypothesis is very believable to me. But my gut tells me they are lying about the sex. I believe MJ was an asexual being, a pre-pubescent child. He certainly craved their affection, and he definitely made some stupid decisions that could only be misunderstood by the society we live in. But I don’t believe in my heart that he had sex with these kids.
When I watch the accusers ‘remembering;’ details about their 7- or 10-year old experiences, I don’t feel they are drawing on the memories of a child—they are fabricating adult memories, from their adult experience and imaginations. They may even have come to believe what they’re saying. Memory is a strange thing. That’s my personal gut feeling. And I am not trying to justify the undoubted harm they were caused—nor am I trying to belittle true victims of childhood sexual abuse.
This documentary had a clear agenda from the outset. I see zero evidence that the filmmaker went into it impartially. Everything he presents here is designed to draw one conclusion only. It is not an ‘investigative’ documentary—if it was, he would present alternative viewpoints, and find others to support the testimony of the two victims and their families. It is noticeable that two other of MJ’s ‘buddies’—including McCaulay Culkin—denied any sexual contact, and are not interviewed; while still others that have had their faces blurred, presumably also declining to be interviewed. It seems very likely to me that there was collusion (sorry for the bad timing of this word!) in the making of this film, getting the victims’ stories aligned, rehearsing the interviews, building the strongest case they could.
And I actually think the filmmaker missed a trick here. The lack of impartiality weakens his case. His totally one-sided viewpoint is almost an invitation for someone else to make a ‘rebuttal’ documentary and smear the victims by picking holes in their stories and dragging them through the dirt.
Whatever the outcome, it’s tragic. If MJ was a pedophile—tragic. If these guys are lying to make money—tragic. I hope the truth comes out, but that may never happen. And all this comes at a time when we’re questioning the very nature of Truth.

questioning the very nature of Truth jfc, who the heck is thomas dolby, I assume a prominent epistemologist

I think that "I really don't know what to think!" is, in a lot of ways, a far less immoral and condemnable response than movement-style thinking on this subject allows, and even I think that was a shitty, shitty answer, Dolby. You suck. If I did the cancelling thing, you'd be outta here.

I believe MJ was an asexual being, a pre-pubescent child.

jfc, indeed. he was a 40something man when this stuff was alleged to have happened. do we think he had his gonads snipped off? after he died tons of pornography was found in his home.

the porn was found during one of the investigations. porn and open hard liquor containers in the bedroom and en suite bathroom he shared with small boys

very childlike behaviour from the middle aged man

i like quote investigator. i have a lot of these misattributed old saws that pop into my head at times and it's good that people actually try to figure out where they come from. (in this case, apparently, a paraphrase of proverbs 17:28).

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/17/remain-silent/

en suite bathroom

John Lanchester to thread

Dolby is wrong about Wade Robson: he has
/had a very successful emmy award winning career as a choreographer. So I'm not sure ab gaining sth from admitting he was sexually abused. (Well, financial gain maybe but for the rest? It is emotionally not so. On the contrary, it is exceptionally hard to come forward.)

I simply don't know what to think really. Deep down I think, yes, there was abuse to some extent. How much, we'll never know for sure. And for me it was very hard to swing the other way: going from admiring him as the King of Pop to a pedophile...

swing the other way

phrasing!

The cafeteria at work was playing some Jackson 5 songs at lunch today. I haven't heard any later-era Jacko in a while though.

The two accusers originally swore there was none at all, and it is not clear why they are only claiming now that he abused them. Granted, childhood abuse victims often only come forward in middle age,

how do you type this bit and then keep typing, instead of realising what you just typed and then closing the tab

They weren’t “paid handsomely” to take part in the documentary. The director says were not paid at all.

xpost

"granted, i've seen incontrovertible photos of numerous victims of the holocaust...."

jfc, indeed. he was a 40something man when this stuff was alleged to have happened. do we think he had his gonads snipped off? after he died tons of pornography was found in his home.

plus, haven't some of his bodyguards come out and said MJ had many different girls across the country? like, I actually kinda understand Dolby's POV in a way, MJ comes off about as asexual as pop stars come, but I don't think he actually was.

idk, Thomas Dolby has always been a pretty thoughtful and even-keeled dude, but yeah his take on this is bad

I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to be paid to take part in a documentary. In the UK at least.

he blinded us with science

he blinded us with fake science

fixed

Fuckin ridiculous that anyone ever fell for the “hE wAs A cHiLd HimSeLf!” line of defence, I guess if you’re a rich child molester just go out and buy a literal Peter Pan hat to wear all the time and you’re off to the races

plus, haven't some of his bodyguards come out and said MJ had many different girls across the country? like, I actually kinda understand Dolby's POV in a way, MJ comes off about as asexual as pop stars come, but I don't think he actually was.

There are also stories of him dropping the high-pitched voice off-camera/backstage, of people having phone conversations with him where he spoke in the voice of any other middle-aged man.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdTI6Tjy8Rw

I guess if you’re a rich child molester just go out and buy a literal Peter Pan hat to wear all the time and you’re off to the races

yeah just imagine if this worked

http://www.thecommentator.com/system/articles/inner_pictures/000/001/776/original/Jimmy_Saville.jpeg

https://assets.change.org/photos/8/wz/kt/LpwZkThemSeWzSO-800x450-noPad.jpg

https://i.warosu.org/data/cgl/img/0069/20/1371769194284.jpg

Quite. Jackson and savile v similar in that I’m like wait the “cover” was to openly act like the world’s molestiest molester 24/7?

Christ who's that fucker at the bottom there?

_swing the other way_

phrasing!

Saville was also widely considered to be "asexual"

Was he?!? I never read/heard ab that. Then again he always came across as an arrogant annoying asshole to me. Hated him as a kid. But that doesn't mean shit. My radar for spotting assholes is defective. Lol.

Christ who's that fucker at the bottom there?

― piscesx, Tuesday, March 26, 2019 8:33 PM (forty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The founder of DragonCon.

Christ who's that fucker at the bottom there?

and in other "kept going to court very late in wheelchairs and oxygen tanks in order to somehow prove they couldn't be child molesters" news, Dragoncon founder Ed Kramer lasted two months out of his 5-year house arrest before getting caught photographing a child in a doctor's office

also added a yarmulke to the ensemble so that it would be anti-semitic to convict him

(He'd spent decades running a nerd convention known for being the most welcoming place on earth to dress as an elf with your buttocks exposed) (and many years fighting his business partners as they tried to remove him from the organisation and keep it a safe place to dress as etc)

Watched a Neverland bootleg the last couple of nights.

I'm so late to this, I'm sure I can't add anything to the 500 previous posts (which I haven't looked at yet). The subject's so big--too big, like a Holocaust film--I think it did as well as could be expected. I concluded pretty much right from the '93 case that Michael Jackson was guilty of every charge; this was a big topic of conversation when I was doing Radio On in the mid-90s, and there was a single of his in virtually every issue, so I want to go back and look up what I wrote at the time, but I'm pretty sure I was convinced early on. (Before '93, I was probably as stupid and as oblivious--oh, he's just weird--as everyone else.) I know this must be an exceedingly common reaction: I come up so short in understanding the parents (or three of them anyway--the Australian father is a separate issue), that I don't even want to attempt to say anything until I've read something that tries to give an empathetic explanation of what they might have been thinking.

The cafeteria at work was playing some Jackson 5 songs at lunch today. I haven't heard any later-era Jacko in a while though.

― ☮ (peace, man), Tuesday, March 26, 2019 6:32 PM (six days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Got Remember the Time today.

can’t believe that anyone in the world still doubts he did it

Halloween will be just the same without "Thriller." I promise.

Watched this yesterday. Considering the whole process of selecting and grooming and brainwashing these kids, and the extent to which sex was completely central to each relationship, I just don’t see how it’s possible that he didn’t also molest Macaulay Culkin and ever single one these other boys.

Like it doesn’t make sense that he wld abandon his whole m.o. for a year w/ one kid and then pick it right back up w/ the next.

it makes sense that he wouldn't molest a particularly famous kid

the many, many boys he acted like an overgrown child with, and didn’t molest, were cover for the ones that he identified as vulnerable and susceptible

tbh the first halloween i remember was when thriller came out

just replace Thriller with Werewolf Bar Mitzvah tbh

xps I wld be more inclined to accept this if he wasn’t “monogamous” (ugh) with these other kids—spending seemingly 24hrs a day with the given boy of choice....

But I guess I don’t know enough abt what kind of time Culkin spent with him. Did it overlap other relationships? Did they also share a bed?

He took time grooming the kids in groups until he figured out which ones would go along with his advances, wouldn’t talk about it, and had successfully starstruck parents. He wasn’t fucking every child around him all the time. The number of unfucked children at his play parties and in the press also helped convince the desperate-to-be-convinced parents of the victims.

I’ve always assumed that fucking Emmanuel Lewis or Corey Feldman or Culkin would have been insane bcz they were famous and beloved and the public would have believed them if they said “Michael sucks my penis in bed, it feels nice and he says it makes us special friends,” and because their parents had access to a) good lawyers and PR and b) money to pay good lawyers.

Being seen cuddling and lap-sitting and hand-holding famous, beloved children who say “Michael is my friend, we play trains, he’s just like any other kid” might, in theory, convince millions of people that Jackson was an innocent giant child. We can’t for sure test the intention, but we can test the results.

(strike “always,” replace with “for a couple of decades, once I thought about it a bit & read details of Jackson’s Neverland-based behaviour”)

My guess also, that he stayed away from famous, financially secure kids.

In addition to everything you say, they'd also be like an insurance policy; he could always call on them as impeccable character witnesses.

He took time grooming the kids in groups until he figured out which ones would go along with his advances

Was this the case with Robson and Safechuck? I gathered from the doc that MJ was confident enough in his wiles that these two were "auditioned" more or less privately and brought into Neverland alone—away from other kids—won over by one-on-one attention.

to be clear, I wan't suggesting above that he molested all of these kids (and I agree that he surrounded himself w/ groups of kids to foster that image as "a friend to children")...only that I find it hard to believe he *wasn't* molesting each of the exceptional few that he chose to spend all of his time with for months on end: traveling, bed-sharing, etc.

I find it easy to believe that he and Macauley had a genuine friendship based on their individual experiences as enormously famous child stars. Jackson was a predator, and he also genuinely was someone who'd been badly damaged by his upbringing and childhood.

He could dance pretty well and sing okay, too.

https://www.vulture.com/2019/06/weird-al-yankovic-wont-do-his-michael-jackson-songs.html