Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t get the whole Michael Jackson adoration thing.
Perhaps the hundreds of thousands of people heading downtown this morning really want to take part in something that has nothing to do with the still-dead King of Pop.
If they are not going to Staples to remember Jackson, they are there to be part of something bigger than life.
It’s not clear.
But why waste an entire day stuck in traffic? Why get pushed around
by cops? Why fight sweaty dudes in wife-beaters in what is sure to be a mosh pit outside of Staples Center?
Let’s get something straight. Regardless of how much joy Jackson’s music may have brought to the masses, he was a sicko.
If there’s any proof it probably lies in the multimillion-dollar settlements Jackson reached with purported
victims. One of those claimed the singer molested him at age 7 and again at age 10.
That kid’s mother was Jackson’s maid. Jackson reportedly reached a $2.4 million settlement with the
family.
In 1993, Jackson paid $20 million to a 13-year-old who claimed the pop star sexually abused him.
The boy’s mother explained later how Jackson begged her to let him sleep with the boy, according to court documents and testimony at trial.
The star and the mom argued about it, but ultimately the boy’s mom gave in and allowed her teen to spend nights in Jackson’s bed.
After the mom relented, Jackson bought her a Cartier bracelet. Clearly, this was a man who thought he could hurt whomever he wanted and do what he wanted because he had the means to buy his way out of trouble.
The boy may have been molested over a six-month period of time after that.
In 2003, police arrested Jackson and charged him with sex crimes against a 13-year-old boy who had cancer.
At his trial in 2005, prosecutors detailed how Jackson showed porn to young boys on the grounds of his Neverland Ranch. They spelled out how he gave the kids wine, which he called “Jesus Juice.”
The state documented how Jackson preyed on the teen cancer survivor and the boy’s family – for his own self-gratification.
The victim, a resident of El Monte, told a jury how Jackson groped and fondled him.
A member of the jury that
ultimately acquitted Jackson said
later he thought Jackson was a child molester. Another said Jackson should stop sleeping with kids.
If Jackson were any other 46-year-
old man in that situation, he’d
probably still be in prison fending off predators who take no mercy on
pedophiles.
Certainly, he’d be listed on the Megan’s Law Web site once he got out of the joint.
I guarantee if he was the creepy guy living down the street from any one of us, we’d be repulsed and sickened by his behavior.
If anything, Wacko Jacko’s life story should be a cautionary tale about the price of fame and the parents who subject their kids to foul and unspeakable acts.
It’s a story about the danger of prescription drug abuse and the
doctors who are nothing more than educated street corner pushers.
It’s an epic filled with details of bad decision-making by a whole host of people – including those making a pilgrimage Downtown on this summer day.