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I think you missed the OP. Cali is apparently a huge fan of the "Beetles"
The Beatles are huge in the UK and US but MJ is much more of a global icon and that is a fact. No other artist - past or present - even comes close. It's a shame he's not more appreciated in his own country.
But not more of a global icon than Elvis Presley
Elvis was and will always be the King
IMO the UK rules when it comes to popular music.
I just have to look at my music collection....
The Beatles
The Rolling Stones
Led Zeppelin
Pink Floyd
Deep Purple
The Who
The Kinks
Black Sabbath
David Bowie
Jethro Tull
Yes
Cat Stevens
Rod Stewart
Elton John
I'll stop there, could be a long list
He didn't "get away" with anything. He was put on trial and unanimously acquitted of all charges. There was not a shred of evidence he ever molested any child. The FBI investigated him for over a decade and didn't find anything incriminating against him. His home was raided on numerous occasions (with over 70 police officers at a time) but there was nothing to suggest he had a sexual interest in children.
I am convinced that if people only took the effort to do some research for themselves, instead of relying on what the media reported on the cases, they would come to the conclusion that Michael Jackson was innocent. There's a reason the Michael Jackson trial was termed "One Of The Most Shameful Episodes of Journalistic History". Here's an excerpt from the article:
Few people realise just how absurd the Arvizo family's allegations were. They claimed that MJ kept them hostage at Neverland and planned to kidnap them to Brazil in a hot air balloon. Meanwhile, receipts show that the family was going on shopping trips - on MJ's dime, of course - while MJ was supposedly keeping them hostage. They contradicted themselves and each other constantly on the stand, even about basic things like when, where and how the abuse took place. The family have a history of attempting to extort celebrities, as was revealed during the trial.
Then there's the 1993 case. A lot of people are apparently under the impression that MJ "paid off" the Chandler family so that he wouldn't have to go to jail. The truth is quite a bit more complicated. First, there is nothing about the settlement that prevented the Chandlers from filing criminal charges against MJ. It is in fact illegal under American law to "pay off" victims this way. They simply had no interest in doing so. After the Chandlers received their settlement money, they were unwilling to cooperate with the authorities investigating the criminal proceedings and were unwilling to testify in a criminal court. The criminal case was convened before two Grand Juries (one in Los Angeles and one in Santa Barbara) in February/April of 1994. After seven months of investigation, multiple house searches, interviews of dozens of children and other witnesses, police officers traveling all around the world to find corroborating victims and evidence, strip searching MJ's body, both Grand Juries determined that they had not seen sufficient evidence to indict him. Second, a major factor in MJ's eventual decision to settle the case (which was for negligence, not sexual abuse) was that he was not guaranteed a fair trial. The Superior Court decided that the civil proceedings were allowed to precede the criminal proceedings even though precedent cases described this as an improper invasion of the defendant's constitutional rights. If the civil trial is held before the criminal trial it can give the prosecution in the criminal trial a major advantage because they have the opportunity to monitor the civil trial and study the defense's strategy. They can then adjust their claims and strategy in kind. Furthermore, unlike in a criminal proceeding, where the defendant can constitutionally refuse to be deposed without consequence, a defendant in a civil trial cannot refuse to submit to a deposition free of consequence. A deposition in a civil case, held prior to a criminal proceeding, has the potential of violating a defendant's Fifth Amendment right to refuse to testify in a criminal case. The prosecution can use the testimony from the civil deposition in the criminal trial and adjust their claims in kind. Also, the burden of proof or the rules for admissibility of hearsay evidence in a civil trial are more relaxed than in a criminal trial. MJ's attorneys were aware that a civil trial was riskier for a defendant, even if the defendant is innocent. And they knew that if MJ lost the civil trial it could prejudice the jury in an upcoming criminal trial. That's why they advised him to settle the civil lawsuit and, if it came to it, fight for his innocence in a criminal trial. The law is now changed so such situations can no longer occur, that's why the Arvizo family had to go through a criminal trial first. Finally, keep in mind that the allegations had a huge impact on MJ's physical and mental health. He stopped eating, he couldn't sleep, he developed a dependency on painkillers, he got into a major depression, he had frequent anxiety attacks, etc. He had to stop his Dangerous tour because of his failing health. The people around him didn't believe he would be able to handle the stress of this situation for years to come. They encouraged him to settle, even though MJ insisted for a long time that he wasn't going to allow himself to be extorted this way.
Even after two decades of desperate digging by the media and the police, there is still not a shred of evidence that MJ was a pedophile. Nothing. Mere allegations, which are without exception riddled with holes and directly linked to money, were enough to ruin an innocent man's reputation. I have no doubt that more opportunists will try their luck in the future and one by one, they will be exposed for the shameless money-grabbers that they are. To say MJ "got away" with anything because of his money and fame is quite ironic. Do you think his house would've been raided with 70+ police officers if he wasn't "Michael Jackson"? Do you think police would've spent years traveling all over the world trying to find victims? Do you think police would've set up a 24/7 hotline to encourage victims to come forward? Do you think the FBI would've investigated him for over a decade, keeping meticulous files on his every move? Do you think the Arvizos, with their stories of being whisked away in hot air balloons, would've ever made it to court? Do you think tabloids would've paid people hundreds of thousands of $ to say they saw him molesting boys (but didn't bother to contact the authorities)? No, MJ was a target exactly because of his money and fame. Going back to the mid-80s, the media have relentlessly pushed the idea that MJ was "weird", "eccentric", "wacko", "a freak", to the point that people will believe the most absurd accusations about him without requiring any proof at all. Unfortunately, it seems you are one of those people.
Michael Jackson 'slept' in the same bed as 10 year old boys - I'm sorry I dont care how 'childish' his mind was, if I was to do the same thing people would put bricks through my window, burn down my house and beat me up in the street - he BOUGHT his way out of trouble, he was mentally ill and needed professional help, he could have done without being surrounded by a load of 'yes' men pandering to his every need!!!!
IMO the UK rules when it comes to popular music.
I just have to look at my music collection....
The Beatles
The Rolling Stones
Led Zeppelin
Pink Floyd
Deep Purple
The Who
The Kinks
Black Sabbath
David Bowie
Jethro Tull
Yes
Cat Stevens
Rod Stewart
Elton John
I'll stop there, could be a long list
I like one out of this list, the Beatles, the rest meh!!
I like one out of this list, the Beatles, the rest meh!!
You don't like Black Sabbath?
Geezer Butler wrote the best lyrics and Ozzy is the best singer ever
I agree about the Beatles.
Nobody will ever beat them (no pun intended)
I'm a certified Beatle nut, read everything I can on them.
I want to know what they had for breakfast, everything.
I can play most of their songs on guitar (mostly by ear with some help from chord websites)
It's astonishing just how good their song writing was, inventive chord progressions you rarely hear today.
Most modern songs are just 3 or 4 chords repeated thru the entire song,
no bridge, no pre-chorus, no intro, very little creativity, no guitar solos these days either.
Michael Jackson 'slept' in the same bed as 10 year old boys - I'm sorry I dont care how 'childish' his mind was, if I was to do the same thing people would put bricks through my window, burn down my house and beat me up in the street - he BOUGHT his way out of trouble, he was mentally ill and needed professional help, he could have done without being surrounded by a load of 'yes' men pandering to his every need!!!!
I just saw this post and the post you were responding to.
MJ was a great entertainer. I like some of his music too. But I'm of the view he was very likely guilty of molesting boys.
When it came to taking the rights to the Beattles music away from one of the men that was a Beattle, MJ proved to be a shrewd businessman to my understanding.
I don't really but the "He never had a childhood and became a child trapped in a grown man's body."
Millions of men never "had childhoods" whilst living in extreme poverty and not having screaming females fans after them. MJ was a young boy as part of the Jackson Five that millions of girls would have given sex too in a heart beat.
That he built a playground for kids on his property--like lots of pedophiles--and slept in bed with other peoples little boys tells me he was sexually attracted to children.
I'm a grown man. Riddle me no tales of fairies or Peter Pan. Mentally retarded men might be children in the mind. MJ does not strike me as someone mentally retarded and "naked" in the mind. His thing for wearing sunglasses suggests to me he was no naive Adam and Eve before the fall but was them after the fall and understood "the eyes are the windows to the soul" and hid his eyes behind sunglasses like U.S. Federal agents (like my father before he retired) typically have done. Sunglasses can help mask movements of the eyes.
But the biggest thing is sleeping with little boys not yours. And not once like a dumb mistake. Maybe even twice I can say two dumb mistakes. But like a drug addict that returns to his addiction, he did it repeatedly even in the face of legal problems like drug addicts.
But like you said... MJ had power (which he knew he had) and his brand was so strong he had "yes men" all around him.
...the bad blood with Jackson began when the self-styled King of Pop bought the publishing rights to The Beatles' songs. McCartney Asks Jacko for a Raise
The former Beatle is quoted in the New York Post as saying, "I wrote [Jackson] a couple of letters and I said, 'Michael, don't you think that — even if I was just a writer on the payroll — after 30 years of being reasonably successful to this company that you now own, don't you think I could have a raise?'"
In an approximation of Jackson's soft, high voice, McCartney said that the Gloved One's answer was, "Oh Paul, that's just business." Explains McCartney, "He won't even answer my letters...
Quote:
Even if the rumors that Jackson may be selling The Beatles' catalog to raise money are true, McCartney says he can't afford to buy them back. "The trouble is I wrote those songs for nothing and buying them back at these phenomenal sums … I just can't do it."
Living McCartney the songs in his will is not the issue. A true child would have given the man a raise or simply given him the rights to his own songs.
Michael Jackson 'slept' in the same bed as 10 year old boys - I'm sorry I dont care how 'childish' his mind was, if I was to do the same thing people would put bricks through my window, burn down my house and beat me up in the street - he BOUGHT his way out of trouble, he was mentally ill and needed professional help, he could have done without being surrounded by a load of 'yes' men pandering to his every need!!!!
That statement has been taken completely out of context. Michael Jackson did not invite random boys to sleep in his bed, that's absurd. You have to keep in mind that Michael Jackson's bedroom was two stories big and the bottom story was basically another living room. He had closets full of memorabilia and people were free to walk in and out, so understandably a lot of guests loved to spend time in his bedroom. It had become a sort of gathering place at Neverland (along with the kitchen). Michael Jackson invited thousands upon thousands of families to stay over at Neverland, through foundations like Make-a-Wish and Dreamstreet, and these families came from all over the country - and the world even. Sometimes they traveled so far that it was inconvenient for them to go back home in the evening, so Michael allowed them to stay over in one of the guesthouses. With a handful of families, Michael developed a closer friendship. He felt sorry for the children, who were often either sick or underprivileged, so he tried to help them as best as he could. Sometimes the children of the families he had gotten close to asked him if they could stay over in his bedroom, like a sleep-over. Michael told them it was OK as long as they had the permission of their parents. He didn't see anything inherently wrong with it, kids sleep over all the time and he was in many ways still very childlike himself. That's why he had no problem admitting on national TV that he "shared his bed" with children, it just never crossed his mind that people associate this with sex. Of course, a statement like that is bound to be misinterpreted and I can understand why people, without knowing the full context, find it suspicious. Michael Jackson was extremely shy and grew up in a bubble, he found it hard to explain himself and he didn't really understand social conventions. I'm sure that to the day he died, he did not understand why people made such a big deal out of him letting children sleep in his bedroom if they wanted to. He did become more careful after the 1993 allegations, he always made sure there was another adult in the room when a child was staying over as he - naively - thought this would protect him from another extortion attempt.
Michael Jackson did have mental problems, there's no denying that. He suffered from anxiety, insomnia, depression, low self-esteem, trauma related to his childhood abuse, and paranoia. Some believe he had Body Dysmorphic Disorder or a Peter Pan complex but I'm not convinced of that. However, it's really no surprise he had mental issues considering everything he'd been through. Just put yourself in his position for once. Imagine having a disfiguring skin disorder that destroys the pigmentation of your skin and tearfully opening up about it on Oprah, only to have people say you're lying and you hate your race. Imagine being bullied about your appearance by your father and brothers to the point you get plastic surgery to "fix" yourself, only to have the whole world join in on the bullying and label you a freak. Imagine dedicating your entire life to helping children in need, only for people to turn your love for children into something perverse. Imagine the pressure of having to provide for your whole (extended) family from a very young age while your family members exploit you at every chance. Imagine being confronted with a vicious media that invents the most horrible stories about you every day of your life. How would YOU cope? Yet through all of this, Michael Jackson kept his dignity. He never lashed out in public against the injustice done to him. He never went on Twitter rants. He never lost his gentle nature. I guess that would have been the "normal" thing to do
Michael Jackson did have mental problems, there's no denying that. He suffered from anxiety, insomnia, depression, low self-esteem, trauma related to his childhood abuse, and paranoia. Some believe he had Body Dysmorphic Disorder or a Peter Pan complex but I'm not convinced of that. However, it's really no surprise he had mental issues considering everything he'd been through. Just put yourself in his position for once. Imagine having a disfiguring skin disorder that destroys the pigmentation of your skin and tearfully opening up about it on Oprah, only to have people say you're lying and you hate your race. Imagine being bullied about your appearance by your father and brothers to the point you get plastic surgery to "fix" yourself, only to have the whole world join in on the bullying and label you a freak. Imagine dedicating your entire life to helping children in need, only for people to turn your love for children into something perverse. Imagine the pressure of having to provide for your whole (extended) family from a very young age while your family members exploit you at every chance. Imagine being confronted with a vicious media that invents the most horrible stories about you every day of your life. How would YOU cope? Yet through all of this, Michael Jackson kept his dignity. He never lashed out in public against the injustice done to him. He never went on Twitter rants. He never lost his gentle nature. I guess that would have been the "normal" thing to do
^This. He could have used a public spokesperson like you. It's like I said in an earlier post, Americans love controversy.
I just saw this post and the post you were responding to.
MJ was a great entertainer. I like some of his music too. But I'm of the view he was very likely guilty of molesting boys.
When it came to taking the rights to the Beattles music away from one of the men that was a Beattle, MJ proved to be a shrewd businessman to my understanding.
I'm glad you got to the root of this. The media backlash against MJ started when he bought the ATV catalogue in the 1980s. Something about a skinny black man owning the precious Beatles' music drove the media insane. He was a shrewd businessman indeed, and highly intelligent.
Quote:
I don't really but the "He never had a childhood and became a child trapped in a grown man's body."
Millions of men never "had childhoods" whilst living in extreme poverty and not having screaming females fans after them. MJ was a young boy as part of the Jackson Five that millions of girls would have given sex too in a heart beat.
That he built a playground for kids on his property--like lots of pedophiles--and slept in bed with other peoples little boys tells me he was sexually attracted to children.
To say MJ was just a "child trapped in a grown man's body" is a gross simplification. He was much more dimensional than that. As you point out, he was a shrewd businessman. He owned a library of over 10,000 books and was knowledgeable about a lot of subjects. He wrote songs about racism, poverty, police brutality, abortion, isolation, adultery, etc. When police raided his home, they found an extensive collection of adult heterosexual porn going back all the way to 1991. Michael Jackson cannot be reduced to being "just a child". That's why I don't accept the "Peter Pan complex" that some people try to pin on him.
That said, Michael Jackson did have a very childlike character and he always had. It was not all of him, but it was certainly a big part of him. He loved escaping into a child's imagination. He loved the carefree, limitless world of children. He felt he could trust them because they did not have ulterior motives around him, they did not see him as "Michael Jackson" but as just one of them. Growing up in show business from the age of 5, he never had a chance to be a child when he was a child. He was surrounded by adults all the time. He had to work to provide for his family. He had no friends. Like you said, there were female fans ready to have sex with him when he was just a boy. When he became an adult and was able to make his own choices, he decided that he was going to have everything he was denied as a child. Everything he loved so much. He built Neverland not just for himself, but for other people to enjoy. He has opened his home to thousands upon thousands of underprivileged or sick children and their families. They got to enjoy the amusement park, the zoo, the movie theater, the arcade games, free ice cream and food at no expense at all. Michael Jackson could have spent all that money on himself but he used it to help people who were less fortunate. It's sad that you're so quick to accuse him of sinister motives.
Quote:
I'm a grown man. Riddle me no tales of fairies or Peter Pan. Mentally retarded men might be children in the mind. MJ does not strike me as someone mentally retarded and "naked" in the mind. His thing for wearing sunglasses suggests to me he was no naive Adam and Eve before the fall but was them after the fall and understood "the eyes are the windows to the soul" and hid his eyes behind sunglasses like U.S. Federal agents (like my father before he retired) typically have done. Sunglasses can help mask movements of the eyes.
Oh please, anyone who wears sunglasses is a predator now? MJ wore sunglasses because he was painfully shy. He said he wanted to 'hide' as much as he could.
Quote:
But the biggest thing is sleeping with little boys not yours. And not once like a dumb mistake. Maybe even twice I can say two dumb mistakes. But like a drug addict that returns to his addiction, he did it repeatedly even in the face of legal problems like drug addicts.
But like you said... MJ had power (which he knew he had) and his brand was so strong he had "yes men" all around him.
I already explained what "sleeping with little boys" means in this context.
Living McCartney the songs in his will is not the issue. A true child would have given the man a raise or simply given him the rights to his own songs.
Yes, it's a good thing MJ had more business sense than that. The Beatles catalogue was up for sale, MJ decided to bid on it and so did Paul McCartney. Paul decided that it was too expensive so he pulled out and MJ ended up getting the catalogue (which is now worth hundreds of millions of dollars). Why would MJ just give away the rights that he legally bought just because Paul was too cheap to get them himself? It's not like Paul is hurting for money.
If M. Jackson molested boys, are there records of any children who had been to his home ever undergoing therapy?
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