Stikes me as obscene hypocricy.

Whether or not MJ was or was not guilty of the acts that he was accused of, the fact is the huge majority of people have always been convinced that this guy is, to use their vocabulary, a nonce.

Yesterday I witnessed a man out walking his pitbull, with a massive tattoo on his forearm, almost breaking down in tears as he whimpered to a friend - 'no matter what you think of his personal life, unique artist.etc.etc'.

I guess it's something like how most people wouldn't eat lamb if they had to hear its cries as they slaughtered it themselves first.

Something like that.

I'd tend toward agreeing, Blackit... at least to a large degree. Every so often we see this - and it was certainly the case with Diana - expression of transferred "emotion". Not the real thing, but as close as a lot of people get. Let's look at the case of Diana for a moment {because there's is no "competition" this time}. The same week Diana died Mother Theresa also shuffled of this mortal coil. A woman who had devoted herself selflessly to the human race and lived a long life of real sacrifice. Who even noticed? The population had managed to get itself into such a state of ersatz grief over Diana {and don't get me wrong, her death - as is any - was a tragedy} that its impact on the great majority of people was ourely tangential. We saw the same thing with the sickening levels of "grief" expressed over Jade Goody. The simple fact is this. Jade Goody, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson were "celebrities" - the people who the Bonzos out there wish they were, because they were "famous" and/or "glamorous". Mother Theresa was an old woman who worked damn hard her whole life. No glitz there for the unwashed and mentally challenged to desire. I'm sorry Michael Jackson is dead. I wouldn't have wanted to have lived his life and I wouldn't wish to share his demise. I'm no great fan of his music, though I can see why others would rave about his genius. As a human being he had, like all of us, his failings. But I always thought his spirit was probably a good one. And so I mourn, quietly, the fact that an essentially benign soul has gone from the world. But do I shed a tear? No, of course not. Michael's passing means, in real terms, little to me because I didn't know him. That is the preserve of his family and friends. Are the people who go in for the sort of transferred grief we are witnessing are so emotionally crippled themselves that they can only express grief when they can make it something "mutual"? What kind of a society have we become that we have to have these props? And how many of the people who are now so "upset" by the death of Michael Jackson would be rejoicing if their own local "paedo" {albeit an aquitted one} had just left this life in similar circumstances? Phoney grief. Phoney people.

I love your lamb analogy!

Do you think the death of a celebrity makes people feel vunerable themselves and that's what they may be expressing ?

Afterall if Princess Diana can die in a stupid car accident, or Elvis die on the loo and Jacko from one pill too many, it shows our Gods are mere mortals in the end.

Personally I do find Jackson's death rather poignant. But only because he just seemed to be generally a very unhappy person except perhaps in the last few years of his life with his own little family.

But I reckon it's public opinion that really did him in.

These sheeple are just doing what they are TOLD.

You see, he "is" a nonce, and nonces are bad.

However, now the meeja are dictating that this poor sad man that they ate up and spat out throughout the past 25/30 years was a "GENIUS" and that makes everything ok!

This is proof that folk are now so addled that even when the meeja give them two conflicting messages, they will just willingly accept and regurgitate these "facts" no matter what.

As with politics, the UK meeja are entirely subserviant to their US counterpart, and as we know when it comes to falling/fallen stars they do operate in a different way. If Jacko was British he would have been treated to some Glitter-style nastiness and chased around the globe being set up, public enemy number one. In the US they forgive their 'superstars' any percieved misdemeanors whilst continuing to place a blinding spotlight on everything they do and painting them as gods. If Jackson had been EATING children, it would have still been "ok" by them! That "Not Guilty" verdict was more for the Hollywood machine to keep on rolling than it was Justice for Jacko.

The "public grief" we are seeing over Jacko is as choreographed as any of his dance moves, as contrived as any of the "Wacko Jacko" oxygen-chamber stories that kept him in the news. We've got British kids of 15/16 telling everyone on facebook how they are going to "miss him" cos he was a "genius" and a "legend".... well he was, but long before they were born. He hasn't released a record for 8 years, and Invincible still lies forgotten whilst people are encouraged to buy their 5th copy of 27-yr-old Thriller in "tribute".

Just like an absentee parent who substitutes affection by spending money on their child, the meeja will now paint "Wacko Jacko" as some musical genius and misunderstood saint - instead of acknowledging that it was they who turned the genius into a circus freak and ultimately killed him slowly, first in an artistic sense and then physically.

I agree about Diana and Jade Goody. I cannot recall either of those two making the hairs stand up on the back of my neck like MJ did; I cannot recall sitting huddled around a small black and white portable TV being blown away by their latest video on Top Of The Pops; Jackson gave so much and was a true mega star.

I was very saddened and shocked by Jacko's death. I think mainly because, like Diana, he was such a big part of the world we live in. He was constantly in the papers and magazines, and is music was always been played. The fact that he has now gone means that the world itself has changed, just like after 911. I don't think that the nation is in a state of mourning like after Diana. Radio and tv go on as normal, it is not full of sombre music for weeks on end.

Also the fact that Jackson could sell out the 02 areana for 50 dates would indicate that most people don't think he is a nonce. He probably had an unhealthy interest in children, but not necessarily sexual. If those boys were so badly traumatised then why did they go back to his house again and again.

Spot on Robbie and that point was crucial in my case.

The answer is one of two options - either nothing unpleasant was going on (as in my argument) or they were enjoying it but were too young to realise they shouldn't - a bizarre argument in some aspects but legitimate.

The prosecution in my case took the second route and had every witness say they had a lovely time because they were under 16 and too young to know better.

That collapsed in the second trial at which I was found Not Guilty on all charges when the man admitted he was probably 18 or 19 and not 15 as originally claimed but had loved it.

I never met him, incidentally, but that was what he'd been told to say, forgetting the vital information that it only applied if he'd been under 16.

I'd give the some of the public a little more credit. I am quietly saddened by the death of Michael Jackson because I thought he made good music and had a caring heart. The allegations were unconvincing .. he showed porn mags to his little friends and they slep in the same bed, etc. Mentally, in many ways, Michael was still a child and this was no different from other sleepovers between boyhood friends who secretly giggle at pictures of boobs. Society didn't understand him and so they condemned him, but through it all his music touched many. I think he had a fairly sad life, and that makes his death even more tragic than it might otherwise have been.

This is a moment of musical history and people are wanting to be a part of it. A friend of mine booked a ticket for his planned concert. She's been told she can still have the ticket which includes artwork by Michael Jackson himself. She's keeping the ticket because it might be a valuable collectors item one day, plus it means a lot to her.

"However, now the meeja are dictating that this poor sad man that they ate up and spat out throughout the past 25/30 years was a "GENIUS" and that makes everything ok!"

I think in this case it is the other way round: The media are following the people.

As Michael Wolff observed:
"One of the most mocked, vilified, and calumniated people of our time has, overnight, been transmuted into…a saint (...) The Michael Jackson story could be one of the biggest media screw ups of all time: The public didn’t hate him, the public loved him (...) The rational for the media’s about-face revisionism is clear, not just that the media has been at odds with the audience, but that MJ in death is going to be such an exceptional bonanza."

www.newser.com/off-the-grid/post/184/mic...-goes-to-heaven.html

I've heard very little, from the public or the media, other than empty platitudes.
Nothing about what made his music great, how it evolved, chord changes & structure... just words bandied about (quite often by people who know very little about music) - the truth is Jacko's legacy was founded on great music but he himself (and his publicists, managers and entourage) sold out and moved away from music, and it was he who hammered his own nails into his coffin until there was no way out

The "King Of Pop" nonsense sums it all up, he sacrificed his soul for bullshit.

I've some sympathy with the man and his ideals, but he didn't help himself and had some absolutely idiotic advice over the years, all serving to end in the inevitable.