But the media really didn't give a shit about Jackson except to boost ratings or sell newspapers. Sleazebags like "journalist" Diane Dimond spent years lying about him, insinuating he was nothing but a filthy child molester who got off scot free. She's a total dirtbag whose worthless, sensationalistic ass Jackson should have sued. But because of the media twisting the truth that the settlement of the 1993 "molestation" allegations were "proof" of guilt even though there was really no evidence except that it was an extortion plot and that Jackson's insurance company likely told him to settle (a jury trial would have cost much, much more and would have tied the matter up for years), millions of people believe Jackson was a child molester, including the idiot Congressman Peter King.
I would think Paris Jackson's display of grief yesterday over her father's death would finally put this bullshit to rest, but it won't.
I never bought the molestation crap anyway, but Jackson's 2003 interview, which he shouldn't have done, with another "journalist" sleazebag, Martin Bashir, proved to me beyond all doubt he never did anything wrong with children. I remember Jackson was extremely naive despite all of his fame and wealth and truly loved children. He said that the kids would share his bed while he would sleep on the floor at the foot of the bed. Jackson also said there were cameras all over Neverland, so there was no chance of anything suspicious or illegal going on.
As for yesterday's service, WSWS couldn't stand certain speakers trying to make political hay out of Jackson's death:
Queen Latifah sounded a note that would be repeated often during the event, observing that Jackson had opened doors for other African-American performers like herself. “Michael was the biggest star on earth,” she told the crowd. “He let me know that as an African-American, you could travel the world—there was a world outside of America, other people.”
Motown’s Berry Gordy, whose concerns, one imagines, are always bound up with ongoing commercial interests, concluded his remarks with the following: “The more I think about Michael Jackson, the more I think ‘The King of Pop’ is not big enough for him. I think he is simply the greatest entertainer that ever lived.” Such exaggerated claims simply do Jackson a disservice.
Al Sharpton asserted that Jackson’s “dream... had changed culture all over the world.” The singer, Sharpton declared proudly, had prepared the way for television personality Oprah Winfrey and golfer Tiger Woods. Moreover, the comfort level Jackson created among a multi-cultural audience of young people led them “to being 40-year-olds [who were] comfortable to vote for a person of color as president of the United States.”
Martin Luther King’s daughter, Bernice, a conservative fundamentalist minister, who has been active in anti-gay work, told the audience that “it is only God’s love that will sustain you and move you to a higher ground, far above the noise of life.”
It's also important to note that despite piles of media hype saying there would be as many as 250,000 people outside of Staples Center, in fact there were only about 1,000 there. All in all, this was a far smaller gathering than Elvis Presley's funeral in 1977, still the gold standard of public grief over a celebrity. Elvis, though, was far more famous, influential, and important a figure in popular culture and music than Jackson ever was, not to mention more talented. That doesn't take away from Jackson's achievements, but it is simply fact.
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