By Deborah Ffrench
The recently released FBI files debunk the myth of Michael Jackson as child molester. Is it time to ask who is really responsible for his death - Dr Conrad Murray or the media?
The one question I hear no-one asking in the press or blogland in general is:- 'why' was Michael Jackson taking an extreme drug? What made a relatively fit man known for abstention from the early part of his career until the mid-1990's, end his days in a made-to-measure trauma room?
A star by the age of 10, catapulted into superstardom after the success of his first two solo albums, his dominance in the music industry coincided with the multimedia explosion of the late 1980's. One of the first of the new breed of artists to fully explore the potential of synergistic promotion of product as a vehicle to reach new audiences, by 1991 Michael Jackson - the brand, had penetrated the consciousness of the entire developed and most of the undeveloped world.
With such unprecedented accessibility came also unprecedented pressure. Pressure to maintain and exceed his own standards, constant deconstruction by the press, and emotional isolation as the gilded chains of a life lived under the microscope bound ever tighter. There is no room here to list the enormous contribution he made to the lives of children all over the globe. His efforts are a matter of public record and the information regarding them is easily obtainable on the web.
Suffice it to say, Michael saw children not as 'people-in-waiting', but as bonafide, sentient personalities whose process and concerns were worthy of respect and protection. Using his fame and wealth to radically benefit the lives of such young people was something Michael believed to be his ultimate purpose here, and it is in this light that we can perhaps understand the catastrophic, internal damage the public cauterization that came from 1993 onwards must have done to him.
Something rotten has been decaying at the the heart of our media for some time now, but it took the death of one of its favorite page-fillers to expose the reality of what the cumulative effect of deliberate mental and emotional attack on a person actually looks like. It must surely now be apparent that the existing regulatory checks and balances within the media are totally inadequate –and further, that those monitoring capabilities are unable to prevent the now standard 'take aim' and 'destroy' default position the media now typically seems to operate from in relation to the subjects it 'goes after.'
Michael's early death was not a given. Only the most imperceptive would deny that the anesthetic that killed him was, in reality, just a formality. What killed Michael Jackson was the sustained agony of being put through a baseless, protracted trial in full view of the world's lens - knowing if found guilty, he would be removed from his children's lives. And even after his acquittal, facing relentless vilification by a media that chose to simply disregard a verdict they found economically inconvenient.
British journalist Charles Thomson's clear analysis of the recently released FBI files which can be viewed at:
http://charlesthomsonjournalist.blogspot.com/2010/01/fbi-files-support-jacksons-innocence.html
- Thomson's point by point breakdown of the files reveals not only the inability of both the FBI and the LAPD to provide any evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Jackson in an investigation that spanned over a decade, but also the continuing inference by the media of exactly the opposite of this.
It is important to note that there is a profound difference between the FBI stating that X and Y were alleged, and the FBI saying they investigated X and Y – and found X and Y to be proven. Thomson's review of the files is thus required reading for any who wish to separate the facts from the soundbites which have largely dominated the media reporting on them.
Because the truth is, after the most thorough investigation the American taxpayer's money could buy, one of the world's foremost intelligence gathering agencies and the LAPD came up with precisely – nothing. Instead we were served a collage of cut-out articles from a UK tabloid, the dubious recollections of an unverifiable woman on a train, and two ex-employees who only came forward after the 1993 allegations broke and who, coincidentally, were also hawking a tell-all book to anyone who would listen.
Long before Dr Murray ever wrote his first 'feel-good' prescription, a lie of epic proportions would set in motion a cataclysmic series of events that would bring Michael to the state of profound depletion we saw in 2005. Evan Chandler - a known brutalist, and Janet Arviso, a proven welfare cheat and compensation chaser, manipulated the American criminal system and a willing media to bury Michael under the worst label society has determined exists. No proof was required, the suggestion was enough. And the world watched on the edge of their seats, as the obvious perjury of the witnesses was overlooked in the stampede to crucify a man previously so celebrated.
The inevitably, frenzied media coverage of Dr Murray's impending trial which will replay the details of Michael's dying moments for months to come, has now already begun its crescendo. It is more than a little disturbing to observe how quickly those same people who actively colluded in the degradation and erosion of Michael's spirit and dignity for over 15 years, have regrouped to focus on Dr Murray as the 'fall guy' for the part he played in Jackson's death. Murray's culpability cannot be denied, but he was far from alone in his opportunism.
Where were the voices now wailing about 'wasted resources' and the 'rights' of taxpayers when Tom Sneddon authorized the use of millions of dollars of federal money to pursue Michael in his deeply personal and blinkered 'takedown' of the, then – biggest pop star on the planet?
Michael Jackson didn't bankrupt the City of Angels; they fell all by themselves. For a country that can shine so bright when it chooses to – what America did to this man stands as one of the most shameful examples of engineered cruelty and unmitigated persecution to be witnessed in modern times.
