On Micheal Jackson's Downfall

It was suggested that homicides are responsible for 75% of the difference in life expectancy stats between black and white men. For that reason, the government should concentrate on reducing homicides. Good call. Let's see...do I believe that Universal health care would reduce homicides?

I'd look at the homicide stats between countries with and without Universal health care, for a starter. Don't have 'em in front of me, but I'm betting they're pretty interesting. But let's go deeper. What, in my mind, drives homicide?

Fear. Fear of death, sickness, poverty, loss of ego-shields. Many homicides are driven by theft--the attempt to acquire money or property illegally. Certainly, the more a person feels invested in their culture, the more likely they are to feel that they should play by the rules. When you feel the rules are stacked against you, it can feel idiotic to play by them.

Would Universal health care reduce, say, drug addiction statistics? I'm sure that the answers are available statistically, but I'm betting the answer is "yes"--counseling (especially psychological/emotional) and education. Do people who feel nurtured, included, valued feel less fear than those who feel disenfranchised, excluded? In my experience, yes. Reduce fear, and you reduce violence. Again, this is according to my experience, and my take on human nature. If you believe the basic nature of humans--or black males--is evil, then of course this won't make sense to you. If you watched your mother die while shuttled from one part of the system to another, or insurance companies denied care, are you likely to feel more or less hostility toward the system, more or less fear?

To a great degree, the folks who are hit worst by a for-profit health care system are those who cannot afford expensive insurance, or those who don't have the kinds of jobs which supply it. "Satisfaction with health care" statistics DO include those who have no insurance, don't they? I sure hope so...or else they are flat-out dishonest attempts to misdirect.

I believe that a humane society is a more peaceful society. Encourage dog-eat-dog mentality and you get a lot of angry dogs. I've said before that I believe a core difference between Right and Left is the Nature/Nurture argument. If it's nature, then the way to decrease black homicide is to lock up as many black men as possible. Excuse me: "potential criminals." And if you privatize prisons, for instance, you create a system that will inevitably encourage crime--that darned profit motive gives little motivation to reduce recidivism. If you believe it's nurture, then you do everything possible to invest individuals in the system, get them to feel that the deck is not stacked against them--which it most certainly is in the case of black males. Not as much as it use to be, but again, my interpretation of media images should make it very clear why I think the playing field ain't level.

So, yes...Health care, political enfranchisement , education and employment opportunities reduce the fear factor in the most basic aspects of human existence: sickness and death, ability to support a family, investment in the system, the sense that one is using one's potential to the limit, the possibility of growth and self-expression. That opens the doorway to real growth and evolution. Those who believe human evil is primarily innate think we just need more prisons. Those who think that we are largely Tabula Rosa disagree.

I believe that when we remove fear, what remains is love, and love is a titanically powerful motivating force. Strong enough to remove any obstacle that a human being can master. I'll take my stand there, thank you.

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I think our actions are shaped partially by our inner innate drives, partially by family conditioning, partially by social engineering. Pointing out that many factors affecting life extension are related to life style choices is the biggest "duh" in the world. Christ sakes--you guys been actually reading what I've been saying here for the last five years? That our minds and emotions determine our actions, and our actions determine our results.

The number of ways medical and psychological counseling as well as accurate information and communal social pressure (the same kinds of pressures that discourage people from stealing, killing, and cheating) rather obviously can have an effect on smoking, overeating, not exercising, drug abuse, etc. OF COURSE. Quoting where the lower mortality stats in other countries are partially related to social factors is just playing into my hands. You think this stuff happens in a vacuum?

And I'm not talking about government programs making it illegal to be fat, or smoke. But shame has been used in human societies since the beginning of civilization to guide us: do THIS you get approval. Do THAT and you get disapproval. When we all have an investment in each other's welfare, children, and education cultural norms automatically shift: human greed and fear are awesome motivating forces when properly focused.

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Got into an argument over on Facebook (and got so many letters that I turned off the "notification" function. Jeeze! Who has the time!) about Fear and Anger. I prefer anger, considering it less likely to lead to paralysis. Also, I ask myself: if I were a dictator or a slave owner, would I rather those I oppressed be afraid of me, or angry toward me? By a long shot, I'd rather they be afraid. So I choose anger as a superior state, although it is admittedly inferior to other, higher emotions in the path of spiritual discipline. Anger combined with love will turn people into heroes unafraid of death...and such people are mighty hard to control. Tyrants are rightfully afraid of them...and well they should be.

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Micheal Jackson. From my point of view, his problems were understandable, pitiable, and preventable.

1) Lost childhood. The legend of his abusive father is well known. Without ever having a memory of a time he wasn't a cash machine for those around him, there is no foundation to be a healthy adult. When your child earns more money than you, it's hard to apply proper discipline--everything is skewed. Frankly, I think that the yearning for a childhood contributed to his "Peter Pan Syndrome"--the voice, Neverland, even the accusations of molestation. My gut tells me that if those things happened (and I think they did) they weren't "power games" where an adult manipulates a child with understanding. I think that his self-image WAS a child, and that in his mind what was happening was equivilent to a cub-scout circle-jerk. No offense to cub scouts everywhere.

In fact, Li'l Weasel, if you read these words, call me.

2) Skewed sexuality. "Billy Jean" tells the story of a boy warned by his mother that girls would try to trap him with sex. I think that was exactly the truth. That he was poisoned against his own natural attractions by a family desperate to control their money machine. And if you can't express it toward women...well, it's comin' out somewhere. Why couldn't he just be gay, then? Hell if I know. Would have been much, much better all around.

3) Micheal Jackson wanted to be white. The obviousness of this is so huge, so glaring, that it boggles my mind that anyone doubts it. He says "Vitiligo" and everyone says: "wow! Celebrities always tell the truth. That must be it!" Even if it was, my nasty little mind suspects that he found a doctor who would deliberately trigger this immune deficiency syndrome, looking for the effect he got. And with his money, if anyone could, he could. Why? Some mention him not wanting to look like Joe Jackson. Maybe. But to me there is a much simpler answer: everything about Micheal Jackson says he was programmed internally and externally to be the biggest, greatest star in the world. I am quite certain that he heard variations on the following line a million times: "you are the most talented child I have ever seen. You will be huge. You'd be the biggest star in the world...if you were white. But as soon as you're a man, and a sexual threat, they will trim you back. Be satisfied with being the biggest Black star. That's enough, isn't it?"

No, it wasn't. So Micheal began a long, long process of trying to cross the color line. Just as Jackie Chan changed his eyes, black American women straighten their hair, and Asian women in conquered countries enlarged their bustlines and wore Western clothing, Micheal straightened his hair, thinned his lips and nose, and began lightening his skin. Acquiring white children and claiming they were biologically his. What? You think he bleached his sperm?

Most specifically, he wanted to be Elvis, creating his own Graceland and marrying Lisa Marie, becoming so talented, so eccentric, so dynamic that people stopped seeing him as black, and started just seeing him as Micheal. He transcended race, arguably the first American to do so. Maybe the first black man on the planet to really do so.

And every inch of the way, as he became more grotesque, he was enabled not just by the people who got paychecks from him (or the family who continually had "we'll tour again!" dangled in front of them, probably to keep them quiet about his myriad problems. Except LaToya, whom Tananarive interviewed once, and would say any goddam thing.) but by his millions of fans who were so in love with him that they couldn't let themselves see the pathology that was right in front of them. I can't count the number of times I heard black people protesting that those children might be his, must be his...because he said so. I've seen thousands of children who are the product of interracial relationships. None of them look like Micheal's supposed spawn. Some look kinda Italian, but...Swedes? I think not.

ﾠAnd the willingness to look beyond his child molestation troubles. You know what? I DON'T CARE if he did it or not. If he didn't have that terrible need, it's even worse: in the midst of the accusations, he refused to alter his behavior. Sleep-overs with children? A molester's dream. Christ, he was giving aid and comfort to perverts the world over, "norming" the tactics they would use to seduce the innocent. If I had a need to sleep platonically with children? I would hire a nurse who would look in on us with milk and cookies. I'd have a Webcam set up recording every damned moment, and all parents who lent me their children would be able to sign on at any time of the day or night to see what was going on, and the tapes would be kept in a safe, available to anyone who needed proof that this was, while strange, perfectly innocent.

BECAUSE I CARE ABOUT THE SAFETY OF CHILDREN. Because I would know that to have the most famous man in the world (arguably) behaving in such a way opens the door to massive amounts of pain and damage.

But that's if he's innocent. Like I said, you could simply look at the man and tell that his self-image was totally, tragically, almost uniquely distorted. I'm sorry, but someone could be 1/10 as strange as Jackson, and I wouldn't let Jason near him unless I was standing right there with eyes wide open at all moments. This was twenty years of a slow-motion train-wreck. Damn everyone around him for not speaking the obvious truth, for not throwing away all chances of ever working with him in exchange for a fingernail fragment's chance of saving his life and sanity. Damn them.

And us, his fans, for speaking in low voices, and extending the benefit of the doubt until it cracked under its own weight.

If you really love someone, you don't cheer while they destroy themselves, even if you lose their love in the process.