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A serious question about Michael Jackson and Pete Townshend
goldrush
everybody knows this is nowhere Posts: 7,775
There has been a lot of negative, bigoted rubbish written about Michael Jackson on these boards recently and I have a question for those of you who are responsible for judging him purely based on the controversies of his last years.
What if Pete Townshend died last week?
I'm not for one second accusing Pete of the kinds of things that MJ has been accused of but please consider this before you flame me. Michael Jackson was found innocent of the child abuse accusations that were leveled at him; Pete Townshend was cautioned by police in 2003 for accessing a website that allegedly advertised child pornography. Both men were effectively accused of a form of child abuse and both men were found to be not guilty.
Pete was not charged but was cautioned. The police said at the time, "After four months of investigation by officers from Scotland Yard's child protection group, it was established that Mr Townshend was not in possession of any downloaded child abuse images." Pete responded with, "I accept that I was wrong to access this site, and that by doing so, I broke the law, and I have accepted the caution that the police have given me." As a statutory consequence of accepting the caution, Townshend was entered on the Violent and Sex Offender Register for five years.
I have a very strong feeling that if, God forbid, it had been Pete that had died, there would be very few of you on here saying that the world would be a safer place for children without him. Both men were found not guilty, one of them admitted that he had broken the law (albeit in the name of research), and has been punished for his crime, the other will always be condemned by other people's prejudices.
I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts on this...
What if Pete Townshend died last week?
I'm not for one second accusing Pete of the kinds of things that MJ has been accused of but please consider this before you flame me. Michael Jackson was found innocent of the child abuse accusations that were leveled at him; Pete Townshend was cautioned by police in 2003 for accessing a website that allegedly advertised child pornography. Both men were effectively accused of a form of child abuse and both men were found to be not guilty.
Pete was not charged but was cautioned. The police said at the time, "After four months of investigation by officers from Scotland Yard's child protection group, it was established that Mr Townshend was not in possession of any downloaded child abuse images." Pete responded with, "I accept that I was wrong to access this site, and that by doing so, I broke the law, and I have accepted the caution that the police have given me." As a statutory consequence of accepting the caution, Townshend was entered on the Violent and Sex Offender Register for five years.
I have a very strong feeling that if, God forbid, it had been Pete that had died, there would be very few of you on here saying that the world would be a safer place for children without him. Both men were found not guilty, one of them admitted that he had broken the law (albeit in the name of research), and has been punished for his crime, the other will always be condemned by other people's prejudices.
I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts on this...
“Do not postpone happiness”
(Jeff Tweedy, Sydney 2007)
“Put yer good money on the sunrise”
(Tim Rogers)
(Jeff Tweedy, Sydney 2007)
“Put yer good money on the sunrise”
(Tim Rogers)
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also micheal has been accused of this weird stuff for a long time, it wasnt a once and done deal.
michael was accused by people who in the end got large cash settlements
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I will defend both these men.
If their was evidence of either of them being abusers or pedophiles, then so be it. But lets face it, their isnt. There isnt one shred of evidence that MJ did a single thing to any of those kids. And same with Pete.
Pete was researching for his book on his own abuse as a child.
Yep but there was no evidence beyond this interview. Its one thing to say someone sleeps in the same bed, and another thing to say something bad happened.
There is no evidence at all that the sleepovers were anything other than just sleepovers.
If there was not one shred of evidence, MJ would have never been charged in a civil or crimminal case. He was never convicted and there is a huge difference. That's like saying there was no evidence against OJ.
And they couldnt come up with anything. So it goes both ways PJ Garden. They brought it to trial, but there was NO EVIDENCE so he was innocent.
Further, I am not aware of any evidence beyond the allegations, and I followed both cases pretty heavily. If you are going to say there is evidence of wrongdoing, go ahead, but you need to talk about what that is.
The truth is, for both the 1993 and the 2005 accusations there was nothing beyond allegations. No evidence of any wrongdoing. Nothing whatsoever.
And I dont think its right to charge someone with a crime without evidence of it.
Even the things that were reported in the press as "damning" for MJ were actually non issues. The book of nude photos of little boys, wasnt some gross porno mag, it was given to him I cant remember either by a fan or by a friend. It was a art coffee table book. And the inscription inside the book proved this.
As I said, there were famous people who had sleepovers with MJ. You dont think one of them would have also reported something happening, if the allegations were true.
Corey Feldman, Wade Robson and Macauley Culkin, three famous people, all had sleepovers with him, and EVERY SINGLE ONE said nothing happened. If MJ was some sicko, why did these people say nothing happened?
Yeah, but that's enough to tarnish him. I don't care if it's Michael Jackson or anyone else, if a 45 year old guy comes out and says that he likes to sleep with young boys that aren't related to him, I'm going to have concerns about it. Hell, if it was my neighbor I'd make sure that my son didn't go anywhere near him.
I don't deny that some of these kids and their familes likely exagerrated the situation to get cash from him. But engaging in this behavior and then trying to defend it publically wasn't going to get him a lot of sympathy.
http://www.last.fm/user/merkinball/
spotify:user:merkinball
definitely NOT as black and white as the townshend case... not that either is right
i just try to remember each of them for what they are known for in the first place - the MUSIC
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There is also a precedent for child accusing people of abuse and it being coached lies. The whole satanic panic, where across the country in the 80's and 1990's you had tons of cases of people accusing others of satanic ritual abuse and all that. Very few of those ever panned out. There was that whole case of that preschool in NY, where the teachers there were accused of abuse, and that was all lies as well. And of course the WM3.
testimony from children should be looked at with a skeptical eye, as all testimony should. Eye witness accounts of what happened during an incident are known to vary widely. In fact, research has shown that most of the time, when someone says "I saw that man doing this" in a court of law at least, that many times that testimony is either lies or mistaken.
Whats your take on the second accusers mother? If settling out of court is suspect, shouldnt her behavior be also suspect?
I have posted the stuff about the mom six times now, and only one person has legitimately responded to it. I find it odd, people spouting off about how odd MJ was and this and that, yet refuse to even engage in talk about how odd and disturbing the accusers family is.
The fact is, in the 2005 trial, the reason he was found innocent was two fold. There was absolutely no evidence of any wrong doing. None. As I said, if someone can tell me one shred of evidence beyond the allegations I would love to hear it. I followed both cases and I cant think of a single piece of evidence that suggests MJ was having anything beyond sleepovers.
Your also talking about the first case. The second case he didnt settle out of court. he was found not guilty
The prosecution had NOTHING to go on. Thats the whole point. They pursued the case aggressively. I would think if you are bringing a man to trial and accusing him of VERY serious things, you would have major evidence and examples of the things that MJ was accused of. They had nothing.
And the thing is, why couldnt they find a single piece of evidence linking MJ to any of these allegations? Maybe because he was and is innocent?
My thoughts exactly.
My question to musicismylife78. If you had a young child, wouldn't you be concerned about letting them have a sleepover at a 45 year old man's house. You don't think there's something wrong with that? Say they were JUST sleepovers, there is still something twisted about it and no child of mine would go near him. If this was anyone other than MJ, you wouldn't be defending him like that. At least I hope not.
The LAPD didnt need a single piece of evidence. They tried him in the public and the public was willing to eat it up and believe every single lie the LAPD told.
The thing with Pete was absurd from the start. He posted about the website thing even before the police closed in on him. He said he visited the site and that it was for his book. If you are visiting naughty sites like that, I highly doubt you are going to publicly talk about it for harmful purposes, I highly doubt you are going to talk about it publicly let alone post info about it on your widely read website.
The Guardian, the UK paper did an expose on the case and suggested that, Pete admitted to going on the site, but that there was ample evidence that he confessed to a crime he was innocent of. There is evidence according to the paper that pete visited a website but that it wasnt porn.
Again, the trial was all about investigating these things. Dont you think if there had been some smoking gun, or major evidence of abuse that that would of come out, and become the biggest story in the world?
The sleepovers allegations can go both ways. As I said you have three celebrity, high profile folks, who said sleepovers happened and none of them said anything bad happened. That to me is major evidence that, maybe, just maybe, the allegations against MJ were completely and utterly false.
If your gonna accuse someone of assault of a child, I think you need to have evidence. And if you look at the facts of the case, and the evidence, it becomes clear that there was never any wrongdoing by MJ.
There were no incriminating photos, or dirty websites visited. There were no books about abuse, beyond the innocent art book I mentioned above. There were no videos. Nothing. There were no diary entries by MJ about incidents. Nothing.
But MJ said he let Barry Gibbs of the BeeGees sleep with his kids, and I havent ever heard anyone say he is a pedophile. So I would assume, that indeed it can be innocent.
Was MJ wise to broadcast to the world that he had sleepovers with young boys? Probably not, but that doesnt make him a pedophile.
I agree that you need some evidence to accuse someone of something like that. But, to me, a middle aged man sleeping in the same bed as a child he doesn't know is enough evidence for me to say my kid would't go within 10 miles of him. And actually this makes me blame the parents as much as him. He obviously had issues plus the allegations....why would you let your child near him. I don't care if he has been convicted or not.
I also wouldn't use the word of a celebrity as evidence. Maybe he didn't abuse every child, maybe they are lying, maybe he didn't abuse anyone. To me, the word of three people doesn't mean jack. If he was one of their heroes, they may just not want to accept that it ever happened. Many many children that are abused never say a word and it's never reported. It's just like women who never report being raped. Unfortunately it happens way too often.
Fair is fair. Hypocrisy doesnt fly in my book. If you believe all people who sleep with kids who arent their own are pedophiles or are suspect, thats fine, but the book doesnt begin and end with MJ.
You gonna ask the police to haul in the Bee Gees?
So the word of people who said he didnt do anything is jack to you. But the word of kids who said he did do something is to be taken as fact?
Either you accept all evidence from both sides, or you dont accept evidence from either side.
The testimony of those three celebrities is just as important as anything.
And didnt Jay Leno testify as well as George Lopez, under oath that this mother tried to get money from them too?
Your right people who are abused sometimes dont report it for years, decades even.
But that doesnt mean we can accuse people of things without evidence. if someone is accused of a crime, there needs to evidence that they did something wrong.
Thats my whole problem with the Scott Peterson thing. Did his actions amount to wierd, odd and sick behavior, sure. But there was never anything linking him to the crime beyond circumstantial evidence. In my book, there needs to be more than that to convict someone of a crime like murdering your pregnant wife.
Otherwise we are sort of arresting people for thought crimes or future crimes or crimes they didnt commit and thats wrong.
People dont normally just out of the blue snap and become killers or molestors. Sure it happens, but it isnt likely. So to have three people who said nothing happened when they were in the exact same situation, means there is a pattern developing, and it isnt a pattern of abuse, but rather a pattern of sleepovers, innocent sleepovers
Its not acceptable to say someone is guilty merely based on the fact you think people dont report abuse.
Umm when it comes to protecting your child, yes the word of a few people doesn't mean jack to me. If there were allegations like that against anyone, my dog wouldn't go near them much less a child. And no when you are talking about children, you don't have to look at both sides of the case, you have to do what is safe for them. I'm not talking about whether he should have been convicted or not. My original question to you was would you let your kid go sleep in the same bed with him. I guess you have answered my question and that's a little scary.
Again, I never said he was guilty or he should or shouldn't have been convicted. I said my kid wouldn't go near him and I would think that a decent parent would have the same perspective. You don't gamble when it comes to children.