Michael Jackson

[Mowbray]

Does anybody think that Michael Jackson is guilty?

Some people say he's innocent until proven guilty.  But I don't get it when the guy admits to allowing young boys to sleep in his bed and holds their hands on Bashir's interview.

Also, I don't understand why he paid that child so much money a few years back to keep quiet - Surely Michael would want to prove is innocence. (I know I would want to prove I was innocent, especially with such allogations being made).

Any opinions? :-)

[Miss Zippy]

The father of Jordy Chandler was, indeed, most suspect for negotiating a $20m settlement in return for not pursuing criminal proceedings (plus he tried to negotiate film deal but that part of the settlement failed)!  As I said in a similar posting recently, what parent in their right mind would accept money from someone who they believed abused their child?  I think I could quite easily take justice into my own hands and shoot someone who abused a child of mine (if I had any); making money wouldn�t enter my head.

[stevie21]

Given our comparative incomes, if someone said to me "you're going to be accused in court of being a child molester and you'll be all over the newspapers, but for �50 we'll make it all disappear"
I'd ask them if they wanted cash or my credit card details.

As for him sleeping in the same bed with kids, even if in his heart he doesn't believe this to be wrong, he's intelligent enough to realise that the rest of society does believe it to be wrong and that he shouldn't put himself in such a dangerous (and at best, easily misconstrued) situation.
Being a celebrity makes him even more open to scrutiny. Being a celebrity with a history of buying his way out of an indecency/child molestation (what exactly was the charge?) court case means that he's almost inviting trouble by continuing to sleep like that.

[MargeB]

One eye, re your comment: "People will only think something is bad if society tells them it is bad." is incorrect. Child abuse in all its forms has been widely studied and documented, the effects on the child are not mediated by society's appraisal of abuse as such, it has intrinsic consequences that we are only now coming to understand. I'm grateful in many ways (although I do hate tabloid kneejerk) for the overwhelming revulsion that my generation has for child abuse and child abusers, that I know was not present as much in your generation. While that is so, the effects across generations are congruent. As a psychologist I can tell you quite categorically that there are plenty of people from your generation who were abused as youngsters who suffer life long effects, irrespective of societal appraisal of the phenomenon. It wasn't until fairly recently that we even discovered Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, one of the main pathologies in those who have been abused by a relative. I'm not sure exactly where the Daily Mail sits on all this, I'm not an avid reader myself.

[Oneeyedvic]

MargeB - first of all I am 31 years old so I hope you are not trying to age me prematurely ;-)

I am afraid I do not have any qualifications in psychology, but I do find it very diturbing that a paediatrician can get attacked because people think he is a paedophile. I also think it a shame that programs like Brassed Off (I think) get lambasted for humour. And as I said previously it seems to be a sign of the times when you have to watch your behaviour around your own children as people may think you are a paedophile for taking a picture of your little girl playing in the bath!

Please don't get me wrong, I am not condoning paedophilia and find it as repulsive as most sane people - what I am saying though is that it is such an emotive subject that even if you are not guilty, you will mostly be tarred.

Rereading your last post, I would also disagree with your last line "its not about degree of sexual action: its about conformance with accepted boundaries" firstly - who is the moral guardian as to what acceptable boundaries are, and second, I don't belive it is a crime to sleep with a child in a non sexual way. Again, I go back to the argument, of how close a family member / friend is acceptable.

[El D]

What crime is committed sleeping with children?

 

MargeB, congratulations on your strawman argument, but I don't recall anyone condoning child abuse. I believe the point is that conformity to social norms is not a legal requirement, nor should it be. I agree that abuse is more widely recognised and documented these days, but that does not give the media the right to dictate exactly what constitutes abuse. And in a sense I would disagree with what you say, as a child is much influenced by their enviroment and the reactions of those around them, so in a roundabout way it is mediated by the media, because the media has such an unhealthy hold over the vast amounts of stupid people in this country.

[JinxtheCat]

how come the kids' parents let all this go on anyway?

[FP]

Good answers (old!) Vic and ElD.   Unfortunately psychologists can read anything and everything into any situation.  I studied psychology to degree level as well but found it principles and theories as debatable as religion.  Good old common sense and life experience is what matters.  I am of a different generation and I have always been aware of child abuse.  Michael Jackson slept with young boys.   Regardless of his intentions it was absolutely stupid.  Personally, I think his motives were not good, but who am I to say?

[smudge]

Well said FP!

[luckyboy]

Yes all good points so far both for and against. I personally don't hold any jackson fan worship badges, but i do believe on balance that he's innocent,  don't ask me why its just a gut instinct.  i just have a bad feeling about this family, they knew about the sleeping arrangements and did not object until shortly after the bashir doc was aired worldwide... And everything i have heared so far has not changed my mind, however my mind can change depending on the evidence, and theres a lot of things about jackson that concern me, especially the typical star arrogance, and as a 46 year old guy he should move on with his life, and from other peoples children as well...a last thing. if our esteemed tabloid press had its way jackson would be found guilty yonks ago, their coverage has been totally one sided from day one.

[MargeB]

Psychology is a SCIENCE. It's so easily teachable that many universities pick it up and spew out a 'history of freud', but the good ones keep it for what it should be: an experimental science. It's findings are SCIENCE: when properly done, with proper subjects, procedure, stats, and probability limits, its findings ARE reliable and valid. No offence, but to study it at degree level and then equate it to religion shows that you overwhelmingly missed the point.
It may be suspected that the media mediate the parameters or effect of child abuse on children, but this is simply NOT THE CASE. The papers (experimental) that demonstrate INTRINSIC, OBJECTIVE effects on those who were abused are overflowing! What academic psychology thinks of child abuse has been vastly revised since the days when it was 'black magic'.
Nothing would surprise you more than actually figuring out what ACTUAL psychology is and does: it is a very tight, methodical and RIGOROUS discipline, whose findings are commonly the opposite of 'common sense' and the whole nature of which is quite different from the way that most people imagine it.

[MargeB]

His family should be investigated for child neglect. It was widely known that Jackson had paid off the family who had accused him of molesting their son (which does not prove guilt in itself, I know) and then another boy's parents allow him to spend nights alone with Michael Jackson? Why? So they can say that their family is associated with a superstar? If Jackson gets done for this, they should get done for neglect. If they don't draw the line here, where will they draw the line?

[Oneeyedvic]

MargeB - firstly, for a psychologist, you can't even get my age right.

Secondly, I don't know what FP's qualifications, are but then neither do you - and it does irrritate me when people come onto this site and start accusing long term posters of lying.

Thirdly try this web link : http://www3.open.ac.uk/courses/bin/p12.dll?Q01B07_11_0

It is to Open University - Degree in Psychology - And I quote

"If you�re awarded a BSc (Hons) Psychology you�ll understand ideas, theories, methods and debates in psychology, and be able to analyse and evaluate psychological concepts and theories, and to assess different kinds of evidence including quantitative and qualitative data."

So to say that it's findings ARE relaible and valid is really just your opinion!

and if its findings, as you say, are "commonly the opposite of common sense" then possibly it is not something that really interests me at all.

sounds like mumbo jumbo to me..........

[stevie21]

I have a degree is Psychology and think it's largely a waste of time.
Any evidence of anything can be interpreted in numerous different ways (and always is by psychologists) so to claim Psychology as scientific and reliable is optimistic in my opinion.
It's nowhere near on a par with, for example, Physics.

As an example, the fact that psychologists can't even define intelligence (or personality) speaks volumes and, in my mind, is representative of the entire field.

[MargeB]

Aaah! Maybe I should have informed my debates about the objectivity of science by trawling through an online prospectus!

Oneeyed: what do you think "assess different kinds of evidence including quantitative and qualitative data." means?
What do you think they got that data from, and why do people assess it?
How would you define 'theory' that you kept underlining. That just when them scientist people made some guesses, right?

[Oneeyedvic]

MargeB - as stated above - I have no qualifications in psychology. Full stop. I will not argue about psychology and the rights or wrongs of it as I do not have a complete understanding of it. I simply typed into Google "meaning of psychology" or something similar - and I found the above article.

I would however point out, that two posters (and both who I have seen give good advice / facts - Yes facts on previous threads) have both debunked psychology.

As I said (again) previously - I do resent people calling other posters liars when you have no facts about them.

There I will end it and continue the debate about Michael Jackson.

[MargeB]

Ah ok then, so psychology must be wrong because a couple of posters here have debunked it, and googling produced a couple of comments that just look like theories.
The whole point of prosecuting for someone for alleged child abuse is that you believe some kind of psychological harm has been done to a child. To do this, you MUST use psychology to show:
-abuse causes psychological harm
-the testimony of child witnesses (not even normally accepted in court until 1990s)
-the impact the mass media can have on someone's recollection of events.
-the effect biases can have in jury judgements of the accused.

People who abuse children go to prison or walk the streets and reoffend depending on how well PSYCHOLOGY can do its job to DEMONSTRATE objectively and SCIENTIFICALLY the above listed points. Its impact is ENORMOUS. To reject it out of hand is just absurd. What if you're going to work on Monday and you get hit by a bus, lose your vision in one eye and need to be retrained to work with one eye....are you going to just give the finger to those psychologists who have done the work to show how it can be sorted and why?
By the way, I didn't call anyone a liar, to 'study at degree level' does not mean to 'graduate in psychology' as any graduate will tell you.

[FP]

I said I studied psychology to degree level.  This is a fact.  MargeB - You accuse me of lying, yet on various threads here you pretend you are foreign and can't speak English!!!  You have also asked what autism is and apparently do not understand the meaning of 'sensory skills'.  Strange for somebody with a degree in psychology!!   People who can't tell the truth get found out in the end as they tie themselves in knots.  You don't need a degree in psychology to understand that this is true! And by the way I did rather well at psychology because I was always good at waffling.  It's an imprecise science - that's why I compared it with religion - no proof, only theories.

[FP]

Sorry to clutter your thread Mowbray.