The Liberal Patriot

Pure Disgust over the Michael Jackson Verdict

Mary MacElveen - June 14, 2005

It is not so much the verdict that I am disgusted with since I have not been following his trial. I know that is a shocker because it seems that most Americans do follow circuses such as this and everyone has an opinion. Then again, you know that age old saying about opinions? Hey, the (Jackson) guy can be the most angelic person to have walked this Earth or a monster, I just have not formulated an opinion, nor do I care to. You would have thought I would have formed an opinion given that this one case was given front page status above all others in many newspapers or spoken about endlessly on the broadcast media. I am sorry to say this was case was of no importance to me. Do not get me wrong, since I feel that there were innocent victims in this case, but I would rather sit down and watch George Galloway testify in front of a senate subcommittee looking into the oil for food scandal. Ask your fellow Americans who he is? I doubt that many will know who he is, but everyone knows Michael Jackson.

Many would say, there goes another celebrity getting away with it as in the O.J. Simpson case, but unless we are on those respective juries, we will never know how they came to their decision. Unless one writes a tell all book and yes Americans will line up for that book and part with their hard earned dollars to feel as if they are in on something special. What a crying shame. That is and it truly does define who we are.

As I sat there watching Fox News and please no gasps out there, since it was the channel my husband put on to hear the verdict, I watched in complete disgust as the media filed with in one assumption after another about this case. This is arm chair quarterbacking. I said to my husband how ridiculous it is for the media to cover this and the crowd that gathered around the court house to wait for it as they had. My husband then said to me that CBS News 88 a radio station he listens to here in New York will continue to cover a present story and only break away for announcements like this. I find that to be refreshing.

The media hounds interjected their opinions on how Jackson will be treated in jail to how he would be led away in handcuffs. Wait, the verdict wasn't even read at that moment. Some interjected how pale and weak he had looked for in the preceding days. I am sorry; my sympathy for his physical condition is just not there. Ask me how a soldier is fairing over in Iraq or how innocent Iraqis are being killed; now that gets my sympathy.

I thought that I was disgusted at his verdict, but what disgusted me more was how the large crowd of his supporters reacted to his not guilty verdict. It was sheer pandemonium. The Fox News camera zeroed in on this one blonde lady who was holding a cage full of doves and as each count was read off and verdict read, she released one dove. That lady sure needs a reality check if you ask me. Then I saw a grown man cry as each verdict was read and I saw one woman holding what looked to be rosary beads. Where are the tears and rosary beads for our soldiers and the innocent Iraqis?

You may ask yourself why I am truly disgusted today and it is for this one reason; where are these throngs of people when it counts? Where are their voices, their anger in demanding that the killings in Iraq stop? Like the Schiavo case, a entire people's collective attention was on the destiny of one person and not the destiny of thousands. At times this makes me ashamed at how my fellow country men and women react to such media hype.

In countries like Kosovo, Bolivia and Venezuela you see people taking to the streets in the thousands demanding better government. I have come to see this as being the reason that they do that. Countries such as these have lived in a place where they were once deprived of freedom, they will give their life's blood to never go back to that time. We say we believe in freedom, yet to us it is an abstract since many of us have never lived without freedom….yet. By our own inaction and not giving a damn that freedom is slowly ebbing away from us. What do we do? We tend to seek out a cause in some cases where it really has nothing to do with us personally.

Is the reason for this phenomenon because the media leading us to react this way or are we leading the media because we just do not care about our collective destinies? You be the judge.

Okay, who is the next celeb in trouble, where are the throngs of people and where are the cameras? They are just waiting in the wings to spring into action.

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