People are interesting. The pattern of human behavior seems to indicate that customarily, something must become personal before people are motivated to change something perceived dangerous, socially unjust, politically incorrect, corrupt, or threatening to human life. Before you can create a humane narrative on the planet, it may be important to examine how inhumane it really is. This is painful and pain is not something humans like to participate in willingly. However, it is pain that creates impetus for change. Nobody “tapdancing through life” or who lives in a virtual garden of plenty, is going to pay much attention to looming disaster until they suddenly look it in the face. By that time, it’s usually too late.
There is another way to face that pain and that is by bearing witness to it. While it is indeed painful to witness some things, it is important to understand that even though some things to do not touch us personally or directly impact our lives, they impact LIFE in its greater capacity. If you are here, you are part of that collective LIFE. As a being living upon this planet you have an obligation. You came here to contribute something and you came to become a steward. Without learning this stewardship, the planet is doomed and the human race may be headed toward its own extinction.
Michael Jackson tried to speak of this impending tipping point and he saw it and spoke of it far sooner than when eco-awareness became popular. In the closing circle of “This Is It” he says we need to do it, for if we don’t who will? He says “it’s up to us.” He wants to bring a little humanity back to a planet that is parched for that kind of nourishment and stewardship.
All of those things that diminish someone else’s dignity also diminishes mine. If someone else is treated inhumanely, it diminishes my capacity to experience my own humanity.
We cannot witness something brutal or terrible and remain untouched or unaffected. Neuro-science tells us that those who experience trauma have PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder;) those in the orbit of a disaster have secondary PTSD; those who witness the event have tertiary PTSD. In other words, nobody walks away unscathed from trauma, panic, shock or terror. Nobody gets away without paying a price. We are all affected by what we are exposed to every day whether we are aware of it or not. A stone thrown into the pond of this thing called “world” causes ripples across the globe. We are not alone. We are not untouched. And we are all in this together.
That is the clarion call to action. The siren song to sing along. That is the wake up call. That is the WAKE UP PEOPLE! Wake up because the ship is sinking. Earthship. In other words, “Jam” or is it too much for you?
Oh yes, Earth is a ship sailing through the cosmos. And she is in trouble. Are you a passenger or not?
The general public (the other passengers) are just beginning to understand what Michael Jackson fans have know for decades– that there are industries and movements and philosophies that manipulate the human mind for gain– money or power. There are many functioning on this planet as we speak. 
This corruption has been demonstrated clearly and starkly to Michael Jackson fans. One example that we have seen the destructive effects of is the tabloid press. The yellow press is dirty and stuffed with dark money and their mission is to sink humanity into the darkness and profit from it.
It was also clearly demonstrated in the Katherine Jackson vs. AEG trial.
Fans, of all people, have learned what it is to be manipulated, lied to, “sold a bill of goods,” thought to be stupid and ignorant and even crazy for stumbling on a truth– there are those who would use any and all resources for themselves and for their own profit or power. It doesn’t matter if that resource is human beings and it doesn’t matter if they’re the planet itself.
Michael Jackson isn’t the whole story. He is an entry point into the whole story. And he tried to tell you that. Were you listening? Now that his death has shaken you up, are you listening now?
So here’s your dilemma:
Is humanity worth sinking or saving? Is humanity more dark than light? Is it even worth trying to save? Are people just basically rotten and the world is a free for all– may the richest and most powerful man win? (“He who dies with the most toys wins!”) Is the world just a massive ball of resources there for the taking by the greedy and unscrupulous and those with enough cash to scoop it up for themselves? “What about us?” ~Michael Jackson
Is that the why for war? To grab scarce resources for one’s own nation? Oh, there is always an attempt to justify it by creating an “enemy” and then making people mad at that enemy in order to justify attack.
Is that also why the NRA (National Rifle Association) is so successful? Why guns are so popular? Because we all fundamentally believe human life has no worth? What is human life worth? Has the value diminished? Are we all just collateral damage floating through the galaxy?
What do you think Michael Jackson would have thought, said, done about the Newtown massacre? You heard him speak about children dodging bullets in their schools. He said we didn’t love our children enough. We don’t love them enough to stop war and mass killings. Why? Because somebody has to make a profit.
How in the world did we get here?
Jackson fans have watched as the press pilloried the man for decades, jeered him, mocked him, called him vile things, stretched credulity, fictionalized gossip, deliberately planted innuendo, seized on every opportunity to paint him in a negative light, swayed the court of public opinion against him, ruined his career, and labeled him “Wacko” for one reason and one reason only…
Cash.
Or was there more to it?
The name “Michael Jackson” and for that matter all and any things “Jackson” were money-makers for the tabloids and when the mainstream press caught on to how it worked– using Jackson’s name in a story, they tore up their ethics guidelines and joined the frenzy. Rupert Murdoch told his minions to go after Jackson and Madonna. The goal? The youth demographic. He wanted to incorporate young people into the cynical world and dark shadow of the tabloid industry– to amass cash.
If a human being got sacrificed as a means to that end… oh well. In order to make it easier for the public to accept the destruction of a human being, they began by chipping away at his humanity. It began with words and name calling. “Bizzare'” “weird,” “wacko…” Until they built a caricature– a cartoon of a human being. It is easier to pillory and pummel a cartoon than a real human being. They attacked his looks, his face so as to make him less than human. And finally, he was accused of something inhumane. And that was the real coup. Now there was something that drove a frenzy to destroy a human being.
“Guerilla Decontextualization.” Deliberate. Malicious. Manipulative. Successful.
A trial found him not guilty on 14 counts. FOURTEEN. How much more evidence of innocence is needed? Yet the press still pilloried and condemned him. Why? Habit.
And they didn’t want to be w
rong. People don’t like to be wrong, but more than that people don’t like shame. To admit to being wrong about Michael Jackson would have brought shame and nobody likes to look at their own character defects with shame. It’s uncomfortable and unpleasant. It was easier and less painful to insist that “they got it wrong” Than “I” may have gotten it wrong. Or that I was complicit or duped.
How does one admit to such a huge error in judgment? That one participated in the destruction of an innocent human being? And on THAT scale? How does one assimilate that kind of shame and self loathing? Better to project it onto someone else. Better to insist that your judgment was right.
How was that destructive frenzy accomplished? By an out of control press.
Some claim that it was the press that drove Jackson to an early grave. That actually may be correct. A human being who, from the age of 5 never had a moment’s peace or privacy, who consistently gave credit to his maker for his talent, who wanted to give the world some joy, change the world for the better, heal it of conflict and war, and save the world for its children was used, abused and treated like a cash cow by an industry that lost its soul somewhere along the way. Yes, soul. For it is a soulless endeavor to consume a human being the way Michael Jackson was consumed. The way the Jackson family is being eaten alive now by a press that deliberately looks for dirt in order to keep the “crazy Jacksons” story alive. It keeps the overwhelming shame in suspended animation.
And a gullible public still eager for the “juicy stories” actually pays a corrupt industry to reinforce their own darkness by gleefully scooping up piles of this feces of shadow and casually bringing it into their homes and lives. No thought is given to how the consumption of this packaged and commercialized human shadow hardens their hearts or bancrupts their morality.
How many times have we heard, and understand that “you are what you eat?” If poor nutrition and bad food makes your body sick, what do you think happens to a mind consuming excrement in the form of “journalism?” People need to awaken and understand that this is a morally and legally corrupt industry that gobbles up human dignity– for a living. It degrades civility and decency while all the while, raking in billions as it peddles its salacious slime to a public so gullible and so ignorant that they willingly participate in degrading their own humanity.
And when you willingly participate in degrading others’ humanity, you degrade your own. You set a trap for yourself and you become slaves to adrenalin and complacency. You reinforce your own powerlessness and helplessness because after all, who wants to try to change a world, make a difference, or contribute to improving the world when people are basically, well… rotten?
When you consume tabloids or medialoid journalism, you pay for the privilege of participating in the shredding of human dignity and of undermining a humane narrative on this planet. You pay for people to be bullied and for the practice of bullying to be profitable. You support an industry that role models to your children how to bully– tell bad stories about people and publish them for the world to see.
When you jump on the “greedy Jacksons” bandwagon, you are participating in the sludge. You accept the manipulation of a press that can’t admit its shame so it continues the game.
Alec Baldwin (Huffington Post) is right:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alec-baldwin/recent-events_b_4287623.html
You know that the number one cause of death among teenagers is suicide? Kids are killing themselves because in record numbers they are being bullied and the “bad stories” are being published publicly for all the world to see. Does that sound familiar?
You understand that every time you walk your child through the checkout line at your grocery store, you are subjecting them to a walk through a gauntlet of depravity and bullying? Those tabloid covers are prime and slick examples of bullying. Do you think the children are blind? Do you think they don’t see or it doesn’t register– this is how you can really bully someone– publish it!
Do you understand that with every tabloid TV show or “reality” show that degrades human beings you watch at home while your child is in the room, you become not only complicit but a role model that sanctions the ideas and behaviors of bullying? You reinforce to your child the idea that it is OK to bully, make fun of, degrade, have a good laugh at someone else’s expense, and as a voyeur, observe bad behavior perpetrated by one human being on another. You sanction the undermining of human dignity, humanity and the evolution of a humane narrative on the planet.
You know what a narrative is, right? It is a “story.” As the story of humanity has unfolded, a humane narrative is still missing in action on this world. It is our imbalanced masculine and inhumanity that brought us genocide, war, slavery, the spectre of a nuclear nightmare, violence, murder, gangs, gentrification, the military industrial complex, the incivility that permeates our government and seeps into the dialogue of those elected to represent the people and conduct the people’s business.
It’s the inhumane part of the narrative that has allowed human dignity to be usurped by shadow and corporations and profit making to become more important than the people they are supposed to serve. It is the inhumane part of the narrative that allows bribery, dark money and buying elections by a tiny and obscenely wealthy percentage of the population with a stake in perpetuating the peddling of dark and harmful (to humanity) products that kill dignity, kill humane human interaction, kill decency, and are now, through dark money and special interest legislation and greed– literally killing the planet.
Guess who that is?
Guess who that affects?
Guess who is downwind?
You know that the majority of Michael Jackson fans are female, right? You know that his attractiveness came from his ability to blend masculinity with his feminine side, right?
Do you know that the “wake up call” that his death was, affected mostly women? Why do you suppose that is?
To be continued…