14 June 2005
Now I Know How Bush Got Re-Elected
Though I probably shouldn't have even looked at TV last night, I have an addiction to Countdown with Keith Olbermann and so, at the very least, there was one last installment of Michael Jackson Puppet Theatre to see. And, of course, the jury, eager(and smiling!) as they explained to the press why they acquitted Jackson. Two of the jurors struck me in particular. Both were illustrations of the consensus on the trial, which is that the jury didn't so much find Michael Jackson innocent as they found his accusers not credible.
One was a lady in her thirties who didn't like the alleged victim's mother because "what kind of mother would let her son sleep in Michael Jackson's bed?" Absolutely! As everyone knows, just as with a drunk girl at a frat party, the molestation was obviously being asked for. If you put your son in Jackson's bed you should know what to expect. Who couldn't agree with that?
Another was an old lady who didn't like the mother's attitude and the way she snapped her fingers a few times at the jury. That she was loud, and emotional. Obviously if someone's loud and emotional they must be lying. In Prozac Nation we all know this. Or at least nothing they say, given it sounds unpleasant, could be true. The mother really should have understood that this was a popularity contest, not a...trial or something. Likeability was everything here. Hasn't she ever seen American Idol? Sheesh. People just don't value their Q rating anymore. Obviously Jackson did it--not a single juror seemed to doubt this. But the family were just not likeable--you can't send Jackson to jail for harming unlikeable people! What are you, a terrorist?
What we've learned is a time-honored American value: if you wrote and performed Billie Jean it is your God-given right to molest and endanger as many children as you like. (Of course, if you're poor and ugly, the same old rules still apply, you disgusting pervert) I'm very happy to live in an America where the famous never pay for their misdeeds. It's something for us all to look up to in these dark times, isn't it?
God bless America!
Though I probably shouldn't have even looked at TV last night, I have an addiction to Countdown with Keith Olbermann and so, at the very least, there was one last installment of Michael Jackson Puppet Theatre to see. And, of course, the jury, eager(and smiling!) as they explained to the press why they acquitted Jackson. Two of the jurors struck me in particular. Both were illustrations of the consensus on the trial, which is that the jury didn't so much find Michael Jackson innocent as they found his accusers not credible.
One was a lady in her thirties who didn't like the alleged victim's mother because "what kind of mother would let her son sleep in Michael Jackson's bed?" Absolutely! As everyone knows, just as with a drunk girl at a frat party, the molestation was obviously being asked for. If you put your son in Jackson's bed you should know what to expect. Who couldn't agree with that?
Another was an old lady who didn't like the mother's attitude and the way she snapped her fingers a few times at the jury. That she was loud, and emotional. Obviously if someone's loud and emotional they must be lying. In Prozac Nation we all know this. Or at least nothing they say, given it sounds unpleasant, could be true. The mother really should have understood that this was a popularity contest, not a...trial or something. Likeability was everything here. Hasn't she ever seen American Idol? Sheesh. People just don't value their Q rating anymore. Obviously Jackson did it--not a single juror seemed to doubt this. But the family were just not likeable--you can't send Jackson to jail for harming unlikeable people! What are you, a terrorist?
What we've learned is a time-honored American value: if you wrote and performed Billie Jean it is your God-given right to molest and endanger as many children as you like. (Of course, if you're poor and ugly, the same old rules still apply, you disgusting pervert) I'm very happy to live in an America where the famous never pay for their misdeeds. It's something for us all to look up to in these dark times, isn't it?
God bless America!
...there is a new and profound cultural problem to contend with: as a society, we no longer understand power. The power of kings and dictators was always visible, tangible, understandable. The power of elected officers is by definition (if not always in reality) an expression of popular power. But the power of mega-corporations is as faceless and nebulous as it is pervasive. It hides in plain sight and communicates in code. Even the most powerful people in the world now seem harder to understand. George Bush is not the figure of gravitas, wisdom and trustworthiness we need a president to be. Bill Gates is not the charismatic, visionary egomaniac we expect the richest man in the world to be. They are ciphers, and they make their very power unintelligible. And so not only do we feel more powerless in front of a more absolute power, but we also feel unable to "relate" to it at all.Celebrity trials provide people the sense of witnessing a form of history up close and personal. But the cultural dynamics represented in the trials always point to the fact that celebrities are ultimately "weird," and that mere mortals getting too close to them are (intentionally or not) inviting trouble -- which means they must also be weird. What we understand about celebrities is ultimately that we do not, cannot, understand them.
It's a tragedy of unknowing and incomprehension, suggesting the larger tragedy of incomprehensible power.
Labels: politics
¶ Tuesday, June 14, 2005
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