With Michael Jackson’s arrest and indictment on charges of child molestation, the American public is now being subjected to the latest scandal involving celebrities and sex. The various media outlets have yet another opportunity to indulge in their customary feeding frenzy, to compete for the latest rumor, innuendo and salacious detail.

We are guaranteed the debasing spectacle of months of press and television coverage of the Jackson case, during which media pundits and talking heads will pontificate, gloat or smirk, depending on his or her particular “angle,” without offering a single serious insight.

The media functions in this unhappy episode along a number of lines: to divert public attention from genuinely pressing issues, particularly the ongoing violence and death in Iraq, to pollute and deaden public consciousness by every possible means, and to pursue anything that might “get the blood flowing” in the hope of gaining circulation, building up advertising, etc.

No facts in the case have yet been presented and Michael Jackson is entitled to the presumption of innocence. His accuser is reportedly a 12- or 13-year-old cancer survivor (the singer hosts events for seriously ill children at his ranch) who was a guest at Jackson’s Neverland Ranch north of Santa Barbara, California.

The singer’s defenders allege that the boy’s mother has launched the legal action to extort a big financial settlement from Jackson. On November 25, Jackson’s lawyer, Mark Geragos, angrily told the media, “If anybody doesn’t think, based upon what’s happened so far, that the true motivation of these charges and these allegations is anything but money and the seeking of money, then they’re living in their own Neverland.”

Reports have appeared in the press suggesting that the boy’s mother has a history of making abuse allegations. An audiotape has also emerged, made by the woman and her son last February, in which they praise Jackson and reject the notion that any inappropriate behavior has occurred. On the tape the woman apparently states that God had blessed her family by bringing Jackson into their lives and calls him a “father figure” to her son. A signed affidavit along the same lines reportedly also exists. An attorney for the father has disputed the accusations against Jackson.

The campaign by Santa Barbara authorities against Jackson has reactionary political and social overtones. County district attorney Tom Sneddon is a conservative Republican with an ax to grind. In 1993 he was hoping to prosecute Jackson on similar charges when the singer settled out of court with a family that had launched a civil suit.

The singer later retaliated by writing and recording a thinly-disguised attack on Sneddon. The district attorney could barely conceal his glee during last Wednesday’s press conference at which he announced the charges. Santa Barbara officials had already indicated their approach by the heavy-handed intrusion of 70 personnel from the county sheriff’s department into Jackson’s ranch.

In an interview with ABC News, Jermaine Jackson, one of Michael’s older brothers, condemned Sneddon’s “personal vendetta.” He added, “They’re a bunch of racist rednecks out there who don’t care about people.” Earlier, in a telephone conversation with a CNN newswoman, Jermaine Jackson called the case “a modern-day lynching.” The entire Jackson family, including his father, about whom Michael has had harsh things to say in the past, has come to the singer’s defense.

Sneddon no doubt sees himself as a crusader in a cultural and moral war. There is a social layer in this country that presumes the very worst about Jackson, is bitter that he escaped prosecution a decade ago and would like to see him crucified. A great deal of pent-up rage and frustration, encouraged by right-wing forces, is being directed his way. Although the targets have very little in common and the charges are quite different, there is a hint of the Oscar Wilde scapegoating of 1895 in the current affair.

That Jackson is a damaged, perhaps seriously disturbed individual seems beyond dispute. Whether he is guilty of the crimes with which he is charged is another matter. Whatever the facts of the case, one is tempted to say that if law enforcement officials and the media did not have Jackson to place on trial, they would have had to invent him.

Eccentricity in behavior, particularly sexual behavior, is viewed by a considerable portion of the US legal-police establishment as near-proof of criminal behavior. Even if Jackson were proven guilty of such crimes as to justify his being separated from the community, a humane society would view him with sadness and even sympathy, rather than scorn and hatred.

What are other people to make of Michael Jackson when he obviously has so little idea of who he is himself? His life story is the stuff of folklore. Born in Gary, Indiana—a working-class suburb of Chicago—in 1958, the son of a crane operator in a steel mill, Jackson, one of nine children, began his professional career at the age of five as the lead singer of the Jackson 5.

The group was signed by Motown Records in 1968, leading to a string of hits. As a solo act from the late 1970s, Jackson was for nearly a decade the leading figure in international popular music. His second album with producer Quincy Jones, “Thriller,” released in 1982, was an astounding success, producing seven hit singles and selling more than 50 million copies worldwide. In 1984 Jackson won a record-breaking eight Grammy awards.

Jackson has spoken openly about his personal difficulties. He asserts, and this is confirmed by his brothers, that his father was demanding and controlling, and that he was regularly beaten. Joseph Jackson, his son claims, would tease and ridicule him.

“I don’t know if I was his golden child or whatever, but he was very strict, very hard, very stern. Just a look would scare you. … [T]here’s been times when he’d come to see me, I’d get sick, I’d start to regurgitate,” he told Oprah Winfrey in 1993. Jackson gave the impression in that interview that for most of his life loneliness and sadness had been his lot.

Jackson has been a public personality from a tender age. The entertainment business has helped him become what he is, for which it deserves censure. The falseness, the unreality of perpetually putting on a public face and concealing personal suffering have clearly taken their toll, in Jackson’s case in a particularly acute form.

The singer has acknowledged that for many years he was “most comfortable on stage,” that this was his real “home.” No one should blame him for taking reality on stage for reality itself.

For a black performer who has become the greatest “crossover” act of all time, burying one’s identity must have had an added and perilous significance. Why should anyone be overly shocked or outraged by Jackson’s physical transformation? He has merely followed the culture’s own arguments, its relentless addiction to the false and unreal, to their logical, if grotesque, conclusion.

His immaturity seems bound up with the same facts—a life spent in a show business cocoon, at a certain point surrounded by a gigantic entourage devoted to fulfilling his every whim. The “Peter Pan complex,” the apparently fake marriages, the surrogate mother for his third child—everything points to a man floundering in a set of conflicting demands.

All his desperate (and ultimately pathetic) efforts to be what “America,” i.e., official public opinion, apparently wants him to be—whiter, sexually non-threatening, heterosexual, a parent—separate him farther from any conception of where his own real self might be found. In the face of this fakery and loss of reality Jackson seems genuinely convinced of only one truth—that his life would be more enjoyable if he could experience it as a child.

It often happens in America that nothing is more damaging than success, and the greater the success, the greater the damage. An almost preternaturally talented boy from a dysfunctional, working class family, Jackson was swept up by the American entertainment industry’s bone-crushing machinery—and not, given his psychic vulnerabilities, at the most propitious moment.

Jackson’s greatest individual success coincided with the Reagan years in the US, a period in which many in America put the radicalism of the 1970s—their own or other people’s—behind them and concentrated on the business of becoming wealthy. Selfishness, hedonism, individualism, greed were given pride of place. Jackson was a phenomenally gifted singer, dancer and songwriter, but the ability to say something with one’s music is not inborn nor the product even of incessant rehearsing and parental pressure.

The Jackson 5 arrived on the musical scene and at Motown, in particular, in a period of widespread protest. The record company, owned by Berry Gordy, a fervent believer in “Black Capitalism,” had not been spared contact with radical currents.

In 1971, Gordy and singer Marvin Gaye clashed over the latter’s desire to record “What’s Going On,” an anti-Vietnam War song. Gaye, whose cousin had died in Vietnam and whose brother had served three tours there, wondered out loud at the time, “With the world exploding around me, how am I supposed to keep singing love songs?” Other black performers such as Stevie Wonder recorded songs highly critical of Richard Nixon in the early 1970s. Curtis Mayfield was an outspoken opponent of war and racism.

The Jacksons, through no fault of their own, served as one of the music industry’s antidotes to all that with what became known as “bubblegum soul.” Jackson broke with his childish musical persona in the late 1970s, but there is no need to overestimate his achievement. He demonstrated extraordinary skills, but the content of his songs never rose to notably insightful and certainly not oppositional heights. In the media discussion about Jackson, one always has to distinguish between the appreciation of his genuine gifts and the far greater awe with which journalists and industry insiders regard his sales figures and accumulation of personal wealth.

The late 1970s and 1980s witnessed the emergence of the polished but bland entertainment industry “blockbuster”—the Lucas-Spielberg productions: the Star Wars films, the Indiana Jones series, E.T.; on television, Dallas and Dynasty, etc. Jackson’s recordings, again largely through no fault of his own, fit into this general picture, as the work of an exciting and dynamic, but, in the end, relatively harmless public figure.

From this point of view, one might say that having helped create Jackson, manipulated his appeal and nurtured his personal eccentricities, the establishment will now make use of him for another purpose: as this year’s victim of a corrupt and insatiable media out to channel popular discontent along channels that represent the least possible threat to the powers that be.

However Michael Jackson’s court case turns out, one has the feeling that a sad, perhaps even tragic fate lies in store for the performer. Everything about American society and its entertainment industry in particular, of which he is both a celebrated figure and a victim, would seem to point in that direction.

Ayana Soyini, a

music promoter (www.goldeneyes.com), was served with a lawsuit for posting an

MP3 of a new Jay-Z song apparently given to her by Universal (rumor? fact?)

to promote to her constituency… Def Jam then sued; her website was shut down…

Chuck D wrote a response which she posted to her website… slightly inflammatory…

Peace Ayana, Chuck

D. from the mountains of Brazil where real black folk answer the greed of the

rich haves. Really they (Lyor, Russell) need to get a life.. and see the big

picture and think outside the box they are in.

So these cats get

the say so on what is and what is not promotion?

Do we wait for

the big white man to finally say its legit and cool, just as they finally accepted

mixtapes…which to me are no

different?

Again when these

companies went digital some knew exactly what they were dealing with in order

to triple charge the consumer. With digital comes liquid risk, and these Gestapo

tactics are stupid as immediately files are in Singapore, New Zealand, China,

Budapest and East St. Louis. What the f*ck is one American company gonna do

here when increasingly American opinion is becoming a smaller part of the world?

Earlier this year

there was a television commercial with a backing of what was obviously an older

Isley Brothers song. I fiended to find this song, and it happened to be ‘I Turned

You On’ which I bought in the stores in both catalog and the "Live at Yankee

Stadium albums. I’ve played it 1000 times. So much for people saying downloading

hurts, which proves that people will continue to support and buy was great,

not just barely adequate.

Def Jam built its

company on sampling and the swap meet trade to get people alerted on rap music,

all so Russell and Lyor could sell it to Universal for $160 million

They press up 5000-10,000

pieces of vinyl on most rap artists, shipping them to DJs in hopes that they

would play it over some radio….how prehistoric and $$$ wasting is this?

Video clips cost

$300,000-600,000 average, with no residual benefit other than promotional, plus

the fact that 85% of outtake footage is a waste, never used again and no one

seems to know where they are ultimately stored.

A Jay-Z promo record

is not as accessible in places like where I’m at now, Rio DE Janeiro Brazil.

The web promotes that beyond a shipment.

Some white business

cat(s) now navigates how word moves in the streets? Well maybe the streets were

his in the first place, eh?

I was told by these

same Universal legal cats, I wouldn’t see royalties ever..after 10 million records..because

of legalities. Well aint this a……"Cool" I said and began to tear

the whole **** down. They know my name and I know theirs and the truth is they

don’t give a damn about any of this…it’s a control issue of

the format.

Universal bought

MCA which bought Chess (pioneering label that recorded such greats as Bo Diddley,

Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Etta James, etc.) amongst many other

companies….how many Blues/Soul cats see Universal checks?

They shouldn’t

even dare go after you…as you’ve been trying to help in a progressive forward

manner..only simple minds stay stuck in old rules that no longer apply. So it’s

war with me. I deal with 50 countries…and connected into peeps like the World

Zulu Nation.

Universal’s Slave

pimp Doug Morris sicced LL and Lyor on me in DC last month. Here’s what I had

to say about that:

A Family Letter to Lyor and LL: The p2p File Sharing Senate Hearings in Washington

DC September 30th 2003

Well I don’t really

know what good to say. I think Doug Morris has pimped your brains out or something.

The R.I.A.A looked and called Morris who probably rang your bell thus you and

LL proceeded to do a tap dance in front of the US Senate with your strings in

his back, Doug Morris’ strings in yours and the R.I.A.A in his. Thinking that

it would neutralize the grassroots effort of all this.

I didn’t get into

this digital whirl for fanfare …you know me. I never sucked no ass to get

to a place…it’s about the art, integrity and commitment as well into the connection

to the world, because I refuse to be submissive to the corporate dominance and

collusion of the Radio networks, TV outlets and film, record and

media companies that now feel they own and dictate the culture.

This collusion

has stifled the growth of grassroots businesses who can’t afford to build themselves

without some drug dealer backing. Seriously you guys have separated yourselves

into the same aristocracy we rebelled against in the first place. Being that

I spend half my time outside Amerikkka and you have such international ties

abroad, we should know that stuffing your pockets and altering a domestic law

in the U.S. has little bearing on world thought, even in music.

The masses of the

people are important and somehow using mass media to control their thoughts

is becoming a more expensive task with dwindling result. The public opinion

swayed by propaganda, marketing, and promotion will not make the masses sorry

for perceived millionaires. It’s arrogance.. typical Amerikkkan arrogance that

increasingly is becoming a symbol of world angst and anti-opinion.

The haves over

the have-nots ..although it may not be true, it seems that you’re responsible

for keeping the artists of your company dumb or seemingly dumb to reach the

dumbed down masses to buy dumbed down product.

At the end of the

day the black artists remain childlike under your wings with no world opinion

whatsoever, pending the existence on "Soundscam" and units sold while

people still look to White icons like Bono, Paul McCartney, Madonna and even

"Governator" for the statements on where we really stand.

It’s hypocritical

for LL to say what’s stolen from him when 75% of his and most of our catalog

was also taken from musicians who never controlled their copyrights..

LL is family as

well as you musically speaking, but really your calling misses the points of

origin that allowed us to do this in the first place…

Some points:

I’m aware that

my copyrights were never really mine and were unprotected anyway to the point

of Universal lawyers saying I’d never receive a royalty from them again.Well

aint this the blues all over again

1. If I knew that

LL or any rapper was on some government hearing opposing my view, I would’ve

bowed out regardless because all they would do is play up two dueling blackmen

against each other..like they did. The last thing I expected was that you and

he would be positioned against me. Or maybe I should’ve expected it….yeah.

2. Def Jam and

other 80’s started rap labels were built off swapmeet and mixtaping throughout

the years, sampling and unauthorized usage, which made $$$$ for you to sell

the company in the mass millions..and now you wanna get righteous?

3. Isn’t Russell

a board member of Altnet (a company that does business with Kazaa)?…How many

sides of the fence do you guys play?…oh, the one that lands in the biggest

pile of cash?

4. The companies

knew that the second they digitized music into a CD that it was let out of the

bag unprotected and easily transferable. Its was a matter of time a compression

such as mp3 would roll along…we’ve all profited off that technology and now

you wanna say its evil?.

It aint bitterness

but its clarity. I thought that making music was a great way to make a living,

thank you. Aligning yourselves with the same peeps we fought against has

altered this game into "The Greed That Has To Make A Killing" so I

can survive. But others must have a grassroots of a chance (since most are shut

out from the club of the music business).

These conglomerates

have really have you in the wrong place on the right stuff you built and sold

your thing on..

If you have any

threats from Universal, or anyone, send them to me. They should be screaming

on their Nation’s President spending $87.5 billion dollars of their $$$

instead worrying about some damn record….

I’M VERY ACCESSIBLE

AND WAITING and can get my e-mail in a country of 80 million black people who

are puzzled at the backwardness of American blacks dancin the ‘electric slave.’