Justice at Neverland Ranch
Copyright Rabbi Eli HechtNo part of this arcticle may be used or reproduced in any form without written permission from the copyright holder, except for brief quotations in reviews.
Alert! Alert! Special message to earthlings. You can become what you'd like to be. Fly to Neverland and never become old; retain your childhood friends and live within the innocence of childhood. Sounds like Peter Pan, you say, but, no, it's really Michael Jackson. His ranch is called, "Neverland Ranch." His adulthood is clouded in childhood. I don't know about him flying but, somehow, he doesn't look like the Captain EO anymore. At the NAACP Image Awards, Jackson told his worshipping audience, "I am innocent and I know that the truth will be my salvation."
Why is it that an adult man accused of child molestation is freed on a rumored payment falling between ten and thirty million dollars? That's an expensive way to find the truth. Perhaps Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson's confidante, has some advice.
The millions of dollars are being given as a gift bonanza to a 14-year-old Beverly Hills boy who brought the charges. To him and his parents this may be a dream in Neverland coming true. Jackson had said, "I ask all of you to wait to hear the truth before you label or condemn me." Now all he's asking is for the check to clear the bank.
The child molestation charges have been dropped by the boy. Remember, in California, child victims of sexual abuse can't be forced to testify.
There's an old joke told about the Chicago judicial system where Al Capone was overheard saying, "I'll get the best justice I can afford." It seems that Larry Feldman and Johnnie Cochran, attorneys for Jackson and the boy, respectively, have delivered justice (and made a lot of money). It's peace time on the Neverland Ranch.
Two Los Angeles psychologists visited me this week to discuss children. Finding this an opportune time, I asked them why there hasn't been any public outcry over the Jackson affair by the professional community? Child psychologists are suppossed to be advocates for the safety of children. Why is it that the message is mum? After a while they responded with a tirade against parents who allow their children to go to sleep-away parties at Michael Jackson's ranch. "Any parent who allows their child to be in close proximity of a crotch-grabbing performing rock singer is asking for trouble."
It seems to me that instead of dealing with the problem of child molestation, we're back to child abuse by parents. Such confusion of values has become commonplace. Mothers hire hit men to kill cheerleaders so their daughters have less competition, ice skaters and other athletes are willing to do anything to be in the Olympics and children put their parents away for good. These examples of children, parents or spouses all caught up in the vicious cycle of corruption have become the norm rather than the exception. With good attorneys they can be exonerated. Affordable justice today is the "in" thing.
In the tale of the Pied Piper we're told how a town got rid of its rats. The rats simply followed the Pied Piper out of town. In examining the Jackson settlement, children, teenagers and adults have hooked onto the Pied Piper of today and are following him into Neverland. Parents have allowed their children to be exposed to perverse behavior by rock singers - modern day idols who lure their children into the enchantment of their music. As in the Pied Piper, they march to the music of a special man but to a deadly end. Jackson's album has come to mean exactly what it says - Dangerous!
There's a story told in Jewish folklore of an astrologer who foretold a calamity that would affect the kingdom. All the crops would be tainted with a dangerous ingredient. It would poison the minds of people causing them to lose their rationality. When the astrologer told the king of this ominous news, the king said, "Since you are the harbinger of this news, you'll have to put away one year's quantity of untainted crop to sustain yourself. During the year you will run around whispering the words, 'Remember, there was a time when we were all sane.'"
It seems that our society has eaten from the Neverland crop. Ever increasing levels of perversity has become the accepted form of behavior. Irrationality is the accepted form of thinking. Very few of us have not eaten from this bewitching crop. Many of us have fallen under the spell of the Pied Piper.
I am outraged with Jackson's settlement. It is really a farce. I believe we should stand up for what's right and rational. Let's pull the plug and stop the music. Enough is enough.
Our founding fathers' moral code was justice for all at any price even if we have to put a superstar on trial.