Redux: An Article on the Defamation of the Dead

11 Thursday Sep 2014
Posted by sylmortilla

The unprecedented demand for tickets to see This Is It meant – had Michael Jackson been physically capable of following orders – that he would have eventually played to one million people.

Upon the seismic shock of Michael’s demise, the resultant grief expressed by the planet at such an irreplaceable loss for humanity became manifest in myriad ways. Conspiracy theories abound: had Michael known he was going to die when he did? When he had whooped the This Is It press-conference crowd into frenzied delirium with the chant, “This is it! This is it!” – had he literally meant this - this moment – is it? Conspiracy theories ranged from the ridiculous to the sublime: had Michael been targeted by secret NASA technology possessing the capacity to identify and exterminate any specific target on the globe – their motive being that, during the This Is It run of shows, they had reason to believe he was going to expose the insidious Illuminati elite?

Then there were those that point-blank refused to accept he had died. A theory spawning a faction of fans who persevere in referring to themselves as ‘BeLIEvers’: a small group of seemingly sorry souls (I realise this could ostensibly be interpreted as an insensitive stance, but – from the BeLIEvers I’ve had the misfortune to encounter, at least – they promote their agenda for reasons much less fuelled by the denial synonymous with grief, and much more by necromaniacal voyeurism).

BeLIEvers are inordinately proud of themselves for having noticed that, in the English language – on occasion – shorter words sometimes exist within longer ones (although the rudimentary rules of any language discourage those words ever being capitalised). This apparently startling syntactic revelation is the bedrock of the BeLIEver belief system: a system that actively promulgates the idea of Michael being alive – with him merely residing on the sidelines of civilisation, in the guise of various individuals that range from tragic burns victim and famous recipient of Michael’s philanthropic aid, Dave Dave, to the very man convicted of killing Michael himself: Conrad Murray.

BeLIEvers claim that the picture taken of Paris prior to her suicide attempt – in which she is sporting self-harm scars on her arm – was photoshopped, and that she is both aware of and complicit in perpetuating the hoax. Or – contradictorily – that her attempt to take her own life was a ruse to draw Michael from hiding – and that Michael is simply refusing to intervene in the agonised grief of his children. That – for all his sincere concern with regards the welfare of other people’s children – it’s impossible for him to emerge from exile in order to console his own.

Because his very own children’s sanity must be duly sacrificed in lieu of the accomplishment of the bigger plan – a plan which essentially boils down to the most distasteful magic trick in history: the climax to which, would be Michael’s immediate arrest and incarceration – as a consequence of the somewhat misjudged venture being responsible for what would then have been an innocent Conrad Murray spending time in jail.

The acquiescence involved that allows oneself to hold such beliefs is not a symptom of grief; it is a symptom of purposeful self-perversion. And supporting such sentiments as these strikes at the very core of Michael’s lived and hard-earned philosophy: “I’ll be remembered for – not for what I did on stage – but for what I did for the children.”

Fans of Elvis Presley that continued to insist on his persistent hip-thrusting upon this mortal coil, became a global laughing-stock (although their wordplay of ELVIS being an anagram of LIVES is actually far more credible – if only for the reason of it not having been randomly plucked from the ether as the term ‘beLIEver’ evidently was). However, the importance of their idol’s legacy – compared to ours – pales in significance. Quite apart from the fact that Elvis fans didn’t have to constantly contend with defending their idol against incessant accusations of paedophilia.

What with Michael’s fans being all-too-often dismissed as deranged due to the actions of a loud, lunatic minority, Michael’s vitally important message of kindness and brotherly love – particularly in the current global political climate – ends up becoming massively undermined. The lunacy plays directly into the hands of those wishing to smear his legacy. The BeLIEver movement represent a part of the integrity of Michael’s art and soul that we must reclaim.

Cadeflaw/AdLlaw is a highly respectable initiative that needs your support. The ultimate goal of this determined group is to change a law that currently permits the defaming of the deceased (a proposed change that would also help preserve the sanity of their survivors). The team have organised a promotional event to try and garner signatories for an important petition. The event will run 12th – 14th September. Please get involved. Further details can be found here:

www.facebook.com/events/1474180152834790/
http://antidefamationlegacylawadvocates.org/

http://sylmortilla.com/

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