Leaving Neverland- Mer om Michael Jacksons påstådda pedofili

It’s known that cognitive dissonance can prompt someone to make positive changes when they realize their beliefs and actions are at odds. It can also be problematic if it leads someone to justify or rationalize behaviors that could be harmful.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/spokesman-recorder.com/2021/12/22/study-finds-anti-vaxxers-views-hard-to-change/amp/

The feeling of pain when something contradicts long-held beliefs is called cognitive dissonance.

It helps to explain why some people refuse to accept the court's conviction of George Pell for child sex abuse against two choirboys.

In a very different case this week, we have seen similar backlash to the child grooming and abuse claims against Michael Jackson in the documentary Leaving Neverland.

There is unlikely to be a human being on earth who hasn't experienced cognitive dissonance and searched for ways to think their way free of this dissonance, or in other words, to make the bad feelings go away.

The responses we are seeing from people who simply cannot believe in the possibility of criminal behaviour from well-known people like Pell — who has appealed his conviction and denies that abuse —and Jackson is extremely common.

These reactions can have the unwitting effect of keeping powerful abusers safe.

This very process can assist paedophiles, in particular, to rack up victims before they are ever suspected, let alone bought to justice.

Here's how it works.

You have a mental picture of someone based on your experience with that person who you may have known, respected and even loved for years.

Suddenly, new information is presented that throws your entire conception of this individual into chaos.

If you were so wrong about this person, what does that say about your character assessment of everyone else you know and love? It's a horrifying possibility — and too much for some to bear.

Worse still, what if you have genuinely supported this individual through similar allegations, claims, or trials: what does that say about you? Have you thus tacitly supported their actions?

This is where another psychological phenomena takes hold and allows behaviours to actually influence beliefs.

When we see powerful individuals defending figures of similar power or status, we are witnessing a fairly standard human response to conflicting and distressing information.

What is more concerning is the denouncement of victims as "wicked" or crazed/confused or carrying out some ulterior agenda.

Those who are unable to accept unpalatable evidence should think twice about declaring their cognitive dissonance publicly, and instead keep their psychological pain to themselves. It pales into insignificance next to the pain they are causing to others by airing it.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/10892948

"Leaving Neverland Dan Reed is a liar who repeats this exact same lie in one interview after another to an endless queue of lazy, incompetent, obsequious non-journalists who have not done their research and do not challenge him. It is a damning indictment of the media class to which he belongs.

His comments also betray an almost vigilante mentality. In a civilised society, and any proper media outlet, it is incumbent upon accusers to prove their claims, not upon the accused to exonerate themselves. This is in no small part due to the near impossibility of doing so.

The US has statutes of limitations & the UK has ‘abuse of process’ rules, which prevent uncorroborated historic allegations from proceeding through the court system - because how can a falsely accused person possibly defend themselves against a vague, historic claim?

Imagine someone suddenly accuses you of an unwitnessed offence, for which there is no forensic evidence, on a non-specific date 30 years ago.

How do you prove you didn’t do it? You can’t give an alibi. Prosecutors say character evidence is irrelevant. It’s an impossibility.

So how do civilised people assess the veracity of historic allegations?

The only means by which to do so are to assess accusers’ honesty, motive, consistency, and the extent to which their accounts can be corroborated by facts.

By all these measures, Reed’s subjects are weak.

Start with honesty: Both men previously testified under oath that no abuse occurred, but now testify that it did.

That means that whichever story is true, the other must be a lie, making them both liars/perjurers. Do civilised societies convict on the word of liars/perjurers?

Robson’s record of proven dishonesty under oath extends beyond this u-turn.

He also falsely claimed not to have known Jackson had a posthumous estate, in order to justify filing an out-of-time lawsuit.

The judge threw his suit out, finding no rational juror could believe him. He then made several more false claims to the court through his lawyers.

First, he falsely claimed he possessed only one disclosable email pertinent to the case.

Then, when it transpired he possessed hundreds, he tried to hide them by falsely citing attorney-client privilege.

So when Reed tells client journalists there’s no credible challenge, he is asserting that there is no real credibility issue attached to an accuser being caught persistently lying under oath.

He has to know that is ludicrous, which is probably why he covered it up his show.

Motive: Both defended Jackson for many years for free, but changed their stories just in time to file lawsuits seeking many millions of dollars.

So the u-turn in their sworn testimony is inextricably intertwined with financial claims. Any rational juror must consider that.

Reed makes time in his show for the accusers to claim their motive is not money, but to be a voice for victims.

He finds no time, alas, to mention the contradictory fact that both men filed their original claims *under seal*, seeking *secret* settlements from Jackson’s estate.

Consistency/Corroboration: Both make claims in Reed’s show which directly contradict sworn statements in their lawsuits.

Robson changes his story as to when/how his alleged abuse began, while Safechuck torpedoes the entire chronology (given repeatedly under oath) of his case.

The most infamous example, unpicked through public records, was Safechuck claiming on camera to have been serially abused in Neverland’s train station.

Reed’s editing placed this alleged abuse at the start of his & Jackson’s association, in the late 80s. The station was not built and opened until 1994.

Safechuck had repeatedly claimed under oath in his financial lawsuit that Jackson never abused him after 1992, because he got too old so Jackson moved onto other, younger boys.

Reed now insists Safechuck was abused in the station *after* it opened in 1994. But this a) renders Safechuck’s sworn statements false, and b) directly contradicts the central narrative premise of Reed’s show: that Jackson lost interest in pubescent boys & found younger ones.

So when Reed tells client journalists there’s no credible challenge, the problems he’s dismissing include a timeline error so gigantic that it could only be explained away by rubbishing his own star witness’s sworn testimony & abandoning the central claim of his own show.

The station is just one example.

Claims made in the show and/or lawsuits place Robson at Neverland & the Grand Canyon at the same time, put Jackson in Los Angeles & Australia at the same time, and have Jackson committing offences on a trip to an awards ceremony he wasn’t at.

Reed also allows his subjects to name other boys they claim Jackson dumped them for when they got too old (although he later abandons that narrative in response to station-gate).

These named boys were never approached by Reed for comment and are adamant they were never abused.

By minimising/dismissing this litany of substantial problems, Reed is essentially demanding the presumption of innocence not only be replaced by a presumption of guilt, but by one so forceful that no innocent person falsely accused of a historic offence could ever be acquitted.

This is an extraordinarily dangerous and irresponsible attitude which fundamentally undermines the bedrock of any civilised society: that a person has the right to be presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond any reasonable doubt.

The usual response to such arguments is the irrelevant assertion that false claims are vanishingly rare. But that’s a lie, in addition to being an irrelevance.

4-8% of US abuse allegations are false, giving a lowball estimate of circa 100,000 innocent people accused annually.

So we abandon the presumption of innocence at all of our peril. This issue is much bigger than Michael Jackson. It’s about what sort of society we want to live in."

En annan grej som inte är ett bevis men som är anmärkningsvärd är att Michael aldrig lät några fula eller tjocka barn sova över. Det var alltid smala vita pojkar i tioårsåldern. Antingen är det en otrolig slump, eller så var det en sexuell preferens.