yes, the rumor is true: michael jackson died last week

by jackie sheeler on June 29, 2009

and so did:

Army SSG Paul G Smith, 43, of East Peoria, IL
Army SSG Joshua A Melton, 26, of Carlyle, IL
Army SPC Chancellor A Keesling, 25, of Indianapolis, IN
Navy MCPO Jeffrey J Garber, 43, of Hemingford, NE
Army 1SG John D Blair, 38, of Calhoun, GA
Army SGT Ricky D Jones, 26, of Plantersville, AK
Army SGT Rodrigo A Munguia Rivas, 27, of Germantown, MD
Army SPC Casey L Hills, 23, of Salem, IL
Army 1LT Brian N Bradshaw, 24, of Steilacoom, WA
Army SPC Joshua L Hazlewood, 22, of Manvel, TX

that’s the military body count from iraq and afghanistan. nobody went moonwalking in front of the fucking apollo theater for any of them.

civilian body count for the same period — again, just one week, last week — in that area is estimated at 174.

can  you say imbalance?

not to disparage michael jackson. i loved his music, went to his shows, bought his records. worried about his face and his habit of sleeping with children.

yet one life, however talented or celebrated it may have been, is not a millionfold more significant than another. you’d never know that watching american TV, reading american newspapers and blogs, or sitting by my living room window where four out of every five cars driving down west 116th street have “billie jean” blasting out of their radios.

we should carry on like this over every single person killed in our senseless wars. every soldier, sailor, child, journalist, housewife, laborer, cook. every single one.

if they, who lived more-or-less unsung lives, are left to die unsung, the murdering will never stop.

our national obsession with celebrity in such a bloody world is obscene. the iranian people are risking everything they have — life, limb, freedom, home — in demanding justice from their dictatorial leaders. if we had done in 2000 what they are doing right now, several hundred thousand dead might still be living. (for that matter, the whole mortgage-fiasco-market-meltdown might also have been averted, but that’s a topic for another day.)

but no. we sat in front of our televisions, then as now, and watched the world unfold on those tiny, twisted screens, with a bag of chips and a frosty bottle of beer on the coffee table.

and most of us don’t even know enough to be ashamed of this. it’s simply the american way.

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{ 6 comments }

Carey June 29, 2009 at 10:30 am

It’s not at all limited to Amercans. Complacency and apathy are human issues. So too is a complete inability to gauge proportion. We don’t have a lock on misplaced priorities, or fatness, or celebrity worship.

It’s also not as bad as you’re making it seem. The national orgy of handwringing and celebrity mourning is mostly a media phenomenon. I would agree that there are probably more people thinking today about Michael Jackson than are thinking about the ten people you named above but that’s to be expected. It is not politically correct to say so, but all lives aren’t equal. The very fact that one can be famous or infamous, shows that it’s possible for one human being to have a disproportionate impact on the lives of others. And when those people die the response is disproportionate.

George June 29, 2009 at 9:12 pm

Love your values, Jaxx: “nobody went moonwalking in front of the fucking apollo theater for any of them.”

Did you notice that two of the dead servicemen you list were in their 40’s, not much older than MJ? They were probably reservists called away from their jobs and families to do hard time in combat and then lose their lives. But how much more of a thriller it is to kick off with grams of drugs in your body and needle tracks all over your arms.

Carey, it is as bad as or worse than Jackie makes it seem.

Cyndi June 30, 2009 at 1:17 am

From the opening line, to the list of dead soldiers, BRAVO. You made a bold statement that needed stating. In that classic Jackie Sheeler style!!! SUPERB blog.

jamie June 30, 2009 at 8:48 am

So what do you say about one of those soldiers on that list, coming back to Kuwait unharmed and then put a bullet through his chest? Yeah we were there, we heard the call, I have friends that saw the suicide.. You never know what is going through a persons mind to commit such an act.. We all need to wake up and see that our soldiers are NOT ALRIGHT from the war. We need to pay attention more. Celebrities get all the good treatments… why not soldiers…

Ethan July 2, 2009 at 7:49 am

“We should carry on like this over every single person killed in our senseless wars. every soldier, sailor, child, journalist, housewife, laborer, cook. every single one”

Nice thought, but no, we really shouldn’t. We adapt. If we mourned every passing than death would become meaningless to us, and we wouldn’t even mourn the passing of just one person, talented, soldier, or not.

jackie sheeler July 6, 2009 at 6:57 am

@jamie — i count military suicides like the one you describe as murder, because they were murdered just a surely as someone who caught a bullet through the head

@ethan — i didn’t suggest we should mourn every passing death in this way, i suggested we should mourn every murder committed in the course of war in this way. it’s hundreds, not millions. if we can’t get our minds around the body count, then we need to stop making it larger. and i don’t think that even so the deaths would become meaningless: look what the images of neda, murdered for protesting the election fraud in iran, have created around the world. true, not everyone is young and beautiful and killed in the middle of a busy street. nevertheless, we must do what we can to remember and so, to change.

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