No Ifs, Ands, or Buts -- They ALL Did It This Time
What's the going price for a murdered child?After shaming publishers (and the public) over O.J.'s cynical attempt to milk the murder of his ex-wife and her friend Ron Goldman by writing a "novel" entitled IF I DID IT, the Goldman family, who sued successfully (and garnered much public support) to gain the rights to the much despised text, are going to publish it after all.
No, really.
Whether OJ did it or not, he's still a scumbag, for even thinking about writing such a book. But given their much publicized squabbling with O.J. over the years and their understandable efforts to block the book's publication last year so, by God, are the Goldmans. And anyone else involved in this.
Including the moral rubberneckers who will buy this book. No matter how much spin the Goldman's and their lawyers put on it.
Let's stop pretending. Maybe we should just scrap that silly "In God We Trust" slogan on the dollar bill and put something people can really get behind.
Something like "Fuck the moral high ground, let's cash in."
Or "Whatever it takes..."
Or "Everyone into the trough..."
Labels: moral freefall, O.J., scumbags
posted by Kevin Burton Smith at 11:29 AM
3 Comments:
You have no idea what's going on in the Goldmans heads and hearts. Maybe they view the book as a confession and want the world to see it, maybe they don't want people forgetting their son, maybe they plan on donating the money to a charity in their sons name. When my own sister was murdered, my mother almost signed a book deal with one of the jackals who came around, and it had nothing to do with the money--she didn't want to let go of my sister and she wanted people to know about her. Fortunately I was able to talk her out of it, but I understood the mix of emotions working on her, just as I've understood it in the people I've met in support groups who were going through the similar agony. A very unkind piece of hyperbole on your part. I'm signing this anonymously only because I don't want to advertise my own situation.
Seems to me that, given the reasons the Goldmans gave for opposing OJ's publication of the book, the same standard would apply to them. It also seems not unreasonable to assume that they would have said something about giving the proceeds to charity, if that was what they planned to do.
Whoa, Ms. Anonymous,
Hey, the only reason most strangers even know Ron Goldman is is because he was murdered, but I'm pretty sure people won't be forgetting him for a while yet. Unfortunately, their memories will be forever tainted by his family's cynical decision to cash in on the publication of a book they had previously and regularly denounced for well over a year.
Suddenly the book's okay to publish? What seems to be in the hearts and heads of the Goldmans to me is HYPOCRISY.
I'm not indifferent to other people's suffering, but there's something nauseating about the burgeoning professional victimhood industry --the willingness of people to make money from their personal grief and suffering.
Justice? Mercy? Compassion? Even something as nebulous as "fairness" or "closure"? Forget it all -- just write 'em a cheque.
My guess is that the public backlash against the Goldman's will prompt some sort of mealy-mouthed backtracking or justification on their part in the next few days.
But if the book was distasteful when the Goldman's first blocked its publication (and it certainly was), then it's still distasteful, even now that the profits are going to the Goldmans.
Remember, this is no ordinary true crime book -- it's a "novel" written by the chief suspect of a notorious double homicide, who many people believe literally got away with murder, fantasizing on how he would have committed the crime.
Regardless on who eventually profits from it -- OJ, the Goldmans, some boo hoo hoo charity -- the book remains what it is.
Which makes me wonder if the Goldman's original objection was about. Money?
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