Roman Polanski, Liberal Hero
Sep 30, 2009 Political
As he arrived in Zurich, Switzerland for the Zurich Film Festival, Roman Polanski, admitted child molester, sodomizer, and rapist, was arrested on a new warrant from the United States. About damn time, too- thirty- two years after the fact, simply because the French, who are supposed to be our friends and allies, would not allow extradition of this human pusbag for the crimes that he had already pled guilty to.
A short synopsis- This forty- something man had drugged a thirteen year old girl, and well, I’ll let Kate Harding, writing in Salon.com take it from here-
Roman Polanski raped a child. Let’s just start right there, because that’s the detail that tends to get neglected when we start discussing whether it was fairfor the bail-jumping director to be arrested at age 76, after 32 years in “exile” (which in this case means owning multiple homes in Europe, continuing to work as a director, marrying and fathering two children, even winning an Oscar, but never — poor baby — being able to return to the U.S.). Let’s keep in mind that Roman Polanski gave a 13-year-old girl a Quaalude and champagne, then raped her, before we start discussing whether the victim looked older than her 13 years, or that she now says she’d rather not see him prosecuted because she can’t stand the media attention. Before we discuss how awesome his movies are or what the now-deceased judge did wrong at his trial, let’s take a moment to recall that according to the victim’s grand jury testimony, Roman Polanski instructed her to get into a jacuzzi naked, refused to take her home when she begged to go, began kissing her even though she said no and asked him to stop; performed cunnilingus on her as she said no and asked him to stop; put his penis in her vagina as she said no and asked him to stop; asked if he could penetrate her anally, to which she replied, “No,” then went ahead and did it anyway, until he had an orgasm.
salon.com
You would think that would be the end of the story- there could be no “defense” of the indefensible- the acts are so shocking simply because of the child’s age, but there are plenty of people in the film industry who are leaping to demand that this felon pedophile be freed- probably they think their jobs are riding on the outcome of this man’s case.
Do keep in mind one thing- he pleaded guilty- the only thing he was trying to escape was the punishment that he was due. As Kate Harding repeatedly says- He raped a child. Period. It really shouldn’t matter what the French say- the crime to which Polanski pled guilty to didn’t happen there- they have no standing to voice an opinion.
The French press, for instance (at least according to the British press) is describing Polanski “as the victim of a money-grabbing American mother and a publicity-hungry Californian judge.” Joan Z. Shore at the Huffington Post, who once met Polanski and “was utterly charmed by [his] sobriety and intelligence,” also seems to believe that a child with an unpleasant stage mother could not possibly have been raped: “The 13-year old model ‘seduced’ by Polanski had been thrust onto him by her mother, who wanted her in the movies.” Oh, well, then! If her mom put her into that situation, that makes itmuch better! Shore continues: “The girl was just a few weeks short of her 14th birthday, which was the age of consent in California. (It’s probably 13 by now!) Polanski was demonized by the press, convicted, and managed to flee, fearing a heavy sentence.”
Wow, OK, let’s break that down. First, as blogger Jeff Fecke says, “Fun fact: the age of consent in 1977 in California was 16. It’s now 18. But of course, the age of consent isn’t like horseshoes or global thermonuclear war; close doesn’t count. Even if the age of consent had been 14, the girl wasn’t 14.” Also, even if the girl had been old enough to consent, she testified that she did not consent.
salon.com
All those “inconvenient” facts- and still the idiots in Hollywood are screaming for his release. It would be predictable that Woody Allen, a child molester himself, would rush to Polanski’s defense, but Scorsese? Does no one in Hollywood have children? Or perhaps they just swap them like recipes? Where’s the morality? Where’s the outrage?
Marie-Louise Fort, a French lawmaker in the Assembly who has sponsored anti-incest legislation, said in an interview that she was shocked that Mr. Polanski was attracting support from the political and artistic elite. “I don’t believe that public opinion is spontaneously supporting Mr. Polanski at all,” she said. “I believe that there is a distinction between the mediagenic class of artists and ordinary citizens that have a vision that is more simple.”
The mood was even more hostile in blogs and e-mails to newspapers and news magazines. Of the 30,000 participants in an online poll by the French daily Le Figaro, more than 70 percent said Mr. Polanski, 76, should face justice. And in the magazine Le Point, more than 400 letter writers were almost universal in their disdain for Mr. Polanski.
That contempt was not only directed at Mr. Polanski, but at the French class of celebrities — nicknamed Les People — who are part of Mr. Polanski’s rarefied Parisian world. Letter writers to Le Point scorned Les People as the “crypto-intelligentsia of our country” who deliver “eloquent phrases that defy common sense.”
Still, many others continued to rally to the Oscar-winning director’s defense.
Film industry leaders like Woody Allen, Pedro Almodovar, Martin Scorsese and Costa Gavras signed a petition with about 100 names that expressed “stupefaction” with the arrest of Mr. Polanski at the Zurich airport.
nytimes.com
Yea- regular people, by and large, get it, even in France. Back home, the Huffington Post, a blog that has grown increasingly unhinged, ran (or wrote) to Polanski’s defense- and then has been savaged by its readers, who feel overwhelmingly that the pedophile should indeed serve all of the time to which he was convicted.
Much of the initial criticism of the American and Swiss authorities behind the arrest centered on the question of timing: why was Mr. Polanski arrested now, three decades after his guilty plea, and not on any of the countless other visits he has made to Switzerland over the years (he maintains homes there and in France)?
Defending their actions, American law enforcement officials in Los Angeles have said the arrest was a simple matter of opportunity, and they issued a timeline that showed that they had quietly submitted an Interpol “red notice” — a request for international assistance in arresting a fugitive — concerning Mr. Polanski that was originally distributed in 2002. A spokesman for Interpol in Lyon, France, declined to comment on Tuesday. The red notice on Mr. Polanski apparently was not posted on Interpol’s public Web site, which is used to enlist the help of the public in pursuit of fugitives.
“He just showed up at a time and a place where we knew he would be available,” Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for Stephen L. Cooley, the Los Angeles County district attorney, said Monday.
The district attorney’s office circulated a list of the actions it had taken and the inquiries it had made to track and try to apprehend Mr. Polanski as he traveled to at least 10 countries, including what appeared to be a near miss in 2007, when officials relayed a request for information from Israel about a visit he made there. By the time the information arrived, “Polanski had left Israel and was not arrested,” the prosecutors’ advisory said.
nytimes.com
The American authorities had not posted the notice, or request for extradition to Interpol’s website, because they thought, as has been the case in the past, that a sympathetic government official might warn him, and allow him to flee. Not this time.
There is still work to do, in getting him actually back on American soil, and into the prison he so richly deserves. There are consequences for one’s actions- there should be penalties that deter, and allowing some pedophilic A**hole to thumb his nose at the American judicial system is not a good thing.
He should regret his actions every day, for the rest of his life, until he dies in prison.
Perhaps other prisoners can show him what sodomy is.
Now that would be justice.
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Tags: brainless actors, justice delayed, liberals, pedophilia, polanski