One More Word About the Polanski Case

What's especially interesting about Polanski's arrest is the sheer number of blog entries I've read in the past week by people who "weren't going to comment on this" but felt they just couldn't let it go any longer. I've been especially cynical about this arrest, and it has nothing to do with the crimes committed or how I feel about Polanski's films.

What has been bothering me is the way people have sort of jumped on this case as though it's some kind of clear line in the sand. I'm not sure what exactly this case really means to people who aren't involved and, in many cases, weren't even alive when it happened (or, like myself, were too young to know anything at all about it). I mean, what exactly is the symbolism of this for people?

I don't get it.

And this is not to minimize the crime, something I have to keep saying because, judging by the discourse, if you don't constantly say that rape is a crime then you're blaming the victim. This is an appearances-based country, and if you don't look enough like you're against something, people will think there's something wrong with you.

But what does the prosecution of Roman Polanski do for you, exactly? You know what it does for me? Nothing. You know why? Because I'm not Roman Polanski, I wasn't raped by Roman Polanski, it's not my job to prosecute Roman Polanski, and I'm not related to anyone involved, nor do I know anyone involved. So, this having no effect on me, I don't really give a shit.

But he raped a child, I keep hearing. You know what's really depressing? That the federal authorities, three decades later, will finally arrest Polanski because he's foreign and he had sex with a young girl. If he'd had sex with a young boy, or even just tortured the girl, they wouldn't bother. But because a foreigner had sex with a young American teenager, this makes it an even bigger crime.

Where do I get off saying this? Because Michael Jackson had inappropriate relationships with a lot of young boys, and the media and a bunch of morons have deified the man. So, Michael Jackson is a saint, but Roman Polanski is a monster. If this shows anything, it's that Roman Polanski made the wrong kinds of movies. Maybe if he'd directed E.T., there would be more people jumping out of the woodwork to declare him innocent and misunderstood.

Where is the standard, exactly?

Do you get what I'm saying here?

The man committed a crime, one crime, 30 years ago, and everyone's still so goddamn angry about it. Presidential assassins get forgotten more quickly in America. People are acting like the arrest of Roman Polanski is somehow the equivalent of capturing Osama bin Laden. Christ, we should be much more angry that Karl Rove is walking around free than worried about what Polanski is doing. We should be more worried about the Catholic Church's system of condoning and protecting priests who rape children than Polanski.

If he hadn't had anal sex with that girl, I don't think anyone would care anymore. But in a country as puritanical as America, people just won't let it go. Sex in the butt! Christ, no!

I've been reading a lot on this theory that Polanski's arrest has something to do with a backdoor political deal, and I can't say that surprises me. There has to be more to it than this, because there have been plenty of chances to catch Polanski in Switzerland before now. He's there every year. He has a house there.

Federal prosecutors here are going after offshore bank accounts where Americans have been hiding money to avoid paying their taxes. The biggest bank in Switzerland, UBS AG, has been setting up a lot of offshore accounts for American citizens. UBS has already given up over 4400 names of US citizens with Swiss bank accounts; they even paid a $780 million fine to the Justice Department. Now it looks like UBS may be hiding 13,000 more customers with $20 billion in assets. All of it hidden from the IRS. This could have a domino effect, revealing tax evasion practices at other banks, and take out most of the Swiss banking system.

That would be a disaster for Switzerland. How to get back in the Justice Department's good graces?

So much for Swiss neutrality.

What I'm saying here is not that Polanski is innocent or deserves to be forgiven. What I'm saying is that things like this don't just happen, because there really wasn't any concerted effort to catch Polanski for the three decades he was living in Europe. If there was, this would have happened a long time ago.

What I'm saying is, Polanski is being made an example of for political reasons, and that's not justice. That's not justice at all. And while it annoys me to see righteous outrage being misplaced, it just plain pisses me off to see once again how eagerly people line up to be misled.

In short, if there weren't a political reason to grab Polanski, neither the American nor Swiss government would care.