When is "rape, rape"?

A bizarre debate is playing out across the media in America today over the arrest of Roman Polanski over the rape of a 13-year old child. If you are even half-tuned to any of the media outlets, be it the newspaper, TV or the internet, I am sure you have more than a passing familiarity with the events at the time of the crime in 1977, then the "coming out" of the victim in the mid-1990s after suing Polanski in civil court and settling for an undisclosed amount in the late 1980's, and finally, at the behest of the US Justice Dept., the arrest of the fugitive by Swiss authorities, themselves not exactly the perfect paragons of virtue, when Polanski visited Zurich to receive an award. Everybody, from Debra Winger to Harrison Ford to Whoopi Goldberg, to a bunch of Hollywood elites, have been tripping over each other for the MOHO Award (for "Most Original Hypocrite Oscar"), calling it simply "a case of morals" (which they don't have nor would know if it hit them in the face). How can anyone defend this monster knowing what we know of the crime he committed, no matter how long ago it was or if the victim has moved-on with her life and decided to forgive the perpetrator, or if the Los Angeles DA's office reneged on a "deal", or what have you. The basic facts of the case remain unchanged, sharp and clear for any one with a sense of morals--and half a mind, to see and decide for himself or herself. That is why Lady Justice has blindfolds on, so that she imparts justice without being blinded by how rich or powerful or talented the criminal is.

While I must give credit to a whole bunch of other Hollywood-types that have so far refrained from participating in the run-up to the MOHO Award, there are a couple of things that I sense: one is that, the people defending this deed may have something similar hidden away in their closets, just as Angelica Huston, being in the very next (thats what she said, it could well be that she was in the same) room that day in 1977 when Polanski was plying the 13-year old child with drugs and alcohol prior to committing vile acts on her in Jack Nicholson's house (of course, Jack was conveniently "out of town", or so the court documents show). The other is that Polanski's childhood in the Warshaw ghettos and the murder of his parents at the hands of the Nazis, and then the murder of his wife and unborn child by Manson followers, being used to defend his vile acts. For all we know, Polanski is a serial child molestor who was unfortunate enough to get caught in the US. Pedophilia, it has been well documented, is not a passing fad or a one-time act. Usually, the predator repeats the crime, time and time again, until caught or castrated. That's why we have in the US such laws as "Amber Alerts" and "Megan's Law" and "chemical castration" has been debated but unfortunately does not have the political muscle to become law. Makes you wonder how many children Polanski may have raped and sodomized in his many chateaus in Europe?

The thing about the Swiss authorities role in all this that bothers me is the fact that Polanski has owed a chateau in Switzerland for many decades now, coming and going as he pleased. It would have been a relatively easy bit of sleuthing to stake out the chateau for a few months, and nab the monster when he visited, anytime years ago. So, why now? The Swiss simply say that they "didn't know", an excuse that they have used in a myriad other places and times to cover their own complicity and duplicity in heinous crimes against humanity, from "oh, we didn't know Hitler was herding the Jews in Zurich to kill them" or "we didn't know what those trains rumbling through Zurich in the middle of the night from Italy to Dachau during the War were carrying and to where they were going", or "we didn't know all this money belonging to abandoned accounts belonged to Jews exterminated during the holocaust and should rightfully go to their descendants", or "we didn't know that the 40,000+ US citizens with numbered Swiss Bank accounts totalling tens of billions of dollars may have been ill-gotten gains or from money laundering operations or for evading US taxes". All throughout history, the Swiss have mastered the Machiavellian art of playing the ends against the middle, remaining so-called "neutral" and making a pretty penny for themselves, and to thereby enjoy the highest standards of living anywhere. Now that the Swiss are facing the growing wrath of the US Government, maybe, just maybe, Polanski was a pawn they were willing to offer in sacrifice? Oh edleweiss, small and bright, your innocence hides a sullied land, full of blight!

If Polanski crime reveals the seamier side of human nature, his recent arrest and subsequent events, have laid bare the double-standards of the West. How easily do we in the West denigrate the muslims for the treatment they mete out to their women, yet at the most fundamental level, with the veneer of respectabilty removed, is the Western Society's view of women really any different or any better?