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Unlike Founder, FMF Believes In Polanski Prosecution
New York, 10:39 AM
Fri Dec 18
65 posts in the last 24 hours
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Unlike Founder, FMF Believes In Polanski Prosecution |
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10/02/09
If it's Peg Yorkin's "personal opinion" that the correct response to Roman Polanski's drugging and raping a kid, and then skipping town is just to "let it go", then she has absolutely no business working for the Feminist Majority Foundation, let alone being its chair.
She needs to resign. Right now.
10/02/09
The big outcry here (in old Europa) is over HOW he was arrested, not whether or not he ought to be prosecuted - he was seized on the way to the Zurich film festival where he was receiving tribute, in a country he'd owned a house in for ten years. Why now? Why there? There's lots of speculation that the Swiss government is interested in revamping its image to the US, where apparently (I've only read this, never actually heard it from the horse's mouth) much popular opinion still sees it as the perpetrator of underhand financial dealings in WW2.
In terms of right/wrong issues of justice, there is no question over the ethics of this case. One swiss guy says he thinks it was a bad idea that he was arrested this way, and suddenly, as was reported on here, 'WaPo readers wonder whether rape is just plain okay in France'. Am I being overdefensive and paranoid to see a weird faux-morality tale casting the US as world morality-police being spun here?
10/02/09
That aside, I don't really think that the fact that he was attending a film festival where he would receive an award or that he was arrested in a country in which he owns a home should have any bearing. Polanski is a fugitive, he was never officially given asylum in Switzerland or any of the other countries he traveled to, and any time he entered a country, he ran the risk of being arrested. Just because he had never been arrested there before doesn't mean that was going to or should continue in perpetuity.
10/02/09
As for the timing, I can't for the life of me understand why that should be an issue. Are you saying he should have been allowed to get his award first? Or that by failing to capture him in the past, they've forfeited their right to capture him in the future?
10/02/09
10/02/09
So, it's his own fault that he got arrested because he raped a girl, and then it's his own fault he got arrested now because he tried to get it dropped. Asshole times two.
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10/02/09
I think the documentary played a role, but I also think Polanski had a whole lot of hubris. The way the LA DA found out that he was listed on the film festival web page. Polanski advertised that he was going to be in Switzerland. No one had to stake out his ski home to see if he'd show up, he made it easy.
I think a lot of the Euro outrage has to do with long standing feelings that the US overreaches and tries to boss everyone else around. If it was the Canadians going after him, I think the reaction would have been a little different. Plus, the case wasn't well known at all abroad.
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