More Polanski

Phase I: A number of outspoken, incensed jews, dismayed at the arrest of Roman Polanski, spring to his defense peddling patently lame arguments. Their op-eds as well as hard news accounts emphasize Polanski's status as a holocaust survivor. His crime and flight are minimized. It's "ancient history". The expense too great. "We demand the immediate release..."

Phases II: The rest of us call bullshit.

Phase III: Amidst this backlash some start to ask, "what's going on here?"

Some follow up on Phase I's notorious Applebaum: Telling the Whole Truth Now Would Be Too Confusing.

Phase II continues to manifest anywhere the Polanski apologists and equivocators offer an open forum.

Examples of Phase III were rare, at least at first.

Patrick at Popehat wonders why Feminist Majority Foundation chair, film producer Peg Yorkin, advocates forgiveness for Roman Polanski where once she advocated genital torture for rape:

One of the most interesting aspects of the Roman Polanski arrest, which my co-blogger Ken has covered in all its sordid glory, is the split that it creates. Chris, who frequently comments here, described Polanski as an “OJ Simpson for the elites,” and that’s not too far off the mark.

Popehat links an LAT piece which asks, In Roman Polanski case, is it Hollywood vs. Middle America?:

In an opinion piece in London's the Independent, Weinstein Co. co-founder Harvey Weinstein, who is circulating the pro-Polanski petition, wrote: "Whatever you think about the so-called crime, Polanski has served his time. A deal was made with the judge, and the deal is not being honored. . . . This is the government of the United States not giving its word and recanting on a deal, and it is the government acting irresponsibly and criminally."

In an interview, Weinstein said that people generally misunderstand what happened to Polanski at sentencing. He's not convinced public opinion is running against the filmmaker and dismisses the categorization of Hollywood as amoral. "Hollywood has the best moral compass, because it has compassion," Weinstein said.

"You misunderstand. I'll tell you how to see it. Hollywood is your moral compass."

Some of the industry's most prominent women said they believe Polanski, who faces a sentence as low as probation and as high as 16 months in prison for pleading guilty to having sex with a minor, should be freed. "My personal thoughts are let the guy go," said Peg Yorkin, founder of the Feminist Majority Foundation. "It's bad a person was raped. But that was so many years ago. The guy has been through so much in his life. It's crazy to arrest him now. Let it go. The government could spend its money on other things."

See Popehat's detailing of Yorkin's stand on non-Polanski rape.

In The Roman Polanski Case: Once Again, It’s Hollywood vs. America Kevin MacDonald notes that Hollywood fundamentally reflects jewish attitudes on culture.

Here's a helping of emergency opinion-shaping, courtesy of the New York Times, under the friendly title The Polanski Uproar. It's presented on the "Room for Debate Blog", which leaves no room for debate, at least not via any comment mechanism.

The Consequences of Fame:

Jonathan Rosenbaum, a former film critic for The Chicago Reader, is the author of the forthcoming “Goodbye Cinema, Hello Cinephilia” and writes at jonathanrosenbaum.com.

I’m not at all in favor of giving artists free passes when it comes to their personal morality. But in the case of Roman Polanski, anyone who’s bothered to follow the history of his case in any detail is likely to conclude that (a) he’s already paid a great deal for his crime, (b) the interests of journalism and the entertainment industry in this matter usually have a lot more to do with puritanical hysteria and exploitation than any impartial pursuit of justice.

Considering the many crooks who continue to go unpunished (including Wall Street tycoons, prominent politicians, war profiteers, torturers of innocent people, and racist hatemongers) — most of whom continue to be rewarded and validated by the same press and the same self-righteous “moralists” who are now calling for Polanski’s head — it seems hypocritical to express so much outrage and bloodlust against Polanski at this point.

So Rosenbaum gives Polanski a free pass in order to stick it to "puritanical hysteria".

Rosenbaum's paragraphs above, by the way, are intended to expand on his pithier, contemporaneous reaction, On the Arrest of Roman Polanski:

American lynch mobs never die; they only become more self-righteous about their savagery.

The sentiment here is similar to Auster's title, America's vendetta against Roman Polanski. I don't think it's a coincidence. What's telling is that both men expressed these hostile attitudes towards Americans/America before the broad backlash had materialized. They were not reacting to the millions of online comments supporting Polanski's arrest, they were reacting to news of his arrest, sharing their cynical view of the justice system and/or their alienation from what they perceive to be American/America's values.

Multiple Views From France:

Judith Surkis is associate professor of history and literature at Harvard University. She is currently writing a book on the history of sexual scandal in France.

The “Affaire Polanski” seems to fit comfortably into well-worn media scripts on both sides of the Atlantic. French journalists, intellectuals, and politicians often depict the United States as simultaneously prone to ‘Puritanical’ sexual morality and overt anti-intellectualism. Americans, by contrast, alternately romanticize and repudiate the French as libertine elitists.

In the 1980s, the American culture wars targeted artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano for their “indecent” and sexually explicit images. In France, by contrast, to “shock the public” (épater le bourgeois) is a cherished, and at this point almost staid, national tradition going back to Baudelaire and Flaubert.

The well-worn script is that this is an American/French clash. The truth is that the judaized elites have more in common with each other than they do with the ordinary people in the countries they want to jacuzzi in or abscond to. They make that clear every time they bemoan the "puritanical" morality of the "flyover country" they happen to be flying over. Could there any clearer illustration of this than the jet-setting he's-a-jew, now he's-a-Pole, now he's-a-Frenchman games Polanski's advocates play?

Mapplethorpe and Serrano are not innocent victims any more than Polanski is. Kevin MacDonald points to the predominance of wealthy jews among art collectors, critics, and gallery owners, and how they promote extreme expressive individualists like Mapplethorpe and Serrano. The part artists like this play in the "culture war" is comparable to the part bombs play in a shooting war. The victims here are the public. Our taxes subsidize these art collectors, critics, gallery owners, and extreme expressive individualists, to produce a load of shocking crap most of us don't want.

Vadim Rizov complains about Eight offensive quotes on the Polanski situation, four "prosecution" and four "defense".

The four "defense" quotes come from three jews and a quasi-jew - Shore, Winger, Weinstein, and Goldberg.

Two quotes Rizov labels "prosecution" were not really viewed that way by their readers. These were Richard Cohen and Roger L. Simon. Both are jewish. A third (weak) "prosecution" quote comes from Andrew Klavan, who is jewish.

Rizov's fourth "prosecution" quote comes from Wendy Murphy, who glosses over the details of Polanski's depravity on television. What really offends Rizov is:

A few sentences later, she notes that abroad, Polanski was "hanging around on the Left Bank," which kind of gives the game away; Murphy, a noted Bill O'Reilly compatriot, knows how to tie in her undeniably sincere rape-victim advocacy to a broader culture war.

In other words, Rizov is offended because Murphy revealed something that reflects badly on israel.

Because really, why does it matter if he was on the Left Bank or in a Trappist monastery?

Because really, he was actually on the Left Bank and never in a Trappist monastery.

So, to take stock of this, seven of Rizov's eight offensive quotes came from jews, and the eighth was judged offensive because it "gives the game away", by alluding to Polanski's jewishness.

The most bizarre reaction to the backlash has been from Lawrence Auster. As I noted in The Outrageous Defense of Roman Polanski, Auster was initially not only supportive of Polanski, he was "stunned" and "appalled" that "with the connivance of U.S. authorities" poor Polanski was "tricked into being arrested". He summarized his view by titling it America's vendetta against Roman Polanski.

Several readers provided Auster with some actual facts of the case. At first he insulted them, and stubbornly stood his ground. Finally he admitted, "I do not know the details of the crime", "I didn't know about these specifics until now", "Again, I was not aware until today of the extent of what he did to the girl." In other words, he took a position, expressed with deep emotion, stuck with it despite being presented with the facts, and only then admitted he didn't actually know what he was talking about. Eventually he even wrote: "So I take back what I said earlier."

For this several sycophants praised him, and we know this because he duly copied and pasted that praise into his blog.

Unfortunately, nobody ever pointed out the most important thing he got wrong, which is was what Polanski is actually in trouble for, which is contempt of court. It turns out that every time some verbally-skilled, ethically-challenged Polanski-phile bemoans the 32 years that have passed, thinking it somehow diminishes the rape, they're actually unwittingly highlighting the seriousness of the crime he's not yet answered for: skipping his date with the court for 32 years.

But don't expect any of them to ever acknowledge that.

Auster wasn't specific about what he was taking back. But at some point he silently changed the post's title to "The arrest of Roman Polanski". He never got around to justifying "America's vendetta", and none of his readers questioned him on it. At least none that got past his copy and paste.

Soon after Auster changed his position, he described

the anti-Semitic theory of Lawrence Auster, which says that none of my positions are what they seem, that every position I take is "really" motivated by my agenda to advance the Jews over gentile whites

Then he confirmed the theory.

My initial position in this thread, of protesting the arrest of Polanski because 32 years had passed since his crime, was not taken by me for the reasons I gave, but for a hidden reason of defending any Jewish person because he's Jewish. Everything else I say, all my arguments, is a front for that.

I've previously described Auster's tendency to say telling things couched in false irony in "Fruitloopable Presumption". I'm pleased to see him do it again. What set him off this time is The Last Moral Frontier. You can find further discussion of his odd antics there.