Leave it to the Swiss to provide the headlining act to our opening act. Switzerland, afterall, is much like Obamerica would look. Just last week I wrote about the stunning decision by Eric Holder, aka Barack Obama, to dismiss all charges against members of the Black Panthers who had intimidated voters at a local polling place, brandishing night sticks and encouraging folks to “kill crackers”. Another example of New World Justice which is doled out in many different forms, depending on your race and social standing. Now, Switzerland, a gorgeous country which I have visited, skied in their Alps, ate their cheese, reveals their true political colors by releasing child rapist Roman Polanski.
Oh…what a long and winding road the Polanski story has been. Protected by the Hollywood elite after committing the crime, decades ago, of raping a thirteen year-old girl after plying her with alcohol and Quaaludes during a “photo shoot”. Naturally, because he is a talented guy, he needed, apparently, to be allowed some sort of artistic license. C’mon…she’s thirteen, it’s not like she’s a kid!
Except…she is a kid. Or was. It is fair to question what sort of parental malfunction occurred that results in a girl that age being at Jack Nicholson’s house with Roman Polanski for a photo shoot. At the end of the day, however, she is very much a minor and despite what Whoopie Goldberg may say, rape is rape. Were it you or I with a camera, pills and alcohol, we would probably just be finishing up our sentences. Or maybe not.
Look, it’s no surprise that Switzerland let Polanski go free. That was any easy guess when they brought him in months ago. Let the story get off the front page, wait a day or two more for another mind altering story to emanate from the United States, and then let him go in the middle of that dust cloud. Remember, too, that Switzerland is the poster boy for European culture, particularly when it comes to sexuality. Travelling there when I was a young boy, I took an unhealthy fascination with their news stands, as I remember. Let’s just say that the Saturday Evening Post took on a whole new meaning at the Swiss magazine racks.
The reason though, that I wonder if you and I would just be hanging up our prison jumpsuits today, is that there is more to this story than Polanski and Switzerland. It is the omnipresent blind eye that we continue to cast, as a culture, on sex crimes against children. Had Polanski beaten the girl with a baseball bat, but not sexually assaulted her, there would be more outcry.
Even violent rapes against adult women, horrendous as they are in their own right, generally garner more press coverage and social outrage then the same crime against a child. This baffles me.
Despite the strengthening of laws that deal with child predators, in nearly every state across the country (thanks in large part to Bill O’Reilly), the sexual exploitation of our children continues to grown like a cancer in this country. Child pornography on the internet is an established business and that fact doesn’t seem to bother too many people. Try distributing a video of someone clubbing a baby seal or a Dachshund, though, and see how quickly your phone starts ringing. When was the last time you heard a politician mention this horrific scourge on our national character?
So maybe Switzerland knew that the Polanski thing would only show up beneath the fold, if at all. America is busy, afterall, suing themselves and looking for a ShamWow large enough to cover the Gulf of Mexico. They just let two Black Panthers off the hook, and in Massachusetts a four year old girl was violently raped by an illegal immigrant. America is not even watching it’s borders, much less worrying about an aging and irrelevant Hollywood icon living off of past achievements and notoriety.
Switzerland was right. Polanski is free and barely anyone blinked. And like their cheese, we may soon find ourselves so full of holes that we…America…become unrecognizable.
www.beantowncomedy.com for details.”