Purple State of John

2009-09-30 11:31:00

Filed under: Economic depression, Movies, Roman Polanski, politics
Posted by: John

roman polanski
greenspan

Savor the notion a moment. Release Polish film director Roman Polanski. Arrest former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan.

Just a thought, but it makes more sense to me to detain Greenspan for questioning about the collapse of the world financial system than it does to extradite Polanski for a sex crime he committed three decades ago. My tax dollars will pay for the extradition, and I believe they could be much better spent.

I’m amazed that anyone feels differently. As I watch the growing backlash against Polanski in this country, as childrens’ rights advocates weigh in on the horror of the original crime, I can’t help reflecting on the far greater magnitude of the economic crimes of neglect committed by Greenspan. Polanski hurt one woman. Greenspan’s vast expansion of the money supply—the Giant Pool of Money, as someone so memorably described it—hurt tens of millions of people across the earth. Spend those tax dollars on making his life a little miserable and leave Polanski alone with his conscience.

I can’t help wondering why Americans in any line of work aren’t more incensed by the misbehavior of the financial sector. Hollywood celebrities are always an easy target, of course, and Polanski’s understandable but questionable decision to flee the United States rather than do time or challenge the California court system, invites a harsh judgment. Still, does anyone in or out of the American government really have the time or even a dime to spare on this long-ago outrage?

The sex crime itself is terrible, and no one disputes that, but the victim herself has asked the Los Angeles County district attorney to drop the charges. For her family’s sake, she doesn’t want the additional publicity. I, for one, think that Polanski should come back of his own accord and expose the alleged misconduct of the original court openly. He’s already served time. He’s 76-year-old. His wife and his unborn child were murdered by Susan Atkins, who just died in prison for the crime. He made one or two of the greatest American films of all time. That’s a lot of mitigating circumstance.

Meanwhile, we Americans have more important business. Not to minimize the dire effects of sexual predation on the young, but we don’t have an endless fund of outrage or funds to expend on outrage, and the eruption of the Polanski affair seems like a beautifully timed distraction from the urgent discussion of how exactly to punish greed in high places, which is underway in the White House as we speak.

Here’s another way of looking at our options. What happens if Polanski isn’t extradited? Will that really encourage future predators or have some dire effect on future victims? I doubt it. In the last thirty years, people in this country have become much more attuned to crimes of this sort. Most everyone understands them to be a heinous offense, even if enforcement isn’t yet what it should be. Serious laws exist to punish serious offenders.

The same can’t be said for the mad genius perpetrators of the financial meltdown. Who but hapless Bernie Madoff will serve time for the mass botched robbery? Who pays for the decision to float the blatantly devious credit default swaps? Who answers in time and flesh for the bum-rushing of mortgage-backed securities into bond markets? No one, evidently.

On Wall Street, the failure of the financial system isn’t universally seen as a crime. It’s hardly even seen as a mistake. A lot of the perpetrators are still making fortunes, after all, and for a few of them, the debacle has turned out to be a highly profitable business venture. Spend my tax dollars on an investigation of anyone on Wall Street who had a good year in 2009, and I won’t say peep.

I don’t really believe Alan Greenspan should be arrested, of course, but shouldn’t someone , somewhere, be nervous about being arrested? In both cases, Polanski and Greenspan, we admittedly risk moral hazard by letting crimes go unpunished. I’ve already laid out the potential consequences in the Polanski case, and they are self-evidently minimal. When it comes to the financial system, it’s another story. Letting judgment slide, we risk the worst of all possible scenarios—another round of epic, intentional neglect by unchastened Wall Street executives, another collapse, yet another shock to an already fragile system, and sooner than later.

I guess what I’m saying is this. To borrow a line from Polanski’s masterpiece Chinatown: “Don’t forget about it, Jake, even if it is Chinatown.”

Comments (14)

14 Comments »

You said, “The sex crime itself is terrible, and no one disputes that”.

Everyone is disputing that. The fact that people do not want to hold Polanski accountable is disputing that. The fact that you yourself just wrote, “Polanski hurt ONE woman” is disputing that. The idea that Polanski is old and has had tragedy in his life and happens to be a great artist, and that those things are valid “mitigating circumstances” disputes that. We say “it’s terrible” but we really do not mean it. If he had committed murder, or stolen lots of money, would we be so forgiving? If Greenspan made beautiful films and had tragedy in his life, would you lighten up on him?

If “serving time” means owning multiple houses across Europe, building a new family and being with them, continuing to work as a successful director and being recognized by the Oscars as such, sign me up, I’d love to serve some time as an “exile” in Europe.

This is not just about one woman, this is about a culture that does not value women. This is about a culture that does not want to believe that an artist who can create such beauty can also do terrible things. We’ve created a society that shames women into not reporting rape because of the humiliation is causes them socially and emotionally— and in this case, the victim dropping the charges. She is not dropping the charges because, well, his crime wasn’t THAT bad or THAT emotionally damaging, or because he’s old and the poor guy couldn’t pick up his own Oscar. She is tired of the media humiliation. But even because this victim wants to “drop the charges”, does that exonerate Polanksi? Does that make the crime less of a crime? Because of the charges? (So many rapes go unreported and without charges each day. Are they not real rapes?) I think it just points more toward rape-culture, a culture that blames, mistrusts, and does not value women. A culture that does not care about “one woman”.

I get your point. We’re spending so much time and energy on a case that is years old, that affected “one person”, when there are criminals right in front of us who are getting away with terrible things. But why are you dismissing one in order to lift up the other?

And as for this affecting just “one person” I can tell you it doesn’t. I am a woman, and I work in film. My life has been either directly or non-directly affected by sexism, misogyny, and even rape. When I look at a society that ignores that for one woman, I see a society that ignores women as a whole. Rape of a woman is a misogynistic crime. It is a state of mind that hurts and devalues women. Not just one.

Comment by L — September 30, 2009 @ 2:23 pm
L,

Thanks for the comment. I agree with you completely about the sickness in this society that devalues women, and that any time a woman is raped, it’s not just about one woman. I agree with basically everything you say here, but I must stick to my guns on the main argument. I am increasingly frustrated at the failure of the mass of Americans to unite in anger against a series of economic crimes that have affected everyone–man, woman, black, white, gay, straight–in ways that are profound and conducive to a thousand other maladies. I do believe this is a moment not to respond to every outrage, for surely there are enough to go around on every front, and focus on the one that has had the greatest effect, and the one, if it is not addressed, that stands to wreck us all. If the people with their hands on the financial steering wheels have little or no respect for the rest of us, if they will persist in doing whatever they want whenever they want, as long as it generates profit, then we have only ourselves to blame if we all end up the equivalent of a 13-year-old raped by a 44-year-old with champagne and Quaaludes.

I am not dismissing Polanski’s crime in order to lift up someone else’s misdeed. But I am saying that there are many cases of rape every day, and these cases should be pursued steadfastly and relentlessly through the courts of the land, with all due diligence, and we shouldn’t lose sight of the bigger picture because a celebrity is now involved in such a case. To throw our collective attention at another celebrity, as we have done throughout this summer of disaster strikes me as self-defeating to say the least, and near suicidal at the worst.

None of this, however, is meant to undermine or in any way diminish the reality and monstrosity of the crime of rape.

Comment by John — September 30, 2009 @ 3:12 pm
Et tu, John?

It breaks my heart to see so many people–so many MEN–I have admired excuse Polanski and act as if this isn’t important…

He is GUILTY of raping a child. He pled GUILTY. He fled so that he would not receive the punishment for his crime.

This makes a mockery of our “justice” system–just as the crimes of Bush, Greenspan, et al, do. When people in high places are not required to pay the price for their misdeeds, we all lose.

But apparently, the misdeeds committed against women every day don’t count for much–because we aren’t worth all that much.

I really wish I could just resign from the human race…

Comment by Doxy — September 30, 2009 @ 6:54 pm
John, fellow Wildcat alum (’88) and pal o Detweiler here. My two cents: Your premise missed the mark by a mile, both in the logic and poetry categories.

Logic: sure, if a gun were put to my head, and I had to choose in one of those crazy “what if” games (you got one parachute, and you gotta give it to your granny or a stranger’s baby. what’s it gonna be!??! et al ) I suppose I’d have to say that, on some horrible twisted level, an atrocity performed on millions (including countless women and children) is, what, worse (?), than one 13 year old getting raped. Um, wait. I don’t want to play this game anymore. And, luckily, that’s not a choice that one even remotely must entertain in this case (there are many more, better, comparisons to use to make your point). Furthermore, there’s a compelling line of thinking that says, indeed, the life and needs and pain of one is no less significant than those of the masses. In either case, “Greenspans sins are worse than Polanski’s sins” is not a compelling argument to make. There is also is the issue of intent. In this case, Greenspan is much preferred over Polanski. My guess is that whatever “crimes of neglect” that Greenspan may have committed, his underlying intent wasn’t prurient exploitative assault, but rather, bad game plan gone worse. Perhaps there’s a second or third degree actual crime there. Maybe. Dunno. As for Polanski’s intent? No ambiguity, and no need for discussion.

Poetry (or, essay “style” points): If your goal was to take down Greenspan, there got to be a better way to do it than by minimizing (by comparison) the rape of a 13 year old. It’s like saying “Why all the handwringing and hysteria about the beheading of Daniel Pearl? You know who really needs beheading? Those oil company fat cats!”

Pearl deserves more respect than that, as do the criminal events of 3/10/77.

Polanski’s life is one amazing study. Phenomenal, epic highs and lows. And, I’m aware of the rogue judge in the rape case. Nevertheless, the evidence of the act, the crime committed, that day, put it out of bounds for cavalier comparisons, in my book, anyway. If you are sincere when you say that you did not mean to “undermine or in any way diminish the reality and monstrosity of the crime of rape”, and I’m certain your are, I’d file this comparison under “Re-do”.

“Yes” to everything L said.

Comment by Mike — September 30, 2009 @ 8:35 pm
Cavalier? Yes,it was a bit, but so are your comments, and revealingly so.

Here’s how I will put it then. Millions women are going to be ruined and have been ruined by Greenspan’decisions—raped, in fact, in their jobs, their marriages, their homes, their dignity. That “one woman” in the Polanski case may be all women in a political sense, but all those other women whom you don’t seem to care about, they’re much closer to the mark. They truly are representative of all women.

Your arguments presume that we don’t need to make a choice here about where to put our efforts, about where to direct our attention, but I think we do. I’m sorry if it’s disconcerting. I think part of our problem in thinking about ourselves is that we’re like a dog constantly smelling new scents in the woods, running off down one trail or another when we need to be single-minded. Why is it that we don’t seem to care at all about what’s happening to women as a result of Wall Street decisions but suddenly turn into righteous avengers when it comes to Polanski? Because it’s so much easier. It demands so much less of us.

Maybe you’re sort of insulated from the financial wreckage. That would explain your point of view a bit. A lot of people are. Your use of the word “fat cats” in the Pearl comparison is a sort of interesting giveaway, as if I were making the same old argument about the same old intractable crowd, as if I were talking about an abstraction. I can assure you that for tens of millions of American women, this is no abstraction. Fat cats got nothing to do with it.

You seem to assume that the Polanski affair is the real outrage here, the only rape here that counts, but that is simply false, and there is a moral dimension to the error. Your arguments somehow insist that the Polanski affair must mean much more to women, that it says more about a woman-hating society, has more meaning ultimately for women, than what has happened on Wall Street. That is blatantly, deeply, tragically wrong, and the wrongness of it exposes intellectual mistakes that a generation of us have made in the way that we look at women as separate from every other part of the society. Perhaps one reason that we still so deeply undervalue women has to do with the way that we’ve ghettoized them intellectually as a group and subject, removing them from the rest of the frame as if they weren’t quite human.

But I’m here to tell you they are, in fact, human beings, that they are at the very center of the frame in this economic disaster, and many of them will never recover. It strikes me as the most profound trivialization of their plight that men and women who probably consider themselves unimpeachably on the side of the angels have taken to this Polanski case as if it were the alpha and omega of womens issues when so many millions of women are fighting for their lives in the greatest economic disaster in eighty years. How outraged have any of you been about that? I don’t hear much outrage in your posts, frankly. What I hear is rather a dismissal of those women.

If I were the accusatory type, I’d say shame on all of you, but instead I just feel sad.

Caught in our separate dramas, paralyzed by our separate priorities, unable to see that the largest and greatest crimes are committed against all of us–men and women both–we seem no longer able to focus on the things that ought to unite us. Instead, we decamp to our small armies and yell at each other across artificial battle lines.

Was that too cavalier?

Comment by John — September 30, 2009 @ 10:19 pm
How outraged have any of you been about that? I don’t hear much outrage in your posts, frankly. What I hear is rather a dismissal of those women.

How DARE you?!?!??!

How dare you suggest that we don’t care about the plight of women because we find your attitude on this issue offensive?!

I have spent the last 25 years of my life working to improve the lives of women–daily, in practical ways. I have educated, organized, marched, written, lobbied, you name it. I have marched women through lines of screaming anti-choicers so they could obtain legal abortions they desperately needed or wanted. I have helped to build housing for poor women and their families. I work on a daily basis to protect women from HIV.

Just what have YOU done to improve the lives of women, John Marks? Let me see YOUR credentials on this issue–your on-the-ground resume, not just words on a Web screen–before you call mine into question. (Have you ever heard the term “concern troll”? That’s what this post would get you labeled on a lot of feminist blogs.)

Why is it that we don’t seem to care at all about what’s happening to women as a result of Wall Street decisions but suddenly turn into righteous avengers when it comes to Polanski? Because it’s so much easier. It demands so much less of us.

This must be a nice little intellectual exercise for you–comparing the actual rape of a child to the figurative rape of the human race by the powerful. But I’m here to tell you…when women are not safe in their bodies—when they can be forcibly penetrated by any man who takes a notion to do so, secure in the knowledge that he can avoid punishment because people like you will minimize his crime by comparing it to “bigger” crimes–we will NEVER be safe from the predations of the rich and powerful.

We are only as safe as the least powerful among us.

None of this, however, is meant to undermine or in any way diminish the reality and monstrosity of the crime of rape.

Maybe you are “sort of insulated” from rape, John–and I mean REAL rape, not the figurative term you’ve used here. I doubt you’ve ever had someone hold you down and batter his way into your most intimate bodily cavities. Maybe you have no clue about the lifelong effects that sexual violence has on those who have suffered it.

Maybe you haven’t learned that, when suffering is prioritized by men, women and children will always lose. It has been ever thus, but I keep getting blindsided when people I thought were rational and thoughtful do it.

Here’s a suggestion–start by protecting the bodily integrity of every human being on this planet. Once that’s accomplished, you might actually see some change in the “largest and greatest crimes.” It is the attitude that crimes against the individual are not worth prioritizing that gives carte blanche to the Greenspans of the world.

Your arguments presume that we don’t need to make a choice here about where to put our efforts, about where to direct our attention, but I think we do.

You’ve turned the pyramid upside down, John. At the end of the day, we are all individuals. If we begin to believe that the mass of humanity is somehow “more important” than the safety of an individual 13-year-old girl, we fall right into the trap–because if you (collective “you”) can’t put yourself in that girl’s place and move to protect her, you won’t be able to put yourself in the place of those who have lost their jobs and their homes in the current crisis either. It’s all an abstraction at that point–and we become disempowered by the immenseness of it all.

I repeat—We are only as safe as the least powerful among us. The cabal behind Greenspan, Cheney, etc. understands that. Why don’t you?

Comment by Doxy — October 1, 2009 @ 9:07 am
[...] partner at Purple State of Mind, John Marks set off an imbroglio by calling for the prosecution of Alan Greenspan rather than Roman Polanski. He wonders why [...]

Pingback by Purple State of Craig — October 1, 2009 @ 12:31 pm
a “not-as-quick-as-I-would-have-liked” response:

here’s kind of my bottom line on this:

If you want to write about the Greenspan debacle, do it. It’s obviously a one of THE important stories of recent history. But don’t get chippy and precious when people get riled when they see your headline contain the phrase “forget polanski” and you, intentionally or not, dilute polanski’s rape of a 13 year old, and you include the fact that he made some great movies as mitigating circumstances for cutting him some slack.

*Cavalier? Yes it was a bit…
#You’re right. It was.

*Your arguments presume that we don’t need to make a choice here about where to put our efforts, about where to direct our attention
#No they don’t. I wasn’t out to even make any arguments other than the one: don’t water down the Polanski rape. If you didn’t water it down, great. We all agree and 100% of your respondents so far owe you an apology. Maybe you did, unintentionally. Just something to consider…

*Why is it that we don’t seem to care at all about what’s happening to women as a result of Wall Street decisions but suddenly turn into righteous avengers when it comes to Polanski? Because it’s so much easier. It demands so much less of us.
#L and Doxy? He’s talking to you, and your not-caring-about-global-women’s-issues callous hearts. Spare me.

*Maybe you’re sort of insulated from the financial wreckage. That would explain your point of view a bit.
#Am I allowed to say “fuck you” on this board? If I am, fuck you. You got the wrong guy. I’ve never been insulated from a single financial issue a day in my life.

*You seem to assume that the Polanski affair is the real outrage here, the only rape here that counts
#No I don’t. Neither does L. Neither does Doxy. And I’m sure neither do you.

*Your arguments somehow insist that the Polanski affair must mean much more to women, that it says more about a woman-hating society, has more meaning ultimately for women, than what has happened on Wall Street.
N#o it doesn’t. My argument insists that you should make your point about Greenspan and women’s global issues, absent a misplayed comparison to Polanski drugging, sodomizing and raping a 13 year old.

*But I’m here to tell you they are, in fact, human beings, that they are at the very center of the frame in this economic disaster, and many of them will never recover.
#Preaching to the choir.

*It strikes me as the most profound trivialization of their plight that men and women who probably consider themselves unimpeachably on the side of the angels have taken to this Polanski case as if it were the alpha and omega of womens issues when so many millions of women are fighting for their lives in the greatest economic disaster in eighty years.
#You lead with “Free Polanski”. You offer Polanski’s age and film making as reason to mitigate outrage against his raping a 13 year old, then YOU invoke “profound trivialization”. That’s good stuff. // Beyond that (and beyond the fact that your characterization of people’s outrage is speculative at best), you set up a false choice, a false comparison, the implication being, “if you have moral outrage in the polanski case, you have no more outrage to spend anywhere else.” Just incorrect.

*How outraged have any of you been about that? I don’t hear much outrage in your posts, frankly. What I hear is rather a dismissal of those women. // If I were the accusatory type, I’d say shame on all of you, but instead I just feel sad. Caught in our separate dramas, paralyzed by our separate priorities, unable to see that the largest and greatest crimes are committed against all of us–men and women both–we seem no longer able to focus on the things that ought to unite us. Instead, we decamp to our small armies and yell at each other across artificial battle lines. // Was that too cavalier?
#Not too cavalier. Just too self-righteous, too presumptuous, too little too late. You had a legit point to make (the impact on women of the Greenspan era), but you muddied it up with the shock-n-awe headline of “Forget Polanski!”. Instead of entertaining the possibility that 100% of your respondents might be right by suggesting that your comparison might have been ill-conceived, you dug in, and wagged your finger at and gave an “indignation sermon” to a readership that (I’m just guessing) is no less morally engaged than you are.

= = = = =

Quote Of The Day: Tom Morello, that insulated from the financial wreckage guitarist for Rage Against The Machine had this to say about Polanski: “He’s probably one of the greatest child molesting directors of all time.”

Comment by Mike — October 1, 2009 @ 12:51 pm
Thanks for the kind reply, and for reading my comment. I really appreciate it.

As I said, I do understand your point that these are grievous misdeeds that we should put the same amount of effort and fervor into confronting them as we do Polanski’s case. I do think that your criticism of how we pursue justice (that idea of what crime’s easiest to jump on, what takes more effort, what kind of mentality we have as a nation) is very much timely, necessary and important. I am glad you wrote about it, it is something worth looking at critically.

But my original point is not really questioning whether we as a nation care about women or not. It’s about how you made your argument, and what that choice meant.

While you say you are not dismissing Polanski’s crime to highlight the other, the title of your post is “Forget Polanski, Arrest Greenspan.” And in your article, you do make a case of how unimportant/ less crucial the Polanski case is, compared to the other, and cite multiple reasons. Now, I know that the point of this method of comparison was to strengthen your main argument, not to diminish the actual crime.

But while I do not disagree with your main argument, and I understand your intentions, I still disagree with your method and how you got there. To me, the choice itself again revealed the subconscious attitude we all in society are accustomed to, one that you yourself consciously recognize as “a sickness”. While you did not actually believe or intend to diminish the effect of misogyny and its link to the Polanski case, the title of your post and the specific way you chose to argue your position— however inadvertently— does.

I know this was not the intent. I know that you may feel this stuff has nothing to do with what you wanted to get across. But that is exactly it. I feel that you should know how your writing choices have affected me, as a reader. And why your main argument didn’t reach me. Because of the specific way you approached your post, I saw that latent subconscious attitude hiding in your post that I often see across the nation. And suddenly your main argument didn’t feel quite right.

I admire that you are sticking to your argument. I just wanted to call attention to the undesirable effect this particular angle may have, and has had. And specifically, what your choice to approach your story in this manner reveals about how many of us think when it comes to these issues.

I know that you can’t cater your writing to everyone, but you do have readers that value your words. And in the case of this post, I was worried the message inadvertently being sent, so I commented. I guess I really just want to get across why the particular semantics and methods of this post are so important to me. That’s about it.

Thanks again for replying in such a respectful manner and letting my voice be heard.

Comment by L — October 2, 2009 @ 3:58 am
Thanks to everyone who posted here. The anger in the comunications is important and necessary. The intelligence and compassion and determination to be heard are bracing. My job, quite frankly, is to raise issues in such a way that these sorts of conversations become unavoidable. If I gave offense to anyone, I’m sorry. On the other hand, if not giving offense would have left these exchanges unheard, then it was worth it. For me, here’s the crucial point. The Polanski affair must not be removed from the context in which it occurs. I don’t certainly don’t believe that this rape should simply be brushed under the table. I believe that it should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, if and when Polanski returns to the Unietd States. But I also believe that this case must not be allowed to eclipse the plight of millions of women around the globe who have been disastrously affected by the machinatons of a few men. Too often, a case like this one ends up sucking all of the air out of the room.

Again, sorry if I gave offense, but glad you came to the party. If you have more to say, please do.

Comment by John — October 2, 2009 @ 6:21 am
I want to know if it was really rape or not. One article I read suggest he drugged her and forced her to have sex. If that’s the case, then it was rape.

If it’s just because she was 13… that’s sexual misconduct with a minor, but not rape.

It also seems this isn’t about the rape, but about him fleeing. He filled one sentence in jail and the judge was then going to close the case as having served his sentence. But the judge reniged, going back on his word.

Polanski then fled the country. I would think that’d be a seperate crime. You can’t have Double Jeopardy (tried twice for the same crime) and if he did serve a sentence already…then that’s what this would be.

Unless, they tried him on his fleeing the country, but all media states this is about the rape/misconduct. So I don’t get what this is really all about.

Comment by Eric Bumpus — October 2, 2009 @ 12:46 pm
I just noticed my full comment did not post.

The last line was “Why now? It seems more of a political tactic than one about justice.”

Comment by Eric Bumpus — October 2, 2009 @ 1:05 pm
[...] Two people, in particular, deserve an explanation. They know who they are, and if you go back to the original exchange, which is too long to recapitulate here, you will, [...]

Pingback by Purple State of John — October 2, 2009 @ 2:15 pm
Amigo. Glad to see this. Thanks for these words. All is well. But unlike Doxy above, I experienced an upside to yesterday/recent exchanges: It was the best cardio workout I’ve had in months! I swear, if we had gone one more round I would have had a heart attack! I gotta get some exercise, dude.

Here’s to mutual respect, mea culpas everywhere, and at least one lap around the local jr high track, for me anyway…

Mike

Comment by Mike — October 2, 2009 @ 6:24 pm

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