Wasn't the issue in the Los Angeles Court that the district attorney had
arranged a plea agreement with Polanski's attorneys and that the judge then
said he would not be bound by and and not follow the recommendation?
In the face of this, Polanski fled. That's how I remember it, but could be
wrong. A defendant is powerless when the judge, representing the bourgeois
state, rejects a plea agreement and declares that he intends to impose a
greater sentence than "bargained for." Now, admittedly, a defendant having pled
guilty is a bit of a supplicant seeking mercy rather than a non-convicted
defendant. Having in theory admitted his crime, Polanski was assuming that his
"sentence bargain" rather than a "plea bargain" was going to be carried out.
This just reflects the unequal power of individual v. state.
Every state imposes laws to maintain social order within the rubric of the
existing economic and social relationships. But every state also seeks to
maintain social stability, not just order in the relationships among citizens.
Rape is a crime in feudal states, capitalist states and would have been in a
"workers state" or under the "dictatorship of the proletariat" which is the
same thing. Polanski's presumed conduct was heinous under any social system.
zHis wealth, prestige and connections enabled him to escape from the U.S. legal
system and to flourish abroad. This cannot justify his perpetration of the
original act nor cloth his flight with the cloak of victimization, as his
celebrators would do.
European knee-jerk anti-American sentiment, no matter how titillating to
American leftists, including this who subscribe to this list, is an irrelevant
reaction, it to create newspaper filler and nothing more.
At worst, it reflects nothying but the flip side of Cold War Propaganda the
most people seem to lack familiarity with or forgotten. (Its modern day
equivalent can be found among most academic leftists in the U.S.)
The worst aspect of the whole affair is the thirst for vengeance. Retroactive,
belated, vicarious. I have not seen any discussion of whether Polanski has
changed, has reformed himself - which assumes he was habitually a sexual maniac
and that the event was not a one of a time encounter or aberration. Vengenence
is an individualistic, petty bourgeois sentiment - especially when remote from
the initiating event.
More disturbing, therefore, are calls for vengenence now as well as the
gleeful, condescencion of the foreign intelligentsia and press.
Hoping that my efforts to "clip" the posting to which this response is
intended, so that I may escape the earlier threat to endure permanent ban from
this list for not doing so which I have been warned could be forthcoming for
failure to clip. If not...
________________________________________________
-----Original Message-----
From: Ian Pace <[email protected]>
To: Wayne M. Collins <[email protected]>
Sent: Fri, Oct 2, 2009 12:19 pm
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Thoughts for Polanski apologists, by another woman raped
at 13.
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