Of Many, Many Minds

Inconsistent ones, especially when it comes to Polanski, Mitterand the lesser, and chemical castration, and based in large part on your importance in society.

France is considering the compulsory "chemical castration" of sexual criminals after a woman jogger was murdered in a forest south of Paris by a convicted rapist.

The choc of the case that raised this issue over the past three weeks has a curious familiarity in the details to things others find rather forgivable in the Arts community.

Manuel da Cruz, 47, had already been sentenced to 11 years in prison for the kidnap and rape of a 13-year- old girl in 2002. He was released in March 2007 and went back to live in the same village as his young victim.

The case has generated an outcry against the French judicial system and pressure for the hardening of a law introduced in 2005 which allows sexual offenders to volunteer for so-called "chemical castration" – the use of anti-hormone treatment to reduce or destroy the sexual appetite.

While each of these narratives has revealed something else altogether about the feelings of the elite and a population that feels neglected and unprotected, it brings to mind the dozens, if not hundreds of tirades by the Chavista Steno Pool that characterizes the French blogosphere, especially the unemployed hacks at Rue89 regarding the “meanness” and “inhumanity” of Americans registering sexual offenders who have served their sentences or are on parole.

Interestingly, no flag went up when Michele Alliot-Marie declared in response to the murder-rape in Fontainbleau that

'We have to look at how, as part of surveillance and control measures after someone leaves prison, we might make this more restrictive if necessary.

...because to such great abstract social thinkers, it’s philosophically different when people are raped in a society that you’re reflexively biased against.

And how’s THIS for meaness? On requiring past offenders to be administered hormone suppressing, the one-time French critique was that Americans were barbaric control freaks. I suppose those same ‘culture warriors’ will have to find something else to beat off to for a while. Alas now, even our favorite post-menopausal space kidette is ready to make them bend over and give them the jab in the name of women everywhere.

They were supported by some politicians on the left, including the Socialist former presidential candidate, Ségolène Royal. "Everything which goes in the direction of preventing sexual predators from attacking again must be tried," she said.

Is it time to start calling her “Caribou Barbie” and “that bimbo” for wanting society to stand between the genuinely evil and the genuinely vulnerable? Good heavens, no. That’s only in bad taste when it’s a leftist being smeared, and it is now officially speaking NOT too harsh to judge when your political image is at stake.

Otherwise, one can only wonder how Daniel Cohn-Bendit feels about the wave of perversion pop-culture right now, knowing that he was once a man who was all too proud to discuss his conneries pédophiles in 1976 when he was running a kindergarten. Guess what... he’s « ill at ease » to let Polanski get entirely off the hook, either out of a surprising maturity or something that his political radar set off, especially when fellow political crash-test dummy Bayrou accused him of “enabling pedophilia”.

All of this kind of thing, if it involved any sort of violation of trust on the part of a social and political elite (frankly they’re merely entertainment figures), used to be called “Americanized politics”. Alas, the “Americanization” that’s effectively forcing that same social and political elite to operate under the same laws as the population is doing rather a fine job, and even bringing the suspect sorts to start by demonstrating some of that old-fashioned, long-hated, guilt-inducing repentance.

Meanwhile the scramble to contain stories of those who just couldn’t contain it continue apace. Mr. past pederast pride, Frédéric Mitterrand has been trying to deflect a past use of his name and political weight to get two teenagers convicted of rape off of the hook in far off Réunion.

"I gave my testimony about the morality of a family"

That was back when he “sure was one to talk”, but 4 years after he was proud, so proud of his travel adventures. He was used as a character witness for the nephews of his former makeup artist at France 2, who is a godson of his, and had only met 5 times in his life.

I suppose a great deal of a person’s character can be discerned that quickly. Especially when the truism that always seems to override the judgment of a person’s actions and the way up and out of the cretinous lack of control of them is that continental 1st commandment that “one hand washes the other”.

I think they could use some of that stuff they used to deride as “Americanization” of this or that, with that “façade of piety”. You can also be certain that it will be renamed first.