Saturday, July 29, 2006

Mad Mel's anti-Semitism: will he get another free pass?

In February, 2004 our sister website ran an article dealing with the controversy over whether or not Mel Gibson’s graphic torture film The Passion of the Christ was antiJewish or not. The point of the article was that no one was paying attention to Gibson’s own affiliation with antiJewish ideas, many expounded by his own father who speaks around the world exposing what he calls a Jewish conspiracy to impose one world government.

Hutton Gibson, the father, is also a leader of a break away sect of Catholics who believe the Jews have taken over the Vatican. Mel donates millions to this sect. The 2004 article said: “Gibson may well be the most high profile bigot in Hollywood and his connections with this antiJewish sect should be considered and investigated. But that is not happening.” But Gibson got a free pass. When he was asked about his father’s antiJewish speeches and tracts he told the interviewer “Don’t go there.” And she didn’t. She just dropped it in spite of Mel giving millions to the cause.

Mel has had a drinking problem in the past and apparently the past is not exactly over. He was pulled over again and arrested for being drunk while driving. His response was an outburst of antiSemitic tirades. The police report says that Gibson screamed: “Fucking Jews. The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.” Gibson supposedly demanded to know if the police officer was a Jew. The office wrote up a detailed report of the incident. Copies of severl pages of the report were obtained by TMZ which discusses the incident. You can read the report yourself in pdf format here.

The officer says Gibson “blurted out a barrage of anti-Semitic remarks” and threatened to “fuck” him up. He says that Gibson, at one point, tried to run for his car and had to be subdued and cuffed. “Gibson almost continually threatened me saying he ‘owns Malibu’ and will spend all of his money to ‘get even’ with me.” The officer was concerned about the threats and anti Jewish remarks and reported the indicent to the main station which sent out a sergeant to meet them. He also brought a video camera to record any further incidents with the drunken actor.

TMZ says: “Deputy Mee [the arresting officer] then wrote an eight-page report detailing Gibson's rampage and comments. Sources say the sergeant on duty felt it was too "inflammatory." A lieutenant and captain then got involved and calls were made to Sheriff's headquarters. Sources say Mee was told Gibson's comments would incite a lot of "Jewish hatred," that the situation in Israel was "way too inflammatory." It was mentioned several times that Gibson, who wrote, directed, and produced 2004's The Passion of the Christ, had incited "anti-Jewish sentiment" and "For a drunk driving arrest, is this really worth all that?" “We're told Deputy Mee was then ordered to write another report, leaving out the incendiary comments and conduct. Sources say Deputy Mee was told the sanitized report would eventually end up in the media and that he could write a supplemental report that contained the redacted information -- a report that would be locked in the watch commander's safe.”

And the santized version appears to be the version released. The New York Daily News makes no mention of the outbursts. Neither does the Chicago Tribune, the Daily Mail, ABC News, the London Times, CNN or a host of other news outlets. There it is nothing more than a routine DUI arrest. The BBC went even further saying the arrest was without incident. The daily media simply doesn't research and thus are easily manipulated. Numerous reports refer to Gibson as a "devout Catholic" when in fact he is member of a group that denounces Roman Catholicism as being in the clutches of "the Jews".

Gibson got a free pass last time. And it looks as if he may get a free pass this time. The DUI story has now run. And if the report released by TMZ is proven accurate (which I suspect it will) the same outlets won’t report the story a second time. They don’t like to admit they left out the real news the first time around. And if it does get out Gibson will either deny it or claim he didn’t mean it and that he was just drunk. But drunks prone to such outbursts often claim they don’t mean what they say when under the influence. I think their inhibitions are down and that means they say precisely what they mean unlike when they are sober.