Jane Fonda on her Vietnam visit

During an interview for 60 Minutes which will be broadcast this Sunday, April 3, Jane Fonda expressed regret for some but not all of her actions during her 1972 visit to North Vietnam. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/31/60minutes/main684295.shtml


Some will say it's not enough and her actions can never be forgiven, while others (including some on this website) will say that she's sold out. Personally while I opposed the war myself, I felt she went too far, but let's put what happened 33 years ago in perspective. She called posing on top of an anti-aircraft gun "the largest lapse of judgment" she could imagine, and I can accept that.

 

AA-guns were a symbol of protecting children from the brutal savagery of B-52 carpet bombing.


A symbol of national defence.
And a symbol of racial self determination after generations of the horrors of White racist colonial exploitation.

What Jane Fonda did was far from couragous- it was the minimum of what the children of privilage should have done.

 

I saw what those B-52s did to the landscape. I saw the American bombers turn what was once a beautiful land into a burned out hell. We sometimes used the twenty foot deep holes left after a thousand + pound bomb explosion to bath in. And what was the reason for all of this death and destruction? Why was it necessary for tens of thousands die? Because they disagree with an ideology? Because they opposed a foreign invader who was killing there women and children by the thousands? And perhaps did not want a foreign army occupying a land they called home? Doesn't this sound familar? If you oppose American corporate expansion you can expect to be killed.The proof of this is written in our history;dating back to the Korean war.

 

Well said! Ho Chi Minh wanted to be an ally of the U.S. He even adapted our Declaration of Independence. But when he appealed to Truman, he was dissed completely, because France had an interest in Vietnam, France was our ally, anything our allies did was OK, and their enemies were our enemies.

France's current attitude toward us (i.e., "our" administration) is a much healthier and logical one that ours was.

Our attitude toward communism and socialism seemed to be that we would participate in a cold war with Russia, let them overrun other countries, ignore China, and pick on smaller countries. It didn't stop with Vietnam. There were Chile, Grenada, and Nicaragua too. At least Cuba and Vietnam kicked our arrogant asses.

 

AA guns were a symbol of war just like the B-52's.She was no better than nixon.

 

But she was into threesomes!

 

with nixon?

 

perhaps.

 

now that's kinky

 

war is war

I admire the pureness of your 'peace unconditionally' aditude.

But I can't measure the mass of humanity by standards too tough for me to hold myself to.

By my grade-on-a-curve standards, Jane Fonda did more than I did to stop foriegners killing Vietnamese.

And I'm saying that despite the fact that I know Jane had greater resouces to rely on that I did.

But I agree with you that in the bigger picture, one that is more in sync with your aditude, Jane Fonda is no more better than Richard Nixon than You, or I, or anyone I guess.

 

we all make mistakes.

 

They called her G.I Jane!!!!! That really pissed my dad off. I remember him calling her a "commie bitch". A group from the Freedom Farm marched in front of a theater where her movie was showing (Barbarella? not sure) many expressed that what she did was in bad taste, but went in to see the movie anyway. Didn't seem to hurt her career either.

 

I've seen Barbarella,I'd protest too.

 

Ms.Fonda appears to have become far more conserative as the years have passed. That's not surprising in the least,considering she's been a media whore for decades. It has always been my opinion,she made her 1972 trip to North Vietnam for the most part, to focus media attention on herself to help jump-start her floundering acting career.

 

We,
The Vietnam Vets I know are boycotting her movies unto this day and I can see their point-Cat Ballou shooting at fellow Americans with an AA gun? I know she was "led down the garden path" at an overidealistic age by a totalitarian clique but... well this is some poor judgement Jane! And she even said so on numerous occaissions-I will give Jane Fonda this; she is still learning. Then talking up the wonders of communism on radio Hanoi? Well my family has some Eastern European connections and there was nothing wonderfull about communist totalitarian systems whatsoever. My wife deals with SE Aisians in a professional capacity and they speak rather fondly of the American phase of the conflict. The real killing began when the Reds took over and began the process of totalitarianizing the societies-death camps, mass executions, unworkable economic plans, and masses of refugees running any way they could....the usual.... I think Joan Baez was the only one in the former antiwar movement to speak out on the plight of the SE Asian boat people? Why? Well it has something to do with our Amerocentric outlook I suppose. Like "there is nothing going on out there beyond US borders that does not originate in the USA"? WRONG!
At any rate; a "working slob good joe" type friend of mine was visiting his brother at Yale back in '68. He was at a party of Yalies and they were talking about how it was possible that they might all be living under communism someday soon and how they would not mind. WSGJ stood up and told them they were all nuts-"they'll leave me alone cuz I just do my job and don't give a fuck. You guys? You will be the first ones they haul off and shoot. Read your history!" Stunned silence and a realization of the brutal truth....
Living and learning,
Tundrahopper4

 

Many people mistook communism for socialism,which didn't work very well either except in small communes and even then on a limited basis.The idea was great,but not the outcome.The oppisite of totalitarism is anarchism,which only works on an individual basis.The idea back then was to explore alternatives and not be closed minded.Our democracy has evolved into a semi-socialist democracy,probably the best compromise,though still not perfect.Having lived in little vietnam when it was still Westminister and meeting many of the refugees,i still have mixed opinions.i've been told the way to get a promotion in the souths army was to buy it with gold.The gold came from the chinese.Go figure. I like Buccanons theory.If we had left the germans alone,they would have destroyed russia and probably gone into china.Of course if the french had left the vietnamise alone,they wouldn't have been so easily influenced by china.At this point it's all second guessing.Anyways i equate jane with patty hearst.Two spoiled rich kids.I still read the paper though,i just don't watch jane's movies cause they really suck.

 

Gate,
"Cat Ballou" is a decent flick. The rest of Jane's work does not stand the test of time and I will never understand how "Coming Home" got anything like an academy award in what? '74?
At any rate Communism; well it works well as a wartime way of marshalling people and forces against real or percieved threats; but has been a historical disaster second only to fascism in the human realm. Sohlzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archepelego" came out in the mid seventies and was something of a revelation for a lot of sixties radical types-though the "true believers" denounced it as "Capitalist propaganda". What you generally get with the Communist formula is an unworkable economic plan and a powerfull ruling elite desperate to hang on to that power. Too often you get criminal types like Stalin running the show.
Now limited socialism within the democratic context seems to work remarkably well. Every First World country but my own-the USA-has "socialized" medicine. "Second rate socialized medicine is better than no medicine at all"-which is exactly what a large percentage of the US population is getting. No medicine at all. And most of the industrialized countries have public transit, utilities, and publicly financed "vital national industries"-it just makes sense. Then there is the distribution of wealth inequities here in the US(tell me why ANYONE is worth these obscene multimillion dollar endowments the CEO class bestows on itself), as well as the white collar crime problem (does it make any sense to you that 50,000 embezzlers were allowed to walk free after the S&L debacle of the eighties?). Is there a political answer to American problems? Not to date-you either get some well meaning naifs on the one side who cannot play hardball with the totalitarian types; or some hardassed elitists who can handle the bad guys but are pretty bad guys themselves and cannot help but fleece the public on the other. I was hoping the Jesse Ventura thing would go somewhere but they hounded him out of office and his party has gone nearly nonexitent. I do believe the shelf life of both the GOP and DFL parties has passed, but to date no workable political formula has come to fill the void. Will we see "the good guys" in our lifetimes?
hard to say,
Tundrahopper4

 

Fuck hanoi jane.I wouldn't piss on her if she was outside my door on fire.I would however give her a cup of gas to quench th' bitch.

 

Appluads Budz,
I must agree with Budz on this one. I don't belive in war, per say, but most of the boys that went were drafted and didn't have a reasonable choice. They faught and died. Jane may has well loaded the guns of the VC and told them where to aim.
I think she should be as boycotted as OJ.

 

a mistake is when you pour salt in your tea instead of sugar. I think it becomes more when people die because of a "mistake".