Just a bit of perspective:
I am not going to condemn or condone Jane Fonda’s political activities - particularly her visit to North Vietnam which she visited in August, 1972. The Vietnam War official cease fire was January 28, 1973.
Anyone ever hear of the Walker family? They sold extremely sensitive Top Secret documents to the Soviet Union from 1967 to 1985. (I believe 2 of them were in the US Navy at the time).
Of the 2 choices given, which did the most damage to this country?
The people who are still ranting about Jane Fonda after all these years are not only idiots, they’re oblivious idiots.
Picture a true national hero, a man who actually accomplished something amazing, someone who had a lot of influence in the USA (in other words, someone with a lot more real true status and accomplishments than some actor’s actor kid). Picture that man going around the USA making speech after speech vehemently protesting United States involvement in what many people thought of as someone else’s war. Picture that man going directly to the capital of the war’s “aggressor” nation, getting up close and personal with the nation’s leader, and having his picture taken with not only the leader but every top henchman willing to stand in front of a camera with such a world-wide celebrity.
Picture, if you will, Charles Augustus Lindbergh and his palsy-walsy photo-op companion, Adolf Hitler.
Jane Fonda was, and is, a nobody. She merely took on the coloration of whatever man happened to be dominating her life at the time. Lindbergh was a real celebrity and could point to real accomplishments–and yes, he was a Nazi sympathizer and he did everything in his power to keep the USA out of WWII.
And the “Hanoi Jane” whiners neither know nor care. Oblivious idiots, all.
A quibble. Small thing, really, but that’s the trouble with quibbles…
Lindbergh could have been named an isolationist, and was. There were certainly aspects of Germany that he admired, mostly because he was queer for airplanes, and Germany was the happening place.
But “Nazi sympathisizer”? A bit much.
Another quibble.
The fact that others may have done worse things (Tokyo Rose and Lord Haw Haw come instantly to mind) don’t excuse in the least any wrong thing Jane Fonda might have done.
Her actions are her own, and she has to answer for them in the end.
Its a crock.
Damned shame, really. Because it’s a steaming load of crap.
And I should learn to preview.
I didn’t claim it to be true. I was talking about people who continue to believe it no matter what. I don’t care what evidence or proof you (or anyone else) produces, it will not convince them. It doesn’t agree with what they prefer to believe.
Post crying “Crock! Crock, I say!” in no wise directed towards Steve1. Duly noted?
I truly believe that Tokyo Rose has been unfairly maligned. The woman was under duress and didn’t have much of a choice.
There were several “Tokyo Rose”. It was a more or less generic term. One of these women was Iva Toguri, who was an American-born nisei. She became stranded in Japan while visiting a relative just before the outbreak of WWII. Pressured by Japanese authorities, she cooperated, while operating to supply food and medicine to American and Australian POW.
Her trial was a farce. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but later pardoned by Gerald Ford.
I stand corrected on Iva Toguri.
No question, though, that Lord Haw Haw (William Joyce) was a traitor.
Duly noted. Yup, yup.
Mr Moto
I was not attempting to say “Hey you think Jane Fonda was bad, you should read what the Walker Family did to our country”. As I said, I was just trying to put a little perspective on things. How many people even know that her North Vietnam visit occurred just 6 months before the war ended?
Maybe I didn’t state my point clearly enough. The Vietnam War was (and still is) an extremely divisive political issue. Considering it ended over 30 years ago and people are still arguing about it, shows just how sensitive a subject it is.
Unlike WW2, there were no clearly defined enemies such as Hitler and Tojo. (Know anyone getting really "steamed " at Ho Chi Minh? Ever heard anyone say “My boss is a real dictator. He’s like the new Ho Chi Minh” ?)
I think America (and most of the world) is caught up in the “cult of the celebrity”. And as the song goes “People love it when you lose, they love dirty laundry.” Are the trials of OJ Simpson, Robert Blake and Michael Jackson the most important social and political issues of our day? No - but they sure as heck get a LOT of media attention. Because the Vietnam War was so unpopular and didn’t end in a resounding triumph, people have to blame someone for that. Unquestionably, (as some people believe), it was all Jane Fonda’s fault.
And if some nobody wants to get his share of the “cult of the celebrity”, there’s nothing like torpedoing an unpopular famous person. I wonder if that Kentucky theater owner is really that upset about Ms Fonda or if he just wanted to see his name in the paper. Yes, he is losing money by not showing the film, but think of all the free publicitiy he’s getting. Also, in the long run, will his actions cause fewer people to go to his theater or more? Perhaps there is an underlying motive to his action$.
As I said about Michael Smith (the Jane Fonda “spitter”), I wonder if he was that angry at Jane Fonda or if he just wanted his small sliver of the limelight.
As I’ve stated many times I think Jane Fonda’s actions in North Vietnam were (at best) in extremely bad judgment. However, I don’t think all the problems of the Vietnam War can be placed entirely on her.
Well, sure. But Jane Fonda used her celebrity to help the antiwar cause, including this inappropriate action, so I won’t feel sad that people attacked her afterward for that use of it.
I certainly don’t want to inflate her importance in all of this, as I consider her a nonentity in the end. Her contributions to history won’t even be a footnote.
Not to forgive Hanoi Jane or anything, but the torture can’t have been that bad. After all, if it was so bad I can’t imagine that McCain would have voted to confirm Alberto Gonzales.
Certainly. Hypocrisy is one of them.
-Joe
This has been an interesting thread. I really thought my lame little rant would die aborning. Apparently the Kentucky theater owner isn’t the only one still smarting after all these years. Interesting, too, is the fact that, even here, some of the most egregious lies about Fonda are still believed and repeated. Her real actions were bad enough in the eyes of many to make them dislike or even hate her today without adding the “little slips of paper” and other tall tales.
I apologize to any Kentuckyans who took my “growth” remark amiss. I had in mind the recent removal of the word “evolution” from education guidelines in that state. Seemed like a continuation of the Kansas debacle on the same subject. Of course there are intelligent people in Kentucky. Just not in the legislature (or perhaps theater ownership 
).
Personally, I find Jane Fonda an interesting and attractive woman, and I’d love to have her mold the next portion of her life after me. I’d also like to win the Lotto, have climbed (not actually climb) Mt. Everest, and have a city named for me. Guess I have about equal chances for all. I would forgive her old indescretion if only she would be indescreet with me. 
So long as you can overlook the fact that we were right, those of us in the anti-war cause. And we were, you know.
That must be a comforting thing to think of at night.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t account for the fact that the South Vietnamese endured thirty years of often brutal war in their country and never budged an inch. After Saigon fell and into the 1980’s hundreds of thousands fled. There are close to a million Vietnamese living in America today, and other communities in other countries.
Joan Baez protested these massive human rights abuses by the Vietnamese communists, leading Tom Hayden to call her a tool of the CIA.
Now, of these two leading lights of the antiwar movement, who was right, elucidator?
Am I being wooshed? Please tell me that McCain’s five and a half years as a prisoner of war, including a year of torture and 2 years of solitary confinement is not “that bad.”
By the way, I think there is a difference between what Hanoi Jane did and protesting the war. I completely understand anyone who was sent to war in Vietnam and refuses to let it go because it happened 30 years ago.