I am disgusted with people vowing Jane Fonda

[frustrated_lefty]

is a great woman.

You are certainly welcome to your opinion, but I cannot do that.

American's were demonstrably tortured, and she called them liars, hypocrites.

Jane Fonda, John Kerry, birds of a feather, they flock together.

[genius]

1. Sorry. We were on the wrong side of the war. She was right.

It doesn't make the veterans wrong. It was the government that decided to fight for the bad guys and let Americans did for the wrong cause.

[frustrated_lefty]

2. But she penalized the GIs!

[shance]

5. Can you show evidence of that?

a link or something?

[frustrated_lefty]

6. Which claim do you want proof of?

[Julien Sorel]

9. All of them.

What she did was stupid enough, but the most egregious charges hold no water that I've ever seen. I'm actually ambiguous about Vietnam for a wide variety of reasons, but the minute people like Fonda are despised for speaking out for what they believe in is the minute we have lost this democracy. It's crucially important that people are allowed to be wrong sometimes so long as they are pursuing right, and Fonda was clearly doing what she thought was right. She also took a lot of risk for what she did, and has paid a price, probably an internal price as well.

[Dennis Quaranta]

8. The Hanoi Jane Myth

Here's a site that uncritically presents the Hanoi Jane myth that has been circulating for years, despite the fact that it is totally false:

http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/hanoijane.html

From 1963-65, Col. Larry Carrigan was in the 47FW/DO (F-4Es). He spent 6 -years in the "Hilton"- the first three of which he was "missing in action". His wife lived on faith that he was still alive. His group, too, got the cleaned/fed/clothed routine in preparation for a "peace delegation" visit. They, however, had time and devised a plan to get word to the world that they still survived. Each man secreted a tiny piece of paper, with his SSN on it, in the palm of his hand. When paraded before Ms. Fonda and a cameraman, she walked the line, shaking each man's hand and asking little encouraging snippets like: "Aren't you sorry you bombed babies?" and "Are you grateful for the humane treatment from your benevolent captors?" Believing this HAD to be an act, they each palmed her their sliver of paper.

She took them all without missing a beat. At the end of the line and once the camera stopped rolling, to the shocked disbelief of the POWs, she turned to the officer in charge and handed him the little pile of papers. Three men died from the subsequent beatings. Col. Carrigan was almost number four but he survived, which is the only reason we know about, her actions that day.

[pnorman]

14. From Snopes.com:

>
The most serious accusations in the piece quoted above -- that Fonda turned over slips of paper furtively given her by American POWS to the North Vietnamese and that several POWs were beaten to death as a result -- are proveably untrue. Those named in the inflammatory e-mail categorically deny the events they supposedly were part of.

"It's a figment of somebody's imagination," says Ret. Col. Larry Carrigan, one of the servicemen mentioned in the 'slips of paper' incident. Carrigan was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967 and did spend time in a POW camp. He has no idea why the story was attributed to him. "I never met Jane Fonda."

The tale about a defiant serviceman who spit at Jane Fonda and is severely beaten as a result is often attributed to Air Force pilot Jerry Driscoll. He has repeatedly stated on the record that it did not originate with him.
>
http://www.snopes.com/military/fonda.htm

pnorman

[liberalnurse]

24. I will never forgive her.....

I wonder if John McCain thinks of her today? He was in the POW camp at the time.

[Virginian]

11. I remember there being a big deal made of it,

I remember there being a big deal made of it, but I wasn't exactly sure what IT was.
I remember the Veterans not liking her politics. Their line was, "aid and comfort to the enemy."


Never mind: I just read up on it in Snopes.

Edited to remove misunderstandingS.

[arewethereyet]

3. Fonda steped way over the line

and hurt the cause more than helped it.

[genius]

4. The news media misportrayed her because they were biased.

She was fine.

[stepnw1f]

7. She did step over the line

however I believe many during the war did so because they allowed their anger to blind them. Sometimes ideology can have a seriously negative impact. I do not hold any grudge towards her, however I imagine many who did fight during the war do. John Kerry forgave her. That's admirable. Say what you will.

[shance]

10. Still waiting for the accusers to offer up some concrete facts here.

n/t

[bain_sidhe]

21. Here you go...

Since you apparently couldn't be bothered to go to the Urban Legends site, I've brought a bit of it here for you to read:

The most prominent example of a clash between private citizen protest and governmental military policy in recent history occurred in July 1972, when actress Jane Fonda arrived in Hanoi, North Vietnam, and began a two-week tour of the country conducted by uniformed military hosts. Aside from visiting villages, hospitals, schools, and factories, Fonda also posed for pictures in which she was shown applauding North Vietnamese anti- aircraft gunners, was photographed peering into the sights of an NVA anti-aircraft artillery launcher, and made ten propagandistic Tokyo Rose- like radio broadcasts in which she denounced American political and military leaders as "war criminals." She also spoke with eight American POWs at a carefully arranged "press conference," POWS who had been tortured by their North Vietnamese captors to force them to meet with Fonda, deny they had been tortured, and decry the American war effort. Fonda apparently didn't notice (or care) that the POWs were delivering their lines under duress or find it unusual the she was not allowed to visit the prisoner-of-war camp (commonly known as the "Hanoi Hilton") itself. She merely went home and told the world that " assured me they were in good health. When I asked them if they were brainwashed, they all laughed. Without exception, they expressed shame at what they had done." She did, however, charge that North Vietnamese POWs were systematically tortured in American prison-of-war camps.

To add insult to injury, when American POWs finally began to return home (some of them having been held captive for up to nine years) and describe the tortures they had endured at the hands of the North Vietnamese, Jane Fonda quickly told the country that they should "not hail the POWs as heroes, because they are hypocrites and liars." Fonda said the idea that the POWs she had met in Vietnam had been tortured was "laughable," claiming: "These were not men who had been tortured. These were not men who had been starved. These were not men who had been brainwashed." The POWs who said they had been tortured were "exaggerating, probably for their own self-interest," she asserted. She told audiences that "Never in the history of the United States have POWs come home looking like football players. These football players are no more heroes than Custer was. They're military careerists and professional killers" who are "trying to make themselves look self-righteous, but they are war criminals according to law."

I'm sorry, but I agree: that's over the line. WAY over the line. It's one thing to protest the war. In my opinion, it's quite another to denounce your country on the enemy's soil, and it's even worse to denounce the soldiers who answered your country's call. Their service is to be respected regardless of whether their leaders were right or wrong to ask them to do so.

Nonetheless, I agree it's wrong to tar Kerry with the same broad brush, because his involvement was before she went to Hanoi, and I've never seen anything that indicated he condoned what she did in Hanoi, or after.

[liberalnurse]

23. That is a beautiful post.

Thank you for sharing......Very touching and true.

[bain_sidhe]

25. Sorry, I should have mentioned

the stuff in blue is from Snopes.com

http://www.snopes.com/military/fonda.htm

The rest is mine, though

[nofurylike]

26. ok, so, wait. Kerry was heroic testifying to congress that

he and other soldiers had comitted war crimes - for the admission of which i admire him. but Jane Fonda's "over the line" for going to investigate that, and for holding womon-to-womon peace talks with those on the receiving end of the atrocities Kerry admitted to?

all over the world, womyn of enemy sides are forming peace accords persistently ignored by ruling men - Israeli and Palestinian womyn; Indian and Pakistani womyn, etc.

remaining problem? sexism. including in the comment "allowed their anger to blind them." no, that was the men's anger blinding them.

and continues to.

check out Women Waging Peace
http://www.womenwagingpeace.net/

heroes tried to save the lives lost needlessly (for profit, as now!), on both sides, as now!


peace!

[Cheswick2.0]

30. no she wasn't fine but she was just a very young woman who meant well

however she hurt the guys who were there fighting and even she has apologized for it. She came to realize the damage she did and tried to make it better. Don't deny her that dignity.
No matter how opposed to the Iraq war I am, I wouldn't want to see some actress do what Jane Fonda did.

PS.. I think she is a great actress and I do not hold anything against her. All the HanoiJane rhetoric is bull.

[bigtree]

12. You know any of these people who were at that rally ?

Are they all disgusting because she was there?

Where is the statement where she calls folks liars and hypocrites?

Fonda says she was not aquainted with John Kerry. Have you no shame? Is there no one who stood on the same field as Fonda immune from your slander? Why have you singled Kerry out?

Do you know what was spoken at that rally? Do you care? Have you no shame in your slander of these soldiers?

[JI7]

13. i don't know much about this

i wasn't born until the war was over. but from what i know i would probably disagree with what she did. not for speaking out as much as in the way she did it. but i do think there is a problem with people who tend to blame people like fonda rather than those in power like nixon. it's the same right now when you see some blame the troops. even if some of them might not seem very smart and are too enthusiastic about killing or whatever , i don't like it, but i do put the blame on bush rather on them. isn't this why if we go to war , in the end we should hold those at the top responsible much more than the individual troops who fought in it ?

also, didn't kerry appear with fonda before she was involved in the type of protests most have a problem with ?

[Feanorcurufinwe]

15. She fucked up going to North Vietnam during the war

and I was disappointed that she didn't apologize for that today while she made her defense of Kerry. It would have been a lot more effective if she'd said something like, "I was wrong to go to North Vietnam, but I wasn't wrong to protest the war" and that would also have given her a chance to mention that the rally was two years before her trip.

[blackcat77]

16. She's already apologized for it

Time and time and time again. It's bad enough that the Republicans are trying to win over the sheeple with this recycled bullshit -- I cannot believe that the same thing is happening on here! She cannot undo the past. There was no harm whatsoever in John Kerry appearing at the same event she attended. THAT is the message we need to get out, not put on hairshirts and once again kowtow to a bunch of phoney "patriots" who for the most part never got within a thousand miles of a Viet Cong.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

18. OK.

I can get behind that.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

17. As were Viet Cong and Viet Namese

Please don't leave the brutal stories of Liuetenant William Calley and the Mai Lai incident out of your critique. It was a brutal war. We lost 50,000 and had to deal with countless others' disabilities. They lost over 2 million.

She has already apologized for this incident many times over but she DID have a right to portest that war as DID we.

[kencryst]

19. The real traitors

were the idiots that started the war to stop the spread of those darned evil communists. Or was that war( er I mean police action ) about rubber plantations?
Jane Fonda had an opportunity to use her celebrity status to put a face on the enemy. Kudos to her...

Don't believe every mass mailing email that you read...




http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/weekly/aa110399.htm

Claim: Fonda betrayed POWs by turning over slips of paper they gave her to their captors. POWs were beaten and died as a result.

Status: FALSE.

"It's a figment of somebody's imagination," says Ret. Col. Larry Carrigan, whom I reached by phone at his home in Arizona. Carrigan, who was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967, says he has no idea why this story was attributed to him. "I never met Jane Fonda," he told me. It goes without saying he never handed her a secret message.

He said he did see Jane Fonda once while he was a POW – on film. The occasion was a night when Carrigan and the other 80 or so men he was interned with were called out into the prison courtyard – "the first time we'd been outside under the stars in 5 or 6 years." As the men stood there wondering what was in store for them, a movie projector began whirring behind them. Their captors were showing them footage of Fonda's 1972 visit to Hanoi.

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[jonnyblitz]

28. I thought all of this 'Hanoi Jane"crap was right wing stuff

I can't believe all the supposed "progressives" here at DU falling for this, but then again....well..nevermind. :eyes:

[liberalnurse]

22. Thats my recall too.

Wasn't John McCain in the same POW camp she visited with a camera crew and left our POW's there to suffer? Didn't she insult our POW's during that media moment, supporting the Viet Cong???

Update me if I'm off base.

Now that I read on down the thread...there is an excellent post....Thank you.

[Piperay]

27. When I was in college I was

was "encouraged" (worried for my grade) along with the rest of my class by our professor to attend a rally that Jane Fonda was speaking at, so does that make me the same as her ("birds of a feather")???? :argh: A cause should not be held responsible for those who support it.

[Zynx]

29. I agree with you about Jane Fonda.

Ofcourse Vietnam was an unjust war, but while our soldiers were in harm's way it was EXTREMELY inappropriate to do what she did. I think that it was indeed treason. You can always oppose the war, but for the love of God support our troops.

[murielm99]

33. Unfortunately, at that time, MANY people did not support our troops.

They came home, were spat on, and called baby killers.

They were hurting, and there were few programs to help them.

Employers were wary of hiring them, thinking they all used drugs.

I hope we have learned something from that time. It seems that more people now support our troops, even if they oppose the war in Iraq.

In a way, Jane was not alone in what she did.

Didn't Stokely Carmichael go to Hanoi, too? Correct me if I am wrong.

I remain, to this day, very conflicted about that war. I think that anyone who was coming of age during those times will always feel that way. The nuances of the war will hurt this country until everyone alive at that time is dead and gone.

I lived in a small town. There were 176 people in my high school graduating class. Five died in Nam. Classes behind and ahead of mine lost at least as many.

My college does not have only class reunions for class of 67, 68, 69, etc. -- They also have Class Reunion for 1967, 68, 69,etc. Vietnam Veterans. They need to relate to each other in a seperate, special way.

I could not watch what I heard was an excellent television series, China Beach.

When I went to the Veterans Memorial in D.C., it took me the rest of the day to recover physically and emotionally.

I opposed the war, but not at first. I was conflicted about it. I bet Jane was, too. I cannot judge her for what she did.

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[bowens43]

32. Regardless of your opinion of Ms Fonda

The war was wrong. It's well documented that Americans committed horrible atrocities in Vietnam . These atrocities although not the norm, were not rare. To deny this is to blind yourself to the truth. EVERYONE who spoke out against that horrible war is a hero in my book. Granted Ms. Fonda's trip to Hanoi was a stupid move. It hurt the anti-war movement. But the movement was correct.