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Related: About this forumA hilarious celebration of lifelong female friendship Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin
iluvtennis
(19,858 posts)niyad
(113,303 posts)iluvtennis
(19,858 posts)S2 now.
japple
(9,825 posts)to that time period. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
KT2000
(20,577 posts)Hulk
(6,699 posts)While I was pounding the bush in Vietnam, this ignorant self-absorbed bitch was insulting our sacrifice and colluding with the enemy.
Im sorry, but I can never forgive or forget what she did to the soldiers who served, died and suffered in Vietnam. This whole country needs to see the video of her parading around with the North Vietnamese and hear her refer to us as baby killers.
Always a traitor to those of us who served and sacrificed. A publicity stunt for North 🇻🇳. Bitch.
niyad
(113,303 posts)How Jane Fondas 1972 trip to North Vietnam earned her the nickname Hanoi Jane
On a hot, sticky May afternoon in 1970, a crowd of several thousand students and protesters took over the University of Maryland mall. Many were there to protest the Vietnam War. Others were hoping to catch a glimpse of a famous Hollywood actress. Her name was Jane Fonda. As the war raged, the one-time blonde bombshell cut her naturally brown hair short, trading sex appeal for liberal activism and rebranding herself as a political crusader against the war. On campus, she was pushing her movement to turn U.S. soldiers into pacifists. The Army builds a tolerance for violence, she shouted at the crowd. I find that intolerable.
The Washington Post spent that day with Fonda, following her and a dozen or so students to Fort Meade in Maryland, where they planned to hand out antiwar leaflets to soldiers. She was arrested before she got the chance, just as she had been at Fort Lewis, Wash., Fort Hood, Tex., and Fort Bragg, N.C. Fonda told The Post shed made talking to GIs her full-time job.For the next several years, Fonda would continue as one of the most prominent public faces in the antiwar movement. But it wasnt until she traveled to Hanoi in July 1972 that she really enraged critics and fundamentally altered how the world viewed her for decades to come.
Fondas transformation from actress to activist began several years earlier. She was active in the Black Panthers and marched for the rights of American Indians, soldiers and working mothers. But she was advised by other activists to focus her political energies, deciding to go all-in as an impassioned voice for the antiwar movement. She and actor Donald Sutherland started an anti-USO troupe to counter Bob Hopes famous shows for the troops. They called it FTA, which they said stood for Free the Army, but it was also a not-so-subtle nod to the expression f the Army. By July 1972, when Fonda accepted an invitation to visit North Vietnam, America had been at war overseas and with itself for years. She went to tour the countrys dike system, which was rumored to have been intentionally bombed by American forces something the U.S. government to this day forcefully denies. During her two-week stay, Fonda concluded that America was unjustly bombing farmland and areas far flung from military targets. North Vietnamese press reported and Fonda later confirmed that she made several radio announcements over the Voice of Vietnam radio to implore U.S. pilots to stop the bombings.
I appealed to them to please consider what you are doing. I dont think they know, Fonda said in a news conference when she returned home. The people who are speaking out against the war are the patriots. She said the radio addresses were the only way to get access to American soldiers, because she was barred from meeting them at their bases in South Vietnam. In Hanoi, Fonda also met with seven American POWs and later said they asked her to tell their friends and family to support presidential candidate George McGovern; they feared theyd never be freed during a Richard Nixon administration. Rumors spread and still persist that she betrayed them by accepting secret notes and then turning them over to the North Vietnamese. The POWs who were there have denied that this ever occurred.
. . . . .
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/09/18/how-jane-fondas-1972-trip-to-north-vietnam-earned-her-the-nickname-hanoi-jane/?utm_term=.8e5dca6eeca3
niyad
(113,303 posts)under the constitution to express our beliefs, including the anti-war ones. that seems to get overlooked quite a bit.
Hulk
(6,699 posts)Sure...we have rights to say and think whatever we chose. We also can reap the consequences of those actions. That's where I draw the line.
It wasn't just expressing her views or her constitutional rights. Millions were doing that here at home. She was in the camp of the enemy we were fighting. You don't see a difference?
niyad
(113,303 posts)Last edited Mon Nov 6, 2017, 02:41 PM - Edit history (1)
the only one continuously hated, which I have always found fascinating.
Hulk
(6,699 posts)I was in the 25th Infantry, and we were just focused on staying alive and wishing against the odds that we would ever see our friends and loved ones again. I had almost given up hope.
I was one of 15 new guys in our 23 man platoon. It seemed like each week we lost another two or three young men. I met ONE infantry soldier who was going home after serving his tour during my short three month stay. Everyone else I knew or heard of went home on a stretcher or in a body bag.
My radio man stepped on a wire, and that sent us both home, after a month long hospital stay in Japan. I spent several more months at Madegan General at Ft. Lewis once I returned Stateside.
I made it. I have all my limbs and I recovered. I was one of the lucky ones.
I saw some really bad shit over there. Nothing that I would expect anyone to understand. I have a really hard time even understanding it now. The expression "war is hell" is not an exaggeration. Some people wonder why these "finest" can come home and do terrible things after returning. I understand. When you live in hell and eat, sleep and breathe it...you don't just dust it off and move on. For many it's a torment the rest of their life. For most it's something ugly they have to live with.
When I see video coverage of Fonda strutting around in NVA gear, smiling and being used as a tool in Hanoi, and calling us "baby killers", like WE are the devil monsters who chose this ugly, worthless fucking war, I am not only spat upon, but all the young patriotic men who fought and died alongside me are spat on as well.
I wasn't sure it was the right thing to do, but it was answering the call of my country, and not everyone realized how lied to and used we were back in those days. I had choices; to leave and run to Canada or Germany, ir someplace else, and give up my life, my family and friends and my future; but I chose to serve, and I just hoped it was for a just cause and that the war would end soon....maybe before I got there.
Hanoi Jane will always be that person she was to me. If there were others that did the same, then I hold them in the same contempt. I even have trouble with those who left to hide in Canada, because someone else took their place.
This country isn't worth my trust any longer. Nixon, Reagan, the Bushes and even Clinton and Obama has used the military as fodder for our imperialism around the world. Carter was the only honorable President to the military men and women. He didn't send our young military to their deaths overseas.
I don't want your "thanks for your service" crap. I just think you need to understand the open sore that celebreties like Fonda put into our souls. It still hurts today. It's not something we can just forget or forgive. Fonda has lots of fans who don't give a shit about that publicity stunt. It means nothing to them. "A patriot"..