Still Hanoi Jane

Sometimes, it is fun to hang someone by their own words....... ''This is Jane Fonda. During my two week visit to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, I've had the opportunity to visit places and speak to a large number of people from all walks of life---workers, peasant farmers, dancers, historians, journalists, film actresses, soldiers, militia girls...... In the shadow of the Temple Of Literature I saw the Vietnamese actors and actresses perform Arthur Miller's play 'All My Sons', and this was very moving to me---the fact that artists here are doing American plays while U.S. imperialists are bombing their country. I cherish the memory of the blushing, militia girls on the roof of their factory, encouraging as they sang a song praising the blue sky of Vietnam---- these women, who are so gentle and whose voices are  beautiful, but who, when American planes are bombing their city become such good people. I cherish the way a farmer evacuated from Hanoi, without hesitation, offered me an American, their best air raid shelter while U.S. bombs fell near by........ As I left the United States two weeks ago, Nixon was again telling the American people that he was winding down the war, but in the rubble---strewn streets of Nam Dinh, his words echoed with sinister words of a true killer. And like the young Vietnamese woman I held in my arms clinging to me tightly--- and I pressed my cheek against hers--- I thought, this is a war against Vietnam perhaps, but the tragedy is America's. One thing is have learned beyond a shadow of a doubt in this country is we will never be able to break the spirit of these people, he'll never be able to turn Vietnam, North and South into a neo-colony United States by bombing, by invading, by attacking in any way. One has only to go outside and listen to the peasants describe the lives they led before the revolution to understand why every bomb dropped only strengthens their determination to resist. I've spoken to many peasants who talked about the days when the parents had to sell themselves to landlords as virtually slaves, when there were very few schools and much illiteracy, inadequate medical care, when they were not masters of their own lives. But now, despite the bombs, despite the crimes being created--- being committed against them by Nixon, these people own their land, build their own schools--- the children learning and illiteracy is being wiped out, there is no more prostitution as there was during the time when this was a French colony. In other words, they have taken power into their own hands, and they are controlling their own lives. And after 4,000 years of struggling against the nature and foreign invaders---- and the last 25 years prior to the revolution of struggling against French colonialism--- I don't think that the people of Vietnam are about to compromise in any way, shape or form about the freedom and independence of their country, and I think Nixon would do well to read Vietnamese history, particularly their poetry, and particularly the poetry written by Ho Chi Minh......... Jane Fonda, Radio Hanoi, July 19, 1972....... In a recent interview---to promote a new movie she is in--- Jane Fonda claims to have some remorse about her anti-Vietnam War crusade. She says it was a mistake to go to North Vietnam---- and, famously pose sitting on a huge gun that was used to kill the American troops---- and that she should be forgiven for her actions. She has learned, Ms. Fonda claims, that she was too knee-jerk [my words] in some of the things she has said about the troops........ Now, in hindsight, her feelings about the Vietnam War were very right. The war was wrong [or, it was fought wrong] and most Americans would probably agree that we should have never gone there in the first place. So, being ''anti'' the war is not a bad thing. Millions were then. I have no complaint with Ms. Fonda there. And, I will concede that we all do things, and say things, when we are younger that you naturally wince at as you get older...... Where I do have a problem with Jane Fonda is in her presentation of her ''apology''. The way I get it----as do many others who are detractors--- is that Ms. Fonda is not putting all of her heart into her apology. That is, in my opinion, she is saying she is ''sorry'' but without any true feeling behind it. Kinda like a spoiled kid made to say he is sorry just so everyone will leave him alone. He isn't really sorry, just that he wants to get the noose taken away from around his neck. Jane Fonda gives off that same feeling to me. Usually when she has apologized, it is to promote a new project. The new project, a movie, say, would be hurt financially if Jane took to her old radical pose. Therefore, she eases up on her past hatred of the establishment and their ''games'', just so she can enjoy the fortune of today. How Capitalistic, Janie!!!!...... Jane Fonda has gone down the road of saying she is sorry for her activities, like going to North Vietnam and meeting with the enemy---- which, legally, could have gotten her arrested for treason---- but, glaringly, she has not made the stop on the road she needs to visit the most: the Vietnam war veterans. These are the people she crucified in the press, both in Hanoi and back here and other countries abroad. She has labeled these proud troops ''murderers'' because they fought the war on the side of America. The fact that these ''murderers'' were mostly men drafted into the war [unlike Jane's rich friends and fellow protesters who got a draft deferment] and were put in a situation that horrible events unfolded in front of their eyes. These men--- and women--- were innocent average citizens in harms way. They were not going out looking for blood. They were defending their country in good and honest ways. Many did not return home after the war. And, many did, but they were wounded, some physically and some mentally. And, some suffered both. They came back broken and unloved for what they had done, called ''murderers'' by radical phonies like Jane Fonda. You can be against a war [I have been a few times]. However, I always support the troops. Jane Fonda never did. They were baby killers to her, the destructors of life........ I see Ms. Fonda on TV and I look at her eyes. It is the old actor in me, the observer of human actions and personality ticks. She is putting on a performance for the camera. And, she is quite good at it, for no one would ever deny her talent at acting and getting into character. It is all solid performance, full of the ''pain'' she feels by her actions. She is ''sorry''....... Our involvement in the Vietnam War ended in January, 1973, when the old enemy of Jane Fonda, Richard Nixon, signed the peace treaty to bring our troops home. Two years later, in April 1975, the last military equipment and troops left, basically, abandoning the people of South Vietnam and allowing the North and its communist killers to destruct and pillage the countryside. It has been estimated that millions of people died during this time. There are the famously horrible scenes shown of the Vietnamese boat lift, with desperate men, women, and children trying to escape with their lives. Some made it. And, some did not. Some, overcrowded in the leaky and unsafe boats, went down to their deaths in the ocean---- despite the big, bad, old imperialistic America that Jane Fonda slammed--- trying to help them. And, there was the horror of mass murderer. North Vietnam troops bludgeoned suspected traitors to their cause, using the killing of children in a bloody celebration of winning the war. For the Vietnamese people, despite the atrocities at what had come from the years of the war, this was the worst time..... Jane Fonda has always been aware of what her old friends in North Vietnam did during this time. True to form, she blames the media and the inflated figures of her enemies rather than face the harsh truth. This is, of course, the sign of a phony, someone who cannot handle the truth if it doesn't correspond with her preconceived notions. Until she is truly sorry---which seems unlikely, given her age and the fact she hasn't grasped the obvious by now---- she will forever be someone I consider as harmful..... And, someone whose movies will never be welcome to my eyes.....