At 10/11/01 01:55 AM, MI4_REAL_2001 wrote:
*crawls out from under rock*
Who is Jane Fonda?
During the Vietnam War, Jane Fonda was a Vietnam sympathizer. I can't blame her for this... When I read her radio address, I can agree with a lot of it.
Here is a transcript of her Vietnam radio broadcast:
"This is Jane Fonda. During my two week visit in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, I've had the opportunity to visit a great many places and speak to a large number of people from all walks of life--workers, peasants, students, artists and dancers, historians, journalists, film actresses, soldiers, militia girls, members of the women's union, writers.
I visited the (Dam Xuac) agricultural coop, where the silk worms are also raised and thread is made. I visited a textile factory, a kindergarten in Hanoi. The beautiful Temple of Literature was where I saw traditional dances and heard songs of resistance. I also saw unforgettable ballet about the guerrillas training bees in the south to attack enemy soldiers. The bees were danced by women, and they did their job well.
In the shadow of the Temple of Literature I saw Vietnamese actors and actresses perform the second act of Arthur Miller's play All My Sons, and this was very moving to me--the fact that artists here are translating and performing American plays while US imperialists are bombing their country.
I cherish the memory of the blushing militia girls on the roof of their factory, encouraging one of their sisters as she sang a song praising the blue sky of Vietnam--these women, who are so gentle and poetic, whose voices are so beautiful, but who, when American planes are bombing their city, become such good fighters.
I cherish the way a farmer evacuated from Hanoi, without hesitation, offered me, an American, their best individual bomb shelter while US bombs fell near by. The daughter and I, in fact, shared the shelter wrapped in each others arms, cheek against cheek. It was on the road back from Nam Dinh, where I had witnessed the systematic destruction of civilian targets-schools, hospitals, pagodas, the factories, houses, and the dike system.
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 indistinct) 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 that I have learned beyond a shadow of a doubt since I've been in this country is that Nixon 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 of the United States by bombing, by invading, by attacking in any way. One has only to go into the countryside and listen to the peasants describe the lives they led before the revolution to understand why every bomb that is dropped only strengthens their determination to resist.
I've spoken to many peasants who talked about the days when their 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 Richard Nixon, these people own their own land, build their own schools--the children learning, literacy--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, the people have taken power into their own hands, and they are controlling their own lives.
And after 4,000 years of struggling against 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 Richard Nixon would do well to read Vietnamese history, particularly their poetry, and particularly the poetry written by Ho Chi Minh."
She later tried to apologize for certain things she did, saying:
"I would like to say something, not just to Vietnam veterans in New England, but to men who were in Vietnam, who I hurt, or whose pain I caused to deepen because of things that I said or did," she began. "I was trying to help end the killing and the war, but there were times when I was thoughtless and careless about it and I'm . . . very sorry that I hurt them. And I want to apologize to them and their families."
The problem is... I don't know exactly how to say this... As American Citizens, we sort of accept a "terms of agreement" with our country. We have a sort of social contract. As American's, we are free to disagree with our government, but to an extent we should still be supportive of our country.
Jane Fonda went to Hanoi and posed alongside the military weapons (provided by China to Vietnam) that were used to kill US soldiers. Our soldiers didn't necessarily WANT to be in Vietnam, but our government sent them there, and Jane did nothing but hurt them while they were there.
If the US really wanted to stop communism, then Vietnam was not our true enemy - it was a scapegoat, a small country that we thought would be easy to bully. We were afraid of the "Domino Effect" - the spread of Communism. McCarthyism had American's afraid, "better dead than red".
I think Jane Fonda had good intentions, but she got carried away in how she expressed them.
I want to say she "sided with the enemy", but why were they the enemy? They were only the enemy because America decided to get involved in their civil war. We made them our enemy - they weren't coming after us.
I always get the strongest response from NG users who are in the US military, so I am waiting to hear some direct comments from soldiers who have stories about Fonda.
-Tom
