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You Gotta Love Her - F-ING SMEAR
axis of logic ^ | 3/10/04 | Tom Hayden

Posted on 03/10/2004 7:37:27 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection

I was digging into the batter's box one Saturday morning in San Pedro a couple of years ago when the catcher behind me muttered, "I'm a Vietnam vet, and I've been waiting for twenty years to say you should be dead or in jail for being a traitor." The umpire said nothing. I flied out to center. Later we talked. Then we became friends.

It turned out that his hatred was toward my ex-wife, not me, because he believed certain website fabrications about Jane Fonda that circulate among veterans. Twice the Republicans in the California legislature tried to block my seating because of my trips to Hanoi. But I was never a target of opportunity like my ex--more like collateral damage.

While most Americans, perhaps including that former Yale cheerleader and elusive National Guardsman George W. Bush and, I suspect, most Vietnam veterans, would like to forget the past, the Vietnam War is about to be relived this election season.

Senator John Kerry, a veteran of both the war and the antiwar movement, is causing this national Vietnam flashback. The right-wing attack dogs are on the hunt. Newt Gingrich calls Kerry an "antiwar Jane Fonda liberal," while Internet warriors post fabricated images of Kerry and Fonda at a 1971 antiwar rally. Welcome to dirty tricks in the age of Photoshop.

The attempted smearing of Kerry through the Fonda "connection" is a Republican attempt to suppress an honest reopening of our unfinished exploration of the Vietnam era.

Neoconservatives and the Pentagon have good reason to fear the return of the Vietnam Syndrome. The label intentionally suggests a disease, a weakening of the martial will, but the syndrome was actually a healthy American reaction to false White House promises of victory, the propping up of corrupt regimes, crony contracting and cover-ups of civilian casualties during the Vietnam War that are echoed today in the news from Baghdad. Young John Kerry's 1971 question--"How do you ask a man to be the last to die for a mistake?"--is more relevant than ever.

Rather than give these reopened wounds the serious treatment they deserve, the Republicans substitute the politics of scapegoating and sheer fantasy. Most centrist Democrats, in turn, try to distance themselves from controversies that recall the 1960s. There are journalistic centrists as well, who avoid hard truths for the sake of acceptance and legitimacy. Such amnesia, whether unconscious or not, lends a wide respectability to the feeble confessions of those like Robert McNamara, who took twenty-five years to admit that Vietnam was a "mistake" and then, when asked by filmmaker Errol Morris why he didn't speak out earlier, answered, "I don't want to go any further.... It just opens up more controversies."

The case of Jane Fonda reveals the double standards and hypocrisies afflicting our memories. In Tour of Duty, the Kerry historian Douglas Brinkley describes the 1971 winter soldier investigation, which Fonda supported and Kerry attended, where Vietnam veterans spilled their guts about "killing gooks for sport, sadistically torturing captured VC by cutting off ears and heads, raping women and burning villages." Brinkley then recounts how Kerry later told Meet the Press that "I committed the same kinds of atrocities as thousands of others," specifically taking responsibility for shooting in free-fire zones, search-and-destroy missions, and burning villages. Brinkley describes these testimonies in tepid and judicious terms, calling them "quite unsettling." By contrast, Brinkley condemns Fonda's 1972 visit to Hanoi as "unconscionable," without feeling any need for further explanation.

Why should American atrocities be merely unsettling, but a trip to Hanoi unconscionable?

In fact, Fonda was neither wrong nor unconscionable in what she said and did in North Vietnam. She told the New York Times in 1973, "I'm quite sure that there were incidents of torture...but the pilots who were saying it was the policy of the Vietnamese and that it was systematic, I believe that's a lie." Research by John Hubbell, as well as 1973 interviews with POWs, shows that Vietnamese behavior meeting any recognized definition of torture had ceased by 1969, three years before the Fonda visit. James Stockdale, the POW who emerged as Ross Perot's running mate in 1992, wrote that no more than 10 percent of the US pilots received at least 90 percent of the Vietnamese punishment, often for deliberate acts of resistance. Yet the legends of widespread, sinister Oriental torture have been accepted as fact by millions of Americans.

Erased from public memory is the fact that Fonda's purpose was to use her celebrity to put a spotlight on the possible bombing of Vietnam's system of dikes. Her charges were dismissed at the time by George H.W. Bush, then America's ambassador to the United Nations, who complained of a "carefully planned campaign by the North Vietnamese and their supporters to give worldwide circulation to this falsehood." But Fonda was right and Bush was lying, as revealed by the April-May 1972 White House transcripts of Richard Nixon talking to Henry Kissinger about "this shit-ass little country":

NIXON: We've got to be thinking in terms of an all-out bombing attack.... I'm thinking of the dikes.

KISSINGER: I agree with you.

NIXON: ...Will that drown people?

KISSINGER: About two hundred thousand people.

It was in order to try to avert this catastrophe that Fonda, whose popular "FTA" road show (either "Fun, Travel, Adventure" or "Fuck the Army") was blocked from access to military bases, gave interviews on Hanoi radio describing the human consequences of all-out bombing by B-52 pilots five miles above her. After her visit, the US bombing of the dike areas slowed down, "allowing the Vietnamese at last to repair damage and avert massive flooding," according to Mary Hershberger.

The now legendary Fonda photo shows her with diminutive Vietnamese women examining an antiaircraft weapon, implying in the rightist imagination that she relished the thought of killing those American pilots innocently flying overhead. To deconstruct this image and what it has come to represent, it might be helpful to look further back in our history.

Imagine a nineteenth-century Jane Fonda visiting the Oglala Sioux in the Black Hills before the battle at Little Big Horn. Imagine her examining Crazy Horse's arrows or climbing upon Sitting Bull's horse. Such behavior by a well-known actress no doubt would have infuriated Gen. George Armstrong Custer, but what would the rest of us feel today?

In Dances With Wolves, Kevin Costner played an American soldier who went "native" and, as a result, was attacked and brutalized as a traitor by his own men. But we in the modern audience are supposed to respect and idealize the Costner "traitor," perhaps because his heroism assuages our historical guilt. Will it take another century for certain Americans to see the Fonda trip to Hanoi in a similar light?

The popular delusions about Fonda are a window into many other dangerous hallucinations that pass for historical memory in this country. Among the most difficult to contest are claims that antiwar activists persistently spit on returning Vietnam veterans. So universal is the consensus on "spitting" that I once gave up trying to refute it, although I had never heard of a single episode in a decade of antiwar experiences. Then came the startling historical research of a Vietnam veteran named Jerry Lembcke, who demonstrated in The Spitting Image (1998) that not a single case of such abuse had ever been convincingly documented. In fact, Lembcke's search of the local press throughout the Vietnam decade revealed no reports of spitting at all. It was a mythical projection by those who felt "spat-upon," Lembcke concluded, and meant politically to discredit future antiwar activism.

The Rambo movies not only popularized the spitting image but also the equally incredible claim that hundreds of American soldiers missing in action were being held by the Vietnamese Communists for unspecified purposes. John Kerry's most noted achievement in the Senate was gaining bipartisan support, including that of all the Senate's Vietnam veterans, for a report declaring the MIA legend unfounded, which led to normalized relations. Yet millions of Americans remain captives of this legend.

It will be easier, I am afraid, for those Americans to believe that Jane Fonda helped torture our POWs than to accept the testimony by American GIs that they sliced ears, burned hooches, raped women and poisoned Vietnam's children with deadly chemicals. Just two years ago many of the same people in Georgia voted out of office a Vietnam War triple-amputee, Senator Max Cleland, for being "soft on national defense."

If there is any cure for this mouth-foaming mass pathology in a democracy, it may lie at the heart of John Kerry's campaign for the presidency. Rather than distance ourselves from the past, as the centrist amnesiacs would counsel, perhaps we should finally peel back the scabs and take a closer look at why all the wounds haven't healed. The most meaningful experience of John Kerry's life was the time he spent fighting and killing in Vietnam and then turning around to protest the insanity of it all. Instead of wrapping himself in fabrications, he threw his fantasies and delusions, and metaphorically his militarism, over the White House fence. That's what many more Americans need to do.

If I were George W. Bush, I would be terrorized by the eyes of those scruffy-looking veterans, the so-called band of brothers, volunteering for duty with the Kerry campaign. They look like men with scores to settle, with a palpable intolerance toward the types who sent them to war for a lie, then ignored their Agent Orange illness, cut their GI benefits, treated them like losers and still haven't explained what that war was about. They know Jane Fonda is a diversion from a larger battlefield. They are the sort who will keep a cerebral United States senator grounded, who have finally figured out who their real enemies are and who are determined that this generation hear their story anew. They are gearing up for one last battle.

Chickenhawks better duck.



TOPICS: Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2004election; aidandcomfort; antiamericanism; antiwarmovement; candidatekerry; communism; communists; demoralizetroops; fonda; fondakerryphoto; hanoijane; janefonda; johnftakerry; johnkerry; keptman; kerry; kerrywasinvietnam; lyingliar; lyingliars; mia; miapow; tomhayden; traitor; treason; usefulidiots; vietnam; vietnampow
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To: El Gato
"The line forms on the left to pi$$ on both their graves."

I hope they're buried next to the Clintons so I won't have to walk so far.

41 posted on 03/10/2004 10:48:03 AM PST by anoldafvet (Another Vietnam Vet against John f'n Kerry)
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection
Tom Hayden is so marginalized these days it must really burn him up.
42 posted on 03/10/2004 10:50:15 AM PST by HitmanLV (I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.)
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To: El Gato
The line forms on the left to pi$$ on both their graves.

Sorry, when I got out, I swore I'd never stand in a long line again.

43 posted on 03/10/2004 10:53:35 AM PST by TC Rider (The United States Constitution © 1791. All Rights Reserved.)
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection
If I were George W. Bush, I would be terrorized by the eyes of those scruffy-looking veterans...

Or if Bush has read B.G. Burkett's "Stolen Valor", he could laugh in the faces of those "scruffy-looking veterans" and expose them as the lying hippie stoners that they are.

44 posted on 03/10/2004 10:53:51 AM PST by Mr. Jeeves
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To: anoldafvet
"The line forms on the left to pi$$ on both their graves." I hope they're buried next to the Clintons so I won't have to walk so far

Love it. SECOND: If I were George W. Bush, I would be terrorized by the eyes of those scruffy-looking veterans, the so-called band of brothers, volunteering for duty with the Kerry campaign. They look like men with scores to settle, with a palpable intolerance toward the types who sent them to war for a lie

So how was this GWs fault??? This is an example of why liberals aren't just pol incompetents but rather people suffering from mental disorders.

45 posted on 03/10/2004 11:02:19 AM PST by Digger
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To: ought-six
Do you remember that movie "Coming Home," with Jon Voight, Bruce Dern, and Jane Fonda? Probably one of the best parts of the movie, is when Dern (who plays an active duty Marine Officer), becomes aware that his wife (Fonda) has taken to bouts of infidelity with Voight(a disabled Vietnam Vet.) When he confronts her about this, she tries to explain herself in a sniveling manner. He produces a rifle barrel with a bayonet attachment, and says: "YOU SHUT UP, YOU SLOPE C%$T!" If only people would say that to her today.
46 posted on 03/10/2004 11:09:42 AM PST by Seamus Mc Gillicuddy (Garofalo...Fonda...Penn....Hayden, what's the difference?)
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To: VRWCmember
"Notice how he complains about the doctored photo of Kerry and Fonda on the stage, but neglects to mention the more prominent legitimate photo of Kerry a few feet behind Fonda in the audience at a radical anti-military rally. "

Actually - notice how all he says is "a doctored photo". That way, people see the REAL one and say - Oh, that's the doctored photo Hayden was talking about.
47 posted on 03/10/2004 11:27:04 AM PST by geopyg (Democracy, whiskey, sexy)
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To: hedgetrimmer


Vagina Warrior??!!!
48 posted on 03/10/2004 11:31:24 AM PST by Rummyfan
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To: johniegrad
tom hayden should be synonomus with barf.

My personal opinion is that tom hayden is more repugnant than barf.
49 posted on 03/10/2004 11:33:00 AM PST by sport
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To: oldsalt
I got spit on by some hippy chick at O'Hare airport when I came home from Nam.
50 posted on 03/10/2004 11:36:32 AM PST by philetus (Keep doing what you always do and you'll keep getting what you always get)
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To: D-fendr
If Patton could have gotten her in any of his gunners sights he would have shot her.
51 posted on 03/10/2004 11:40:24 AM PST by sport
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To: hopespringseternal
"I committed the same kinds of atrocities" Kerry admits.

Since there is no move to investigate this by law enforcement, I guess war crimes are no longer illegal.

52 posted on 03/10/2004 11:44:52 AM PST by philetus (Keep doing what you always do and you'll keep getting what you always get)
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To: Rummyfan
Be very afraid!
53 posted on 03/10/2004 12:00:52 PM PST by hedgetrimmer
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To: philetus
Since there is no move to investigate this by law enforcement, I guess war crimes are no longer illegal.

It all depends on your politics. Stalin is far enough left to get a complete pass for any and all crimes. George Bush is far enough to the right to warrant a prison sentence for a mispronounced word.

54 posted on 03/10/2004 12:04:11 PM PST by hopespringseternal
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection
Summary:

1. it is a myth that it was NV "policy" to torture our POW's.

2. It is a myth that our guys were spit on.

3. Fonda posing on NV antiaircraft guns meant nothing in particular, least of all any kind of support for those using them to kill US soldiers.

4. But everything that Kerry said our guys did is true.

I am always fascinated by the Left's ability to construct alternate fantasy universes and talk about them in articulate ways. This widespread pathology of the human mind is what convinces me anew, every day, of the dogma of Total Depravity.

55 posted on 03/10/2004 12:07:55 PM PST by Taliesan (fiction police)
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To: ought-six
If Tom Hayden's a "moderate Democrat," what the hell is a "liberal Democrat?"

Jane Fonda.

56 posted on 03/10/2004 12:20:27 PM PST by Just another Joe (FReeping can be addictive and helpful to your mental health)
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection
I hate hippies.
57 posted on 03/10/2004 12:26:01 PM PST by Spruce (Peace be with you.)
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To: oldsalt
Thank you for your service, and thank you for your testimony.
I was appalled at the reports of abuse of servicemen at the time.

John Kerry boasts of his Vietnam medals, but he and his followers made sure nobody else boasted freely of theirs--not even of the badges of honor which were their uniforms. And Kerry's ineffectual "pleas" that the Democrats (and any reporter is presumptively such, card-carrying or no) not denigrate Bush's National Guard service just registers with me as an attempt at a "good cop/bad cop" routine. My fondest hope is that people with your testimony will be able to make the voting public understand the meaning of the Kerry record before November. The whole thing sticks in the craw of anyone who knows the story and has his head screwed on at all.

This election simply must not be close. There is simply no platform for Kerry to stand on: a man who would have attained national office by now if he was ever going to, a man with no reputation as an excecutive, who couldn't even win election the the governorship of Massachusetts, a man who compares his opponent to Hoover but is himself the one who advocates of tax increases in a soft economy, and an man who says we have intelligence problems but who in recent years advocated slashing the intelligence budget. This is the man who, we are told, is within striking distance of defeating a sitting president?

58 posted on 03/10/2004 2:06:04 PM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (Belief in your own objectivity is the essence of subjectivity.)
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To: Cicero
This piece was originally written for The Nation.
59 posted on 03/10/2004 11:39:39 PM PST by weegee ('...Kerry is like that or so a crack sausage.')
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To: Tumbleweed_Connection
What You Don't Know about John Kerry

THE KERRY DOSSIER (post here anything you've uncovered on Kerry)

60 posted on 03/10/2004 11:41:06 PM PST by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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