Posted on 04/20/2005 11:59:53 AM PDT by Space Cruiser
Jane Fonda was spit in the face by a US Vet. Rock on Mr Michael A. Smith. The article says she has previously apologized for sitting in an anti aircraft gun in Nam but I don't believe this. It's nothing compared to other things she has done such as ratting on POW's while they were looking to her in desperation for help.
(Excerpt) Read more at local6.com ...
I seriously doubt that Snopes ever said that Larry Walters didn't make his voyage. Google groups reveals that the story was well known on alt.folklore.urban by 1993, when Walters committeed suicide. That was before Snopes (or almost anyone else) had a Web site.
The mass-forwarded e-mail that surfaced a few years later, complete with the "Darwn Award" nonsense (which makes no sense, because Walters was neither killed nor sterilized in his flight), got almost all of the details wrong.
Yes, and yes. See post 15 or any of the "urban myth" pages. I don't have to believe everything written about her to hate her.
Nothing I can do about that, but see post 15. I also found this on my first attempt, so it's not obscure info. Go to the page to read the backgroung--the man quoted is specifically named as one of those whose paper was turned over. That the names change all the time should tell you something's fishy:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/weekly/aa110399b.htm
There's no disputing that Jane Fonda toured North Vietnam, propagandized on behalf of the communists, and participated in an orchestrated "press conference" with American POWs in 1972. There's no denying that she defamed POWs by whitewashing the Viet Cong's treatment of them and later calling them liars when they spoke out.
But how true are the further allegations in these email rumors? Let's examine their veracity point by point, beginning with the most serious:
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.
I really don't go along with spitting on her, but it takes so long to properly pee on someone . . .
Besides, she would probably enjoy that.
It really doesn't matter. Jane Fonda assured the world that our guys were being treated according to the Rules of War when in fact they were being beaten, tortured and killed. She should have been put in chains.
....He couldn't find a pie, huh?....
Pies are for disgruntled namby pambi PC pacifist dope taking long haired sociology students.
Baccer spit is for making a real insult.
Instead she goes on Chrissy Matthews and he grins like an idiot at her throughout the "hardball" interview. He even said he was a big fan of her movies. I believe she is a talented actress who had a couple of excellent performances, but with maybe one exception, her movie SUCKED.
....Christian should be praying for Jane....
It'll be interesting to see which accomplishes more.....the spit or a prayer.
Jane Fonda gets spit upon by a tobacco-chewing nutball who stalked her at a book signing. Terrible move. The guy is a coward.
We should never forget the disgraceful treatment Vietnam Veterans received from Fonda's ilk. But engaging in the same tactics to protest her treachery is inexcusable. Start a blog. Write a book. Launch a 527. But spit at a woman and run away? Grow up.
I don't know where it could have been debunked. I read a/the book that tells the story from a guy that stood in the line and passed the note (or maybe he was quoted). I am a diehard skeptic of all that is outrageous and found it indisputable. He is quoted. In fact, the same book talks about how torture increased and the notes were read back to the POWs. It alleges that at least one POW died as a result of the increased intensity of the torture. There was also a documentary a few years back on Discovery or History Channel about it.
I'll see your memory and your unnamed sources and raise you Col. Larry Carrigan and Col. Jerry Driscoll, the people named in the original screed. They both say it never happened.
The idea that Snopes is a "big lefty site" seems to be prevalent around here, notwithstanding the following statements from their page on the Jane Fonda hoax:.
Still, legally treasonous or not, Jane Fonda's actions merit the contempt felt towards her, and her inclusion in ABC's 30 April 1999 "A Celebration: 100 Years of Great Women" rightly angered many who failed to see what was so "great" about this woman. She didn't go to North Vietnam to try to bring about peace or to reconcile the two warring sides or to stop American boys from being killed; she went there as an active show of support for the North Vietnamese cause. She lauded the North Vietnamese military and citizens while she denounced American soldiers as "war criminals" and urged them to stop fighting, she lobbied to cut off all American economic aid to the South Vietnamese government even after the Paris Peace Accords ended U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, and she publicly thanked the Soviets for providing assistance to the North Vietnamese. And she did all this not as a reckless youth who rashly spouted ill-considered opinions now best forgotten, but as a 34-year-old adult who should be expected to bear full responsibility for her actions.
[...]
Whether the war was right or wrong, those who risked (and gave) their lives fighting it deserve respect, and for Fonda to brand men who were held captive and tortured as "liars" and "hypocrites" (despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary) in order to defend her political views was and is unpardonable.
But that's not what I'm here to argue. If uou don't tust Snopes, how about World Net Daily:
However, the second story -- the one surrounding Col. Larry Carrigan and Col. Jerry Driscoll -- was "bogus; it just never happened." I spoke with Col. Driscoll on the phone earlier this week and he confirmed to me that he had never even been given the opportunity to meet Fonda, let alone actually coming face-to-face with her while a POW.
urbanlegends.about.com reached the same conclusion.
A google search for "Col. Larry Carrigan" turns up hundreds of reposts of the original rumor (mostly on message boards), the three debunkings I linked above (as well as other debunkings whose provenance I couldn't confirm), several sites that corroborate Corrigan's bona fides as a POW at the Hanoi Hilton. I did not find any site, credible or not, that claimed to have investigated the rumor and found it true.
Found in Nexis:
Untrue, says Col. Larry Carrigan, one of her alleged victims: "I never met Jane Fonda."
New York Daily News, May 25, 2001, pg. 18Vietnam POWs have tried to debunk the stories falsely attributed to them. Mike McGrath, the president of NAM-POWs and a prisoner from 1967 to 1973, has denounced them. Speaking for specific POWs named in the stories, McGrath has tried to set the record straight:
They had nothing to do with the article attributed to them. They ask that we get their names off that bunch of crap. Tonight I talked with Larry Carrigan. He asked that we get his name off all that crap as well. He never left a room to talk to anyone like that. No torture or beatings to see Fonda. He was living with Bud Day, John McCain and a bunch of hard-nosed resisters during the Fonda visit ... lots of witnesses if you want to question him (or them). Larry was never near Jane. There were never any POWs killed on account of Jane. (Did anyone ever provide a name of one of these tortured fellows?) That story about the notes has a nice theatric touch, but no such thing ever happened. The only ones who met with Jane willingly, to my knowledge, were CDR Gene Wilber and LCOL Ed Miller. One NAM-POW was forced to go before the Fonda delegation. And I think that was only to sit at a table for a photo opportunity. I doubt he ever got a chance to talk to her, let alone slip her a note. To my knowledge, the worst that happened to the rest of us was that we had to listen to the camp radio (Radio Hanoi and Hanoi Hannah) with the Fonda propaganda. It pissed us off, but I doubt you can call that "torture." So, if you get a chance to SHUT THIS STORY DOWN to the groups who are forwarding it, PLEASE DO SO.
The Nation, March 22, 2004, Pg. 14 ; ISSN: 0027-8378
Several other newspapers had similar stories, but since they cited Snopes or about.com as their authority, I didn't think they added much to the discussion.
I did not find a single site or publication that claimed to have investigated the rumor and found it true. If you have one, feel free to share.
"I disagree strongly. This guy is just as much a thug as the pie throwers. They should all be in prison. Oppression of free speech is always bad."
Really??
So you are equating the comeuppance of traitor to the United States whose behavior caused pain and suffering to Viet Vets, to that of conservative Ann Coulter?
Would you consider the execution of Saddam "cruel and unusual punishment"?
Yeah, sure you would.
Me neither but check truth or fiction website...seems it says truth and fiction. conflicting reports I guess.
I'm comparing the assault of Coulter to the assault of Fonda. You can't have it both ways.
A few years back, the New Yorker ran a piece by George Plimpton about this guy. An amazing story and a fantastic piece. And yes, it really did happen. I remember it. Dude went up to something like 20,000 feet all at once. He had an air pistol to shoot out the balloons to control/arrest his ascent, but he dropped it after just a couple of shots. The pivotal moment of the piece was him describing how he looked down and watched the pistol fall, fall, fall. Couple of other great bits: the dude had NO SEATBELT! He was just sitting in the chair! Finally, when he crash landed, he got caught in some power lines and then cut down somehow. The cops came and the utility company guys. The cops just wrote him a ticket (interfering with a flightpath) and let him go! He just went home with his girlfriend (I think) who had driven out to the scene. Some kid at the landing site asked him for the chair and he just gave it to him. Said he wasn't really thinking straight. That was the one thing he regretted; giving away the chair. He had paid over $100 for it, which was BIG money back then (late '70s?). He went on about what a sturdy, well-made lawn chair it was. Damn thing belongs in the Smithsonian, I say. Like I said, an amazing story and a fantastic piece. You could tell that Plimpton envied the guy his vision.
I'm sure you'd compare the "assault" of Pearl Harbor with the "assault" of Hiroshima as well.
Where was she specifically? And what was she in Texas to do?
So you are equating the comeuppance of traitor to the United States whose behavior caused pain and suffering to Viet Vets, to that of conservative Ann Coulter?
I'm comparing the assault of Coulter to the assault of Fonda. You can't have it both ways.
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