Posted on 07/28/2005 1:19:30 PM PDT by smoothsailing
Jane Fonda's second coming
Cal Thomas
July 28, 2005
We've all seen them: aging athletes, beyond their prime, trying to squeeze out one more fight, or one more season, but failing to bring back their glory days.
That seems an appropriate analogy for the return of Jane Fonda to the political stage. Having made her first movie in many years ("Monster-in-Law") that was a box office success, Fonda apparently thinks her new visibility gives her a certain credibility to comment on the Iraq war.
She has announced plans for an anti-war bus tour next March. Why is she waiting so long? The war might be over by then. The bus will run on vegetable oil. How 1960s! Will the riders grow their hair long, smoke pot, dress in tie-dyed T-shirts and sing "Blowin' in the Wind"? Fonda says she will be joined by her daughter and some families of Iraq War veterans. She says veterans came up to her during her book tour, encouraging her to protest the war.
In her memoir, "My Life So Far," and on numerous interview shows, Fonda has repeatedly apologized for going to North Vietnam in 1972 where she sat on an anti-aircraft gun and said things critical of her country that encouraged the enemy to fight on.
The North Vietnamese used her comments as propaganda in an effort to demoralize American troops and diminish the resolve of prisoners of war. Just what does she think will be the result of her forthcoming bus tour if not to encourage the terrorists and insurgents now fighting Americans and Iraqis in Iraq?
With high privilege also goes increased responsibility. If youthful indiscretion is an excuse she has used to explain her anti-war activities more than 30 years ago, what explanation will she have in her now mature years - temporary insanity?
"I have not taken a stand on any war since Vietnam," Fonda was quoted as saying. "I carry a lot of baggage from that." She certainly does, which makes it all the more perplexing why she is intent on adding even more baggage. It's peculiar that Fonda only protests what Americans do to resist evil, but she led no protests against Saddam Hussein's murderous regime that practiced evil. Why is that?
Jane Fonda might be described as one who is "always learning, but never able to acknowledge the truth," as the Bible she once read and claimed to believe says about people of shifting convictions and allegiances (see 2 Timothy 3:7). Except that she does not learn, much less arrive at any truth.
When Fonda announced she had been born again by accepting Christ as her savior, I investigated and concluded she was genuinely serious about her new faith. I wrote a column urging people not to judge or condemn her. Sadly, I must now write that by her own words, Jane Fonda has moved away from that initial faith into a universalism in which she says there are many ways to God and Jesus is not the only path. She has denied the essence of Christianity. One cannot truly be called a Christian unless one believes the uniqueness of the life, atoning death and resurrection of Christ.
When Jane Fonda protested the Vietnam War there were just three television networks and few media outlets for those who opposed her actions. We are now in a new media environment. While the major networks may practice their usual celebrity suck-up, cable television and talk radio are not about to give her a free pass. Look for Vietnam veterans still angry at "Hanoi Jane" to turn out along the bus route to protest her protest, then and now. It could get ugly.
Jane Fonda has every right to freedom of speech, but so do those who believe she caused enough harm in the Vietnam War that they will not allow her to escape accountability or undermine America's efforts in this one. America survived its pullout from Vietnam. It cannot survive a similar outcome in this war. That's the big difference that Jane Fonda doesn't understand.
©2005 Tribune Media Services
Wouldn't it be funny to have a protest agenda but be afraid to post the program? Sorta' defeats the purpose.
"Beyond her prime?" I don't remember Skank Fonda having a prime. She might have been a porn star had she not been Henry's daughter. No body would know who she was if she hadn't, like Terry Kerry, married a biliionaire.
Anti-tobacco use (all forms of tobacco) is another of her pet projects.
She doesn't learn,she yearns.
Praise,adulation,love,you name it,she yearns for it.
In addition to being a traitor to her country who is stained with the blood of brave men,she is a sick, sick, sick old nag.
That ain't gonna happen with me.
I promised after my last visit to the Motor Vehicles Administration (MVA) that I would NEVER stand in a line ever again.
Get a big chaw of Beechnut and give it a good spit for me, I'm not standing in a line that long for anything.
Judging from the reaction I've seen, Jane is the worst thing to happen to the anti-Iraq war movement.
Is this accurate? I thought she apologized for having her picture taken, but not for going to North Vietnam in the first place. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
You know, I feel sorry for Jane. She was born into money and fame. She has looks, talent and the rest too. By worldly standards, she's got it all. But according to her own testimony, she has had much unhappiness and many doubts about herself. It's sad really, that she is so drawn to an idea of right (versus wrong) but never able to quite grasp the Way the Truth and the Life. God's ways are not man's ways, and unless she realizes that she is nothing, she will never find the One who is everything -- who can answer her hearts desire for justice and truth.
Oh?
I musta missed it.
The only thing I've heard of her saying in this regard is that she's sorry people were offended at what she did, not that what she did was wrong.
Quite a difference between what she said and a genuine apology
"She says veterans came up to her during her book tour, encouraging her to protest the war."
Kerry and who else?
I have a similiar if not more ambitious goal. And it involves 7-11 microwave burritos too!
LOL.
Hundreds of thousands of Southeast Asians did not when the Communists rolled through.
Were you ever assigned to an aircraft carrier?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.