The politically correct Jane Fonda

Jane Fonda has always been on the leading edge of every event she lived. She's a woman who is impossible to ignore, and almost impossible to mock.

Whether you are stunned by her acting, her beauty, her youth, her intellect, her strength of survivorship, her frankness, her personal ethics, her sense of irony, her fame--inherited and earned--or her adaptiveness, Fonda embodies some quality for everyone to admire.

I've been dismayed (although it's no business of mine whatsoever) at some of the turns her life has taken over the last 20 years. I guess she is a heroine to me, and beginning with the Jane Fonda Workout books and tapes, I began to forget what it was I admired about her.

That's a pretty typical dynamic "fans" or followers experience when an exemplar changes drastically. Longevity is met with scorn. Familiarity breeds contempt. Only the good die young.

But nothing has disappointed me more than her apparent need to pile on--along with her conservative, warmongering critics--and disavow the personal bravery and integrity she demonstrated when she went to Vietnam during the height of the war.

I'm not going to pontificate about that period of murder, genocide and obscenity that wiped out tens of thousands of boys in my age group--not to mention the millions of innocent Vietnamese mothers, babies, grandparents, fathers, sisters and brothers.

But Jane Fonda's attempt to distance herself from her rage and her foolish bravery just reinforces my most pessimistic views of the world. Her efforts to put a different spin on her courageous journey into North Vietnam are especially sad against the current backdrop of a war even more evil than the one that nearly evaporated my generation.

However, having now seen her on television in three interviews where she plugs her autobiography and her new movie, I am noticing that, if one reads between the lines, you'll see that she's really not apologizing at all.

Why our nation of sheep chooses to go after Fonda, rather than stringing up and dismembering Richard Nixon back in the day when he could still experience this worthy excruciation, is just one more ironic homage to the power of propaganda.

But while she declaims with her words in interviews, Fonda lays it down in her book, using a handful of Nixon's own perverse words--"I just want to think BIG!!!!"--as undeniable evidence that her words and actions were not only appropriate, but directly proportional:

A month after Tom Hayden and I became lovers, in spring 1972, reports began to come in from European scientists and diplomats that the dykes of the Red river delta in North Vietnam were being targeted by US planes. The delta is below sea level but, over centuries, the Vietnamese people had constructed - by hand! - an intricate network of earthen dykes and dams to hold back the sea, a network 2,500 miles long. The stability of these dykes became especially critical as monsoon season approached. The Red river would begin to rise in July and August. Should there be flooding, the rice harvest would be ruined, and the mining of the Haiphong harbour would prevent food from being imported. People would starve.

The Nixon administration and its US ambassador to the UN, George HW Bush, would vehemently deny what was happening, but the following are excerpts from transcripts of conversations between President Nixon and top administration officials:

April 25, 1972
President Nixon: "We've got to be thinking in terms of an all-out bombing attack [of North Vietnam] ... Now, by all-out bombing attack, I am thinking about things that go far beyond ... I'm thinking of the dykes, I'm thinking of the railroad, I'm thinking, of course, the docks ..."

Kissinger: "... I agree with you."

Nixon: "... And I still think we ought to take the dykes out now. Will that drown people?"

Kissinger: "About 200,000 people."

Nixon: "No, no, no ... I'd rather use the nuclear bomb. Have you got that, Henry?"

Kissinger: "That, I think, would just be too much."

Nixon: "The nuclear bomb, does that bother you? ... I just want to think big, Henry, for chrissakes."

That May I received an invitation from the North Vietnamese in Paris to make the trip to Hanoi. Tom felt strongly that I should go. Perhaps it would take a different sort of celebrity to get people's attention. Heightened public attention was what was needed to confront the impending crisis with the dykes. I would take a camera and bring back photographic evidence (if such was to be found).

In a very real sense, you had to be there to understand what was at stake, and why the deafening outcry of protest and the willingness of the REAL American patriots to die in efforts to stop this war was not only necessary, but politically correct.

The evil old guard, populated by greedy "big thinkers" like Nixon, was a more dangerous and destructive enemy than any specter of Communism. Dupont and Goodyear and myriad corporate interests managed to be served up platters of dollars, drenched in the blood of baby boomer boys and girls, effectively ending the Age of Aquarius or any hope of innocence any child would ever have from that time forth. The old guard needed to be destroyed. Protesting was self-defense.

Unfortunately, the old guard was far more resilient than my generation was effective. If you're wondering why America is still so backward in the realm of civil rights, constitutional and religious freedoms and love for mankind, think of this: some 50,000 kids were killed in Vietnam, and in the years following that war, another 50,000 destroyed themselves via suicide, PTSD, alcoholism and drug addiction, a direct result of the betrayal and alienation of hawks and exploitation by moneymongers.

So, Jane Fonda is on a book tour, apologizing for sitting in the turret of a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft weapon and giggling. Big deal, I say.

The sad thing about her little act is how much was made of it, and how it was used in efforts to impeach the antiwar movement, and widen the divide between the peaceniks at home and their friends and relatives in the jungles of Vietnam.

If she's sorry for giving the corrupt government additional ammunition to use against its citizens, there is still no point in her apologizing.

Her honesty and bravery are the things I want to remember, sitting at home feeling helpless, then watching Fonda put herself in harm's way and on the government's enemies list. She has paid for this, over and over, and undeservedly.

In the end, it turned out she was right. We all agreed the war in Vietnam was unjust and wrong. The veterans and the protesters came together--what was left of them--and created alliances for peace, vowing never again to fight in such a war. We were right. Nixon and his predecessors were wrong.

And today, those who refuse to embrace this war are right again. But who will be as brave as Jane Fonda, and go to Iraq to show the world the other side of the story? As she has mentioned, the villification of her position in the 70s was so thorough, she can no longer effectively protest against any war. She'd be booed and laughed off every stage by stupid sheep who believe what they are told, not what is the truth.

I know I'm not good at talking about this kind of stuff. I know I sound preachy and strident. I know Jane Fonda chose a slippery stage upon which to demonstrate the truth about Vietnam. But none of that matters.

Nothing is important except restoring society and community to sanity and killing off the old guard--for good, this time.