Does anyone remember Hanoi Jane?

[nawtee_me]

YWCA: Educate a woman and educate a generation. Jane Fonda speaks Sunday in Baton Rouge. While I like the subject matter, I would not listen to this woman talk about anything. Most people on here may not even know who she is nor ever heard of her. But some do! For those of you who do, what do you think of Hanoi Jane?

Updates

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnFVFz9d6vU&t=1s

[NamerOfStars]

Ah, yes, how dare a free citizen object to a horribly immoral war! What right do the Vietnamese have to establish a democratic society, free of the presence of controlling colonial powers? That's downright un-American! Calling on pilots to stop bombing non-military targets? How dare she! It's not like free speech is an enshrined right or anything!

Do I agree with everything she said? No. But the demonization of the woman for delivering absolutely deserved criticism of an unjust war shows that American conservatives have been guilty of every last offense they blame American liberals for today.

[Leopard23]

North Vietnam did not have a democratic system and was in fact invading its southern neighbour and killing its citizens.

[NamerOfStars]

@Leopard23 Yes- because Ho's attempt to set up a democratic Communist society was thwarted by the French after De Gaulle broke his promise, refusing to grant Vietnam its independence despite it fighting valorously against the Japanese- and then went so far as to order the Japanese POWs released and ARMED to act as military police. Minh appealed to President Truman to make De Gaulle keep his word, but (supposedly) the letter never arrived. With no help coming from that quarter, Minh turned to the only other source of help he could get, and his efforts at forming a democratic state quickly fell by the wayside, collapsing entirely after his death.

South Vietnam wasn't it's neighbor, it was the same country.

[Leopard23]

Yes and I'm sure it was the same situation with North Korea, yet south korea is free and democratic. Ho Chi Minh was already a communist and was preached communism in France in 1920s. President Truman wasn't France's colonial master. The Japanese army was the only large force in South East Asia capable of maintaining law and order on 1945, they had to continue until they could be relieved.
South Vietnam was another country thriving in the south and was invaded by its neighbour in the North, those in the south and north were not given a choice regarding communism, Vietnamese in North fled to South Vietnam. James Fonda supporting North Vietnam when they were sending death squads to kill Vietnamese in the south was akin to supporting ISIS or the Taliban or Serbia during the Bosnian war.

[NamerOfStars]

@Leopard23 Yes, Minh was a Communist- a Communist who believed in free speech and a democratic society, as I've mentioned. Would that have worked out? Probably not- but they the right to try in their own damned country, didn't they? It could have served as a beacon that democracy and Communism CAN coexist without destroying each other, which was a badly needed message during the Cold War. You are correct in saying that Truman wasn't France's colonial master, but he WAS the leader of a trusted ally, which actually had a standing army in position to threaten France, which by contrast was down to "anyone healthy enough to carry a gun". They WERE, however, better off than the Japanese, who'd been all but annihilated, neatly putting paid to your idea that they were "the only large force in South East Asia capable of maintaining law and order"; the Vietnamese could've done that just fine themselves. Likewise, the idea of telling an ally they need to keep their word and release their former colony when the war ended would be VERY in keeping with the American role in the World Wars, since failure to take the Japanese seriously at Versailles was what pushed them into becoming the monstrously racist nightmare THEY turned into for the second war.

You're also neglected that Vietnam WAS one country, and had been for over a century before the French even REACHED the area. The territories that became South Vietnam had been separated only for the purposes of French colonial administration, and were no less a part of the country than the CSA was of the US.

And if you're going to condemn Fonda for supporting a regime using death squad-style terrorist tactics, you're going to have to more strongly condemn the supporters of the US government, who were deliberately sending much larger and less precise air strikes against civilian targets. And thus, if indirectly, praise Fonda for opposing THEM. You can't half-ass morality.

[Leopard23]

He attempted to set up a communist Vietnam, communists aren't democratic, they don't believe in free speech either.
Truman was not France's leader, allies don't threaten each other.
The Japanese army was far from annihilated, it had lost 2 million or so soldiers in WW2 mostly in China and Burma which left hundreds of thousands of troops divided all over the territory Japan had conquered outside Japan still in place, ie 300,000 in Korea for instance.
What pushed Japan into doing what they did in WW2 was their former ally America telling them what they could and couldn't do during their invasion of China and the US starving the Japanese economy with oil sanctions which convinced the imperial Japanese that they'd have to take the resources they needed to continue to grow their empire. Without the Japanese remaining in place there would have been mass genocide, revolutions and civil war just like what had previously happened during the communist revolution in the USSR not 30 years previous.
Vietnam was one country but communism was pushed on the people against their will in the North via the Chinese and Soviet union, a similar thing had happened in North Korea and Mayla. To prevent civil war the UN divided north from south and democratic elections were held in the south just like in North Korea and just like in North Korea the communists invaded..
Was North Vietnam not invading and bombing south Vietnamese cities on a daily basis? Why should they be immune from the same?

[NamerOfStars]

@Leopard23 If you're bound and determined to rationalize your unreasonable demonization of the woman away, there's no point in my continuing to try to reason with you. Revel in your cancel culture, buddy.

[Leopard23]

Hey maybe you can visit Russia to give putin support in the spirit of Hanoi Jane

[Leopard23]

I do. For me she let herself be used as a propaganda piece for an enemy nation that was invading its southern neighbour. She was all for communism yet got chauffeured around in a limo, basically a champagne socialist.

[DizzyDesii]

I don't know who Hanoi is but i remember her being a horrible mother in law to jennifer lopez in Monster-In-Law lol

[Gummy_Cluster]

I've scraped better things off the bottom of my shoe.

[Anonymous]

Honestly? I watched a 2 hr. Documentary about her life and it gave me some pretty deep insights to her as a person. I personally think Jane has some pretty deep psychological trauma relating to her childhood that make her the lightning rod she is. I don't think she'll ever be right till she decides to get help and face it.

[Jamie05rhs]

She's a traitor. She should have had her citizenship stripped a long time ago.