Hollywood royalty Jane Fonda has a plan to save the planet and it is quite an unusual one for an 81-year-old: Fonda wants to get arrested every Friday.
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Fonda has already been arrested on the last four Fridays and she says she is ready to be arrested "again and again" at least until mid-January, because after that, she is due in Hollywood to work on the next season of her award-winning Netflix series "Grace and Frankie".
Speaking in a video posted by Greenpeace on Friday, Fonda said “Ive moved from California to [Washington] DC to engage in Fire Drill Fridays. This is an action every Friday to focus on climate change. We look at a different aspect of climate change every week, and today it is women and climate. Last week, it was oceans and climate.
"If we do what we need to do, we can turn [the climate crisis] around." Join @JaneFonda, @VDay, @womensmarch, @codepink, @emirawoods, @IPS_DC ,@RoArquette, @RachCarmona, @NewOrleansBA
right now for #FireDrillFridayat the US Capitol! pic.twitter.com/EQ4UeiHpnZ
— Greenpeace USA (@greenpeaceusa) November 1, 2019
Every Friday, Fonda puts on her distinctive red coat and gets ready for her Fire Drill. The instructions are to wear something red, carry signs and, if you are planning on risking arrest, to bring a valid, state-issued photo ID along with $50 cash. They add that they will have cash available if a protester cannot cover this.
Last week along with a growing number of fellow activists, Fonda entered the US Senate building. There they sat on the floor chanting in a building where no demonstrations are permitted and many are arrested.
Fondas is a peaceful protest and she offers her wrists up to officers, who cuff her and put her in the back of a wagon, along with fellow protesters. They are let off with a warning the first few times, but last Friday Fonda spent a night in her local jail and appeared in Superior Court on Saturday, before being released. Her prison overnights will most likely go on as long as she continues her protest.
“Im not nervous because Ive been arrested before,” Fonda said. “Im doing this because I recognise we are in the middle of a terrible crisis and we dont have a lot of time. We have 11 years to try to turn this around. If we dont, the fabric of the global environment will begin to unravel and there will be nothing we can do to change it.”
Seasoned protestor
Fonda was never going to go gently into her autumn years. She is no stranger to adding her name to a cause and has been a political protestor and a vocal feminist for more than 50 years.
In 1969, Fonda supported the occupation of Alcatraz Island by American Indians. The following year, in 1970, she decided she could not stay quiet about the Vietnam War. Along with fellow actors Donald Sutherland and Fred Gardner, she formed the Free the Army tour, which was a form of anti-war political vaudeville that they toured up and down military towns along the west coast of America, hoping to talk with young soldiers about their deployment.
And then, in 1972, Fonda went to Hanoi, Vietnam, and that photograph was taken. Beautiful young Jane Fonda clapping and smiling as she sat amongst Viet Cong soldiers on an anti-aircraft gun. Even as recently as last year, Fonda apologised to US veterans for this infamous photograph.
In 1972, traitor to America Actress Jane Fonda sits on an North Vietnam antiaircraft gun that was used to fire at American planes during the Vietnam thereby earning her name as Hanoi Jane. She is typical of the trash in Hollywood. Put her in jail. pic.twitter.com/ej7nA0WfJo
— Oscar Humphrey (@SdhumpOscar) November 1, 2019
“Here is my best honest recollection of what happened, " said Fonda. "Everyone was laughing and clapping, including me. Someone (I dont remember who) led me towards the gun and I sat down, still laughing, still applauding. It all had nothing to do with where I was sitting. The cameras flashed… It is possible that it was a set up, that the Vietnamese had planned it all. But the buck stops here. If I was used, I allowed it to happen… a two-minute lapse of sanity that will haunt me forever. The photo exists regardless of what I was doing or feeling.”
This momentary lapse caused decades of damage to her profile, earning Fonda the nickname Hanoi Jane, and creating a rift between her and the military and the government that continues to this day.
In 2013, it was revealed that Fonda was one of 1600 Americans being monitored via wire taps between the years of 1967 to 1973 by the US National Security Agency. But nothing will stop this indomitable force, not even the government eavesdropping on her most intimate conversations.
Womens rights and Israeli occupation
Fonda has been a longtime fighter for womens health and reproductive rights. In 2001, she founded the Jane Fonda Center for Adolescent Reproductive Health in Atlanta in a bid to help prevent teenage pregnancies through education. She has also demonstrated against Israels occupation of the West Bank.
But now her focus is broader. Fonda wants to save the world before its too late. She is not someone who can be accused of jumRead More – Source
