Jane Fonda Plans Anti-War Campaign Just Months After Her Apology

Actress Jane Fonda, who also considers herself a political activist, has said that she is planning to travel the United States by bus to protest American involvement in Iraq. She said that the bus will be fueled by "vegetable oil," and her tour entourage will include her daughter as well as families of veterans of the war in Iraq. Fonda spoke to an assembled crowd in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she was promoting her new book, "My Life So Far." The book, which was released just three months ago, discussed her controversial trip to North Vietnam in 1972 where she was photographed sitting on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun. Her visit to North Vietnam was planned to drum up American support for ending the war. In her book, Fonda tried to give "her side of the story" while at the same time apologizing for her actions, acknowledging that she behaved irresponsibly and unpatriotically.

Fonda’s book has drawn both praise and criticism from book reviewers and the public. During a book tour appearance in Kansas City in April, Fonda was signing books when a Vietnam veteran approached her table and spit in her face. The media made a big deal of how gracious she was to not press charges for his actions, apparently forgetting that her actions 30 years ago had directly cost the lives of some of his fellow soldiers. Fonda’s first film in 15 years, "Monster-in-Law," also sharply divided the public when it was released recently. Although it raked in millions of dollars and was the top-grossing movie around the country for a couple of weeks, some theaters decided not to screen it, preferring to lose money rather than pad her pockets with the proceeds from the film. Ike Boutwell, who trained pilots during the Vietnam War, adamantly refused to show the movie in his two theaters because of the traitorous behavior the actress engaged in while he was fighting for his country. Outside his Elizabethtown Movie Palace, he displayed photos of Fonda laughing it up with a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft crew, and the marquee outside his Showtime Cinemas read "No Jane Fonda movie in this theater."

Although Fonda has apologized for posing for photographs with the North Vietnamese, she does not feel that her opposition to the war was inappropriate. And now she hopes to rekindle her youthful outspokenness by speaking out against the war in Iraq. When one of the audience members at her most recent book signing asked for her opinion of the Iraq war, Fonda said that although she has not taken a public stance on any war since the Vietnam War, she has decided that it’s about time for her to take a stand on the current war. She said that war veterans she has met on her nationwide book tour have encouraged her to "break her silence" and speak out to call for an end to U.S. military operations in Iraq. But her plan to break her silence is probably just another completely self-centered pursuit, in an effort to spur sales of her book and bring her name and face back into the limelight. Obviously Fonda is feeling the years slipping by as her career has waned, so in the past year she’s taken proactive steps to bring herself back into the public spotlight. First a tell-all book about her life so far, then a movie where she plays a shrewish, outspoken mother-in-law, and now a bus tour where she can speak her mind to whoever will listen. Since when does a movie star who grew up spoiled in Hollywood know anything about world politics and the devastation wrought by terrorists and dictators in the Middle East? Sounds like she should be riding in a bus fueled by laxatives instead of vegetable oil.