On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003 Location: I walk along the avenue
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Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 10:03 am Post subject: Jane Fonda |
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Here's an interesting article from the LRB, about Jane Fonda's anti-war activities in the 1970s.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n22/perl01_.html
And here are some juicy details for igothisguitar to chew on:
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The security establishment began its battle against Fonda almost as soon as she started speaking out. Teams of FBI informants reported her every word, combed her speeches for violations of the 1917 Espionage Act, which criminalises incitement to ��insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny or refusal of duty in the military��, and ��disloyal, profane, scurrilous or abusive language about the form of government of the United States��. She proved a disappointment. Profanity was not her style. As for incitement, we learn from one informant – a chaplain��s assistant – that she thought it ��would not help the cause of peace��. He added that nothing she said ��could be construed to be undermining the US government��.
The government got desperate. At Cleveland airport the FBI arranged for her to be stopped at customs. During her interrogation she pushed aside agents who refused her access to the bathroom, so they arrested her for assaulting an officer. She had in her possession mysterious pills marked B, L and D, so they also charged her with narcotics smuggling – for carrying vitamins to be taken with breakfast, lunch and dinner. Her daughter was followed to kindergarten. (America needed to know: did her school teach ��an anti-law enforcement attitude��?) They investigated her bank accounts. They tapped their network of friendly media propagandists, like the future Senator Jesse Helms, then a TV editorialist, who supplied an invented quotation that still circulates as part of the Fonda cult��s liturgy. Supposedly asked – it isn��t clear where or by whom – how far America should go to the left, she said, according to Helms: ��If everyone knew what it meant, we would all be on our knees praying that we would, as soon as possible, be able to live under . . . within a Communist structure.�� A death threat against her was sent to Henry Fonda��s house with a demand for $50,000. He took the letter to the same FBI office that was directing the campaign against his daughter. ��The FBI files reveal no effort to find the sender of the letter,�� Hershberger remarks.
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