Advocate Jane Fonda, International Council of Nurses

cmggriff · Jun 18, 2001

Having been to war and having lived through the Vietnam era, I can say I think I understand the actions of both ane Fonda and 1Lt Wiliam Calley. I might well have done the same things they did had I found myself in their circumstances. fergus, I think the rancor you notice in conversations about Vietnam is a result of American guilt feelings. We fell guilty about killing innocent people. We feel guilty about the way we treated our own soldiers. But most of all, I think we feel guilty about losing.

So welcome to the US fergus. But you should know that as a group we are not nice people. After all, our ancestors stole this land from the people living here. They killed the women and children of those people and justified it all as inevitable. :rolleyes: Gary

Dplear · Jun 18, 2001

cmggriff....am I still to be punished and condemed for the supposed sins of great great great granparents? Our history is past us let us remember it but only in passing, instead look to the future for that is where we are going. No amount of hindsight or revision can change what was done whether it was right or wrong.

rncountry · Jun 18, 2001

Do you think that Americans are unique is this regard,cmggriff? A short list of others who have behaved no different. Romans, Greeks, Britians, French, Mongols, Hebrews, Russians, Germans, Japanese, Chinese and I could go on and on. The things in common here is the want for land, and the idea that they were better than the indiginous peoples. Every country and every generation has it's own sins and tribulations to have to deal with. Question is can anyone learn a thing from it?

majic65 · Jun 18, 2001

What many of you do NOT seem to know is that Jane Fonda has been extremely active the past few years in programs to prevent Teen pregnancy. Not only has she given her time--and LOTS of it, but LOTS of $$ as well. I feel that she is certainly an appropriate person to coment on nurisng and health care. She has done some great things especially in Georgia.

Yess, she did some incrfedibly stupid and hurtful things as a young woman (but how many of us have not?) And as the then-wife of an officer who served 2 tours in Viet Nam,I felt her actions were ill-advised and incredibly stupid acts, which accomplished very little. She has appologized--and I believe she was sincere.

Lets face it, we can use all the press and support we can get right now. So you don't like her or agree with her--that is your right. But you NOTICED what she said, and it was postive about nursing.

BTW--if what is puvblished in USA Todayis an example of Gannett's "interest" in nursing, then we can sure count them out!

rncountry · Jun 19, 2001

No offense Gary, just wanted to point out that Americans haven't got a corner on being stupid at times. I think Americans do want to be thought of well for the most part, but we also do a fine job of beating the hell out of ourselves sometimes too. There seems to be a tendency in this country to swing wildly from one extreme to another. And whatever the last "bad" thing was we dwell on it to the point of obession. To me the Vietnam War is no exception. Learning lessons from stupidity is one thing, however it is something different when you can't move forward and are paralyzed for fear of making another error in judgement. Soldiers in Vietnam went from being demonized to being pitied. Truth is most were never demons and most don't need pity either. The vast majority of Vietnam vets are well adjusted individuals that moved on with their lives. Many of the individuals that made it on TV, papers etc... with horrific stories of being a green beret on secret missions, WERE NEVER IN VIETNAM OR IF THEY WERE DID NOT SEE COMBAT! There are others that have claimed PTSD, or agent orange contaimination that WERE NOT COMBATANTS EITHER. All the government has to do is look at their service record and they would know that. But they don't. Back in the late seventies or early eighties Dan Rather did a special on a vet that lived in the woods in the pacific northwest because he could not intergrate back into society. Guess what? The man was a fraud. He had never been to Vietnam. However did you ever see Dan Rather come on TV and recogize he had made an error? The show I am referring to had like 6 different vets highlighted. I don't recall the numbers without looking it up but the majority HAD NEVER SEEN COMBAT! The image that most Americans have of Vietnam vets is not a correct image. The average of the men in Vietnam was not 18, it was actually older than the average age of the men in WWII. What has happened is there is a perception of what and who an average Vietnam vet is, there is a tendency to pity that image, and we use people like Jane Fonda as our whipping boy to make ourselves feel better for having put that poor, poor vet through the awful things they experienced. I think more than anything Americans as a whole are ashamed and guilt ridden because we did not win. Someone or something must be blamed for that. Till hell freezes over Jane Fonda will be the scapegoat of all that went wrong during that time. And you know where that word comes from? A Hebrew tradition in which the sins of the tribe were transferred to a goat and the goat was then sent into the wilderness to wander and die. Perhaps the anger against Jane Fonda is that she refuses to be the scapegoat and just wither away and die for the sins of the nation? God should forbid that she take up any cause that has to do with nursing, after all who is she to do so? She is the scapegoat, and has no business not doing what she is supposed to be doing.

Yes Gary, we are supposed to be the good country, the country that never does wrong, only right. We are fed a diet of history from elementary school on through that makes us out to be the greatest country in the world. We are the most free, the best place in the world to live. We beat up on the Japenese for refusing to acknowledge their errors in WWII, but the sanitized history we shove down the throats of our children often has skims the truth on our own history. When there is bump in the road like Vietnam then someone or something must pay for it. And Jane Fonda is it.

Sure we are the best country in the world, that is why we have 44 million uninsured people in this country, mostly women and children. That is why with spending over $4000 per person a year on healthcare we still have an infant mortality rate of nearly 8%. Compared with Britian who spends just over a $1000 a year per person, and whose infant mortality rate is just over 5%. We throw our old people away into nursing homes that are underfunded, where we allow the "Greatest Generation" to lie in their own urine and feces. Of the developed countries of the world, we have one the highest teen pregnancey rates in the world. One can blame the sexuality we see on tv, but then one has to look at the much more blanant sex on European TV that would make most Americans turn away blushing and that doesn't make much sense either. As nurses we struggle to be heard on issues like this, appropriate patient care, education etc... but we are damned if we are going to let someone like Jane Fonda take up the cause. It's ok to have the AFL-CIO and the United Steelworkers come to our rescue, because after all they understand the issues ever so much better, but not someone of poor character like Jane Fonda. Send her out to wander the desert, she deserves nothing better. She is our scapegoat and is not allowed back into the tribe, our sins will then be absolved. And the ghost of Vietnam will go away.

purplemania, BSN, RN · Jun 19, 2001

Phoney Fonda has always been an opportunist seeking publicity. Tell her to keep her face out of my business, nursing.

fergus51 · Jun 19, 2001

Wow rncountry,

I was blown away by your post. It gave me a lot to think about. I think all countries do what you americans do. We all want to gloss over our own mistakes and punish others for theirs. Human nature I guess...

cmggriff · Jun 19, 2001

No, I don't feel the need to be punished either. Not for the sins of my fathers or those things I have done that some people might take exception to. I only wanted to point out the schism in thinking here and the apparent guilt Americans sometimes seem to feel. We often behave as if our deepest wish is to be thought well of by the rest of the world. In reality(at least in my own little reality) we don't give a damn what anyone else thinks. To quote Bill Murray in "Stripes", "We're a nation of mongrels and curs". I am just amused sometimes by the lengths some Americans go to to obscure that.

It was not my intention to incite a riotous backlash on the board. If I have offended anyone with my extremely personal opinions, I do sincerely apologize. Gary

natalie · Jun 19, 2001

Amen Helen. Jane Fonda was guilty of being young and stupid, like the rest of us. Atleast she got on national TV and apologized for it. Some of us would need one hour, uninterrupted, no-commercial specials devoted to apologizing for our youth. :)

[ June 19, 2001: Message edited by: natalie ]

JEHORAPHA · Jun 2, 2010

Some things medicine can cure and make perfect. Unfortunately, human beings are not one of them. I am thankful for the woman jane fonda has become and what she stands for now. At least she had enough guts to at least stand up for the profession. Do you have any other "perfect" candidates that are even thinking about the profession?

Thankful

gentlegiver, ASN, LPN, RN · Jul 27, 2010

If she does for nursing what she did for the guys serving in Vietnam, then I'll get a job flipping burgers. Every vet I know speaks of her with contempt...this Hanoi Jane. Type in Jane Fonda and Vietman in your Internet server and get an education as to what her life has been. Not exactly someone I'd respect as a part of my team. Sorry, I'm normally not negative and I don't judge but she single handedly ripped the morale apart of the guys serving in Nam, many of who were already confused as to why they were there, but were there to serve because they were told it was the right thing to do. I cannot say anything about her impresses me. I have an ex-husband and a brother that served and a friend that died there, perhaps I speak out of anger.

I have to agree 100% with this post! To have Hanoi Jane advocate for Nurses will be (and is) the biggest mistake that could be made. We would be insulting all the Men & Women who have ever served in the military, whether they were drafted or volunteered!

allnurses Guide · Jul 27, 2010

This was a 2001 thread. Old news. (oxymoron?)