Fonda praises activism, denounces big oil

Actress and activist Jane Fonda speaks at The National Press Club on Dec. 17, 2019. Photo: Ben Barber

 

Actress Jane Fonda, looking back on more than 50 years of political activism, told a National Press Club audience that demonstrating and sometimes getting arrested is a way to "align our bodies with our deepest values."  It is "better than Prozac," she said, as an "antidote to depression."

At a sold-out Club luncheon Tuesday, Fonda described the weekly climate-change protests she has been leading in Washington as a means to galvanize public opinion to force drastic cuts in carbon emissions and curb global warming.

But, she said, many who participate in the civil disobedience also are "transformed" by their arrests and "become integrated as people."  Many are older women, like herself, Fonda said.  "We tapped into a great need," Fonda said, for people "to take the next step."

Fonda has been arrested at the U.S. Capitol four times since October.  She has spent one night in jail and may be in jail again, she said, when she celebrates her 82nd birthday on Saturday.

Her only other arrest was in 1970 when she was charged with narcotics possession after returning to the United States from Canada after a speaking tour against the Vietnam War. Fonda said the pills were vitamins.  The charges later were dropped.

Club President Alison Fitzgerald Kodjak noted in her introduction that Fonda also visited North Vietnam during the war and posed with an anti-aircraft gun.  Critics called her "Hanoi Jane," and she later apologized for the photograph.

Over her 50 years of activism Fonda has supported the civil rights movement, the Black Panthers, feminist causes, Native Americans, and Palestinians.  She strongly opposed the Iraq war as well the Vietnam conflict.  Her environmental activism has included opposition to oil drilling in the Arctic and oil pipelines in Canada.

Yesterday she said all these causes are "intertwined." She said she wants to show the many interconnections during the current round of climate-change protests.

There must be "an all-out war," Fonda said, "on drilling and fracking and deregulation and racism and misogyny and colonialism and despair all at the same time."

She added, "Whenever we try to solve problems without addressing the issues of inequality and injustice, it never works."

In her remarks Fonda lashed out at the oil industry.  She said major oil companies deliberately hid what their scientists knew about the effect of carbon emissions on global warming and "played a big role in actively stopping governments from enacting clean energy policies."

"We just have to break the stranglehold the fossil fuel industry has on our government," Fonda declared. "The fossil fuel industry has controlled the U.S. government and too many other governments for far too long.  This is the last possible moment in history when changing course can mean saving lives and species on an unimaginable scale."

In response to a question, Fonda said that shortly after Donald Trump was elected president, she developed a plan to gather "three or four of the most beautiful, voluptuous, and brilliant climate activists--Pamela Anderson is one of them--and a few climate scientists," and make an appointment "to see Trump and get on our knees."  She said they would tell Trump he would become "a hero of the entire world" if he supported bold action "to protect the planet."

Fonda said he she spoke on the phone with Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, to try to set up a meeting, and with Ivanka Trump, the president daughter. Fonda said Ivanka Trump laughed at the proposal, said she would get back to her, but never did.

Fonda said women were more active in climate change protests than men.  "For evolutionary, profound biological reasons," Fonda said, "women are less vulnerable to the disease of individualism." She said women are more willing to take "the collective action required" to curb climate change.

She said she supported the Green New Deal, a multi-billion dollar program to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy sources. 

"It's too late for moderation," she declared. No matter who is elected president in 2020, she said, there must be "massive protests to hold their feet to the fire."

"No matter who gets elected," she said "we have to organize and be in the streets and demand action."

Fonda said her current round of every-Friday protests in Washington would end in January, because there were "binding contracts" for her to film the final season of her Netflix show, "Grace and Frankie."  After production ends in the spring, Fonda said she plans to spend two years traveling across the country to build support for climate-change action.