This week’s Fire Drill Fridays protest by entertainment elites, labor organizers, and a Protestant minister/activist in Washington, D.C. was noticeably smaller than past protests. The big-name star who came out to support her friend Jane Fonda was Sally Field. Jane ropes in a fellow well-known celebrity or two each week in hopes of attracting a crowd.

Sally Field was arrested during the protest on the U.S.Capitol steps. The arrest appeared to be quite anti-climatic compared to recent weeks. When the Capitol Police moved in to make arrests, Field did as the other celebrities have done – she paraded in front of the cameras and raised her arms to show off the wire tie cuffs around her wrists. A publicist confirmed Field’s arrest. U.S.Capitol Police say 26 adults were arrested.

Thank you to @sally_field who was just arrested on the US Capitol steps with #FireDrillFriday taking action demanding a just transition! pic.twitter.com/T54vKME0Ve — Fire Drill Fridays (@FireDrillFriday) December 13, 2019

These protests have a weekly theme. This week’s theme had to do with the workers and communities who would be most affected by the transition to a green energy economy – like the Green New Deal.

Field claims her speech was unrehearsed. While I have a hard time imagining that a professional actress would just stand before a group of people and riff about what the alarmists call a climate emergency, maybe she was improvising. “The time is now. We cannot sit back in our comfort zones, on our couches, and wonder, ‘What can we do?’ We can get out. We can do something, in the rain, whatever it takes.” She even reminisced about an old movie role – that of Norma Rae, the textile factory union organizer.

She talked of starring in Norma Rae, the 1979 movie based on a true story of a North Carolina woman, Crystal Lee Sutton, who spearheads a union organizing effort at the textile factory where she works. She noted that many companies in the textile industry, forced to pay slightly higher living wages to unionized workers ended up leaving to other countries. “They decimated Norma Rae’s, Crystal Lee Sutton’s, communities. They were decimated. And that is because they had no transition,” she said. Field added that with the move to a sustainable economy workers can transition to “a better job, a greener job, and a workplace that will support them and their families.”

You may remember that in 1979 the climate alarmists were convinced we were all doomed to die in the inevitable Ice Age, not that the planet was burning up or flooding.

Others joining in the protest were Winona Laduke, Michael Leon Guerrero, Sam Smith, Clint Sobratti, Kristin Taylor, Joe Uehlein, and Rev. William Barber. LaDuke lives and works on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota. A member of the Green Party, she ran twice as the vice-presidential candidate with Ralph Nader on the party’s presidential ticket. More recently she protested the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Here’s an interesting tidbit from the morning’s activities – Fonda and her climate scold friends were gathering just an hour after the House Judiciary Committee voted on the Articles of Impeachment. When asked by a reporter about that, Fonda blew off the question and said she was thinking about Madrid instead of that. Madrid is the site of COP 25, the U.N. climate change summit.

It’s hard to take these weekly bits of performance art very seriously. The designated celebrities offer themselves up to be arrested for the publicity. Jane Fonda avoids arrest so that she can avoid a longer jail sentence. After her fourth arrest, she had to spend a night in jail. Her handlers don’t want her to be arrested again as it will likely end up in a month-long sentence. The Netflix show that she co-stars in, Grace and Frankie, will soon begin filming again. Plus, they can’t have Jane Fonda cooling her heels in jail and unable to be the star protester, now can they? She does plan to get arrested later this month, though, as it is being timed to coincide with her 82nd birthday. Apparently if the timing between arrests is right, she will not have a longer sentence.

The celebrities smile and laugh and thoroughly enjoy the scene. It’s a lark for them. It’s a bunch of privileged entertainers feeling good about themselves.