Another Friday, another arrest for Jane Fonda and her celebrity friends. The 81-year-old actress and political activist spent Friday night in jail thanks to her participation in a Fire Drill Fridays protest on the steps of Capitol Hill.

Fonda recently told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that people around the world must come together and bring governments to a halt if “we can’t make them do the right thing.” Besides the fact that it is pie-in-the-sky kind of talk that all the countries around the world will band together to do anything, much less agree on what can be done to ease the effects of climate change, who died and left Jane Fonda in charge of what must be done? Or Greta Thunberg? Or Naomi Klein?

Fonda is now a month into her four-month commitment to live in Washington, D.C. and protest every Friday on the steps of Capitol Hill over climate change. The protests are called Fire Drill Fridays and it’s an American version of 16 year old Greta Thunberg’s Friday protests. She’s an actress, you know, and she performs weekly. She brings along her Hollywood pals for support and added star power to garner attention.

Hanoi Jane, it turns out, has no respect for those of us who are calling her out for being just another rich and bored celebrity looking to create some buzz. It’s true she has a long history of protesting (and betraying her country along the way in her most famous protest in Vietnam) but a random four-month commitment to protesting climate change hardly screams “take me seriously”, does it? Also, she says we aren’t “good people” for doubting her motives.

But before she was taken into custody, the longtime Hollywood star had some strong words to say about those who’ve characterized her “Fire Drill Fridays” protests in the nation’s capital as merely another performance by a lifelong entertainer. “Those people are always going to attack that way,” Fonda told Washington’s FOX 5. “The best way to attack a celebrity is to say, ‘Here she is, doing it for their own glory or promotion or whatever.’ “It doesn’t matter,” she added. “Those people don’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Good people know. I could be doing a lot of other things besides getting out there. And I’ll be there if it’s snowing, raining, sleeting, hurricane, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to be there.”

This week’s celebrity guest stars with Ms. Fonda were Rosanna Arquette and Catherine Keener. Fonda spent the night in jail Friday which didn’t happen in the first three arrests. Perhaps the celebrity protesters as performance artists are getting a bit tedious for the Capitol Police. I wonder if I’ll be seeing any tweets from Democrat politicians about what a waste of resources it is for the Capitol Police to have to deal with these Friday protests with celebrities. Some members of Congress were pranked by the NRCC after the vote on the guidelines for impeachment hearings and complained about the use of Capitol Police resources when they were called to respond by nervous staffers.

I see Jane Fonda is back to wearing a hat this week. She’s in the same red coat (Chanel) as the previous weeks. The theme this week seems to be to fight the patriarchy or something. The Code Pinkos joined in, as well as the anti-semite Women’s March. Atta girl, Jane.

Climate change is a women’s issue! Around the world, women and girls are leading climate solutions. Today we participated in massive civil disobedience for #FireDrillFriday with @Janefonda @emirawoods @VDay @womensmarch Catherine Keener, Rosanna Arquette, and many more! pic.twitter.com/2l4FadAIvg — Fire Drill Fridays (@FireDrillFriday) November 1, 2019

https://twitter.com/codepink/status/1190290531714093056

There is an op-ed in the left-leaning Guardian that sings the praises of Jane Fonda using her whiteness, advanced age, and her celebrity privilege as a way of putting the spotlight on climate change. Seriously, you can’t make this nonsense up. Socialists are loving that she redistributes her personal wealth to whatever cause is in the headlines. Most of us call those charitable contributions but socialists are fond of “redistribution” of other people’s money, you know. Fonda is the victim here, according to the author and she shouldn’t be dragged for her performance art, er, protests.

Imagine being 81 years old and facing ostracisation and constant threats by multiple US governments and a powerful contingent of rightwingers, only for young leftwing people to call your activism superficial, and you might have some kind of understanding of how bad faith these criticisms sound. There are, of course, hundreds of celebrities who have tapped into the zeitgeist and the metrics of “wokeness” to appeal to new markets without doing anything significant to, say, change that market, or enact any kind of significant difference or shift in consciousness, so the suspicion is perhaps understandable. It’s nonetheless important for us to parse why legitimate actions are scorned, so that we may be more critical of the powerful, and less susceptible to the ever growing manipulations of modern day PR.

I wonder which “multiple US governments” are issuing “constant threats” to Fonda. Who comprises the “powerful contingent of rightwingers”? Someone sounds a little paranoid if you ask me. The author also implies the woes of the world are at the hands of Baby Boomers which is a standard complaint from younger malcontents.

In the meantime, Fonda can continue to redistribute her wealth as she bails out her fellow protesters from jail, as she has promised to do. Nothing will change from her arrests but she’ll probably feel less guilty about her whiteness and financial success. There will soon be a new season of Grace and Frankie to promote, you know.