Gov. Mike Dunleavy took to social media this week to take on the notorious grande dame of the Hollywood elite: Jane Fonda, who was published in USA Today defending the Roadless Rule for the Tongass National Forest.
Dunleavy wrote: “Jane Fonda you fail to mention how the ill-advised Roadless Rule for the Tongass has killed thousands of jobs and prevents use of the forest by many people, not just logging. It seems you are just another special interest outsider hell-bent on turning Alaska into a national park.”
Dunleavy came to Alaska and worked in at the Gildersleeve logging camp in Southeast Alaska in 1983, before becoming a school teacher in the Arctic.
Fonda, whose birth name is Lady Jayne Seymour Fonda, grew up in a Hollywood dynasty entertainment family, studied art in Paris, and was a model in New York before starting her career as a starlet in films, notably Barbarella, but also such films as Coming Home, a Vietnam veteran themed film.
She became known as Hanoi Jane by members of the military and other patriots after she travelled to North Vietnam during the Vietnam War in 1972 and consorting with the Viet Cong, while denouncing U.S. foreign policy. Veterans have not forgiven her for what many saw as treasonous activities.
Now, the actress has returned to her activist roots, taking her inspiration from the teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg of Sweden. She’s been traveling to Washington, D.C. each week to protest climate change and to get arrested. It has become her cause du jour.
The governor doubled down on his message on Twitter: “If @JaneFonda is truly concerned about global issues, she needs to understand that #Alaska and #America do resource development and timber more responsibly than any other place in the world. The demand for timber is not going away.”
