Jane Fonda Arrested for Third Time in a Month While Protesting Climate Change
It was the same script with a different co-star Friday as actress Jane Fonda, 81, was arrested near the U.S. Capitol.
It was the third straight Friday arrest for Fonda, who has vowed her Fire Drill Fridays protests will continue until January.
This week, actor Ted Danson joined Fonda in being gently led away by U.S. Capitol Police.
Last week, actor Sam Waterston joined Fonda in being arrested.
“Get in motion, save the ocean,” Fonda, Danson and other protesters chanted Friday before they were arrested, according to Deadline.
“We have to behave like our house is on fire, because it is,” Fonda said.
She urged those protesting with her to elect officials committed to addressing climate change.
“We have to hold their feet to the fire,” she said.
I’d like to say “I wanna be this cool when I’m her age” but honestly, I’d like to be this cool ever.#JaneFonda pic.twitter.com/JbAfslMeZY
— Siobhan Cole (@Siobhancole11) October 26, 2019
Although Fonda has been involved in public protests since the Vietnam War era, this was apparently a first for Danson, 71. As the grinning actor was led away, he was asked if this was his first arrest and said that it was.
Video shared on Twitter showed the arrests.
He did it, folks. Ted Danson arrested by the capitol police. pic.twitter.com/tD7lvzgpjF
— Hannah Jewell (@hcjewell) October 25, 2019
Jane gets patted down and shouts “Ted, are ya having fun yet?!” pic.twitter.com/pRRBBjvwpG
— Hannah Jewell (@hcjewell) October 25, 2019
Danson spoke to the crowd before his arrest, according to the Los Angeles Times. He started by saying that he planned to slow down when he turned 70.
“Then I met Jane Fonda, who had her foot on the gas pedal and was not only 80, but was going 80 miles per hour at all times,” he said. “She’s astounding, she became my mentor, and here I am about to get arrested.”
“It focuses your brain a little bit.”
Danson then summed up his thoughts on being arrested in the name of climate change.
“All of this is inconvenient. Al Gore got it right. This is inconvenient. It’s inconvenient for politicians to stop taking money from the oil industry because it’s huge money they get,” he said.
“It’s easy, all you have to do is deny science and say there’s no such thing as climate change. Easy. It’s inconvenient for the oil industry to not drill wherever and whenever they want ’cause it’s huge money.”
“It’s inconvenient for industries to stop burning fossil fuels. It’s inconvenient for all of us to realize that we have to share the planet’s natural resources with everyone including people we don’t like. It’s inconvenient to realize we’re all in this together. That either we will all make it or none of us will make it,” Danson added.
Overall, Capitol Police arrested 32 people in the protest for “unlawfully demonstrating in the intersection of East Capitol and First Streets,” a spokesperson for the agency told CNN.
They “were charged with crowding, obstructing or incommoding,” the outlet reported.
Although the plot of each protest is the same, the subject matter changes from week to week.
This week, Fonda was protesting the damage caused to the oceans through climate change and pollution.
Next Friday, according to the Fire Drill Fridays website, the focus will be on women.
The protest will center on “promoting women’s rights, increasing women and girls’ education, advancing reproductive justice and centering women and girls in climate solutions,” the site said.
The protest leading into Veterans Day weekend will focus on the military.
“We are now spending over half of the federal government’s annual discretionary budget on the military when the biggest threat to US national security is not Iran or China, but the climate crisis,” the site said.
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