Apocalypse Now? Plus: Dylan and Lennon in the Limo

Massive war crimes on the horizon but our usual cartoons and Bobby and Johnny.

Yes, it’s still somehow free to subscribe to this nearly daily newsletter, and if you are already a subscriber, let’s hear from you, thanks! Greg Mitchell is the author of fourteen books and director of four films for PBS since 2022.

If you missed Trump’s sermon yesterday morning (Easter said, then done?):

All day the major media downplayed it or in any case failed to reprint it or quote it in full. They expressed mainly muted reasons for alarm while focusing on one rescued airman vs. peril for tens of thousands of possibly soon-to-be-dead kids. Gosh, it took formerly crazy bastard Marjorie Taylor Greene to tell it like it is:

Everyone in his administration that claims to be a Christian needs to fall on their knees and beg forgiveness from God and stop worshipping the President and intervene in Trump’s madness. I know all of you and him and he has gone insane, and all of you are complicit.

Robert Reich declared: “I’ve never agreed with Marjorie Taylor Greene on anything, until today. The easiest explanation is the simplest: Trump is cornered, and he’s going stark-raving mad.”

Heather Cox Richardson raised nuclear concerns:

The post appears to be threatening to commit war crimes by attacking civilian infrastructure, and it appears to suggest Trump is considering using tactical nuclear weapons. He emphasized the production of such weapons in his first administration. He seemed to encourage this interpretation in an interview with Rachel Scott of ABC News today. She said Trump “told me the conflict should be over in days, not weeks but if no deal is made he’s blowing up the whole country with ‘very little’ off the table. ‘If [it] happens, it happens. And if it doesn’t, we’re blowing up the whole country,’ he said. I asked if there’s anything off limits. ‘Very little,’ he said.”

In 2023 a book by New York Times Washington correspondent Michael Schmidt alleged that in 2017, when Trump was warning North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on social media that North Korea would be “met with fire and fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before,” behind closed doors he was talking about launching a preemptive strike against North Korea and of using a nuclear weapon against the country and blaming someone else for the strike.

In his own book about that period, journalist Bob Woodward wrote: “The American people had little idea that July through September of 2017 had been so dangerous.”

And Paul Krugman, who we quoted yesterday, returned with with two posts ever more urgent warnings and calls for action:

I don’t know what Trump will do when his deadline passes and the Strait is still closed. He probably doesn’t know either. But he is promising to commit war crimes on a massive scale. And the duty of everyone with any influence who isn’t part of Trump’s inner circle is to do all they can to stop him.

Most immediately, military officers should be aware that they have the right and the duty to disobey illegal orders. It’s incredible that we have gotten to this point, especially so quickly, but here we are. You may recall that Admiral Alvin Holsey resigned in December, reportedly because he refused to be a party to illegal attacks on supposed drug boats. What Trump is now saying he will do is infinitely worse. And a refusal by senior officers to participate in war crimes may be the only thing that could stop this evil in its tracks.

Now is when we find out how completely our once honorable military has been corrupted.

Beyond the military, every politician, dare I say every public figure, in America should make it clear that Trump is not acting in their name.

This is not a time for Republicans who know — and most of them do know — that Trump has gone completely off the rails to remain obsequious for fear that he might endorse their primary opponents. One hopes that there are still a few genuine patriots left on that side of the aisle.

It is also not a time for Democrats to listen to strategists who urge them to stay silent on foreign policy and talk only about grocery prices. As it happens, that’s even bad political advice: Public disdain for Congressional Democrats has a lot to do with perceptions that they are weak and ineffectual, and ignoring Trump’s criminal madness will only reinforce that perception. And there has been no rally-around-the-flag effect from this war, which is growing more unpopular by the day.

But in any case, political considerations should take a back seat to civic duty.

The horrible but undeniable fact right now is that America has a terrorist president. And the whole world knows it. But we still have a chance to show the world that he is an aberration, that we are not a terrorist nation. And we can do that by standing up for the values that have always defined us.

»»»»»>I will make this further suggestion: My recent film, “The Atomic Bowl,” is still up at the PBS.org site. It explores how the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, which targeted and killed almost no one but civilians (at least 80,000 in number), has influenced our acceptance of such war crimes ever since. For a concise focus on this, you can right go the 44:30 mark and watch a few minutes, narrated by Peter Coyote, if you wish. Thank you.

Music Picks

A major piece at The New York Times today on a meeting of the Gods in London in 1966…in the back seat of a limo. It was the stuff of rumor for years if not decades: a drug-addled Bob Dylan about to collapse near the end of a world tour at the height of his fame (and attacks against him) on a seemingly aimless early morning drive with none other than a local named John Lennon. It was filmed by the great D.A. Pennebaker (from the front seat) for the canceled ABC special “Eat the Document,” which itself disappeared, along with the tape of the limo ride. I finally saw both in the early 1990s on bootleg VHS.

Anyway, the mobile summit meeting was best known for leading to Dylan throwing up at the end, while John, for his part, seemed relatively sober. But with poor quality it was hard to make out half of what they said or even what subjects they were talking or joking about. Now the Times piece unravels some of it, and it’s something I’ve written about previously here: Dylan being pissed enough about John copying his “style” with “Norwegian Wood” that he wrote a kind of parody of it for his epic “Blonde on Blonde” album, “Fourth Time Around.” Now the Times’ writer connects the entire car ride, and some of the dialogue, to that dispute. Much too much to recount here, so just follow the link, watch a remastered version of the ride below, with subtitles no less, plus the two songs in question. All before the world blows up tomorrow night!

From Tunes to Toons

Granlund:

Rodriquez:

Ratt:

Daginski:

Photo Finish

This could only be one place….