Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 210

Summers Over

Update #2:   Paul Krugman on Summers Gone.  Headline: "Freedom's just another word for nothing to lose."  By Janis Jobloss?

Update: Wall St. Journal has details.  Summers in letter to Obama:  "I have reluctantly concluded that any possible confirmation process for me would be acrimonious and would not serve the interest of the Federal Reserve, the Administration or, ultimately, the interests of the nation's ongoing economic recovery."

Earlier:  NYT breaking news headline with no details yet. "Lawrence H. Summers Withdraws Name for Job of Federal Reserve Chairman"

Wonder if he was caught fooling around online or something.  I'll update in a few minutes right here. 
 

Number of Nukes: Don't Ask Congress

Global Zero vid:  They asked congressmen how many nuclear weapons remain in the U.S. arsenal.   Most don't know or give wildly inaccurate guesses.   Correct answer:  7700 nukes, costing $60 billion a year.  As they note, Congress also can't explain why we need them or when we'd use them.  Although U.S. still has first-use policy.  And is only country to use them: See my book Atomic Cover-up.

Jerry and Linda, Back in the Day

Yes, Newsweek once ran a candid photo of Jerry Brown and Linda Ronstadt on its cover.

Speaking of Chemical Weapons: The Legacy of Agent Orange

Update:  Excellent L.A. Times piece today on U.S. itself having trouble living up to Chem Weapons treaty.  Along with Russia--we have more chems than anyone and have repeatedly blown deadlines for getting rid of them.

Earlier: Bob Kerr reminds us in new column.  (h/t Bob Plain).   I wrote about Agent Orange in my first book, back in 1980, profiling for the first time the woman at the V.A. in Chicago who was key to exposing it.   Kerr talks about the damage to our vets, but also:

On the other side, of course, it is far worse. The government of Vietnam estimates that 400,000 people were killed or maimed by Agent Orange, and 500,000 children were born with birth defects because of it.

I saw it firsthand when I went to Vietnam in 2003. I was taken to the home of a woman in the village of Dong Ha. It was just one room with a large bed in one corner, and it was where the woman raised her son, who was stick-thin and unable to move or speak. Doctors told her that Agent Orange was responsible. The woman, who had served in the South Vietnamese army, told me she did not blame American troops for what happened to her son. She blamed the people who had sent them.

Moving through Vietnam for two weeks, I saw other victims, including children on the streets of Hanoi who moved with a spastic, stumbling lurch while selling chewing gum.
We have never done right by the Vietnamese for the horror inflicted by Agent Orange, and we have never done right by the Americans who see the pain and the loss from it decades after the war’s end.

Kristof Still Wants War

Believe it or not, Nick Kristof in new column tonight, is STILL calling for bombing Syria. He argues that we simply must oppose crossing red lines in the use of inhumane weapons--yet in earlier column he supported the use of atomic bombs against Japan, killing at least 120,000 women and children and 50,000 others (and see my book here).  Kristof's hero Nelson Mandela pointed out how U.S. STILL suffers--around the world--from stain of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In today's column Kristof makes this argument:

A missile strike on Syrian military targets would result in no supplemental budget, so money would come from the existing military pot. In any case, the cost of 100 missiles would be about $70 million — far less than the $1 billion annual rate that we’re now spending on humanitarian aid for Syrians displaced by worsening war and by gas attacks. If a $70 million strike deters further gas attacks and reduces the ability of President Bashar al-Assad to bomb civilians, that might actually save us money in humanitarian spending.

Also notice how he is charging Assad with "presiding over" deaths of 100,000, even though most counts claim the rebels have slain up to half that number.   And admits "some" of the rebels "are vile."   Maybe three or four, you know. Artful.

Finally, he dishonestly  ignores the fact that if Obama had followed his call last week (and that of his colleague, Bill Keller) and started firing cruise missles then we would not have the current agreement to get rid of all of Syria's chemical agents without U.S.-caused bloodshed--which our bombing would not have come close to accomplishing.   Also, this agreement will, if carried out,  eliminate chance of those weapons falling into al-Qaeda hands.  Also, there will be no Assad retaliatory strikes and our bombs will not inflame much of the rest of the Muslim world against us.  

In a tweet yesterday, Kristof crowed that the "threat" of bombing that he backed was working and this produced the Syria/Russia offer.  Fair enough except--if Obama had actually gone ahead with the bombing already, as Kristof wished, there would have been no such offer. 

Summers Turns to Fall?

Hurrah. NYT tonight reports 3 key Democratic Senators will vote to oppose Larry Summers for the Fed, throwing his nomination in (further) doubt.  They are Sherrod Brown, Jon Tester and Jeff Merkley.

Republicans, too, are wary of Mr. Summers. Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican, and Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas have both said that they would not vote for Mr. Summers. In August, Mr. Roberts said, “I wouldn’t want Larry Summers to mow my yard.”

Amazing Feat

Biggest surprise of our trip to the Cape this week:  Guy with electric piano at small farmer's market in Truro, at 10 a.m., playing...Little Feat's "Fat Man in the Bathtub" (surely a farmer's market USA first), my favorite Feat song (and allegedly re: Brian Wilson).

Branding 'Genocide Quips'

I guess I was one of the first to link to Russell Brand's brilliant piece for the Guardian on his speech (re: Hugo Boss making uniforms for Nazis etc.) that got him in trouble so now....the offensive speech itself in video below!

First, from Wikipedia, a bit on Boss (and a 2011 Boss apology here):

Hugo Boss started his clothing company in 1924 in Metzingen, a small town south of Stuttgart, where it is still based. Due to the economic climate in Germany at the time, Boss was forced into bankruptcy. In 1931, he reached an agreement with his creditors, leaving him with six sewing machines to start again.

The same year 1931, he became a member of the National Socialist (Nazi) party and a sponsoring member ("Förderndes Mitglied") of the Schutzstaffel (SS) and his economic situation improved with their help. He later stated himself that he had joined the party because of their promise to end unemployment and because he felt "temporarily" withdrawn from the Lutheran church.

He joined the German Labour Front in 1936, the Reich Air Protection Association in 1939, and the National Socialist People's Welfare in 1941. His sales increased from 38,260 RM in 1932 to over 3,300,000 RM in 1941, while his profits increased in the same period from 5,000 RM to 241,000 RM. Though he claimed in a 1934/1935 advertising that he had been a "supplier for National Socialist uniforms since 1924", such supplies are probable since 1928/1929 and certain since 1934, when he became an Reichszeugmeisterei-licensed (official) supplier of uniforms to the Sturmabteilung, Schutzstaffel, Hitler Youth, National Socialist Motor Corps, and other party organizations.

To meet demand in later years of the war, Boss used about 30 to 40 prisoners of war and about 150 forced (i.e. slave) labourers, from the Baltic States, Belgium, France, Italy, Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union.[2] According to German historian Henning Kober, the company managers were "avowed Nazis", "the Boss were all great admirers of Adolf Hitler", and Hugo Boss himself had in 1945 in his apartment a photograph of himself with Hitler taken in the latter's Obersalzberg retreat.[3]

Sam Cooke: 'Wind' Led to 'Change'

I've posted previously that Sam Cooke, greatest male singer of our era, going back to his gospel days, was inspired to write "Change Gonna Come" (our greatest song) after he heard and recorded Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind"--believing that a black man should--must--write such a song.  So he went out and topped it, just before he died. But I didn't know there existed a tape of Sam doing Dylan live, on Shindig, in his final months.

Young Aretha

Frankly, didn't know she made a number of Shindig appearances, well before she was well-known, below from 1964 in a great tune, and yes that's Darlene Love in back-up group The Blossoms.