Author: Greg Mitchell

Reprinted with permission from Greg Mitchell’s newsletter Between Rock and a Hard Place.

Was great to see CNN’s Dana Bash trending on Twitter yesterday. Uh, what? Well, it transpired because thousands were bashing her (ahem) after she compared threats to Jews in the U.S. this week to dangers for them in Europe in the 1930s. She later claimed that anti-semitism is “raging across the U.S.” Joe Scarborough this morning called his MSNBC viewers “too stupid to see” that the protests were hurting Biden’s re-election prospects.

The most striking example of violence, however, took place at UCLA this week with about 200 counter-protestors attacking a pro-Palestine encampment (filled, as it happens, with many Jewish students) with fireworks and other objects, injuring about twenty-five as police stood by. Police were then ordered to clear the encampment early this morning, with dozens of arrests.

Continue reading “Student Sit-ins and Wild in the Streets: My Own Story, Back in 1968”

Reprinted with permission from Greg Mitchell’s newsletter Between Rock and a Hard Place.

Just back from New Orleans last night. After many trips from about 2001-2009, this was our first visit to a beloved city in quite awhile. I had posted last week about the trip but only in relation to the annual French Quarter Festival, as “forced secrecy” surrounded the true reason: Winning the top, and only, film award from the Organization of American Historians (OAH) – largest group of its kind – for the year’s best documentary or TV program, Atomic Cover-up (which I wrote and directed). It was presented Friday night at their annual conference, typically attended by 1500 or more folks.

Previous winners, going back decades, included many Oscar/Emmy winners and nominees, several by Ken Burns, and so forth. Of course, this is especially gratifying since I have, broadly speaking, been working on it since June 1982. But that’s another story. You might call it The Parts Left Out of Oppenheimer.

Continue reading “‘To Hear and Feel the Horror’”

Reprinted with permission from Greg Mitchell’s newsletter Oppenheimer: From Hiroshima to Hollywood.

Going back to last July, I have covered reactions to the Christopher Nolan movie in Japan – sight unseen, since it did not find a distributor there. Then a late-March opening was announced, and that did happen on Friday. Just in time for this brief SNL comment, a lie but with bite, that it had been released in Japan “without warning.”

But what do the Japanese think of it?

Continue reading “Oppenheimer Finally Opens in Japan”

Reprinted with permission from Greg Mitchell’s newsletter Oppenheimer: From Hiroshima to Hollywood.

When Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer was released last July, many predicted it would spark profound and long-lasting new activism, and official measures, with the aim of reducing nuclear risks and eliminating more of the weapons, perhaps down to zero. I cast doubt on this optimism, as I found the film far too weak in its messaging and its failure to truly confront the only use of the weapons in war and provide crucial lessons for today. Sadly, beyond a great number of articles, columns, TV segments, posts and special issues, a strong new antinuclear movement has failed to materialize and positive official actions have been few and far between.

This afternoon, I was interviewed for the public radio “World” national program for a segment on Oppenheimer shortcomings (which I have detailed at this Substack since early last July). You can listen to the 8-minute segment here.

Continue reading “Oppenheimer Cast Members, Stars, and Musicians Call for Nuclear Abolition”

Reprinted with permission from Greg Mitchell’s substack Between Rock and a Hard Place.

You may have read or heard about yesterday (if you were lucky, as the major media buried the story most of the day) that a senior U.S. airman named Aaron Bushnell, on active duty since 2020, doused himself with a clear liquid outside Israel’s embassy in Washington, D.C., and set himself afire, protesting U.S. support for what he called genocide in Gaza. “I will no longer be complicit in genocide,” he said into his phone. He died chanting “Free Palestine.” He also filmed the act on his phone, and excerpts or still images spread over social media. Memorial gatherings took place last night and are scheduled today in several cities here and abroad.

Continue reading “Setting Yourself on Fire to Protest a War”

Reprinted with permission from Greg Mitchell’s newsletter Oppenheimer: From Hiroshima to Hollywood.

You may be surprised – perhaps appalled or disgusted – that the object pictured above was sold at auction this week like any rare comic book, baseball card or painting by a past master. It is a burned, partly melted wristwatch, its hands permanently frozen in time. That time is just after 8:15, that precise moment in the morning when the first atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima, dooming 150,000 (about eighty percent of them civilians) to death.

Continue reading “Watch Melted By Hiroshima Blast Sold at Auction”