Vintage Immodesty: Naked Gunner

 

This young man displayed such heroism that Mandesty is willing to forgive his Classic Immodesty. From Rare Historical Photos:

This young crewman of a US Navy “Dumbo” PBY rescue mission has just jumped into the water of Rabaul Harbor to rescue a badly burned Marine pilot who was shot down while bombing the Japanese-held fortress of Rabaul. Since Japanese coastal defense guns were firing at the plane while it was in the water during take-off, this brave young man, after rescuing the pilot, manned his position as machine gunner without taking time to put on his clothes. A hero photographed right after he’d completed his heroic act. Naked.

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I bet you didn’t notice the enemy in this photo. Image taken by Horace Bristol, 1944
Vintage Immodesty: Naked Gunner
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This is the Time

If you know someone who was involved in resistance of some kind: Solidarność, Black Panthers, resistance movements in WW2, people who hid Jews during WW2, and so forth, NOW is the time to find out how they organized. How they got the systems in place to get people out. How they created the networks of information gathering and distribution.

While I hope that I am wrong, I fear that things are about to become even more difficult for oppressed minorities in the next few months. The global political climate is distressingly similar to the times leading up to both World Wars. There has been a trend towards fascism for some time now, with major political parties veering dangerously right. Essential human rights are treated as negotiable burdens by different governments. Too many people live in desperation borne not out of a lack of resources but because of restricted access with the majority of the world’s wealth concentrated in the hands of a privileged few, and their followers.

We have a new aristocracy, only now we call them CEOs, we call them politicians, and we call them “self-made men”. The sense of entitlement and of receiving what they’re due despite no actual merit remains the same. The greed remains the same, and so does the use of manipulation to convince those they have enslaved that their suffering is caused by those worse off then them. Continue reading “This is the Time”

This is the Time