#1940s — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #1940s, aggregated by home.social.
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Some of you might be interested in this.. a blog with a lot of recipes based on UK wartime food rations with copies of the original leaflets from Ministry of Food. #1940s #1940sExperiment #recipes #FrugalFood #WW2 #rationing https://the1940sexperiment.com/
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A Retrospective on Eve Arden’s Career and Portraits in the 1940s
📰 Original title: 30 Stunning Portraits of Eve Arden in the 1940s
🤖 IA: It's clickbait ⚠️
👥 Users: It's clickbait ⚠️ -
May 6,1948 and Bing Crosby Enjoys His Philco '706' at Vintage Edmonton:
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More #vintagecrime content from the June 1940 edition of 'The Strand Magazine'. 'The Clue In The Sky', a story by Carter Dickson (John Dickson Carr) featuring Inspector March, whom Boris Karloff played in a TV series in the 1950s. #detection #detectives #crime #crimefiction #BorisKarloff #1940s
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More #vintagecrime content from the June 1940 edition of 'The Strand Magazine'. 'The Clue In The Sky', a story by Carter Dickson (John Dickson Carr) featuring Inspector March, whom Boris Karloff played in a TV series in the 1950s. #detection #detectives #crime #crimefiction #BorisKarloff #1940s
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#NowPlaying #1940s #vintage #music from #gramophone recordings - to nurture my food plant seed babies, sleeping under my heated blanket 🌱💚🎶💚🎵💚🌱
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fBrUoqiIID4&pp=iggCQAE%3D
#PlantLovers #SeedLovers #PlantObsession #ILoveSeeds #ILovePlants #TLCForSeeds #LoveThySeedBabies #PleaseSprout
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‘Forlorn!’
Original artist: Walter Molino (1945)
#pinup #Italian #magazines #WalterMolino #Penciller #comic #cartoon #1940s #WW2 #Gong
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Stanley Kubrick Shot These Photos on the New York Subway After Midnight in the 1940s https://petapixel.com/2026/04/17/stanley-kubrick-shot-these-photos-on-the-new-york-subway-after-midnight-in-the-1940s/ #streetphotography #stanleykubrick #Spotlight #Features #midnight #newyork #Analog #subway #1940s #News
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Stanley Kubrick Shot These Photos on the New York Subway After Midnight in the 1940s https://petapixel.com/2026/04/17/stanley-kubrick-shot-these-photos-on-the-new-york-subway-after-midnight-in-the-1940s/ #streetphotography #stanleykubrick #Spotlight #Features #midnight #newyork #Analog #subway #1940s #News
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Stanley Kubrick Shot These Photos on the New York Subway After Midnight in the 1940s https://petapixel.com/2026/04/17/stanley-kubrick-shot-these-photos-on-the-new-york-subway-after-midnight-in-the-1940s/ #streetphotography #stanleykubrick #Spotlight #Features #midnight #newyork #Analog #subway #1940s #News
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Stanley Kubrick Shot These Photos on the New York Subway After Midnight in the 1940s https://petapixel.com/2026/04/17/stanley-kubrick-shot-these-photos-on-the-new-york-subway-after-midnight-in-the-1940s/ #streetphotography #stanleykubrick #Spotlight #Features #midnight #newyork #Analog #subway #1940s #News
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Stanley Kubrick Shot These Photos on the New York Subway After Midnight in the 1940s https://petapixel.com/2026/04/17/stanley-kubrick-shot-these-photos-on-the-new-york-subway-after-midnight-in-the-1940s/ #streetphotography #stanleykubrick #Spotlight #Features #midnight #newyork #Analog #subway #1940s #News
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Not surprisingly, I've acquired quite a few old photos recently, so I really have no excuse NOT to do #ThrowbackThursday from now on.
Here's my late Dad as a wee baby, back in the summer of 1942.
He was born in North End Avenue in Portsmouth - not St Mary's Hospital like many Portsmouthians were.
#Baby #OldPhoto #ScannedPhoto #1940s #Photography #Portsmouth
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More Gay Sailors
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More Gay Sailors
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More Gay Sailors
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Does anyone have any suggestions for sources of photography from Spain in the 1940s and 1950s?
I'm especially interested in images showing signs from those decades and, more specifically, hand-painted signs, so suspect images from bigger cities will be most fruitful.
Thanks in advance for any leads, and please boost to reach others that may be able to help.
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‘Ready for duty!’
Source: ‘The Bluebird Belles’
‘Scott Carruthers Photography’#BluebirdBelles #retro #military #women #WW2 #aircraft #pinup #uniforms #1940s #monochrome #RAF #WRAF #uniforms #ScottCarruthersPhotography
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‘Ready for duty!’
Source: ‘The Bluebird Belles’
‘Scott Carruthers Photography’#BluebirdBelles #retro #military #women #WW2 #aircraft #pinup #uniforms #1940s #monochrome #RAF #WRAF #uniforms #ScottCarruthersPhotography
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‘Ready for duty!’
Source: ‘The Bluebird Belles’
‘Scott Carruthers Photography’#BluebirdBelles #retro #military #women #WW2 #aircraft #pinup #uniforms #1940s #monochrome #RAF #WRAF #uniforms #ScottCarruthersPhotography
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‘Ready for duty!’
Source: ‘The Bluebird Belles’
‘Scott Carruthers Photography’#BluebirdBelles #retro #military #women #WW2 #aircraft #pinup #uniforms #1940s #monochrome #RAF #WRAF #uniforms #ScottCarruthersPhotography
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‘Bunny Girl!’
American actress: Mary Brodel (1940)
#pinup #GoldenAge #Hollywood #1940s #WW2 #Easter #Bunny #Egg #MaryBrodel #monochrome #americana
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"IMG_9909 Max Beckmann. 1884-1950. Reclining Woman with Pinks. Femme couchée avec des roses. vers 1941. Hannover. Sprengel Museum." by jean louis mazieres is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
#Art #Painting #MaxBeckmann #GermanArt #20thCenturyArt #1940s
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Josef Albers, “Ascension” (Danilowitz 100), 1942, lithograph, 43.7 × 20.7 cm ★ Germany/USA ★ https://whitney.org/collection/works/3418 #JosefAlbers #modernart #moderngraphics #Bauhaus #abstractart #geometric #opart #ascension #lithographs #citations #artstars #BlackMountainCollege #1940s
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early op art
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«Для меня абстракция реальна, вероятно, реальнее природы. Я пойду дальше и скажу, что абстракция ближе моему сердцу. Я предпочитаю видеть с закрытыми глазами».
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CW: Lingerie photoshoot
‘Best leg forward!’
Neiman Marcus Department Store, USA (1941)
#NeimanMarcus #1940s #DepartmentStore #stockings #WW2 #Fashion #Pinup #NSFW #Style #USA #americana
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‘Earworm!’
Original artist: Walter Molino (1947)
#pinup #Italian #magazines #WalterMolino #Penciller #comic #cartoon #1940s #WW2 #Gong
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Plongez dans "Le cercle démocratique" de Fred Turner : une plongée captivante sur la propagande américaine des années 1940. Indispensable pour comprendre médias, pouvoir et histoire. À voir absolument! #French #Histoire #Propagande #1940s #EtatsUnis #FredTurner #Documentaire #Médias
https://cfnumerique.tv/videos/watch/61c210b3-8bad-4bdf-a2e5-cc47ec5365f3 -
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Short Book Reviews: Fritz Leiber, Jr.’s Gather, Darkness! (1943, novelized 1950) and Gillian Freeman’s The Leader (1965)
Note: My read but “waiting to be reviewed pile” is growing. Short rumination/tangents/impressions are a way to get through the stack before my memory and will fades. My website partially serves as a record of what I have read and a memory palace for future projects. Stay tuned for more detailed and analytical reviews.
1. Fritz Leiber’s Gather, Darkness! (1943, novelized 1950)
- Uncredited cover for the 1950 1st hardback edition
3.25/5 (Above Average)
Frtiz Leiber’s Gather, Darkness! first appeared across the May, June, and July 1943 issues of Astounding Science-Fiction, ed. John W. Campbell, Jr. It was novelized in 1950. Written in the midst of WWII, Gather, Darkness! is a product of an important moment in Leiber’s life. The previous year he abandoned his profession as a speech and drama instructor at Occidental College (1941-1942) and decided that “the struggle against fascism mattered more than his long-held pacifist convictions.” He joined Douglas Aircraft as a quality inspector and continued to publish science fiction.1
Gather, Darkness! likewise imagines a just war, in this case against an all-encompassing technocracy. This technocracy birthed from cataclysm dolls up their technologies—including a looming “Almighty Automation” (17) that literally smites those who defy from above–as a religion. It’s here where Leiber fascinates. While the scientists theoretically know that there is no cosmic power behind their inventions and manipulations of the masses, they can’t resist interpreting their own actions as either some part of a divine plan or spiritual vision or secretly believing their own religious invocations meant to control and manage the crowds.2 The scientists fall victim to their own invented religion. The story, told from a variety of viewpoints within and outside the technocracy, follows Brother Jarles, an idealistic young man, who attempts to convince others of the Great God’s sham. Jarles is an appealing character. Resistance isn’t enough. There must be a believable moral stratum supporting all actions. Simultaneously, another force appears to be at work—using similar technological tricks to manipulate and subvert. The population, and even those within the Apex Council, view the rebellion through a religious lens. There’s witchcraft afoot!
It’s all told with an exciting visual and textual exuberance. There’s brainwashing, a half-hearted love story, escapes through the tunnels of the old civilization, strange new technologies, plots and plots and plots, and an endless sequence of holographic permutations. However, it reads as a grandiose pulp adventure that never pauses long enough to consider its own ruminative implications. I imagine it was still one of the better works to appear in those early days of Campbell, Jr.’s Astounding. If you’re new to Leiber’s work, I recommend starting with his Hugo-winning The Big Time (1958) or spectacular short stories like “Coming Attraction” (1950), “The Moon is Green” (1952), “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes” (1949), and “A Bad Day for Sales” (1953). He certainly hit his stride in the 1950s.
Somewhat recommended for fans of 40s science fiction and Fritz Leiber completists.
2. Gillian Freeman’s The Leader (1965)
- Uncredited cover for the 1st edition
3.5/5 (Good)
First, the inevitable “is this genre” question: maybe? SF Encyclopedia suggests, and this time I support John Clute’s entry, that The Leader (1965) is set in a “kind of near future dystopian UK” that charts the emergence of Britain First, a fascist, anti-Semitic, and nativist political party.3 Gillian Freeman (1929-2019) does not directly indicate a date. If it’s near-future, it’s the sense that it was moments from her now. Freeman strikes an interesting figure. She was a Jewish author who wrote an important early novel of gay love, The Leather Boys (1961). She turned her novel into a screenplay for the 1964 film of the same name and even wrote the screenplay to Robert Altman’s early psychological thriller The Cold Day in the Park (1969). To the best of my knowledge, The Leader is her only work that could be described as science fiction.
There’s an effective incremental terror to the proceedings. The novel builds step-by-step through its relentless logic made all the more uncomfortable by historical parallels and references. Freeman deliberately positions the origin of the native fascism within the “respectable” middle classes of Britain–the bankers, the office workers, the veterans, and the educated youth. She elides contemporary fetishization of Nazi artifacts and memorabilia with far more sinister obsessions. As a visitor pointed out two years ago when I purchased the book, Freeman’s text harkens to earlier manifestations of that “fragmented-but-organized neo-Nazi contingent in the UK that’s never really gone away and continues to work its way into various subcultural spaces.”4 It’s a hard read made all the more chilling due to the rise in right-wing nationalist groups in the US that openly espouse anti-Semitic views.5
If you’re a sucker for British near-future dystopias then check this one out. It’s of the unsettlingly real variety that will get under your skin and horrify.6
Notes
- See the Wikipedia entry on Leiber. I’m still waiting for a volume on his work from the U. Illinois Modern Masters of Science Fiction series! ↩︎
- I’d love to procure a copy of William E. Akin’s Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocrat Movement, 1900-1941 (1977). I imagine that Leiber’s satire is a bit more targeted than I can ascertain at the moment. Thankfully there’s a copy online here. ↩︎
- See SF Encyclopedia. Clute does incorrectly state the publication date as 1966 instead of 1965. I can’t help but think of all of Trump’s “America First” proclamations. ↩︎
- Jim J here. ↩︎
- This chart lists the anti-Semitic incidents in the US by year from 1979 to the present. While only 2% of the American population is Jewish, they’re the target of almost 70% of the reported religiously motivated hate crimes. Of course, I don’t have to remind you of incidents outside the US either — the 2025 Bondi Beach shooting in Sydney, Australia should immediately come to mind. ↩︎
- I recently acquired a copy of Andrew Hammond’s Cold War Stories: British Dystopian Fiction, 1945-1990 (2017). While Freeman is not mentioned, I’ve added many more exemplars of this subgenre to my list to purchase and cover. ↩︎
For book reviews consult the INDEX
For cover art posts consult the INDEX
For TV and film reviews consult the INDEX
#1940s #1950s #1960s #bookReviews #books #dystopia #fascism #paperbacks #sciFi #scienceFiction #technology -
Short Book Reviews: Fritz Leiber’s Gather, Darkness! (1943, novelized 1950) and Gillian Freeman’s The Leader (1965)
Note: My read but “waiting to be reviewed pile” is growing. Short rumination/tangents/impressions are a way to get through the stack before my memory and will fades. My website partially serves as a record of what I have read and a memory palace for future projects. Stay tuned for more detailed and analytical reviews.
1. Fritz Leiber’s Gather, Darkness! (1943, novelized 1950)
- Uncredited cover for the 1950 1st hardback edition
3.25/5 (Above Average)
Frtiz Leiber’s Gather, Darkness! first appeared across the May, June, and July 1943 issues of Astounding Science-Fiction, ed. John W. Campbell, Jr. It was novelized in 1950. Written in the midst of WWII, Gather, Darkness! is a product of an important moment in Leiber’s life. The previous year he abandoned his profession as a speech and drama instructor at Occidental College (1941-1942) and decided that “the struggle against fascism mattered more than his long-help pacifist convictions.” He joined Douglas Aircraft as a quality inspector and continued to publish science fiction.1
Gather, Darkness! likewise imagines a just war, in this case against an all-encompassing technocracy. This technocracy birthed from cataclysm dolls up their technologies—including a looming “Almighty Automation” (17) that literally smites those who defy from above–as a religion. It’s here where Leiber fascinates. While the scientists theoretically know that there is no cosmic power behind their inventions and manipulations of the masses, they can’t resist interpreting their own actions as either some part of a divine plan or spiritual vision or secretly believing their own religious invocations meant to control and manage the crowds.2 The scientists fall victim to their own invented religion. The story, told from a variety of viewpoints within and outside the technocracy, follows Brother Jarles, an idealistic young man, who attempts to convince others of the Great God’s sham. Jarles is an appealing character. Resistance isn’t enough. There must be a believable moral stratum supporting all actions. Simultaneously, another force appears to be at work—using similar technological tricks to manipulate and subvert. The population, and even those within the Apex Council, view the rebellion through a religious lens. There’s witchcraft afoot!
It’s all told with an exciting visual and textual exuberance. There’s brainwashing, a half-hearted love story, escapes through the tunnels of the old civilization, strange new technologies, plots and plots and plots, and an endless sequence of holographic permutations. However, it reads as a grandiose pulp adventure that never pauses long enough to consider its own ruminative implications. I imagine it was still one of the better works to appear in those early days of Campbell, Jr.’s Astounding. If you’re new to Leiber’s work, I recommend starting with his Hugo-winning The Big Time (1958) or spectacular short stories like “Coming Attraction” (1950), “The Moon is Green” (1952), “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes” (1949), and “A Bad Day for Sales” (1953). He certainly hit his stride in the 1950s.
Somewhat recommended for fans of 40s science fiction and Fritz Leiber completists.
2. Gillian Freeman’s The Leader (1965)
- Uncredited cover for the 1st edition
3.5/5 (Good)
First, the inevitable “is this genre” question: maybe? SF Encyclopedia suggests, and this time I support John Clute’s entry, that The Leader (1965) is set in a “kind of near future dystopian UK” that charts the emergence of Britain First, a fascist, anti-Semitic, and nativist political party.3 Gillian Freeman (1929-2019) does not directly indicate a date. If it’s near-future, it’s the sense that it was moments from her now. Freeman strikes an interesting figure. She was a Jewish author who wrote an important early novel of gay love, The Leather Boys (1961). She turned her novel into a screenplay for the 1964 film of the same name and even wrote the screenplay to Robert Altman’s early psychological thriller The Cold Day in the Park (1969). To the best of my knowledge, The Leader is her only work that could be described as science fiction.
There’s an effective incremental terror to the proceedings. The novel builds step-by-step through its relentless logic made all the more uncomfortable by historical parallels and references. Freeman deliberately positions the origin of the native fascism within the “respectable” middle classes of Britain–the bankers, the office workers, the veterans, and the educated youth. She elides contemporary fetishization of Nazi artifacts and memorabilia with far more sinister obsessions. As a visitor pointed out two years ago when I purchased the book, Freeman’s text harkens to earlier manifestations of that “fragmented-but-organized neo-Nazi contingent in the UK that’s never really gone away and continues to work its way into various subcultural spaces.”4 It’s a hard read made all the more chilling due to the rise in right-wing nationalist groups in the US that openly espouse anti-Semitic views.5
If you’re a sucker for British near-future dystopias then check this one out. It’s of the unsettlingly real variety that will get under your skin and horrify.6
Notes
- See the Wikipedia entry on Leiber. I’m still waiting for a volume on his work from the U. Illinois Modern Masters of Science Fiction series! ↩︎
- I’d love to procure a copy of William E. Akin’s Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocrat Movement, 1900-1941 (1977). I imagine that Leiber’s satire is a bit more targeted than I can ascertain at the moment. Thankfully there’s a copy online here. ↩︎
- See SF Encyclopedia. Clute does incorrectly state the publication date as 1966 instead of 1965. I can’t help but think of all of Trump’s “America First” proclamations. ↩︎
- Jim J here. ↩︎
- This chart lists the anti-Semitic incidents in the US by year from 1979 to the present. While only 2% of the American population is Jewish, they’re the target of almost 70% of the reported religiously motivated hate crimes. Of course, I don’t have to remind you of incidents outside the US either — the 2025 Bondi Beach shooting in Sydney, Australia should immediately come to mind. ↩︎
- I recently acquired a copy of Andrew Hammond’s Cold War Stories: British Dystopian Fiction, 1945-1990 (2017). While Freeman is not mentioned, I’ve added many more exemplars of this subgenre to my list to purchase and cover. ↩︎
For book reviews consult the INDEX
For cover art posts consult the INDEX
For TV and film reviews consult the INDEX
#1940s #1950s #1960s #bookReviews #books #dystopia #fascism #paperbacks #sciFi #scienceFiction #technology -
Short Book Reviews: Fritz Leiber’s Gather, Darkness! (1943, novelized 1950) and Gillian Freeman’s The Leader (1965)
Note: My read but “waiting to be reviewed pile” is growing. Short rumination/tangents/impressions are a way to get through the stack before my memory and will fades. My website partially serves as a record of what I have read and a memory palace for future projects. Stay tuned for more detailed and analytical reviews.
1. Fritz Leiber’s Gather, Darkness! (1943, novelized 1950)
- Uncredited cover for the 1950 1st hardback edition
3.25/5 (Above Average)
Frtiz Leiber’s Gather, Darkness! first appeared across the May, June, and July 1943 issues of Astounding Science-Fiction, ed. John W. Campbell, Jr. It was novelized in 1950. Written in the midst of WWII, Gather, Darkness! is a product of an important moment in Leiber’s life. The previous year he abandoned his profession as a speech and drama instructor at Occidental College (1941-1942) and decided that “the struggle against fascism mattered more than his long-help pacifist convictions.” He joined Douglas Aircraft as a quality inspector and continued to publish science fiction.1
Gather, Darkness! likewise imagines a just war, in this case against an all-encompassing technocracy. This technocracy birthed from cataclysm dolls up their technologies—including a looming “Almighty Automation” (17) that literally smites those who defy from above–as a religion. It’s here where Leiber fascinates. While the scientists theoretically know that there is no cosmic power behind their inventions and manipulations of the masses, they can’t resist interpreting their own actions as either some part of a divine plan or spiritual vision or secretly believing their own religious invocations meant to control and manage the crowds.2 The scientists fall victim to their own invented religion. The story, told from a variety of viewpoints within and outside the technocracy, follows Brother Jarles, an idealistic young man, who attempts to convince others of the Great God’s sham. Jarles is an appealing character. Resistance isn’t enough. There must be a believable moral stratum supporting all actions. Simultaneously, another force appears to be at work—using similar technological tricks to manipulate and subvert. The population, and even those within the Apex Council, view the rebellion through a religious lens. There’s witchcraft afoot!
It’s all told with an exciting visual and textual exuberance. There’s brainwashing, a half-hearted love story, escapes through the tunnels of the old civilization, strange new technologies, plots and plots and plots, and an endless sequence of holographic permutations. However, it reads as a grandiose pulp adventure that never pauses long enough to consider its own ruminative implications. I imagine it was still one of the better works to appear in those early days of Campbell, Jr.’s Astounding. If you’re new to Leiber’s work, I recommend starting with his Hugo-winning The Big Time (1958) or spectacular short stories like “Coming Attraction” (1950), “The Moon is Green” (1952), “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes” (1949), and “A Bad Day for Sales” (1953). He certainly hit his stride in the 1950s.
Somewhat recommended for fans of 40s science fiction and Fritz Leiber completists.
2. Gillian Freeman’s The Leader (1965)
- Uncredited cover for the 1st edition
3.5/5 (Good)
First, the inevitable “is this genre” question: maybe? SF Encyclopedia suggests, and this time I support John Clute’s entry, that The Leader (1965) is set in a “kind of near future dystopian UK” that charts the emergence of Britain First, a fascist, anti-Semitic, and nativist political party.3 Gillian Freeman (1929-2019) does not directly indicate a date. If it’s near-future, it’s the sense that it was moments from her now. Freeman strikes an interesting figure. She was a Jewish author who wrote an important early novel of gay love, The Leather Boys (1961). She turned her novel into a screenplay for the 1964 film of the same name and even wrote the screenplay to Robert Altman’s early psychological thriller The Cold Day in the Park (1969). To the best of my knowledge, The Leader is her only work that could be described as science fiction.
There’s an effective incremental terror to the proceedings. The novel builds step-by-step through its relentless logic made all the more uncomfortable by historical parallels and references. Freeman deliberately positions the origin of the native fascism within the “respectable” middle classes of Britain–the bankers, the office workers, the veterans, and the educated youth. She elides contemporary fetishization of Nazi artifacts and memorabilia with far more sinister obsessions. As a visitor pointed out two years ago when I purchased the book, Freeman’s text harkens to earlier manifestations of that “fragmented-but-organized neo-Nazi contingent in the UK that’s never really gone away and continues to work its way into various subcultural spaces.”4 It’s a hard read made all the more chilling due to the rise in right-wing nationalist groups in the US that openly espouse anti-Semitic views.5
If you’re a sucker for British near-future dystopias then check this one out. It’s of the unsettlingly real variety that will get under your skin and horrify.6
Notes
- See the Wikipedia entry on Leiber. I’m still waiting for a volume on his work from the U. Illinois Modern Masters of Science Fiction series! ↩︎
- I’d love to procure a copy of William E. Akin’s Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocrat Movement, 1900-1941 (1977). I imagine that Leiber’s satire is a bit more targeted than I can ascertain at the moment. Thankfully there’s a copy online here. ↩︎
- See SF Encyclopedia. Clute does incorrectly state the publication date as 1966 instead of 1965. I can’t help but think of all of Trump’s “America First” proclamations. ↩︎
- Jim J here. ↩︎
- This chart lists the anti-Semitic incidents in the US by year from 1979 to the present. While only 2% of the American population is Jewish, they’re the target of almost 70% of the reported religiously motivated hate crimes. Of course, I don’t have to remind you of incidents outside the US either — the 2025 Bondi Beach shooting in Sydney, Australia should immediately come to mind. ↩︎
- I recently acquired a copy of Andrew Hammond’s Cold War Stories: British Dystopian Fiction, 1945-1990 (2017). While Freeman is not mentioned, I’ve added many more exemplars of this subgenre to my list to purchase and cover. ↩︎
For book reviews consult the INDEX
For cover art posts consult the INDEX
For TV and film reviews consult the INDEX
#1940s #1950s #1960s #bookReviews #books #dystopia #fascism #paperbacks #sciFi #scienceFiction #technology -
Short Book Reviews: Fritz Leiber, Jr.’s Gather, Darkness! (1943, novelized 1950) and Gillian Freeman’s The Leader (1965)
Note: My read but “waiting to be reviewed pile” is growing. Short rumination/tangents/impressions are a way to get through the stack before my memory and will fades. My website partially serves as a record of what I have read and a memory palace for future projects. Stay tuned for more detailed and analytical reviews.
1. Fritz Leiber’s Gather, Darkness! (1943, novelized 1950)
- Uncredited cover for the 1950 1st hardback edition
3.25/5 (Above Average)
Frtiz Leiber’s Gather, Darkness! first appeared across the May, June, and July 1943 issues of Astounding Science-Fiction, ed. John W. Campbell, Jr. It was novelized in 1950. Written in the midst of WWII, Gather, Darkness! is a product of an important moment in Leiber’s life. The previous year he abandoned his profession as a speech and drama instructor at Occidental College (1941-1942) and decided that “the struggle against fascism mattered more than his long-held pacifist convictions.” He joined Douglas Aircraft as a quality inspector and continued to publish science fiction.1
Gather, Darkness! likewise imagines a just war, in this case against an all-encompassing technocracy. This technocracy birthed from cataclysm dolls up their technologies—including a looming “Almighty Automation” (17) that literally smites those who defy from above–as a religion. It’s here where Leiber fascinates. While the scientists theoretically know that there is no cosmic power behind their inventions and manipulations of the masses, they can’t resist interpreting their own actions as either some part of a divine plan or spiritual vision or secretly believing their own religious invocations meant to control and manage the crowds.2 The scientists fall victim to their own invented religion. The story, told from a variety of viewpoints within and outside the technocracy, follows Brother Jarles, an idealistic young man, who attempts to convince others of the Great God’s sham. Jarles is an appealing character. Resistance isn’t enough. There must be a believable moral stratum supporting all actions. Simultaneously, another force appears to be at work—using similar technological tricks to manipulate and subvert. The population, and even those within the Apex Council, view the rebellion through a religious lens. There’s witchcraft afoot!
It’s all told with an exciting visual and textual exuberance. There’s brainwashing, a half-hearted love story, escapes through the tunnels of the old civilization, strange new technologies, plots and plots and plots, and an endless sequence of holographic permutations. However, it reads as a grandiose pulp adventure that never pauses long enough to consider its own ruminative implications. I imagine it was still one of the better works to appear in those early days of Campbell, Jr.’s Astounding. If you’re new to Leiber’s work, I recommend starting with his Hugo-winning The Big Time (1958) or spectacular short stories like “Coming Attraction” (1950), “The Moon is Green” (1952), “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes” (1949), and “A Bad Day for Sales” (1953). He certainly hit his stride in the 1950s.
Somewhat recommended for fans of 40s science fiction and Fritz Leiber completists.
2. Gillian Freeman’s The Leader (1965)
- Uncredited cover for the 1st edition
3.5/5 (Good)
First, the inevitable “is this genre” question: maybe? SF Encyclopedia suggests, and this time I support John Clute’s entry, that The Leader (1965) is set in a “kind of near future dystopian UK” that charts the emergence of Britain First, a fascist, anti-Semitic, and nativist political party.3 Gillian Freeman (1929-2019) does not directly indicate a date. If it’s near-future, it’s the sense that it was moments from her now. Freeman strikes an interesting figure. She was a Jewish author who wrote an important early novel of gay love, The Leather Boys (1961). She turned her novel into a screenplay for the 1964 film of the same name and even wrote the screenplay to Robert Altman’s early psychological thriller The Cold Day in the Park (1969). To the best of my knowledge, The Leader is her only work that could be described as science fiction.
There’s an effective incremental terror to the proceedings. The novel builds step-by-step through its relentless logic made all the more uncomfortable by historical parallels and references. Freeman deliberately positions the origin of the native fascism within the “respectable” middle classes of Britain–the bankers, the office workers, the veterans, and the educated youth. She elides contemporary fetishization of Nazi artifacts and memorabilia with far more sinister obsessions. As a visitor pointed out two years ago when I purchased the book, Freeman’s text harkens to earlier manifestations of that “fragmented-but-organized neo-Nazi contingent in the UK that’s never really gone away and continues to work its way into various subcultural spaces.”4 It’s a hard read made all the more chilling due to the rise in right-wing nationalist groups in the US that openly espouse anti-Semitic views.5
If you’re a sucker for British near-future dystopias then check this one out. It’s of the unsettlingly real variety that will get under your skin and horrify.6
Notes
- See the Wikipedia entry on Leiber. I’m still waiting for a volume on his work from the U. Illinois Modern Masters of Science Fiction series! ↩︎
- I’d love to procure a copy of William E. Akin’s Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocrat Movement, 1900-1941 (1977). I imagine that Leiber’s satire is a bit more targeted than I can ascertain at the moment. Thankfully there’s a copy online here. ↩︎
- See SF Encyclopedia. Clute does incorrectly state the publication date as 1966 instead of 1965. I can’t help but think of all of Trump’s “America First” proclamations. ↩︎
- Jim J here. ↩︎
- This chart lists the anti-Semitic incidents in the US by year from 1979 to the present. While only 2% of the American population is Jewish, they’re the target of almost 70% of the reported religiously motivated hate crimes. Of course, I don’t have to remind you of incidents outside the US either — the 2025 Bondi Beach shooting in Sydney, Australia should immediately come to mind. ↩︎
- I recently acquired a copy of Andrew Hammond’s Cold War Stories: British Dystopian Fiction, 1945-1990 (2017). While Freeman is not mentioned, I’ve added many more exemplars of this subgenre to my list to purchase and cover. ↩︎
For book reviews consult the INDEX
For cover art posts consult the INDEX
For TV and film reviews consult the INDEX
#1940s #1950s #1960s #bookReviews #books #dystopia #fascism #paperbacks #sciFi #scienceFiction #technology -
Short Book Reviews: Fritz Leiber’s Gather, Darkness! (1943, novelized 1950) and Gillian Freeman’s The Leader (1965)
Note: My read but “waiting to be reviewed pile” is growing. Short rumination/tangents/impressions are a way to get through the stack before my memory and will fades. My website partially serves as a record of what I have read and a memory palace for future projects. Stay tuned for more detailed and analytical reviews.
1. Fritz Leiber’s Gather, Darkness! (1943, novelized 1950)
- Uncredited cover for the 1950 1st hardback edition
3.25/5 (Above Average)
Frtiz Leiber’s Gather, Darkness! first appeared across the May, June, and July 1943 issues of Astounding Science-Fiction, ed. John W. Campbell, Jr. It was novelized in 1950. Written in the midst of WWII, Gather, Darkness! is a product of an important moment in Leiber’s life. The previous year he abandoned his profession as a speech and drama instructor at Occidental College (1941-1942) and decided that “the struggle against fascism mattered more than his long-help pacifist convictions.” He joined Douglas Aircraft as a quality inspector and continued to publish science fiction.1
Gather, Darkness! likewise imagines a just war, in this case against an all-encompassing technocracy. This technocracy birthed from cataclysm dolls up their technologies—including a looming “Almighty Automation” (17) that literally smites those who defy from above–as a religion. It’s here where Leiber fascinates. While the scientists theoretically know that there is no cosmic power behind their inventions and manipulations of the masses, they can’t resist interpreting their own actions as either some part of a divine plan or spiritual vision or secretly believing their own religious invocations meant to control and manage the crowds.2 The scientists fall victim to their own invented religion. The story, told from a variety of viewpoints within and outside the technocracy, follows Brother Jarles, an idealistic young man, who attempts to convince others of the Great God’s sham. Jarles is an appealing character. Resistance isn’t enough. There must be a believable moral stratum supporting all actions. Simultaneously, another force appears to be at work—using similar technological tricks to manipulate and subvert. The population, and even those within the Apex Council, view the rebellion through a religious lens. There’s witchcraft afoot!
It’s all told with an exciting visual and textual exuberance. There’s brainwashing, a half-hearted love story, escapes through the tunnels of the old civilization, strange new technologies, plots and plots and plots, and an endless sequence of holographic permutations. However, it reads as a grandiose pulp adventure that never pauses long enough to consider its own ruminative implications. I imagine it was still one of the better works to appear in those early days of Campbell, Jr.’s Astounding. If you’re new to Leiber’s work, I recommend starting with his Hugo-winning The Big Time (1958) or spectacular short stories like “Coming Attraction” (1950), “The Moon is Green” (1952), “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes” (1949), and “A Bad Day for Sales” (1953). He certainly hit his stride in the 1950s.
Somewhat recommended for fans of 40s science fiction and Fritz Leiber completists.
2. Gillian Freeman’s The Leader (1965)
- Uncredited cover for the 1st edition
3.5/5 (Good)
First, the inevitable “is this genre” question: maybe? SF Encyclopedia suggests, and this time I support John Clute’s entry, that The Leader (1965) is set in a “kind of near future dystopian UK” that charts the emergence of Britain First, a fascist, anti-Semitic, and nativist political party.3 Gillian Freeman (1929-2019) does not directly indicate a date. If it’s near-future, it’s the sense that it was moments from her now. Freeman strikes an interesting figure. She was a Jewish author who wrote an important early novel of gay love, The Leather Boys (1961). She turned her novel into a screenplay for the 1964 film of the same name and even wrote the screenplay to Robert Altman’s early psychological thriller The Cold Day in the Park (1969). To the best of my knowledge, The Leader is her only work that could be described as science fiction.
There’s an effective incremental terror to the proceedings. The novel builds step-by-step through its relentless logic made all the more uncomfortable by historical parallels and references. Freeman deliberately positions the origin of the native fascism within the “respectable” middle classes of Britain–the bankers, the office workers, the veterans, and the educated youth. She elides contemporary fetishization of Nazi artifacts and memorabilia with far more sinister obsessions. As a visitor pointed out two years ago when I purchased the book, Freeman’s text harkens to earlier manifestations of that “fragmented-but-organized neo-Nazi contingent in the UK that’s never really gone away and continues to work its way into various subcultural spaces.”4 It’s a hard read made all the more chilling due to the rise in right-wing nationalist groups in the US that openly espouse anti-Semitic views.5
If you’re a sucker for British near-future dystopias then check this one out. It’s of the unsettlingly real variety that will get under your skin and horrify.6
Notes
- See the Wikipedia entry on Leiber. I’m still waiting for a volume on his work from the U. Illinois Modern Masters of Science Fiction series! ↩︎
- I’d love to procure a copy of William E. Akin’s Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocrat Movement, 1900-1941 (1977). I imagine that Leiber’s satire is a bit more targeted than I can ascertain at the moment. Thankfully there’s a copy online here. ↩︎
- See SF Encyclopedia. Clute does incorrectly state the publication date as 1966 instead of 1965. I can’t help but think of all of Trump’s “America First” proclamations. ↩︎
- Jim J here. ↩︎
- This chart lists the anti-Semitic incidents in the US by year from 1979 to the present. While only 2% of the American population is Jewish, they’re the target of almost 70% of the reported religiously motivated hate crimes. Of course, I don’t have to remind you of incidents outside the US either — the 2025 Bondi Beach shooting in Sydney, Australia should immediately come to mind. ↩︎
- I recently acquired a copy of Andrew Hammond’s Cold War Stories: British Dystopian Fiction, 1945-1990 (2017). While Freeman is not mentioned, I’ve added many more exemplars of this subgenre to my list to purchase and cover. ↩︎
For book reviews consult the INDEX
For cover art posts consult the INDEX
For TV and film reviews consult the INDEX
#1940s #1950s #1960s #bookReviews #books #dystopia #fascism #paperbacks #sciFi #scienceFiction #technology -
Joe Jackson’s Jumpin’ Jive, Jumpin’ Jive, 1981 on A&M
Joe Jackson always seemed to me a bit like someone out of the wrong time – though I loved his new wave / new romantic era and azz inflected records, on this one he went full on 1940s, covering songs from the swing and jump blues era.
Some people feel like it is a gimmick album or a throwaway, but I really enjoy it – it may be done a bit tongue in cheek but these are musicians (Jackson included) who love this music and take it seriously.
My copy—via Academy Records in NYC—is a Terre Haute pressing from the early 80s.
#1940s #1980s #AM #AcademyRecords #JoeJackson #JumpBlues #Swing #vinyl #vinylcollection #vinylfinds -
For #ThrowBackThursday here's a photo from my wife's side of the family simply labelled "Sam and colleagues". I don't know who Sam is but I love the photo and the bus is interesting. Browns Blue was a Leicestershire-based bus company that operated from 1924 to 1963. The apostrophe in the bus company logo here dates this to before 1954.
#Photography #TBT #Bus #History #1940s #1950s #Forties #Fifties #40s #50s #Leicestershire #BrownsBlue
-
We are not Nazis. – Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance
Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance
We are not Nazis.
By Joyce Vance, Feb 05, 2026
I wrote this piece, titled “Are We The Nazis Now?” back in October last year. There were so many awful things happening, mostly to immigrants, but by then, some Americans had started to protest their treatment. I was reminded of Anne Frank’s words:
“Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night and day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. They’re allowed to take only a knapsack and a little cash with them, and even then, they’re robbed of these possessions on the way. Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared. Women return from shopping to find their houses sealed, their families gone.”
–Anne FrankFor anyone who had ever wondered how the Germans turned a blind eye to the Holocaust, we are living through the answer. We watched it start in real time. “Trump promised he’d deport violent criminals,” I wrote last October. “Instead, ICE is going after legal residents and terrorizing children. The message: if you’re an American citizen, don’t exercise your First Amendment rights unless you want to become a target too.” Unfortunately, those words proved correct.
I hope you’ll go back and reread the entire piece from October, because it traces what the administration and ICE were doing back then, and although it seems impossible we could ever forget any of it, so much has happened that some of the details get lost. That recent history is essential, because it gives us such a clear picture of the trajectory that has brought us to this moment. In October, ICE had just raided a Chicago apartment building, taking people including kids, outside, some zip tied, in the middle of the night. Immigrants were treated in dehumanizing ways. The administration’s gamble was that not enough Americans would care. It was just “illegals.”
But Americans were already under fire too. There was the ambulance driver who ICE agents threatened to arrest and to kill, claiming he tried to weaponize his vehicle against them, when he was just there to do his job. The administration was already warming up the engines. There was a long runway before ICE shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
In my piece, I asked, “We aren’t even better off in the ways Trump promised. Deporting school kids doesn’t make us safer. Americans don’t want the jobs that aren’t being done in immigrants’ absence. The Labor Department warned in ‘an obscure document filed with the Federal Register last week that the near total cessation of the inflow of illegal aliens’ is threatening ‘the stability of domestic food production and prices for U.S. consumers.’
But beyond the absence of benefits from this administration’s mass deportations, it’s the absence of humanity we see around us that threatens us the most. People who aren’t criminals are thrown to the ground. People are treated with a lack of respect for their basic human dignity. Many of them are hard-working folks who want to be able to love this country and give back because of the opportunity it gives them and their families. Instead, a president who is the son of immigrants and has been married twice to immigrants has become the face of nationalism, using hate and horror to expand his control over people, both American citizens and immigrants, on American soil. Are we the Nazis now?”
There’s an answer to that question. We are not the Nazis. Definitely not. We’re proud of that. We want people to know.
From the massive rallies in freezing temperatures in Minneapolis to smaller ones across the country, like the below one in Maine, Americans are giving their answer to that question. We will not turn a blind eye, we will not acquiesce. We will not be Nazis.
Last Saturday, ABC reported, “Intensive care nurses immediately doubted the word of federal immigration officers when they arrived at a Minneapolis hospital with a Mexican immigrant who had broken bones in his face and skull.” Agents told hospital personnel the man, Alberto Castañeda Mondragón, had tried to flee and had run into a brick wall on purpose. But hospital personnel said his injuries were inconsistent with what ICE claimed.
Prior to his arrest, the man was fine. Four hours later, he was taken to a hospital emergency room. He had “swelling and bruising around his right eye and bleeding. A CT scan revealed at least eight skull fractures and life-threatening hemorrhages in at least five areas of his brain.” The reporter asked a board-certified forensic pathologist who worked as a medical examiner in Minnesota for more than 30 years whether she agreed with hospital employees’ conclusions the injuries weren’t the result of an intentional run at a wall. She responded, “one doesn’t have to be a physician to conclude that a person can’t get skull fractures on both the right and left sides of their head and from front to back by running themselves into a wall.”
One agent subsequently admitted to hospital employees that Castañeda Mondragón, who was arrested the day after Renee Good was killed, “got his (expletive) rocked” after they arrested him.
When he was first admitted to the hospital, Castañeda Mondragón was reportedly “alert and speaking, telling staff he was ‘dragged and mistreated by federal agents.’” But his condition deteriorated rapidly. By the following week, his condition was described as “minimally responsive and communicative, disoriented and heavily sedated.” Nonetheless, ICE agents insisted on shackling Castañeda Mondragón’s ankles to his bed with handcuffs to keep him from escaping. That despite the fact that he “was so disoriented he did not know what year it was and could not recall how he was injured.”
Castañeda Mondragón entered the country legally in 2022. He has no criminal history and started a company in Minnesota. Agents only became aware after they arrested him that he had overstayed his visa. A judge ordered his release and he is no longer in ICE custody, but his friends told the reporter he could no longer work and was at, perhaps, 20% of what he had been before. Hospital employees were surprised he was no longer receiving care.
Federal prosecutors declined to comment on his injuries.
That’s one more human being, damaged by this administration’s insistence of pursuing quotas and treating people like cattle. What started as a slow trickle is now a gusher, too many people impacted to tell all of their stories. But we should still share the ones we know and counter what the administration is trying to do: Normalize treating people as less than human just because they don’t have legal immigration status in the U.S.
We are not the Nazis. That means we have an obligation to say watchful and keep protesting. We have to loudly reject the people who are trying to take us there.
In October I wrote, “What’s certain is this: No matter where Donald Trump wants to take this country, you and I are not going along for the ride. On Friday, House Speaker Mike Johnson said that the No Kings rally on Saturday was a “hate-America” rally. He said the people attending would be “the pro-Hamas wing” and “the antifa people.” He’s wrong. We are, in the best tradition of America’s Greatest Generation, truly anti-fascist. And in 2025, anti-fascism begins at home, because we love this country and we believe in democracy. We’re ready.”
On March 28, the third No Kings rally will happen. You can sign up for updates here. Until then, we will continue to let Donald Trump know that we have no intention of letting him turn us into Nazis, that we will block his efforts to take the country there. That’s our job.
Editor’s Note: Here’s Joyce Vance’s October column, embedded below. –DrWeb
Are We the Nazis Now? by Joyce Vance
How do we meet this moment?
Read on SubstackContinue/Read Original Article Here: We are not Nazis. – Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance
Tags: 1940s, Anne Frank, Civil Discourse, Dictator, History, History Lessons, Hitler, Joyce Vance, Nazi Germany, Nazis, Substack, Third Reich, We are Not Nazis, White Supremacy
#1940s #AnneFrank #CivilDiscourse #Dictator #History #HistoryLessons #Hitler #JoyceVance #NaziGermany #Nazis #Substack #ThirdReich #WeAreNotNazis #WhiteSupremacy -
We are not Nazis. – Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance
Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance
We are not Nazis.
By Joyce Vance, Feb 05, 2026
I wrote this piece, titled “Are We The Nazis Now?” back in October last year. There were so many awful things happening, mostly to immigrants, but by then, some Americans had started to protest their treatment. I was reminded of Anne Frank’s words:
“Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night and day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. They’re allowed to take only a knapsack and a little cash with them, and even then, they’re robbed of these possessions on the way. Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared. Women return from shopping to find their houses sealed, their families gone.”
–Anne FrankFor anyone who had ever wondered how the Germans turned a blind eye to the Holocaust, we are living through the answer. We watched it start in real time. “Trump promised he’d deport violent criminals,” I wrote last October. “Instead, ICE is going after legal residents and terrorizing children. The message: if you’re an American citizen, don’t exercise your First Amendment rights unless you want to become a target too.” Unfortunately, those words proved correct.
I hope you’ll go back and reread the entire piece from October, because it traces what the administration and ICE were doing back then, and although it seems impossible we could ever forget any of it, so much has happened that some of the details get lost. That recent history is essential, because it gives us such a clear picture of the trajectory that has brought us to this moment. In October, ICE had just raided a Chicago apartment building, taking people including kids, outside, some zip tied, in the middle of the night. Immigrants were treated in dehumanizing ways. The administration’s gamble was that not enough Americans would care. It was just “illegals.”
But Americans were already under fire too. There was the ambulance driver who ICE agents threatened to arrest and to kill, claiming he tried to weaponize his vehicle against them, when he was just there to do his job. The administration was already warming up the engines. There was a long runway before ICE shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
In my piece, I asked, “We aren’t even better off in the ways Trump promised. Deporting school kids doesn’t make us safer. Americans don’t want the jobs that aren’t being done in immigrants’ absence. The Labor Department warned in ‘an obscure document filed with the Federal Register last week that the near total cessation of the inflow of illegal aliens’ is threatening ‘the stability of domestic food production and prices for U.S. consumers.’
But beyond the absence of benefits from this administration’s mass deportations, it’s the absence of humanity we see around us that threatens us the most. People who aren’t criminals are thrown to the ground. People are treated with a lack of respect for their basic human dignity. Many of them are hard-working folks who want to be able to love this country and give back because of the opportunity it gives them and their families. Instead, a president who is the son of immigrants and has been married twice to immigrants has become the face of nationalism, using hate and horror to expand his control over people, both American citizens and immigrants, on American soil. Are we the Nazis now?”
There’s an answer to that question. We are not the Nazis. Definitely not. We’re proud of that. We want people to know.
From the massive rallies in freezing temperatures in Minneapolis to smaller ones across the country, like the below one in Maine, Americans are giving their answer to that question. We will not turn a blind eye, we will not acquiesce. We will not be Nazis.
Last Saturday, ABC reported, “Intensive care nurses immediately doubted the word of federal immigration officers when they arrived at a Minneapolis hospital with a Mexican immigrant who had broken bones in his face and skull.” Agents told hospital personnel the man, Alberto Castañeda Mondragón, had tried to flee and had run into a brick wall on purpose. But hospital personnel said his injuries were inconsistent with what ICE claimed.
Prior to his arrest, the man was fine. Four hours later, he was taken to a hospital emergency room. He had “swelling and bruising around his right eye and bleeding. A CT scan revealed at least eight skull fractures and life-threatening hemorrhages in at least five areas of his brain.” The reporter asked a board-certified forensic pathologist who worked as a medical examiner in Minnesota for more than 30 years whether she agreed with hospital employees’ conclusions the injuries weren’t the result of an intentional run at a wall. She responded, “one doesn’t have to be a physician to conclude that a person can’t get skull fractures on both the right and left sides of their head and from front to back by running themselves into a wall.”
One agent subsequently admitted to hospital employees that Castañeda Mondragón, who was arrested the day after Renee Good was killed, “got his (expletive) rocked” after they arrested him.
When he was first admitted to the hospital, Castañeda Mondragón was reportedly “alert and speaking, telling staff he was ‘dragged and mistreated by federal agents.’” But his condition deteriorated rapidly. By the following week, his condition was described as “minimally responsive and communicative, disoriented and heavily sedated.” Nonetheless, ICE agents insisted on shackling Castañeda Mondragón’s ankles to his bed with handcuffs to keep him from escaping. That despite the fact that he “was so disoriented he did not know what year it was and could not recall how he was injured.”
Castañeda Mondragón entered the country legally in 2022. He has no criminal history and started a company in Minnesota. Agents only became aware after they arrested him that he had overstayed his visa. A judge ordered his release and he is no longer in ICE custody, but his friends told the reporter he could no longer work and was at, perhaps, 20% of what he had been before. Hospital employees were surprised he was no longer receiving care.
Federal prosecutors declined to comment on his injuries.
That’s one more human being, damaged by this administration’s insistence of pursuing quotas and treating people like cattle. What started as a slow trickle is now a gusher, too many people impacted to tell all of their stories. But we should still share the ones we know and counter what the administration is trying to do: Normalize treating people as less than human just because they don’t have legal immigration status in the U.S.
We are not the Nazis. That means we have an obligation to say watchful and keep protesting. We have to loudly reject the people who are trying to take us there.
In October I wrote, “What’s certain is this: No matter where Donald Trump wants to take this country, you and I are not going along for the ride. On Friday, House Speaker Mike Johnson said that the No Kings rally on Saturday was a “hate-America” rally. He said the people attending would be “the pro-Hamas wing” and “the antifa people.” He’s wrong. We are, in the best tradition of America’s Greatest Generation, truly anti-fascist. And in 2025, anti-fascism begins at home, because we love this country and we believe in democracy. We’re ready.”
On March 28, the third No Kings rally will happen. You can sign up for updates here. Until then, we will continue to let Donald Trump know that we have no intention of letting him turn us into Nazis, that we will block his efforts to take the country there. That’s our job.
Editor’s Note: Here’s Joyce Vance’s October column, embedded below. –DrWeb
Are We the Nazis Now? by Joyce Vance
How do we meet this moment?
Read on SubstackContinue/Read Original Article Here: We are not Nazis. – Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance
Tags: 1940s, Anne Frank, Civil Discourse, Dictator, History, History Lessons, Hitler, Joyce Vance, Nazi Germany, Nazis, Substack, Third Reich, We are Not Nazis, White Supremacy
#1940s #AnneFrank #CivilDiscourse #Dictator #History #HistoryLessons #Hitler #JoyceVance #NaziGermany #Nazis #Substack #ThirdReich #WeAreNotNazis #WhiteSupremacy -
BLAZING A TRAIL | Vanity Fair | Awards Extra Oscars Edition 1 2020
BLAZING A TRAIL
Hattie McDaniel wasn’t allowed to attend the Gone With the Wind premiere in Atlanta because of her race. Shortly afterward, she won an Oscar for her performance and earned an indelible place in movie history
Awards Extra Oscars Edition 1 2020 John Florio, Ouisie Shapiro
Eighty years ago, in 1940, the Academy Awards were held at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Hattie McDaniel, radiant in a rhinestone-studded blue evening gown, was relegated to a small table along a side wall, apart from Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, and the rest of her Gone With the Wind castmates. The reason was as simple as it was outrageous: The hotel had a no-blacks policy. Months earlier, McDaniel had been excluded from the movie’s premiere in Atlanta for the same reason. If not for the film’s producer, David O. Selznick, having called in a favor, she wouldn’t have been permitted inside the Ambassador, either.
Upon receiving the Oscar for her role as the sassy maid, Mammy, McDaniel told the audience—which was all white, save for her escort, F.P. Yober— ” I sincerely hope I shall always be a credit to my race and to the motion picture industry.”
Seventy years later, when Mo’Nique won an Oscar for her role in the movie Precious, she wore white gardenias in her hair, just as McDaniel had done. ” I want to thank Ms. Hattie McDaniel for enduring all that she had to so that I would not have to,” she said when accepting the award.
Mo’Nique has kept a framed 8-by-10 photo of McDaniel in her closet ever since she started in the industry, and she remembers the evening as a shared victory: “I felt that that night my sister’s voice, my sister’s name, would be heard all over the world. I [hoped] that people would look her up and see her brilliance and her beauty and understand that she never got her just due.”
McDaniel couldn’t change Hollywood’s culture, but she did succeed in fighting racism in other ways. In the 1940s, she marshalled a group of black neighbors in a battle against segregated housing. The case, which she and her neighbors won, served as a precedent for the Supreme Court, which later struck down racially restrictive covenants, thus ending such discriminatory practices in Los Angeles.
As for her acting career, McDaniel continued to portray characters similar to Mammy. To black critics who condemned the roles she accepted, she said, “I’d rather play a maid and make $700 a week than be a maid and make $7.”
Continue/Read Original Article Here: BLAZING A TRAIL | Vanity Fair | Awards Extra Oscars Edition 1 2020
#1940s #2020 #AcademyAwards #Atlanta #AwardsExtraOscarsEdition #BlazingATrail #California #EightyYearsAgo #Georgia #GoneWithTheWind #HattieMcDaniel #LosAngeles #MoNique #MovieHistory #NoBlacksPolicyAtVenue #Precious #RaceInAmerica #SegregatedHousing #VanityFair #WonOscar -
BLAZING A TRAIL | Vanity Fair | Awards Extra Oscars Edition 1 2020
BLAZING A TRAIL
Hattie McDaniel wasn’t allowed to attend the Gone With the Wind premiere in Atlanta because of her race. Shortly afterward, she won an Oscar for her performance and earned an indelible place in movie history
Awards Extra Oscars Edition 1 2020 John Florio, Ouisie Shapiro
Eighty years ago, in 1940, the Academy Awards were held at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Hattie McDaniel, radiant in a rhinestone-studded blue evening gown, was relegated to a small table along a side wall, apart from Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, and the rest of her Gone With the Wind castmates. The reason was as simple as it was outrageous: The hotel had a no-blacks policy. Months earlier, McDaniel had been excluded from the movie’s premiere in Atlanta for the same reason. If not for the film’s producer, David O. Selznick, having called in a favor, she wouldn’t have been permitted inside the Ambassador, either.
Upon receiving the Oscar for her role as the sassy maid, Mammy, McDaniel told the audience—which was all white, save for her escort, F.P. Yober— ” I sincerely hope I shall always be a credit to my race and to the motion picture industry.”
Seventy years later, when Mo’Nique won an Oscar for her role in the movie Precious, she wore white gardenias in her hair, just as McDaniel had done. ” I want to thank Ms. Hattie McDaniel for enduring all that she had to so that I would not have to,” she said when accepting the award.
Mo’Nique has kept a framed 8-by-10 photo of McDaniel in her closet ever since she started in the industry, and she remembers the evening as a shared victory: “I felt that that night my sister’s voice, my sister’s name, would be heard all over the world. I [hoped] that people would look her up and see her brilliance and her beauty and understand that she never got her just due.”
McDaniel couldn’t change Hollywood’s culture, but she did succeed in fighting racism in other ways. In the 1940s, she marshalled a group of black neighbors in a battle against segregated housing. The case, which she and her neighbors won, served as a precedent for the Supreme Court, which later struck down racially restrictive covenants, thus ending such discriminatory practices in Los Angeles.
As for her acting career, McDaniel continued to portray characters similar to Mammy. To black critics who condemned the roles she accepted, she said, “I’d rather play a maid and make $700 a week than be a maid and make $7.”
Continue/Read Original Article Here: BLAZING A TRAIL | Vanity Fair | Awards Extra Oscars Edition 1 2020
#1940s #2020 #AcademyAwards #Atlanta #AwardsExtraOscarsEdition #BlazingATrail #California #EightyYearsAgo #Georgia #GoneWithTheWind #HattieMcDaniel #LosAngeles #MoNique #MovieHistory #NoBlacksPolicyAtVenue #Precious #RaceInAmerica #SegregatedHousing #VanityFair #WonOscar -
BLAZING A TRAIL | Vanity Fair | Awards Extra Oscars Edition 1 2020
BLAZING A TRAIL
Hattie McDaniel wasn’t allowed to attend the Gone With the Wind premiere in Atlanta because of her race. Shortly afterward, she won an Oscar for her performance and earned an indelible place in movie history
Awards Extra Oscars Edition 1 2020 John Florio, Ouisie Shapiro
Eighty years ago, in 1940, the Academy Awards were held at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Hattie McDaniel, radiant in a rhinestone-studded blue evening gown, was relegated to a small table along a side wall, apart from Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, and the rest of her Gone With the Wind castmates. The reason was as simple as it was outrageous: The hotel had a no-blacks policy. Months earlier, McDaniel had been excluded from the movie’s premiere in Atlanta for the same reason. If not for the film’s producer, David O. Selznick, having called in a favor, she wouldn’t have been permitted inside the Ambassador, either.
Upon receiving the Oscar for her role as the sassy maid, Mammy, McDaniel told the audience—which was all white, save for her escort, F.P. Yober— ” I sincerely hope I shall always be a credit to my race and to the motion picture industry.”
Seventy years later, when Mo’Nique won an Oscar for her role in the movie Precious, she wore white gardenias in her hair, just as McDaniel had done. ” I want to thank Ms. Hattie McDaniel for enduring all that she had to so that I would not have to,” she said when accepting the award.
Mo’Nique has kept a framed 8-by-10 photo of McDaniel in her closet ever since she started in the industry, and she remembers the evening as a shared victory: “I felt that that night my sister’s voice, my sister’s name, would be heard all over the world. I [hoped] that people would look her up and see her brilliance and her beauty and understand that she never got her just due.”
McDaniel couldn’t change Hollywood’s culture, but she did succeed in fighting racism in other ways. In the 1940s, she marshalled a group of black neighbors in a battle against segregated housing. The case, which she and her neighbors won, served as a precedent for the Supreme Court, which later struck down racially restrictive covenants, thus ending such discriminatory practices in Los Angeles.
As for her acting career, McDaniel continued to portray characters similar to Mammy. To black critics who condemned the roles she accepted, she said, “I’d rather play a maid and make $700 a week than be a maid and make $7.”
Continue/Read Original Article Here: BLAZING A TRAIL | Vanity Fair | Awards Extra Oscars Edition 1 2020
#1940s #2020 #AcademyAwards #Atlanta #AwardsExtraOscarsEdition #BlazingATrail #California #EightyYearsAgo #Georgia #GoneWithTheWind #HattieMcDaniel #LosAngeles #MoNique #MovieHistory #NoBlacksPolicyAtVenue #Precious #RaceInAmerica #SegregatedHousing #VanityFair #WonOscar -
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☢️ Wasteland Radio ☢️
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‘Déjà vu!’
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