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Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. There are five ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation. Takes about a 10% cut.
 

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Behind The Black
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You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.


Future Republican battle leans right and anti-establishment

Three more stories today, in addition to this already posted story (Cruz’s political stature enhanced by campaign) suggest that the Republican Party is going to move rightward and anti-establishment.

The headline of the last story is misleading. What it is really about is how Cruz’s yearlong effort to enlist conservatives who agree with him as Republican delegates will result in giving him and his views a great deal of influence at the convention and within the party. Similarly, Trump as nominee puts him in a powerful position to influence policy. Meanwhile, the old guard establishment of moderate Republicans who specialized in failure theater and giving Democrats everything they want are not showing up.

So, what will we have? We will have a Republican convention dominated by either Cruz conservatives or Trump outsiders. This is good news, even if I myself am not enthused about Trump. It likely means that the days of nonchalant surrender to liberal demands are ending. Though what will happen instead remains unknown, and might very well be as bad, the change is more likely to be a good thing.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

6 comments

  • Garry

    The term “Creative Destruction” comes to mind (and hopefully fruition)

  • Joe

    The term Creative Destruction is usually used for free market economics, i see no reason why it couldn’t be coopted as a term for change in politics, hopefully the right people are not destroyed.

  • D K Rögnvald Williams

    We are in uncharted territory. One assumed presidential nominee who donated money to another assumed nominee who is under FBI investigation. Strange times.

  • Mitch S

    DK RW,
    Hope you’re not feeling so depressed about this.
    Had Republicans marched to the leader’s orders and nominated Jeb or Rubio and had Democrats done the same and coronated Hillary, that would make me worry about the future of the country.
    Although the Dem establishment jammed Hillary into place, at least there was a serious opposition.

    The current situation is a step into the unknown but the voters are willing to gamble to break the corrupt stranglehold. We all must do what we can to help it succeed.
    If Republicans like the Romney and the Bushes opt out in a huff, I say “good riddance” – you are showing us your true loyalties lie with a corrupt buddy system and not with the American people.

  • Cotour

    Mitch S, your channeling me.

  • Steve Earle

    This has been a three-way fight since the very start. Trump outsiders, Cruz reformers, and Bush/Ryan Rino’s.

    As said above, if this was the past, it would have been a Bush/Clinton Election. Thank God that at least one side had the sense to break with the past.

    The Rino’s did attempt a half-ass alliance with Cruz at the end, but it was almost a case of damning with faint praise and probably did more harm than good to the Cruz campaign.

    I agree that it’s long past time that the Republican party got an Enema, and I remain hopeful that this will end well. I think a lot is riding on who Trump picks as a running mate. If he sends the wrong signal the damn Rino’s may try a 3rd party….

    As DK noted above: Strange Times Indeed!

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