Scroll down to read this post.

 

Readers!

 

The time has come for my annual short Thanksgiving/Christmas fund drive for Behind The Black. I must do this every year in order to make sure I have earned enough money to pay my bills.

 

For this two-week campaign, I am offering a special deal to encourage donations. Donations of $200 will get a free autographed copy of the new paperback edition of Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, while donations of $250 will get a free autographed copy of the new hardback edition. If you desire a copy, make sure you provide me your address with your donation.

 

As I noted in July, the support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.

 

In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.

 

Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:

 

4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

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.


Today’s blacklisted American: John Schnatter, founder of Papa John’s Pizza

One burned witch is not enough! Burn them all!
One burned witch is not enough! We’ve got to burn them all!

They’re coming for you next: The effort by the left and many like-minded fascists in modern America to destroy anyone who disagrees with them did not begin with the ascension to power of Joe Biden and the Democratic Party following the elections in 2020.

No, the blacklisting and slander campaigns started decades ago, maybe as early as the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for nominees Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, but clearly accelerating after Trump’s election in 2016.

In 2018 we had a perfect example. Then the founder of Papa John’s Pizza, John Schnatter, was forced out of the company he founded based on lies and slanders issued by the public relations company Laundry Services that he himself had hired to improve his public image after he had publicly criticized the NFL for not stopping the national anthem protests.

Apparently, that pr firm had carefully edited comments Schnatter had made during a telephone call with them, making it look like he was a bigot and had used curse words against blacks. The resulting scandal, spread eagerly throughout the mainstream press, served to destroy his reputation and his business, making him a pariah to the entire world.

Forbes broke the story about Schnatter “using” the N-word on a conference call in July 2018. Schnatter then resigned as the company’s chairman.

The story hit like a ton of bricks. The local NAACP successfully pressured Schnatter to resign as a trustee of the University of Louisville. His wife of 32 years filed for divorce. Same-store sales at Papa John’s fell 7.3 percent in 2018 and it lost big partnerships with Major League Baseball and several sports teams. The company scrubbed Schnatter from promotional materials and the company logo, and the Center for Free Enterprise at the University of Louisville dropped his name.

Schnatter has since sued that pr company for breach of contract, and in doing so, has released the full transcript of the phone call Laundry Services used to slander him publicly. As it turns out Schnatter never did any of the evil things Laundry Service claimed.

On May 22, 2018, Schnatter and other representatives with Papa John’s had a strategy call with Laundry Service — and this call would go down in infamy.

Schnatter reportedly expected that the call would address marketing initiatives, but as the call began, staff told Schnatter that the call would focus on “diversity training,” including “role-playing exercises” on “race and diversity.” The transcript of the call reflects that Schnatter had received a document just before the call, and that he complained he had little time to review it. … [He] complained that Laundry Service had ambushed him with the exercise material. “When you put this in front of me 12 minutes ago, ‘John, you’re a racist,’ well, it’s going to take me a while to get out of my shell because this is brutal if you’re me and you’ve been called a bigot for six and a half months. That’s why I need to study it,” he said.

Schnatter then wondered why this pr company that he had hired couldn’t simply go out and say that he wasn’t a racist. To show that such a statement would not be false, he then described in detail and quite blunt and sometimes expletive language his own experiences with bigotry, and how it had always appalled him. While his language and examples also showed that he was no saint, it also showed that the accusations of bigotry against him that ended up destroying him were simply untrue.

After the conversation with Schnatter was over and unaware that they were being recorded, the Laundry Services people then schemed to backstab Schnatter because they simply didn’t like it that he would not kow-tow to their critical race theory-inspired agenda.

Jason Stein, then the CEO of Laundry Service, said as he listened in on Schnatter after the call: “This is what happens when a sociopath spirals. … I hope he gets f****n’ sent out to the pasture on this sh*t.”

A female speaker said Schnatter’s “answers just said a lot about him. They were very revealing.”

“He’s a racist,” Stein claimed. Other staff agreed with him. “He has no problem saying that black people were dragged behind a car, using the N-word just now, but he can’t just f***ing say that.”

Stein and his team even suggested they should set up Schnatter with a hostile interview.

Remember, Stein and Laundry Services had been hired by Schnatter to improve his image. Instead, they went ahead to use his own money to spread a campaign to slander him, though before they began that campaign they apparently tried to blackmail him, according to Schnatter’s lawsuit, demanding a $6 million payoff to stop them from initiating their campaign using edited sections of the phone conversation.

Meanwhile, according to the lawsuit others in Schnatter’s own company used this fake scandal for their own purposes.

Steve Ritchie, Papa John’s CEO at the time, “has admitted privately that he launched a false and defamatory campaign against Mr. Schnatter, falsely accusing him of racism, for the sad and simple reason that Mr. Ritchie learned that he was going to lose his job.”

This is how blacklisters work. They lie, they slander, and they destroy, all for power and self-aggrandizement. And they are winning because Americans and too many in the media are eager to participate in such dishonest blackballing campaigns, for all the same reasons. Based on the information available to it, Forbes should never have published the story in the first place. It was implausible, and it wasn’t backed up by multiple sources. Yet they went ahead, seeing an opportunity to destroy someone who clearly didn’t support the anti-American and racist agenda of the NFL national anthem protesters.

The rest of the leftist media was immediately quick to pile on. Let’s burn that witch for defying us!

And worse, the public credulously accepted the slanders as true, making the campaign a complete success. Yet it didn’t take more than five seconds of review when these allegations were first blasted in the media to see how implausible and likely untrue they were. That’s what I saw immediately. Like the Russian collusion scandal, these allegations were absurd, and weren’t worth the paper they were written on.

Until Americans begin make it clear to media outlets that spread these lies that they will no longer cater to them, this is going to go on. They have power, they want more, and apparently we are willing to give it to them. The bullies are winning.

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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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

13 comments

  • Jim Davis

    Bob, your autocomplete has changed “Papa John’s” to “Paper John’s” multiple times.

  • Jim Davis. Fixed. Thank you.

    I wish I could blame the autocomplete, but I don’t use it. This was my error, based on almost sixty years of typing. It has become too automatic. I sometimes don’t see what I type, as I typed it.

  • Tom

    Bob,

    George Orwell’s introduced us to the “Two Minuets Hate” in his 1984 novel. During this event, the citizens of Oceania were shown videos of the enemies of the State and encouraged to vent their hatred on them. Even the protagonist, Winston Smith, became enveloped by this effective technique;
    “The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp.”

    We are living in the opening scenes of a well known nightmare.

  • Jeff Wright

    Corporations who haven’t sold out need to prop up their fellows-perhaps even funding an underground railroad to get policemen away from the mobs baying for their blood. But the path of least resistance for those who put profits first and patriotism last? Give in to the mob.
    This is why I have it in for tone deaf libertarians. We are going to have to crack down on suits who hurt workers with this nonsense. Not this Congress, no–but the next. ‘Hands off’ won’t cut it anymore.

  • Cotour

    A friend sent me this book this morning: https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdf

    “EQUITABLE MATH”. What exactly is “Equitable Math”?

    From the book:

    • Students are required to “show their work.”
    • Grading practices are focused on lack of knowledge.
    • Language acquisition is equated with mathematical proficiency.

    And I understand their perspective, the Marxists among them are saying, and this is just a technique of manipulation: The black population in America, originally delivered here through slavery from the start has grown up under the model that the white man, oppressive judgmental Christianity and Western civilization has shaped and structured. And that is not fair.

    And of course they have no end game, its all, just like everything else Liberal, Leftist or Democrat party driven, a fraud and a manipulation. A perspective with no solutions to actually moving positively into the future and surviving.

    *How dare in a mathematics class a student be asked to “Show” their work. By asking a student to “Show” their work that is a form of oppression? Its a the man demanding compliance?

    *Should you be graded on what you do not know? Is that the standard that needs to be strived for?

    *Should mathematics be taught in street slang? Instead of apples used in mathematics examples should bottles of Hennessy be used? If Malik does three drive-by’s and he shoots three times in two of them, and four times in one, how many 9mm caps has he used?

    The answer you might give immersed in the white dominated culture that you have been forced to grow up in would be 10. But you of course would be incorrect, the answer is zero. He used a 45.

    (A 45 by the way that is not registered it was stolen in a burglary AND he had a 10 round clip, all illegal in some jurisdictions. But those laws as anyone with an IQ higher than a rubber ball know are not meant for such individuals. Those individuals need compassion and understanding because they have grown up under an oppressive system dominated by the white man)

    And THAT is just how ignorant this argument has been allowed to become, specifically related to mathematics. Math is math, period! There is no sugar coating mathematics, its black or white (No pun intended). You either understand it or you don’t. Can it be taught in creative ways? Certainly.

    And its going to have to one way or another play out, but it has to be called out for what it is. Stupid is stupid, and the King has no clothes.

    This is Leftist / BLM / Marxist mental masturbation. And there are other human beings on this planet that look to this kind of thinking for guidance, and that includes those Social Justice Warriors filled with this feeling of white guilt because of it in America today. And I find the vast majority of them highly emotional, uninformed and half educated. They have their own “Special” kind of logic and thought process, a result of the Ivey league and Marxist indoctrination. And they have no end game, they have no answers.

    Their end game is first commit suicide, then we move into the future. We learn FROM history, we do not live IN history. And that is exactly what they propose. ITS STUPID.

    But there they are all the same.

  • concerned

    Contour—you hit the nail on the head: Leftists are emotional creatures, as we all are to some extent. The difference is that they don’t understand or never learned that civilization was built to counter those base instincts. They are now so comfortable that they think civilizational norms and safeguards are no longer necessary to control their whims and passions. However, like all good tyrants throughout history (of which they are willfully and/or blissfully unaware), they have no qualms whatsoever at exerting control over others whose whims and passions conflict with their own. They are fundamentally selfish and unserious people.

  • Cotour

    And here is the extension to what this is all about:

    “On Thursday the US House voted to make the District of Columbia a state.”

    “President Biden proposes a 6 month investigating into packing the Supreme Court”

    “Democrats propose eliminating the electoral college”

    Do you know what happened this morning in Maricopa county Nevada?

    2.1 million ballots were delivered in three large trucks to an arena where they are all going to be carefully examined for the proper paper, if they were filled in by a machine, if they were in fact folded and mailed, and the count of course.

    This is being done under extreme security and will be completed over the next 30 or so days, after which there will be a report written. And I am certain that the Perkins Coie law firm will do everything in its power to NOT have that report officially released to the public.

    This is why the Democrat party is SOOOOO desperate, there is a midterm election coming in less than 18 months and they will lose all of their power and will become moot.

    And along with that comes, if in the several courts and procedures currently underway prove what I and many others believe, that Joe Biden is a fraudulent and an installed through blatant corruption president.

    What happens after that is established? Joe Biden is impeached and removed from office. And I hear no one in the media or the talking heads talking about that potential. That is the logical extension of all of this.

    And you thought that it could not get any crazier?

  • Alex Andrite

    C:
    … “AND he had a 10 round clip.”
    Good dissection ! Right on.

    They are called “magazines” though. “Clips” are the style used in the M1 Garand and beyond as I recall.
    I also used a “clip” style, stripper as we called it, to more easily and quickly load my empty M16 magazines.

    Meanwhile, the craziness will only continue to become worse and more obvious.
    Madness. The loss of reason is upon us.

    A.

  • wayne

    “Logic is an enemy and truth is a menace…”

    Rod Serling -Twilight Zone
    “The Obsolete Man” outro-clip
    https://youtu.be/FMLWXsV0E-M
    1:02

  • Cotour

    ITS COMING. SLOWLY, BUT ITS COMING

    Happening right now: The court ordered audit of the ballots and the voting machines continues in Maricopa county, Arizona.

    And what do the Democrats do after a judge has once again ruled that the legislature has the right to do the audit and the arena is filled with the equipment and the ballots?

    They bring another law suit and attempt to again attempt to shut down the court ordered audit. Does this sound like confidence in a president winning an election with 81 million votes?

    The ballots will be examined for the proper paper and that they are not counterfeit, examined for them being filled out by hand or machine, examined for folds to indicate that they were actually valid and mailed to a voter. AND the voting machines will also be technically examined.
    (Remember, its a feature not a glitch)

    Does anyone want to take a guess about what is going to be found related to a significant percentage of those ballots and those voting machines? And that percentage had a decisive effect on the results of the vote.

    And what will this all lead to IMNSHO? Ultimately the impeachment and removal of president Joe Biden after the midterm elections.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-content/uploads/Arizona-Audit-Cameras.jpg

  • pzatchok

    “Ultimately the impeachment and removal of president Joe Biden after the midterm elections.”

    I hope but doubt it will even get close.

    But if the votes are found to have been fudged in any way close to a percentage of the total then that could be used to force through good voter id laws.

    By the way.
    The states can cry States Rights all they want about who they let vote but that is the same excuse they used to keep blacks from voting. In the end the federal government dropped the bomb on them for it.
    If the feds can do it once they can do it again and force the states to only let full US citizens vote. Local, state and federal are all the same.

  • Cotour

    Tooth and nail:

    BREAKING: Judge Orders TEMPORARY HALT to Arizona Forensic Ballot Audit Until Monday after Democrats File Suit to Shut Down Process

  • Cotour

    “The Democrats won’t post a $1 million bond and so the Arizona audit will go on.”

Readers: the rules for commenting!

 

No registration is required. I welcome all opinions, even those that strongly criticize my commentary.

 

However, name-calling and obscenities will not be tolerated. First time offenders who are new to the site will be warned. Second time offenders or first time offenders who have been here awhile will be suspended for a week. After that, I will ban you. Period.

 

Note also that first time commenters as well as any comment with more than one link will be placed in moderation for my approval. Be patient, I will get to it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *