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.


The modern American blacklist culture is wide and deep, and will require a lot of dredging to clear

What some conservatives are going to have to face to bring liberty back to America
What some conservatives are going to have to face
to bring liberty back to America

A wise man once said that to beat your enemy you need to know him better than he knows himself. It is to this purpose I write this essay.

Even now, with blacklisting, censorship, and intolerance against dissent the normal standard held by our leftist elitist intellectual class, conservatives still assume naturally that anyone they meet anywhere, whether on the street, at their job, or among their family, are old-fashioned freedom-loving Americans who — whether they are Republicans or Democrats — will stand together for liberty wherever tyrants strike.

This assumption is 100% wrong, and it is why conservatives have been so steadily losing ground in the battle for freedom for decades. Blacklisting is now acceptable to a large percentage of Americans on the left. Censorship and violence against their opponents is okay, and is actually considered the right thing to do for many ordinary Democrats.

Just yesterday the Democrats themselves in Congress proved this point. When faced with a bill that simply condemned the more than hundred violent attacks against “pro-life facilities, groups, and churches” since the May 2, 2022 leak of the Supreme Court decision striking down Roe v Wade, 208 out of 211 Democrats voted against it.

The bill did not support the banning of abortion. All it demanded that Congress:

(1) condemns recent attacks of vandalism, violence, and destruction against pro-life facilities, groups, and churches;

(2) recognizes the sanctity of life and the important role pro-life facilities, groups, and churches play in supporting pregnant women, infants, and families; and

(3) calls upon the Biden Administration to use all appropriate law enforcement authorities to uphold public safety and to protect the rights of pro-life facilities, groups, and churches.

There was once a time that Democrats would have had little problem with these words. Once, they wanted women to have the right to have an abortion, but also believed such abortions were the worst option. As Hillary Clinton herself once declared, abortions should be “safe, legal, and rare.” Then, Democrats at least publicly supported the “sanctity of life and the importance role pro-life facilities, groups, and churches play in supporting pregnant women, infants, and families.”

No more. Democrats now overwhelming excuse violence against their political opponents, and in fact seem almost eager to make it common and frequent. That the Biden Justice Department has so far arrested no one in connection with any of these violent attacks — some of which the attackers boldly claimed credit — only underlines the Democratic Party support for this political violence.

These Democrats in Congress however are merely a reflection of their voters. While it is increasingly clear that Democrats are tampering with election results to increase their victories, they only have to do a little tampering to get over the top. Millions of Americans support the Democratic Party whole-heartedly in this matter, especially in the big urban cities. In these places churches and synagogues are increasingly being treated like Jewish businesses and shuls in Nazi Germany, subject to frequent vandalism and attacks, merely because they are religious with conservative values. In these Democratic Party strongholds Democrats are enthusiastically hostile to conservatives, and generally see nothing wrong with violence against them.

The left however has one Achilles Heel that will defeat it, if conservatives have the sense to recognize it. You see, as eager as the politicians in the Democratic Party are to blacklist, censor, and oppress their political opponents, a very large portion of their voters still support — at least superficially — the ideas of free speech, open debate, and tolerance. The blacklisting these voters support is merely their misguided and thoughtless effort to stop what they perceive as an evil person committing that exact same crime. To them, it really isn’t the same as McCarthyism or Soviet-style oppression. They would never do such a thing!

Of course, this conclusion is irrational and makes no sense. Their blacklisting is still blacklisting, and if you make them face the evil they are committing and finally recognize it, their strong front of self-righteous leftist ideology will almost immediately crumble against the ideals of freedom and liberty.

Getting these emotion-driven individuals to face this reality however is not going to be easy. Moreover, they form the biggest cohort in our population, and will quickly circle the wagons to protect their irrational beliefs. Many in this cohort also believe unconsciously that American culture is no longer ruled by the values of liberty and individual freedom, but by the tenet of “Go along to get along.” You do not ever publicly challenge the accepted wisdom of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, even if those rules require that some people be excluded, banned, or censored. To do so risks getting excluded, banned, and censored yourself, and we don’t want that! Better to be safe and silent than outspoken and blackballed.

Forcing the thoughtless to enter the truth booth
Forcing the thoughtless to enter the truth booth

That is the shape of the battle to come: Get this mindless middle cohort to recognize its intolerance so that it can finally be made to reject it.

It is a winnable battle, but it will not be won without a struggle. That mindless cohort does not wish to change, because to do so requires them to admit they have been wrong. Thus, we must expect many victims along the way, almost all of whom will be on the right. However, the sooner the right engages in that battle, the fewer those sacrifices will be. Wait too long and we will be facing concentration camps and genocide. Act now and the worst conservatives will face is the loss of a job.

If enough conservatives however are willing to lose their jobs by standing for what they believe in, they will quickly force the ship of state to change course away from intolerance and censorship. It just requires courage and a refusal to bow to tyrants.

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

8 comments

  • Concerned

    “If you will not fight for right when you can win easily without bloodshed. . .you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”
    Winston Churchill

  • Cotour

    Everything that you say is true. However, many, many on the Left today are young 30 somethings and highly indoctrinated true believers who see every irrational and really evil thing that you lay out as being justifiable and necessary. They rationalize and justify that which is irrational and evil.

    Why are all of the evil offences that you list justifiable and necessary? Because they have been indoctrinated and professionally brainwashed from kindergarten to believe that the political struggle they are engaged in is existential. And if your struggle is existential then anything can be justified in order to free yourself from that existential threat, it is life or death.

    It has been so well planned and executed.

    All that came before, everything that America is based on is corrupt and must be destroyed. And that is truly what they believe. They do not see that ALL forms of government are corrupt from the start, and it is just a matter of time before government, any form of government owns and literally directs every aspect of your / their life.

    I point out over and over to all of them that it’s only the Constitution that recognizes that fact about all government and provides the mechanisms and the means for the people over time and ultimately to liberate their freedom that will for certain be stolen by their government. They have no plan other than obedience and mandated and managed behavior.

    To be rebuilt in what model?

    They really do not know; they think that the comfortable world that they exist in today in America is what is the natural state of the world. They are unaware that what they propose is pure Socialism bordering on Communism and death camps as you point out. That is in reality what they in the long term will deliver us all to if allowed to continue unopposed in a serious and substantive way by their opposition.

    Remember, the Salem witch burners believed and had no doubts they were burning witches.

    The worst and not so worse on the Left are no better because that is how they see their enemy. Objectify your enemy, it makes it easier to do what must be done.

    It is chilling but it is the truth that we see looming before us all. IMO.

    (And still somehow, I remain optimistic)

    https://patch.com/img/cdn/users/319113/2013/02/raw/6bacc22a5656d25eb499250a62492be8.jpg?width=705

  • wayne

    I’ll drop this in here– Neil deGrasse Tyson proving he’s the Tool I always suspected him of being…..

    “They Were WRONG!” –
    Neil deGrasse Tyson In Heated Vaccine Debate With Patrick Bet-David
    Patrick Bet-David Valuetainment
    1-9-23
    https://youtu.be/CquiSjgJNc8
    25:40

  • wayne

    Neil deGrasse Tyson Is Astronomically Wrong
    Dave Smith: Part Of The Problem Episode 951
    1-12-23
    https://youtu.be/CbsI6GKQGBE
    1:11:01

  • Cotour

    Wayne, Thomas Sowell comments on those “superior” Americans like Neil Degrass Tyson:

    https://youtu.be/lj6er57dfag

    Three degrees form the best universities, no doubt an intelligent person, he writes beautifully, but he (and they) knows best for you, me and all others. And don’t dare question them.

    Why does the Left only seek to limit choice and select and insist on the choice?

    Why can I not have choice?

    The government trying to force the injection of the mRNA experimental “Vaccine” on everyone no matter what your doctor had to say or what you might choose regarding the information that you have determined was relevant related to risk being the most relevant and timely example of Tysons perspective.

    Always focused on force and no choice is their “More informed” position. Why?

    And Tyson is unaware or will deny the now many, many real-world examples of harm and even many deaths mostly among the young ascribed to the experimental “Vaccine” and the actively denying of the ability to use proven drugs and therapies. They were banned and if you dared suggest using them your medical license was in jeopardy.

    Anything can be justified if there is an existential crisis established where those in politically empowered and in charge must make critical decisions. “Trust the science”. And what happens when the science is demonstrated to be fraudulent? And it was established that “The science” was fraudulent and managed from the start.

    NOT ALLOWED!

    So smart they become stupid and seek to dominate all others, for their and all others own good that is.

    I say mind your own GD business.

  • Cotour

    A little more for you Wayne, we are all “stake holders”: https://youtu.be/xcpXvfVdRY0

    As per the World Economic Forum and the FAA!

    The enemy is within.

  • Cotour

    Q: Why are people like FBI director Ray and the governor of Arizona and many others in American government going to the WEF / Davos meeting?

    You can figure this out, just like President Biden, they are merely checking in and being updated as they deliver the deliverables.

    “FBI Director Chris Wray, the CEOs of Amazon, BlackRock, and Pfizer, and top officials at the Gates Foundation and in the Soros network are found on the list.”

    https://www.newswars.com/breaking-davos-2023-guest-list-leaked-globalists-preparing-final-phase-of-great-reset-takeover/

    “All the world’s a stage,
    And all the men and women merely Players;
    They have their exits and their entrances,
    And one man in his time plays many parts,
    His Acts being seven ages. “

  • Blair Ivey

    Ref: the illustration with the post.

    Looks like seven people, with some fire available, against three lions. I’d call that a chance.

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 *