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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.


Alternatives to PayPal for supporting Behind the Black

In the past two days a large number of my subscribers have suddenly canceled their PayPal subscriptions to Behind the Black. I am certain this sudden activity is because these subscribers have also canceled all of their business with PayPal, because of its announcement that if it doesn’t like what someone says or writes, it will literally steal up to $2,500 from that person’s PayPal account. See this article describing the sudden exodus from Paypal due to this unethical policy.

For the past two years I have been steadily adding additional payment options so that neither I nor my supporters will have to depend on PayPal. These have included Patreon, Zelle, and mailing a check to me directly.

I have now added one more, Gabpay. This payment service has been formed by the same people who created Gab as a free speech alternative to Twitter. Gabpay appears to work almost identical to PayPal, but its fees are less and it has no intention of stealing anyone’s money because it doesn’t like what someone says or writes.

Thus, regular readers can now support Behind The Black in one of five ways:

  • Send me a check payable to Robert Zimmerman c/o Behind The Black, P.O.Box 1262
    Cortaro, AZ 85652 . With this method every dime you contribute goes to me.
  • Subscribe or donate through Zelle, using my email address zimmerman @ nasw dot org. This method also charges no fees. Every dime you spend goes only to me.
  • NEW! Donate through Gabpay, using my email address zimmerman @ nasw dot org. Gabpay takes a cut of about 2%.
  • Subscribe or donate at my Patreon website, which takes a cut of about 12%.
  • Subscribe or donate through Paypal using the buttons in the tip jar elsewhere on this page. PayPal also takes a cut of about 12%.

I encourage my regular subscribers on both Paypal and Patreon to consider switching to Zelle. Several subscribers have done so, and have found the process simple and easy, while also guaranteeing all of your donation reaches me. If you use Zelle to either newly subscribe or switch your old subscription, please use my email address to send me a separate email telling me the monthly amount of your subscription and your chosen payment date. Zelle does not send notifications for such things.

Regardless, I celebrate my readers who are quitting PayPal. It has proven itself as unethical as companies like Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, all of which I avoid at all costs. Rather than sit back like sheep, these readers are proving that they are free citizens willing to fight. Kudos to you all!

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

  • Cotour

    The “Woke” just cannot make up enough offensive to freedom measures that they are seeking to take in order to create “Equity”.

    Outrageous! I would never ever even consider using Paypal.

    Here is another example of a dopey attempt to force the “Woke” / “Equity” on the country:

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/volta-partners-tucson-electric-power-130000657.html

    Now why would people in a “Disadvantaged” community need charging stations? If you can even think about buying the auto why would you need to have the charging stations?

    Stupid, stupid, stupid.

    (And unfortunately, I own some of this company………..But not for long)

    I have said it from the beginning, political correctness is a threat to all.

  • sippin_bourbon

    Paypal, as a financial institution, was threatening to do to individuals what other banks have been doing to legitimate businesses for years now.

    Research how many firearms stores and blacksmiths have had to find new services after their banks cut them off after being labeled “high risk”. The same category used for porn industry and sellers of drug paraphernalia was used to limit access to the financial system as a means to push them out of business.

    Important to note, it was not the banks that applied the label. It was the FDIC, a US Government corporation.

    Paypal overstepped and they know it, as they are back tracking fast. But this was also likely encouraged by the major credit companies stating that they would track (and probably report) all legal firearm and firearm related purchases by individuals. This is not just a 1st or 2nd amdt issue.

    Using finance to control the people will get ugly. Creating new institutions for the people that wish to avoid these over zealous agencies is not easy either. To create a new bank, and get FDIC coverage, and work in the finance networks requires working with the government. And depending on who is in charge, that can be made very difficult.

  • Cotour

    For a bank to choose to dismiss you as a customer is one thing (That has been done to me after being a customer of HSBC for 25 years and it outraged me).

    But for a company to tell their CUSTOMERS that they will go as far as fining them $2500 if they do not act as they demand is another thing all together.

    Let the “Woke” go broke.

  • Cotour

    Rlated:

    TULSI, OUT! TULSI IS NOW A FORMER DEMOCRAT

    AS SHOULD YOU ALSO BE A FORMER DEMOCRAT (please copy and share)

    Several years ago now, you may remember. I wrote that I saw Tulsi Gabbard as the future of the Democrat party after the Democrat party self-destructed under this now clear to most wearing thin “Woke” / Liberal / Leftist / Marxist / Un and Anti American / “Progressive” / Globalist / Democrat party leadership. (You are none of those things)

    Tulsi Gabbard quits Democrat Party, blasts ‘wokeness’ (nypost.com)

    ​Tulsi Gabbard: ”​I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party that is now under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness, who divide us by racializing every issue ​and stoke anti-white racism, actively work to undermine our God-given freedoms​ that are enshrined in our Constitution,”

    And I still believe that although she is now no longer a Democrat, she quits! She is OUT!

    Tulsi is making political leadership power moves in order to set herself apart from the extreme radicals who have highjacked her / the Democrat party.

    You consider yourself a rational patriotic everyday American Democrat? You have been defrauded and now it is your responsibility to destroy the political Frankenstein monster that today exists in Democrat politics in America.

    It is all up to you, what will you do? What will you do? Join Tulsi?

    https://i.ytimg.com/vi/oPLzY-eTmY8/maxresdefault.jpg

  • James Street

    Robert also accepts brown paper bags stuffed with non-sequential, unmarked, large denomination cash left at his back door in the middle of the night.

  • Calvin Dodge

    I was a PayPal customer since 2001. That ended yesterday.

  • Alton

    James *** PLEASE ? *** do not leave the same sequential numbered Money Orders in Brown Bags as the Klintoons accepted from Charlie Tree…… rumored origin China & Lebanon, back when the Jewel of the Eastern Med was a Financial Center.

  • bill

    Unethical? It seems definitely criminal. Small claims court or even better a class action law suit might be in order. If only the ACLU cared about civil liberties. Paypal is high on the list of big tech companies to avoid like the plague.

  • Cotour

    Related: More perversion and fraud.

    “Ben Bernanke, Who Got Everything Wrong In 2008 Financial Crisis, Wins Nobel Economics Prize”

    This goes right along with Obama and his BS peace prize.

    Given these standards then Allan Greenspan “I thought the banks would self-regulate themselves” should also receive and Nobel, as well as Janet “Inflation will be transitory, and don’t forget to hire those 87,000 new armed IRS agents Yellen.

    Just an elite, Globalist self-congratulatory mutual massage award.

    God, what total CRAP!

  • Peter Arzenshek

    Right now as a Canadian, I have no options besides PayPal. I was hopeful when RZ announced Zelle … but to no avail. I hope GabPay promise to be international will happen soon … can’t ditch PP fast enough.

  • Peter: What about Patreon? Does it not work in Canada? The fees are the same as PayPal, so it isn’t better in that sense, but it hasn’t yet claimed it has the right steal the money of its customers.

  • wayne

    “16 He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, 17 and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. 18 Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666.”

  • John

    Forums were once awash of people complaining that Paypal stole their money and locked their accounts because they sold a gun part.
    “Discrete paypal accepted” became a thing. I guess legal transactions were against the terms and services. We need a separate parallel economy if not a complete national divorce. It’s not us, it’s them.

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.

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