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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.

 

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A thumbnail bio of George Washington

An evening pause: This day, February 22nd and the birthday of George Washington, was once celebrated yearly by Americans to honor the leader of the American army in the Revolutionary War, the leader in the effort to write the Constitution, and the country’s first president who had the humbleness to step down after two terms in office.

Congress in 1971 turned that celebration into the empty “Presidents Day” holiday, that means nothing and devalues the profound importance of Washington, especially when compared to the generally mediocre individuals — with the except possibly of Lincoln alone — who followed him in that office.

I choose to celebrate Washington instead, on this the actual anniversary of this birth. The video below is a short but succinct and accurate outline of his life. It only touches the surface of the man’s unfathomable importance to American history, but it is start.

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

  • Cotour

    Excellent choice and point.

    Really the first and only iconic choice, he got what America was uniquely all about. And in the second spot its certainly Lincoln, another man of consequence.

    And the debate can go on as to who might populate the rest of the list and what position they might fill. If you understand the man and his challenges and accomplishments and where he came from then you understand what America is about.

    And that is why that rich and weighty consequential history must be disgraced and erased by a political faction in today’s world.

    Time has passed but human nature and the battle for what George Washington lived and fought for has not.

  • Andi

    Interesting bit of trivia: when George Washington was born, the calendar read “February 11, 1731”, because at that time England and its colonies were still using the Julian calendar. In the early 1750s, they (1) adopted the Gregorian calendar, and (2) moved the New Year from March to January.

    I got mad at Congress when they “Mondayified” George Washingon’s birthday, particularly since “Presidents’ Day” can never occur on February 22!

  • Cotour

    More validation of the concepts contained in Strategy Over Morality:

    https://townhall.com/columnists/wayneallynroot/2021/09/05/the-government-and-cdc-are-lying-about-covid19-vaccine-and-ivermectin-the-question-is-why-n2595312

    From S.O.M: “ALL forms of governance and government, whether it be a King or a Congress, no matter where on the planet or in what ever particular time in history it exists accomplishes one thing, the abuse of power. Its just a matter of to what degree. “Government” serves as a necessary organizational and management structure in order that human beings live in a somewhat stable and successful society model.

    Government is necessary, it serves an essential purpose, BUT, it is a necessary evil. And this fundamental expression of human nature and its potential, the abuse of power, very well understood by the Founders, lies at the core of the American Constitution in an attempt to counter balance that nature.” jgl 3/11/21

    “CONCLUSION: The public lives and operates under a subjective moral code or within a “Pedestrian Realm” perspective which they assume their leadership which exists within the “Political Realm” is constrained by. This is a subjective false perspective conclusion on the part of the public. Leadership at its existential core is not about morality, truth and honesty. Leadership is about the fundamental exercise of power and “its” survival. ”

    George this understood well.

  • Dubious

    I’m old, but at the time I remember reading the idea was to combine Washington’s and Lincoln’s Days and move the result to Monday because it’s what the government employees’ union wanted (thank you, JFK). It was to be the February federal holiday. Federal employees for some reason deserve a federal holiday every month.

  • pzatchok

    Washington was the perfect military leader we needed and the perfect first president.

    At the time Europe expected him to declare himself King. And he could have,the colonies would have accepted that to get rid of English rule.
    But he was elected president and when he felt it was the right time he stepped down. He could have been elected President until he died. But he set the president for a peaceful change of leadership.

    One of the odd things about him was that he never fathered a child. Europe expected him to have a child and declare a monarchy. If he did have a son he could have been elected also. But Washington could not father children.

    He was the perfect first President for the new government.

  • James Street

    Full 90 minute movie “The Crossing”, a dramatization of George Washington’s Christmas 1776 crossing of the Delaware River and attacking the Hessian forces at Trenton. Starring Jeff Daniels as George Washington.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jgEMrK1lcM

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