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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.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription, which takes about a 15% cut:

 

4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it 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.


September 11, 2001 through the Eyes of a Child

Link here. The horror of that terrorist act, no different than the horrifying acts of rioting and looting dressed up as fake protests today, should not be forgotten. This article gives us possibly the most important perspective, the impact that horror had on the innocent children of the time.

Matthew John Bocci wrote the book Sway as a way to sort out his feelings. He was nine years old when his father died during the collapse of the World Trade Center. It took one week for the family to find out his father was dead. “Even though I knew he was dead, I still needed to find out the how. I became obsessed. I wondered if he had jumped, since he worked on the 105th floor and I saw all the smoke. My thoughts were that if he had jumped, maybe I could see him looking out a window beforehand. Even though I found out my dad did not jump, when I see the footage, it brings a lot of sadness. I look at it and think my father was in that building and he never had a chance to get out. In the book, I wrote, ‘What could you say, especially to a nine-year-old whose father was obliterated?'”

He went on to say, “My dad was selfless. He actually called my mom two minutes after the plane hit the building to tell her he loved her and us. He said goodbye. I now try to look at the positives he left behind. He was honorable, put family first, and was very humble. I think how brave he was, smart, resourceful, funny, determined, hardworking, and caring.”

Because of his father’s death, Matthew’s life spiraled out of control. He searched for answers and a father figure. Unfortunately, his Uncle Phil filled that role. He took advantage of Matthew’s grief by sexually abusing him. To cope, Matthew turned to drugs. But thankfully, after many years of drug abuse, he got himself straightened out, had his uncle arrested and convicted of child abuse, and is now five years sober.

To my mind, the worst result of both 9/11 and today’s riots is our society’s generally weak response. We never really did wipe out the scourge of Islamic terrorism after 9/11, which since then has only worsened. For children like Matthew, who lost his father, there is thus no closure or a feeling of justice.

And today we seem paralyzed to act against the home-grown terrorists in our midst, allowing them to commit some equally ugly acts while doing little to stop them. We must therefore ask ourselves, what are today’s children learning from this failure?

For evil to flourish good men need only do nothing. And sadly nothing is much of what America has been doing for the past two decades.

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

3 comments

  • mrsizer

    We never really did wipe out the scourge of Islamic terrorism after 9/11, which since then has only worsened.

    True. But consider that they took out two buildings and we took out two countries. It wasn’t particularly effective in dealing with the root cause, but looked at from a tit-for-tat perspective, one hopes a point was made.

  • Cotour

    “The horror of that terrorist act, no different than the horrifying acts of rioting and looting dressed up as fake protests today, should not be forgotten. ”

    You make a salient point, no difference at all IMO. Might they be associated and essentially the same thing with a similar goal?

    Both are unbelievable, but there they are all the same. If you are willing to act confidently outside of someone’s reality and ability to believe then you get to define reality. We are witness to strategy here.

    I just recently made it a point to find out the origin and meaning of the term “Gas Lighting”. I really did not know what it meant and that is all that you are hearing in the media as of late. And it refers essentially one person misrepresenting reality to another person in order to manipulate them while driving them insane. If someone can get you to question your reality even though it goes against your common sense then you are being Gas Lighted.

    And I realized and pointed that out here on BTB a while ago that that is exactly what the “Progressive” Democrat now Leftist agenda is all about. Remember, the “Progressive” Democrat agenda, where up is down, right is wrong and good is bad. Where you are crazy.

    Both of these events, one 19 years old and the other currently underway IMO are related efforts focused on essentially in the long term killing our Constitution in order to establish some other power structure in the world. America as formulated is a problem to those who seek such change in the world.

    And I as an American that understands the importance of the Constitution in the world and American leadership stand firmly against that effort.

    I have two new giant American flags hanging in front of my building today, I do this every 9/11 to remember those who were unlucky enough to be at the wrong place at the wrong time those many years ago now. If some day YOU find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time, YOU RUN. You run and be lucky.

    You run because there is only one person that is responsible for where you find yourself at any particular time, and its not the government. And timing in life is everything sometimes. Its the difference between life and death.

  • Cotour

    If you get to define reality:

    https://nypost.com/2020/09/11/members-of-muellers-team-wiped-phones-during-trump-probe-doj/

    “More than two dozen cellphones belonging to members of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team were “wiped” clean of their data before the Justice Department’s inspector general could check them, according to a report.”

    Your crazy.

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