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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
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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.


“So come and get me if you must, Mr. President. I will not bow to your wicked regulation.”

We’ve only just begun: “So come and get me if you must, Mr. President. I will not bow to your wicked regulation.”

James Dobson is not to be taken lightly. Under the Obamacare HHS contraceptive mandate, his organization, Focus on the Family, would not qualify for any exemption and would be required to pay for contraceptives and abortion drugs. And if Dobson’s organization defies the federal government here, expect very loud fireworks, as Focus is very large with a very large following.

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

5 comments

  • Jim

    I think Tea Party founder and head of FreedomWorks, Dick Armey, said it best about James Dobson:
    “To a large extent because Dobson and his gang of thugs are real nasty bullies. I pray devoutly every day, but being a Christian is no excuse for being stupid. There’s a high demagoguery coefficient to issues like prayer in schools. Demagoguery doesn’t work unless it’s dumb, shallow as water on a plate. These issues are easy for the intellectually lazy and can appeal to a large demographic. These issues become bigger than life, largely because they’re easy. There ain’t no thinking.”
    (from an interview with Ryan Sager)

  • How does this comment by Armey change the basic fact that the federal government under Obama intends to use force to make some religious people violate their personal beliefs? It doesn’t, and is thus completely irrelevant.

    If you believe in freedom, it doesn’t matter how obnoxious you think Dobson and his followers are. You support their right to practice their religion to the fullest. And you oppose anyone who wants to oppress them, no matter what political party those oppressors belong to.

    That you apparently are willing to look the other way while the freedoms of Dobson and other religious Christians are squelched reveals a lot more about yourself than it does about either Dobson or Obama.

  • Jim

    It completely relevant, at least according to Armey.
    He tells us that Dobson is just a demagogue, which he is. And he tells us that when Dobson speaks and others blindly follow, its only intellectual laziness.
    And it holds true for many issues from Dobson, including now health care.
    And I’ll leave it to you to blindly let all people support “religion to the fullest.”

  • jwing

    Jim, whether you think Dobson is great or a fraud, I think you would agree that he has a constitutional right to practice his religion and speak out no matter how silly it may sound to you as not being part of that religion. Every religion viewed from the outside has its idoisyncracies and peculiar beliefs, customs and personalities. That being said, history shows that a people can never “accomodate” their deeply held religious convictions and first amendment right for mear political expediency of the well-intended notion of improving healthcare. People that do have ended up rounded up by those every so accomodating political leaders.
    This whole issue in not about contraception or even providing the poor with better healthcare. It is fundamentaly about crowding out any private or non-profit, religious based, non-government institution from competing with big government statism power and control over peoples’ lives and beliefs. It is just one more nail in the coffin of capitalism, individual freedoms and the ability to choose one’s own destiny.

  • Jim

    Good points all, jwing. There have been many posts here on Obamacare, and I rarely respond. And that is because each of us can view the whole topic differently. I understand your point of view. I only responded to holding James Dobson up as any kind of paragon in this matter, and clearly Dick Armey and I would agree about who James Dobson is.
    James Dobson is not a spokesman for Christianity. He is a Christian who speaks. Kind of like me. He’s not even the face or Chairman of Focus on the Family anymore.
    Dick Armey was warning us about him, and I am agreeing.

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