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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.

 

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Today’s blacklisted American: All conservatives on Facebook

The Bill of Rights cancelled at Facebook and Instagram
No first amendment on Facebook.

The new dark age of silencing: It isn’t really news to post an article describing the effort at Facebook to silence and squelch conservative thought. I along with many others have already done so repeatedly, with the worst and most blatant banning beginning with the wave of censorship that these big social media sites initiated just after January 6th. Nor has Facebook eased up in subsequent months. For example, in April Facebook blackballed a mother for daring to criticize the radical Marxist and racist policies of her school board.

Since then, Facebook has shut down a pro-Israel Christian site with 77 million followers and blocked the viewing of reviews of a climate book by former Obama science advisor Steve Koonin that raised doubts about the theory of human-caused climate change.

In the former case, it appears that Facebook allowed itself to be influenced by a orchestrated attack by radical Islamic organizations, which posted more than a million comments of complaint to the site in an effort to get it canceled. Facebook of course complied.

In the latter case Facebook took on faith the complaints made by pro-global warming websites, which claimed that the book was false simply because it disagreed with those pro-global warming sites. None of them actually cited any incorrect facts put forth by the reviewed book. And even if they had found errors and falsehoods, the right answer to bad speech is never censorship, but an educated response.

Facebook claims that this censorship campaign is not really aimed at any particular political point of view, but is instead designed to reduce the overall political content on Facebook. And yet, their own description of their effort illustrates its partisan nature:

Over the next few months, we’ll work to better understand peoples’ varied preferences for political content and test a number of approaches based on those insights. As a first step, we’ll temporarily reduce the distribution of political content in News Feed for a small percentage of people in Canada, Brazil and Indonesia this week, and the US in the coming weeks. During these initial tests we’ll explore a variety of ways to rank political content in people’s feeds using different signals, and then decide on the approaches we’ll use going forward. COVID-19 information from authoritative health organizations like the CDC and WHO, as well as national and regional health agencies and services from affected countries, will be exempt from these tests. Content from official government agencies and services will also be exempt. [emphasis mine]

Note who Facebook gives a pass? The policies of government agencies cannot be questioned or challenged. Their statements are carved in stone, and must be believed, no matter what. Anyone who dares to challenge their claims however is fair game, and will find themselves quite likely banned by Facebook.

Moreover, in this Facebook campaign the site has clearly taken an approach that clearly favors the left and the control freak mobs that use social media to silence all debate. In fact, it appears they are working together, like a tag team.

First, as illustrated above, Facebook uses its “fact checkers” to block conservative sites that others claim are false, though the legitimacy of such claims are usually very questionable.

Next, should a conservative site or individual still remain on Facebook and dare say anything even remotely conservative, Facebook then allows the leftist mob to harass and attack them, wildly, viciously, and without mercy.

Now, instead of political fights, everywhere you look on Facebook conversations about everything from cooking to kayaking are blowing up into major battles as the scolds and Karens, who once went head-to-head on political posts, are now visiting their hostilities on the most benign groups and conversations.

The result is that only leftists and Democratic partisans can write and speak without fear of attack or retribution. I also suspect that if any conservatives tried to this mode of attack Facebook would immediately come down on them like a ton of bricks. This isn’t to say that such mob attacks are proper or that conservatives should do them, it is to point out Facebook’s biased manner of enforcing politeness and political debate.

So, this is Facebook, a site that eagerly shuts down conservatives and their writings. And when it doesn’t, it then lets leftist mobs arrive with pitchforks and torches to make life miserable for the conservatives who remain.

I therefore ask again: Why is anyone still giving Facebook their business? If you believe in free speech and polite and open-minded debate, Facebook is not a social media site worth supporting or using. Get off, now! Find alternatives that welcome debate. There are plenty of options out there.

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

12 comments

  • Cotour

    I think we have to face the fact that most of the empowered political class, the Media, Social Media and celebrities are all in some way compromised. And not just compromised by the money.

    But the money is at the core of it all and the Communist Chinese and the Globalists and those who seek their approval and access to the Chinese expansion markets are playing the game well.

    And that is really what this all boils down to.

    Most all of the politically empowered in America are in a state of fear and or are compromised in some manner. And I fully suspect that our election system nation wide due to the fact that they have been turned over to technology is what lies at the core of this compromise.

    The fix is in, the pictures or the video exists and is in the control of “Others”, those who are elected are chosen long before the election takes place.

    This is what this is all shaking out as. IMO of course.

    By Any Means Necessary, means by any means necessary, all potentials exist.

    Take that to the bank.

  • Alton

    Hey! I earned being banned by Next Door, no small feat, unless you are conservative and believe in Free Speach….

  • To Zuck, Dorsey and their minions, the world is not Left vs. Right, but Normal vs. The Evil Other … and they are seeking to control the flow of information, to establish this view as the default position that is to be simply accepted as The Way Things Are.

    The blind, leading the blinded.

  • Jeff Wright

    Facebook Delinda Est

  • Klystron

    Repeal Section 230 immunity.. FB is clearly exercising editorial control and is not “just” a neutral speech platform.

  • pzatchok

    How can you have debate and discourse without disagreement?

  • wayne

    Jeff-
    I second that motion!

    Jocko Willink
    “The Enemy” (2019)
    https://youtu.be/4UgpgZApLs4
    5:27

  • James Street

    Great song Wayne. Thanks.

  • wayne

    James–
    you might like this as well…..

    Jocko Willink / Rudyard Kipling
    “If” (2019)
    https://youtu.be/F5yQLOv3oPQ
    4:35

  • Jeff Wright

    I just watched Tucker and the woke LockMart bit. I begin to regret supporting Space Force if their real target is the ‘Radio Free World’ called Starlink.

  • pzatchok

    Amazon needs to be broken up.

    Unlike other warehouse companies they pay no tax on stock they hold at the end of the year. They claim that the products they house, box and ship out of their warehouses are actually owned by the suppliers because they do not pay for them until they are sold. Big loophole.
    They should not be a warehouse or store to door transport company, owning their own shipping fleet. They are putting other transport companies and the US post office out of business.

    Next they will start to buy up the manufacturers of the products they ship.

    The robber barons of the last century were stopped for less.

  • Cotour

    All of these companies are doing exactly what they should be doing, building the best, strongest, most powerful and most profitable business model that they can. That is their prime directive.

    What is the problem here?

    Government has been too compromised and no longer is in control of the “Proper” regulation that dictates what is too far for them to go.

    These tech companies today have two things that create a never before end run around “Proper” government regulation:

    1. Massive amounts of cash that flows through to those who regulate them. Nothing really new here. AND

    2. These companies are in possession of and in control of a new kind of communication technology that those in government fear and want and need to favor them.

    The missing component? True Leadership in government! There is a vast disparity between someone who is a “Manager” or someone who is an executive, and someone who is a true Leader. Leaders are few and far between.

    Most politicians today are mere managers, primarily managers of their own careers, rather than actual Leaders with a primary core philosophy related to the job they were hired to perform, UP HOLD THE TENETS OF THE CONSTITUTION. As is their sworn oath and duty.

    Two very different things, and that is why Trump was so valuable as an example of true leadership. He had a simple and clearly understood mandate regarding his sworn oath to the Constitution and those who have politically invested and empowered him. His primary concern?

    Do what’s best for America? (What a concept)

    We wait for true leadership, managers need it because without it all they will do is first secure their own self interests and their responsibilities concerning their oath comes second, third or far worse.

    And by design the Founders understood this dynamic and built the only governance structure that is able to somewhat clean itself out over time and fulfill the prime directive which is structure the mechanisms of governance and those things that the government must never do in regards to the people Rights. And to counter balance the nature of man regarding the abuse of power.

    The Constitution essentially structures perpetual political warfare and the bloodless transfer of political power and in that constant struggle is the only hope.

    This situation in todays world will test that design to the max given this new technology in communication and its ability to manipulate the thinking of the most important component in the Founders design, THE PEOPLE. And its the peoples ability to politically empower others who seek leadership that is being fought to the death to possess.

    (Who here thinks that from the first moment there was an electronic method of voting that there was not fraud and corruption either being studied in order to use in the future or executed by design?)

    And that is essentially what this is all about.

    We wait for true leadership, we are always waiting.

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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