God of the Desert Books

God of the Desert Books

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God of the Desert Books
God of the Desert Books
Spotlighting 10 of My New Favorite Writers I've Found on Substack and 10 Old Favorites
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We are the first-ever Psychedelic Zionist book publisher. We offer nonfiction, novels, and poetry. Our Substack features cultural essays, political polemics, satire, podcasts and other assorted experiments from a diverse group of writers.
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Spotlighting 10 of My New Favorite Writers I've Found on Substack and 10 Old Favorites

I'm going to try and highlight more newsletters by talented people who I've come across and really appreciated since joining this fun website last summer.

David Swindle 🟦's avatar
David Swindle 🟦
Apr 13, 2023
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God of the Desert Books
God of the Desert Books
Spotlighting 10 of My New Favorite Writers I've Found on Substack and 10 Old Favorites
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Photo by Jaël Vallée on Unsplash

Honestly, I didn’t expect to get into Substack as much as I have. It’s just become such a fun venue for putting out my own writing, promoting the authors whose books I’m going to publish, discovering new writers, and now replacing Twitter as the main social network where I’m wanting to spend my time.

So something I’m going to try and do more regularly is simply promote writers who have especially grabbed my attention and encourage you to consider subscribing to them. Here we go:

The Freedom Academy with Asha Rangappa
Class 8. The CIA and the Cultural Cold War
Some inside the CIA began to recognize a basic problem in its approach to the ideological confrontation that was the Cold War, barely a decade after fighting had stopped in Europe: focusing on the strengths of the Soviet Union meant neglecting one’s own strengths. ‘Concentration on the enemy’s techniques has tended to result in the overlooking of potential psychological weapons which originate in, and are peculiar to, the free world,’ the CIA wrote in one project outline…
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2 years ago · 43 likes · 36 comments · Asha Rangappa
  1. Once I decide to open the floodgates and start doing premium subscriptions to Substacks then

    Asha Rangappa
    will be at the top of the list. She writes primarily on one of my favorite subjects to study: disinformation and information warfare. And she seems largely on point about it, which should come as no surprise since she used to be an FBI agent dealing with this stuff in the real world. Check her out.

Horse of a Different Colour
Egypt as a metaphor for the historical oppression of the Jewish people
The Passover Haggadah demands that each person see themself as having personally come forth from Egypt. It’s one of those demands that has always made me feel a little like the character in Chorus Line who sings about feeling nothing. For as good as my imagination is, I struggle to imagine myself living as a slave in …
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2 years ago · 5 likes · 1 comment · Sadie-Rae Werner
  1. I already gave

    Sadie-Rae Werner
    a post advocating for you to subscribe to her substack. She’s also done 2 pieces so far for us at GOTD. Please read her unique perspective on Zionism, law, culture, and her home, Canada!

God of the Desert Books
Meet Gifted Canadian Zionist Writer Sadie-Rae Werner and Check Out These 10 of Her Essays
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2 years ago · 1 like · David Swindle
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Clarence Thomas Bribed, Tennessee GOP Expels Black Men, Elon Musk Hates Facts, Boebert Hates Public Urination (and Facts), Don Jr. Targets (Literally) Judge's Daughter, Leon Russell Sings, and More
Justice Thomas accepted luxury travel for years from GOP donor, report says (The Washington Post) SUMMARY…
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2 years ago · 166 likes · 34 comments · Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
  1. If there is a more talented athlete-turned-writer than

    Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
    then please show them to me. The quality of Abdul-Jabbar’s writing and thinking is simply astounding.

Magen Yehudi
Jimmy Carter & the Problem of Embracing Evil
“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.” To understand Jimmy Carter and Western Civilization as a whole, we need to understand Esav, their Biblical embodiment. Let us start in the obit pages from back in the days: Today, we seek to remember the long life of our beloved Patriarch Esau, son of Isaac, brutally murdered at the tender age of 147. Anyon…
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2 years ago · 11 likes · 4 comments · Yisrael M. Eliashiv
  1. I’m starting to find a lot of Zionism-centric writers on Substack and

    Magen Yehudi
    has quickly emerged as one of my favorites. He's so smart and always brings compelling arguments.

Moth to flame
The saddest club in Alabama
Sharon Crocker Harris was right. The last time I spoke with her, she told me her son would die in prison. She didn’t just tell me, she told Alabama's parole board on April 13, 2022. I wrote a story about her plea for mercy and how she stood before the three board members and said her son would not survive prison if they kept him there…
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2 years ago · 21 likes · 12 comments · Beth Shelburne
  1. Beth Shelburne
    writes on one of the subjects near and dear to me: the corruption of our criminal justice system. She largely focuses on Alabama's brutal prison system and highlights important stories. I admire her so much.

A Pisgah Site of Palestine
A Roundup of my Recent Posts
Yesterday, I posted this. It is about the recent events in Israel, and I think that it has a wider reach. A one-line description: Keep the lines of communication open. Last week I posted this memoir that reflects upon two different ways that Zionists see their country. It is a kind of lead-in to yesterday’s post…
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2 years ago · 1 like · Ehud Neor
  1. Ehud Neor
    is another first-rate Zionist writer who we've published before here at GOTD and I'm eager to publish again! In addition he also writes about James Joyce, one of my favorite authors. Give him a read.

The Prism
TikTok is a Time Bomb
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2 years ago · 703 likes · 44 comments · Gurwinder
  1. Gurwinder
    is one of the best writers around writing on the intersection of media, technology, and culture. He's one of the most consistently intriguing writers on Substack.

The Public Pashkevil
What makes a Jew?
Identity is part and parcel of the human condition. We seek to define ourselves, those around us, how we are similar, and what makes us unique. This seems to be hardwired evolutionarily as well. A study conducted by Harvard University illustrates that the first things we notice when meeting another person are their race and gender. We take pride in our …
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2 years ago · 1 like · 1 comment · The Hebrew - העברי
  1. The Hebrew - העברי
    has impressed me over and over again in his writings on Judaism and Israel. Keep an eye on his Substack as he's kindly invited me to contribute to it. I'm working on my first submission now and need to focus and finish it for him.

The UnPopulist
The Populist Right Freely Deploys Philosophies It Deplores on the Left
John Bolton, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, and Judith Butler, the Berkley University gender theorist, have reached a rare consensus: Trump has no philosophy. Bolton asserted that, “Everything else flows …
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2 years ago · 17 likes · 3 comments · Aviezer Tucker
  1. As someone who deeply abhors populist ideologies wherever they manifest - and they show up on both the Right and the Left - I am, unsurprisingly, a fan of

    The UnPopulist
    and its founder/editor
    Shikha Dalmia
    . They're doing a great job exposing this terrible ideological tendency.

Substance
Watch cops just blithely torture a man to death.
You don’t have to watch this video of Joshua McLemore’s final days (do not watch this video before bed). His mother, Rhonda, couldn’t bear to watch it after lawyers told her the contents. She died 16 months later, her family thinks of a broken heart. But his family want people to see it…
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2 years ago · 7 likes · 25 comments · Tana Ganeva
  1. Finally, another Substack with so much good content I plan to up to a premium subscription, take a look at what

    Tana Ganeva
    puts out on criminal justice issues. She has so much moral clarity and inspiring conviction on the subject. I'm eager to learn more from her.

And I suppose it’s only fair and right to spotlight some of the writers I’ve been reading, many for years, who have made the wise decision to move to Substack:

Theory of Change Podcast With Matthew Sheffield
Theory of Change #062: David Hollinger on the theological origins of the Christian Right
Listen now (50 min) | Episode Summary After decades of neglect, there is finally a large and growing body of scholarship and journalism about the Religious Right, the powerful Christian Nationalist movement that rules the Republican Party from the heights of the Supreme Court bench down to the municipal voting precinct…
Listen now
2 years ago · Matthew Sheffield
  1. Matthew Sheffield
    is a very erudite observer of politics, culture, media, and technology. And he’s a very decent soul.

Alex Nowrasteh's (mostly) Deep Dives
Nationalism Debate: Rich Lowry vs. Alex Nowrasteh
Rich Lowry, editor in chief of National Review, and I debated the proposition “Nationalism is an important value that Americans should support” last week at the Soho Forum. Lowry took the affirmative, and I took the negative. Lowry wrote The Case for Nationalism: How It Made Us Powerful, United, and Free…
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2 years ago · 8 likes · Alex Nowrasteh
  1. I will always be perpetually in debt to

    Alex Nowrasteh
    for when he explained his immigration arguments to me 13 years ago. I’ve largely embraced his libertarian approach to immigration which is among the reasons why I avoided making the mistake of falling into Trumpism when so many of my conservative media colleagues just could not resist the Orange Calf's call. He’s tremendously smart and a really nice guy. His parents are also great filmmakers.

Along with Alex, there’s another sane and intelligent libertarian writer who I really appreciate:

Bet On It
The Market and the Eagles
If you watch The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit trilogies with a clever child, they’ll have a lot of questions about the eagles. “Why didn’t the eagles just fly the One Ring to Mount Doom?” “Why didn’t the eagles transport Gandalf everywhere instead of making him ride a horse…
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2 years ago · 56 likes · 24 comments · Bryan Caplan
  1. Bryan Caplan
    is the sort of libertarian I tend to drift toward - the variety whose free market advocacy is premised on a serious empiricism rather than a fanatical, nigh-religious devotion to ideology. And I'll always have an appreciation for him given his book The Case Against Education, the definitive take-down of America's fundamentally broken education system.

Blacklisted
Hello.
Hello. I was going to call this Substack / blog / whatever, Broke & Blacklisted, but I decided against it, because I come from a pre Gen Z era in which even when you're really one thing you pretend you're something else. Also, I don't want my current financial crisis to define what happens here. Tonight as I sit here on my tan leather couch in my boxer b…
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3 years ago · 158 likes · 32 comments · Eve Barlow
  1. Eve Barlow
    is one of the very best, most tenacious Zionist voices around today. Please subscribe to her.

Frank Talk
How to Always Get the Correct Political Opinion
People sure have lots of opinions and love to argue them on the internet. But have you ever worried that your political opinions could be wrong sometime? That you could be telling someone on Twitter to “die in a fire” over something where the other guy is actually in the right…
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2 years ago · 9 likes · 4 comments · Frank J. Fleming
  1. Frank J. Fleming
    is one of the funniest humor writers around. And he's a very kind soul too with a beautiful family.

A Moment of Clarity with Kylie Ora Lobell
Why I Started My Substack
I’m a happy person. I work at it constantly. I didn’t used to be this way. It took me years to wake up every day feeling content instead of lousy. When one bad thing used to go wrong, I’d say “This is going to be one of those days,” and then of course, the universe would respond and more bad things would happen to me. I contribute my overall positive st…
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4 years ago · Kylie Ora Lobell
  1. Kylie Ora Lobell
    is another wonderful Jewish writer I've been reading recently. Definitely keep an eye on her output and be sure and check out her husband Daniel's comedy. He's hilarious!

Shane Vander Hart
Jesus bursts the bands of death
Happy Easter! He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! The Apostle Paul reminds how central the resurrection of Christ is to our faith. It is so vital, that without it our faith would be meaningless. “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith…
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2 years ago · 5 likes · Shane Vander Hart
  1. Shane Vander Hart
    is one of the Christian writers I most respect. He has such genuine moral clarity and a loving heart. Check out his writing.

The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey
Religion inspired the nation-state, but politics made the difference.
To watch a video version of this story on YouTube please click here. A podcast version is available on Soundcloud, Itunes, Spotify, Spreaker, and Podbean.The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber…
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2 years ago · 23 likes · 1 comment · James M. Dorsey
  1. James M. Dorsey
    has long been one of my favorite op-ed contributors to read at The Algemeiner and I'm so excited to keep a closer look on his engaging, informed writings on the Middle East and Islam.

Umar Lee’s Newsletter
An Historic Day in a Changing Saudi Arabia
Yesterday I was glued to the couch watching boxing on DAZN (and later Showtime and ESPN). The big fight of the day pitted Ukrainian heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk against the British fan favorite Anthony Joshua in a rematch. In the first bout Usyk easily defeated Joshua and, while this bout was much more competitive, the Ukrainian prevailed once ag…
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3 years ago · 2 comments · Umar Lee
  1. Umar Lee
    is another creative, perceptive writer often writing on Islam-related subjects, but on other stuff too. I'm really excited to follow him more closely.

Undaunted Joy
Undaunted Joy #48
Growing up in Los Angeles, for better or worse, I was influenced by Hip Hop. I have been known to say, my philosophy of life is Jesus but if I am honest, it’s a little Transcendentalism and Gangsta Rap too. There are figures from the Hip Hop world that stand out above the rest; Tupac, Dre, JayZ, Eminem and producer Rick Rubin. Rubin produced many of thos…
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2 years ago · 12 likes · 12 comments · Shemaiah Gonzalez
  1. I connected with

    Shemaiah Gonzalez
    a while back through Twitter and find her both very sweet and very gifted in he writing. Please check her out.

Anyone you’ve found recently on Substack and want to recommend? Please drop a link or two or three down in the comments or send me an email.


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God of the Desert Books
God of the Desert Books
Spotlighting 10 of My New Favorite Writers I've Found on Substack and 10 Old Favorites
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Ehud Neor's avatar
Ehud Neor
Apr 14, 2023

You are the best David. Very much appreciated.

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Beth Shelburne
Apr 15, 2023

I'm honored & humbled to make your list. Thanks so much!

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Why Far Right Men Love Laura Loomer
It is so simple and the entire conservative media project collapses when we acknowledge this fundamental reality.
May 12 • 
David Swindle 🟦
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God of the Desert Books
God of the Desert Books
Why Far Right Men Love Laura Loomer
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Russia Is a Suicidal Slave State with a Terrible Culture
Putin is only a symptom. The moral values of the nation are the disease.
Mar 16, 2024 • 
David Swindle 🟦
36

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God of the Desert Books
God of the Desert Books
Russia Is a Suicidal Slave State with a Terrible Culture
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The Real Reason J.K. Rowling Needs to Be Arrested Immediately
The bestselling author committed serious crimes to fuel her massive success.
Apr 4, 2024 • 
David Swindle 🟦
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God of the Desert Books
God of the Desert Books
The Real Reason J.K. Rowling Needs to Be Arrested Immediately
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