We received little notes from Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Members about the award Donald Trump bestowed upon Tiger Woods.
Several expressed surprise that Tiger Woods accepted the award – given the stand many African American and even mixed race African American sports figures have taken. So why is Tiger Woods standing there grinning and proud?
We didn’t understand the surprise of some of our readers and contributors because – “birds of a feather”.
That should give you some idea of the common values Trump and Woods share. That kind of sexism, that disrespect for, that misuse and abuse of women crosses racial, national, and all other barriers.
Think back a bit. What do you know about Tiger Woods beyond his great talent in the golf game? Remember his ex-wife’s anger when she found out just how ‘outre’ he was with women? Remember the stories which surfaced in the media about how he ‘shacked up’ with multiple women after his golf tournaments and carried on multiple affairs while his wife took care of home and children? Remember all of the womanizing you heard and/or read about concerning how Tiger Woods lived his life? Does that remind you of anyone? Maybe the man putting the necklace (some call it the Medal of Freedom) around Tiger Woods?
Now who is surprised? We are, that so many of you are surprised and/or expected Tiger Woods to refuse the award on principled grounds. Expect him rather to ask ‘what’s that’ – principled grounds?
The surprise should be all of the media reports with no one mentioning that history – those connections between Woods and Trump – etc. Or have we become a society which accepts all of that as normal and those commonalities having nothing to do with why one is chosen? Who you are as a person needs to be the rock foundation from which other talents and accomplishments radiate.
Have we lost our way expecting awards such as the Presidential Medal of Freedom be given to someone who examplifies greatness in what they do as well as who they are and how they have lived their lives – as an example of someone who walks this earth who we would be proud to have our children emulate? A great talent is a wonderful gift. A life well lived is what we give back. An award such as the Presidential Medal of Freedom needs to be given to someone whose life embodies both the gift and what the giver returns to the society. At this point Tiger Woods has shown and cultivated his God given gift. He has given back, however, much that muddies the earth, confuses its children and supports the likes of a Donald Trump and his presidency. From looking at Tiger Woods’ children, imagine them crossing the border – or trying to cross the border from Mexico to the U. S. How do you think he would be treated by those carrying out the dictates and policies of the man putting that award around his neck. Do you think Tiger, having been asked the question would call for the bowl of water, soap and a towel? With the acceptance of that award from Donald Trump, Tiger Woods symbolically did just that.
into a major media outlet bringing to the public news, recipes, thoughts, reviews of businesses, etc. from the perspective of those who belong to Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community.
You can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
We have known for generations that the segregated neighborhoods that refuse to show any signs of integration, which cause segregated schools, which are enabled by redlining (although today there are more sophisticated names than redlining), are caused by the collusion between realtors, those serving the professional real estate community, banks and other financial institutions.
We am having an experience of what that is like in 2019 because one of our own is selling her house and is mind blown by what she is experiencing.
Her neighborhood is one of the “upper class” neighborhoods in Cambridge, MA. It is about 99% white and for the last 37 years that she has lived and owned a house in that neighborhood there has been no change. One black man lives in the neighborhood and has lived there longer by a fluke of government contracts. Architects built an apartment building using HUD money. Those HUD contracts were to bring “affordable housing” into the neighborhood and to help insure people with very little could afford to buy condominiums and live and raise their families in a really fantastic place.
Unfortunately, the HUD contracts were only for one generation of buyers, so once the condominiums were sold if the people who bought them were foreclosed on or met some other kind of tragedy which mandated they move then the builders were free to take back the condo’s and resell them at market rate to whoever, no matter their wealth or financial status.
Since the terms to buy were way beyond what most in the economic/financial situation to which those contracts were pointed and the terms under which the condo’s were being sold were generous to encourage such buyers – people bought who could not afford the condo’s they were put into and in short order the buildings units were being foreclosed or people were forced out by turning over their deeds or whatever arrangements they made to get out of what they bought as a dream, which was actually a nightmare. There were no safety measures in place under that HUD contract which could have helped many retain their homes.
One lone African American man remains in the neighborhood because somehow he managed to keep his condo and is still there today. Otherwise, it is like looking for hens teeth to find any other African American homeowners, unless they are temporary residents under the wing of Harvard University.
So now the stage is set. Along comes one of our leaders – an African American woman who buys into the neighborhood. That was horrific on its own. But that settled down and she lived a mostly peaceful, rewarding life making many friends of her neighbors.
She decides to sell. Looks up Zillow and find her house has a Zillow Estimate of about $4.9 million. And then the fun starts.
That Estimate stays for several months after the house is listed on Zillow and is close to professional appraisals of the house. Until, apparently, Zillow discovers the African American residents and the house tumbles in value on Zillow by almost $1 million dollars within two to three days.
How did Zillow do that? And what are they counting on to erase their attack? The way they set up their Estimate. In one to two months that history will be history and things will look normal – well, sort of.
To reach that Estimate, Zillow compared her property not to other houses in the Brattle Street, Gold Crown Historical District, but made a comparison of her house to homes in Brighton/Alston, Central Square, etc. and the size of the homes to which her home was compared were 1,000 to 2,000 square feet smaller. A comparative value, found from such circumstances would be much lower than one if the house was compared to those actually similar.
When Zillow was called and emailed to say – why? They did not respond.
What happened to the house that after a few months with the house on Zillow at $4.9 million approximately, the Zillow Estimate drops to $3.5 million – which is actually substantially below the value of the house in todays market and that drop happened within about 24 to 48 hours..
After more investigation, we discovered the answer. It has to do with race.
What is that called? Why are they allowed to do such? What are the alternatives?
That made us look around to ask – Zillow can’t be alone with these practices and are there official places which make this possible and Zillow comfortable in what it is doing?
Let’s investigate!!!!! Stay tuned for more. We have started some investigative work to look closer and deeper.
into a major media outlet bringing to the public news, recipes, thoughts, reviews of businesses, etc. from the perspective of those who belong to Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community.
You can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
So much happening in your world and there are so few people – beyond those doing the planning – who understand and get what is probably going to be their future.
George H. W. Bush – Donald Trump – New World Order – blocked by the Clintons.
Have you noticed the continuum between H. W. and DJT? What you can’t have missed was H. W. diminishing Thurgood Marshall by replacing him with Clarence Thomas. What you can’t miss today is William Barr – Attorney General during the Bush Administration and now Attorney General during the Trump Administration. And please don’t be so obtuse that you can’t connect the dots with Barr committing impeachable offenses during both times he supposedly served the country, but actually served as one of those on the front line for the New World Order.
Who will lead the world in the coming years – Government, the way you have lived under, preferably elected governments; or the Billionaire Class which is strongly moving to take over so they can accumulate more, more and more without government muddying up the waters. That is the war going on in the earth sphere. So primitive and with such incredible ugliness because you are still bound by greed, horrible ethics, lack of integrity in those you have chosen to lead and on down the list into more and more muck.
Every once in a while someone comes along sacrificing themselves for the good of the whole, but that never works. At most it buys you time and space to get your act together to move ahead into a more beautiful space. But the uglies always have a plan and people to carry out the plan to make sure liars, cheaters, thieves, those who have no integrity and mostly greed take over and turn the earth sphere into something ugly.
Once upon a time earth was a beautiful place. But those who were in that beautiful place gradually turned it into the filth it is fast becoming where disease is rampant following the greed which has created the many diseases now plaguing the earth.
Sexual deviants have taken over bringing in sex trafficking, rape, and all the other horribleness perpetrated on others. You can see the filth in their souls as they try to blackmail those who might break out and they always use some kind of sex threat in the process. Sex is beautiful and is the way you survive on earth. How else do you help in the creation of others being born into what should be an ideal existence? Those full of greed, sin, filth and more have taken the core of existence to blackmail and try to turn others – and they have been majorly successful because we have not rescued sex from the ugly into the beauty that it is and was created to be.
Look at how you treat serious sexual deviants: You just elected one president of the United States. Trump, who uses sex as a tool to gain power and control over and to feed his sick male ego, has been majorly rewarded for his braggadocio and the things he has done to attempt to debase women. There are so many more, but I won’t dwell on that negative you see it on a daily basis.
You have taken the basics of life and allowed those who will destroy even life or at the very least the quality of life to gain money, power and control to use those basics of life to gain material wealth leaving many destitute, in pain, sick, homeless – and many on earth have done this over even too many generations. Instead of thinking on and creating real wealth and beauty and making sure you have no homeless – instead you cordon off what you can claim as wealth, put it into the hands of a few like those who are so ugly and so full of sin.
Food is something which you decided to cordon off and manipulate to gain material wealth. So are the other necessities of life. And now instead of turning around to make right what you have destroyed you will do even more ill by trying to go off into space to do the same thing elsewhere, leaving the poor, the destitute, the hungry, those without adequate clothes and shelter in their state because you need them to be so.. How else can you claim and feel so victorious and better than if others don’t pay such a price to your egos?
As life move along and you continue in this path things will all of a sudden become excruciatingly painful for you and lets not even begin to talk about your death.
At this point the business interests are winning and that is tragic. All forms of bigotry have made that possible and irreversible. The different forms of bigotry invented on earth are now coming close and rubbing elbows with each other. The nazi’s, the racists, the sexists, the homophobes, those who hate muslims, and all the rest are living cheek by jowl and shoring up their “leaders”. They think they are about to gain control. In fact, they are about to reap their Armageddon.
And those who do nothing will stay in a sphere of nothingness. That is a state which makes solitary confinement in your jails look like a party.
You all need to wake up and understand what is happening around you.
Make the parallels between H. W. and DJT and see the progress that has been made. Thurgood Marshall to Clarence Thomas to Kavanaugh. Plot that path.
Take a look at the Clinton’s. Why is Hillary such a threat? Try answering that question and you will unlock the evil in Donald Trump.
What are the billionaires doing with their money? Even those who seem to be “do gooders”. You will be shocked – maybe into sanity and an understanding of the direction in which your world is going.
Who is really running your government? In the United States it certainly is neither Trump nor Putin.
Are the great empires of the past really beginning to come back and reassert themselves?
Is Trump crazy? weak? or is something else going on?
How come the people in power today are those who were mentored by the evil of yesterday – Trump and the combination of Roy Cohn and Joseph McCarthy. And didn’t Bobbi Kennedy come out of that Communist threat McCarthy brought into the United States. Wasn’t he a staff attorney to the McCarthy hearings and more? Look at those in power and see who mentored them! It is an amazing lesson in why the world is in the state it is in today. And, don’t stop at the United States. Do the same thing around the world and you will have a greater understanding of where we are – where we are going – and why.
Think about what it means to have a president who was mentored in his young adult years by serious alcoholics who were almost always drunk. McCarthy was a known and dangerous alcoholic, but he remained in office and was allowed to do a substantial amount of harm to tens of thousands of people. So was Roy Cohn. And now their protege has reached a level of power they couldn’t dream to reach. In spite of that history, today we try to look for reasons for Trump’s actions – he is weak; he is crazy; he is, etc. etc. We look every place to try to explain Trump except where we will find answers. He was raised within a mafia family of influence which goes back through his father to his grandfather and who knows what beyond that. He was mentored by drunks and those with no integrity and horrible ethics. How was he supposed to turn out. AND, we voted him into the highest office in the United States even knowing his family history, his adult years, the evil he did through his life. Is that a Trump problem or is there something wrong with the rest of us? The leader you get is the one who most reflects you.
Project 3 – Growing Bettina Network’s Blog into a major media outlet bringing to the public news, recipes, thoughts, reviews of businesses, etc. from the perspective of those who belong to Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community.
You can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
We have published blogs on the beginnings of Airbnb and outlined how and when the idea was stolen from an African American woman by three white males who were sent to her home to get info on the business she had been building for many years. If you want to know more about that, search this blog for Airbnb. The complete story is in a couple of blogs. some are titled as follows:
Sex Trafficking, Airbnb and more!
Ethics and Integrity in Business
BILLIONAIRES UNITE!
The ‘Sharing’ Community????
Happy New Year – 2016
She was going to a Venture Capital group in Central Square Cambridge, MA which gathered on Thursdays. She was there most Thursdays with her name and company in their computer system and she asked for meetings with relevant people and an indication of interest each Thursday. There was never anything forthcoming.
Instead of working with her to gain investment support, the Capital Network sent Brian Chesky and his friends to see what she was doing and to bring back as much of her business information as possible. They followed through on that visit by stealing her ideas, gaining the venture capital support she was seeking, and her name and company name were taken out of the Capital Network’s computer – on which those who attended on a regular basis signed in to and were admitted to these Thursday sessions. Her business plan was also stolen and she had to re-register for the Thursday gatherings re-entering her name into their computer system. At the time, the reaction to her appearance was really strange and the reasons for it didn’t become apparent for a couple years down the road.
All of this to satisfy the mythology that the business ideas, acumen, experience, success etc. comes from the white male community with the assumption that others have not yet reached that level of business ability. When, in fact, the reason for this monopoly of white, mostly northern european males’ hegemony over the substantial businesses that make up this society had more to do with their questionable ethics and lack of integrity than anything else.
Venture Capitalists have made sure that this is the only avenue the current potential billionaire businesses have and the only way they can come into being. The venture capitalist community has been a very racist/sexist group of people and they have kept the gate closed to all except their own kind and this shows up clearly today and will be even clearer and exceptionally vile in the generations to come. Most of the civil rights work of the past generations will/is being negated by the way these venture capitalists are working to establish a “New World Order” which clearly will not include those not like them – racially, culturally, etc.
This, however, is not the only business nor the only minority person so negatively affected by that particular form of racism/sexism in the society. This way of segregating and oppressing goes back many generations. Most businesses thriving mightily today show themselves as first thought of, established and the start-up part of those businesses – the part that required much blood sweat and tears to get it through to smoother sailing has been done by minorities.
It is an example of why the top 1% of the wealth in this country is now held by that same white male group, how that came to be and the structures they use to insure that this will forever be unless something and many someones intervene in drastic ways – or the ethics and integrity of the entire society demand they clean up their act – make amends – and open the doors to everyone leaving the great ideas with the people who came up with them and are in the process of bringing them to life..
We will continue at later dates with more specific examples – check the blog to make sure you don’t miss any of these stories:
Did you ever wonder where Trump Shuttle came from? Donald Trump, his family and their incredible business ideas? Or – is there another story circulated only within the African American community.
A black man approached Donald Trump with his idea and with the work he had done and was doing building a short term shuttle from Cape Cod to Boston/ New York/ Washington, D.C. etc.
It was a dream of his and a business he had been building one small step at a time because of his limited funds and the refusal of others to invest in his venture. – until along comes Donald Trump.
The African American made many trips to New York to Donald Trump’s offices with his business plan, sharing his experience in this area and he made many return trips as Trump indicated he wanted to invest in this business and gave this Black man things to do so that he, Trump, could invest.
The man came to visit us before and after each one of these trips and talked about his visit to Donald Trump; Trump’s interest and promise to invest because he thought it was a great idea; Trump’s request for the man to do additional work, which Trump always applauded – according to the feed back and notes we saw.
When all was in great shape and “they” were ready to move ahead with the introduction and execution of this new shuttle service, Donald Trump slammed the door on this black man and would not see this African American anymore; was very nasty to him when he called expecting to move ahead; Trump cut off all contact. This gentleman had been paying his own way to visit New York and Trump at a substantial expense to his current business and he always left the work he did with Trump, pending the additions and changes which resulted from those meetings.
After that abrupt and ugly cut off – well, look at this – Trump announced the formation of Trump Shuttle and as he unrolled this business it was an exact copy of what the two of them had been planning and working on for months.
And so, another African American’s business ideas, acumen, hard work, start-up – stolen by another white male business man who simply and blatantly stole his years of development and the initial work of establishing such a business and strategizing/planning for its future.
There are many more such stories. They basically show the lack of integrity in the corporate/business world and the acceptance as normal of such things happening.
Project 3 – Growing Bettina Network’s Blog into a major media outlet bringing to the public news, recipes, thoughts, reviews of businesses, etc. from the perspective of those who belong to Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community.
You can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
One can’t help but notice the incredible “coincidences” that now abound. Are they really coincidences or are we in the middle of people who are just plain dishonest, manipulative, power hungry and see bigotry as the way to gain what they couldn’t come close to without that way of functioning.
Politics has become really ugly. We no longer have to worry about how Hitler came to power. We are seeing real-time examples showing us just how he did it with todays’ improvements by people like Steve Bannon, Donald Trump et al.
Yet one more “coincidence” of violence against…..speculate a bit about the burning of Notre Dame in Paris. This happens just two days after Steve Bannon announces the purchase of the monastery which he intends to convert into some kind of training camp for people to take down the pope and the Catholic Church. And Please don’t say – ‘but Steve Bannon is Catholic.’
That matches the two days after Trump announces he is not a Globalist and the results are felt in Pittsburgh. And just a couple days after Trump grossly attacks people against whom he plays the victim with those people who Trump has characterized as victimizing him subsequently receiving bombs – which apparently didn’t go off because of the incompetence of their maker……. and so many more such coincidences. They have now become difficult to list or recount they are so numerous.
Lets get international and look at New Zealand – shootings right at the time Trump needed something really big to distract from what was coming, exposing his evil within days. What came were the New Zealand shootings – what was diminished and distracted from – look it up in your news feed and see for yourselves. Do the work people and keep on that edge as you read the news which is grave and see the proximity to Trump’s need for distractions from the horribleness of his life, his so-called presidency and more.
Notre Dame burns – just two days after Bannon called for and talked about how the Pope and the Catholic Church needed to be taken down and this “hit” on the Catholic Church- this time a “two’fer – Trump facing the release of the redacted Mueller Report just a couple days later.
Don’t be dissuaded from looking closely because Bannon is Catholic and Stephen Miller is Jewish along with the claim that Trump is crazy. Crazy like a fox.
Some of the most racist people against Blacks I know are Black. Why? Because, apparently, they see power within the group and their power-over dissipating if integration comes along. That has been the case. It is how Whites have chosen Black leaders over the centuries. Look for those who will do the most damage and exercise the most control over the Black Community. That is who you help become leader of the group. Same thing goes in the female community and in all the other minority groups. It has always been so. Those in the minority communities don’t seem to have clear vision to be able to see such. We even define terms to make sure those power dynamics are skewered. We make the claim that Blacks cannot be racist – one must call such Blacks who clearly show their racism – prejudiced. That is one of the most ridiculous definitions I’ve heard in a very long time, but those so declared as “leaders” totally talk about that definition, correcting those who see otherwise so nothing will dilute their power.
The biggest disgrace of this the century, however, is the ascendancy of Donald Trump into the office of president of the United States. He is clearly someone who showed before he was “elected” that he would take down the country and would turn it into a racist, fascist dictatorship preferably with him as the fascist dictator. Trump was discovered as that kind of person by influential people in governments hostile to the United States, people who thus far had not been able to get far in weakening and taking down America. So let’s try Trump. And they did.
They have gone very far with Donald Trump. He has and is consistently weakening every institution within these United States and he has done a very good job at such. As the days pass he is acquiring a collection of people around him who will go to jail doing his bidding because they have blindsided themselves to the point of believing they will be great in his administration if they do his bidding. They are people with histories of having done ugly, lying, illegal things before he found them and brought them into his inner circle. William Barr being the latest. Someone who has had extensive influence and changed America with the way he has obstructed justice for at least two previous presidents. He has now stepped forward – at just the right moment – to attempt to do the same thing for Donald Trump.
He issued a statement which Trump could use and did to claim he was “exonerated”. He has postponed until a holiday weekend with Congress out of town to release the redacted Mueller Report. He is redacting the report and our guess is his “redactions” will be blackening out those parts which tell the truth about Donald Trump – the ugly truth. And Congress will go along with the program dragging its feet and talking big and bad throughout.
Why is Donald Trump still in office being called President. Even casual observers saw he would not win the election because he had – what – some 25% of the vote without the help of those within those hostile governmental and other kinds of communities who saw themselves benefitting from such an evil soul?
Trump’s very vile history is well documented on thousands of videos around the world which are played constantly over some kind of media. They were played even before Trump and his supporters claimed he was the next President. People who voted for Trump knew his reputation; they knew his evil; they knew the kind of history he created; they knew him to be dishonest, – a casino operator, unethical contractor person who stiffed those very middle class people trying to establish themselves in their corporate entities as well as others who he could reach any way his evil mind allowed – those wanting to move ahead educationally; those interested in wine, cheese and goodness knows what else he put out to stiff the rest of the world so he could thrive.
But then so was Hitler’s history before he became head of Germany – although videos and other instant replay devices were not available during Hitler’s reign. That had to go by slower means and sometimes even word of mouth. The need for power and control amongst those who would follow was so great they gave up their eternity for a few months of following a monster. And isn’t that true of Donald Trump’s followers?
What bothers me most is why he is still in office? Why those who claim to be against him have not so moved and are passively doing what they can to allow him to remain in office – why? Because they are larger than life as the opposition and their power and control is more complete by so passively allowing Donald J. Trump to remain while claiming to be on the side of John and Jane Q. Public. They see power in allowing Trump to remain in office damaging the world because if he is removed now someone else might run for the office of president and win, ruining their chances to come to power in a sprint rather than the very difficult road that would present.
Where do you stand? Don’t you realize your children are watching? How are they taking this in and how is this affecting their lives as they learn and grow? Are these the lessons you want them to act on as adults? As of now you have no choice. What they are being shown is what happens in this country when an African American is president and what happens when a so called White American is president. What Trump is teaching them about “whiteness” is lessons I would not want my children to learn. And those lessons are being allowed by both Black and White Americans.
And to you racists. They are being taught – thanks to the lessons you are making possible – that if you want a great president vote for an African American. If you want one who is a mess-up, who is evil, who is vile and will engage in corruption, attempted murder by remote control and more, then vote for a White man.
Or you can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
It is time to acknowledge that something is very wrong in our government and with our politicians which is beginning to show publicly in some strange ways.
For example: Mitch McConnell blocked Obama’s appointment of Supreme Court justices months before the end of his term. One such appointment he blocked was a relatively middle of the road/conservative justice from being appointed to the Court. Appointed instead was the man who is known as an extreme political activist, credibly accused sexual assaulter and who was brought onto the political stage by the Bush family.
We have talked lots and printed much about that, but no one has asked how Mitch McConnell knew his blocking Obama’s appointment of Merrick Garland would result in Donald Trump appointing conservative political operatives like Kavanaugh and Gorsuch. If Hillary Clinton had won the presidency, which was widely expected and seemed to be a done deal, her appointments would probably have been to the left of Obama’s. Does anyone believe Mitch was holding open Supreme Court appointments for Hillary’s nominations?
Mitch McConnell proceeded in the face of what was showing and expected and blocked not only the Supreme Court justice appointment by Obama, but much else also, which he then released when Donald Trump reached the point where his friends and supporters called him “President”. We were not amongst those.
Who majorly ushered Mitch McConnell onto the political stage?
How did you know Mitch? What connections do you have not showing? Add that to all else you have done, what kind of country are you helping to shape? Would you and your children want to live in the kind of country you are helping to create when those whispering in your ear become those in total control of that country? Do you really think they will allow you and your family to prosper after your work is done and you are gone? Or does that matter to you?
**************************************
William Barr we have the same question of you!
Who is whispering in your ear? From whom are you taking your orders? Do you really expect us to believe that you just happened to turn up at the exact time your writing that lengthy opinion for Donald Trump would result in your being named Attorney General and your carrying out the wishes of whoever is giving you marching orders at this time?
Didn’t you help bail the Bush family out of an Iran mess? Or was that Reagan?
Just before Mueller’s investigation ends, you, Mr. Barr, turn up having laid recent ground work to become Attorney General to stop the Mueller investigation without the public being aware of your role in wrapping up that investigation putting yourself in place to put out an “exoneration” of a man who calls himself president of these United States so he can finish the work of destroying what took hundreds of years to build? You were clearly put in that place by – who? – the same people who called you up to duty and now will keep you in front of us where you can play your part in this farce?
Who benefits here? Who has orchestrated this? Or did this happen accidentally with everyone acting independently and this just comes together in such a smooth way? We don’t think so!
We saw “Mafia Speak” within the Court setting, when the judge in the Manafort case did his mafia speech before sentencing Manafort. Remember that little ditty about how this had nothing to do with “collusion”. Shortly thereafter on the front steps of the Court Manafort’s attorney made the same speech = one having nothing to do with the case he was coming outside from having represented his client making the announcement not about the case he was in front of the judge to carry forth but to say – Manafort was judged free of any collusion. That was not true, but this attorney carried his speech off as though it were.
And then shortly thereafter Donald Trump, that same afternoon, talking to the press shouting questions at him, makes his speech about how “honored” he was that day by the judge and Manafort’s attorney. Trump’s speech in its words and tone was that of a man who, that day, became comfortable with his role as “the Don”. His choice of words – striking – “honored”. ‘I am honored.’ ‘You have honored me’. That is about as close as a mafia don comes to humility. But then one discovers it is not about the “Don’s” humility, but about the “Don” allowing you to show your humility because having done his bidding and the bidding of those supporting him he is about to allow you to show your humility by allowing you to kiss the ring
Today we had “Mafia Speak” in the reverse. Donald Trump comes out with his bit of “Mafia Speak” which sets the stage and then William Barr, before Congress, follows him almost within minutes saying almost the exact same thing Donald Trump said to the press shouting questions at him.
This is a well orchestrated play being enacted in front of us and are we all too stupid or too innocent to see this?
Who gains? Who loses? What is at stake? This is a game with real life consequences in which the United States as a republic wins or the mafia in which Donald Trump was once a participant, but now apparently is the “Don” wins. Today he may be shored up by his fascist friends around the globe – supported by the billionaire’s club, but tomorrow? Donald Trump is not the type of person to be grateful or to be one of those serving and working with. His “friends” will soon see they are working for him and it will not be pleasant for any of them. Barr may see himself wielding power today, but he needs to take a good look at history to realize his future and it is not pleasant.
We have entered the era of a world-wide mafia generating from and controlled by the United States government which is in the process of forming a very tight, very strong mafia from which there will be no relief nor any turning back.
Today you can call us crazy, paranoid, delusional! However, tomorrow when you realize the situation in which you are living what will you call us then? And what will we call you? Involved? Taking action to preserve a democracy? Or one of the good people who allowed this to move to its conclusion by doing nothing?
Take a look at past Bettina Network Blogs and you will see we predicted this. It does not take a genius to see what is happening. We also talked about children being murdered and Concentration Camps – different from those in Nazi Germany. Concentration Camps where children would be incarcerated and then disappear.
We hope you are listening. We do not want to be in the position of saying “we told you so.
Or you can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
“What is racism, bigotry, ethnocentrism, homophobia, etc.?
The actual experiences of people who have had to endure the bigotry of others while they tried to move along and achieve their life goals gives an understanding of bigotry which helps us root it out of our lives and out of the institutions in which we live and work. With that in mind, we hope you learn from and can use the stories in this series.
In instances of bigotry, it is the person who is acted against – the person who has been forced to experience another’s bigotry – who is chastised or loses an opportunity or is moved out of a home or denied entrance to an educational institution for which they qualified and ‘but for’ would have been accepted. This needs to stop. Especially, we need to stop the denial when we come across an instance of bigotry. We cannot afford to call for the bowl of water, soap and a towel to wash our hands leaving the responsibility for our sins on others or on the institutions which we created.”
_________________________________________________
I was in the process of going through papers which a friend of mine is packing to send to Amistad Research Library in New Orleans. In the process I discovered a treasure trove of stories of people experiencing bigotry. I volunteered to continue this series because of that and hope you will send your stories with any supporting evidence you have for our files.
A disclaimer – I am not a writer, more an organizer of papers and things so bear with me here. I thought this story was one not to be passed by. Let me know your thoughts as you read it:
Before I started this job I knew nothing about seminaries, churches, ordinations. As I am now knee deep in boxes of papers on that subject, my suggestion for a book for someone who is a writer would be – what happened at Episcopal Divinity School, which is now seriously diminished in size and influence and what is happening and has happened in the Episcopal Church.
My curiosity was stimulated when I ran across a letter on Trinity Church Copley Square letterhead from the Rev. Spencer M. Rice, Rector to the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Massachusetts. I am copying that letter to this blog – when I figure out how to do that – commending Marceline Donaldson for ordination …”who is sponsored for Holy Orders by the Rector, Vestry, and congregation of Trinity Church in the City of Boston.”
I’ve known Marceline for many years, but knew nothing of this. How she is still standing is an amazement to me. Besides this letter from the Rev. Spencer Rice are letters from the Rev. Henderson Brome, Rev. Edward Sims, Bishop Coburn and more all glowing with their recommendations. Marceline was not ordained and, in fact, was asked to withdraw from Episcopal Divinity School and she dropped out of the ordination process.
What happened? I would like to publish the entire file. However, basically racism, sexism and apparently the power and control needs of a few people. From the file records – Carter Heyward, George Hunter, John Skinner, and Edward Stiess – a committee of the faculty who stopped more than one black woman’s progress through seminary and ordination – were the instigators behind this. Another black woman from Ohio who was a student at the seminary went through a similar process with the same people and suffered the same fate. Her name is Lillian Bannister.
Since I have to send this box off on Monday and I haven’t figured out how to scan these letters into the computer to attach to this blog let me copy it for you. The original of these letters and this file will be at Amistad Research Library if anyone is interested in exploring and writing about these events.
The Catholic Church has been exposed on many levels, but the Episcopal Church – which has been shrinking dramatically – has not been so exposed and maybe it is time.
This letter is on Trinity Church Copley Square Stationery
5 February 1986
The Standing Committee
Diocese of Massachusetts
One Joy Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02108
Re: MARCELINE DONALDSON
Dear Standing Committee Members:
It is my privilege to commend to you Marceline Donaldson, who is sponsored for Holy Orders by the Rector, Vestry and congregation of Trinity Church in the City of Boston.
When I came to Trinity Church on 1 May 1982, Marceline Donaldson was teaching in the Church School as a volunteer. She was cherished by the Director of Christian Education as one of the most able teachers with whom she had ever worked.
During the academic year, 1982-83, Marceline taught three sections of an adult education course entitled, “Formerly Marrieds.” This course was for the pastoral assistance of those who were either in the process of divorce, or who had recently experienced the same. Marceline deported herself as an organized sensitive counselor who was of great assistance to those participating in these groups.
During the academic year, 1984-85, Marceline in concert with her husband, taught an adult education course on the Old Testament. In this course and the above offerings, Marceline was prepared academically, and was of great assistance pastorally to all those who attended these offerings.
Throughout the twelve months of 1985, and continuing to the present in 1986, Marceline has functioned as a lay reader and a chalice bearer at Trinity Church every Sunday at either the 8:00 a.m. Holy Communion service or the 6:00 p.m. Holy Communion service. In the discharge of these duties, she has been punctual, prepared, and spiritually focused.
On October 20, 1982, I received a letter from The Very Reverend Harvey Guthrie, then Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge. A copy of his letter is enclosed for your advisement. Harvey’s warm enthusiasm for Marceline’s presence in and contributions to the E.D.S. family constitutes its own witness.
Scarcely more than a year later, I received a call from Marceline, indicating that she had been summoned before a committee of the faculty (Carter Heyward, George Hunter, John Skinner, and Edward Stiess) on Martin Luther King Day, Monday, January 16, 1984, at 10:00 am. in Wright Hall Conference Room.
Marceline asked me if I would attend this meeting as her Rector and friend because thirty days earlier, another black, middle-age woman was expelled from E.D.S., and Marceline was apprehensive about such a forum. I did attend.
It would be impossible to recapture in a letter the degradation evidenced in this session. As Arch-deacon for the Diocese of California under both Bishop Pike and Bishop Myers, with personnel responsibilities for fifty-two mission churches, and as Chairman of the Board of St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital in San Francisco, I have never experienced anything like this meeting. Had one participated in such a meeting in the aforementioned responsibilities, one would expect to be summoned into Federal Court within hours.
Charges were emotionally hurled at Marceline without either evidence nor written documentation. It was as close to a kangaroo court as I ever hope to experience.
Whereas the Dean of E.D.S. sent me a three page letter as Marceline’s Rector, when he and the faculty were more than pleased with her, I received no letter nor written information about her performance prior to this session; I received no written invitation from E.D.S. to this session; and I received no written documentation as to their judgment following this session.
In thirty-one years of priesthood, I have never experienced such a blight on the soul of the Church as this hearing.
It is a credit of no small magnitude to Marceline that she has deported herself with balance, compassion, and achievement after this most unfortunate experience.
The Rector and Vestry of Trinity Church support Marceline Donaldson for Holy Orders without reservation.
Very sincerely yours,
/s/ / Spencer M. Rice
Rector
cc: The Rt. Rev. John B. Coburn
The Rt. Rev. David E. Johnson”
_________________________________
After having read the rest of the file, which had more of the same, I went home in shock and wanted to do something, but what? Having read the beginnings of “The Story,,,” I thought this was probably the best beginning. The second step would be for someone who is good at research to take this up and put it into a book. Especially since there were many glowing letters about Marceline in the file and much more that could be explored. She will not, however, be cooperative, but the files at Amistad should help along with those located elsewhere in many different locations.
_______________________________________________
When you start digging and bigotry moves beyond the grand institutional sweeps into the individual stories, you begin to realize the horror of the experience of being an African American woman, man, Native American woman, man, Latina American woman, man and all the rest of those we demand accept our treatment of them in such a way that damages the soul of those putting out the horrific treatment of other human beings, bigotry takes another definition.
It is tragic what is happening in and to the United States of America. This was once a strong, respected, acknowledged world leader. It is now a country with a “president” who lies, cheats and manipulates – all for his own aggrandizement, without thought for anything else – and a structure in place to support him. That was very clear when Barr’s press release came out.
It was actually clear long before, but we have been trying to postpone that day of reckoning which is going to come and soon.
Barr turned up at a signing in the White House – very unusual for a United States Attorney General, especially since he had a starring part of that signing. He initially stood a bit apart as he totally backed, tota and way beyond what was necessary, Donald Trump and his ‘national emergency’. This was not a national emergency. This was Donald Trump pushing this country to a breaking point because he wanted something to honor his father and all of the KKK and White Supremacist who called for such a wall decades ago – even into the 1920’s. They called for a wall with “steel slats” – the same kind of wall Trump called for when he began to seriously push his wall agenda. A memorial to White Supremacy.
The recent Trump rant about John McCain had nothing to do with John McCain. It was Trump letting those around him know what he would do to them if they didn’t do his bidding and they got the message. For those who didn’t get the message he described the carnage that would result from any attempt to tell the truth about his activities with Russia and/or any attempt to remove him from office.
Donald Trump went on a rampage a few weeks before the Mueller Report came out to let all of those around him know exactly what their fate would be at his hands if they did not exonerate him. And they got the message. Has there ever been a time when Republicans in Congress have been so quiet?
The New Zealand murders came right after Trump’s comments about what he would do and the violence that would happen; as did the Pittsburgh murders come right after Donald Trump proclaimed that he was not a Globalist. The bombs being delivered to prominent Americans also came right after Trump made another such threatening declaration.
When Barr was appointed Attorney General, it was clear Roy Cohn had arrived in the form of Barr and was going to do everything he could to support, shore up, clean up Donald Trump – and he did. The threesome of that time in history which wrecked much havoc on these United States – Roy Cohn, Senator Joseph McCarthy and Donald Trump – their protege – have returned and their protege has shown he learned his lessons well and is taking what he was taught to a new level – this is just the beginning.
It was quite unusual raising lots of questions for Attorney General Barr to visit the White House right at the time the Mueller Report was being delivered to him. After that visit Donald Trump and his tweets were silent and he went off to Mar-a-Lago quietly, with his friends and supporters and was not heard from again until he returned to the White House and the deed was done. Clearly, he has control over his tweets and they are done for a reason to create the affect he has been creating.
These United States have been seriously divided almost from its beginnings. Today, we are trying to say this serious division is new – not true. There has been the good and the bad. Those who saw the possibilities and wanted to move in the direction of greatness and goodness as a country and those who were overfilled with greed and power needs who simply wanted what they wanted and if that destroyed everything so be it if they could walk away with what they thought would satisfy those needs.
We have tried to cover up that history, but today it has come home to roost. There are too many diverse people now living, working, raising families in this country for it to be allowed to go back to the filthy past that has hung out here so long.
It is time for these United States to be what its past has promised and to leave behind the sin, the degradation, the filth, the destruction of human life, the self-centeredness and self-aggrandizement which has always brought this country down and has brought it to a place of not fulfilling what could have been its destiny.
When Donald Trump was “elected” president it was with all of the ugliness showing. He had already built Trump University and had ripped off hundreds, if not thousands of people in the process to line his own pockets. During all of the time he was running for president of these United States that and more was in the news with the very ugly details of how people looking for a better life scrimped, saved and denied themselves to pay money to Trump University so they could have a better life only to discover they were in worse shape after they enrolled than before because Donald Trump and his University were ripping them off, not providing them with that bright and shiny future of which they dreamed and which his marketing and advertising promised.. And that is only one such example of Donald Trump ripping off the American people.
White America, do you really need to be better than so badly that this is what you are willing to do to maintain that role and position in this society? Have you no shame? No God? No ethics? A horrible character who allows you to live in this filth created for you by Donald Trump and those who support him and those who went before to clear a path for him? You have no idea how great it is to be free! To live a life of freedom! To be one of instead of better than! It is an incredible feeling, life, way to be.
Millions of people voted for Donald Trump for president. Yes, Russia was a part of his being elected president – they provided the denouement – but also yes – millions of Americans voted for him. The same millions who moved against Native Americans? The same millions who moved to enslave Africans? The same millions who brought Africans over in slave ships to be sold as so much cattle – using the same ships in which they put product they were selling and delivering to other countries and returning from those countries with human beings they had stolen from African countries to sell to Americans? The same millions who saw Native American children, by the thousands, ripped from their families to supposedly be “acculturated” into American Society, but most of whom were never heard from again? And today we are seeing the same thing repeated with thousands of children coming to the United States from other countries and being treated as though they are sex objects and being raped and/or sexually or other ways abused by their captors who have put them in chain link prisons – who have humiliated and demeaned these children for no reason other than the depravity of those in charge and who have ripped even weeks old babies from their mothers to satisfy the needs for superiority of those doing such and the depravity of he who has ordered such to be done? “Suffer the little children to come unto me for of such is the kingdom of heaven”.
The same millions voted for Donald Trump who wrecked havoc across this country for decades trying to intimidate African Americans by being a part of one massacre after another, after slavery ended, as they saw African American families putting their lives together and building communities in places like Oklahoma and other areas? Their anger at seeing such resulted in unspeakable massacres of which our school children know nothing because that history is deleted in our school systems.
The United States has a lot from which to be redeemed and instead we are turning to someone like Donald Trump who lives and works in the mould of the worst of American history. We thought, when Barack Obama was elected, that we had made the collective decision to leave all of that behind. Clearly, that was a wrong thought, because what is showing is that those who were in charge throughout all of American history tainting everything that could have been beautiful are still in charge tainting everything that could have been beautiful.
The press release from Mueller’s Report was written by a man who was officially told, by his employers, of his conflict of interest and who refused to recuse himself. He had a mission and with his press release he carried out that mission. He was not going to be part of a diverse society. He, apparently, wants to give lip service to the goodness that could be America and do his part to make sure that other part, that gross part, which we all share as human beings, would be the part to take over and make sure he and his would still be in charge, wrecking havoc on everything and everyone else. From the dregs of humanity come your oppressors, cleaning themselves up but still instantly recognized.
To people like Barr and Lindsey Graham I say – my God neither sleeps nor slumbers. People like you crucified my Jesus and yet what happened was not the destruction of my Jesus nor of why Jesus came to earth, but the fulfillment of many of those promises. Millions followed – great edifices were built in his honor – ethical systems were created from his teachings – the efforts of the Barr’s, the Grahams’ (both Lindsey and Franklin and their followers) were dispersed. They try to come back periodically and while they succeed on some level for a brief period of time, they simply bring into being by their failure and their notoriety and people finally seeing the sin and flaws they cultivate in themselves, the exact opposite of what they claim to be working to achieve. Self-aggrandizement is their goal – power, money, the feeling of being better than is their goal. Reaching for that goal ultimately is their destruction. Hitler committed suicide, they say, in a dirty, filthy bunker scared out of his mind.
We are today the people who walk in darkness, but shortly, the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf will hear.
It matters not what Scripture you read or which religion you follow or if you follow none – it is not possible to be human with all that means and not see what is happening in these United States. To go along with it says more about you than anything else you do, think or claim to believe.
The Germans went along with Hitler. Average, ordinary people because they wanted someone or something to blame for the mess they allowed and helped happen in their lives. They wanted to be better than and what they received in return for those wants was a time spent in hell. Today, however, as most Germans look back at that history, you don’t see statues in memorial to that time in German history. You don’t see plays being performed to laud those actions. You don’t see people adoring Hitler for what he wrought or because they needed to keep that history alive and in front of them and their children. You see a people trying to make amends for a temporary aberration in their history. We have yet to see that in these United States. We have had many Hitlers-types who we adored. We still fight for and demand the right to worship at the altar of our statues and memorials to slavery as we created it for generations in these United States. We still have a form of slavery in the way we hold dear to sex trafficking and our enslaving of women and children for such purposes.
We have lauded them all and tried to make them our saviors – Donald Trump is just the most recent.
Or you can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
Well, for once you did not call me – I am here because you need to think seriously about what is happening in your world before the worst degradation, oppression, horribleness takes you by surprise.
I am here because John McCain, who recently joined us, has something he very urgently wants to say to you and he asked if I would be his “transmitter”.
From McCain:
“I have been watching and listening to what is happening amongst you. My concern is that you are defending my reputation without realizing that the insults hurled my way are not about me. Nothing on earth can hurt or harm me. Even my reputation is now cast in stone. It will stand – the good, the bad and the indifferent.
Instead of trying to defend and protect me, please see and understand what this is really about. Use this example to look carefully and clearly and understand what is in front of you.
To Lindsey Graham: I know you wanted to say something in my defense. I know it was painful for you to keep quiet and I know you think that by keeping quiet to get yourself re-elected you think this is the best way you have to counter the evil in the world and the evil which is now so close to you.
Please don’t! You are jeopardizing your eternity and your life. Live it standing firmly on your own two feet as an independent individual and everything you want will happen. The way you have chosen will only bring you and the rest of the world horrors beyond your imagining.
To the rest of you: Donald Trump isn’t fixated against me. He didn’t make his anti-John McCain comments because so many months after my death he is still spitting out insults against me because of some kind of emotional need. Donald Trump made those anti-John McCain comments because he was testing Lindsey Graham. He needed to make sure Lindsey Graham was loyal to Donald Trump to a fault. He wanted to insure that Lindsey would do whatever he was asked by Donald to do and so Donald put him to the test. If he could viciously insult a dear and old friend of Lindsey’s who could not defend himself in your world so you could see and hear that defense and Lindsey kept quiet and let those insults stand, then Lindsey could be trusted and was now loyal to Donald Trump. That is what those supposed insults were all about. Before Donald Trump used any of his resources to back Lindsey’s re-election, he wanted to make sure Lindsey was in the Donald Trump camp and would do whatever Donald Trump asked Lindsey to do.
Please think clearly as this all unfolds. It has reached the point of your world being engaged in major sin. It has reached that tipping point where all of you will either be engaged in promoting the world the way Donald Trump sees it or you will stand up for the goodness that is in you but you and Lindsey have to find the strength to stand.
Lindsay Graham can break this part of the pattern by finding the strength within himself to stand tall and speak the truth. He knows what those insults were about. This is his moment and his immortal soul will either live or die on this hill.
If you look at this pattern you will see why so many others are keeping quiet. They have had their own period of testing and they wanted what was offered if they pledged their loyalty to Donald Trump. You will see what is being done to them and the heavy load they have been carrying. They, like Lindsey, want the power they have as Congressmen. They, like Lindsey, are trying to justify the price they are paying to maintain themselves. Some believe they are doing this for family and country.
To compromise your eternity for a few more years in Congress is not worth it, Lindsey. You have so much more in front of you if you find the strength to stand tall and tell the world what is happening to you and why. Accept this and your life is over.
I could have caved as a prisoner and gone home to live a quiet life without having gone through the pain and agony of the prison life and violence and personal agony that I suffered. I didn’t realize and didn’t think about what the stands I took would mean to my eternity. I have been able to look back at all of it and put it all in perspective and I had no idea the greatness that would come from the way I chose to live my life. I just did what I thought was right.
May you, Lindsey and all of you have the courage to live your lives choosing the right path and making decisions which will benefit you, your families and the rest of the world – and to you Lindsey, you know exactly what you must do. Don’t let that weakness of yours send you hurtling into a life of sin
Your friend always – who will be standing by your side.”
I was heartsick as I watched television news as the New Zealand massacre unfolded. I could not believe we were in that space once again.
I turned on television news to watch young people in their massive demonstration about Climate Change. What a disappointment. A fantastic huge demonstration of such dedicated youth and not one word or picture or anything about what was happening outside my window.
I remembered a couple things – when there was some news out there that Trump wanted to block he had ways to distract and block. Was the New Zealand massacre set up to distract these young people’s demonstration which Trump has worked hard to keep from surfacing? It would take something massive to keep those young people off the television news and it was found. Since the start of that demonstration I’ve seen nothing of the work and actions of thousands of young people – only the New Zealand massacre. Were Muslims used to distract from this powerful day of demonstrations?
The second thing I remembered was Trump asking someone he was interviewing if he would kill for him. The news commentator thought that was strange, but put it down to Trump’s “derangement.” That was either Trump’s “derangement” or Trump having blown past the ethics and morals which would have kept him from doing the Khashoggi thing to his joining his group of fascist, dictator ‘friends’ who he has shown he clearly admires and now has shown he can keep up with ‘mafia speak’ to cause murders in his realm?
My thoughts are constantly with the New Zealanders who had to endure the slaughter. I don’t know how I can help, but something will show itself and I will respond.
This world has been created, managed and brought along by males. Some white, some pink, some yellow, some brown, some of many colors. All share lives on this planet which are mostly about satisfying their male egos’ and no matter how large or how small they are led first by sex and then all kinds of violence and everything else follows. It is time for a change. Even television shows are about sex and violence in one form or another and getting worse. There is so much more to life, but we don’t seem able to experience anything beyond various forms of sex and violence.
Life has so many other components, possibilities, excitements – isn’t it time for all of you out of control males to sit down, sit back and just stop the BS. It is time for another kind of world order to emerge – one which has caring for others its first concern; which puts others first; which is interested in building bridges not walls; which looks at business as a way of supplying what we all need not as a way to make billions so we can isolate ourselves and show the world our greatness which we gained at their expense?
We need to be a safe place for the poor to get out of poverty; to do everything we can to educate all of us; – and my writing this is so foolish. As you read it I can hear the comments – “a pipe dream, a romantic, an idealist, where did he come from”. It is so sad what we have done to this planet and it is getting worse. It was such a beautiful place – it is no longer.
Problem is, I don’t see any way out. There are too many Donald Trump’s in this world and more coming. We have so screwed ourselves with most of us just alive doing whatever until we die without any thought to the fact that we are all wasting the beauty of life because we have gone after weakness rather than strength and have redefined our values to satisfy our current existence instead of changing our current existence to be of good character. I doubt that we even know of what that consists.
With New Zealand, has this administration taken its first steps into murder to be able to join the fascist nations developing very quickly around the globe? Did we have to prove our “manhood” and have done so with the “mafia speak” that brought about the New Zealand massacre?
It looks as though sex trafficking, pedophilia, the opioids – the new kind of drugs by prescription until addicted are all now in place and arms of this new mafia being created world wide with the United States president one of those doing the creating, promoting, managing. By tweet is a powerful way to create this kind of institutional structure.
Or you can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
What is racism, bigotry, ethnocentrism, homophobia, etc.?
The actual experiences of people who have had to endure the bigotry of others while they tried to move along and achieve their life goals gives an understanding of bigotry which helps us root it out of our lives and out of the institutions in which we live and work. With that in mind, we hope you learn from and can use the stories in this series.
Usually in instances of racism, it is the person who is acted against – the person who has been forced to experience another’s bigotry – who is chastised or loses an opportunity or is moved out of a home for no reason or denied entrance to an educational institution for which they qualified and ‘but for’ would have been accepted. This needs to stop. Especially, we need to stop the denial when we come across an instance of bigotry. We cannot afford to call for the bowl of water, soap and a towel to wash our hands leaving the responsibility for our sins on others or on the institutions which we created.
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This story continues what we started – another part of the actual life experience of a minority denied:
This is about the Field Education positions at a seminary – which means a part of your course work or your experiences for which you receive a grade and which is a required part of most seminary educational experiences on your way to a Mdiv Degree (Masters of Divinity). Where you are placed for this Field Education experience depends upon conversations and consultations with the person who would supervise your work, the head of the Field Education area, the Field Education Committee and the head of that Committee who is normally very influential in these things, and more.
I applied for and was accepted for a Field Education placement at Church of the Messiah in Auburndale, MA. under the Rev. William Lowe who agreed to serve as my supervisor. He had no problems with my being African American. In fact such a conversation didn’t come up. I had already completed a successful Field Education program at Trinity Church, Copley Square but Trinity agreed to sponsor my ordination process and so the Field Education program I completed could not be considered for credit of any kind leaving that requirement for the Masters of Divinity unfulfilled.
After those initial things were done which included outlining the activities and course work for the year, and the proposal was accepted by the Field Education Committee, we thought all was well until I received a letter from Eric Law who was Chairperson of the Field Education Committee.
It was a letter of rejection and went something like this:
“We admit that our existing Field Education Program, while meeting a lot of the students’ needs, is not adequate in serving others from a different cultural background. I want you to know that you have enabled us to look at ourselves honestly and to question our organization — its strengths and its weaknesses. Hopefully, what has happened, painful as it may have been, will move us to establish a better educational system that is more inclusive.”
The rejection letter went on to state “This is a systemic problem created by conflicts between two different communication systems, based upon different cultural values. We realize that a mediation between the two systems must be set up so that similar situations in the future can be handled with better understanding.”
It was a truly amazing letter especially since it also claimed “our decision depended a great deal on the qualifications of Bill Lowe as a supervisor (then rector at Church of the Messiah). Based on the evidence we had, we had a lot of questions about his qualifications.” The Rev. Lowe was a supervisor in the Field Education program. He had been vetted and certified and had Field Education placements before and after my rejection – all white.) It was a stunning paragraph which not only rejected my proposal for Field Education at Church of the Messiah, but also included down grading the rector of the Church which had accepted me.
Who is Eric Law – the chairperson of the Field Education Committee – who apparently engineered this turndown? A first or second generation Chinese American student at Episcopal Divinity School, who later became an ordained priest and whose work during that time was with the Chinese Community solely and was the same for quite some time after his ordination.
The racism through all of this was stunning, unacknowledged, unaddressed and continued to plague the Field Education program for years after as it had for many years prior. The racism I experienced had been a part of the Field Education Program at EDS for a very long time and had been complained about from the days of the Rev. Kenneth Hughes whose complaints we discovered when my husband and I worked at St. Bartholomew’s Church in Cambridge, a Church Rev. Hughes pastored many years earlier.
What was the problem which caused all of this? An African American woman chose a white suburban church for her placement in the Field Education program. Normally, an African American chooses to do their Field Education at an African American Church. A white American can choose whichever Church he or she decides best suits his or her educational needs, but those choices did not and still today do not extend to minorities
Or you can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
We complain about the rapid accumulation of 99% of the wealth within the United States economic system being available to only 1% of the population and we talk about Capitalism to Socialism to Fascism, but we don’t get into the particulars of how that is happening.
Clearly, if we did not have a mafia within the U. S. Economic System trying to take over we would not have a billionaire class. We have a very thriving Billionaire Class structure which is growing dramatically fast and dictating who will and who will not join them.
The kind of investment needed to create such a group; the “loyalty” demanded to keep it going and growing; the flagrant violations of the U. S. Constitution to keep the way clear for the mafia structures needed to replace the structures sustaining the U. S. Republi; the pressures to give up the Republic and take instead the structure of the more fascist-authoritarian governmental structures necessary have taken time and several administrations. With the Trump Administration we have finally arrived at that point where it becomes clear that we are barreling ahead into a government which is fast becoming a criminal enterprise headed by a man whose privately owned company could best be described as a RICO organization.
There have been many examples along the way, but the press has either been reluctant to make the call and do the investigative reporting to bring to the public the structures within which they are now living or they do not know and only see such things in the rear view mirror. And that makes sense since the role of the press is to report the news – to report what has happened.
The examples are becoming increasingly ‘in your face’ and they are being immediately ‘normalized’ as just the way we function today.
The latest example was extraordinarily blatant – and that was the sentencing of Manafort. It was an incredible example of “Mafia Speak” – right out front expecting the public and press to gloss over what was done.
A Prelude to the First Mafia Speak: (Setting the stage)
In the context of the original trial, Judge Ellis attacked one of the witnesses – Rick Gates – by testifying instead of maintaining himself as the judge – “…Manafort could not have been paying that much attention to what you (Gates) were doing. If so, he (Manafort) would have known how much money you were stealing from him.” That comment was apparently an attempt to turn the original trial, as much as possible, away from Manafort – to give him some breathing room and allow any juror listening to be persuaded in Manafort’s favor. That said there is Mafia Speak coming.
First Mafia Speak:
The judge said – right before pronouncing the sentence on Paul Manafort – “You are not before this Court for anything having to do with colluding with the Russian government to influence this election.”
That was a very strange comment for a judge to make. Normally, a judge stays within the confines of the hearing in front of him, he does not wander off as Judge T. S. Ellis did to an unrelated and totally out of context comment which he apparently had a specific reason for doing. That reason became clear as the day progressed. Judge Ellis set up what followed and allowed the mafia “Don” to make his point later in the day for the public to be brought along in the way he wanted the public to go. The “Don” said he was “honored” by his people.
Second Mafia Speak:
2. After the hearing and sentencing when Paul Manafort’s attorney, Kevin Downing, went to the microphones outside the courthouse to say a few words to the reporters gathered outside, he said: “There is absolutely no evidence that Paul Manafort was involved with any collusion with any government official from Russia.”
Interesting in his comments, they were also outside of what the hearing was about. In addition, both the judge and attorney, who are professionals in the law and who know there is no legal term such as “collusion” – it is Donald Trump’s favorite way to characterize the special counsel’s investigation – Attorney Downing’s comments as well as Judge Ellis’ comments began to sound like “Mafia Speak” – things said at the direction of the mafia boss ‘ Donald Trump.
Reason for the First and Second “Mafia Speak” comments:
3. To close the circle and bring it around to why the Judge and Attorney made those statements, which stood out because of their inappropriateness and un-attachment to the hearing and sentencing – later in the day, Donald Trump made comments about the hearing and sentencing when Reporters shouted questions to him at the White House.
Donald Trump’s comments were “I just want to tell you that his (Manafort”s) lawyer went out of his way actually to make a statement last night, no collusion”. “The judge, for whatever reason, I was very honored by it, also made the statement that this had nothing to do with collusion with Russia.”
The mafia don then completes the circle by coming out with what was supposed to be the denouement comment – the reason for the first and second “Mafia Speak” comments. The three of them – the Judge, who set the table, the Attorney, who brought the food to the table and Trump who sat down to eat what was being served to him, let his capo’s know they had done a great job by commenting on his feelings of being ‘honored’ by what had just been done for him. And clearly, Trump had paid for the table and its settings; the food on the table and was going to enjoy his meal knowing that mafia type loyalty still existed within his organization and with his ‘people.’ That is what James Comey missed in why Trump was asking for “loyalty” from him. Every mafia boss has to know that kind of loyalty is crucial because of the way they operate and the necessity for cover when the circumstances call for it.
That type of mafia control is spreading within the U. S. Government and will be hard to extinguish even after Trump is gone. That mafia structure became very clear to us as we looked at Wells Fargo and tried to decide if we should get involved with a boycott against them.
This is what is happening to your government, America. This is what has happened and continues to happen in your Court System. This is why McConnell has so much power – he is the one making this scenario possible so members of this mafia can function without too many repercussions until the society is better controlled by their mafia governing structure.
Even the seemingly innocuous language is telling. After the judge and attorney went out on a limb for Trump – he thanks them publicly and in the way of the mafia he was “honored by it.”
Or you can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
Congressman Jim Jordan accused of ignoring sexual abuse at OSU. see https://www.daytondailynews.com…/congressman-jim-jordan…sex-abuse…/lzfhebNU
I watched the Michael Cohen hearings and was appalled at Congressman Jordan and the way he led the group denouncing Cohen for lying plus as many other uglies he could think of to throw Michael Cohen’s way. Clearly that group thrives on threat, intimidation, abuse. And by the way, isn’t Jordan the one accused in some kind of sexual abuse thing against young athletes? Either he was involved or knew about it and didn’t report it or..? He fits right into the Trump orbit.
Rep. Jim Jordan Is Named in New OSU Sexual Abuse Scandal… https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jim-jordan-ohio-state-700578
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Hearing those who support and defend Donald Trump is showing what is wrong with the United States. I used to get angry when I heard people say – “if you don’t like this country leave it”. Today, I understand the sentiment. Maybe we should have a bigotry test to move out and keep out those White Supremacist and assorted others. They all seem to have given Donald Trump immunity.
Michael Cohen has admitted and is paying for his lies. Donald Trump’s lies make Michael Cohen look like a choir boy. Trump’s supporters seem totally able to attempt to defame Michael Cohen, calling him a liar and denigrating him for his lies and at the same time not even realizing others are looking at the person they are supporting and counting his lies into the thousands. How are they so tone deaf that they don’t see themselves as they are seen by others.
Cohen has no power, except what he had loaned to him by Trump if Cohen used that power to carry out Trump’s wishes. Trump as a liar, however, is dangerous because he does have power over many and much. He is a major, daily, liar whose lies will negatively affect your children’s future as those lies change this republic into a fascist state with Donald Trump leading the nation as he tries to use this country to become wealthier than Vladimir Putin.
Trump followers are saying- some people can lie to us and that is alright because the end justifies the means. What they don’t understand is that the process by which we reach the end totally changes the end we envisioned. That expected end changes and turns the goals we were willing to compromise our moral values and our character to reach into a monstrosity we are amazed has been created. It will be something we neither recognize nor want.
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CPAC BRINGING IN ANOTHER ROUND OF MC CARTHYISM
I’ve read in Bettina Network’s Blog about Donald Trump’s mentors – Roy Cohn and Senator Joseph McCarthy. After reading that, I did some research to see what that was all about. Shamefully, it was not a part of what I learned in school. I am also discovering other such times in these United States which were much worse. I did not learn about the massacres and slaughters in school. For example – I had to go out of my way to read and learn about the Trail of Tears. My first reaction was to deny. Not here – not in my country did or could that happen.
Germany did not want Nazism. They wanted to be better than the Jews and to have someone to blame the results of the war on and they wound up with a major massacre and horrendous event their children have had to endure.
I am now seeing, from the CPAC Conference, that the direction in which the Trumpians are going is to re-create, Joe McCarthy’s anti-Communist era. Sorrowfully, that is coming on us very quickly with most of us ignorant about what that era was like.
CPAC and its speakers and listeners are now upping the ante – the “wall” in front of which they can stand and single out who goes in and who stays out – by simply proclaiming who, what policies, what acts are to be despised as “Communist” and who should be destroyed in the process. Joe McCarthy’s hearings and the way he upended this country over the years he was in power is the stuff of legend and history. Read that history and see how many people were destroyed. It is tragic. That is what CPAC is setting up. The White Supremacists – the neo Nazi’s – the KKK – and all the rest have found their common ground to bring about their Nirvana. Nothing is as chilling as listening to their talks at this CPAC conference and seeing the audience response. They are ready to come for the rest of us who don’t walk their path and mimic their speech.
Trump has successfully brought back into the present the United States in which he was mentored. He and his followers are working to restore and maintain Joseph McCarthy’s United States which only existed in McCarthy’s alcoholic fantasies.
This United States periodically returns to such brutality. Trump can do this because that kind of thing is a horrendous part of our history which we deny, deny, deny so we can repeat this again and again. When defeated and saner more humane people take over that past is then buried. This time, we need to make sure that history is not buried, but kept alive and taught in our schools so the next generation is not free to destroy itself and its children.
Or you can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
If you didn’t get it before, yesterday was the end of Donald Trump.
If you didn’t get that during the Michael Cohen hearing you got it when Trump left Vietnam hours early with no agreement. You had a premonition that something was up; that all was not right with the fascist leaders’ world when the Russian Lavrov showed up in Vietnam on his private plane from Russia the day before Trump arrived. Something he had to say to Kim that he did not want to chance any intelligence group to hear? He did not have his plane land so he could have a cup of Vietnam tea – no matter how good or how nourishing it could be. Something that obvious does not happen without great consternation as its root cause in the circle of eastern european mafioso leadership.
The few pictures which emerged, even with Donald and Kim shown casually walking together said there was tension between Kim and Donald. but was it a lovers’ spat or permanent split? Or did Kim see himself aligned too closely with someone who will soon be out of office in disgrace when Kim was trying so hard to be one of the power elite of the autocratic world. Nothing said we were in Trump’s end-time louder or longer than that “summit”.
The Congressional hearing itself was amazing. The dynamics more so than the words – although the words had a small sway on what you saw.
The Republicans were acting out for all to see exactly what Michael Cohen was describing as to how he got his talking and marching orders from the “Don”. He got them the way the “Don,” as do most, if not all, of the world’s mafia leaders, communicate their orders to their underlings. And – each Congressman, well except maybe one, the renegade Amash – stuck to their talking points each and everyone of them. It was as if they were just learning English and everyone was repeating what the last one said as they grappled with trying to learn proper English grammar.
And then there was the small interlude with Mr. Meadow, the African slave auctioneer, refusing to acknowledge his racism. Emotions ran high at that point, but I was remembering Mr. Meadows and his racism showing during the tenure of President Barack Obama and weren’t there a few other times when his racism so stood out?
Congressman Meadows claimed he could not be racist because he has nieces and nephews of color. That was so funny I couldn’t stop laughing out loud. Racism does cause a blind spot thus the truth of the statement which screams out from the racists’ mouth “some of my best friends are….” Meadows comments reminded me of Donald Trump, who has Jewish grandchildren. In spite of that connection to the Jewish Community, Trump’s anti-Semitism screamed out loud and called for the violence that followed. I am sure you remember Trump’s proclamation that he is not a “Globalist.” -and – How could you forget that those hearing him, followed his proclamation – his call to action by shooting and killing some 11 plus Jews within hours of Trump’s call to arms. He did not say – kill those Jews and do it in a place where it is clearly understood that it is Jews you were after. He did it in the style Michael Cohen described – in his coded speech and his followers heard and took action.
It was a parallel example to Congressman Meadows indignation at being called out as a racist. To have put a young black woman on display – the way slaves are put on display at the auction market – for her price to be his describing her love of Donald Trump, while she stood silently by. Trump could not be racist because she would not work for Donald Trump if he were because her father is from Birmingham, Alabama. With that comment I was rolling on the floor not being able to stop laughing. Thank God for having given me a sense of humor.
Having been raised in that neighborhood I knew and know quite a few blacks who are ‘racist’ because they want too much to be accepted by (whites), to be different from (people of color), to be equal to (whites) they will do and say whatever is necessary and as they become adults, that need and those actions determine their character. They too live out of the character defining need to be “better than” – even those who look like and are colored like their ancestors. It was clear the young black woman being so paraded – with Meadows calling out to everyone the price he paid for her and what she would have to acknowledge in return for having been purchased by his family on that slave auction block – is well on her way to being one of those with such low character traits.
The rest of the Republicans questioning Michael Cohen were blindingly white. They were all so white – even the two women who spoke trying to tear down Michael Cohen – except for one. Congressman Higgins from Louisiana. That is where I was raised and one thing I know just from my upbringing and exposure and neighbors and family is the person with that color under the skin. The color, which you don’t see looking at those with some colored ancestors who have white looking skin, except when the person is seen under the television cameras.
People who look like Higgins with that kind of color showing when under the “klieg lights” were “passé blanc”. And there was this Congressperson Higgins showing that darkness more clearly than the rest, even in his lack of character. That extreme lack comes from the character built on the constant lie the passé blanc lives with in a society which puts you in a box with those of the same color, but then you have hopped out of your box into another with people of another skin color, originally probably to get a better job for your family to be able to eat, live and have better advantages which are given to those in the other box. Those constant lies one has to tell to stay in that ‘white box” gives your character and the character of your children that certain tinge – which those around you know, but you think is well hidden.
Higgins outed himself with his questions about the “boxes” Cohen was looking through in preparation for the hearing. Higgins knew quite well those were the boxes returned to Mr. Cohen after the government raided his home and office and carried them off. He heard Michael Cohen say that, but it was too good to be able to twist that into something negative to Michael Cohen – something Higgins could claim Mr. Cohen “hid” from the government and he demanded with much self-righteous indignation that Mr. Cohen immediately send off to the government agencies from whom he somehow managed to put something over on by his hiding of those boxes.
We tell on ourselves as humans. All you have to do is look and listen. Mr. Higgins was telling on himself as to who he was – a lifetime of such hiding – or a couple generations of hiding, hoping to move far enough away so he is accepted without fear of exposure.
What also stopped me was the way Mr. Cohen described Donald Trump’s “code” way of speaking and then immediately one of the very white Republicans coming behind to question him showing they were totally immersed in that “code” and were speaking and questioning out of the talking points they so received and were parroting.
What an incredible day. And the denouement at the end learning that Kim Jong Un sent Trump packing early without an agreement. Kim is trying to lift himself up into acceptance as equal by the world fascist leadership community and he can’t do that hanging out with someone who is being thrown out of that “strong man”, “macho”, very “fascist” leaning group.
As I turn to New Orleans, many things come back into focus. One is the breakfast phenom called “Lost Bread”. It has now probably become national – maybe even further – so I thought I would share two recipes with you which have geographical significance. French Toast I learned in the North – Lost Bread I grew up with in New Orleans. It is amazing how similar they are.
Lost Bread
In a mixing bowl whip together two eggs (organic), one cup organic turbinado sugar, enough organic milk to make a nice dipping sauce – but not too liquid/runny. If you want to use almond milk – coconut milk – or some other kind of liquid, enjoy!
Keep your bread until it is stale. If you don’t have time and/or throw away bread instead of keeping it for such things as Lost Bread or bread pudding, or for making bread crumbs when you have a minute, then put the new bread you want to use in the oven on a very low light – 250 degrees or 300 tops – until it has stiffened. And feel very ashamed if you actually throw away what some consider old stale bread. You could always sprinkle that stale bread with a bit of water, put it in the oven and ‘voila’ – you have freshly baked bread for supper.
Add cinnamon, nutmeg, grated ginger to your taste. Maybe a little organic hazelnut oil – whatever combination of tastes you especially like.
Drown the sliced bread in the sauce above, pick it up with a spatula and let the liquid drip off for a few seconds and then fry it in an iron skillet or grill or griddle until nicely browned on one side and then turn it over to the other side.
Either sprinkle turbinado sugar on the bread when you turn it over or just continue to let the bread fry until done and pour a bit of organic maple syrup over the Lost Bread once you put it on your plate for eating.
FRENCH TOAST
The basic difference between Lost Bread and French Toast is the kind of bread you use and the method of cooking.
For French Toast buy a loaf of organic french bread. For this you can buy the organic bread which is stale and being sold at a substantial discount. French bread is long and thin – Italian bread is sort of the same, but fat in the middle. I think French Bread is best used for this, however, it all comes down to a matter of taste – or culture.
Let the loaf harden if it isn’t already ‘stale and hard’.
Slice the long thin french bread into about 1 1/2 or 2 inch slices. Let the slices soak in the sauce above for a couple minutes until they seem spongy and then fry on an iron grill turning when one side is light brown. This serves up well when cooked on a circular iron grill and served on the same grill.
Once both sides have a bit of color arrange them on an iron grill or griddle and pour more of the sauce on top of the bread so it is soaked. It is also important to use generous amounts of grated organic ginger mixed with the sauce for a really fabulous taste.
Put the french toast, which is nice and shiny with the added sauce on top, in the oven to continue cooking. Make sure you are generous with the sauce because it turns into custard inside the bread with the sugar on top making the bread a bit crispy and crusty on top. This takes only about five minutes. The bread will puff out and become beautiful and very tasty. Don’t let it stay too long. It takes a bit of experimenting to get the hang of exactly when to take this French Toast out of the oven. Each oven takes a different amount of time.
Serve it with a platter of sliced ham and you have a fabulous breakfast.
Or you can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
That dream, in the 1920’s when the KKK was at its height, was complete with steel slats and it was a very high wall on the Southern border between the U. S. and Mexico.
His father’s legacy to Trump was to get him started in the same vein in which he lived his life – by incorporating into his life and work discrimination against African Americans, as in not letting them rent in the buildings father and son built. Trump was started on his racist path early in life and continued on that path throughout his life. As the United States became more diverse, the peoples included in this family’s racism became more diverse and today, apparently includes all of the brown and black peoples of the world.
How fitting that his denouement would be fulfilling the dream of many klansmen of his father’s era by pushing through to build this wall (in their honor?). As you look at the determination and energy and effort Trump has put behind this WALL it had to have a very special meaning to him. All of the trying in todays’ world by many talking heads to make it look as though Trump is working for his base just does not fit.
For his base, he could have moved on and worked for something to give them that was doable. This is a strong emotional commitment which has driven Trump. What could be stronger than doing this for his father? Was the part of the WALL Trump was trying to build to have his father’s name?
AND — a little bonus — because of the timing, Trump could also use this point in time to coverup, distract from, mute and diminish the publicity around the roll-out of Andrew McCabe’s book “The Threat”? Trump’s timing wasn’t perfect but it was close. If McCabe’s book was introduced when it was supposed to be – this weekend on 60 Minutes – without the preview of the 60 Minutes interview with McCabe on the morning and evening Talk/News shows, Trump’s efforts would have perfectly wiped “The Threat” off the news. As it is, he was able to reduce and diminish the coverage of McCabe’s book because of his announcement that he was going to declare a “National Emergency” after he signed the bill. Since most of the newscasters either didn’t know or simply eliminated, for better effect, the fact that this bill has enough votes behind it to make it veto proof, neither the House nor the Senate needed Trump’s signature taking away from him the circus he is creating to throw smoke into all of our faces so we can’t see McCabe and his new book. Is this what is called a ‘two’fer?
FROM TRUMP TO SENATOR LIZ CHENEY
Lying in bed, dozing off I was sharply awakened by this woman doing the most intense racist rant I have seen in a very long time.
Fortunately, I was recording that particular news show so I was able to rewind and watch it from the beginning. I was totally shocked to see that the person giving this racist rant in the most arrogant, smug and self-satisfied way was none other than Senator Liz Cheney – daughter of the ex-Vice President. I kept wondering why she had this super smug demeanor as she ranted on and on after having been asked a question about Donald Trump. Her rant focused on Elizabeth Warren and the fact that Senator Warren publicly acknowledged throughout most of her life, her Native American ancestry. Instead of talking about the courage that took, especially during the time frame in which Senator Warren made her family background public, Senator Cheney was ripping Senator Warren apart. What is there about that which set her off? Should we look into Senator Cheney’s racial background?
When the question about Donald Trump was repeated, Senator Cheney simply continued the most racist monologue against Senator Warren that I have heard in decades. My further shock was that no one called her on it. There should have been outcries from every corner of Congress demanding that she apologize. Not one peep. Today, having heard the backlash against one of the brown women, Ilham Omar, in Congress claiming she made bigoted comments and calling for her to apologize, and at the same time the same people ignoring of Senator Cheney’s comments shows up the claims against others for what they are – political attacks wherever and however you can get them.
I kept thinking I was in a time warp. I didn’t always agree with Senator Cheney, but I had never pictured her just inches away from the likes of the most bigoted of those in public life. One becomes accustomed to people like the Congressman Steve King and just dismisses anything he says. But Senator Cheney, I thought, was better than that. Well – so much for that misperception. Now I understand why Steve King was able to spout his racism and walk away unscathed. He has lots of compatriots who are viciously racist and don’t see anything wrong with Steve King’s racism. He is entitled?
EXECUTIVE TIME a la TRUMP
Maybe most of you don’t remember that far back, to the beginnings of Donald Trump’s illegitimate and illegal presidency, but I do. I remember when he talked about being shocked that the job of the president of the United States was so easy he could do both. He could run the Trump Organization and act as though he was President of the United States.
This was not said by a talking head interpreting Trump’s comments, this was said by Trump himself.
Now we have Trump’s schedule showing massive amounts of “Executive Time”. There have been many talking and poking fun at what that means – watching cable tv seems to be the first comment with the most repeaters, but every time I hear that I remember those comments made by Trump – and I’ve seen that he usually tells on himself and does things up front. Is he running the Trump Organization during his “Executive Time”? Are his comments about the Presidency being a part time job true?
THE NEW WORLD ORDER
I remember where I was when I first heard comments about “The New World Order.” The first time I heard this is was George Bush the Sr. making the comments.
As I look at this ‘Trump/vs the rest of us’ round in this war, it certainly looks like one of the battles trying to bring about that vision of such world governance by the Corporate/Billionaire Group.
From the comments I’ve heard – this New World Order seems to be about the Corporate/Billionaire Group ruling everything (and of course, being very patronizing to those not in their Group) and the diminishment of Government by the people, for the people and with the people. The people being those who do the work to maintain, grow and make life easier for that Corporate/Billionaire Group while dedicating their lives to trying to be like them on almost no money and very few assets.
Not like the traditional slavery in this country because slaves were brought in from Africa and they were very dark of skin. The people doing the todays work that would have been done by slaves in that past era includes those we call “white” along with all of the brown and black peoples of the world. And, some of the people in the Corporate/Billionaire Group are brown – haven’t seen any blacks yet, but they will surface.
Are we moving forward as a world where Cyber Warfare takes over and actual hand to hand and gun and other combat using the traditional artifacts of killing being pushed off center stage, being used to distract from the real war. A way to entertain and occupy the workers of the world so they will stop calling for these impossibles where we all benefit and profit?
We are certainly not fighting over Communism. That went out decades ago if it ever existed. What always amazed me about that was the theoretical definition of Communism seemed to be taken straight from the economic system outlined by Jesus in the New Testament and the people most against that economic system were the Evangelical Christians.
And we are definitely not fighting over Socialism – as you can see from this current beginning stage of the election of the next United States president. That word was introduced by Howard Schulz. Isn’t he one of the Billionaire Group? Beginning the anti-Socialist distraction rhetoric?
And, the biggest joke of all is Capitalism, which we claim exists in the United States, but which actually can’t exist anywhere as long as prejudice against groups exists and is a part of the societies in which we function. We can claim some economic system is capitalistic, but in reality we can’t have a capitalistic system as long as we have such strong prejudices in this world. What we have, in the name of capitalism, is a system which allows theft and other such uglies to be made legitimate, normal and actually a good thing in the systems we call Capitalist.
I wish we could clear our eyes to see the world as it is. One of the roles bigotry plays is to cloud the ability of people to see reality. And those who promote bigotry are benefitting mightily from John Q. Public’s mental illness.
Ed. Note: From several members of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community. Hope you learned something from these thoughts shared.
Or you can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
One of the best ways we have discovered to stay healthy and away from those things like colds, the flu and other such diseases and infirmities is through drinking different kinds of tea.
NO – not the tea bags you buy in the store which you bring home and drop into hot, boiling water thinking you have done something great for yourself, but the drink you have thought about, analyzed and see as helping you and giving you lots of enjoyment and nutritional nourishment during the drinking.
We will give you one of our tea recipe’s if you respond and give us one of yours.
BETTINA TEA Number One
For this tea you will need the following:
Organic parsley
Organic ginger root
organic lemon
Fill a pot full of water. Which size pot depends upon how much tea you want to make. This tea gets better with age. Brew it today and let it sit on the stove overnight so you can have more when you re-heat the pot tomorrow.
and for all of you southerners – you will need, in addition, organic turbinado sugar to turn this innocent drink into ‘sweet tea.’
Squeeze a lemon into the pot of water. If the pot is quite large squeeze two or three lemons into the pot.
Chop the lemon, after you have squeezed the juice into the pot of water, rind and all, into small pieces and put this into the pot so the only thing left is the end of the lemon which attached to the tree. It may be perfectly respectable to use this piece of the lemon, but we prefer to throw it away.
Ginger Grater – one of many kinds. The sharper the teeth the better the grater. Steel, ceramic – they all suffice.
Using a ginger grater, grate a fairly large piece of the organic ginger into the pot of now boiling water. Again the size of the ginger root you use depends upon the size of the pot of water and your taste buds.
Pick the parsley leaves off the stems and put a generous hand full of parsley leaves into the still boiling water.
Cover the pot and let it simmer for as long as it takes the parsley leaves to dissolve so when you drink the tea practically every drop has a remembrance of parsley.
For those of you who can’t resist – immediately before serving, put your organic turbinado sugar into the pot and let it simmer about two minutes.
Or, if there are those who don’t want sweet tea and you do, put the sugar in your cup and then pour in this BETTINA TEA Number One.
The taste is fantastic. It relaxes you instantly and just think for a moment about the incredible nutrients sliding down your throat and going into your body to increase your well-being.
Enjoy! And may you live as long as you have something to give or receive.
Or you can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
It has been a busy day! The writing from a Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Member on Elizabeth Warren has caused a bit of a blowup. So you know I have to chime in. Who would guess that among hard working people; thoughtful people; intellectual people there would be this bit of racism.
Is it racist to dump on Elizabeth Warren for talking about her Native American ancestors and as some are doing, claim that is reason for the Democratic Party to rethink her candidacy for president? “Drop her” is what I have heard from some and looking for justification to back their negativity towards Senator Warren is what I have heard from others.
What is the racial mythology fueling this? The claim that Blacks, African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanic Americans and all those other minorities out there really want to be White. What negates this is a White American acknowledging her Native American ancestors and at a very young age. -That is clear in the past reporting on Michael Jackson. It came out periodically. The claim that Michael Jackson wanted to be ‘white’. He used ‘white’ make-up on his face to cover his blackness, etc. etc. The reality of his life was never acknowledged.
The fact that Michael Jackson had a disease that turns your skin from dark to stark white was never injected into those conversations. Neither was the fact that makeup on the white portions of your face where the pigment has gone away does not take very well so your choice is limited and it must be the white makeup. That was constantly reported, but the facts were skewered to accommodate the mythology of White Supremacy. No matter how great Michael Jackson was – and he was pretty outstanding in his day – what he really wanted was to be white. That is the other side to the rejection of and demand for an apology from Elizabeth Warren for acknowledging her Native American ancestors.
How do I know about this disease? My grandfather had the same disease. His hands were spotted as the darker pigment was moving away and his hands and face and neck were turning white as the disease progressed. Some people live to see themselves turn completely white, some die before that happens. I don’t think it is the disease which causes their death, it doesn’t seem to have any other affect on the body.
That is only one reporting which brought out and emphasized how blacks wanted to be white. There have been more. What does that do? It shores up White Supremacy. Those who are not white want to be. The opposite – those who are seen and accepted as white hide any minorities they may have in their background. “Passing” has always been looked down on, but once you have “passed for white”, married and have children that look white you are sort of safe, just stay put and don’t bring up those minority ancestors.
What Elizabeth Warren has done is turn all of that on its head. She had a life as white – until she started talking about her Native American ancestry. What is that? It is a violation of the contract whites have with each other. If every ‘white’ persons’ minority ancestry was outed we would have chaos in this country there are so many. Slavery wasn’t mostly on plantations, most of slavery happened in one house with one white family living “cheek by jowl” with one black slave family. The result of this produced many white plus children. White Supremacy would be in total confusion and destroyed if history were more accurate. The hold that the need to be better than has on all of us becomes clearer by the decade. The hypocrisy of racism and its ridiculousness is lost on most of us.
One great example of the ridiculousness comes from the life of Senator Strom Thurmond. A son of the south and one who viciously articulated hatred of blacks who should always know and stay in their place. His political career was founded on his racism. Senator Thurmond had a black daughter who he knew, educated, with whom he had a relationship, but everyone conspiratorially around him kept his secret. Thurmond was in the forefront of those Democrats who left the Democratic Party because they saw the possibility of taking control of and changing the Republican Party into a replica of the KKK and other such groups. And as we have seen from this current man who calls himself President of these United States, he was successful.
Our hypocrisy on race is the stuff of legend. So how does White Supremacy and racism remain? It stays put because of the inferiority and arrogance of whites – conservative and liberal – who need to have that feeling of being better than to feel normal.
How does that relate to Senator Warren, her Native American heritage and the societal reaction?
If we are going to maintain White Supremacy we must abide by the rules. A cardinal rule is that one follows the mythology – in this case that blacks and other minorities want to be white. To break that happens when a white person – one who is totally accepted as white – comes out talking about her Native American ancestors – that is the stuff which gets one stoned.
Senator Warren – you are white. Defined as being better than and as a young person just getting started in your career you came out putting “Indian American” on forms that need to be filled out with race on the form. Just look at what you are doing to this society. You have upended and disregarded and violated one of the basic rules that maintains White Supremacy. The mythology which is one of the pillars holding up White Supremacy is that Blacks and other minorities want to be white and here you are coming out to say I am White but I acknowledge and respect my Native American ancestors. Look around Senator Warren, even the Native American leaders can’t handle that. Why not? If basic change happens. If everyone starts coming out and acknowledging and respecting all parts of their heritage just look at what that will mean. Those leaders of minority groups, among others, will be out of work.
Hey, you put out your heritage let me put out mine, which includes Native Americans. But wait – that doesn’t do anything. For one minority to lay claim to their ancestors in another minority group – no sweat. That changes nothing and is barely noticed. Many of my African American friends acknowledge their Native American ancestors and no one notices. The problem comes when you – white female – comes out to dare to acknowledge and respect your Native American heritage, and lordy, to even talk about it in the highest places.
And to all of those claiming you do not belong to any Native American tribe and therefore can’t be Native American, that is mind blowing. Why? Because that is the way Native Americans are annihilated – eliminated – become obsolete . That is something we have been trying to do almost since the Pilgrims landed.
If you are mixed and live as white and the generations pass, your Native American heritage is lost and it is also lost to all of those Native American Tribes. Gradually Native Americans will become extinct as we become a more mixed society. Just think of what that means if only those who are members of a Native American Tribe can call themselves Native Americans. That is a form of genocide.
My great grandfather was Black Feet Indian. He worked for and received a Doctorate of Divinity from Philips University. He was an ordained Episcopal Priest who wound up in New Orleans where he was rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church; head of a school; and did a lot more. His story counts – his life was important – his ancestors deserve a place in history as who they were. He lived in an African American community and was considered African American. He was not a member of a Native American Tribe. If he and his life and his true identity are lost to history and he becomes submerged in other groups histories, Native Americans suffer as their history is degraded. That does not happen to the Irish, the French, the English or to any other group considered white. They accomplish and their progeny do not deny their ancestors because they were not citizens of Ireland or France or etc. It is tragic that we do not live in a time or in a country where your Native American heritage is not denied but celebrated.
We are watching, under Donald Trump, history repeating itself in another century with some changes, but basically the same annihilation of a group of people considered ‘minority’. The brown peoples attempting to come into the United States. Their children are being taken away from them at the gate. Native American children were taken from their parents and who knows what happened to most of them. A generation lost. That part of Native American history can only be reclaimed by those families which integrated and included Native Americans who were ripped from their families and thrown to the wind. That history will be an expansion of Native American history. For a more accurate history we need the stories from those mixed people who talk about their Native American ancestry and who tell the stories from their youth which have been passed down through the family. The Native American stories passed down through minority communities sort of remain. The Native American stories are totally discouraged from being passed down through white communities.
Your history and the history of your Native American ancestors is also a part of Native American history and should be talked about, included and accepted, especially by those Native American Tribes who are what -growing or shrinking?
Our society used to believe – if you had just 1% of minority “blood” you were a minority. That means, if you were mixed with any of the groups of the world that we call “races” and those ‘races’ were white you were considered “white” unless in the mix even as little as 1% was one of the minority ‘races”. Then you were considered a minority and then you, your history, your legacy, your life were thrown on the dump heap.
Some of us have begun to see otherwise. As blacks, latina’s, native americans, philippine’s and more begin to achieve greatness the conversation has turned. The conversation around the “black” golfer , who was number one and couldn’t be unseated, that public conversation went – he is not really black, he has these other ancestors and should not be called black. Isn’t his mother something else? How can he neglect and push aside her contribution to who he is. And she was not white, but enough to help turn the conversation. That gave us enough of a view to the future that we realized racism will continue, but it will be in us in other ways – which are beginning to be newly defined.
Minorities can be raised up into this group which espouses White Supremacy either overtly or covertly if their achievements are so great they question the negative stereotype by which we are raised. But, “whites” must give up, hide and not claim their minority ancestors. That is necessary because if it went in the other direction we would lose this great bonus of White Supremacy and many would have to live out their lives being equal to. What a death sentence to their ego.
So, Senator Warren, do you have the guts to continue respecting, honoring and raising up your Native American ancestors or are you going to be one who apologizes because you slipped and acknowledged the family history with which you were raised. Those Native American Tribesmen get it – or they should. They clearly understand that there are those outside registered tribe members who have Native American ancestors and can freely talk about them. Or do you need to be in lock step with the White Supremacist who are trying desperately to keep their ‘better than’ position by any means necessary?
And all of you Native American Tribes – you demonstrate for other things are you going along with what is happening to Elizabeth Warren? Are you going to stand up for those who acknowledge their Native American ancestors and heritage even if they are not a member of a particular tribe. Is that such a threat to you that you will jump on that White Supremacist band wagon and go along with the program? If you do, it will be to your extreme loss and to the loss of your progeny and to those who went before.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
Because God knows in this society you can’t be both and be proud of your entire ancestry!
I am Native American and I need to weigh in on this conversation.
It is an amazing conversation to me because we are talking about the fact that Elizabeth Warren’s ancestors at some point “passed”. We are looking at a time in history when 1% was the criteria for whether or not you were a minority. If you had 1% African blood you were African. If you had 1% Native American blood you were Native American. If you had 1% Chinese blood you were Chinese – at least in America.
Today we are dumping all over Elizabeth Warren because she attempted to claim her Native American heritage. That is such a threat in a racist, bigoted society that we get up in arms about it and begin to dump on the person who is causing this uproar. MAKE HER APOLOGIZE SO THE REST OF US CAN RELAX AND NOT BE THREATENED WITH THE POSSIBILITY THAT ‘OUTING’ YOURSELF AND YOUR FAMILY MIGHT BECOME THE NORM!
Once upon a time, not that many years ago we would have dumped on Elizabeth Warren for trying to “pass”. Today we dump on her for trying to acknowledge her ancestry -trying to respect the stories that circulated in her family when she was a girl – because the ancestry she has held up as a part of her ‘racial’ identity is of a group considered a part of the oppressed minority in this country. We can’t have that! Just think of the chaos that will ensue! Most of you would have to move to the ghetto!
We are even trying to re-write history to get people to believe that if you were Native American during the time when Elizabeth Warren filled out the forms everyone is holding up you would have received some kind of special consideration and that special consideration would have gotten you rights, privileges and other goodies from this society that non-Native Americans could not have received.
Get real people! Stop lying and trying to redeem yourselves and your society at someone else’s expense.
There has never been a time in this society when you would have gotten any small part of the “goodies” passed around to everyone else if you were Native American. You would have been discriminated against and you would have been pushed aside and pushed back in favor of white males – and then black males – and then white females – and then black females – and then male Native Americans and at the bottom would have been any leftovers doled out to female Native Americans, but there never were any. That is history – what you are trying to create is another myth to ease your guilt at your participation in this racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. etc. society.
Today, Native American tribal leaders are concerned because they have profits from the gambling casinos on their reservations which are given to those members of the tribe who “qualify” and the tighter the definition of those who are members of the different tribes who “qualify” the more money and benefits they receive and the less competition for leadership of the tribes.
Remember when the United States took Native American children from their homes and families and reservations and put them into pograms where they were to be acculturated? They were never returned home and they and/or their progeny are someplace in this society where they have ‘integrated’, ‘intermarried’ and whatever else happened to them which successfully insured they would have no connection to any Native American tribe. So what are they? and where are they? Are they Indian Mongrels? No family – no ancestors they can admit to without risking the scorn of a nation? And what of all those other Native Americans who intermarried and became Irish, English, French, etc. plus Native American? Is their history also to be hidden because society does not want to see it to have to acknowledge that a Senator of the United States who was an attorney tenured professor of law at Harvard University is part Native American? My God – there goes the unravelling of hundreds of years of creating and nurturing White Male Supremacy in all things!
That is what this comes down to! Does this Elizabeth Warren thing challenge and upend White Supremacy? You can bet the store that it does, especially in the eyes of those who need to be White better than Black, better than Native American, better than etc. which is most of you. Isn’t that a large part of what elected and is keeping Trump in office? His racist, bigoted appeal to our lowest nature succeeds.
How do you explain such achievement, as attained by one like Elizabeth Warren who has Native American blood? Shouldn’t that disqualify her? How could she and her family have done such a thing to this society?
We have had other members of the White Privileged Supreme Society members who have been “outed”. Major difference – they didn’t out themselves to claim their minority heritage.
Wasn’t John Kerry accused of having Jewish ancestors or was it Madelin Albright? And then there were those accused of having African ancestors who they didn’t acknowledge and being dumped on because of it and because they were accused of ‘passing for white.’ When that is the narrative with the society doing the outing White Supremacy is safe. When the narrative is about someone the rest of you considered “White” and who is fairly frequently throwing up in your face that she really also has Native American ancestors – that is a very different narrative and threatens the very fabric out of which this society was woven.
Elizabeth Warren acknowledges her Native American ancestors without shame and in fact with some pride and so she has to be excoriated because that is totally unacceptable in this society. What if others started to do the same following her example? What a mess we would then have on our hands.
Bigotry pops out in many different ways and this is one way bigotry has jumped out without a white sheet and pointy hat, but with the same emotion and to do the same job.
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Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
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I heard and saw Donald Trump’s talk to Congress, the Supreme Court Judges and so many more and couldn’t keep my mind focused. It has strayed whenever anything about Trump surfaces because what I can’t reconcile is TRUMP – PROSTITUTION – STONE!
We have just been through a lot with the arrest and indictment of Roger Stone. Most striking to me was the fact that Roger Stone shared an apartment in New York with a woman who was referred to as an ex-madam, who commiserated with Roger Stone because she remembered what it was like to be arrested by the police. And she talked about knowing Donald Trump, who she considered a friend.
Given how close Donald Trump and Roger Stone have been over the years Trump could not help but know about this arrangement and knowing Rogers’ friend he would know she was an ex-Madam. I couldn’t help but take the next step to wonder if the compromat Russia has on Trump is his involvement with prostitution. Not the kind of hanging around in a Russian Hotel peeing on the bed with other prostitutes, but the kind of being a mafia Don where prostitution – the kind which is the selling of women’s bodies – is generally always a part of most mafia organizations’ income.
I could be wrong about this, but looking at the history and all else it certainly rings true in my mind. et tu?
The Look of Congress during Donald Trump’s Talk!
It was quite something to see the cameras pan across Congress to show us the look of our government when all are gathered together.
I saw one group, interspersed with many Congress people in white – the women of Congress. However, they were all seated on one side with one group – the Democrats. There were also hijabs sprinkled amongst them and colors from white to brown to black. The features of those seated in the Congressional Seats on the Democrat’s side were from Asian to Middle Eastern to African to Northern European. They were the America we mythologize; the America we sing to; the America we strive to be; the democracy we are and our ancestors were trying to build.
On the other side they were all white; almost totally northern european in looks – features – hair – ancestry; and almost totally male. They looked as though they would be at home in a Russian Parliament where the color is white and the gender is male.
Could that be what and why the collusion? the conspiracy? For white males to continue to dominate they must conspire to keep their countries with white males first and everyone else oppressed under them supporting them?
Elizabeth Warren and her Native American Ancestry!
I have been reading the coverage of Elizabeth Warren and her claim of a Native American Ancestry. It reminds me of the coverage of Rachel Dolezal when she clearly made a conscious decision to move from white to black and has lived her life in a black community ever since. The way the media attempted to pull her apart, to denigrate her, to make her the butt of many jokes, it was clear that Ms. Dolezal had touched a nerve.
Elizabeth Warren and her putting out in the public her family stories about being part Native American and not running away from that, but making it very public shows up the mythology of Affirmative Action. Our response to that says we know Affirmative Action did not work, did not give opportunity to minorities except in token ways, was not something we wanted to continue because we wanted the superiority of white and male to continue unabated. Anything that touches our myths attempting to destroy them must be ridiculed and the people who step out with something showing the lie of the myths by which we live must be either destroyed or made to heel.
The latest news story on Elizabeth Warren and her ancestry is about a form she filled in to attend a Texas School and goodness, she put in the place of race “Native American”. We can now all come running to bring up and make our denial of racism very clear. One can hear the jumps for joy and shouts as she is pilloried for doing such. Why pilloried? Because the media and others can claim that she was trying to take advantage of all of the ‘opportunities and goodies’ and advantages over whites which this society supposedly gives to Native Americans.
All of that sounds like a Trumpian – a lie told to hide a very ugly truth or to distract one from seeing something which would be damaging.
I was raised in a neighborhood which was very ‘integrated’. Quite unusual for these United States, but there are pockets of such here and there. In those pockets you will find people from blonde with blue eyes to very dark with kinky, thick hair. How does that happen? Especially since in this ‘integrated’ neighborhood everyone identified as black. You also had Jews in these neighborhoods because until the 1960’s Jews were considered black.
That happened because early on – even through the 1950’s and 1960’s there were many ‘mixed’ marriages. Marriages between African Americans and European Americans. That happened even during the time when that was against the law and you could wind up in jail. Whites who married blacks would quietly move into the black community and they, from that point on, identified as black because their children were to be considered and it was easier on everyone if that happened.
In our small community we knew those who were white, although that was not a topic of polite conversation.
Given the extreme mixing of Blacks, Irish and Native Americans in the deep south, there are many walking around this country with Native American ‘blood’ – or what we should more properly refer to as Native American roots. – hey Boston!! Check your ‘Irish” ancestry lately?
Since Native Americans were on the bottom of the ladder, not many acknowledged their ancestors if they were Native American. Anything but Native American was a step up. In most families, stories about Native American ancestry were ‘hushed up”. In Senator Warrens family, apparently they were told and passed down the generations.
What we have missed in this Elizabeth Warren story – or maybe we have not missed it because we want to have any opportunity to participate in the denial of our history and our bigotry – it took a lot of guts for Senator Warren to acknowledge her Native American roots in an application which she was filing to be able to move ahead. To know from family history that some part of your ancestry was in the Native American community is whispered about in close quarters not spread in public on application forms because the result would be your denial – with the claim of other reasons – or your not being able to move as far ahead as you would like to go because…… What the press and others want to make of this is quite Trumpian. It is an opportunity for them to pass back and forth in the society the lies about race told in their circles.
To take that stand in Texas, all those many years ago, was to put the possibility of your future move up in this society on the chopping block in favor of acknowledging and shouting out to everyone that you indeed walked around in this society carrying your Native American ancestry in the open – letting the sun shine in on it because it is a part of who you are. That is speaking truth and living that truth and making your move in your career taking along your total self. Look at how many people and how much custom and bigotry you aggravate and stir up.
Cudos to Senator Warren. May you live long and prosper and may you always continue to walk in your truth no matter the negative repercussions that might come therefrom. There are many of us who support your strength to be able to publicly and constantly acknowledge a family inheritance that many in this society would hide and run away from. The fact that you were acknowledging that inheritance all those many years ago and continue to do so today speaks to your courage, your truth and your character.
PLEASE do not allow the static you are going to receive constantly make you think, even for a moment, of denying your racial heritage – wear it proudly whether it brings you good or ill. In the end you will be encircled by those who appreciate what you have done because they realize and have lived the oppression even from those who do otherwise and hide their ancestry.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
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Wednesday, March 20th, 2019I was heartsick as I watched television news as the New Zealand massacre unfolded. I could not believe we were in that space once again.
I turned on television news to watch young people in their massive demonstration about Climate Change. What a disappointment. A fantastic huge demonstration of such dedicated youth and not one word or picture or anything about what was happening outside my window.
I remembered a couple things – when there was some news out there that Trump wanted to block he had ways to distract and block. Was the New Zealand massacre set up to distract these young people’s demonstration which Trump has worked hard to keep from surfacing? It would take something massive to keep those young people off the television news and it was found. Since the start of that demonstration I’ve seen nothing of the work and actions of thousands of young people – only the New Zealand massacre. Were Muslims used to distract from this powerful day of demonstrations?
The second thing I remembered was Trump asking someone he was interviewing if he would kill for him. The news commentator thought that was strange, but put it down to Trump’s “derangement.” That was either Trump’s “derangement” or Trump having blown past the ethics and morals which would have kept him from doing the Khashoggi thing to his joining his group of fascist, dictator ‘friends’ who he has shown he clearly admires and now has shown he can keep up with ‘mafia speak’ to cause murders in his realm?
My thoughts are constantly with the New Zealanders who had to endure the slaughter. I don’t know how I can help, but something will show itself and I will respond.
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This world has been created, managed and brought along by males. Some white, some pink, some yellow, some brown, some of many colors. All share lives on this planet which are mostly about satisfying their male egos’ and no matter how large or how small they are led first by sex and then all kinds of violence and everything else follows. It is time for a change. Even television shows are about sex and violence in one form or another and getting worse. There is so much more to life, but we don’t seem able to experience anything beyond various forms of sex and violence.
Life has so many other components, possibilities, excitements – isn’t it time for all of you out of control males to sit down, sit back and just stop the BS. It is time for another kind of world order to emerge – one which has caring for others its first concern; which puts others first; which is interested in building bridges not walls; which looks at business as a way of supplying what we all need not as a way to make billions so we can isolate ourselves and show the world our greatness which we gained at their expense?
We need to be a safe place for the poor to get out of poverty; to do everything we can to educate all of us; – and my writing this is so foolish. As you read it I can hear the comments – “a pipe dream, a romantic, an idealist, where did he come from”. It is so sad what we have done to this planet and it is getting worse. It was such a beautiful place – it is no longer.
Problem is, I don’t see any way out. There are too many Donald Trump’s in this world and more coming. We have so screwed ourselves with most of us just alive doing whatever until we die without any thought to the fact that we are all wasting the beauty of life because we have gone after weakness rather than strength and have redefined our values to satisfy our current existence instead of changing our current existence to be of good character. I doubt that we even know of what that consists.
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With New Zealand, has this administration taken its first steps into murder to be able to join the fascist nations developing very quickly around the globe? Did we have to prove our “manhood” and have done so with the “mafia speak” that brought about the New Zealand massacre?
It looks as though sex trafficking, pedophilia, the opioids – the new kind of drugs by prescription until addicted are all now in place and arms of this new mafia being created world wide with the United States president one of those doing the creating, promoting, managing. By tweet is a powerful way to create this kind of institutional structure.
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Tags: Climate Change, Donald Trump, New Zealand, opioids, pedophilia, Sex Trafficking, Sexism
Posted in Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Blog Response, Climate Change, Donald Trump, Guest comments, Khashoggi, Mafia Speak, New Zealand, politics, racism, Saudi Arabia, Sex Trafficking | Comments Off on More Bettina Members Comments!