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Structural Racism/Rittenhouse/Blacks & Jews

Monday, November 22nd, 2021

by: Marceline Donaldson

A huge topic and we will not even skim the surface.

Racism, when it has become “structured” into a society and into its institutions, is a very complex thing. We like to think it is an “unfortunate incident” which happened because the person to whom it happened was complicit in some way. It is not. Every action you take is governed by the bigotry structured into the society in which you live which has successfully structured that bigotry into every core and every cell of its existence. The experience of bigotry is not a one time experience. It is all day everyday for those who are the “minority.” It is also an all day everyday experience for those who are “white.” Their lives move ahead beyond their talents and contributions to this society because of the fact that they are in the “better than” group.

Step out of your house and it starts. Stay in your house where bigotry wafts in with the very air you breathe – it is constantly ongoing and just as constantly denied. Bigotry happens – denial follows and is given credibility.

The United States has much to deal with to become the society it claims to be and the main thing is its bigotry which was installed at its beginnings with the way American Indians were treated and with slavery.

The Rittenhouse case deals mainly with the structural/institutional racism of the Court system. It has been a showcase for all to see how this structural racism works – how and why it was set up – what is to be gained by the “better than” group through the existence of institutional racism.

My background and growing up years is totally intertwined with what happened in the Courts and with what happened on the streets which came before today’s Court system. This “street happening” brings to the forefront the relationship between Blacks and Jews – which is fraught with much bigotry itself and so much more.

What didn’t come out to the general public, until after the verdict is that the men killed were Jews. They were characterized and described as “white.” That is far from the truth. Maybe it is my age, but I remember when Jews were as ostracized as blacks and when the “n” word was applied and Jews were called that and worse – all names most blacks would know and recognize. It is thought today that those words applied only to Blacks. Blacks were and are called “nigg…”. They are not the only group so called by the Northern European-ancestry group. It is spread around to the rest of the world encouraging it to pick up and use those names. East Indians are another group to whom the “n” word was applied, especially when England colonized their country.

Let me give you an example of black/jewish relationships and what happens in these United States – from my own background:

Way back when I was a young child my grandfather used to bring me regularly to #1 Audubon Place in New Orleans when he picked me up (grandparents visiting rights) and he had business with Sam Zemurray or just went to visit. I loved the house. I especially loved the dining room with its spanish feel and walking through the wrought iron decorative gates into the dining room.

My grandfather would announce his appearance by calling out to the cooks to put water in the soup because O.C.W. had arrived. Everyone thought that was funny. I also spent many a summer’s day at the Zemurray home outside of New Orleans. A kind of life I loved and embraced quickly. When we arrived, my grandfather was there to visit with Sam Zemurray and someone working on the estate was called to take care of me. Mostly that meant taking me out in a canoe on a pond from which we could see people walking around in the distance which I was told was to admire the azalea garden open to the public. I never did see that azalea garden, but I saw pieces of it because whenever a shipment of azaleas arrived at the Zemurray estate my grandfather was called and we went out to pick up the latest truly beautiful plant for his garden. Before he died my grandfather had an exquisite azalea garden in his front and back yards all from those shipments.

Other times, we went to one or the other Zemurray estate because my grandfather, with his Columbia University education, tutored two of the Zemurray children. My grandmother was a regular visitor with her skills put to use and my mother was named Doris Taylor after Doris Zemurray – Sam Zemurrays’ daughter.

It is a long involved story which needs to be told in full because it shows the beginnings of a corporation which today is dumped on because of how it developed. The story of its Black/Jewish start is nowhere to be found. That has been “whitewashed.” Could that be the history those in control wanted to hide and wound up instead with a company considered “inhumane” by others?

My great-grandfather was an Episcopal priest. He was the Rev. Dr. David Franklin Taylor. There was a strong connection between one Jewish family and one Black family way back when. My great-grandfather was a close friend of “old man”Zemurray”, the founder of United Fruit. A company which today has a horrendous reputation including in the fields of racism and more. Back then it was clear and uncontroverted that the company was founded by a Jew, but grew because of this alliance between this one Black family and this one Jewish family.

“old man” Zemurray, as he was called then, founded United Fruit by going to the docks in New Orleans with an ice cream-type push cart. The kind that would appear in most neighborhoods with the man pushing the ice cream cart jingling his bells and calling out for the children to hear and they came running with their nickels and dimes to buy ice cream.

In New Orleans there was more than one kind of such push cart. Hot tamales were sold on the street in the same way. As I recall, a dozen hot tamales from such a cart cost 45 cents.

In New Orleans, “old man Zemurray” had such a cart full of ripe bananas he picked up from the docks and some given to him by those on the ships that came into the docks. They could not be sold to the stores, for which the other bananas were sent because they were ripe and they would be black by the time they reached the stores for which they were intended. Zemurray’s business grew rapidly. He had a business selling a product for which he paid nothing. So very quickly, he went from the push cart selling bananas on the street, which is how he started United Fruit, to a business hiring employees mostly from Honduras.

Mr. Zemurray’s problems grew with his business, as happens to most who start new businesses. His were mostly personnel related. The people who came to the United States to work at United Fruit came from Honduras and had a very different culture, a different way of living and that began to cause major problems. My great-grandfather was the priest/rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church (a part of the Anglican communion). Most, if not all of those from Honduras were members of that Anglican communion and so Rev. Dr. Taylor and Mr. Zemurray formed an alliance beyond friendship into business. Rev. Taylor would work with the people United Fruit employed to help them acclimate to this American culture and Mr. Zemurray was then free to dramatically grow his business.

Today, United Fruit is a huge corporation, but that Black/Jewish beginning is almost lost in history. In today’s world it would be seen very differently from what it actually was. It was beginning to lose that history when I was growing up because Jews were beginning to call themselves “white” and the general U. S. society could not see such an alliance and friendship as one amongst equals as existed between the man who founded United Fruit and the man who was responsible for a serious part of its early growth. When I was a small child, the stories and the talk were about how United Fruit would not have existed or grown as it did without the friendship and working together of those two men – the Jew and the Black. Back then Jews were not hired to work regular jobs. In fact, it is within my lifetime that banks went from hiring no Jews to now hiring Jews for jobs up and down the bank ladder. Jews back then had to either start their own company or find some other independent way to make a living. That is what Mr. Zemurray was doing. Looking back into that history from today, it is easy to re-write it so that its real beginnings are “cleaned-up”.

When I became an adult the relationship between Blacks and Jews remained, but had changed. There were many Jews around Martin Luther King and the black civil rights movement. They were there because they were experiencing bigotry because of their Jewishness; they were struggling to overcome the “n” word and all that it implied; and they were fighting for the freedom and equality of both groups. In many places where you had to fill out forms, it was clear that Jews could not fill out and check “white’ as many do today.

All throughout the Jewish community in this country and abroad there was that alliance. Sadly, it has substantially diminished because many Jews see themselves as a part of the Northern European-ancestry group and discriminate against Blacks the same way they do.

Before we get too ‘sanctified’ I think I need to point out here that there are many Blacks who have taken the same route. The more money the more they feel “different from” those with the same skin tones and the more justified they feel in doing to other blacks what was done to them and/or their ancestors.

What the Rittenhouse case surfaced is the fact that there are still many Jews working in civil rights groups with Blacks to gain equality for both groups and so the two Jews who were killed by Rittenhouse. They were not bystanders they were participants in a movement which they and their families saw as important. They had been trained, apparently, as children not to be bystanders to benefit from the sacrifice of others, but to be participants in bringing about a world where we all enjoyed equality and took responsibility for each other.

The Court system in this country, from the smallest court to the United States Supreme Court, has grown from its beginnings to where it is today, laced with bigotry and put in place to maintain the superiority of the Northern European-ancestry male, especially over the slave.

One need look no further than the Plessy decision at the end of the 19th century which brought into being “separate but equal” as a doctrine we have had to live by and which continued and put in stone the separation of the races with non-‘white’, none Northern-European-ancestry people as those who had to be controlled and kept in an inferior place. When society could no longer keep those inequalities then the Court stepped in to make sure white was also “better than”, “superior to”, and all those other terms by which we have lived almost from day one of this country’s founding.

Brown vs the Board of Education came along and reversed the Plessy decision and we all rejoiced. However, the rejoicing became muted as we saw what that meant institutionally/structurally.

An integrated educational system has never been a reality, in spite of the Brown decision. Real estate interests, amongst others, were employed to keep that from happening. Even today, separate neighborhoods and thus segregated schools are the norm – which is one way we found around the Brown decision. What did happen was the promotion of a group called the Black Muslims or Nation of Islam which promoted the Jews as evil and tried to promote Blacks as “better than.”

The real “better than” people allowed and promoted such groups because they would cause the split between Blacks and Jews that this Northern European-ancestry group had been trying to bring about, but couldn’t because of the long history of such cooperation. They did manage to do a great deal of harm to that relationship and did help to spin a tale, even though not true. It put a lid on real equality for generations to come.

Jews didn’t help because many tried to move into the “better than” group and did everything they could to hide and move ahead without their Jewish identity showing.

The one place it was clear the “better than” people could not lose was the Court system. Lots has been happening in this Court system under our noses and we are just now awakening to the damage done. The “better than” group has been able to structure into its system what is needed to maintain bigotry. The loudest verdict so far is the Rittenhouse verdict, but more is coming. The Republican Party has focused intensely on “stacking” the Court with judges who would maintain a system of inequality where they and those like them would always win and the others would increasingly be denied their rights.

The judge, the defense attorneys, the prosecution all worked together like a well oiled machine – set up from the start of slavery and has just been given an overhaul after the shock of the general voting public having elected an African American president. It is clear the concern before that was not as strong as it is today. Not even looking at the fact that the general population in this country is now about to turn majority-minority. That was true in the south during Reconstruction. There were blacks elected to Congress, to their state legislatures and in all areas of the south. That was not so true of the north. The majority of citizens in the south were black and mostly former slaves.

Violence raises its head quite high today – as it did when there was a threat of African Americans gaining equality. The huge threat in Tulsa-Black Wall Street – brought the ancestors of those who are the white terrorists of today out to kill Blacks who seemed to be gaining equality and in fact, had achieved more than they and/or their families had achieved in terms of education and finance.

Today that is also beginning to be true as you look around at the condition of today’s minorities and so we are attacking and attempting to eliminate generational wealth of minorities, health, property and more of those considered “less than” and we are doing it through a corrupted Court system.

Take a close look at your Courts. Many incorporate a mafia where all else fails. In Massachusetts who was head of the Court system? Whitey Bulger’s brother. The problems we are facing in the Courts in these United States are much larger than we will talk about, write about or attempt to rectify.

Amen?

Senator Danforth – Episcopal Priest – White //// Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett – Episcopal Priest – Black “A democracy for white Americans, but simultaneously a dictatorship over black Americans.”— MLK

Tuesday, January 19th, 2021

Part two of a series: – Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett – black Episcopal priest

You and we have seen the power of one Episcopal priest – white. He was able to subvert the democratic process by using money and power. Not the power inherent in why he was called to the ordained priesthood nor giving a thought to what God was calling him to do.

Using his earthly power and money he did his own thing. Something that would bring him – Senator Danforth – more power and money and earthly prestige rather than something that would help bring in God’s kingdom on this earth.

He brought us one Josh Hawley. A man who did what he thought he was called to do, subverting and attempting to destroy American democracy. Senator Hawley saw himself, with the blessing of his backers, as being the one to lead the charge calling Americans to overturn a legitimate election for president of these United States and put a fascist, authoritarian government in its place. He was, after all, backed by the aristocracy of these United States. He was close to the powers which put Donald Trump into office as United States President.

Hawley has been living an autocrat’s dream and the nightmare of those who choose to live under a democratic government. Backed by One who used the money and power he inherited ( Senator Danforth) to help install a government more in tune to corporate America’s need for an authoritarian government which could subvert, overturn, patronize and so much more the lives of the people it needs to produce and carry to fruition its programs, projects, products and/or services.

Before there was a Josh Hawley to spend time, money and other resources on, for Senator Danforth there was a Clarence Thomas and probably even more. Clarence Thomas is a man who many believe should never have been confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice, but who was with the advice, consent, power and money of the Rev. Senator Danforth.

Clarence Thomas, a black man, widely disrespected in the African American community and even more so amongst many white Americans. By manipulating the system the way only one with power and money can manipulate, the objections to Clarence Thomas were cast aside. The people who could have shed more light onto who he was and his character were not allowed to testify in the hearing at which Anita Hill was allowed to testify and then nothing. Senator Danforth’s inability to see those he is moving to a more powerful place in the light of who they are and what they might contribute to or destroy the society over which he is majorly responsible for placing them carries a lot of negative weight for what he has done for and with Hawley and Thomas.

Thomas is a man whose wife recently sent her love to the insurrectionists of January 6, 2021 during their time of uprising against the government her husband serves as a Supreme Court Justice. The insurrectionists who tried to destroy democracy along with its Capitol buildings. Insurrectionists she has been encouraging and supporting for quite some years.

Clarence Thomas cannot be so above board with his actions, but he clearly supports his wife. As a Supreme Court justice, what does it mean when his wife goes the distance and sponsors 80 buses to transport those who were a part of the “Save America” rally on January 6, 2021. The Thomas family aided and abetted those trying to overthrow a legitimate United States election in favor of putting in place a government which was, apparently, not legitimate from its beginnings, but which had philosophies, beliefs, actions of which Virginia Thomas approved and for which she spends a great deal of time publicly backing. I think it can be safely said and by his own admission that Clarence Thomas is now a Supreme Court justice thanks to Senator Danforth – white Episcopal priest.

Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett – black Episcopal priest – is the other American side of that story. The side on which he is vulnerable to white Americans who feel they can obliterate African Americans who step out of their place and have institutionalized ways to establish a dictatorship over even in 2020 and even in places like Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Cities which constantly brag about their ‘openness’ and where Black Lives do not matter – especially those of consequence; those that dare criticize white Americans in power positions; those that are not subservient to the autocracy. In fact, many believe Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts are among the most racist cities in these United States.

We recently wrote many Bettina Network articles about what was happening to Dr. Bennett. We wanted everything to be public because we were taken off-guard by the way he and his wife were attacked and having had decades of civil rights experience we knew where those attacks were headed from the day Rev. Dr. Bennett, after brain surgery at MGH, was forced into Sherrill House against his will when he was told places like Spaulding Rehabilitation Center were not open to him and he had no choice.

After his discharge from MGH, Dr. Bennett and his wife were told an ambulance was going to immediately take him to Sherrill House. Neither Rev. Bennett nor his wife, Marceline Donaldson – who was his Health Care Proxy – had a choice in the matter. What was the problem? Two fold -Sherrill House was under quarantine for the flu at the time and they did not know about that and were not told Rev. Bennett was being sent to a rehab center after brain surgery which was under flu quarantine. When, having arrived at Sherrill House and they discovered the quarantine and they complained there was no doctor available. Not physically present nor available via telephone or other communication possibilities. So their choice was to go home where they had a set up which was far superior to what they were exposed to at Sherrill House.

What they discovered through that experience were the racial discrepancies between Sherrill house and Spaulding. Once you turn from Huntington Avenue into Jamaica Plain the medical institutions mostly turn from white to brown to black.

A black man – a black family which did not choose Sherrill House as a place for rehab was forced into that institution and told Spaulding Rehabilitation Center was not where they could go. When they checked, there was space available so what was the problem. No one ever said, however, their investigation showed a clear color problem.

That was not the first nor the last such situation with which Rev. Dr. Bennett and his family had to deal during some very difficult times in their lives. Because Dr. Bennett needed brain surgery, it was as though the society had gone crazy with glee over being able to be the dictators over this African American man and his family. Because Dr. Bennett needed surgery, he was exposed to the worse and discovered there were other elderly African Americans who had and were going through very similar situations with no help and had to face the overwhelming and very racist power of “Protective Services” in Massachusetts. This was supposed to be an organization to aid the elderly in need. In fact, it is an organization which pushed into families that do not need nor want their help.

Actually, elderly and protective services is out of control and their racism, sexism, sins against immigrants virulent and long standing. It is instead becoming the means of making the minority elderly vulnerable to many health care institutions with no choice of any kind as they enter or are pushed into this world. Most often their assets are drained and redistributed into the white community so the minorities die with a life of hard work spent accumulating assets for their children to have better and more comfortable lives taken away and given to the white establishment – the white autocracy/aristocracy with many in the middle to upper classes assisting, most without even realizing the damage being done and not interested.

That was the first in many steps to drag down and attempt to destroy the end of life of a man who achieved and received a Harvard University Doctorate; had a life of service to the Episcopal Church; taught in its seminaries; taught as an adjunct professor at Princeton University, Atlanta University and several more. A man who served on the National Council of Churches Lectionary Committee using his work and study to help edit scripture to make it more available to both sexes. Well, maybe that wasn’t so good since the FBI had to intervene at that point because the members of that committee received death threats – through the National Council as well as at their homes. The minorities we have heard from or heard about include African Americans, Jews, Latina’s, Immigrants, and more.

We could go on for pages with how Dr. Bennett spent his life, but that is all well documented. We are outlining here the way this society tried to strip him of the quality of his life, making horrible the end of his life, his assets, his reputation and so much more. Who? Which institutions? The Commonwealth of Massachusetts through its Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services. Particularly its ‘Protective Services”

Recently, they were dubbed #1 in the state. That was not even surprising to us because we knew the forces which support such institutions would be coming to their assistance to try to drown out what Dr. Bennett and his wife were exposing.

The real “tell” of what was in store for Dr. Bennett happened when 8 white Cambridge police arrived at Dr. Bennett’s home demanding to remove him from his home to put him into the psych ward at Mount Auburn Hospital. Besides the eight white policemen there were TWO ambulances, five or six EMT’s and assorted people. No one knew where all the people were coming from until a neighbor of the Donaldson-Bennett family saw and talked about all the attention the police and their coterie were receiving as people came running from the Charles River to see what was happening with all the police and people and police cars parked and left in the middle of the street around the Bennett/Donaldson home.

The police arrived to force Dr. Bennett into the Mount Auburn Hospital psych ward. He was just a couple days out of MGH after brain surgery and had no relationship to Mount Auburn Hospital. He had a very low opinion of Mount Auburn Hospital, had expressed his concern for the racism he knew about as a minister. His family insisted that if he had to go someplace it be to the hospital he left just days earlier. After some back and forth the police agreed. They did not, however, arrive with any Court papers to back up their demands. After quite awhile and with Marceline Donaldsons’ insistence they produced such a paper which was a Section 12 – used by the police to hospitalize people who have had too much to drink and were a public nuisance; people who overdosed on drugs; people having a psychiatric break of some kind and are endangering the public, etc.

Rev. Dr. Bennett did not fit any of those categories. In fact, once in MGH having been forced into the psych ward after leaving days earlier having been discharged from the Neurology Department and having undergone the indignity of having been examined against his will by one of the MGH psychiatrists, Dr. Bennett was found to be someone who should not have been so treated. They saw no reason for his having been picked up and forced into the hospital in the first place. No medicines prescribed no reason for his having been forced into MGH nor did they find any reason to keep him. So the Section 12 was lifted and Dr. Bennett was sent home.

Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services are the group – the state agency which signed out the Section 12 against Dr. Bennett. No one at that agency knew Dr. Bennett – no one there had ever interviewed him – no one had any kind of relationship with him of any kind. They would not have known him if they passed him on the street.

Dr. Rebecca Warner, the psychiatrist who had Dr. Bennett so “committed” said on the papers she signed to send him to the hospital with which she was affiliated – Mount Auburn Hospital – where several African Americans have complained of their very racist treatment – that she did not know Dr. Bennett, had never met him, had never examined him, had never been to his home – but she claimed his home was ‘not safe’. So much for medical ethics and why does she still have a license to practice?

After Dr. Bennett was released from MGH it is as if enormous anger broke out amongst the people at Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services. Who did he think he was, after all. And then the fun started.

Attorney James O’Sullivan, who was given an award by the Archbishop O’Malley for the great work he supposedly does amongst the poor, especially the poor elderly, was in Court the very next day with an “emergency motion.” As we did research on Attorney O’Sullivan and the award he was given we discovered that the last recipient was ex-Attorney General Bill Barr. There is something wrong in the Diocese that this is the case, especially with the elderly because much suffering has happened and been condoned by Archbishop O’Malley with such an award.

O’Sullivan is actually someone known to use and from this experience abuse “emergency motions”. He asked the Court not to notify Dr. Bennett of the hearing, claimed he was not capable of participating, claimed Dr. Bennett was “indigent” and asked for “Protective Orders” so Dr. Bennett would not be further hurt, etc. Attorney O’Sullivan was acting on behalf of his clients, but he had never met Dr. Bennett nor his wife nor his adult children yet he talked knowingly about someone he was asking the Court to forcibly remove from his home and family and put into a psych ward for reasons not even clearly spelled out in Court.

The “Protective Orders’ were against Dr. Bennett’s wife who Attorney O’Sullivan claimed was abusive to Dr. Bennett and because of that Dr. Bennett was in grave danger. The Court refused to give Attorney O’Sullivan the “Protective Orders”.

What Attorney O’Sullivan did not tell the Court that this was not his first move against Dr. Bennett on behalf of Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services. He did not tell the Court that his first move failed because it should not have been filed in the first place. He did not tell the Court the hospital into which Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services tried to force Dr. Bennett dismissed and lifted the Section 12 his clients tried to get against Dr. Bennett. As we further investigated we found Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective services were trying to have Dr. Bennett committed for an extensive time in Mount Auburn Hospital’s psych ward and they had no reason, authority nor anything else to have pushed themselves into this family nor to try such a thing.

Leaving out the most important information when Attorney O’Sullivan went to Court, what he included was the lie which said Dr. Bennett needed to be represented by attorneys, but said Attorney O’Sullivan on behalf of Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services – Dr. Bennett was “indigent” and could not afford attorneys. Since O’Sullivan claimed Dr. Bennett could not afford attorneys and asked for a state appointed attorney, the Court appointed Cheri Myette to represent Dr. Bennett without Dr. Bennett’s knowledge – without anyone speaking to Dr. Bennett or his family about all of this and Dr. Bennett still not being notified of any motions filed in Court against him and with Attorney O’Sullivan moving ahead with an ex parte motion to take away Dr. Bennett’s freedom in violation of state law. To circumvent state law, Attorney O’Sullivan on behalf of his clients constructed what we have been told has been done many times against elderly black people in Massachusetts and other places – a series of court events which actually did not take place as represented, but put in place to be able to “win” against Dr. Bennett who then had all of his rights taken away from him as though this was a fascist Court system which sets up a case without the defendant knowing anything about the case against him and putting in place what was needed to move against the Defendant giving a public relations set of motions, etc. so the plaintiffs – Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services could gain their ends without going through the democratic process, but coming out with the result they wanted with this very fascist way of functioning. It is common today and many are in great pain because of this allowed way of functioning violating everything this country and its court system stands for.

Attorney Myette immediately filed a motion – in Rev. Dr. Bennett’s name without Rev. Bennett’s knowledge or consent. That motion had Dr. Bennett swearing to the attorneys claims that he was “indigent” and needed the state to pay his bills and that his wife was guilty of elder abuse against him.

Dr. Bennett knew nothing about that motion. In fact, that motion stayed very “secret” for quite some time because it was immediately impounded by the Court as soon as it was filed by Attorney Myette. We found out about it when someone put the papers showing that through the mail slot at the Donaldson/Bennett home with copy of the motion and more papers having to do with the workings of SCES and some of the papers needed for Dr. Bennett which had been withheld.

Because the Court appointed an attorney for Dr. Bennett even though Robert Bennett knew nothing about any of this – the Court moved ahead and gave the attorneys who were clearly conspiring with each other over this the right to have Rev. Bennett picked up by the police, forced out of his home for a second time and forced into the psych ward of MGH.

When the police arrived with this Court order, copy of which they again refused to give to Dr. Bennett or his wife or to anyone else in the house at that time, but insisted on taking him out of his house and if he refused they would carry him out. They said to all present that if anything was broken in the process of chasing all over the house looking for Dr. Bennett to drag him out of his own home, it was not their fault or responsibility and they claimed the Court gave them the authority to go anyplace in the Bennett/Donaldson’s home that they had to go to get Dr. Bennett and drag him out if necessary. They claimed Dr. Bennett was in grave danger because of the abuse they accused his wife of and because he was alone with no one else to care for him.

That was March 6th at 6pm. A Friday. Dr. Bennett’s wife was not allowed to see him from the time he was shoved into MGH for more than a week. She had to have the attorneys they hired go to MGH to negotiate some way for her to see him. When she tried to see him she was told many different things like Dr. Bennett did not want to see her; Dr. Bennett had been to court to get a restraining order against her which said she could not come near him; Dr. Bennett was asked and declined to see her. In actual fact, Dr. Bennett knew nothing about this. He was told his wife had done this to him and didn’t want to see him ever again. All of this time, Dr. Bennett was being drugged apparently by MGH people getting him ready for his “independent Exam” by Dr. Rebecca Warner. When she was finally able to see him he didn’t recognize her, he was so groggy he couldn’t keep his eyes open and more.

What was happening at the Bennett/Donaldson home at the time Attorney O’Sullivan was in court describing Dr. Bennett as being alone, destitute with an abusive wife and no one to care for him or protect him? Dr. Bennett, his wife, his adult daughter, his adult son and his wife were about to sit down to a candlelight dinner. They spent the day cooking and preparing for this celebration meal because Robert’s surgery was a success and they were giving thanks. Robert Bennett did not have dinner that day because the police and hospital were so concerned about him they shoved him in a corner of a room and left him there.

When Dr. Bennett arrived at MGH and was shoved into a room, he was immediately started on anti-psychotics; anti-seizure medications, hallucinatory drugs, blood thinners forced on a man just days from brain surgery, plus 10 more medicines. 10 days later Dr. Rebecca Warner shows up at MGH to do what she called an “Independent Exam” although she is affiliated with Mount Auburn Hospital. She – the one who signed out the Section 12 against Dr. Bennett for which the Commonwealth of Massachusetts paid her $2,000 because, after all, Dr. Bennett was “indigent”. So many people and institutions road that “indigent” gravy train that our minds have been twirled around many times trying to nail down all of it.

Dr. Warner appeared 10 days after Dr. Bennett was forced to take all of the above drugs, which he did not want, but did not have a choice. Examining him those 10 days later – a man who did not want to be there and constantly wanted to leave, but was kept on an alarm blanket on his bed so nurses would be notified if he tried to get out of bed; he could move to a chair next to the bed, but that was also alarmed and he could not move without someone moving him; being forced to take medicines which could do serious and long term harm to him was then given an “Independent Exam” – which he already had been given the first time he was taken to MGH, but the circumstances were very different. This time, Dr Warner found him to be “incapacitated”. Those drugs were not put on his medical chart until months after Marceline Donaldson discovered the discrepancy and insisted on an answer as to why. They knew about the drugs because they were sent home with him with MGH insisting that he be required to continue to take them daily or he would be brought back to the hospital for a more “permanent” commitment.

How did would they know if Dr. Bennett was not taking the drugs? Dr. Bennett’s family was forced to accept a Home Health Care Company coming to the house daily – 5 or 6 people each day going in and out of the house during the time of the Pandemic. They were supposed to give him the pills and watch while he swallowed them. And – one thing that resulted from this – Dr. Bennett was sexually abused in the process. His family reported all of this to the Massachusetts District Attorney and the Attorney General’s Office and to the office of Elder Services. None of them paid any attention and in spite of the fact that there were witnesses, none of those institutions bothered to contact and/or interview those witnesses.

Before his transport to the MGH he was walking, talking, in a good state of mind and friends interacted with him – he walked to Harvard Square – sat by the river to soak up the sun and more. When he was sent home from MGH some 5 weeks later he was in horrible shape. He had no shoes on – his feet were swollen and his shoes didn’t fit – he hadn’t been able to get out of bed for five weeks and at Dr. Bennett’s age that could have been a death sentence or one which would have produced an “incapacitated” person for the rest of his life. He looked as though he had been homeless on the street for years. and he could not walk. That is what MGH and SCES contributed to Dr. Bennett’s “health”. It was disgraceful and heartbreaking.

The Court Order said Dr. Bennett was being taken to MGH not for medical reasons, but because of elder abuse and because of that they had to immediately take him from his home. They treated him in a disgraceful way. He spent the five weeks in a space 7 by 9 feet and he shared that space with unused hospital equipment. He shared the room with someone else who had two beautiful picture windows, the sun coming through, a chaise lounge kind of chair he could sit in during the day and a lot more. Dr. Bennett didn’t see the sun because curtains were kept drawn around his bed. If you entered his room you would not know anyone else was in that room.

We are finding others who have gone through the same thing. The elderly are particularly vulnerable because most who have gone through this have not fought civil rights battles the way the Donaldson/Bennett’s have nor have they had any other fights so they are ‘taken over’ by people like Nora Al Wet-Aid and Angela Clary with the acquiescence and consent of their superiors.

During the entire time no one talked to Dr. Bennett. They did what they wanted to do and what they felt they needed to do pursuing the goal they have for people like him. Being moved from a psych ward into a nursing home for life with the Court’s permission to feed him and others like him anti-psychotics for life along with others drugs which ruin their health and the quality of their life. Why? Assets!

Dr. Bennett’s wife was told – and a letter to other lawyers attest to the fact – that she would be given a small stipend and could find a room someplace – maybe even with her own bathroom because the family’s assets would be needed and taken over by a Guardianship Corporation – drained down by that Corporation to supposedly pay for Dr. Bennett’s bills.

It gets worse from here so we won’t go through all of the gory details, but as you read this can you imagine Senator Danforth being so treated? Or reaching out to help someone like Rev. Dr. Bennett? And how have others in the Episcopal Church reacted?

As you read this we hope you realize the very authoritarian system in which the health care institutions are functioning and the way it is so much easier to have blacks put out of commission with their assets stripped so their children cannot inherit and therefore lose the edge in this society that assets inherited would bring to them.

Add to that the very aggressive stripping of the vote from minorities which is what Senator Hawley – who was backed by Senator Danforth – is trying to do with his attempted takeover of a democracy turning it into an authoritarian government.

Dr. Bennett, who hired attorneys to represent him was not able to be represented by the attorneys of his choice. The Court appointed an attorney to represent him before he even knew he needed any kind of representation. Dr. Bennett was not “indigent” and paid the retainers requested by those attorneys. Didn’t matter. The attorney appointed by the Court in an “emergency motion” about which Dr. Bennett knew nothing – he was not served or contacted in any way; the attorney so appointed by the Court did not contact him she simply did what others told her to do, resulted in the “dictatorship over” way he was treated during every moment of what must have been a nightmarish experience for him. He was treated as though these United States are a system of “dictatorships over” in the areas necessary for whites to keep control.

There is talk of “defunding the police”. The problem is much more serious than what is happening with the arrest and killings of blacks and other minorities who supposedly have committed some kind of crime. When the police can push their way into your home without your knowledge of why or what for and can forcibly take you out for no reason the ‘police problem’ in this society needs to have its entire structure and what it can do unearthed before any solutions are sought or rendered.

When the people, like Senator Danforth, with the power and money are calling the shots on who is elected; who is appointed to important positions in this society which can bring substantial changes to our individual and collective lives those people need to be highlighted and call out on what they are doing and why they are allowed to wield so much more power and have so much more money than the rest of society.

We are still living in a “slave society” which we inherited from the many generations who went before. Instead of looking at that and making major changes, we are playing games with “riots” and attempting to force those changes in physical ways which will most hurt those making the physical and psychic sacrifices to bring in a new way of being in society, which will simply bring a more concentrated form of wealth and power to the aristocracy at the top calling the shots – manipulating the strings of the puppets who are dancing without any thought to what it is they are doing.

Don’t you think it is time to stop all of this? Don’t you think it is time for us to live in some other kind of community which benefits all? That is such an incredible threat to most we are afraid to even go there. We might encounter people who don’t look like us – talk like us – have our history – etc, etc, etc. and isn’t that the greatest threat of all?

To Celebrate MLK, Jr?

Sunday, January 20th, 2019

As I look back over my life I am amazed constantly at how, as human beings, we have created such a complicated mess when to live a good life should be a simple accomplishment.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a martyr because he could not live his life ignoring the ills in the society which surrounded him. Most of us live our lives contributing to those ills and making them worse. Our needs are not simple. They grow more complicated as we age in a society which markets hourly with goals to enlarge already out of control egos which we are willing to pay very high prices to satisfy.

I remember Martin Luther King, Jr. from my days as a teen ager. He was not a big hero, he was a young man, studying at Divinity School and doing what he could, with others, to mitigate and change the apartheid which existed in these United States.

A particularly strong memory of Martin King was the time when the Jr. High Choir at my Church went on a trip, driving across the back roads of Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama. Rev. Nicholas Hood was the inspiration behind those trips and we met up at different places with Andrew Young and Martin King. We were about integration and attempting to break down barriers. Amazingly, as I look at my life, that is what I have been doing all of my years on this earth and I don’t see many results from the effort. To try to mitigate evil when it is so strongly entrenched takes more than my life has been able to deliver.

We spent many weekends visiting white churches and always stayed the night in the home of whites where there were young people our ages and on Sunday mornings we sang with them as a part of the Church Service where Martin King preached the sermon.

Our reception in the homes of these white families where we stayed was always warm and welcoming. We ate together, got to know one another and Sunday morning services gave meaning to what we were doing and why. It was truly God’s work. Doing that work, however, you come to know that good is always combined with evil and I saw for the first time what racism was all about.

Having been raised in a middle-class African American community, we were involved in a fairly closed community so our sense of self-worth and who we were was intact. I won’t try to explain that – if you don’t have any idea my sympathy goes out to you.

While I had white friends and white family and the city in which I was raised didn’t make a big deal out of that, but accepted much of that back and forth, it was not what the world in general accepted. Those weekends visiting white churches were about to open my eyes to the evils that existed in this world in ways I could not have imagined.

As we arrived, on a Saturday, in one town where we were to spend the weekend and sing in Church that Sunday morning, we were introduced to the young ‘white’ Jr. choir – our counterparts. At the end of dinner we were split up and sent to spend the night with families who volunteered to be our hosts for the weekend.

While we were getting ready for bed, frantic calls went out from one house to another and the next thing we knew, the ‘white’ families with whom we stayed had swiftly rounded us up and had practically thrown us into the station wagons which brought us and we were speeding down country lanes where we saw Martin King, Andrew Young and Nicholas Hood hanging in effigy from the trees as we passed. We began to realize what was happening when we saw a group of whites coming down the road trying to catch up to us. They were led by an older man with a shot gun. He was not the only one in that crowd with guns. What amazed me was the anger, bitterness, horribleness of their emotions against a group of 14 to 16 year olds – a church group visiting their neighborhood, come to sing in their church on a Sunday morning where Martin King was to preach.

That was the first time I saw racism in its raw form and saw the threat that my very existence posed to all of those people so furious that we dared to think we could sing in their church with their children. Since, as African Americans we didn’t self-segregate, their out of control emotions would force us to with guns and sticks and bricks and bats. Who was their god? It was clearly not God we worshipped on Sundays and met to talk about and study Scripture supporting the structures built to worship God – to learn about Jesus – to worship Christ. Their Churches had the same trappings as the one in which we worshipped – the same kind of cross, the stained glass windows, similar architecture with bibles in the pews, but clearly it was not about the worship of God. They had created a god with whom they could relate with values, a character, and all the trappings we build around religion which worked for them in their need to exist as ‘white supremacists’. The viciousness and ability and need to even murder if that is what it took to maintain themselves as “better than” – supreme over all others – oppressors of peoples not like them was so strong nothing else seemed to matter to them. If they could have caught up to Nicholas Hood, Martin King, Andrew Young they clearly would have hung them instead of the effigies they placed on the road we were driving down.

We were accused of being part of a sex ring. We were supposedly in town and staying with the boys and girls our ages to have sex with them, to morally corrupt them and on and on it went.

As I experienced all of that I experienced a group of ‘whites’ who were so corrupt themselves that they were projecting onto others their sins. I also experienced a group of ‘whites’ who were truly in their church to worship God. In the lives of this last group, they acted out of their belief system which is probably why they were the people who invited us to be a part of their communion. Seeing the evil amidst the good in which they lived and raised their children they were moved to act. At that same moment Nicholas Hood, Andrew Young and Martin Luther King, Jr. were there to help facilitate what they needed to do to bring love, goodness, justice, into the lives of their community.

Since that time I have seen ‘whites’ who live in many radically different ways. Some follow the call of God in their lives and understand they are one with us all. Some follow the call of the god they created and re-create as the need exists to help them live as unauthentic a life as possible, projecting an image onto the world which is very different from who they really are – always hiding the shame they feel -not trying to be perfect, but trying to project a perfect image of themselves – actually living out of their sin instead of living into the authenticity of their beautiful and flawed selves.

The next Sunday Nicholas Hood gathered us together and we studied Scripture while talking about that experience. He was determined to put what happened to us in the context of the Gospels.

Since that time, Martin King walked a long ways on that road and had many encounters with people who came after him the way that group came after all of us because they were so threatened by a Jr. High Choir singing in their Church on a Sunday and staying in the homes of their friends and parishioners some of whom they had known all of their lives, but were still able to accuse of exposing their children to ‘those sex fiends’.

I still see that group of people running down that back country road trying to stop, shoot and kill young teenagers who were such a threat to them and their way of life.

Martin King gave his life to save such people. Donald Trump gave his to make sure such people would live eternally on this earth and be able to wreck as many lives as they can reach and to destroy as much of life as he can reach – including his own.

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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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Trump’s Campaign Promises & History

Thursday, July 27th, 2017

by: Marceline Donaldson

We need to take a look at a parallel time in history for these United States.  The time of Reconstruction was followed by the dismantling of what the time of Reconstruction wrought.  What we are experiencing under Donald J. Trump is that time after Reconstruction of horror, evil, misery under which so many suffered.

It comes under that old adage – if we don’t know and understand history, we will be forced to repeat it.  And surely enough that is what we are doing.  President Obama brought in an era very much like that time of Reconstruction.  He continued the process of eliminating our equivalent of the “black codes” which began to be dismantled under Martin Luther King, Jr’s Civil Rights Movement – only instead of concentrating on African Americans, Obama addressed bigotry across this country amongst far more than just African Americans.  His time in office highlighted just how venomous bigotry was in these United States and we all thought it was coming to an end.

After the Obama presidency, we elected a man we knew to be a liar, cheat, etc. etc.  Today, we are appalled at what he is doing.  Since he was a very public and visible person and since it was very difficult not to have known Donald Trump and his reputation, it is amazing to me that we, the citizens of these United States who elected him president could be surprised, dismayed, etc. etc. about the actions of this man who was so thoroughly known.  Who you elect is what you get.  There is no miraculous change that occurs.  Many in the media talked extensively about the “pivot” that they expected to happen.  Where did they get such an idea?  Was it from the history that rolled out before them showing that the person elected to office said what he had to say to get elected and once elected he became and started to institute policies far different from those he/she ran on?

We were appalled that President Trump rolled out policies, etc. that he ran on.  He let everybody know who he was and what he was going to do.

He also threw in the politicians lies to some folks, claiming he was going to do great things for them – which totally violated his image; what he was saying most of the time; the people around him, those total racists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis and other such folks supporting his candidacy who he clearly embraced and preferred in his rallies which were horrid places to be if you were non-white and non-northern european.

Many believed he would “pivot” and be someone very different when he took office.  Only, I wonder if we really believed that or deep down we actually hoped and voted for him because we didn’t want a country where everyone was marching into that nirvana of equality, justice, compassion and Donald Trump looked like the candidate who would make sure that things were put aright which this Obama guy had turned in another direction.  Trump promised to undo everything Obama had done as president and he has actively and hurriedly taken that seriously and that part of his campaign promise he is daily implementing.

Instead of a mirror image of Reconstruction, he has brought about the period of time that followed Reconstruction when work went on to bring back the “black codes” and other laws and principles which would bring the country back as close to slavery as possible.  In the process we have helped to bring this country into a time of great destruction of many of our fellow citizens.  During that time after Reconstruction, justice, equality, compassion were destroyed.  Evil, hatred, bigotry, infliction of pain was the order of the day and for the next hundred years we lived under what that period after the Reconstruction brought.

We celebrated the “first” African American elected to Congress after 1960 ignoring the fact that during Reconstruction over 100 African Americans, just out of slavery, were elected to federal, state, county legislatures and served their fellow citizens well.

Trump’s presidency looks a lot like that of Rutherford Hayes, whose term of office started with a disputed election and during which the Chinese were today’s Muslims.  The Chinese worked hard to build the railroads, but were treated very poorly and were those selected to keep out of the United States the way Trump has worked to keep Muslims from coming to the United States.

The condition of people was horrid and the gains from Reconstruction which the Radical Republicans gained, particularly for African Americans, were destroyed – mostly by the Democrats.

During all of this time I had family living in Mexico who had everything taken away from them and were treated extremely abusively by United States soldiers when the lines were drawn and a part of Mexico became America:  I had family – Choctaw Indians, who were put on the Trail of tears and suffered much:  I had family – African Americans who were active in their small town in Alabama – elected to public office there – and finally, as the political climate changed, were stripped of everything and tarred and feathered, put on the railroad track forced to walk to Texas in that condition by the Democrats:  I had family who were English, Irish, Italian, Swiss and more who gave up their “white privilege” to marry minorities who had experienced those things.

And today, I am living through the modern version of that terrible time because of the Republicans and Donald Trump and his supporters who are moving very quickly to bring us back to that time after our own modern day Reconstruction.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

Trump, the United States president, who gained office by lying.

Two of his big lies are currently clearly on view:

He promised Iraqi Christians that he would support and protect them and they supported him in large blocks.  When he gained office he started deporting them by the hundreds.  They have not yet been hauled out of this country because the courts stopped Trump’s deportation of so many.  They would have faced a horrible and dangerous life if they had been deported and they still might be.

He promised to support the LGBTQ Community and just recently showed clearly that his ethics are in the gutter and his sense of values none existent to the point of not merely being “political” to gain office, but evil to gain eternal damnation.

And those are just a few of his broken promises which will cause thousands horrendous, broken, desperate lives of which he will know nothing and of which he wants to know nothing.  His life is privileged and its continuance as such is his only concern.  More power.  More money.  More glorifying of Donald Trump.

And for this we live, work, worship and die in this country.  When will it all change?  What are you doing to bring about that change?  Or are you doing nothing to help continue things as they are because you see yourselves as benefitting?  Life changes in the blink of an eye – your time is coming and soon.

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A Promoter of Conspiracy Theories – President?

Tuesday, December 6th, 2016

America – really?  You elected a man who was the spokesperson and promoter of conspiracy theories as your president? Really?  Come on – that can’t be real.  Are you really that racist, America?

The last president spent eight years in office – an African American.  He was elected – and re-elected.  He was respected around the world.  He wasn’t perfect, but he did a pretty good job.  He had no scandals during his time in office.  He had no affairs.  He spent his time with his family.  He raised two daughters and now into their teen years – some say, the most difficult time for parents.  And still, after seeing all of that you elected who?  A man who was the spokesperson in Chief for the Birther Movement?  Who was on television and in countless videos speaking far and wide about Barack Obama not being an American.  Who called your duly elected president a liar.  A man who claimed that your American president was living a lie to his fellow Americans by claiming to be an American when he was actually born in Africa.

America, you laughed at this Donald Trump, the Conspiracy theorist in Chief – and then you elected him your next president?  You made him the butt of many jokes and the late night comics had a field day.

America, is your need to identify as White that strong.  You are, after all, the ones who set up “White” as a race.  So I guess we should not be that surprised when you feel the need to protect this “White American” race.  You didn’t realize when you set up this White race identity that it would not only be about slavery and identifying the other as “Colored”, “Black” and now “African American”, but would become your ingrained identity and keep you forever needing to be seen as “better than”.  You went so far as  setting up White Privilege to go along with that White American identity.  Jealous of the English Colonialism with which they tried to rule the world?

Problem with that is colors always seemed to me to be more interesting, have more depth, be about something.  “White” seemed so lacking in ….. something.  And now I see what “White” lacks –  Character? Ethics? Truth? And has a little “Evil” ingrained.   We thought, at some point, that you would just become “American”.

Who is this man?  Who is this conspiracy theorist who so portrayed your president for eight years – and longer – as an African who was fooling the American public by claiming to be an American when in fact he was not.  And you – citizens of the United States – elected this man, this conspiracy theorist, your president.  Donald Trump – president elect of the United States. Chief Conspiracy Theorist.

Your founding fathers must be proud because they slipped into the Constitution this Electoral College, which they hoped would insure that White Males (hopefully) Northern Europeans would always be president of these United States of America.  You kept that Electoral College in your Constitution for hundreds of years as a bulwark against any serious kind of desegregation.  Wow! What foresight you all had.  But what a price you have paid.  Isn’t that what stopped Al Gore?  But then maybe you were right to do that because wasn’t that – no, couldn’t have been, must have been someone else – a look alike.  His character wouldn’t let him.  But then he claimed to have invented the internet, which dropped his character a rung or two, so maybe that was him running into that Tower.

And so the founders have reached into the 21st century with that desire to maintain slavery and have caused you Americans to elect a man who is:

  1. A conspiracy theorist.  His biggest conspiracy and most successful one was spreading the lie that Barack Obama was born in Africa and he and his family were lying about who he really is.  Will he have the support of and appoint other Conspiracy Theorists to his cabinet and other places in his government so his way of being “in charge” will continue on?
  2. A Casino Operator – a man who built and operated several casino’s.  Even one in Las Vegas.  Now, I was always told that Casino Operators could only exist if they were a part of the mafia or could only exist with the blessing and support of the mafia.  Las Vegas – New Jersey – big mafia strongholds in the United States (so I have been told). So what does that make your new president and who will really be in control of your government.  And you looked down on Cuba when it was overrun with mafioso from the United States.  Now that Cuba has cleaned itself up, will the United States of America be the place where that happens?
  3. The owner of a Construction Company – which built hotels, apartment houses, etc. AND would not allow Blacks to rent or live in any of his buildings.  I have seen the newspaper clippings and the cases against Mr. Donald Trump.  Not only against him, but he comes by this legitimately because he inherited this racism from his father, who also built buildings in which he did not allow Blacks to live.  Isn’t that a violation of your laws America?  And yet you elected this man, who with his family, violated your laws blatantly and is still violating your laws and you now call him your president-elect?
  4. A man, who reportedly only values a woman for her body – isn’t that sexism?  Doesn’t that also violate your laws, America.  And still you elected him your president?
  5. A man, who it rumored, has violated all of the 10 Commandments.  Maybe that is a slight exaggeration, but he has violated enough of them that those loud outspoken Evangelicals praising who we thought was God were really only singing their praises to god.  So we really can’t dump on them since they are  worshipping their idols and we do believe in freedom of religion.  We were only fooled a little while by the names they called him.  We were fighting them because we knew our God wasn’t HIM.  We knew our Jesus was born male, not to glorify maleness, but to glorify God.  It was offending God for us to be taking on such a fight to try to keep their god primary in front of everyone.  This election has cleared our eyes. Idol worship is not for us and never has been.   We wouldn’t be surprised if one day soon they don’t start calling their god, Donald Trump.  They have already started to talk about their god sending Donald Trump to them.  And how this is all their gods plan.  But they don’t seem to understand retribution – payment for past sins – God’s wrath – evil.  They seem to think that is a good thing sent by their god for their betterment.  Well, actually, it probably is being sent by their god in the hopes it will produce their betterment, but the way their leaders are running into the Tower offering their congratulations, their services, their excitement about the “Don’s” coming success it is seriously doubtful that God’s message is getting through.

HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN!

Abraham Lincoln didn’t bring you down! – he raised you up.

Martin Luther King, Jr. didn’t bring you down! – he raised you even higher.

but Donald Trump is bringing you wayyyyyyyy down.

And look at how your BIG MEN are falling all over themselves running in to kiss the ring. Their character – their ethics – their very souls are on display for all to see.

Wasn’t that Mitt Romney we saw running into Trump Tower and having dinner with the Almighty One?

And we though Mitt Romney was one of the good guys.  When he saw what was happening with the election in his beloved country, he stood up and was counted as someone who said he was not going along with this travesty.  He didn’t say “evil” but he might as well have because what he did say came down to the same thing. But what was he really doing?  Did he read the tea leaves and saw that Hillary Clinton was going to win so he was not downing Donald Trump and taking an ethical stand, but positioning himself to be in line for some kind of substantial position in Hillary’s government?

Oh, Oh, Nooooooooo! Not him too!  Oh my goodness – there goes Al Gore – into the Tower!  Well, we always had our suspicions about him.  He tried, but he just couldn’t pull off being such a good guy.  And now, we see him totally uncovered.

Oh, help me to my seat and cover my eyes and ear, I don’t know how much more of this I can stand.

Oh – and when your new president goes traveling around the world with his ‘wife” – which one?  The one who allowed all those pictures to be taken of herself in the various kinds of poses that a prostitute takes to advertise her wares.  Now, be careful here, I am not calling her a prostitute, but I said clearly, the kind of pictures a prostitute takes – naked on a bear rug with high heels up in the air and handcuffed to the bed and etc.  Some are calling her a soft porn model.  We will just look at the pictures circling the world and shake our heads.  Trump better get the Muslims and soon because when those pictures of his wife start circulating in religious Muslim circles – oh my!

And how does your president-elect handle his anti-semitism.  Well, his daughter has put him in a trap because she went off and married an Orthodox Jew.  Well, not only did she do that, but she became one herself.  Now you know in Judaism, the children take on the identity of the mother, so if she hadn’t converted, her children would not be in danger of being Jews.  But she went off and did the thing so now her husband and her children are Jews. So how did your President-elect handle that?  Is that his anger at this marriage, all of you Americans, that turned him so viciously against Muslims?  So badly so that he wants to eliminate all of them!  Is this going to be another purge by the Norther Europeans.  The last time they tried to get rid of the Jews.  This time there is a Jew sitting in the halls of power so they are going to try to get rid of all the Muslims.  Well, just as well.  Eventually, somehow, they will rid the world of all those they various and sundry people they consider “minorities”.

Oh, America, my heart aches for you.  Don’t you know you have to pay for your sins?  Haven’t you seen enough of God’s retribution to know that your day is coming?  Maybe this is it!  Maybe this is the beginning of your having to pay for the slavery you brought on Africans.  Or maybe this is the beginning of your retribution for what you have done to those who lived in the land before the Northern Europeans arrived.  What are they called today?  Indians?  No, that is politically incorrect – Native Americans.  What a name.  Call them Native Americans and then invade and destroy the little bits and pieces of land they have left and make sure it will soon be covered with the results of the many oil spills that will happen,as those Northern Europeans make loads of money in the companies that are going to dig up their privately owned land drilling for what?  Covering up what?  Taking back what?  Is this a new form of genocide – against those you have given the honorific title of Native American and made them think that this title was their idea?

Oh, America, I pray for you every day.  There are so many good people in your country.  What is going to happen to them.  They seem to be allowing these few others to take over and destroy every dream they have ever had.  Or maybe that is the problem – have they been so treated they don’t have anymore dreams?

My goodness, some of those good people are Northern Europeans.  Then who are these who have so wrecked the land and continue to wreck the land?  Who are those who let them?  I understand Donald Trump owns stock in the company about to destroy the land of the native Americans to cause oil to pollute the water so they will have nothing to drink.  And what about the rest of us – we won’t either.

You have allowed whoever these people are to destroy your country.  To invade and change the dreams of your people.  You started out in such a beautiful way.  We really hoped you would succeed.  But you have now been derailed and who knows if your country will ever be the same again.

Germany certainly didn’t expect to descend into a Nazi state.  And today, it seems as though it is only the Germans who really recognize the danger you are in America.  Have they learned from their mistakes?

So what now?  As your country began to become diverse – that beautiful diverse place where all were supposed to be welcome – what is the quote “bring me your tired,….”  That poem written by Emma Lazarus and cut into the stone with that gift from France to be a beacon to Exiles from all over the world

“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Oh, No!  Is the writer of this poem – Emma – a woman? Is that why they turned against immigrants?  Will that open the door to taking her poem off the Statue of Liberty?  And a better, more American under Donald Trump type poem in its place?

Well, that is certainly no longer America.  Will it ever be again?  With Donald Trump and his friends – not likely. The United States of America used to travel the world telling others how they should change to be more like America.  Walk hand in hand into the sunset with the Casino Operator and his Soft Porn Model wife – naahh, that doesn’t sound quite right.

And here you are America – flirting with becoming another Russia; another fascistic state with its super wealthy governing people and underlings in line for bread – you can ignore this if you dare, but stay on this road and that day is coming and sooner than you think.

I used to think America was the greatest nation on earth.  Today, I realize you are the most foolish.

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 Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

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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The Rev. Nicholas Hood

Tuesday, April 12th, 2016

by: Marceline Donaldson, April 11, 2016

Rev. Nicholas Hood

Rev. Nicholas Hood

Andrew Young, Nicholas Hood

Andrew Young, Nicholas Hood

Some remembrances write themselves.  This one is being written through heavy grief because it is not only a memory of Nicholas Hood, but  long overdue grieving of my youth and someone who contributed majorly to who I am as a Christian today.

Nicholas Hood is in my heart and soul.

The example he set for so many will last a very long time as will the witnessing to his life, his life’s work and his God.  He was one of those who witnessed for his God in a mighty way.  When God calls one to the ordained ministry, God calls the pastor and the prophet.  When it is a genuine call to the ordained ministry the life of that person is never the same and their life forever after reflects that call.  Clearly, Nicholas Hood was called by God to the ordained ministry and he never left the path he walked following that call.

“Suffer the little children to come unto me …………….” was one part of Nicholas Hood’s ministry.  With a group of us in New Orleans, life would never be the same.  We integrated the Congregational Church’s summer camp in the Panhandle.  It was an incredible, life changing experience.  There were times around a camp fire when we heard, as young Black children, what young White children thought of those like us.  Stories of how the White children – teen agers – had been taught that integrated marriages produced spotted children.  Comments I have never forgotten.  That one stood out more than the rest because my grandfather had the genetic disease which causes one’s skin to turn from brown to milky white and I could see it spreading across his hands and in later years his face.  His father was Blackfoot Indian.  His mother was French.  I knew better than to believe the stories I heard around that camp fire, but that one got inside and it took some time before I was able to dig it out.    Nick Hood was there talking to all of us and going into detail on racism and how it works and spreads from one generation to the next.  Those were stories told to their children by parents who were full of fear and afraid their children might bring home a Black boy or girl friend and they were doing everything they could to prevent that and keep the color line unbroken.  What Nicholas Hood did for us, after that night around the camp fire, was to witness using the Gospel to put all of what we heard into a context which was powerful I can still hear parts of it.

Nicholas Hood was there at the end of that camping experience when we were on the way home and we all went into a diner to eat.  We had been so caught up in the experience of being together – White and Black – that the reality outside the camp had not been restored and we sat in the diner causing a bit of an uproar because Blacks were sitting at the counter waiting to be fed.  We were unaware of the sit-ins beginning to happen across the country.  We just wanted lunch.

Nicholas Hood brought a group of us – very young people – with Andrew Young and Martin King – across the backroads of Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama as a Jr. High Choir to sing in White Churches in which Martin preached.  We spent the night in the homes of the White Jr. High Choir members before and after the service and after that when we were all quickly hustled out of the homes where we were staying back into the cars to be driven down the road at high speed watching in front of us seeing Nicholas Hood, Andy and Martin hung in effigy from the trees down the road and behind us a group of very angry whites with rifles coming to run out of town the oversexed Blacks who couldn’t be about anything except a sex orgy sleeping with the young White teenagers whose families offered us hospitality.  That was my first experience being seen, not as a human being but as an oversexed machine to whom friendship wasn’t possible – but was interpreted as some kind of sex thing.  Nicholas Hood was there to put all of that into the perspective of the Gospel.

I didn’t realize how much children absorb of Sunday sermons until I looked back and remembered some of Nicholas Hood’s sermons, which got into my soul.  I couldn’t have been more than 13-14 years old.

I’ve made lots of missteps in my life, but somehow I have always been able to self-correct.  Some compass inside always brought me back to the faith of my childhood and the example of those around me at the time.  To be able to see beyond today and to talk to those who are no longer here is a New Orleans thing and not an easy thing to handle,  but Nicholas Hood kept my deepest secrets which were never shared.  That is a gift and I am so very grateful to the giver.

Rev. Hood came to Minneapolis years ago and we spent an incredible evening going over life and where it had taken us.  An evening I have always cherished.  I’ve watched his life and how he lived it and one thing stands out above all else – his faith in God and his steps, which were ordered by God. He lived to the benefit of so many – me included.  Life happens, but it does not always happen full of love while we are doing God’s work.  We can get so confused as to what God is calling us to do.  What is the work we need to be doing for ourselves and for others?  Nick Hood’s life shows an example of someone who was very clear about the work God called him to do.

By your fruits you shall be known.  By what Nicholas Hood was about all those 92 years speaks louder than anything anyone could say, explain, add to his life’s story. By the fruit of his life – “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? 17″So every good tree bears good fruit,” …………  You have left clear evidence by your fruit that you are one of God’s own forever, Nicholas Hood.  May God bless and keep you close for eternity.

See also:

Tonight, I Watched My Father Die

http://www.wxyz.com/news/civil-rights-activist-former-detroit-city-council-member-nicholas-hood-sr-dies-at-91

Rev. Hood Sr.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc.

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


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