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Trump – yet another distraction!

Tuesday, April 9th, 2019

by: Marceline Donaldson

Apparently, Vladimir Putin has sent Donald Trump another list of things to do and Trump is carrying them out in his usual manner. However, the Chinese spy was ‘caught’ and the distraction is exposed for what it is – a continued attempt to dismantle these United States.

It is clear from the way this is happening that this is a distraction from the coming revelations from the Mueller Report which Trump, his friends and allies want to arrive in a murky atmosphere so Trump will continue to have time to continue to dismantle the United States government into the kind of structure they can take over.

Sad to say Trump does not realize that he will not be around to enjoy the excitement and celebration if he succeeds. He will be too much of a threat – especially since he can’t keep soda water on his stomach.

With the firing of Nielsen and the comments on her “evil” and the other ways she acted we seem to forget that what happened in Nazi Germany was not due to some special and unique character of Germans. It is a character flaw which is human and is happening in many places on different levels for the same reasons – power and control. It is well underway in these United States. Hopefully, there will be no reason for it to be said – as history goes over our actions during these days – that good people did nothing.

A man with no experience in government and no accurate knowledge of how the United States government works could not do what Trump has been doing without help from someone with the training that Putin has had as an operative of the Society Union. And I am sure Putin is not the only one in the mix seeing this as a good time for them to intervene as they have wanted to do for generations. Favros didn’t show up in such a hurry at the beginnings of the meeting between Trump and Kim Jong Un in Vietnam by accident. My guess – someone was not toeing the line and needed a nudge to get with the program.

And in the end, Trump’s exit is already planned. He is setting the stage for a “crazy persons” exit from the United States presidency from which he expects to go scot free with lots of money waiting him to live happily ever after.

I do not believe all of these recent firings are taking place just as a coincidence when Trump needs some kind of cover for whole or parts of the Mueller Report becoming public. The last time such took place it was a huge explosion and great distraction. This is what Trump needs now to get the public off on a wild goose chase after the seeming upheavals with immigration so they are not focusing on what is happening with Donald Trump and what looks like the continuation of a huge next step in his massive conspiracy to destroy the current United States government so it will be easy to bring it back together again in a non-democratic/republic shape.

What is hopeful is all of this is the extreme diversity of the current United States House of Representatives. We are now a country which represents all of us – well, once the Senate has been “readjusted” – and the new president elected, if the press will stop pushing the white males amongst the candidates and pushing the females into the background, we might have the continuation of a great country. This time, one that represents all of its citizens. A note to the press – remember the great push and coverage you gave to Donald Trump’s campaign. It is time for you to stop self-absorption and the profit motive and realize the influence you have on this society. That needs to cause you to always and forever act with courage, and truth.

With the United States becoming the country we were raised singing, writing and claiming to be great in its diversity representing all of the people, maybe in this generation it will be so.

It is fitting that the old guard, which was the past, is represented in its death throes by this ridiculous caricature of a man who, hopefully, is the last president trying to keep this country white, male and mostly northern European. Dear God, let it be so. Do not let us have to go through another and more vicious Nazi Germany to emerge steps further down the road to a true government of the people, by the people and for the people.

My vision of Donald Trump is of a man ascending the stairs of an airplane with the wind at his back and his hair piece flapping in the wind with toilet paper stuck in one shoe following him up the stairs on his way to explaining to his handlers why he made such a mess of his assignment and couldn’t, in the end, pull it off.

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Conspiracy Theories?

Wednesday, February 24th, 2016

Breakfast at a Bettina Network Hedge School can be awesome as you talk to so many different people who come from amazing places with experiences that span the globe and includes ideas, history, remembrances and thought processes that sharpen your own.

I would not trade being a part of Bettina Network Hedge Schools for anything.  My intellect is stimulated on a daily basis, let alone my knowledge base.

We had an incredible conversation at breakfast about the Supreme Court nomination and  all of the push back for and against Barack Obama making that appointment.  Basically, I wanted to know what does all of this mess mean?????

What came back to me was awesome!!!!!

First was a question – why would Mitch McConnell and all of those pushing to keep Obama from making this appointment be fighting so hard against that possibility, especially if Hillary is going to be our next president?  I thought, as did others, that Hillary would more than likely make a more liberal appointment than would Obama.  He is and has been a great president, but he is, in many ways, tied to the establishment in ways that Hillary is not.

And, if Hillary is not elected president would Bernie be any more conservative?  He has shown by his Civil Rights involvements early on and his backing away from that commitment as he became more involved in his life’s work that he knows the establishment and he would not have been able to get as far as he has if he had kept his Civil Rights work active and if he had been actively involved bringing about those kind of changes in his environment.  Vermont can handle liberal, progressive, socialist changes, but it is still a very White state.  So, while his appointment to the Supreme Court would be quite liberal, his establishment ties said to some of us that he would be willing to accommodate his friends – especially those he needed to help push his presidency in the direction he wanted it to go.  But that accommodation would not be nearly close to what Mitch McConnell and those fighting with him would be fighting to achieve.  So why would Mitch McConnel and friends, not known for their liberal leanings, be working so hard to stop Obama’s appointment to give Bernie the go ahead to make this appointment?

It seems to me they know something we don’t and what they are working so hard for at the moment is for the appointment to be put on hold until someone more conservative becomes president and they can continue on with business as usual.  And who would that be?  Donald Trump or someone who will soon come out of hiding in the wings onto front stage?

There have been many conspiracy theories floating around this country connected to past presidents and presidential elections.

The one that sticks out in this discussion are the conspiracy theories around how Jack Kennedy was elected president.  Rumor had it that his father made a deal with the mafia to produce the votes needed for his son’s election – especially around the Chicago area – and they did.  Rumor continues that it was Marcello, the southern head of the Mafia in this country at the time,  who put in the demand for Kennedy’s assassination because  while the Mafia did its job for Jack Kennedy and his family, the Kennedy’s turned on the Mafia.  The father – with his Mafia connections – made the deal, but Bobby and Jack went ahead when elected, to move against the Mafia and it does not tolerate those kinds of actions without a particular kind of payback.

Looking at the candidates, it seemed to us that Donald Trump’s business interests are casinos, construction, and gambling with heavy involvements in Las Vegas and New Jersey.  That could be conspiratorialized to produce a Mafia connection linking Donald Trump’s success with the successful backing of his businesses by Mafia interests.  He may even be one of those at the top himself, as this conspiracy theory unrolled itself.

Connect that to the conspiracy theories around Jack Kennedy and you have the new President of the United States elected the way the conspiracy theorists claim Jack Kennedy was elected.  Although, according to those theories, someone intervened on Jack Kennedy’s behalf – he did not have the clout with the Mafia to do those negotiations on his own.  All those trying to understand the Donald Trump phenomenon have apparently either not made this connection or are too young to know this ‘history’.

Is that something Mitch McConnel and his group of friends would know about?  Would this be what they are structuring with this recalcitrance to allow Obama to even nominate a Supreme Court justice?  Do they know something the rest of us don’t and are acting on that knowledge to keep a clear path open for what they know is in our future?

Since we are not a part of that inner circle we can only look on and attempt to interpret what is happening from their public actions and their current public actions say they are expecting a President of these United States to be elected who would push their political and other interests and one of the biggest is who is appointed to the United States Supreme Court.  Who would be that swing vote that would bring the Court either one way or the other.

Given that Obama would probably appoint a more acceptable person to the Court in their eyes than would Hillary Clinton, we are seeing their hand tipped as to the fix that is in and the rest of us are supposed to sit back and be so involved in the fight, in the agenda they have set out for us to engage,  that our minds are engaged in a way that we cannot see and do not realize what the McConnell boys’ actions are telling us as clearly as if they had taken an airplane and done sky writing about what they know is coming down the pike.

For all of those yelling ‘racism’ that is keeping you from seeing what is actually happening here.  Clear your minds and think much more broadly.

All of the above is simply the result of a few people having breakfast together conjecturing, adding bits and pieces of history and bits and pieces of conspiracy theories which have been floating around for decades.  Nothing serious and any similarities to the American Political scene at the moment are strictly coincidental.

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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

Rachel Dolezal – over Breakfast!

Tuesday, June 16th, 2015

copyright bettina network, inc. 2015

I am sure you knew we would weigh in on this one.  It is too good not to talk about over breakfast – and it was a great conversation.  What was best about the conversation – it was honest.  We did not talk platitudes; conversation society would expect or accept; we just talked.

The first question was of honesty; the roles of physicality, culture and identity; is there anything about physicality/biology that informs identity in an essential way.  That is certainly what this public discussion has put forth.  Somehow, according to the media, Ms. Dolezal’s biology has determined that she is not Black.

It gets really tiring the way color is discussed.  One person is really Black – wow that brother is something else!  Another is Black, but not Black enough.  Another is ‘high yellow’ trying to be what she is not ‘Black’.  She has AFrican American parents, but her Blackness is what is questioned.  He doesn’t talk as though he is Black.  She doesn’t dress as though she is Black.  Who do they think they are – they know that’s not how Black folk act. and on and on.  Who are they pretending to be – look at her, trying to be like Miss Ann.  We’ve heard these conversations and more for decades.

And then we got into it.  Is Rachel Dolezal Black?  And who determines Blackness?  Where are the determiners of who is Black and who is not.  No one heard anything like that being discussed in this media onslaught.  The discussions on television, in the print media, on the internet, etc. all were fraught with assumptions.  The first – to be Black one had to be African Americans and apparently come from African American parents.  That then allowed the charges of ‘dishonesty’ to come into play.  Ms. Dolezal was ‘dishonest’ so she had to give up her Presidency, which she wouldn’t have if she hadn’t work for it.  There are too many “Blacks” in the NAACP for someone to be elected President simply because they are Black.  It was very disheartening to see the NAACP move Ms. Dolezal out of a position for which she put in hard work to achieve.  Because they didn’t want to have this ‘distraction’?  If this isn’t an issue of race and a primary issue of race which the NAACP needs to be addressing I don’t know what is.

That brought up – why, after all this time, did Ms. Dolezals mother decide to come out and take her daughter down.  She did it in as wide spread and mean spirited way that she could – so the dysfunction in that family is out in the media for all to see.  It is one thing to adopt and raise African American children – or any other minority child.  It is quite another to be identified as the race of the child you are raising.  Not many people could handle that and I have seen such adoptive parents bristle when someone saw the children and assumed they were also African American.

Many people, who have done such adopting, have not been able to get out of the ‘doing good for those poor minority folks’ syndrome.  And I know many folks are going up in smoke when they read this – but take a look around.  That doesn’t mean they have not loved, or cared for their adopted children.  That just means it takes a lot to move out of your White Privilege into the Black Ghetto in which your adopted children live all of their lives.  The White parents of such children have moments here and there where they can ‘escape’.  The minority children don’t and won’t for their entire lifetime.  What happens if those White parents gave up their White Privilege and lived with their children as minorities one and all?  What a difference that would make in this society.  What a statement that would make.

In mixed marriages in the 1940’s and 1950’s in the deep south the White partner generally left their White Privilege behind and lived as Black.  Some knew they were Black, some thought they were simply light skinned African Americans.

With Rachel Dolezal’s  family’s Native American ancestry, how does that fit into this conversation?  Can one who is part Native American consider themselves Black?  Some Native American tribes are trying to get all those with some African American ‘blood’ out of their tribes and deny them any advantages the tribe, with which they have identified for generations, could offer.  Did the casino’s change the definition of who is Native American?  What has changed the definition of who is Black?  From everything I’ve seen and heard – Black is a culture – a way of talking, eating, playing, socializing, being.  Lots of discussion has gone on around what it means to be Black and now with Rachel Dolezal all of that discussion has gone down the toilet.  We are now in a mode of “protect the identity of White Privilege” – if the White Privileged person doesn’t have the smarts to protect their own identity then the rest of society must do it for them and is that what is happening with Rachel Dolezal?  Hey kid, get back into your White tribe.  In this case,  the media has been charged with that duty.  Drag her through everything so those other young people watching won’t try to do this.  What a society this would be if hundreds, thousands of White children – wallowing in White Privilege would give it up and identify as Black.  Would racism crack and break into pieces to be washed away in the next thunderstorm?

Rachel Dolezal did what Black Civil Rights groups have been ragging on Whites to do for decades.  Don’t try to address the issues, problems, attempts at a solution for Blacks unless you give up your White Privilege and live the way racism forces ‘us’ to live.  I’ve heard that so many times it got to be a bit disgusting – especially in the 1970’s.  Generally brought up by a Black Male whose ego was wounded and felt White Women were taking his place and putting him down – out would come, “when you give up your White Privilege” then come and ……………..  One reason to keep African American women out of the women’s movement was because they were ‘up against’ a group of White women who could run home to their White husbands or family and wash the pain and suffering of the people they were working with off their clothes and skin.  They could run home and relax in their Whiteness and their White Privilege.

Who better to head the NAACP than a WOMAN who has given up the advantages and ability to oppress Blacks;  than someone who has given up that White Privilege and whose life shows who she is, where she is comfortable, with whom she has decided to live her life and not for a week or a month or a year, but this has been for decades.  AND, the only person who can determine if she is Black or not is Ms. Dolezal.  It is her identity to put out there and our role is to respect how she defines herself.  How many times have we heard – ‘who do you think you are defining me.  Don’t you dare define me, you respect how I define myself.’

Everything but that has happened.

Honesty doesn’t even belong in this conversation. And neither do all the trappings – I know several women in my social circle who would not think of going out with having first used a spray tan.  I know others who pay lots of money to have themselves “sprayed” before major events.  If Ms. Dolezal uses spray tan – what’s the difference?  One group uses it for frivolous cosmetic reasons – to make their skin darker.  Ms. Dolezal uses it to be able to better fit in where she finds herself comfortable and is able to work on the issues and societal problems for which she has a passion.  She is not working on them as a White Person – with all the privileges that screams.  She is not patronizing anyone – in fact, to give up her Whiteness to work on these issues takes all of the inequality away from the groups she is working with and for.

The media has set the conversation and has determined which questions need to be asked and what the answers should be for Ms. Dolezal to pass their ‘examination’.  Their questions are racist and sexist and the tone they set for this conversation is one to maintain the status quo.  For heavens sake lets get out in front of this before more of ‘our’ children start using spray tan and working in the civil rights movements after having given up their White Privilege.  WELL – here is someone who has chosen not to be able to wash off all of that and to live a Black life.  And here we are taking her down from the NAACP and goodness knows what else.

All of us – in theory – are against prejudice based on race.  Most of us can not sustain that when it comes to one on one interactions.  We substitute ‘personality disorder’, ‘crazy’, ‘not the right kind of person to take this issue forward’, and I could go on and on and on with these excuses.

Now – someone who was effective in dealing with a part of racism and sexism in her part of the world has been “outed” and made to resign the posts for which she has moved the conversation and the society forward.  There are no qualifications within the NAACP that one be Black or White or African American or Chinese or whatever to work within that organization or as one of its officers.  In many organizations there have been people who were gay who masqueraded as straight.  There have been people who were Black who passed for White.  I have Chinese friends who have had their eyes widened and who then look European.  Is this dishonest?

This is not a big deal in a racist society.  This is not a question of honesty or dishonesty,  because this is not a society which is color blind.  It is a racist, sexist society and honesty has a value which does not belong nor fit into this issue.  We are throwing it around and using it in ways to maintain our status quo.  How ‘hones’t is a person who felt called to the ordained ministry and masquerades as a straight man to become ordained – then masquerades as a straight man to be elected bishop.  He was not “outed” for his “dishonesty”.  That was never an issue.  Why not – given this Rachel incident.  We have held up and honored such a person – looking at their achievements in the area of their choice rather than the “dishonesty” of what they had to do to be able to do the work we raise up and cherish.  But then, he was a White man.

What is dishonest is using biology to define race where that is a ridiculous argument.  What is dishonest is to claim physicality to define race and use it to distinguish and defines one person as better than another because of their race – no matter how veiled the argument may be.  It is only a question of time before someone decides she is mentally unstable and should see a psychiatrist.  That is usually said by the people who are in actual need of serious therapy.

What is needed to bring about major change is to require that anyone working on the issues of race give up their White Privilege and become Black.  Then, you can know the issues on which you are working a lot better; you can focus knowing you are not going home to that White Suburban existence from which you came to do this ‘nobles oblige’ work.  Then Blacks can know you are serious about what you claim to believe about racism and how to address this problem.

Ms. Dolezal needs to be a role model – a requirement for those in society who want to see race/skin color/and more eliminated from society.

There is no biological separation of someone who is Black from the rest of society – this conversation is putting all of those requirements in place without actually taking on such an overt discussion.  Bo Derek broke the White/Black hair thing decades ago when she was declared a “10” with all of her Rostifarian hair braids.  Blacks declared the hair line broken when Madam Walker developed the cosmetic that straightened African Americans hair – and the hair of Whites with curly hair who wanted it to look less curly and more straight.  But now we have this uproar also over Ms. Dolezals hair.  Is it acceptable in some contexts to have an Afro or African American hair style, but in other contexts it is ‘not honest’.  Interesting is how we held up a woman with a “Black” hair style when it was a decorative thing, frivolous, girlish thing to do and it didn’t mean anything except women were experimenting with their bodies again and their value is in their bodies in this society.  So Bo Derek was experimenting with her “image” on a very superficial level so the furor over that was very low level and very short lived – in fact, many White women took up her style after she came out with those braids.  The same thing with ‘spray tan’.  It is fine when used as a cosmetic, frivolous thing to enhance the physical beauty of a woman, but not when it is used to allow someone to follow their passion to work to change the society in which we all live.  A woman’s value, after all is in her physical beauty, her physical appearance.

What is not honest is the racism running rife through this discussion without anyone calling the media-people who have introduced their racism into this discussion and having them answer for the direction in which this discussion is going and the damage they are trying to do to Rachel Dolezal so others won’t follow her example.  Something slightly akin to a witch hunt and what happens to the witch when she has been exposed.  Delicious here is the fact that this witch was exposed by her mother.  That must warm the cockles of some New Englanders’ hearts.

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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.

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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Manipulating our Web Site?

Wednesday, October 29th, 2014

It is amazing what we have seen over the past decades.

Most recently, Bettina Network’s Blog hit a readership of over 6,000 readers over a couple days.  Our server company reacted by turning off several country’s ability to access our web site and we were cut down to less than half the readership we had before the spike.

All by accident?  Good intentions gone wrong?  Arrogance? Inappropriately aggressive?

Isn’t that something called ‘power and control’?

It is now supposed to have been ‘fixed’.  If you know of anyone who has a problem accessing our web site, please let us know.

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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.

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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