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“Better Than” – The Power that built the United States!

Friday, January 24th, 2020

We have held off on our postings because we could not believe what we were seeing from those sending their comments to be published in Bettina Network’s Blog. It is time for us to put all of that together and lay out for you what many in our community are thinking.

This is an opportunity presented in these United States to citizens, immigrants, illegals, temporary residents, permanent residents, students and others to put your professional lives on the line. We haven’t done much, but have paid a high price for some of the things we have written about in this blog. We knew that was a possibility when we started this blog, but took an oath that we would write without letting the possibility of negative consequences mitigate our voice. It is the collective voice of those who use Bettina Network, inc. And yes, sometimes we can publish diametrically opposed ideas in the same week. That is who we are – not “better than” because we are “politically correct”, but “every person” expressing themselves for all to see and hear.

Member #1: Until this Trump conflagration came along I struggled to understand why my life was so oppressed; why many around me felt so free to step all over me without holding back; denying what they were doing; and blaming me for their sins so blatantly committed against me and those like me. I also could not understand why even many of those like me felt the need to commit the same sins against me. None of it made sense.

Along comes Donald Trump and his followers and promoters and his attempt at a movement. In the process, we have not joined his “movement” but he and his totally and completely answered the questions that have haunted my life. The downside of it all is that it comes at the end of my life. Hopefully, there are others on whom these messages and this morality play, being acted out in front of us daily, will have meaning and who will recoil from everything it lays bare. Take its message to heart – it is the difference between life and death for all of you. For some of us to deny, turn away, claim otherwise really does separate the sheep from the goats – the good from the bad – those wallowing in sin and those pulling themselves out of the muck and cleaning themselves of all that has gone before.

Member 2: When I take in the entire spread of history in these United States it doesn’t bode well for human beings. It casts us as evil;, as harboring a gene we pass on from one generation to the next to destroy others because we hold ourselves to be “better than” all life on earth even at times including our own families. Where does that come from? How did we get here? Why are we constantly moving in and out of times which can make Hitler’s Germany look like a relief from what we are living? Or is this that final wake-up cal!, which if not answered correctly moves into another period of human degradation of us killing each other and declaring those we kill as less than. Or is this the time during which we can repent all of the evil we and our ancestors have done and/or caused to have done!

Member #3: How could people who came to these shores looking for a better life – a freer life – a life full of goodness and not the “better than” we were struggling under and being oppressed by in another country – experiences which made us take the risk of crossing an unknown ocean seeking Nirvana. How have wound up with the history we read about even in the redacted history books we use to teach our children of our past?

We came and survived with the help of those who were already here and had been for generations. We were immediately grateful until that gratitude was blown away by the storm clouds gathering from the “better than” universe. As our beginnings in this country moved from struggling to just survive; learning from those already here how to plant what grew in these climates; build houses; have a life which began to grow to see us enjoy freedoms denied from whence we came – we moved to being “at home”. Just as that began to happen we didn’t thank those who were there for us when we were in need. We turned to fight them because we began to consider ourselves, once again, as better than. We let our “better than” genes come out and they won the day culminating in Andrew Jackson’s Trail of Tears.

Member #4: Andrew Jackson, who we claim to have been the founder of the Democratic Party, has seen his political group move from racist developers of the Ku Klux Klan to people doing their best to free us from the likes of Donald Trump and move us into a more equal place. As years later Abraham Lincoln, who we claim was the founder of the Republican Party has seen his political group move from defenders of liberty; as the group Africans looked to as we voted in a country which hung you if you tried such; which worked to defeat segregation has now moved to become the group which works to make sure segregation is maintained and never changes. The GOP today shows itself in its current administration of 99% white, northern European ancestry people with a president who is showing his potential to make even Adolph Hitler, who he studied during his young adult years, look good.

How could we come to these shores running away from persecution and set in place a government with leaders who clearly persecute others and claim our right to do such because we and our governmental structures and business structures are so much better than those others.

How could we not acknowledge our greed and laziness which moved us to traffic in human beings who we called slaves and set in place to do the work of making us great in this country and certainly “better than” the slaves who actually did the work of such while we strutted around like peacocks taking the credit.

How could we set our women up to look like peacocks and buy into a lifestyle which oppressed them from birth to death, to get the women in this society to be the pattern we used to enslave Africans and maintain ignorance as to their real position in this society? One of oppression and maintained in slavery of a different kind only with a different mythology keeping them in place? How did we convince women to continue in that space when we used the marriage laws, which enslaved women to be the basis upon which we passed laws to enslave Africans.

How could we massacre and slaughter in this country those who tried to move into a more equal place? And deny what we were doing even unto today?

How can we see the economic inequalities which cause some to be homeless, on the street with scraps to eat from the throw aways of those in control; with clothes thrown away by others as what they wear; as make shift tents or simply beds on the cement benches around the parks and other places or even worse on the sidewalk and in the doorways until our police force comes along to force them to move along.

How can we see the storms gathering as those with enormous greed develop businesses which take away from others to put largess into their own pockets and consider themselves “better than” because they have figured out how to move ahead at the cost of tens of thousands of peoples lives?

Member #5: As we look at what is happening with the Trump Administration; within the Trump family; with their friends and others we can see ourselves over the centuries. Different clothes, a different political system, different words to describe the same thing, and using denial, greed, murder, oppression, theft and more to maintain themselves to satisfy their need to be “better than” – in and among those people we see ourselves. Not clearly, because we have our own denial, greed, murder, oppression, theft and more having constructed a curtain we cannot see through which reflects us and our lives in the mirror behind that curtain we designed to be able to have complete denial of who we are and what we are about.

Today, we have the advantage of seeing this morality play over television and our other technology that we use to “keep up” with what is happening. Amazingly, in spite of watching this reality play in front of our eyes we can see “them”, but we can’t see how “they” are a reflection of “us” and are a part of “us”. We cannot see what we have done and are doing to others just as egregious as what they are doing that we are watching daily.

Instead, that morality play is making some of us even much “better than” they are and shoring up our next chapter in this life so that it continues and we do not have to deal with who we are in this life and the part we have and are playing.

Trump and his group are making it possible for us to continue as “better than” and to usher in another chapter with the next generation of those who are much, much better than in a society which has all white business owners, all white in polite society, all white and male in government, with those who are not taking secondary places and feeling blessed to be able to do so because that means they are “better than” those in their own group who didn’t make the cut. The fact that they are the ones in their group parroting and allowing “better than” to continue and those cut out have called out truth just can’t get through into the discussion to attempt to make total, real change.

UBUNTU – I Am Because You Are

Tuesday, December 10th, 2013

copyright Bettina Network, inc. 2013

“I am not a saint – unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.” – Mandela.

…………………………………….If only that described all of us!

The world is pouring out its grief, celebration, joy, gratitude, love for the life of Nelson Mandela.

………………………………………………………..Which has to make you think and ask – why?

What makes a human being rise to such a level that we are all grateful for his life on earth and come out to celebrate such an exceptional human being. Is it because so few such people have lived on this earth, especially when put in the context of the totality of those who have lived?

While most are celebrating such a great man – in Bettina homes we are asking why so few have risen to this height?  Why so many human beings have been so absorbed with the mundanities of life that keep us busy and distracted so we can keep ourselves unaware of our irrevocable march towards death?  Is it the self-absorption which some of our huge egos demand for their self-gratification? Is it the inconsistencies in values which we carry that keep us from living out our beliefs because we might get hurt – might miss a meal – might not accumulate as much wealth as possible?  Or is it our contradictory ways of thinking and acting which we develop in our striving to create the structures which we think protect us and keep us secure, but which really oppress us?

How long, O Lord, do we have to wait for the many to live life the way Mandela lived his?  Why does he have to be special? Why in our own small parts of the world we insist on living  anti-ubuntu lives?  Haven’t we experienced enough of the misery, poverty, pain, horrors that this causes?  How long will we surround ourselves with “our own kind”?  How long will we live blinded by the fact that we are all included in “our own kind.”

Whatever hurts me hurts thee! Whatever joys I experience grow exponentially when I share them with thee! My freedom totally depends upon your freedom.

One can hear why Mandela was great by just listening to the speeches honoring him.  Some were clear, unobstructed  by play acting, playing to the audience, playing to their own egos, unable to give a great speech honestly honoring Mandela’s life because they have allowed their minds to be clouded by their refusal to accept and act on their own values and take responsibility for their lives.  Some were almost unintelligible and said more negatives about the person giving the speech than positives about the man the speech was supposed to be honoring. True Freedom eliminates that and you could tell whose lives were on track and whose were confused and muddled from listening to those speeches!

Mandela’s memorial services today gave us a stark opportunity to see and hear the differences as men and women gave their speeches of remembrance and the crowd reacted.  Some people don’t have images, reflections, pretenses, – they have a rock solid faith, clear and authentic lives they are living and it is reflected in their very being, the words they use, their demeanor around others – especially their ability to be themselves when greeting strangers.  Some people  first promote their image and then everything else – lets not even begin to be who we really are, that must not show until we know the person better.

Why do so many of us want, protect and pass on to our children, as great gifts, the bondage in which we live?  Why do we give up a beautiful life well lived for an existence that others have told us we must sacrifice ourselves to maintain?  Why are we enslaved to sexual stereotypes – racial stereotypes – national stereotypes – religious stereotypes?  We live out of them.  We live for them and to promote them hoping that in exchange we will be able to live physically comfortable although seriously compromised lives.

FREEDOM will come to this earth when we celebrate lives like Mandela’s many times each day instead of once in a lifetime.

We set up ‘sins’ that we must stay away from and/or avoid the perception of our being involved with because that might handicap our future.  We don’t set up, teach, preach, live authentic lives.  The sins we set up and announce from our own mountain  seem meant to deflect us and allow a few to claim perfection in their life’s story.  Those are very far from the real sins of our lives – the inability to live authentically,  the refusal to feel empathy for those on the street with no shelter from the cold, hunger, dangers of the street.  Our refusal to stand on our own professed faith and most especially to give no room to others to stand on theirs – this seems to be the biggest sin of our creation.  These are  the commandments by which we live and demand that others of “our kind”  also live.  Our need to act to keep from feeling threatened by those we don’t understand; those in whom we see what we don’t like in ourselves – those we scape goat, and see reflected in our own mirror – we act against and break our own mirror.

As we look around at others it hurts the soul to see in them the rejection, mean spirit, and refusal to live truly free lives.  After all, what does it matter in the end?  We all die – and what a horrible death to leave this earth with unrequited dreams, longing, loves because you were trying for things that die with you for which there is no resurrection or redemption and which did nothing to make your life great.  Worse, to die without ever having had dreams, great loves and without having left behind a legacy which helped change this earth for the better.

Isn’t it sad that we choose the fleeting fame and what we call ‘security’ instead of choosing to be about the business of living fully and making sure we are there to help others do the same?

There is no such thing in life as ‘security’, but we are willing to sacrifice much to attain the mirage.

Ecclesiastes comes to mind often – ‘vanity of vanities………’

Oh for a world full of people like Nelson Mandel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Not only was Nelson Mandela clear as to who he was and whose he was, but he was a man who never met a stranger.  He could reduce you to your real self in front of him in seconds or make it extremely difficult for you to maintain the pretense and image built up over years of living someone else’s imaginary life projected onto your own.

We pray that we all can move away from and cast out the garbage that collects as we live our lives striving for security; putting forth an image of someone we would like to be and who we would like those meeting us to think we are; cast out the values we collect to cover our insecurities and fears; cast out the mean spirit we take on because we need to feel better than other human beings who we describe and see clearly as those less than us helping us to be better than they are.

We pray that we have no more such outpourings as are happening this week for Nelson Mandela.  Not because we don’t appreciate and value his life and work, but because we will be living in a world where there are  so many like him that his life and how he lived it becomes normal and is common all around us.  What a world that would be and what a wonderful place to live, love, work, and just be!

UBUNTU! A future and a word taken into the world’s vocabulary as one of its own no matter what the language.  A word that describes – how we live – who we are!

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