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The Solution to the U. S. Dilemma with the Republican Party!

Monday, August 15th, 2022

It is time for the United States voters to take a good, clear look at the Republican Party and what it is about,. It is also time for United States voters to take a good look at where they stand on bigotry. Racism and its related sins has been internalized and that internalization accepted as “normal” by most of us. We maintain it with denial. That denial should come into question today as our country is roiled by those who won’t deal with their racism and other forms of bigotry even though they are living in a country where the “majority in control” is becoming minority. Isn’t that what is going on here with our denials giving us cover? Aren’t those the emotions out of which all of the fear parading publicly is coming from? Isn’t the fear of no loner being “better than” what Donald Trump has tapped into to “rise” to the presidency and beyond?

Having been Republican for most of my life, I think I can speak from the “inside” a little bit. Having tried to hold up what was happening and having tried to help bring about change in the Republican Party for years – it became clear that the only thing that happened and resulted from my efforts was many within the Republican Party turning against me.

People like me – African Americans – who were Republicans – are older and knew the Party when it had a strong stand on civil rights; when the Democratic Party supported the KKK; and indeed when the Republican Party had leaders who were non-White. A cousin of mine was head of the Louisiana Republican Party way back when. (How about that history Senator John Kennedy? Gives you a queasy stomach?)

The same thing happening to the GOP is also happening to Haiti – and for much the same reasons. Haiti has become a government which has been infiltrated by people who want to see as much war, blood shed and horror as possible. These two institutions could be twins across the fence. Is this a common human dilemma or is something or rather, some groups, infiltrating those spaces on this earth which seem to be moving ethically and morally in the right way only to be met by those who need to make sure they are totally turned around to meet themselves as evil, unethical, horrible entities in retreat into the worst sides of human nature. Is this goodness reigning supreme only to be shocked into the dregs and ugliest sides of human nature.

The Republican Party started its descent into extreme bigotry years before, but it accelerated when Strom Thurmond left the Democratic Party with many of his followers and descended upon the Republican Party. There was also that moment announcing this is the way the Republican Party was moving when their great presidential candidate, who won his election, made the announcement that he was running for president of the United States from a small town in Mississippi. Excellent messaging and the GOP has since gone downhill, into hell.

Hypocrisy, lies, horribleness was brought into the GOP in spades at that time. We will deal with Haiti’s descent in another article. But they are similar – accounting for their different structures.

Senator Strom Thurmond was a recognized racist who was puffed up and a “leader”. His entire life and leadership of a Political Party becoming racist and very anti-Black was not only a farce and a lie looking at the entire extent of his life, but showed how tone-deaf America can be when it comes to race. Is our toleration of the evils and ugliness of Donald Trump’s life attributable to the fact that he made sure to make “better than ” the keystone of everything he did. Has the racism he has used to become a leader in these United States the genesis of his power? Most of us can’t stand the thought of equality on any level so he made a good calculation making sure U. S. voters would not even want to talk about or use his adultery, abuse, etc. against him to take him out of contention. He had a strong knowledge of what it took for him to take the ascendancy and he did – racism, his career on television, etc. His television career helped him the same way Bill Cosby’s kept him out of jail for decades and left him able to continue his sexual assault and abuse of women.

While Strom Thurmond was spouting all of his rhetoric and racist policies and more he was helping to raise his half-black, half-white daughter. He saw her through college and beyond and they did have a relationship. Something that simulated a father-daughter relationship, not one full of the racism he spouted when in his role as high-up in the Republican Party helping to craft its image, policies, history.

This, for us, is the height of duplicity; lies; unethical behavior; playing both ends to the middle and all of those cliches which also apply today to Donald Trump and those around him. Although there are puffs of smoke around Trump which seem to imply that many of his supporters are there because they don’t want some secret or other made public, he is still a leader with followers who hold him up. They hold up this man whose good friend was Epstein; who has been publicly and credibly accused of abuse and rape of women; who is known to be a liar on many levels; who has done so much ugly, unethical, immoral stuff publicly that his moral character is in hell without even a question about that.

Who are those who follow Donald Trump? The answer to that would also be the answer to the question – who are those who follow the head of criminal mafia organizations. Their character? Their morality? Their evil? Their expectation and approval of the fact that their leader, their “Don”, will lie as a tool in his toolshed? So many ask how Trump’s followers could believe him, do his bidding, knowing his penchant for lying constantly, etc. Ask the same question of all the mafia’s in this country and abroad. The answers would be the same – it is his job. My question is – has he pulled together the mafia groups and are these the people who now make up the Republican Party. Has the Republican Party become peopled by members of the different criminal mafia groups along with the people who have been and will be blackmailed?

What is the answer to all of this?

It is time for the formation of another Political Party to replace the Republican Party as one of two Political Parties in these United States.

Andrew Yang founded and is working to bring about “The Forward Party.” This particular Political Party may or may not be an answer. One problem we think Yang has is in casting his Political Party as a “Third Party” with many comments by others as to whether or not the United States will tolerate three political parties. The question needs to be rephrased. Is this the Political Party – “The Forward Party” – that will replace Republicanism?

Other political parties now need to start forming because one of them will totally remove the Republicans from their space, send them hurtling into history and become one of two Political Parties in these United States.

Real Estate – Is this the cause of the extreme racism which refuses to break and go away?

Tuesday, June 28th, 2022

Because of the business we were in, we spent many years closely aligned with the real estate community. During that time our discoveries were shocking and as we try to sell our house all the lessons we learned and tried to address are incorporated in that attempt.

The racism in the real estate industry is well known. We should say – the bigotry – since these actions include more than African Americans. The fact that it has been impossible to eradicate or even mitigate is also well known. Attempts to end/change the structure and how realtors, developers, contractors and all those others aligned with the real estate community, have been notoriously unsuccessful.

Decades ago, there was one big attempt – which everyone thought was brilliant and would make major changes in the apartheid engaged in by the real estate community – it did not.

For a time, if you wanted to rent an apartment, condo, house, etc. and you were turned down or games were played with you so you would not be able to gain the home you wanted, there was recourse. Once you made a complaint to your local or federal Human Rights office they would start the investigation by sending a white family behind the minority family that felt discriminated against in the rejection of their offer to rent or buy the house of their dreams (or the house which fit their pocketbook). Many such cases, after that kind of test, were won and damages paid. However, that did not even put a dent into changing the way racism is institutionalized in the real estate industry.

Neighborhoods and so therefore schools, remain segregated; churches were the most segregated of all and all the trappings that went with the kind of racism maintained by this real estate community remained in place for all to experience.

Today, that bigotry is still practiced. It is more sophisticated, but still in existence and tightly controlled.

Working with realtors in maintaining this system are banks and other lending institutions. After banks fail to maintain residential bigotry it is the turn of the employers of the people trying to rent or buy in what today are still redlined houses and/or neighborhoods.

How does this happen so consistently:

  1. We live in a very racist, sexist, etc. society. From birth we are trained in how to be a bigot. Some of us take to that training like a duck takes to water. Others have some brakes applied and are never quite comfortable, but the everyday things one has to do to maintain a sense of being “better than” infects us all – white, black, latinx, LGBTQ+, muslim, etc. Some fight against the need to be superior to and others just accept their unearned status and do what is necessary to keep it going.

2. What does that include? Well, the first line of defense against ‘diverse neighborhoods” is with the home-owner and/or the real estate agent showing the property. The wrong person shows up and that person experiences foot dragging, obfuscation, excuses, everything that can be thrown up to keep them from wanting to move ahead with the sale or rental of that particular property. Real Estate Agents have been known to bring up another property – supposedly a better buy and one more suited for the client – and in a more acceptable neighborhood for that particular person. When all else fails, the property is taken off the market until a better time to list it for sale. After that particular minority has moved on? Before others get the same idea and start to look at that house? Whatever the reason given the house comes back on the market after a time and we start all over again.

3. f the person looking for housing perseveres and somehow gets past that first obstacle, It is then up to the financial institutions. Banks are better at this than others, but they all come together for the same result. Keep people in neighborhoods with their own kind and especially keep them out of the most prestigious white northern european neighborhoods. Even in those neighborhoods an occasional minority can buy as long as it is not one of the houses really off-limits to non-whites.

Banks have myriad ways they block the sale of houses which were “redlined”, but today not called such. The understanding is there anyway. Not a relevant word need be spoken – which allows for denial. Always make sure there is the ability to deny what you are actually doing.

4. If a minority through some miracle makes it past the financial institutions, the employer is next up to keep the societal segregation. We have seen this happen over and over again. It is a perfect set-up for denial. The person who has been so successful is making it past society’s barriers to ‘diversity’ in housing hits his/her employer and gets fired. The quicker the firing to the date of purchasing the new house the better.

Once fired, it is all downhill from there and the new employee or older employee who moved into the ‘wrong’ house very seldom connects his/her firing to the home purchase. A few have made that connection immediately because they are conscious of the barriers they have crossed and have an understanding of institutional racism. Those who have ‘smoked the pipe’ even when told what has happened and why are too dazed to pick it up.

The person so fired just picks up, gathers up, does whatever is necessary to survive financially and moves on.

Employers have far more ways to accomplish getting a non-white person out of a house they should not have been allowed to buy in the first place and they use them all when necessary.

5. After this comes the time for a minority who has managed to stay in a house so “redlined” to sell and move on. Then the fun starts because the end result changes. It is not to keep other minorities out of the neighborhood and out of that house. They have probably lived there many years. Uncomfortably with lots of racist happenings, but this is a new game.

The goal of this game is to make sure that minority leaves the neighborhood he/she should not have been allowed to inhabit in the first place with as little wealth as possible.

That is a game which would make an intensely interesting game of chess pale by comparison and that is for another article.

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?

FACEBOOK, AirBNB and all the other startups turned billion dollar corporations!

Monday, October 4th, 2021

There are some things we know, but do not talk about. We flesh out our knowing with hypocrisy, lies, reasons which we know are false and more.

For example, we know there are minuscule amounts of minorities who receive investment money for their startups and lets include women in that group. We don’t really stop to analyze what, why, how to change things.

At Bettina’s we became involved in all of this when – and you know the story by now – the Capital Network, a group funded by and involved with the City of Cambridge – sent three white males to one of the homes in the Bettina Network, inc. – to see what they were doing and to steal the idea and anything else they could in the process.

It was Cambridge working its structural racism making sure a black-owned business, with great potential, did not succeed in its territory. It was Cambridge pulling on its structural racism, solidly in place today, to force blacks who were moving too far too fast to back down and/or move out.

Out of that came AirBnB. A company whose founders used several stealth ways to steal from Bettina’s. The Business Plan; by sending people in to steal as much more as possible; whenever they ran into something they couldn’t fathom, more calls to Bettina’s without identifying who or what to keep their business idea looking as though it was really theirs….and on and on. A prototype for business development in this society.

At the time, Bettina people were going to the Thursday afternoon meetings of the Capital Network, inc. trying to understand and apply for and get better acquainted with the “investor class.”

That was a waste of time.

After the visit of the three guys who had never before been to a bed & breakfast, talked about not even knowing private homes could be put together in a Network, etc. etc. Bettina people went to the next Thursday afternoon gathering of the Capital Network and were surprised to see their company name had been taken down and they were held at the door because they were no longer listed as part of the group.

Someone who knew Bettina’s appeared and re-entered Bettina’s as a part of this group with their name appearing on the board letting people know they were “in the space”. An “oversight” they said. Even though Bettina’s was at the Thursday meeting the previous week and the one before that, etc. they were ‘unintentionally’ dropped.

As we discovered a few years later, substantial investment money was given to the three white guys forming AirBnB and the black folks – male and female – developing Bettina’s were totally cut out and had to fight for their continued existence, fighting one swipe across the bow after another, rather than continuing to move ahead with their business, which was growing substantially.

Friends began to appear talking about their problems, not knowing that Bettina’s was going through the same thing. These friends start-ups, which were right on the verge of expanding exponentially, but without the funds to do so and able to expanding only on current income, which we all know doesn’t work – caught our attention and time to research asking the question what do we have in common?

“This” – was and is the way this society maintains itself as northern european-ancestry white males.

Seeing and following that bit of structural racism, we tried everything but the system was tight, immovable and carefully constructed to eliminate and destroy anyone trying to do something different. Something different is and was to attempt to build a new business idea into a billion dollar plus business. Anything which looked as though it had that potential was stolen and the minority and female founders were put through horrendous experiences to handicap their following through with what looked to everyone as fantastic. Not only was their business handicapped with few to no investors of substances, but their daily lives were destroyed in as vile and ugly a way as possible to keep them from being able to wind up being competition.

At the same time we noticed a parallel occurrence. There were white males treated the same way. Not as crudely, but there were similarities. For example, Facebook – was founded on an ethical fault line. Like AirBnB this was not Zuckerberg’s idea, it was one he stole from others and promoted as his own. When all of this became public, it was ignored and had little to no affect on the growth of Facebook. It certainly did not slow down or dampen investor enthusiasm.

Given its unethical beginnings where was it supposed to go and how was it supposed to get that unethical mess out of its structure? That does not happen, it just grows with the business and that is what has happened.

These were not just “thefts” by people on the outside looking in who saw something, picked up the core idea and went on their own to fill in the rest. This was “theft” in the crudest way which screamed to all who could hear the very unethical way it was done. This spoke volumes about the ethics of those involved.

What we saw was that unethical base of those doing the stealing was what the “investors” – conscious of it or not – were looking for in an entrepreneur they would fund. Take a look around and see the history.

Today we have people speaking out loud and clear with proof about the highly unethical way of Facebook. What we don’t understand is why the surprise? That has been known for quite some time and has been pointed out to the many. The result – you could almost hear the cheers as Zuckerberg was embraced as one of our own. He could be “trusted” to be someone who develops and developed a company which could almost be called the Devil’s Spawn.

We are a society which has developed “big” businesses on the most evil platforms. That seems to be what the West Coast investor class looks for as do all the rest. That is not done above board, but the choices made show clearly the ethical base of those doing the choosing.

We are watching and experiencing horribleness because of those beginnings – and – the history is carefully ignored with claims that this history is irrelevant as the company has grown. And yes, it has grown but its beginnings are structured into the company because that willingness to do whatever it took is a foul beginning which takes on a life of its own within the corporate structure. We seem to be programmed to blot that out and try to achieve a good result from that kind of beginning. Is that our laziness or our evil side.

In the Christian Scripture there is a story of Satan tempting Jesus with all kinds of earthly delights. He takes none of them but sticks to the business about which he has come. It seems that from this story there has come a long line of people who called out to Satan asking to be given the same choices. They were and this is the result.

There is an unwritten, not talked about agreement amongst investors who get such companies off the ground that monies will be spent developing businesses which have structured bigotry into their corporate forms, boardrooms, etc. and which have structured – anything goes if it gets us where we want to go let the ethics of what we are doing be damned. We are smart enough to give back an intellectualized reason which sounds good to deflect, at least as long as we need to deflect, those who would hold up to the general universe what we are doing which is and will continue to hurt our world, our galaxy and put our human species in jeopardy of extermination by itself.

May God’s judgment be swift and sure.

Retaliation or Coincidence?

Friday, June 11th, 2021

by: Marceline Donaldson

So much harassment has happened since the last Bettina Network Blog was circulated. That last article was about the $300,000.00 and counting drained from our assets by Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services. I should add, since our horribilis experience we have discovered several African Americans and Jews who have had similar experiences and wound up the poorer for the experience – by the same state agency.

That does not surprise me. I sent a copy of the $300,000.00 article to the Governor of Massachusetts’ office and received a response back which sent me to the COVID-19 resources available within the state.

That particular Bettina Network blog was released on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, we received a citation brought to the door by a Cambridge City employee, citing us for having growth over the sidewalk, clogged sidewalk gutters, out of control grass that supposedly needed cutting and a lot more. None of the claims were true.

When we went outside to check, we realized we have no lawn and so no overgrown grass. We garden constantly and we love flowers and flowering trees. As a result there were flowers blooming all around the property. The Cambridge City employee was there supposedly because of a neighbor complaint. And we have had neighbor problems. Recently, those problems have escalated with new neighbors on the block who apparently have a real problem with African Americans living so close.

There were leaves on the sidewalk after a memorable weather time. Considering the many trees on the property that was no surprise. Rain for several days followed by a heat wave had many trees dropping leaves. We took pictures because we wanted to document what is clearly harassment.

We called the relevant Cambridge city department and were treated abominably. We called the Cambridge City employee and he was worse. Hope in this picture came from the Cambridge Mayor’s office which we hope is real and there is follow through.

We do have a fairly new neighbor who has, apparently, been shocked and angry about discovering an African American family on their corner.

One person from the fairly new neighbor’s house walked their small dog and brought him to our garden. We watched from the window as he picked up the dog and put it in our garden to crap. I went outside to say that is criminal trespass and I would appreciate him not bringing his dog to have its bowel movements in my garden. In a fit of anger he resorted to calling me the “N” word and stomped on my toes suggesting we move.

After he aggressively came to within an inch on my face he looked fearful, picked up his dog and practically ran away. I was a bit confused. All of that anger turned into fear within a few seconds? I realized why when I turned around and there was my husband coming around the corner. He saw what happened through the window and came out to make sure I would not be further hurt.

It was totally amazing to see the anger on this neighbors’ face turn so quickly into fear and watch him grab his dog and practically run away. Who was he running from? A very slightly built African American man. But then I realized, I saw a slightly built African American man who didn’t look threatening at all. I wondered what my husband looked like through his eyes.

We waited outside until he had gone around the block to make sure he was a neighbor. As he came around, walking from Brattle Street, we saw him with his dog enter the house where we had fairly new neighbors.

Next act of harassment came from the Department of Revenue of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Having filed joint income tax returns since we married several decades ago, imagine our surprise to get threatening notices from the DOR charging Robert for income tax they claimed he had not paid from his individual income tax returns.

Amazingly, Robert does not and did not file an individual income tax return. Someone called us from the DOR with threats. We thought it was a ruse or a scam. It turned out to be the real DOR. He said Robert needed to pay his overdue taxes from his individually filed return. Since Robert did not file an individual tax return ever, that was mystifying. Is there something about Robert that he must file joint returns with his wife and then individually by himself?

This all started happening around the time the SCES and the police started to invade our space. We challenged it for months, but to no avail. That telephone call came right after the $300,000.00 Bettina Network blog was circulated.

We have had enough such experiences that I could go on writing to produce a book. I won’t because as a younger person I read “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” and it took me a long time to recover. I don’t want to do that to others. However, I want this publicly known. We have come across too many people in this Cambridge area with similar and worse problems because of age, race, sex, etc. We have seen them ignored and broken. Clearly, the media in the Greater Boston area is totally uninterested in any of this. I have called them and had the reporters hang up on me. Others have had similar experiences, which were brought to us because of shared experiences and our interest in this community not glazing over serious and very long standing bigotry.

I could add the story about the bank which stopped sending statements for a couple years -timed very nicely to what happened to Robert – and restarted only very recently. That is only one such problem with the same bank – there are many more – but that is for another day.

Just a little bit to let you know what its like to be African American in the City of Cambridge and to be African American living in Harvard Square. Within our little historical district I have not found another African American buying into the neighborhood in 38 years. Is that by choice – there aren’t any qualified? Blockage by realtors? – goodness knows we have referred several moving to this area who seemed to be steered someplace else? Something in the air that pushed African American home buyers away? Something else?

$300,000.00 – and climbing! The amount spent to destroy the marriage, business, life and health of an African American family!

Sunday, June 6th, 2021

Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett and his family are still trying to recover from the anti-psychotic drugs given to him daily in Mass General Hospital when he clearly did not want to be in the hospital and did not want all of the drugs forced down his system.

Dr. Bennett was forced to take many drugs which he did not want and had no idea what they were or why he was having to take them. Hallucinatory drugs and many more were given to Dr. Bennett on a daily basis for five weeks at MGH when he was forced into the hospital a second time after having been discharged at MGH from the police enforced incarceration after a psychiatric exam determined there was no reason for him to be kept. That discharge on March 4th was with all vitals normal, including blood pressure. One of the drugs he was given less than two days later was blood pressure medications. From his discharge from MGH until today, he has not been prescribed blood pressure medications because they are not necessary.

Dr. Bennett was forced into MGH, not for medical reasons. We think it was because of the greed of those pushing him into a horrible space so the generational wealth of an African American family would not be passed on to the heirs, but would be drained off by those who forced Dr. Bennett into the psych ward and police ward of MGH.

Dr. Bennett was forced into the hospital on March 3rd by a psychiatrist, a Dr. Warner, who was affiliated with Mount Auburn Hospital. Dr. Bennett had no relationship with either Mount Auburn Hospital or the psychiatrist. He was never at Mount Auburn Hospital even for a checkup.

The people behind the psychiatrist who forced Dr. Bennett into the hospital on a Section 12 – psychiatric charge – also had no relationship with him. They had never talked to him, never interviewed him for any reason and he is one of several African Americans so treated. The end result? The Jews, Blacks and other minorities so treated had their assets taken along with their reputation and their family destroyed fighting abuse and other such charges. What a way to rid this society of its successful minority citizens.

How did we know of the drugs he was forced to take? MGH sent bottles of drugs home with him demanding that a Home Health Care Service monitor his continued intake of these drugs on a daily basis or Dr. Bennett would be forced back into the hospital. The drugs made him ill after taking them and as he began to recover it was time to take the drugs again. This was not the Home Health Care Service attached to MGH. This was the group put in place by SCES.

At this point we started to read the Bettina Network Blog – with which Dr. Bennett is affiliated and it gave answers to our most basic question – why?

The psychiatrists at MGH sent Dr. Bennett home from that first forced incarceration. All vitals normal including blood pressure and no mental health issues.

The very next day Cambridge Somerville Elder and Protective Services with their attorney O’Sullivan were back in Court having the police pick him up again and force him into the hospital. They had no proof . They had a sworn statement by the head of Cambridge’s Protective Services – Nora Al Wetaid. Ms. Al Wetaid has had no conversation with Dr. Bennett. She claimed his wife abused him and he had to be removed from his home immediately because the abuse was so horrendous and he had no one to turn to or to care for him. SCES also claimed he was alone with no place to go so he was brought to MGH. THE TRUTH? In Dr. Bennett’s home at the time were his adult children, and his daughter-in-law. The family is also surrounded by many other family and friends to whom either one could have turned for help. Ms. Al Wetaid did not know that because her job, apparently, was to have Dr. Bennett demeaned, disgraced, destroyed financially so she could benefit.

What is most amazing SCES and the attorney supporting them along with others along the way did not know Dr. Bennett or his wife. They had never met him – never had a conversation of any kind with him, knew nothing about him and yet they gathered together to have him incarcerated in a psych ward – their hospital of choice was Mount Auburn Hospital.

Dr. Bennett did not go to Mount Auburn Hospital because his wife was going to throw herself under the ambulance if they tried to take him there. It is not a hospital either one would choose. Since both knew quite a bit about local hospitals – Dr. Bennett’s wife having served for a time as chaplain at Deaconness, among others and Dr. Bennett, as an ordained priest who responded to requests from people needing help as priests are expected to do – they have quite an in-depth knowledge about local hospitals.

MGH knew better. Their psychiatrists had examined Dr. Bennett the first time SCES forced him into the hospital against his wishes and found no reason to keep him. They did nothing except accept a patient who would bring lots of money into the hospital because of this incarceration.

Involved in this, we believe, was the fight amongst hospitals as they push to gain patients. This started, after all, by the police pushing into Dr. Bennett’s home to force him into Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, MA. There has been quite a bit circulating about such competitiveness amongst hospitals which comes at the expense of a patients health. Here is a clear cut example.

If we had to give a verdict about all of this it would be that this is how the generational wealth of minorities is being drained so that White Supremacist have an easier time maintaining the oppression and more that they have traditionally practiced against minorities. From our investigation this has been practiced particularly against Jews. It is now being practiced against Blacks and other minorities. Much wealth has changed hands from minority to white quickly without notice using the guardianship laws in these United States. Even those minorities with small estates find themselves destitute and indigent. Not before this happened to them, but at the end of the process.

Dr. Bennett had just been discharged – two days earlier – from Mass General Hospital after what appears to have been successful brain surgery.

Dr. Bennett had been in MGH for brain surgery. He was there for a week and recovered beautifully. During that entire week not one doctor involved in the surgery talked to Dr. Bennett’s wife in spite of her asking to speak to them each day she arrived to visit. They ignored this African American woman who had been married to this African American man for 38 years. In talking to him and her they had a very happy and solid 38 year marriage with no hint of anything negative – especially not abuse. Here, we believe, the negative stereotype of African American women comes into play. In addition, the racism we found through all of this was extreme and horrendous.

In fact, the Protective Services at MGH finally decided there had been no abuse. They decided that after some $200,000 was spent on medical services at MGH.

Rehab was another issue that caused horrendous suffering to the Bennett family. Without either Dr. Bennett or his wife (who was his HCP) had any discussions with anyone as to rehab and the choice of a place. Dr. Bennett was not in favor of rehab. He had expressed a choice of Spaulding as did his wife. Instead, with no discussion of any kind, Dr. Bennett was forced into rehab at Sherrill House.

Interesting to note that when one enters Sherrill House the color is brown to black. When one enters Spaulding the color is white with very little of any other color. Is this how those places are maintained as segregated? It happens at the hospital before the patient leaves?

Without any discussion, Dr. Bennett was forced into Sherrill House. His wife arrived at MGH to visit and was told Dr. Bennett had been sent by ambulance to Sherrill House. What neither one knew, but what MGH and Sherrill House knew was that Sherrill House was going under quarantine because of the flu in their midst. They knew that before MGH sent Dr. Bennett to Sherrill House and Sherrill House knew that before accepting him. Sherrill House, however, waited until Dr. Bennett arrived to declare their quarantine and so subjected Dr. Bennett to the flu for their own profit related reasons. When the quarantine became clear, Dr. Bennett decided he wanted to go home where it was much safer and his wife took him home.

Next day, in Court, Dr. Bennett is declared “indigent” – destitute and not able to pay for an attorney to defend himself against actions filed against him by Nora Al Wetaid and Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services ordering the police to take him out of his home to Mount Auburn Hospital.

Interesting to us is the fact that Dr. Bennett was not so destitute that Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services – who brought this action – saw to it that Dr. Bennett was charged for just about everything. Bills have poured into the Bennett home having been created for them by Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services. None of the bills were authorized nor agreed to by the Bennetts. Amazing that Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services did not think he was destitute when it came to charging the bills they created. It is also interesting that the bills SCES found some other way to get paid – ie by the state – are those that paid for the people they wanted involved so they would be able to control both sides of this issue.

Dr. Bennett has been personally charged as well as through his insurance for bills he did not create and for services he neither needed nor wanted. His right to choose who would supply whatever services he did need and want was completely taken away from him by SCES.

Dr. Warner, the psychiatrist, who signed the Court Documents to commit Dr. Bennett to the police ward and psych ward of Mount Auburn Hospital and who knew Dr. Bennett had been sent to MGH instead and discharged from MGH countering her claim, showed up at MGH later to be the “Independent Examiner” paid for by the state to give Dr. Bennett anti-psychotics amongst other medicines to be able to declare Dr. Bennett ‘incapacitated” and Attorney Cheri Myette, appointed as Dr. Bennett’s attorney by the opposing attorney – O’Sullivan, was also paid by the state. Attorney Myette was paid by the state after Dr. Bennett’s wife hired and paid attorneys to represent Dr. Bennett. An entire system conspiring to take away basic rights from an African American citizen of these United States. The people needed to be a part of this incredible criminal conspiracy were state of Massachusetts funded. Everything else was billed to Dr. Bennett.

From other such situations we have investigated, the state is usually repaid after the person so attacked is shoved into a nursing home for life with the claim that they are totally unable to care for themselves with no one around to care for them.

One African American escaped the nursing home he was shoved into and constrained in bed after he was declared to have no “Executive Functioning” and no ability to either provide or care for himself. He had to escape being constrained in a bed in a nursing home to have a life of freedom instead of incarceration on psychiatric drugs. He had a family who cared for him and they were charged with abuse. He also had to escape because while in the nursing home, the state was in the process of taking all of his assets. Somehow, this does not meet the SCES criteria for a person having no Executive Functioning, no ability to either provide or care for himself, etc.

So the attempt to incapacitate Dr. Bennett and claim that his wife abused him was not the first African Americans have had to fight. Unfortunately, this is happening to the elderly who mostly don’t have the experience, or circle of supporters to be able to fight such. They are shoved into the nursing home after an agency takes guardianship over the person, including their assets. Those assets are drained down and the state reimbursed. The elderly person dies and causes no distress to anyone. No need to account for anything and that ends that story. The whites are richer and the minorities dead.

In the case of Dr. Bennett, SCES went to Probate Court. They asked that Dr. Bennett not be notified of the hearing. They described Dr. Bennett as very old, indigent, alone with no one to care for him and he was a psychiatric threat to the community.

The Court knew Dr. Bennett knew nothing about that hearing because SCES asked that he not be informed. The Court objected to Dr. Bennett not being informed about the hearing and appointed an attorney. Not a named attorney, but just an attorney.

Attorney O’Sullivan, who was representing SCES decided that attorney would be Attorney Cheri Myette. So , in effect, the opposing attorney appointed the attorney who would be appearing in Dr. Bennett’s name.

The Court, with a new judge now in place, said to Attorney Myette that she should contact her “client”. She did not, but she did file a motion in his name including a claim – under oath by the attorney – in which Dr. Bennett was supposed to be swearing to the fact that he was “indigent.” Dr. Bennett knew nothing about this. Attorney Myette apparently felt she could make such claims in a motion all on her own without her “client” knowing anything about the motion – have the motion impounded so no one would be able to read it or know of the charges – and the case then goes on from there with no one knowing how it got started. Common with the cases we have investigated is the confusion the people so pushed around have, not knowing nor understanding where all of the mess and upheaval came from because there is nothing showing that answers any of those origination questions. The answers to those questions have been hidden in the bowels of the Court.

There is a blog in this Bettina collection of blogs which replicates the statement Dr. Bennett made denying that he made such a statement and saying clearly he knew nothing about the motion – nothing about an attorney being appointed to represent him – etc. That statement is notarized.

Attorney Myette was appointed and filed the motion accusing his wife of abusing him – knowing full well that was not true. She wrote the motion as though it was being written by Dr. Bennett in which he claimed and ‘swore’ to being “indigent” and in need of state funds – knowing full well that was also not true. Attorney Myette did all of this within an hour or two of her being named Attorney for Dr. Bennett by the attorney representing SCES – Attorney O’Sullivan. The one thing Attorney Myette did not do was to contact her supposed client. No one saw any need to notify Dr. Bennett of any of this. Why would one bother to confuse everything by getting an African American man involved – his stereotype and the stereotype of his African American wife was enough. Winning usually means dealing with the stereotype instead of the real person.

How many elderly have lost their lives, their estates, their family because of this kind of attack?

Interesting that the people doing the filing knew 1) Dr. Bennett was not destitute nor indigent at the time and 2) they knew Dr. Bennett had just left MGH so why the push to immediately take him to Mount Auburn Hospital just a day or two after he left MGH where his records, etc. were?

Dr. Bennett’s wife turned to a friend to recommend an attorney. Caroline Tribe recommended Shippen Page. Ms. Donaldson hired Shippen Page who in turn hired Lisa Cukier with Burns & Levinson. Ms. Cukier to represent Dr. Bennett. Attorney Page to represent Ms. Donaldson.

That didn’t quite happen the way it was planned. Ms. Cukier decided to represent Ms. Donaldson, without Ms. Donaldson’s knowledge or consent. In the process of that representation it was clear Ms. Cukier’s respect for her client was non-existent. One condition Ms. Donaldson had before hiring Ms. Cukier was that she agrees to file an emergency motion to have Dr. Bennett released from the prison of the hospital (MGH) where he was being held in a locked ward with guards outside the ward and being fed medicines without his knowledge or consent with no one knowing what he was being fed when he was supposedly not in the hospital for medical reasons, but according to the papers filed, because of the claimed abuse and the claim that Dr. Bennett was alone in a house with his wife who was abusing him. In actual fact, in the house were Dr. Bennett’s two adult children and a daughter-in-law. All black so they could be discarded as irrelevant.

Once hired, Ms. Cukier did not file the emergency motion, but decided to wait until the hearing date for the motion – which was a bit into the future giving everyone time to do what was necessary to attempt to incapacitate Dr. Bennett, create a medical record which is spurious along with a number of other activities which our investigation shows were meant to drain Dr. Bennett’s assets along with the assets of his wife, which is apparently the reason they had to accuse her of abuse – to open the door to opening the door to their home to be able to use it to line their pockets. We have talked about in the past because we have talked to several people – African Americans and Jews who were subjected to the same and whose assets were drained and they were left much poorer after what turned out to be trumped up charges.

When Ms. Cukier was hired she asked for a retainer and her terms were that once the retainer was paid Ms. Donaldson would receive monthly bills every 30 days which she would be expected to pay within 30 days.

Things didn’t quite work out that way.

The retainer was paid promptly. The day of the hearing, much less than 30 days into Ms. Cukier being hired, Ms. Cukier called Ms. Donaldson to say she should bring to her home $9,000 because this is what was needed. She changed the terms of her hiring. In addition, she said she would not appear at the 4pm hearing that was to happen that day unless Ms. Donaldson showed up at her home with the $9,000. This was just a few hours before the hearing took place. She also was very clear that Ms. Donaldson was not to go to her front door, but she ordered this African American woman to take the money and go to the back door to deliver it.

Those of you who know Ms. Donaldson, know that did not happen. Ms. Cukier and her assistant called several times about the money and the abusive telephone calls so unnerved Ms. Donaldson she could not function for several few days.

At the same time, there was an email from Attorney Page asking about the motion response Ms. Cukier intended to file because it left out very important and relevant information and he didn’t understand why.

The motion papers did not make the Court aware of the fact that Dr. Bennett had been discharged from MGH less than two days before he was forced out of his home on a Section 12 (psychiatric charges) and the papers said he was fine. They noted his vital signs were normal including his blood pressure.

Ms. Cukier did not change her filing to include that fact. Reading what she submitted it is clear to us those submissions were to keep Dr. Bennett in MGH. Ms. Cukier ignored Attorney Page’s concerns as well as the concerns of others.

This was clearly shaping up to look exactly like a criminal conspiracy which has happened to other minority elders who have suffered much in the process – and some died.

We won’t outline everything that happened, however, this resulted in Attorney Page resigning – Ms. Donaldson discovering much that had been kept from her – Ms. Donaldson firing Ms. Cukier – Ms. Cukier continuing on in spite of the fact that she had been fired for some really strange actions which appear to be those meant to work with Attorney O’Sullivan to attain his and Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services’ goals. They have some serious problems which clearly are not going to be addressed. From what we have seen they are allowed to very irresponsibly destroy the quality and life of others.

Doing research we find Ms. Cukier involved in other places – similar – where she made legal moves which we think are questionable.

This, plus everything else involved in the attack on Dr. Bennett has a price tag going over $300,000.00. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts with its agencies which were involved bears some of the blame for this and allowed its agencies to spend tax payers money to engage in extreme bigotry – among other things. Since what happened and is continuing to happen to Dr. Bennett has also happened to other minorities – we seriously question what is going on within Massachusetts Government which is clearly encouraging such by doing nothing about it except supplying money needed to gain a law-breaking result.

For example – Dr. Bennett was sexually abused through this process. That was reported to Maura Healey, who did nothing about it. There were witnesses who were neither questioned about this nor contacted in any way. Ms. Healey is today running for political office. Needless to say, we will be there calling attention to some of these horrendous occurrences.

Dr. Bennett was removed from his home forcibly by the police without a Court Hearing, in spite of Massachusetts laws which forbids such – so laws were broken and the people involved not called up for this.

Dr. Bennett was forced to take anti-psychotics, which he did not want, but had no choice in the locked police ward of MGH. The Courts have just verified that this is definitely a violation of the law.

Every right that Dr. Bennett and his family have under the federal laws and the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts were violated. His medical record also does not accurately reflect what happened to him.

To our knowledge, this has happened to African Americans and Jews and we suspect also to other minorities. It totally violates both federal and state anti-discrimination laws.

And this is only the tip of the iceberg.

It is interesting to us to bring into this picture what happened to Dr. Gates from Harvard University. He was ‘arrested’ by the police for breaking and entering his own home. They tried to put him in jail on a criminal charge that was bogus.

The attempt was to what – demean? embarrass? destroy his reputation? At least put into the public mind the picture the media took of him being arrested in his own home.

By the time they tried to do the same thing to Dr. Bennett their tactics changed. It was not a “criminal” charge. Dr. Bennett was picked up at his home on a Section 12 – a psychiatric charge. He was not the first. The way the media has steadfastly ignored all of this from the several people so treated it is clear there will be more of this happening in Massachusetts. It appears to have someone’s support for its continuation.

Others – particularly African Americans and Jews have been so treated with no restitution and no investigation into what this was all about. Ignore them. Let them struggle. The goal will be to reduce the achievements of minorities because their generational wealth will be eliminated. What they could do with such a backing will not now be possible.

The court papers documenting the Court part of these actions are being impounded in an action led by Attorney Lisa Cukier. Those papers need to be available to the public so others can see and know what has happened in the past. The impoundment is not because the families want those papers impounded. Several attorneys are consistently involved in such and their names need to be known – the actions they have taken need to be known, etc.

We appreciate your feedback and your experiences with such. Please don’t hesitate to email us at bettina-network@comcast.net

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An Offering for black history month from “American Diversity Report”

Thursday, February 11th, 2021

WHO IS Q – as in QANON? What are “Q”s other accomplishments!

Wednesday, February 10th, 2021

The United States and hence the world are being torn apart by one man’s craziness (or should we say one man’s evil)!

It is as if satan has arrived and started to work through a few and is now successfully pulling in their friends, family, organizations, life.

Let us not keep you in suspense. Q is Donald John Trump!

His claim to such evil fame is not limited to Q – so let us trace a bit of conspiracy theory – which is Trump’s stock in trade and that which has moved him into the position he now occupies and into those positions he once occupied.

Why has he been so successful on this kind of evil level? Probably because he has a very keen sense of how to manipulate the negative emotions of human beings. He knows how to use evil to gain his goals and to draw them around him to do his bidding even when they know better.

Early in life, he had and still has many gifts and graces. Every once in awhile you can see the goodness of what could have been for him had he used those gifts and graces for good instead of using them for ill. For whatever reason, he has chosen to use those gifts and hone those gifts on the blades of satan.

To become president, Donald John Trump used bigotry. He saw how effective bigotry is in the attempt to control humans for one’s own aggrandizement. He saw and felt how close one comes to the deity cultivating feelings of being “better than”. He saw how to manipulate the laws in the United States which pertain to bigotry and how people react in the passing and breaking of those laws. He saw that those who used the evil side of the human spirit became extremely wealthy and wielded much power and these were the people he wanted to copy.

As a very young adult Trump was involved in his father’s business and together they made sure blacks were not allowed to rent the apartment buildings they built and owned, in spite of the fact that they used and misled the government. It was during the time in this country when blacks and whites were going to different apartment complexes and applying for an apartment. First the African American went to apply at the Trump owned buildings and behind him/her came a White American after the blacks were turned down because there was no room in the Inn. When the White Americans were able to get apartments – down came the law suits and up came the legal experience Donald Trump has drawn on most of his adult life. The fertile ground from which has sprung QANON and Donald Trump’s takeover of “Q”.

Sometimes a few of his followers have slipped and attributed to Trump the moniker of “messiah”. We have become outraged at such a thought instead of being quiet to let those followers say more about why they applied such a term to Trump.

Trump walked his life’s path with “friends” from whom he learned to instinctively manipulate people at the level of their identity. He learned how strong the identity of “better than” was with even the nicest people, held in highest regard by this society. He saw the evil that “better than” wrought and the power it generated for those using that identity with others and he adopted it. A “messiah” who lifts those around him to the level of “better than” and promises them such largesse and such a life if and when they deal with those “less than.”

He walked alongside Roy Cohn – a Jew. He saw first hand the conflict Cohn had about being a Jew and at the same time seeming to hate Jews. He saw Joe McCarthy and watched Bobby Kennedy who sat right next to McCarthy as his right hand man and he saw how the Kennedy’s moved and used the filth McCarthy was spewing for his political benefit and McCarthy’s ability to use that filth to control others. He watched as the Kennedy’s moved, without taking along the tar thrown at them and others which did not stick to any of them from their involvement with McCarthy. He watched as they moved from the power achieved by being McCarthy’s First Lieutenant to sharing that power throughout the family to become President, Attorney General, Senator of these United States. A family of legend in these United States whose beginnings in the McCarthy power movement rolled off them as if they were made of teflon.

Trump saw and for a time was a part of the Gay Community and saw that community through the eyes of Roy Cohn.

So many influences we could go on for pages, but the above, known to all of us should give you an idea as to Donald Trump’s development and the forces and influences which dictated the direction in which his life would go.

His strongest influence was the Nazi German influence, probably because that is the group from which his family descends. A connection Trump maintained – keeping “Mein Kampf” on his bedside table and imbibing all that it put out.

Fast forward to recent times and we see all of those influences coming to fruition in the political world of these United States when the “birther lie” came along. Whether Trump originated that lie or not, he saw it as a way to achieve the money and power he craved and he jumped into the fray and brought the ‘birther lie’ much further than it would have gone without his work.

That ‘birther lie’ is what brought Trump to the United States presidency.

During his campaign and just before it started, Trump needed something stronger than the “birther lie’ to give him the power, pomp, money that he wanted so into his life comes QANON – a group that could become incredibly powerful and the kind of cult which developed around other things. This one Trump felt he could grow to be the institutional structure out of which he would rule the world.

While others were talking about Trump being lazy, not taking care of business, not working hard as he should as president of these United States.

That is both a lie and the truth. Fascist dictators and would-be fascist dictators have one trait in common – laziness. The whole idea is to have everything and be able to tell others what, how, when to do.

Within QANON, Trump could have not just one lie – like the havoc he wrought with the “birther lie”, but a structure into which he could put many lies and build all of that to the point of world control. He could do what Hitler tried and failed to do. Hitler used some conspiracy structures to gain power, but not enough nor widespread enough to gain the world control he wanted and needed. Trump would not make that mistake.

Within QANON there began to be carved out the “messiah”. The “messiah”, of course was “Q”.

The strength of QANON and Q comes from that side of human nature which needs to come together as a community, but in the world of “Q” the identity of those who are adherents to “Q” is strengthened by the fact that QANON “members”, adherents, disciples, shamans are all considered to be “better than” blacks, latina’s, gays, muslims – those considered to be “minorities” – less than.

This time the world would be better for the arrival of “Q” because there would be no concentration camps. The same thing would be achieved by killing these minority groups in any way possible – even one at a time – because there would soon be enough people in QANON doing these individual or small group killings in so many places that they would be untraceable to the original group and to “Q” himself and yet there would quickly be tens of thousands of such minorities killed with their numbers reduced to where slavery and other forms of “less than human” would be where minorities, needed for the work the “majority’ should not have to do, would be placed and kept.

Take a look at the “accomplishments” of Trump and his administration. It has been all about creating “identity”. Putting people who would do the will of “Q” into substantial places. Not because of the qualifications that the outside world considers before putting people in specific jobs, but those “Q” needs to do the work he has decided was needed to create the world according to “Q” and the inner circle of “QANON.” Many people considered to be “minorities” by “Q” have been killed – into the many thousands.

The latest example of such killings comes about when you look at the killings that took place recently on “death row” in the federal penitentiary. Those slated for execution, but who were on death row for years and some for decades were all killed in short order by “Q” and they were who? – minorities, you say?

Take a look at the gradually escalating police killings and the infiltration of the police departments by white nationalists, white supremacists, neo-nazi’s and all the rest. This started long before Trump, but it accelerated created under his presidency as more of those in the QANON group infiltrates the ranks of the law enforcement in this country the more minorities would and have been killed with the killers facing no punishment of any kind.

This recent they ‘stole the election lie’ which Trump started perpetrating months ago even before the election happened, is another such instance which allowed for the beginnings of what the QANON followers thought was going to be a way for wholesale killings and publicly done – the killings to come that the “noose” hung on Capitol Building grounds symbolized and so much more.

The Charlottesville re-enactment of Krystallnacht with many coming down a small mountain with their tiki torches lit chanting “Jews will not replace us” is another example of calling into the QANON group those who could hear the message and understand where this was all going.

The recent taking over of the Republican Party is not something new. It was started quite a long time ago to change a group that was the support of the abolition of slavery and the attempt of the United States to move towards equality. The Democratic Party, doing all those days past was the movement to keep apartheid in this country with those who espoused it in political control.

A parallel would be the retribution which was aimed and thrown at Haiti which is today suffering from its successful revolution which attempted to liberate Haiti from colonial control. They are still paying the price for that action. And so the Republican Party is being targeted to pay the price for its past support of African Americans.

At one point in the deep south, the head of the Louisiana Republican Party was a black man. That was before the institutional structure which supported and maintained African Americans and other none Northern European-ancestry groups as inferior and to be kept from participation in the political as well as all other groups in the U. S. Society started to weaken.

QANON has been cultivated as the power needed to bring Donald Trump into position as the fascist, Hitler type leader that is needed to make sure the majority of people in these United States, especially the voting majority and those who are heads of businesses, never flips from majority Northern European-ancestry types to those today considered “minorities” – African Americans, Latina’s, Asians, etc. with Northern European-ancestry types as one of instead of what they have been – “better than” and served by.

We have never explored what bigotry does to the human spirit. To see a bit of what happens and which should be studied minutely, take a look at those in the Republican Party today who do not move depending upon right and wrong, but who move depending upon what “Q” wants them to do. Their identity has gradually moved from a mostly white Republican Party to being a part of the cult of QANON with Donald Trump as “Q”.

To be “better than” is more addictive than alcohol or any kind of drugs which addict the body, mind and spirit. It takes away your ability to reason on a human level where you understand we all are of one race. It makes you follow the directives of the person and group that keeps you pumped full of the “better than” identity. It keeps others asking “what’s wrong with them” – when a little thought would tell them because if they really went into “what’s wrong with them” they would have to delve into the extremely painful place that exposes their adoption into their identity of being “better than” – which in these United States is simply camouflaged because we all have been raised to incorporate the “better than” and “less than” spirit into our being.

So now “Q” has become totally entrenched in our society. What happens now? The birther lie was also fully entrenched. We have done nothing about that lie and so it has given birth to other lies much more dangerous than that from which it has sprung.

Many who knew better took some solace in the fact that they could keep their bigotry covered because others were carrying the torch and going out in public to maintain the “better than”/”less than” lie.

So now dear God – what happens next? Are we capable of living in a world where we are equal to? Can we even write and talk about all of the institutional structures that need changing to keep such evil out of our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren.

Mostly, we take down one institutional structure only to put up others which do the same job only in a more genteel and hidden way.

So, where do we turn? How do we reach your mind and heart to be able to cleanse our own? Will those who bring about basic change always have to pay the heavy prices we have required of them to discourage others from following in their path? Will this ever change or is this how we must live until death!

Harriet Tubbman is back and will soon be the face you see on the $20 bill. First woman on American Currency!!!!!!!!

Thursday, January 28th, 2021

FANTASTIC!

Thank you President Biden. We shall be forever grateful.

Much work was done to achieve this goal. What I like most about how this happened was the way not one huge organization did the work, but many people across the country did their own thing; involved their neighbors and friends; brought in small organizations and didn’t need to be cajoled by the heads and marketing people from one group. Self-motivated by the correctness of the cause and what that change could do for all of us – it is exhilarating.

One of our most fun things that we did was to talk to several people we know who manage estate sales. Hunt Estate Sales came through and thought it was a great idea for Harriet Tubman to be on the face of the $20 bill instead of Andrew Jackson and they decided to stamp the $20 bills that came to them via their estate sales with the image of Harriet Tubman wiping out Andrew Jackson. I shall never forget what great fun that was for private industry to work with a worthy cause to bring about a just result. And no money changed hands. Well, almost. The $20 bills so stamped went all over the place for many different reasons – large and small.

We hope you will look for the Hunt Estate Sales and be one of those buying from them. We know them and their values. You will always come out ahead – whether you are someone with an estate you want or need someone to manage so it can be sold in the best possible way or if you are a buyer looking for something beautiful, unique, and to make a part of your estate – because that is who they are.

There was a Tubman stamp one could buy on Etsy.com. That is where we purchased ours with extra ink because we expected to stamp millions. That didn’t happen, but we did our share. However, there were also Harriet Tubman stamps created by others across the country which they sold to others, used it themselves and the story and project reached into corners it could never have hoped to reach otherwise.

There were many petitions. I think we tried two or three. Not much energy behind any of them because I am not sold on this way of achieving results.

And so much more.

We went to a few breakfasts of different organizations and friends. The Harriet Tubman stamp brought a bit of excitement at Mel King’s house before that breakfast group disbanded. We brought out the stamp so people around the table could get their $20 bill stamped with the Tubman image to frame, spend or whatever else they decided to do with that piece of history. I had forgotten the connection that many present had with what was going on in the neighborhood around Harriet Tubman.

Boston is one where the Tubman House was in trouble trying to save the blood, sweat and tears, that many people invested over years, from being destroyed because neighborhoods which were African American were turning white. Those neighborhoods, in Boston and a few other places, are in downtown areas with white professionals moving out of the suburbs into the city trying to save money on gas and wanting to be close to work and recreational possibilities and god-knows what else. When are we going to start thinking more broadly than about our particular needs and wants of the moment.

We were overjoyed when President Biden announced that the Harriet Tubman $20 was back and would be printed soon.

Thank you to everyone who worked with us on this project. Thank you to those who worked with others on this project. May we move on to even more successful events, projects, protests and may you live long and prosper as your work builds and shows what you value in life.

Hope you will keep up with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. – which gave us the backbone to move ahead with this project.

Our latest project is a legal and educational fund for the elderly to take on happenings like the one which tried hard to destroy Robert, our marriage and our home. We hadn’t thought of ourselves as “elderly” before. We do now. Having been around, even though very young when the NAACP LDF was founded, we are going to do what we can to bring about such a group for the elderly. Many changes from the original, but sort of similar. We had no idea this society was so vicious against its elderly citizens. We don’t seem to realize that we are destroying the carriers of the wisdom we need to survive and thrive.

Marceline Donaldson and Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett

To Wear a Mask or go Maskless says what about you?

Monday, January 25th, 2021

by: Marceline Donaldson

I am old enough to remember and to have been through the campaigns against smoking.

When it was discovered that smoking caused cancer and even second hand smoke could damage the health of the person inhaling another persons’ cigarette smoke, it was quite a brawl. Sort of like the one we are having with masks or going without a mask. The arguments are the same and the people I have encountered without a mask are the same people who refused to give up blowing smoke into the environment of those who don’t smoke.

What is also amazing is that these are the same people who refuse to give up their identity as “better than.”

Your identity is basic to your being. To have been raised with an identity which claims you are “better than” and experience that as comfortable and that by which you live and move and have your being and by defining others as “less than”, as people who owe you their agreement to stay in “their place” and not disturb the outer, better, larger environment where the “better than” thrive, is a soul destroying thing.

Once upon a time, many years ago, I was on the National Board of NOW. At that time, the law suits and one push was on stopping people (actually men) – (actually white men) from smoking cigars on airplanes because the exhaust and replenish system on the airlines could not effectively remove all of the smoke and other pollutants which such smoking put into the air. Only one or two people were needed to smoke cigars on the plane in which you were traveling to cause problems for everyone else. That, according to the science coming out, not only caused health issues with everyone, but created an extremely uncomfortable environment for those flying.

It was a pitched battle. Finally, after many resources spent – time, money, etc. – the airlines decided to eliminate cigar smoking on planes. That was an incredible victory.

Later, the battle began to eliminate cigarette smoking as the scientific papers were published about the damage cigarettes could do to the human body. That battle was worse than the one around cigars. The cigar smokers just started smoking cigarettes on planes instead of their beloved and deadly instruments of disease.

Gradually, the fight was and still is being won as people today have to deal with even apartment buildings which now say if you live in that particular apartment building and are a smoker you have to agree to smoke outside and not in your own apartment building for which you pay substantial amounts of rent.

Restaurants were another place where the battle against smoking inside the restaurant raged. It was won and people started moving to eat in the “bar” side of the restaurant so they could smoke while eating. The war against smoking found them and today even those in bars can’t smoke inside the bar, but must go outside for their favorite bit of poison.

When that fight was raging I was at IBM. They had a thing where you had to go to Atlanta, GA. for six weeks of training before you could sell those wonderful machines. In the training classes people, of course, could smoke. Light up anytime and foul the air for those in the class who found that a horribly filthy and very uncomfortable habit.

We fought that in many ways. During my class time, success was not gained, but in subsequent classes smoking was outlawed in the classroom. One had to go outside to smoke. So progress does happen. It happens excruciatingly slow and people lose their lives and health in the process, but it happens.

One action we took, as an aside, was to also challenge IBM’s inviolable “dress for success” class and rules. On one of the last days of class we arrived (females, of which there were almost none), in MuMu’s, hair in large curlers, no make-up and slippers. The men arrived (not all, but many) with their jockey shorts over their dress pants and cut off t-shirts over their dress shirts. It was hysterical and great fun, but produced no change in IBM’s dress rules or the necessity of taking such a class.

What is it about human beings and the human spirit that everything must be as we are and everyone must live according to how we live and want life to be. We change facts to accommodate our comfort zone and claim we have the “right” in this country to jeopardize the health of and make uncomfortable and even denigrate and destroy those who aren’t like us?

Those who don’t live our lifestyle? Those who insist on refusing to change when the growing body of science shows us problems which we could address and make better with some simple changes of our lifestyle? We prefer to demand our “rights” to do things harmful to others while totally overlooking the other persons’ “right” to be safe and more. Doesn’t that come from our basic need to be “better than”? The belief system, culture and more that many would rather died for than give up and change.

If we are “better than” our neighbors, friends and all others then we can go about without a mask because we find wearing a mask uncomfortable, not pretty or stylish and all the other reasons we have thrown up. We do not want to become comfortable wearing a mask because it is our “right” to go around without one. Isn’t it interesting how we can demand what we consider our rights, even when those rights that we claim jeopardize the health and well being of others?

It is no mistake that we elected a man who exemplifies all of that and demands his rights over all other human beings? The man who demands to be top of the heap and all others are under him accepting what he doles out to them and for which they are grateful. How come we do all of that? What is there in the human spirit which thinks that is great. We join wild groups because they reinforce the identity we are on the verge of losing – “better than”.

That “better than” need is more lethal than the most terminal and painful of cancers. Yet we insist on living through that kind of culture and that kind of life.

That “better than” need led our ancestors to euthanize attempt to exterminate American Indians. It allowed and encouraged us to use slavery to build these United States. Used the Chinese in a slavery kind of structure to build our railroads – and all through we use denial so we don’t have to acknowledge what we have done and are doing to the detriment of ourselves and others.

To care for others. To be concerned about those with whom we live on this planet doesn’t take much.

An example from my IBM experience shows the difference. I lived in Ambassador Andrew Young’s house while I was in training at IBM. I could not live in the townhouse apartments right next to the classes during that time because I had two young children with me. They had me and I had them and wherever I went they went for all the years of their growing up.

It was difficult driving the 30 to 45 minus to class each day instead of walking a short distance to the classes. It was horrendous trying to figure out and find ways of making sure they were taken care of during the day. That would have been simple had I been able to live in the housing provided by IBM, It took a lot away from my time and ability to really get into the training – although I did a respectable job of it.

No one at IBM cared about the situation I was trying to handle. Men were the main people in those training classes. Men had wives at home who stayed there and took care of the children and anything else that needed to be taken care of because society looked at that as the job of women.

Towards the end of my time in training at IBM, I had caused such an upheaval that a couple people turned their attention to seeing what they could do to make things right.

My girls were learning horse back riding during that period of time so the IBM people found a camp not far away which had young people – about the ages of mine – who lived at the camp and followed their program of learning to ride, show and jump horses. That was a near miracle. I picked up the girls on the weekends and we went ‘home’ and were able to do touristy things satisfying to all.

How wonderful if IBM had put together a few people who gathered such possibilities for people in my situation so my time during training could have been more productively spent. It didn’t take a lot, just caring. Their response, at the time, was to eliminate people like me because it was too much to include us and much better to carry forth the “better than” attitude.

The caring that is missing amongst the people who refused to smoke outside; who wanted to smoke while in class; and so much more.

There were only two or three people in those classes who smoked. They, however, made the room unbelievably uncomfortable and dangerous to the health of the rest of us. The same attitude prevails among people who refuse to wear masks. One would think that past ones time as a rebellious teenager, the need to “prove” things would have abated.

All of those folks have something in common – their identity, which contains the strong belief that they are “better than” the rest of us and why should they accommodate. What a wonderful change in this world when and if they are able to do show some kind of caring for others where there is no payback that they can see for themselves.

“Better than” is a vicious philosophy by which to live. It is incredibly destructive of the human soul as it takes hold of ones personality, character, lifestyle and makes them so incredibly ugly to the rest of society. “Better than” so blinds us as humans that we can’t even see how negative is the way such people are seen by others.

May God forgive your sins against one another and give you the ability to open your hearts in a caring, healing, wonderful way to experience this life as it was intended to be experienced, not to experience it within the confines of a lifestyle with ways of living and choices which lead to a life of denial which leads to a life of lying, cheating, etc. etc.

Donald J. Trump – Mentally ill or evil!!

Saturday, January 9th, 2021

There is a huge difference between someone who is mentally ill and someone who is just plain evil. Looking back and through Donald Trump’s life, it is clear he is not mentally ill, he is clearly evil and has practiced his craft for decades. Who in literature – especially biblical and spiritual literature do you find has to hold the Bible upside down? Isn’t that what Trump did during that spectacle he created in Washington, D. C.? Why was it so important that he called out all the important military and others to create this show? To announce who he really is? To unmask himself? He said nothing – he simply held up the Holy Bible UPSIDE DOWN and in doing so identified himself to all who could see.

What is amazing to us is that before voting for him and electing him president we knew him. We knew his history. We knew his family. We knew his friends.

As a young adult, Donald Trump, working with his father was sued by the United States Government for their racism. They built apartments and refused to rent to African Americans and other minorities. The Trump response to the law suit was quite telling as to how Donald Trump would lead his life into the future. The way he responded to the law suit was amazingly evil. He clearly had no intention of changing or adhering to the laws of the United States. He just spent a lot of Court time to make sure he would not have to and could continue not renting to minorities. The pattern for future response was set in that law suit. Look it up. See how far Trump went to create the kind of confusion, hatred, arrogance and a show of extreme white supremacy that he and his father showed to the United States Government through the process of that law suit.

In the literature, books, newspapers we learned that Martin Luther King, Jr. kept the Bible and a copy of Howard Thurman’s “Jesus and the Disinherited” next to his bed and his bedside table. That told us a lot about the ethics, commitment, interests, spirituality of the man. His life reflected his choice of readings and of the books he kept close.

By contrast, the same media outlets told us – as they reported on Donald Trump’s divorce from Ivana Trump – that Donald Trump kept Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” next to his bed. That also said a lot about the ethics, commitment, interests, spiritiuality of the man. Trump’s life has reflected his choice of readings and of the books he kept close. Yes, he does read. We just do not understand his choices and we choose to say he is the way he is because he does not read. Just one of the many times we have provided the Trump’s with an escape hole for what should be talked about honestly.

And as his life moved along, Trump’s friends of choice show more of who he is becoming as his ages. At one point Roy Cohn, attorney, was his very close friend. Speculation at the time was that Trump was gay. Roy Cohn, a man who was well known to be gay and Jewish was also someone who was known for his unabashed hatred of Gays and Jews. Someone like Donald Trump was perfect as a cover for Roy Cohn and as someone with the same anti-Gay, anti-Jewish proclivities. It made their closet seem safe from exposure.

Cohn was the person who brought Trump and his business to Manhattan and taught Trump everything he knows about how to fight. The rumors about Trump being gay floated around because if you lived in New York at the time in the “right neighborhood” you saw Cohn and Trump having dinner by candlelight in restaurants many times – just the two of them, clearly “spooning” and enjoying their time together.

Trump’s throwing his friends and those who followed him under the bus became a clear trademark of Trumpism as one could see observing his friendship and working partnership with Cohn, which went along swimmingly until Cohn lost his fortune, was fairly destitute and ill. Even at Cohn’s funeral, the best Trump could do was to appear and stand at the back of the Synagogue for a few minutes before disappearing. Helping a friend financially who was responsible for most of what Trump had and was able to do in New York is not something that was and is a Trumpian thing to do.

The talk of New York at the time was how much Cohn had done for Trump and when he was in need how little to nothing Trump did for Cohn. Trump was happy to “spoon” with Cohn over those candlelight dinners when Cohn was an important and feared part of New York. That ended as Cohn neared his end and had nothing more to offer Trump. – sound familiar? Cohn also introduced Trump to Joseph McCarthy and there created the trinity and the time during which Trump learned at McCarthy’s knee a lot of what you see him practicing today and a lot of what he used to move himself into the position he current holds. Our amazement is how someone with that background – which, as Trump moved along in life, included sexually assaulting, raping and abusing women which screams of an incredible hatred of women. He showed how he was not too above board with his business dealings, doing one thing in plain sight while deflecting and turning your attention to another place so when he did what he actually was about you had to do a total about face to keep up with the evil being spewed all over everyone.

Trump and his family have a history of strong, positive, relationships with the mafia. At one point in time in the United States that would have been an automatic disqualifier for being even considered as president of the United States.

At this point in time, the only thing relevant to the next president of these United States was how racist is he – and she would not even be considered? How far is he willing to go to destroy African Americans, Jews, Latina’s, LGBTQ people, Muslims and so many more not Northern European-ancestry people?

We are in this country “divided”. But very few will go the distance in describing just what that means. Blaming Donald Trump and holding up his sins is about as far as many will go. We need to look more carefully. We went from slavery – which was destroyed by the Industrial Revolution – which structure was destroyed by Corporate America – which is now being destroyed by the White Male Institutional structure being put in place by this new way we are moving.

Corporate America is clearly “authoritarian” in its structure. One could go further and say it borders on fascism. How does such a structure which affect every part of these United States survive in a democratic structure. What we are seeing is that it doesn’t. The structure that Corporate America has developed works hard to be the “hegemonies” in what has been created as a hegemony over all. Isn’t that what created Donald Trump and his father?

That structure is giving way and the question is – what next? What will control this society? And there are the divisions where one side latched onto Trumpism and gained enough time to anchor its foot hold and pull the wool over the eyes of those fighting to live and work in a democracy.

Whenever democracy threatens to take over Corporate America and its fascist structure those efforts are loudly claimed to be “Socialism” and that is look on as the devil itself.

That label has been created to put fear into many so democracy will not succeed in changing the corporate structures taking hold in this world.

Want to see what corporate america has wrought? Take a look carefully at Josh Hawley and his rise to the Senate. We wondered how he was able to win his seat against someone like Claire McCaskill who was well respected and with a substantial reputation. As we looked at Trump and how he made his rise, we began to understand. Try taking a look at the “money and power” which backed Josh Hawley in his run replacing McCaskill. When he took his stand with his raised fist and started this business which resulted in the incredible destruction, insurrection, attempted coup that we have just witnessed we did not know his history nor the enormous amounts of corporate money behind him.

Clearly, when one is so funded and supported as Hawley has been, the piper does come calling and expects you to perform for that investment – and Jose Hawley did more than what was expected of him and is still going to great lengths because he knows he is connected to the money and power which put Donald Trump in office and whoever chose him knew who he was and of what he was capable.

Once Hawley has made a total fool of himself as he lets his greed and power needs get out of hand, he will be cast aside and someone not quite so ‘obvious’ chosen to do the same job, backed by the same power and money that brought us Josh Hawley and dissed Claire McCaskill.

As a country, we have been split, but we are not coming up front with just what is the split. It is being talked about as Democrat vs Republican and even putting the blame on race. We need to look at the real genesis of what this is all about. We have a billionaire group which has involved itself in politics far more deeply than the wealthy in this country used to in years and decades and generations past. Those who have obscene money and power and pushing hard to gain more and to reshape the world so they and theirs will live forever.

There have been some failed attempts in years past to get government, industry, ordinary people to sit and reason together. Those attempts failed because Industry would not sit together, but saw itself sitting above and calling the shots which government and ordinary people were not allowing.

The reason for the bigotry-racism-better than can be traced directly to this corporate group. Take a look at the immediate result providing money to groups like the “Proud Boys”. We have had to take a stand and object to J. P. Morgan Chase making its tools of trade available for them to raise money to continue their fight. And Chase’s response will be to plead ignorance and more.

Take a look at what is and has happened with entrepreneurship. Look at who gets funded by the Venture Capitalists and their ilk and who doesn’t. All of that is to support the current structural divisions – the institutional divides which are becoming stronger and which all of this Trump business is simply deflecting from what is really happening in these United States. Many, if not most, of the fledgling businesses which become the multi-billionaire groups were formed – their genesis came out of the minority and female communities. Immediately upon their recognition and future potential becomes noticed along comes young, white male Northern European-ancestry types – although lately other males are finding themselves sprinkled among the white boys – and the businesses started and brought to the point where their potential is obvious are ripped away from minorities and women and funded to the tune of enormous amounts of money so their histories can be changed and credit taken and given to those white male Northern European-ancestry types, who are then able to bring them to fruition as multi-billion dollar corporations which recognize and acknowledge and build according to the fascist needs of corporate america which is putting itself out of business for this new and upcoming group dictating the future and using the Donald Trump’s of the world to confuse, obfuscate, muddy the waters until this new structure is safely in place.

One such group destroyed was being put in place by Marceline Donaldson and Rev. Robert Bennett. For 20 years they worked on a business and structure which pointed the way to the future. Funding was not there. Instead the corporate funders sent – the Venture Capitalist sent- the white male Northern European-ancestry types into their home to discover what they were doing – how they were doing it- etc. etc. And now we have Airbnb safely white male with everything possible being done to destroy the Donaldson-Bennett’s so they cannot put in place any kind of competition.

They are not alone. We have been looking for and finding many minorities and women whose ideas have been clearly and upfront stolen with others – white male Northern European-ancestry – put in place to bring forward the businesses they have spent years working to develop and beginning to be very successful in a structure and business that would change the way business is being done.

Those businesses have brought back and are continuing to bring into being a vicious racism and sexism in their structures which rivals what many fought to change in this country for generations. The “Proud Boys” and those like them may be crowing and running around “proud” of what they consider their success in their mission without realizing their time in the spotlight is already over and others are being moved in to take their place.

Trump has been the shield behind which a Russian-style American Oligarch group has been formed and which is destroying the structure of the U. S. so the structure which is most congenial to them can be put in its place and they are succeeding admirably.

Josh Hawley and what has happened to him – and what will happen to him in the future is just a small way-station on the way to their complete and total control over the means of production and everything else in this country.

Some think slavery ended because of the abolitionists and all the others who fought against that institution. Is that true? Or did slavery end because the Industrial Revolution was moving into that space and the machinery being developed was much more controllable and cheaper than slavery and so much more.

We are now in the middle of another such turn in the economics, culture and more in this world. The little people aren’t tall enough to see the structures being put in place to replace what is no longer working.

The bigotry is going along because it is extremely useful in keeping those same little people under control. Tell them they are better than – let them believe such lies and they will be able to be led around like human beings with nose rings and a long chain from their nose ring to the hands of those put in place to lead them.

The large billion dollar corporations did not come about via the people who have re-written their company’s history to show themselves as the founders. Most of the great ideas now funded and grown into such behemoth corporations came from minorities and women and were stolen and put in the hands of young white males who showed the most promise as racists with a bit of a “noblesse oblige” spirit – but not too much. Got to keep them in chains, just camouflage the chains and ignore those who see what is really happening.

We could go on for pages. But if you want to know more and to see this for yourselves take a look at the senate campaign of Josh Hawley and Claire McCaskill. Follow the money and promises and talk to a few people around and involved in what happened. Many who look like the little people have great analytical abilities, but they are into self-preservation and won’t share what they see and know with many.

That would make a good book for someone – especially as it is now unfolding what Josh Hawley is willing to do and how far he will go, even to destroying the country he has taken an oath to serve because he sees a future of money and power and himself beyond his ability to resist.

That is just one story. There are many others. Trump’s story is ending and all of his dreams for his children to follow him and to become the lifelong president of the United States which would give him and his family unlimited power – that is over. His usefulness is over. His future is prison along with those who supported and followed him and they will probably never see or know what happened to them.

All of us, human beings, are subject to evil. We have that tendency and we mostly ignore it. What we need to do is examine it and keep the evil within us out of our lives and walk that path which is far more beautiful than any power and money can bring. That is not a lifestyle our marketing and advertising people portray. Maybe where we really need to start cleaning up this society is with them.

DONALD J. TRUMP ATTEMPTS COUP D’ETAT!

Thursday, November 12th, 2020

We need to make this an article, but what else is there to say!

We remember when there were articles about Senators taking money from the NRA for their political campaigns. Could that be why they are now so quiet about this Trump ‘Coup d’Etat’ thing? And why they are so quiet about so many other things they were elected to address? Isn’t it time for them to check themselves to see just how naked they are – in imitation of this Emperor and those who went before him, in whose path he is now walking?….President Andrew Johnson…..President Andrew Jackson….Adolph Hitler….Mussolini…..Stalin…..and back to Rome and further?

One of the attorney generals in the U. S. has just about stripped the NRA of its power and money in these United States and it has to either fold or work hard to re-grow. It seemed to be clear when that happened that the NRA was a channel through which Russia (and probably other fascist states) funneled money to intervene in the U. S. elections. However, today, with this Trump thing we have totally pushed that part of the story out the window.

It is very sad to see the United States going through such trauma. However, think for a few moments of the trauma experienced for hundreds of years by American Indians, Africans, Chinese, Latinas, Jews, LBGTQ peoples and more because of the kind of bigotry that has been rammed down the throat of the U. S. and the world by the likes of Donald Trump.

Why has that bigotry been so strong and lasted so long? If you can count you can see the strongest reason being the 72,000,000 millions of people who voted for Donald Trump. Keepers of the flame of slavery, bigotry, greed, hatred and so much more.

If you are bigoted and want a fascist government in place to ram your extreme prejudices into and throughout society so you can feel that you and your country are “better than”, Donald Trump must have seemed like a glass of spring water for someone dying of thirst.

He pulled no punches. Donald Trump showed all during his run in the primary and throughout his presidential campaign and when he came down the escalator to accept the nomination of his party for president of the United States. No one could hide from the ugly racism, the putrid sexism his hatred of Mexicans when he announced how the Mexicans were rapists and more. That should have sent those in attendance running and screaming out of that place. But they applauded. Given that, we understand that a very large segment of the United States population is about as bigoted as they come. Some try to hide their prejudices behind an elegant demeanor, an intelligent mind, an ivy league education, their surface devotion to the sacredness of their definition of motherhood and more, but when they pulled that lever or scratched in that circle voting for Donald Trump they exposed themselves to God and everybody .

What is amazing to us is the two sided nature of human beings. The president of Mexico is one of the few international leaders who has not come out to congratulate Joe Biden and to welcome him into the international community as a partner. What is that all about? Did he not hear? Did he not know? Is he trying to be neutral and in the end will go with the winner?

The United States will recover from the trauma of Donald J. Trump’s Coup d’Etat, but will the handful of us who are not prejudiced – who are not bigots – who have not seen the United States as a “better than all the rest” country – how are we going to survive?

If you had any doubts – any questions – any hesitations that you were judging “the Don” harshly? Your questions have been answered. If you want something, some kind of measuring device, with which to judge those you elected to govern take a look at those standing with “the Don” and then take a look at those working hard to try to help this United States move to a democracy, a better – healthier – happier place.

The Emperor has no clothes and the patches over the eyes of the Emperor’s subjects which have been in place doing a job of not allowing his followers to recognize his nakedness, have been removed. Do they create and put on new blinders so they don’t have to deal with a government structured and run according to good and true ethics? According to justice for all? According to kindness, understanding and helping those who need help? Or do we continue to accept this Emperor and continue to play the game of “better than” because it is easy, taking money from those in need and giving it to the wealthy along with all the other games we have been playing for generations.

The Emperor truly has no clothes and his naked body is the ugliest thing we have seen in generations. He is a negative walking living stereotype from his hair to his ballet dancer hands to his walk to his daytime diapers. Do we applaud as he passes by or do we let him know we see him as he is and it is time for him to get dressed and join the rest of society!

Girl, that could be you!

Monday, November 9th, 2020

Marceline, don’t just read this and cast it aside, I am writing it and sending it to you for Bettina Network’s Blog. Someone should write your biography. As I saw Kamala Harris I thought about you and had to sit down with my pen before I got involved in something else and this moment would not come again.

We need a Truth and Reconciliation moment as all of this will only accelerate. It is a time during which much history will be forgotten or re-written to satisfy those who want to keep society as it is, but will effect change – for the moment.

When I saw Kamala Harris on that stage, I thought of Marceline Donaldson. I know, I know, you like to write, talk and think about others, but it is time you reflected on your life.

My first thought was that the two of you look enough alike that you could be mother and daughter. And then I realized that was a racist thought because what you have in common physically is your hair and color. Otherwise, you are very different and to realize your hair commonalities one had to know you way back when – before you turned gray.

We have been friends long enough for me to know your first analysis of Kamala Harris would be her clothes style – not southern, not new england, not mid-western, but very decidedly California.

Your second thought was probably to think – she didn’t take ballet lessons and all the rest as a child to force herself into that ‘constrained southern lady’ thing. I say thank goodness. Don’t remember what you would say because you were usually all over the map about that.

I thought immediately of the Truth and Reconciliation Task Force because when I first saw Kamala Harris come onto that stage I started crying and couldn’t stop. I knew I was not alone because I was sure you were doing the same thing. I remembered all the many times this white woman cried with you, for you, and for myself. We will probably be crying for months at the least little things because much of what we experienced has been pent up for decades. It will take more than this for the dam to break, but hopefully, shortly, enough will happen for all of those pushed down feelings that we all have, to erupt.

My pain does not begin to be the huge pains you carry, because I didn’t put myself out the way you did – and probably still do. I want to put out in public just a few because what individual women have gone through just to exist and move ahead in this world needs to be aired. I hope others follow this example and will send you their stories. That kind of pain needs to be shared because those who caused it go around without a thought as to what they did and what they are doing to other human beings just because those others are women. And I mean women and men have caused enormous pain and agony to each other.

The memory I won’t ever forget = can’t forget was being in your brokerage office – Dain, Kalman & Quail, inc. – trying to become one of your clients. You had just become the first African American stock broker in Minnesota. I believe you were the first in the country, even though several African American men have been knocking themselves out to prove otherwise. Don’t know if you knew that, but they approached me trying to get my cooperation. A book or something like it is being written to wipe you out of history.

In that stock brokerage/financial investment office, that day I began to realize the enormity of the problems you were facing and would face and the almost insurmountable obstacles that are thrown in all of our paths on a daily basis. Just to keep us in our place – “less than”. And you as a black woman have had to face unbelievable times. Well “almost black woman” – (howls of laughter from me – a sort of private joke).

Into the office, while I was waiting to see you, came a group of black men. They demanded to see the president and were apparently known by a couple people in the office. They were ushered right into the presidents office. I didn’t know them, but as talk went around me I understood they were the heads of the local offices of a few national civil rights organizations and one was there – brought by the others – to be your replacement. They were in the office that day to demand that you be fired and this black man be hired in your place because of the incredible, horribleness of your having been hired over a black man in the first place.

They expressed their indignation at your being a stock broker and what an insult that was to Black men all over. They wanted you fired and they brought along with them one of the Babington-Johnson brothers as someone who should have been hired instead of you. The fact that you walked into the office and applied for the job, backed by Lillian Anthony as your reference and a few other black and white brothers and sisters meant nothing to them. The fact that the Babington-Johnson brother hadn’t thought about applying for such a job and wasn’t doing that now, but was going along with this kind of awfulness meant nothing to them.

One was head of the Minneapolis Urban Coalition – on which you were a member of the board. We went to a few board meetings together. Another was head of the Mpls Urban League. One was a “gad fly” who worked for one of the large companies – a utility company, I think – whose demeanor I never liked. Never did learn who the others were.

While I sat and waited for you – thank goodness you were no place near to hear all of this – I got to hear the meeting and it was a list of grievances and outrageous insults and put downs of black men with this one topping the list.

I hadn’t thought of that before. I had always thought of black men as allies in this fight for women’s rights. That day changed all of that.

When they left the office, I did too. I couldn’t face anyone after that so I went home. I was so upset it took days for me to settle down. I left that office a strong feminist, although that was not who I was when I went there looking for you. I had been to a luncheon panel discussion on investment at a local hotel – don’t remember which one – an investment luncheon which you organized and led and I was high on women now being equal after that brief time. I should have known better, but I was quite young and ‘unexposed’ never having been in a civil rights fight or organization before that.

Those black men demanding you be fired and a black man hired in your stead did something to me from which I have never recovered. Before witnessing that meeting I was quite shy about calling myself a feminist. After, I have been a proud feminist to this day. And as such a supporter of Kamala Harris for as long as I can participate in this society’s politics.

I hope others follow this example and let the Dam break with the flood of stories of what women – white, black, brown, yellow, red, etc. – have experienced in this life so men could assume the mantle of “superiority over” women and not have to work hard for their “better than” identity. And I hope all women realize it is not only white men who have this “better than” need and whose egos can be bruised quickly by a woman exerting the fact that she is their “equal.” To break the stereotype of women as always held up and respected “on a pedestal”, “motherhood uber alles”, our job being to take care of the home and family while men go out to work, etc. And lets not even begin to go into the stereotype of black women.

Haven’t used your “better than” quotes, but I will do so now extensively. Maybe a little late to the party, but my memories are going to flood out to whoever, wherever I can share them. Unfortunately, they are the memories of an observer rather than of someone who participated in change, but maybe today I can correct that before I leave this earth.

The new Supreme Court nominee, Dark Money and the “Christlike figure of Bill Barr”!

Sunday, September 27th, 2020

In fact, it seems to us that all the Supreme Court appointments and nominations by Donald J. Trump were made because dark money opened its pocket books and dealt to Trump and his followers that which he is known not to resist – money! Note that they dealt him money, not power – that is never shared.

The United States Supreme Court has now clearly been peopled by and its future rulings dictated by the dark money and power about which we hear very little. It has come that much closer to total rule.

There should have been lots of light shone onto what is happening in that corner by the recent award given to Attorney General William Barr by the dark money forces within and around the Catholic Church.

Very little has appeared in the major media about Barr’s award and even less about Barr’s affiliation with Opus Dei. Opus Dei seems to be an organization whose ethics and morality justify the dealings of people like Attorney General William Barr, Michael Pence, Donald Trump and their associates, friends and supporters. Instead of lacking sleep at night, they can sleep soundly because their particularized religious beliefs and organization justifies the immoral and unethical way they function in this life. It is rumored that Opus Dei sits on the right side of the Pope, right across from the Jesuits. We thought there would be more comments on this award by the Jesuits, but there is almost total silence coming from their group.

That award solidifies the unethical, vulgar, immoral tenets which have been published as the foundational beliefs of Opus Dei.

All of our religious groups can be divided into believers and those who dress themselves up in the beliefs of that religion and attempt to get their wants and wishes known and promulgated by others to their benefit.

In the case of the Supreme Court, there is enormous benefit to corporate America for “dark money” and its brotherly government to have major control of this highest court in the country. Most of us have had Russia and Putin thrown in our eyes and ears in major ways while silence was kept around this group as it made its way to more and substantial power.

Trump has, no doubt, been seriously funded by such groups with the understanding that he would not miss an opportunity to move the court’s of this country in the direction in which dark money wants them to go – and in this Trump has been enormously successful. Mitch McConnell has apparently made it his lifetime work to see that such happens. He wants to retire and die a very wealthy man. Given the way he has sold his country to the dark money forces he should be immensely wealthy.

We have been subjected to many articles and much propaganda against Russia and how it has interfered in our election and how this Russian interference is going to destroy the United States and substantially change its constitution on which it was founded in the direction of a horrendously evil dictatorship. Almost nothing on the ways in which Opus Dei has intervened and brought about the wishes of the dark money and government under which we are now operating more and more each day.

As we looked at that, we know for sure Russia interfered in the United States election and on the side of Donald Trump, but its power to bring about the kind of change that happened and is happening is beyond its power. Russia is a country with a very small economy, after all and oligarchs who have some wealth and influence, but that pales compared to what we are seeing and how dark money and its ‘owners’ have drastically changed this country over decades. Russia’ interference has been merely a deflection and distraction taking us away from the real powers that have changed this country and put its movement towards democracy in peril.

We have had two governments in these United States for decades – the government which follows the structure, desires, priorities of corporate America and the Republic, which is the government under which we think we are functioning.

We are in a crisis over climate change because of the out of control greed of the dark government and its money and influence and greed. The United States Supreme Court has been restructured thanks to the dark government and its money under which we have been living. Racism, sexism, LGBTQ rights, and so many more bigotries which develop, take hold and destroy are maintained in these United States and are intransigent because they do not fit the vision of this dark government and its money – that is a white, northern european group and means to maintain itself and those under its sway as “better than” whoever else tries to come up to equality with their kind.

What better way to develop such a country than through slavery – when human beings were the activators and producers of wealth and power? Tens of thousands of people working for free with only a filthy, hunger filled, terror filled life for a few hundred years – unbreakable because of this dark government and dark money under which we have lived.

When that was no longer the best way to go and the industrial revolution happened – more than Africans were enslaved to this new way to govern so this revolution would develop to the aggrandizement of the dark government that has ruled this country almost since its beginnings.

When Donald Trump talks about the “deep state” – listen to him for he knows of what he speaks. However, he is pointing in the wrong direction using the concept under which we have been enslaved, but attributing it to those who know nothing about or only have seconds of a fleeting glimpse of the “deep state’ of dark money and government under which we are oppressed.

Think that has ended? It has only intensified. Look at the obscene amounts of money “earned” by those in this dark government pulling the strings so that its wishes, needs, continued exponential growth would continue during this pandemic. What is it now in the United States economy? 99% of the people are actually enslaved, having had returned to them for their livelihood decreasing amounts of the wealth they created? New tools are being created so the 1% can “earn” 99% of the wealth they did not create and had nothing to do with except take credit.

This is the environment in with these United States are now functioning. The dark government has created its Supreme Court using immense amounts of dark money and have set up stooges to blame – Donald Trump, Russia, Vladimir Putin and on and on and on.

Because the actual facts of what is happening are obscured from most, we walk around fighting for our survival on a decent economic and other level and defeat our own fight by buying the garbage we are fed as truth. Look around with an open mind and it is there for you to see.

When that part of the Catholic Church embraces, promotes and works towards a new world giving awards to Bill Barr for the work he has done and praising him for his “Christlike behavior” we can’t help but think of the Protestants who held up Jerry Falwell, Jr. the president of Liberty University with similar claims. That gave Falwell time to organize and bring into Trump’s sphere those like him in this far right wing area of the Christian Church. Most with the same sexual proclivities as Falwell – and Trump – and so many others in this group.

Today and yesterday and the day before it was clear that these men who were being honored all shared a sexual deviancy which really needs to be explored.

William James talked about two types of “religious belief”. One brought on fervently by feelings of sexuality which mask as feelings of religiosity and another by real feelings of commitment to take the walk of Christ and others in different religions who are held up as their real “saviors”.

What is it in human beings that we trash our saviors and honor those who trash humanity because their own selfish, immoral and destructive needs take precedent.

Those being so honored by the “Church” need to be closely examined because the “Christian Church” particularly has always been divided into those that serve the “empire” and those that serve the Christ. And that division has existed almost from its very beginnings. Isn’t that why someone with Bill Barr’s background and decisions he has made in life have earned for him this Christifidelis Laici Award? Not from his walk with Christ or from his walk following Christ’s path, but from his walk with a disguised Satan fulfilling his most devious, seditious desires and crowning him with money, power and the ability to blind himself to his own sins and sinful nature?

Sadly, many of us buy into what is being sold to us by Cardinal O’Malley. For political power it seems to us Cardinal O’Malley has sold his faith to the highest bidder and is doing whatever he can to insure the re-election of Donald Trump. And that side of the Catholic Church has caused the entire Church to suffer from the results of the sexual abuse and assault and more it allowed without being called before the cross to account for their ways.

Don’t be fooled into thinking this Supreme Court issue is about abortion. Abortion is only a word being used to bring along the gullible. it is a bread crumb for the masses to share.

This is about power, wealth and control. There has always been and probably always will be a group in the Christian Church, both Catholic and Protestant, and in other religious faiths who gain power, wealth and control-over using the faith and belief of the many.

Attorney O’Sullivan – who is the attorney for Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services was given an award by Archbishop O’Malley for the “great work” he has done for the elderly.

Looking back over this Bettina Network Blog you will see some of that work and what it is really about – for the elderly? or for the divestment of the elderly from their assets; the incarceration of the elderly under horrible conditions in nursing homes and other such institutions; ripping the elderly from their families so this can be done quickly and quietly; silencing the major media outlets so this will not be reported on and will be unknown to most; making a path to be trod by the likes of Donald Trump, Cardinal O’Malley and others. And an award to be given to those who do this work.

What is most amazing – those doing this kind of work don’t learn and are almost never converted. A few thousand years have passed in Christendom and there are still those who followed the Roman Emperor in taking up the banner of Christianity and dragging it through the dirt, the slime, the filth of heresy – adultery – sexual assault against children – and so much more with this branch of Christendom giving the awards to these seeming adherents so their immorality will succeed and making the lives of true believers who are actually walking the path Christ walked a walk of martyrdom. Those walking that real Christlike path threaten those walking the path of greed, power, injustice.

William James talked about two types of “religious belief”. One brought on fervently by feelings of sexuality which mask as feelings of religiosity and another by real feelings of commitment to take the walk of Christ, Muhammed, Moses, Krishna, Buddha and others in different religions who are held up as their real “saviors”.

God forgive us, but we still need such people because we only respond to that kind of all out sacrifice and our response doesn’t last long. In Boston during the King era, many sacrificed to integrate the schools to see that children of all colors, creeds, would get a decent education. Today, the schools that were so “integrated” are now all-Black schools with the same problems schools had in the 1950’s and 60’s. It didn’t take long for all of that sacrifice to be turned back as though it had not happened.

The creators of dark money, dark government, dark corporate structures and so much more soon pop up and evolve to take over because they appeal to our greed, our power needs, our weak egos so we follow that group basking in a reflection of their power – which we never feel and can never join and are never welcomed into their bosoms, but we are satisfied to be those who sacrifice ourselves so the worst amongst us may live this grandiose life style. And so we have the coming about of the presidency of Donald J. Trump.

How long, O God, must be live with our sinful natures making such grand strides to the detriment of ourselves and others. Deliver us O God, and soon.

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Guardianship is a Civil Rights issue and evil!

Wednesday, September 9th, 2020

As we have moved along trying to understand all that happened with Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett, whose life was almost destroyed by Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services and its hangers on, we have come to realize that RACISM – SEXISM – ANTI-SEMITISM – and more are where the targets are aimed in this new area, discovered by those who are determined to keep bigotry as a part of this United States.

Slavery gave way to Jim Crowism. Jim Crowism gave way to Structural Racism. Structural Racism is giving way to a really vile kind of bigotry in the Health Industry where Guardianship is one of the star performers destined to keep slavery, jim crow and structural racism around for an eternity.

It is within the Health Industry where a person can be picked up by the police for no reason and have their lives ruined because of a number of reasons none related to your health. The kind of police power given to the health industry with no safe-guards is astounding. It is an area rife for the arrival and take-over of that industry and its institutions by a strong mafia.

The way there are no guard rails around Guardianship is unbelievable. The end of many minorities lives has been made a living hell by those who see themselves able to benefit financially from pushing into the lives of strangers and wrecking havoc for a few dollars.

Dr. Rebecca Warner needs to have her license to practice psychiatry seriously investigated and probably revoked.

With no prior psychiatric problems of any kind, Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett found himself in Mass General Hospital being given things like anti-psychotic medications, hallucinatory drugs and a whole lot more on a daily basis. This to a man with no psychiatric problems. The attempt to turn a fairly health man into an incapacitated sub-human was done exquisitely by Dr. Warner.

Remember – Rev. Dr. Bennett was not there for health reasons. The police went to his house and picked him up to incarcerate him in the hospital on a Section 12 – with no reason – except for the paper signed by Dr. Rebecca Warner who made the disclaimer with her signature that she did not know Robert Bennet, had never met him, never examined him, never been to his house and yet she signed for the police to pick him up and force him into the hospital to be psychiatrically examined because under the Section 12 she deemed him a threat to society and/or to himself.

He was supposed to be forced into Mount Auburn Hospital, which is apparently very amenable to and – on information and belief – have been practitioners of this ‘Guardianship Game” for quite some time. Instead, his wife insisted he go to MGH where the Section 12 was lifted because he should not have been so forced into a hospitable on such charges in the first place. So he was sent home.

Two days later the police arrived again at his house, this time to incarcerate him in MGH with the claim that his wife was “medically abusive” to him. This was introduced to the court without telling the court about the discharge of Rev. Dr. Bennett from the hospital just two days prior. This group of criminal conspirators were not to be rejected. They had a pattern to put in place and follow and nothing would deter them. Lying – cheating – trying to steal a man’s life for the financial or career gains that would accrue to them – fair game.

At MGH Dr. Rebecca Warner arrived and did what she was supposed to do at Mount Auburn Hospital, but didn’t have the chance because Dr. Bennett went to MGH and had been discharged with “no medicines prescribed” and all vitals in the normal range including blood pressure.

At Mount Auburn Hospital, they were waiting for the arrival of Dr. Bennett under the Section 12 to consign him to their psychiatric wing. There would be no examination, nothing just send him off. They would not have “lifted” the Section 12 at Mount Auburn Hospital because that was the start of the road to “incapacitating” Dr. Bennett. To drain his assets he had to be incapacitated, sent to a nursing home for the rest of his life as unable to be assisted to live any kind of life except tied to a bed. The court papers all say – not even with the help of all of the new technology

Unfortunately, he is not the only African American who has experienced what he has been forced through over the past several months. There have been many and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts needs to investigate what is going on with its Protective Services people.

Blacks, Jews, Latina’s have all been so incarcerated.

What had Dr. Bennett done wrong? He lived in the wrong neighborhood in the wrong house. A house that had been “red-lined” and we believe still is.

In addition, he and his wife and some in their circle of friends, consultants, business associates have been and still are very outspoken and have consistently and for months published how they see Donald Trump running these United States into the ground.

They have lived in the Harvard Square neighborhood for some 37 years and have had to fight, all of those years, some of their neighbors who wanted that African American couple gone. Interestingly enough, almost no African Americans have moved into their neighborhood in all of that time. When they see someone dark of color they discover they are Harvard related and live in Shaler Lane or in another house owned by Harvard, thus assuring the neighbors they will not be permanent neighbors and will not be involved in whatever decisions and community that happens.

Acceptable as a place to live in the Harvard Square area is on the other side of Harvard Square – Definitely not the Brattle Street side.

They put their house on the market for sale. When they decided against selling and took the house off the market, some folks in their neighborhood went crazy. Finally, they thought, their neighborhood was going to ‘lighten’. Instead the ‘darkness’ stayed.

That is only one reason and one example for Guardianship being a Civil Rights issue. There are many more and unfortunately this is becoming true across the country.

Blacks you cannot touch because they are not criminals, not accused criminally can be brought into the criminal justice system and can be picked up and forced out of their homes by the police with just the signature of a willing psychiatrist and Dr. Rebecca Warner turned out to be such a person for the Donaldson/Bennett’s.

Jews are also targeted in this Guardianship scheme – which we consider a criminal conspiracy. The anti-semitism around Jews has to do with the propaganda that Jews actually rule the world – have all the money – and are constantly grabbing for more. That negative stereotype goes on, but I am sure you are completely aware of it.

Immigrants, especially are becoming targets of these schemes to gain Guardianship over and then deplete and draw down the assets of minorities so their next generation does not have the “push” from being left assets to begin to move ‘Up” financially and otherwise in this society.

The hard work of that first generation of immigrants is well known as the way to the American Dream tor their children, grandchildren and more down the generations. Stop that – with the Guardianship conspiracy which has overtaken and felled many immigrant families.

Las Vegas, Nevada seems to be the headquarters for such evil. But it can be found in many states and spreading fast.

In Massachusetts, the Courts – which we believe is the headquarters these days for the Irish Mafia – has been developing a very sophisticated system to strip families of their future inheritance by incarcerating their parents using “Guardianship”.

MA. Health is a supporter of this scheme and they do a fantastic job of ripping assets from families – are they a health insurer or are they a very vicious bill collector. Whatever, their structure totally supports this Guardianship criminal conspiracy.

And what will the state do about that? DENY? Investigate itself and find itself clean and not involved?

Don’t be ignorant – Don’t go along to get along – know what is happening in your neighborhood and to those you know and love. Take action and demand that those being so discriminated against be listened to and made whole – one day, that could be you.

John Lewis – “Well done my good and faithful servant.”

Monday, August 3rd, 2020

by: Marceline Donaldson and: Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett

When all the words have been spoken, the tributes paid, the memories shared, the pictures passed around, there is one that we believe will stand out for an eternity. That is the picture of John Lewis just days before his death standing in the middle of the Black Lives Mural.

What George Floyd accelerated opened eternity’s door to give John Lewis a view into tomorrow in the Civil Rights Movement to which he devoted his life. What one man can achieve in the space of just 80 years is an awesome tribute and example for those who work in God’s vineyards with seriousness of intent following what they are on this earth to achieve – the bringing about of God’s Kingdom.

May all of our lives, as we labor in the vineyards, produce much that follows the same example. It is so easy to be distracted and to be turned around to serve that other which oppresses us and pushes us to spend our lives looking into the mirror instead of out the window.

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Responses from Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Members!

Saturday, July 4th, 2020

Member 1

Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett is the second African American – that we know of – who has had a negative interaction with the police. He is the second African American who had done nothing even remotely criminal and yet the police came to his house twice and forced him out and incarcerated him. The second time for five weeks.

The first we heard about was “Skip” Gates.. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder.

The attempt was to arrest Skip Gates. There are now pictures in the papers which show him on his porch in handcuffs with the police standing around.

Even if they could not be held, their images could be tarnished and it gives jokes among white supremacists.

And, by the way, how come the police in Cambridge, Ma. are becoming whiter along with Blacks being “arrested” for no reason.

Why was Gates “arrested”? For breaking and entering into his own home.

And Bennett? To be “sectioned” at the local and apparently ‘going along with the program’ hospital. He who had never had a hint of any kind of mental problems was picked up by the police, forced into the hospital to be psychiatrically examined because he was considered a threat to the public. Someone who might do harm to those around and about.

Both are living in areas of Cambridge which are known to be “for white patrons only.” It is an area which traditionally was and is “red lined.”

Rev. Dr. Bennett lives in that area and he is not Harvard connected. Well, except for a Harvard doctorate, however, he was supposed to live in faculty housing so the neighborhood would be confident he and his family would be moving along once he retired. Disappointed and having to come to grips with the reality of where they lived, they decided to sell their house, but then took the house off the market. Shortly thereafter white anger was unleashed and this is the result?

Member 2

What is incredibly disturbing in what I have read about all the things happening to Rev. Bennett is the fact that he had a probate attorney draw up a Health Care Proxy – which we are all advised to do – and that was drawn up months before he went into the hospital for surgery. Apparently, a judge, at the request of an attorney- who really seems ‘sketchy’ – invalidated that Health Care Proxy and put in its place a Health Care Proxy that Rev. Bennett did not want, had not signed, with a proxy he did not want and that Health Care Proxy was the reason Rev. Bennett had this new Health Care Proxy drawn up. Rev. Bennett was forced by the judge’s decision to have that proxy. Rev. Bennett apparently tried to correct that awfulness by having a probate attorney draw up a Health Care Proxy which invalidated the one he knew nothing about and the Court validated that proxy – the one not signed by Rev. Bennett, one he did not know existed and invalidated the one he clearly wanted. It is mind blowing! Are our attorneys and court that crooked? That said clearly to me this is all about setting up the situation to rip off Rev. Bennett’s assets and not about anything else.

Attorneys who have no ethics about what they are doing and who possibly have hidden interests in so doing can change our wishes to what benefits those attorneys and their clients. What kind of court system do we have? The way it is developing is that of an extreme dictatorship that wants to present a good “front” with no problems letting such things happen. Sadly, some folks have discovered the pots of gold at the end of United States citizens lives and have figured out how to put those citizens into extreme pain, make the end of their lives a torture and wind up with everything they managed to save so that end of life would be decently lived.

People who do not have endless money to be able to hire attorneys to go to court for as long as is necessary to correct this horrible wrong are at the mercy of tainted courts and -should we say ‘crooked’ attorneys? Even then, I suspect it would be a waste of money because the first attorney and judge did ugly things. Isn’t that illegal? Shouldn’t that be illegal? And what recourse do you have except continuing in court – bleeding money to attorneys – and even then – nothing.

Keep publishing. We need to know these things!

This entire thing has upset me and my family unbelievably because we have a probate attorney we hired to make sure we were all covered with what we need and want for those times we might not be able to or not allowed to control our own lives and this says to me that was just a waste of time and money. Money well into four figures. The court and an attorney can invalidate all of it in seconds.

Whatever happened to the United States and its honest court system? Was there ever such a thing and we only knew the image and not the reality?

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Member 3

Thank you for all of your postings about what is happening to Rev. Dr. Bennett. I was a student of his years ago and it grieves me to see what he is going through today.

He is a lovely person. Very quiet, self-effacing and extremely shy!

I was a student at EDS at the time and took his Hebrew Bible Class and a class on Racism he co-taught with his wife, Marceline Donaldson. They also taught that class at Trinity Episcopal Church in Boston, but it was more complete at Episcopal Divinity School.

At the time, when they invited the class to tea at their home, my thoughts were – one day this community is going to attempt to destroy them. They were the only African Americans owning a home in that neighborhood and I knew a few of their neighbors who were not happy with “those folks” living close to them. Besides their comments to me, they smiled nicely when they encountered the couple. I know that because I was with them when one of the neighbors greeted us. They didn’t know Dr. Bennett and his wife so I introduced them. I was so shocked at their response – smiling, lovely, welcoming and just two days prior they were bitter in their comments to me about “such people” living so close.

If there is any way I can help, please let me know. They can’t be left alone in this fight because it is one that affects us all.

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Member 4

My husband and I have been calling Robert and Marceline who we have known for years. At first, I could not believe what was happening to them. After some thought, I realized the same could happen to any of us. My work has made me aware of the result beginnings of these Guardianship Corporations which fly under the banner of “helping the elderly who are alone”. We had one problem in our church with a member who was fairly well off and all of a sudden was embroiled with one of these Guardianship groups trying to take them over. It became clear that they were trying to take over and drain off their assets.

Given what we went through with that family, please know that we are here to do whatever we can for Marceline and Robert. They have always been a very beautiful couple. Their sense of humor with each other is great! It is a shame that this is what they are experiencing at this time of life.

We are praying for them – however, we also want to know what else we can do. My husband thought about organizing a group in the church to work with them and keep that group going after their problems are solved to work with others in the same place.

Stay in touch and please keep those write-ups coming so we all can keep up with what is happening with Dr. Bennett and his wife. When I receive mine I send it around to as many people as I can think of who would be interested and the feed back has been dynamite.

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Member 5

Reading about all of this it is startling and very disturbing.

We have pictures of Skip Gates – from Harvard University – in handcuffs on his own porch – being arrested by the police for breaking and entering his own home?

And now we have Robert Bennett picked up in a huge drama, which we watched and were appalled at the Cambridge Police for allowing themselves to be so used. Or – were they a part of this whole drama before it happened and were attempting what was attempted with Skip Gates?

Do you realize how the Cambridge and Boston police are becoming “whiter”? Now that we are decades away from what caused these areas to attempt to diversify their police force, that has gradually slipped away and we see the whitening now happening. Will we now see more of this happening in Cambridge? Clearly, African Americans can be picked up in Cambridge, by the police, even though there is not even a hint of criminality involved and they can be imprisoned for indefinite periods of time for no reason. And what happens after that? Any and All Americans can be picked up in Cambridge, by the police, even though there is not even a hint of criminality involved and they can be imprisoned for indefinite periods of time for no reason. Do you doubt that? After this, I don’t!

I guess we consider ourselves so influential that we can make those same African Americans pay for their own imprisonment. Isn’t that what happened with Robert Bennett? I would love to know who paid for all of this? Hopefully, not my tax money and hopefully not the Bennett’s insurance money. Either way I am getting ready to protest all of this somehow.

If you are all sleeping and not paying attention to this and not intervening to make these things stop you could be next. I was raised with the saying – Nazi Germany is what happened because good people did nothing. You are seeing the same thing happening in these United States and what are you doing about it?

#BlackLivesMatter

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SCES now trying for Guardianship over Rev. Dr. Bennett

Wednesday, April 29th, 2020

They don’t want financial oversight, but they do want to be able to “spend down funds” to pay for Rev. Dr. Bennett’s care. Where do these people come from? They also want the Court to give them the right to give Dr. Bennett anti-psychotic medicine. Doctors have given up their rights to prescribe to the Court? Or is this what happens when there is no diagnosis and the lawyers and others want to medicate patients. Their arrogance is overwhelming to come out of the blue to take over your life when they are incompetent, lie extensively, and so much more. How does one move to ask that an attorney be disbarred and others be removed and the organization be investigated with its management totally replaced or the organization disbanded with some other way of doing what it was supposed to do, but found too many personal conflicts?

 This was sent to the TRIAL COURT OF MASSACHUSETTS          

Why are we making this public? Because we have found too many “secrets” and “under the table dealings” and “Court hearings with only one side knowing of the hearing in spite of a law saying otherwise” and hearing “there are exceptions” – hearing one side of a request where a person’s freedom is at stake should not qualify as an exception. We have also discovered that Health Care Proxy’s are not worth the paper on which they are written. They are invalidated and another put in its place if the persons involved are not as malleable as they should be to rip offs of assets over which people are drooling. Sounds harsh? Yes, we are angry at having to spend our lives and assets on Court actions that come out of the blue and never should have been filed or even listened to with any seriousness by the Court. Is this an example of the Trumpian effect on the Court’s. We didn’t vote for him – nor would we vote for anyone even closely resembling Donald Trump. 

What follows is the response to a motion filed for Guardianship over Robert Bennett filed on behalf of Somerville Cambridge Protective and Elder Services by Attorney James O’Sullivan whose firm represents such Elder Services groups across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

How did they get this far? Through lies, deceptions, manipulation of the Court and more.

Their request is that Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett’s guardianship be placed under the Jewish Center for Family and Children and he be sent by them to a Hebrew Nursing Home – who is this Dr. Bennett? A retired Episcopal priest.  Dr. Bennett does not need nor want any guardianship over him. These people pushed into his life from out of the blue to take it over – why is this “indigent man” being so oppressed, put under such pressure, taken forcibly out of his home for no reason, etc. etc.? You answer that question about this African American who, though being “indigent” as these people claim, lives in the Brattle Street area of Harvard Square and no, he does not live on the street as homeless although they are trying very hard to make that possible.

_______The answer to the motion which has been filed with the Trial Court of Massachusetts follows: Any lawyers interested, please let us know

___________________________________                          

On information and belief these petitions are a part of a criminal conspiracy against Robert Bennett and his family and need to be tried in a different Court.

 
In response to this particular motion: 
Their #3 says: “Robert Bennett is an incapacitated person in that Robert Bennett suffers from profound deficits resulting from severe traumatic brain injury.  He has poor concentration and memory and extremely poor insight and judgment about his current and most basic needs and is at great risk of falling and additional brain injury.”

 Our response to their #3.  Robert Bennett is not an incapacitated person.  Attorney Sullivan, Ms. Nora Al-Wetaid, Ms. Angela Clary, unamed MGH medical personnel, Somerville-Cambridge Elder Services, inc. and unnamed others participated in an orchestrated attempt to put Robert Bennett in the condition Attorney O’Sullivan claims is Robert Bennett’s current condition.  They were unsuccessful in their attempt because of the response of Robert Bennett’s family and because of Robert Bennett’s genes and lifestyle before this began.

 
Robert Bennett survived the attempts to destroy his health and his wealth  by the above named people partially because of his genes, his diet, his care of his health over the decades and more.

  
He is today a person who walks a mile a day; knows who he is and where he is; has friends who know his current condition and are ready to testify to such to this and any other Court; cares for himself; has health indicators taken over the past two weeks i.e. blood pressure, oxygen levels, temperature and more within the normal range; lives in a house which has three floors and Robert Bennett is up and down those three floors many times a day without any indication of risk of falling, etc.  He also attends to his own most basic needs and still is able to help others as he has done his entire life.

 
He reads, has good concentration, insight and judgment as can be testified to by several witnesses who have seen him, interact with him,  work with him in his business as they have for decades and have seen him currently as well as over the years.


Robert Bennett is in that position and condition in spite of the way Attorney O’Sullivan and others have attempted to destroy him, his health and his wealth for several months, including in the filing of such Court actions distorting reality and making claims which are bogus and meant to mislead and which in addition have lied to this Court to gain their end.  They have been doing this from the beginnings of their first filings in this matter starting March 2nd or 3rd, 2020.

 
4.  Their filing continues “The appointment of a temporary guardian is necessary or desirable as a means of providing continuing care and supervision of Robert Bennett.”

 
Our response to their #4. Robert Bennett does not need a temporary guardian, in spite of the attempts by Attorney O’Sullivan and the above people to put him in such a condition by involuntary and forced incarceration in Mass General Hospital more than once on the same psychiatric claim.    

The first “section 12” which Attorney O’Sullivan filed on behalf of Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services which formally began this criminal conspiracy against Robert Bennett to rob him of his freedom, with his right to vote taken away from him in spite of his request to be allowed to vote on March 3rd.  His ability to do so by this incarceration took that right away.  

This was an attempt to declare him psychotic – among other claims – none of which held up on this first forced incarceration and time spent in Mass General Hospital from March 3rd about 10:30am until being discharged by MGH on March 4th at 3:30am with “vital signs normal and no medicines prescribed”.

                                    That first forced incarceration under a section 12 which was signed, as required, by a psychologist, who also said she had never met Robert Bennett, never examined Robert Bennett, never been to Robert Bennett’s house and yet she signed for this African American man to be picked up and forced out of his home to be forcibly incarcerated at MGH against his will and the will of his family. 

Attorney O’Suollivan’s intent can be seen by the fact that eight white policemen, accompanied by five or six EMT people with two ambulances on the street outside Dr. Bennett’s home, with a hospital gurney on the sidewalk surrounded by police and EMT’s waiting for Dr. Bennett to be brought out and forced into the gurney was beyond overkill unless you were orchestrating a racist trope. 
 

Robert Bennett, who was quite capable of walking, talking, being aware of his life and surroundings was not allowed to go to MGH any way other than being forcibly laid on the gurney, put in an ambulance and brought to MGH tied down on such gurney.   

It was a circus and show for the neighborhood and those within range of Robert Bennett’s home to such an extent people were running from the Charles River to Robert Bennett’s home to watch what was happening.  It was demeaning, disgraceful, degrading, humiliating, shameful, undignified, belittling, contemptuous, debasing, decrying and denigrative. which Attorney O’Sullivan along with the others involved caused knowingly in what has unfolded as an extensive criminal conspiracy to deprive Robert Bennett of his freedom and lock him into a hospital, which they apparently expected to deteriorate his condition to that described by Attorney O’Sullivan in this and other motions.  It was also a criminal conspiracy meant to forcibly remove Robert Bennett from his home and neighborhood.  It was a racist trope even Hollywood would not believe happened in 2020. 

5.  Their filing continues:  “Robert Bennett’s needs cannot be met by less restrictive means, including the use of appropriate and reasonably available technological assistance.” 

After the first forced incarceration under a section 12 was dismissed by MGH with Robert Bennett being discharged in less than 24 hours after he was forcibly detained and forced into the hospital by all of the police called to carry out this “section 12” – Attorney O’Sullivan and those participating in this conspiracy had Robert Bennett, an African American citizen of these United States, a graduate of Harvard University Graduate School of Arts with a doctorate in his field, having established a substantial career including even to the day of his first forced incarceration into MGH.

This action removed him from his home without cause by abusing the police, the Court, debasing the intended and correct use of “section 12” and more to affect the criminal conspiracy that is still being attempted.  This motion by Attorney O’Sullivan on behalf of those who are a part of this criminal conspiracy is not about the appointment of a temporary guardian, but is `a part of carrying out of that conspiracy.

 
The conspiracy being mentioned and outlined in Ms. Al-Wetaid’s first affidavit to which she swore under pains and penalties of perjury, which she and James O’Sullivan used to push their way into Dr. Bennett’s family by recruiting people to join, telling them not the truth of the situation, but a version which would allow them to participate easing their conscience as they moved extensively against this African American man and his family. 

6.  Their filing continues:  “Immediate and substantial harm to the health, safety or welfare of Robert Bennett will likely result prior to the return date, and it appears that no other suitable person has authority to act in the circumstances.” 


This is another one of Attorney O’Sullivan’s misleadings of the Court with descriptions to the Court to justify his requests which are not rooted in fact, but in the story telling needed to continue and move along the criminal conspiracy to deprive Dr. Bennett of his freedom, his wealth, his health, separate him from his wife, and life through being incarcerated against his will while his health and wealth and life do actually disappear.

 Dr. Bennett’s life actually being threatened by this request that he be incarcerated in a nursing home, with others making decisions over him and his life in an environment which is producing many dead and/or infected by the coronavirus which has a rate of such deaths and infections in nursing homes substantially above that in the overall society.

  
Robert Bennett is living at home and has been for several weeks and is thriving from having been removed from MGH after his family, friends and acquaintances moved to bring what was happening in MGH to the attention of those higher up at MGH.

 
Robert Bennett has lived and continues to live with his family, has a large group of friends with whom he and his wife interact on a regular basis.  They are correct in saying “there is no other suitable person having authority to act in the circumstances” if they mean no other person capable of piercing that family circle to continue their attempts to destroy Robert Bennett’s health and wealth as they have attempted to do.

  
The people around Robert Bennett are concerned about protecting him from the likes of those engaged in this criminal conspiracy to keep them from further harming Robert Bennett – who has lost five weeks of his life and much more incarcerated in MGH confined to a space seven feet by nine feet having no access to a window to even be able to look outside let alone to be outside having the window in the two bed room cut off from him via a curtain.  

In addition, having been kept in bed during that time with alarms under him in the bed and going from the bed to a chair which was alarmed also so nurses could move quickly to make sure Robert Bennett was not allowed out of bed, it is clear what that kind of incarceration would do to an 87 year old human being who is accustomed to being up and about, taking care of himself, walking on a daily basis, jogging on occasion and bicycle riding on other occasions – there is no one in Robert Bennett’s circle of family and friends who would act in such a way to continue the destruction of Robert Bennett started by Attorney O’Sullivan and his group of conspirators.  

It is clear what Attorney O’Sullivan, who with Ms. Nora Al-Wetaid caused that incarceration under those circumstances expected their and the actions of others in their conspiratorial group to produce.

 
The intent was clearly to destroy the health of Dr. Bennett during that time in MGH.  But for having very good genes and having lived a life free of alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, with no hint of mental problems of any kind Robert Bennett may not have survived such treatment or if he did, that survival would be the kind of life Attorney O’Sullivan has prepared for Robert Bennett to move him out of his home and neighborhood into one more “appropriate” for this African American man.

 
7.  Their filing continues: “Robert Bennett needs to be immediately placed in a nursing facility in order to protect his health, safety and welfare.”

 
Attorney O’Sullivan and those in this group of conspirators threatened Robert Bennett’s family – especially his wife – with all the things they would do to them if they didn’t do what they were told.  They were threatened with Attorney O’Sullivan sending Robert Bennett to an “Hebrew nursing home” with his guardianship under a Jewish Center for family and children if the family did not follow his orders. – This they considered a substantial threat to a retired Episcopal priest and his family.

 
Most people will recognize that as a very bigoted trope which goes along with the eight white policemen forcing an African American man out of his home in a very white only neighborhood where the institutions, including the banks had a policy of ‘red-lining’ to maintain the whiteness of the neighborhood.

 
With the advent of our current politicians, it is now possible to attempt to remove those like Robert Bennett and return this society to what it was in the 1950’s on behalf of – on information and belief – those recently moving into that neighborhood who were surprised to find their neighbors on the corner to be African American.  This particular trope, Jews over Blacks,  is and has been commonly used to “divide and conquer”.

 
To immediately place Robert Bennett in a nursing facility would not protect his health, safety and welfare, especially in this time of coronavirus.  Instead it would be an almost sure death sentence given the conditions and what is happening in most nursing homes around the country.  In East Boston, the elderly have been “locked in” as they have been in most parts of Massachusetts insuring that Robert Bennett would once again be cut off from his family and friends as he was in MGH.

 
During the time Robert Bennett was incarcerated in MGH he was not allowed to have any visitors, he was not allowed telephone calls from anyone except a couple who were certified “safe” and most likely a part of this conspiracy and his wife was not allowed to visit except for three times during his five week stay and then only for 1/2 hour each time and only with a Security Guard and Policeman present.  She was threatened many times by the Security Guards one of whom threatened to physically throw her out of MGH if she didn’t leave immediately when she arrived to spend the supposedly allowed 1/2 hour with Robert Bennett, her husband of 36 years.   Everyone who knows them will testify to the fact that it was and is a loving, caring relationship where they take care of each other as they have done during that entire period of time.

 
8.  Their filing says:  “The name and address of any agent designated under a health care proxy is as follows: uncertain at this time.”

 
Using the health care proxy is one important way Attorney O’Sullivan and his group have controlled Robert Bennett and the lack of care he has received.

 
There is a Health Care Proxy which should be operational.  Robert Bennett had a Health Care Proxy drawn up by probate attorney Don McInnis and it was signed by Robert Bennett on November 18, 2019.  Attorney O’Sullivan and all others know this to be true and have done everything they could do to cloud this issue because Robert Bennett’s wife is who Robert Bennett named as his health care proxy.

  
On information and belief Attorney O’Sullivan and those involved in his group lied to the Court about Robert Bennett’s Health Care Proxy because it was to their advantage and to the intent of the criminal conspiracy to cloud and discredit Robert Bennett’s wife as much as possible and they declared – especially in the signed affidavit of Ms. Nora Al-Wetaid –  that Robert Bennett was not conscious of what he was doing when he signed the Health Care Proxy which Attorney O’Sullivan asked the Court in March 4th or 5th to invalidate and put in its place a Health Care Proxy which Robert Bennett himself had invalidated and which caused Robert Bennett to ask Attorney McInnis to prepare a Health Care Proxy for Robert Bennett to sign.

  
Attorney O’Sullivan completely misled the Court during his March 4th or 5th request to this Court for a “Protective Order” which he used to keep Robert Bennett incarcerated in MGH along with a “section 12” all of which became the central part around which this criminal conspiracy evolved.  The section 12 was never lifted because it was never addressed by the MGH people.   Robert Bennett was forced to take pills which he did not want and did not know what they were for or what they were.

  
There were five to ten pills per day given to Dr. Bennett – which he was forced to take none of which were prescribed and all were ‘over the counter’ medicines.   A couple were psychotropic drugs which caused Dr. Bennett to hallucinate while in the hospital which was of major concern to Dr. Bennett and a couple others were so difficult for him when they were sent home with him to continue this regime of non-prescribed over the counter drugs which he did not want nor need it was horrendous to watch how painful it was for him to take a couple of the over the counter pills because of his negative reaction to them.  Robert Bennett was only let out of the hospital if his family agreed to continue giving him these pills and would accept the visit of six or more home health people from the Blissful Agency, who were to continue giving Dr. Bennett these drugs.   
Dr. Bennett’s family were not allowed to choose the health care agency they would want to work with, they were told only the Blissful Agency was acceptable.

 
Both Robert Bennett and his wife were very concerned with all of the people who would be going and coming in and out of their home with the threat of bringing the virus with each person entering or leaving the house, especially considering their age.  They were told that this was the only way Dr. Bennett would be allowed to go to his home.  If they did not accept that, he would be sent immediately to a nursing home since he had to leave the hospital no matter what. MGH social workers assured them they would not catch the coronavirus in spite of having so many different people going back and forth in their home.  It was a horrendous time for everyone in the family knowing that it was very possible either one or both could very well come down with the coronavirus under the circumstances thrust upon them by MGH.

 
He was sent home to his wife with the Protective Order still overhanging them with the refusal to remove it by Attorney O’Sullivan who – on information and belief – intended to use it against them at some point in the near future.  MGH Social Workers asked Robert Bennett’s son to come to Boston to spend a week to pick up Dr. Bennett from the hospital to bring him home and to stay with the family for the rest of the week.  After that, they were told, they could go home and things would be fine.

They asked Dr. Bennett’s son to choose – stay home and shelter in place as he and his wife had been doing and turn his back on his father, or risk getting the coronavirus and go to Cambridge to get his father out of MGH.

  
The agreement was that Dr. Bennett would be sent home and would not be harassed by those who had done the harassing in the past, however, two days after Dr. Bennett was released from the hospital, Attorney O’Sullivan served this motion to have Dr. Bennett placed under guardianship by the Jewish Center for Family and Children and suggested that he would then be sent by them to a Hebrew Nursing Home along with other motions and threats made by Attorney O’Sullivan which he is in the process of carrying out because neither Robert Bennett or his wife would, once again, apply for Mass Health at Attorney O’Sullivans’ demand that they do so.

  
In spite of spending much time protecting her husband and making sure he was healthy and safe, Attorney O’Sullivan and Ms. Nora Al-Wetaid both accused Robert Bennett’s wife of all kinds of negative things including asking the Court to invalidate the Health Care Proxy which probate attorney Don McInnis created for Robert Bennett at Dr. Bennett’s  request along with invalidating the Health Care Proxy which MGH created for Robert Bennett because MGH discovered that Health Care Proxy had a one character typographical error.  

The person at MGH who handles their Health Care Proxies discovered this discrepancy and created another Health Care Proxy for Robert Bennett changing that one character.  She spent about 45 minutes talking to Dr. Bennett alone in his room at MGH to make sure he understood the Health Care Proxy and what he was signing.   

This is the Health Care Proxy that Attorney O’Sullivan misrepresented to the Court as being a change in the person who was the health care proxy and representing to the Court his claim that Robert Bennett was not mentally able to know what he was signing when he signed the Health Care Proxy created by MGH with the one character change maintaining the same health care proxy he had when he entered the hospital.  That person continued as the health care proxy in the one created by MGH and that person is Robert Bennett’s wife, who these forces are trying mightily to move aside because one of their strongest moves has been to separate Robert Bennett from his wife re-creating Dr. Bennett’s wife as some horrible, irresponsible with other negative adjectives being added constantly to the way she is characterized and described by Attorney O’Sullivan and this group forming the criminal conspiracy.

 
It is clear how Attorney O’Sullivan has attempted to manipulate and lie to this Court as he ends his motion.

 
He says in “e.” – ” waive the appearance of Robert Bennett: and…”

 
To waive the appearance of Robert Bennett would not allow the Court to see a man who is healthy, competent, understanding of everything around him and responding as one would expect such a person in complete control of himself, his life, his mind would respond.  Without the appearance of Robert  Bennett that would continue the way Attorney O’Sullivan has brought this motion and others like them forward and succeeded in attaining his goal at the expense of Robert Bennett and his family, friends, acquaintances, business and business associates.

 
This is how Attorney O’Sullivan manipulated this Court into hearing a motion request for a “Protective Order” against Robert Bennett’s wife, among others, without proof, and how he was able to ask for that hearing to be without his giving notice to Robert Bennett of the hearing being able to manipulate the Court in the most obscene ways.  He started that manipulation of the Court by not telling the Court that MGH had just 24 hours earlier lifted the “section 12”  Attorney O’Sullivan filed against Dr. Bennett as being without cause and without medicines prescribed and with  Dr. Bennett’s vitals normal.  

The same “section 12” Attorney Sullivan was now filing against Dr. Bennett just 24 hours after the exact same charge was lifted with the addition of a Protective Order and the addition of Ms. Nora Al-wetaid talking in her affidavit and amongst people at MGH about conspiring to keep Dr. Bennett in MGH as long as possible.  They thought it was for his health – in fact, it was to have Dr. Bennett’s health, when he would finally be let out of MGH, match the “incapacitated” state Attorney O’Sullivan needed to match the guardianship motion amongst others he was going to file when that time came.

  
Sorrowfully, in the process of all of this we have heard that this kind of use of a “section 12”, which has other names in other parts of the country, are being used against African Americans to incarcerate them in the hospital – with their insurance companies paying the bill – with that being for no good reason except to incarcerate African Americans  who have committed no crimes and to relieve them of substantial amounts of their assets, their dignity, their respect and to destroy the life and reputation they created before this happened and  before releasing them. 

This Protective Order was impounded and neither Robert Bennett nor his wife knew about it or what was in it for weeks. 

In (d)  Attorney O’Sullivan asks that “health insurance benefits for Robert Bennett, including MassHealth be applied for”.

 This is another way Attorney O’Sullivan has threatened Robert Bennett’s wife and family constantly.  In his original filing, Attorney O’Sullivan identified Robert Bennett as “indigent”.  On information and belief this was done to allow the Court to go along with other requests which furthered the criminal conspiracy Attorney O’Sullivan and the group which did this criminal conspiracy.

  
The people involved had been to Robert Bennett’s home under disguise, and knew Robert Bennett was clearly not “indigent”.  In spite of that and in spite of knowing otherwise Attorney O’Sullivan misled the Court into thinking that Dr. Bennett was “indigent” and that came around again in his demands to the family, to which they did not acquiesce that they apply for Mass Health for Robert Bennett.  

This request generated threats to the family from unidentified persons – and allowed Attorney O’Sullivan to hide from the Court the fact that Dr. Bennett and his family have substantial insurance coverage which is more than adequate for his and their needs through the Episcopal Church Pension Fund which more than adequately takes care of its retired Episcopal priests – of which Dr. Bennett is one.  Attorney O’Sullivan and his group could never explain why Mass Health was necessary to be applied for when Robert Bennett and his family did not qualify for Mass Health and very much resented being asked to take advantage of something set up for those who needed such when they did not.

 
As this criminal conspiracy moved along Robert Bennett and his family were contacted by people who experienced a very similar process by Attorney O’Sullivan including the demand that they apply for Mass Health when they did not qualify.  They notified Dr. Bennett because they wanted him to know the reason for the demand that they apply for MassHealth was because the application provides a road map to the assets of the person who applied and did not qualify and that Mass health liens on those assets left them destitute.  All of the people who notified Robert Bennett and his family of such were destitute because their assets were taken – one was put out of the nursing home onto the street and his family, who had been denigrated and described as monsters in Court actions in the most negative way by Attorney O’Sullivan and those he represented to get the end result they achieved – their families were the ones who were there to take them off the street and back into the family which the person didn’t want to leave in the first place.

  
Their assets were never recovered for reasons we have not investigated, but the appropriate law enforcement agencies could investigate.  The families, at the moment, are terrified with one family group having left the state and will not cross the state line because of their fear after what happened to them through Attorney O’Sullivan’s representation of Elder and Protective Services Groups – which he and his firm apparently represent across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

 
By hiding and obscuring from the Court the fact that a section 12 was brought and lifted and Robert Bennett discharged by MGH without medicines prescribed and normal vitals, this allowed Attorney O’Sullivan along with an affidavit sworn under penalties of perjury by Ms. Nora Al-Wetaid which contained many untruths, to obtain a Protective Order from this Court which started this action and allowed Attorney O’Sullivan and the Protective Services people to promote the criminal conspiracy they put in place with the filing of the first “section 12” and was deemed quite successful with the filing of a second identical “section 12” along with a Protective Order gained from this Court through misrepresentations, lies, charges against Robert Bennett’s wife – which claims were needed to gain the power over Robert Bennett and to move aside Robert Bennett’s wife including the abuse charge  which had no proof and which should have been brought against Robert Bennett’s Primary Care Physician.

  
Attorney O’Sullivan and Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services has no reason to be involved with Robert Bennett and/or his life and family but for the  forming of the criminal conspiracy against Robert Bennett and his family to their detriment and to the advantaging of themselves at Robert Bennett’s expense.  They have taken that initial filing and turned it into major legal work and expense for Robert Bennett’s family.

 
We ask the Court for relief from all of this including for expenses which have been accumulated by Robert Bennett’s family because of this illegal intrusion into their lives by Attorney James O’Sullivan along with Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services.  We also ask for punitive damages because of this motion being added to all the rest in an unrelieved time of stress, anxiety, the draining of their resources when the coronavirus fears have stopped their business and other such negativities this family has lived through.

 
We also ask that any and all motions filed by Attorney O’Sullivan be negated and this entire time period reviewed by the relevant law enforcement officials to clear Dr. Bennett and his family from having to spend enormous time, money, effort and emotion because of this intrusion into their family by the above people.

 
We also ask that the Health Care Proxy – the one created for Dr. Bennett naming his wife as his health care proxy be re-established per Dr. Bennett’s wishes both then, and when MGH recreated the Health Care Proxy and now and that the Protective Order obtained from this Court by Attorney O’Sullivan be negated.

 
Respectfully submitted

 
The Family and Friends of Robert A. Bennett 

by his wife of 37 years _s/s Marceline Donaldson_


We have many letters, affidavits, and other proofs to submit to this Court including the vitals of Dr. Bennett over the latest two week period;  observations of Dr. Bennett as he goes around Cambridge taking care of his business by those working in the Cambridge Harvard Square Post Office who see him on a near daily basis and have for the past several years; a neurologist who knows the family and their commitment to Robert Bennett and has tried to follow Dr. Bennett medically  through his time at MGH; neighbors and friends who know and have spoken with and seen Dr. Bennett over the past several months and who know he is not and has never been incapacitated nor at risk of falling.

 
We are not sure how to submit these to the Court and would appreciate some guidance about this – not being attorneys we have tried to follow the form as closely as possible, but hope the Court will look mainly at the content and seriousness of this filing, especially as to how it will affect others coming behind Dr. Bennett experiencing similar atrocities along with those who went before and are suffering from their experience of elder abuse at the hands of those who are supposed to be protecting the elderly from such abuse.

 
In addition, we have an outline of the affidavit of Ms. Nora Al-Wetaid with proof of the lies she has told and responses to the other papers sent to various people by Attorney O’Sullivan.

 
Because it takes time to contact and receive information back from the many people we know are involved, it will take time to put this together.  It could be more efficiently and more acceptable to the Court if done by law enforcement people which we request be involved.

 
We have not received much of the information and motions sent around the Bennett family and friends by Attorney O’Sullivan so we ask the Court’s forbearance as we try to respond to this unbelievable case.  We did not expect to be involved in such and resent being involved, but we will respond as completely and truthfully and with as much kindness of spirit as we can conjure. 

Some Parallels – the KKK and the Police at Dr. Bennett’s House!

Wednesday, March 18th, 2020

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Before we start this article I would like to leave a note as to Robert Bennett and how he is doing. It was very concerning to me after visiting to see how he is treated. My husband is not used to be called “cutie”, “hi, handsome,” “oh, isn’t he cute” and more. He is talked to as though he has a hearing problem which he does not and talking to him in his room as though he can’t read or write. He is accustomed to be addressed as Rev. Bennett and he needs to be respected enough to call him by his name. He does not lose his identity because the police have put him into this situation and the powers that are attempting to rip off the aged puts them in this ‘lock up’ so that can proceed with things put in place needed for that to happen.”

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I had a phone call today from a friend of over 70 years ago.

Friends from your growing up days may get lost through the years as you do other things, but you don’t forget them and you think of them off and on while you move ahead doing what you think is so important. But really, when the chips are down good friends are life’s gold, silver, diamonds and more

I grew up in this circle of friends in New Orleans, LA. We all went to Central Congregational Church, which was a church vey important in the civil rights movement of the 1960’s and beyond. St. Luke’s, at that time was the society church. My great-grandfather was an Episcopal priest – the Rev. Dr. Taylor. He was rector at St. Luke’s in NOLA – half Black Feet Indian, married to a woman who was French and didn’t hide her race, joining and being active in the exclusive tennis club in NOLA – for white’s only and then only for a very upper class white. Don’t know what that was about so don’t ask. Don’t know how it happened – I have pictures of her and her daughter in their tennis clothes, some pictures in front of the club and while she was very white, her daughter was fairly dark skinned so they could not have been a part of that tennis club “passing.”

Rev. Nicholas Hood was the pastor at Central during my time there. His son is now pastor of a church in Detroit, Michigan where his father moved from New Orleans and where they built a tremendous congregation of caring people. I read the lessons he sends out every week from Plymouth United Church of Christ in Detroit where he pastors the Church his father and now he, following in his father’s footsteps, is building.

Besides Walter and Andrew, another friend from those early days called today and said “Cookie, get out of yourself and look around. What do you see? What similarities are there between where you are now and where you were then.”

We used to get into all kinds of civil rights battles. Going home from school I would throw the signs out the window of the bus which said “for colored patrons only.” Nobody bothered me for doing that then because they knew my grandfather – co-founder of the Louisiana Weekly and all around upsetter of the racist status quo and builder with George Schuyler of the Pittsburgh Courier. The first office of the Pittsburgh Courier in NOLA was our living room. Sure wish he was here now.

My mind went back to what happened to us when the police invaded our house; demanded that Robert leave with them; refused to give me a copy of the paper giving them the right to take my husband out of our house by force. It was so familiar. And then it hit – the KKK took on this persona and its mission to scare N*****s with their white sheets and pointy hats to scare blacks into doing whatever they demanded. Sit, stand, talk, shut up, and more which was much worse. Whenever they found a Negro who wasn’t bowing to them and showing them “respect” – shining their shoes, doing whatever they bid, they turned up at his home and wrecked havoc. On horseback with torches and most times much more.

Wow! It hit me. The police being sent to our house was the same thing only in 20th century garb. Folks have been trying to make Robert and I heel for decades. We just keep on keeping on and ignore the insults, the jabs, the hurtful actions. This time it was so in your face that it was impossible to ignore. The new neighbor high up in the medical profession who made complaints against us and wound up trying to stomp on my toes on the sidewalk, who was stopped in the act by Robert he came walking fast around the corner because he had seen what was happening from the window where we sit and have coffee most days. – At least where we used to sit and have coffee before this attempt to destroy our lives together.

My mind started clearing further when I called Medicare and they spelled out what Medicare Fraud was about and when they told me about forcing someone to get services fraudulently, mistreating that person in the process. Wow! That is exactly what we have experienced. That wallop from the past is another part which defines this experience. When my friends from days past started calling on the same day with the same message – Thank you, Jesus, I know from whence that has come!

No one we have ever talked to has ever heard of anyone being forced into a hospital with policemen forcing them from their home with EMS/EMT’s with a Court Order allowing the police to break down doors and don’t worry about the damage being done in the house if you have to go in to find Robert Bennett as long as you drag that black man out of his house, scare the life out of him, bring him back and lock him up. There are many ways to incarcerate a Black Man. It doesn’t have to be in jail because he committed a crime. It can be all of these other ways you have to engage, especially when he has done nothing wrong. I don’t know many people being forced into the hospital for medical treatments they don’t want, being classed as indigent by a judge who had no idea what he was doing and apparently didn’t care. I have met a couple women to whom that happened, but they were not called “indigent” they were classed as “homeless” when they lived in very nice homes – and of course were African Americans.

I guess we forget the big money made on slavery was made in this New England part of the country.

We forget that you do not have to accept medical treatment, medicines or anything like that. It is your choice to go to a hospital. It is your choice to see a doctor. l It is your choice to take medicines some people think might be good for you. If you choose yes, that’s fine then that is the way you go. If you choose no and to go in another direction that is your choice and should be respected by everyone – police, attorneys, judges, people of all colors, religions, descriptions, etc.

I wonder what it takes to have someone disbarred. That would certainly be something I would consider attempting around someone like O’Sullivan who, they say, was the attorney who has this relationship with the Court which would allow him to get these Court orders for the police to appear and for a hearing at which he presents what he wants and makes sure the other side is not informed so nothing counter to his presentation would be seen by the judge. I don’t know that, but I have certainly heard a lot about him since this started. We will have to do a Bettina investigation to see what’s up and publish what we find.

In that hearing, at which Robert was the topic but the judge refused to have notice served on Robert so he could present his side of what was being claimed – not the first such extreme miscarriage of justice. Apparently, documents to disprove what was being said were withheld from the Court. And so many other mistakes and intentional twisting of the facts happened. The judge was apparently happy for that kind of Court hearing. What are the penalties, if any for such abuses and for so ruining the lives of people.

I always hearken back to the black woman who was awarded $10 million dollars in damages by the Court because of how she was mistreated by Cambridge people in charge. The Courts don’t normally award black women anything and you can be sure whatever the award to a black woman it is peanuts compared to what she suffered and what happened that she was awarded anything.. You can be as damaged as possible and any award you get as a black woman will be minimal. What must they have done to have caused those kind of damages. And what happened that the award received so little coverage in the press. Hardly anyone knows about this. Because of the tax payers money that has had to cover those damages you would think every Cambridge taxpayer would know all the details.

Having experienced some of the kind of damage of which they are capable I can do a little more than imagine what that woman suffered.

To hear from Walter Young with his brother Andrew Young it brought back so many good memories. Of going to Andrew’s wedding; of singing in the Jr. Choir at Church; of playing the organ with friends who crowded into the first pew when I played the organ because I played in my bare feet – it was how I could best feel the pedals at that age and the teasing after the service could be merciless.

It was a relief from what is going on today. Didn’t ever think I would experience eight (8) policemen coming to my door with one just as happy as he could be showing me his cell phone with the Court Order and refusing to give me the actual order. Using his ‘power over’ at that point to draw himself up and make himself ‘better than’. Dusting off his identity to try to make it larger and closer to that of the local White Supremacist ( if he wasn’t already one.) What an ugly sight that was. It was not as bad as this, but do you remember Skip Gates and the police?

That must be illegal and the people who did it need to have to pay the price.

What should also be illegal is bringing someone into Court for the same thing over and over again with dire results for the person. Robert was brought in twice in the same week. Twice within four days on a section 12. It was removed by Mass General Hospital people who examine people under those circumstances. Robert was brought in again by the police on a section 12 – identical – just two days after Mass General discharged him from the first one with no medicine prescribed; normal blood pressure and other such markers in the normal area. What happened when the attorney for Somerville Cambridge Elder Affairs presented that to the Court. Did the Court decide it should be done again and jeopardize the health of a man shortly out of the hospital from a real problem? Or did the Court not care and simply do what it was asked by someone who does this on a regular basis.

And first off, Jim O’Sullivan needs to be removed if indeed he is the person who moved ahead that Court and police business KKK style. He should come under serious questions even if he was the one who sent someone else to do this dirty work.

But in the meantime, my husband is still in Massachusetts General Hospital and the Hospital needs to take an action to stop allowing itself to be used in such vicious ways. They can’t cure beautifully on the one hand and let others destroy what they have done on the other. There is a ground point where a part of the responsibility for this falls on the Hospital.

Thank you, Walter. Give Andrew a big hug for me and God bless Raljean.

Robert and I have always looked out for each other and I will continue to look out for him. I know he will also do the same for me. I also know he would not want me to grovel or demean myself anymore than I have already been demeaned and disrespected with this attempt to destroy our lives together. Why! Because someone wants our assets?

They weaponized my daughter against me and I will never forget that. I live in a universe, however, in which my God is a just God and a God with a memory that does not fail.

This to shall pass – the sun will shine on all of it and God’s justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

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Hospitals and Bigotry – Institutional Racism, alive and well!

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2020

Every place you live, work, visit is imbued with racism and other forms of bigotry. They are entrenched and have not gone away in spite of the many lives which have been sacrificed to change things.

We stayed away from the medical/health industry for years, but were recently forced to get involved.

What I saw as a child in the deep south is being re-enacted in the Greater Boston area. Racism is alive and well and functioning throughout the health care system. The difference? No one comments or analyzes or tries to change things – from what we could tell.

We recently interacted with two hospitals – Beth Israel and Massachusetts General. The experiences were so different I thought I was in different countries. One was horrific and one was unbelievably good.

Our first interaction was with Beth Israel and we barely survived.

We entered Beth Israel through the Emergency Department. That was a horrifying experience. We were directed by the Primary Care Physician to the wrong Beth Israel. We were directed to a suburb of Boston It did not have what was needed to deal with the problem we presented. It was quite some time – with a serious problem – that we stayed in the waiting room and at first had to endure ugly treatment until one of us complained and then everybody started smiling at us. We were then moved by ambulance to the Beth Israel in the downtown Boston area.

When we arrived we were brought to the examining area. A room with a curtain across the front and lots of equipment. That was time spent for a couple days seeing nobody – waiting for something which didn’t happen – watching what was happening outside this examining room.

There were people stacked all around the hallways in hospital beds which apparently brought them to the hospital. Along every wall – every turn of the corridor, people sick enough to have come to the hospital were all over the place – not in private rooms, not in examining rooms, not in any space which could even remotely be called a room, but in the hallways almost stacked one on top of another.

One of us started walking around the hallways and stopped periodically to try to deal with the shock to our system. At one stop in the middle of the hallway a nurse was vicious accusing us of violating the patients confidentiality by having stopped to catch our breath. My face must have shown the shock I was in, but she was just ripping me apart for this violation of her patients confidentiality. How was that done? When I stopped, in the middle of the hallway, she was in the process of talking to a patient asking questions about that patients health and background. I wasn’t aware of any of that I was just looking around at the horribleness of what was in front of me. I wasn’t even aware of the patient – who was in the hallway, on a hospital bed – apparently rolled there from an ambulance and left barely covered with all kinds of people all around.

I stuttered to the nurse that I wasn’t violating any patients confidentiality I was simply walking down the hall trying to cope with the shock I was feeling. The nurse continued to just rip me apart and demanded that I leave the area. Since we were in the examining room just on the other side of the hallway to the patient who was against what wasn’t even a wall, but a desk. Someone was working at the desk, not family nor medical person involved with this, and was clearly closer to the patient whose rights I supposedly violated and was being ignored by the nurse as someone also possibly violating this patients right to privacy. I don’t know where the nurse expected me to go.

That was just the tip of the iceberg. I was also in shock and reacting to the fact that there was a “bull pen” in the middle of this very large room filled with rows of desks and people working, talking, relaxing, joking in this “bull pen”. What I was shocked about was not all of the above, but by the fact that everyone in that bull pen – the professionals in that part of the hospital, were white. Not black, not brown, not colored, not asian, not any of those things – traditional white northern european types working and communicating back and forth about the patient and hospital business. They were, from what we saw, the closest to the top of the pyramid in that hospital.

As I took in that scene I looked around this very large room and blacks – mostly black women were seated around the periphery of this group, working. They looked as though they were the receptionist for the group, but they were not doing receptionists work.

And other minorities? Blacks occasionally came to the floor working, but they always carried a pail, mop, broom, etc. because they came to clean the examining rooms when a patient left and before another patient arrived.

What was striking was that most of those blacks had Caribbean accents and clearly came from another country.

TO BE CONTINUED

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