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Trump – the anti-Christ? Readers Comment

Friday, October 18th, 2019

From a Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Member 1.

Who writes this stuff! I had in mind the same thing, but didn’t have the guts to say out loud what I have been thinking about all of these forces being acted out in this world today. I am incredibly delighted that your people did.

It is worrisome as a Christian – at least that is what I call myself – to have this history of my Christianity backing slavery and all the other evil causes it has backed. Going through school and studying all of this made it even worse because there was no explanation. You were just left with nothing but a violent memory.

I took this to a further stage. Talk is now resurfacing about Gucifer 2.0. Every time I hear the name of this Russian group which worked to elect Donald Trump as president of these United States I think of and my mind automatically substitutes “Lucifer” for Gucifer and Lucifer is what we call Satan. And then I wonder if this is Russia’s sense of the absurd or if someone named this group without a conscious connection between Gucifer and Lucifer. I also can take this further still by remembering that the New York city building Trump’s son-in-laws family owns with its address being 666 (the sign of Lucifer) and which was rumored to be in financial trouble with the possible Saudi’s bailing them out which is the set-up for another genocide with Trump sending U. S. Troops to help the Saudi’s with another genocide, this time of the Yemens.

At any rate, true or not, it explains a lot that happened with Trump’s election. And explains a lot about Trump himself.

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From Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Member 2

I have been really disappointed not to have read or heard any comments coming from the Armenian community in support of the Kurds. Having gone through the same thing with the Kurds on the tip of becoming annihilated by Turkey it really gives another look at what happened to the Armenians and into the Turkish National Memory and Character.

The Armenian Genocide has come around again, this time with the Kurds substituting for the Armenians. If anyone wonders what happened. Here it is being acted out again on the world stage.

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From Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Member 3

I read and heard so many people warning about what Trump would do if he was impeached. Mostly, they expected him to start World War III. I shoved that off as hysteria or ridiculous, no one in this world is that bad. Well, here we are today and what is the distraction Trump and probably his fascist brother leaders have come up with? A war! An outrageous war with Turkey vs the Kurds plus more nations involved and another genocide.

I am glad you added in the article about the Armenian massacre by the Turks is what generated the term “genocide.” We need to be reminded of our history.

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From Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Member 4

The “anti-Christ” is quite appropriate for Trump and his buddies. It looks as though Trump is coming way down and is trying to take the world with him in a fiery storm. To go back to Scripture – doesn’t it say “…the fire next time.”

Thank you for putting that in print in a publication that has put out some substantial stuff. Months ago you wrote about all of this and now it is just coming into print in the mainline media. Keep writing – whether it is by a group, or one, or an occasional article. I have one to send on beauty, but it seems too out of it right now. Do I send my password to make sure my article gets printed?

ED. NOTE: To submit an article for Bettina Network’s Blog – please include your name and the password you receive and which is renewed yearly. That is your ticket to become one of our writers. You can write many articles – detailed scientific articles to cover yourself on being the first to publish – funny stories – serious items of interest – breaking news or news we can break, etc. – your thoughts, concerns, philosophy, religion. Love to have your contributions. Since we are surrounded by theologians we try to go slow on those publications, but we will soon take the restraint off them.

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From Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Member 5

This is to Marceline Donaldson – please publish it in Bettina Network’s Blog and make sure she gets a copy. Is she still overworking? That was one workaholic family. They didn’t do much besides work. Hope that is changed. I remember Cookie from school. She practiced her piano for several hours each day, was a reporter for her grandfather’s radio and television show reporting on school news and I think she was about 9 or 10. The things she has been into over her lifetime – it is amazing.

Hi Cookie

Just found this publication and was amazed, but not really surprised. You are following your family footsteps. I remember your grandfather – O. C. W. Taylor – who was a co-founder of the Louisiana Weekly along with CC Dejoie, Sr. and who helped bring the Pittsburgh Courier to New Orleans, among other places. My mother used to tell me “OC” stories and she said the first office of the Pittsburgh Courier was in your home. That must have been exciting although we were both too young to have much memory of that. Printers ink must be in your veins plus dress design (and I remember with hysterical laughter your sculptures) and God knows what else.

What I am reading about here are the things your family was always into. This is what I heard your grandfather had in mind when he and Mr. Dejoie started the “Weekly”. A paper which, when it was founded tries to publish substantial stories and especially editorials to give the “Community” another way to think. We have too much on parties, fashion articles, who had dinner with who – except I have to take that back because I remember your mother and she was the society editor for the Courier and I think also for the Weekly. Keep up the good work. If I can help in any way, let me know. I hope others are thinking the same because this needs good support, which is why I am writing this to you for publication in Bettina Network’s Blog.

Don’t go off on me and put this aside, I am writing it as an article for you to put in Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community’s publication. My password is enclosed to make sure you have to print this.

Thanks,

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Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָֽד׃‬

Wednesday, October 31st, 2018

My heart cries out to you, O God,

others hear and feel their own – but you, O God, hear the pain on my heart and my life.
By the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion.
You, O God are omnipotent and gave me life
To you I owe everything.
Where are you now God that those who tried and did take the lives of my ancestors those dark days in Germany
are back today trying to take my life.
My soul screams to you, O God, as do the souls of those who escaped the Holocaust with their lives, but wound up
in a foreign land which rejects us.
How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land
How can we praise you, O God, when we escaped the Concentration Camps – the Pograms – the constant
humiliations –
How can we forget that when we finally broke free from the bondage which demanded and took the lives of those
we love, no country wanted us
We were refugees on a ship in the ocean not able to land because we were repudiated
No one wanted us,
Wealthy nations wanted the wealthy – they passed laws to only allow into their space relatives of those who were rich and who looked like them, talked like them, had the same values including the rejection of those like me – one of your chosen, O God, but to others one who they reject because of my love of God.  They wanted the young, those trained and able to serve their needs. They wanted those who would compromise their God for wealth, power and control.
We had been debased; we had been treated as beasts of burden and slaves
We had with us the elderly, the sick, those emotionally crippled, the destitute, those whose hearts cried because
they were afraid to let out their pain in any other way – the cost of others hearing and seeing their pain was too high.
The countries to whom we made our supplications turned us away and so we floated – with no food, no water, tired and desperate
Those same countries are killing us today and they are killing those who are not us, but who are unlike them
They come out and shoot us as they do animals and birds of prey only they are more careful with those because
they have a monetary value to them – we do not.
Those who arrive on these shores in the condition we were in all those many years ago are treated with the same disdain and rejection.  Has nothing changed?  Have they no shame?  Have they no soul?  Are they so enmeshed in evil they cannot overcome it?
They have not learned, they do not know!
O God you have searched me and you know me
Rescue me, O Lord, from evil men and women who are all around me and all around those you cherish
protect me from men and women of violence who devise evil plans in their hearts and stir up war everyday.
they make their tongues as sharp as a serpent’s
the poison of vipers is on their lips
O Lord, I say to you, You are my God
do not grant the wicked their desires
do not let their plans succeed.
Let the heads of those  who surround me be covered with the troubles their lips  have caused
I know that God secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy
Let justice, O God, roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream
For today is replicated, in my land, the plight of the Jews during Hitler’s day.  But in this day others have been added.  Not just those who sympathize with the Jews, but those whose skin is darker; whose language is different; who are trying to sing Your song in a strange land.

Immigrants looking for a home, in this land,  are characterized as a “Caravan”  looking to attack a nation when in reality they are refugees seeking asylum, a place where they can find food, shelter and a safe place for their children.

In this society can justice be done by the victims of injustice?  That is who we are O God and we are trying to reach out to those who are in the space we occupied just a generation ago.

Is that possible, O God?  Can we continue living in a space also occupied by such pain and evil.

We will use our institutions to bring about justice and our lives to insure that others do not have to walk that Trail of Tears the way we were forced to walk it without food, water or shelter.

If that is possible, we will try, O God, so others will not have to serve and live the horrible life of slaves, who have been consigned to live as beasts of burden.

Thought I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life.

you stretch out your hand against the anger of my foes.

With your right hand, you save me.

“The Lord is my light and my salvation – whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life – of whom shall I be afraid?
When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh
when my enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall.
though war break out against me even then will I be confident.
One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek God in God’s temple.
Of one thing am I confident –
that I will see the beauty of the Lord in the land of the living!
And in the end:

In memory of:

Maurice Stallard , (69)- Louisville, Kentucky                                                                                                                       Vicki Lee Jones (67) – Louisville, Kentucky

The Lord bless you and keep you

May  God’s face  shine upon you and be gracious unto you

May  God’s face be lifted unto you and give you peace, both now and ever more.

Numbers 6:22-27

The Manchurian U. S. Administration (cont’d)

Thursday, March 15th, 2018

President Trump has made it clear, on a daily basis, for all of us to see and learn from – one can live in a bigoted society and get feel goods from puffing yourself up to believe you are better than or you can live in a democracy – your choice.  You cannot, however, have both.

My guess is that Donald Trump has made a deal with Putin and Russia – he becomes U. S. President and helps Putin carry out his goals for these United States; Putin gets behind his candidacy and does everything possible to make that happen; and in return the “Don” gets his Trump Tower in Moscow at the end of his term(s) as president.

What does the “Don” have to do?  Take down U. S. sanctions against Russia; promote Putin as this wonderful leader and one we should befriend; carry out whatever side actions Putin lets the “Don” know are in Putin’s best interest and which he needs the U. S. to do immediately; and say nothing untoward – negative – or demeaning against Putin or Russia.

From where I sit, Trump is doing an incredible job of following through with his part of this apparent deal with Putin and is doing everything he can to turn the United States into a very autocratic, authoritarian, mean-spirited country.  He is following in the foot steps of the worse autocrats in history.  He is at the beginnings of that process, but he is moving quite fast and has accomplished much.

He has just moved a woman into the position of head of the Central Intelligence Agency.  Isn’t it wonderful that for the first time a woman has headed that agency.  However, on the other hand she is the one who headed turning a part of the Intelligence Agency into a very murderous, torture chamber for no good reason since it has been known for some time that torture does not get the results expected.

All of the laws which guaranteed a democracy are either being reversed or other laws are being added which make this a very ugly, fascist country.  The worst of our history is being replayed in the immigrant area.  We have been through refusing entry into this country of Chinese.  After the Chinese sweat blood and gave their lives to build at great cost to themselves and their families – our railway system and other low level, dangerous jobs they were forced to take to survive.  The Irish went through a horrible time complete with “No Irish need Apply”, amongst other denigrations and demeaning and horrifying times, some of which still exist today.  And on and on and on until you come to slavery of Africans.  I have to add Africans here because we do still engage in enslaving women in this country.

The ethics and moral values which so many families try so hard to pass along to their children have been short circuited by Mr. Trump and his administrations’ examples.  One can see the hand of one of Mr. Trump’s mentors – Roy Cohen – who in spite of being dead, still lives. Lessons the “Don” learned include the biggy – don’t ever admit failure.  If you have tried something and it fails, claim it as a great success, speak about your successes loudly so that people hearing will be swayed to actually think of where you failed as being a place where you actually were great.  I think Mr. Trump has forgotten as he lives out these lessons learned at Mr. Cohen’s knee that Roy Cohen died broke, friendless and living in squalid circumstances.

Mr. Trump seems to revel in his being president as the return of the “Alpha Male” – who is always at the top of society along with a few males not quite as great but walking with him as they make changes to the society in which they increasingly control everything.  As he moves along in his presidency along with his administration and the criminal enterprise we call the RNC, it is clear that they share some common beliefs:  1) the world’s rules, which must be obeyed, are those which keep men – white, Northern European ancestry men – firmly in control. 2) the women you select be careful to insure that they have been brain washed and are trying to and need to be better than when in actuality they serve the purpose of screwing men for the man’s enjoyment and are painfully screwed by the men for the man’s advancement. 3) Maintain the male god who is the keeper of this culture and of the rules by which we all live – rules which are there to keep men firmly in control.  The rules of the world have clearly developed to insure the total control of white, Northern European ancestry men over all.  4) Keep a watchful eye to make sure the developments and perceived advancements of science, religion, business, art are all led by and attributed to those same men.  Where it looks as though that is slipping, keep the young and the greedy roaming around to steal the advancements, ideas, vision of those non-white peoples.  Even some who look like friends – Al Gore claiming he was responsible for the internet when in fact that was a woman; Madam C. J. Walker who invented an incredibly profitable marketing system which she used to market hair products for African women and that marketing system’s invention and development were credited to men; and on and on it goes.

Where is the hope in all of this? Is there any light breaking into this world as it seems to be spiraling down into the depths of hell?  Especially since Donald Trump could not have done all of this alone.  There was a lot of history which preceded his presidency and a lot of people tuned into what he is doing and wants to do in the future.  Some of those people are ones who would be demeaned and destroyed if what they were working towards were to succeed and become a part of the structure of this world – these people seem totally oblivious to the fact that the success of their efforts will fall hardest onto them.

All is not yet lost, however.  We see light breaking in with the children –  During the Galilean ministry, Jesus’ disciples came saying ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”  And Jesus called a child and set the child in the midst of them and said, “Verily I say unto you, except you be converted and become as children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.  Whosoever therefore humbles themselves as this child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.  And who shall receive one such child in my name receives me.  But who shall offend one of these it is better that millstones hang around their necks and drowns them in the depth of the sea.

However, that light is being mitigated by the darkness we see spreading as the rich become richer and the poor become desperate.  Especially as the rich see the poor as being poor because of some kind of moral deficiency when the moral deficiency is that of the billionaires whose greed keeps them from seeing clearly.  We move further apart as the riches of the world become more unevenly distributed, especially since it is not possible for one person to legitimately be worth billions while others live on the street.  That is happening to our world and it is reflected in our politics.  We want to insure that this trend continues because many of the poor are joining with the rich in bringing this about because they expect one day to be rich themselves and they want the kind of world that will shore them up and be prejudiced in their favor when their ship of gold comes in.

The work of the world is to take seriously Isaiah and all the other scripture writings that say in essence –

“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,

and the leopard shall lie down with the kid;

and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together;

and a child shall lead them.”

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.

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Rummagings About Morality

Tuesday, December 5th, 2017

Isn’t it amazing what it takes for the experiences of your life to come together.

What is it you have wanted more than anything else in life?

For me – since I was little – it was wisdom and understanding.

Funny thing about that – it is exactly what I have received from life.  Not money – success – fame – all of that started to break in at different points along the way, but just as quickly as that breaking in started, all of those things – money, success, fame – were killed.  How and by who I will probably never know.  But wherever there were lessons to be learned I was there and the world seemed to open up to give me its ultimate secrets.  The biggest and most guarded secret is the one which showed me if the world defined money, success, fame had broken in, the wisdom and understanding would have stopped and that which had already broken in would be gone in a very short period of time.

Things that seemed obvious to me were a blank to many of my friends.  If that is not true, they were magnificent in hiding what they saw and understood. And what I understood was what one fears and that which keeps one from stepping out on faith is really who you are.  The fear is of losing those things the world has provided and putting you in a position of want – that seems to be our greatest fear.

So many things come to us for learning and almost all of them we ignore as we look and walk in the opposite direction.  We live on assumptions.  The assumptions we have put into our minds and hearts because that is what we want to believe about life and that is what we want to believe about those around us and that is what we want to believe about the world in which we live.

One grand truth, being presented on a world-wide stage these days is the moral structure needed for the world to maintain its racism, sexism and all the rest.  That moral structure is deep within our souls today and we live by that structure without ever thinking about what that has done to us spiritually.  The sacrifices we have made as human beings over the generations to satisfy our most base needs are horrifying when looked at on a world-wide scale.

How many lies do you have to tell yourself to believe and act and create your world around the incredible belief that you and those like you are “better than” everyone else.  What lies have Alabamians had to tell themselves to support and vote for Roy Moore.  We are living out a morality play each day and it is stark.  There is nothing romanticizing what is being played out on the U. S. Government’s stage.  It is and has drowned out and is quickly removing every good thing we have ever been about – and that is no exaggeration.  How did the ovens in Germany come about?  They were created by those who were born, raised, lived and died in a society which was full of normal human beings trying to survive but gradually taking that need to survive and that fear of failure to incredible heights.  They were not evil people, they were just like us.  They became evil as they became more and more entrenched in the opportunities to achieve untold wealth, great fame, etc. etc.

As human beings we seem to have been born with the need to group together with like minded, like looking, like acting human beings.  We have had our tribes which insured our continued existence.  There is nothing wrong with tribalism,  until the day comes when that tribalism slides into “my tribe is better than your tribe and your tribe must serve my tribe so my tribe can have more of what it wants in this life at the expense of your life and times.”

What do these rummaging have to do with today?  It brings to mind and heart all of the huge sacrifices we have made to create a country in which some are better than others; to have created that country on the backs of slaves who were demeaned and considered less than human; to have used the marriage laws to enslave others; and to have used women in various states to satisfy the most prurient needs of humans – which once satisfied become progressively more enslaving and violent and demeaning.

What price have we paid for that to have happened?  We live in and have created a society in which we have split the human race into sub-races, all described with some inhuman traits and all claimed as less than. The price for that has been our honor – our integrity – our beauty – our grace – our loveliness – our ability to love one another “as I have loved you.”

These times with Donald Trump have been times which have surfaced and brought front and center the sacrifices these United States have made to maintain as “better than”.  We have built what we call a “great country.”  We have built a country we consider better than all others and have never seen the sins we have put into that country’s structure.  We have built a country on a huge flaw and that flaw is today creating a huge earthquake.  What remains when the shaking and spewing up of stuff from the center of the earth stops is anybody’s guess.  We have built a country by condemning Jesus to death and then calling for a bowl of soap and water and a towel with which to wash our hands of the carnage that followed.  We have build a country and then divorced ourselves from its history.  We have built a country and taken no responsibility for the price we demanded others pay for its creation, its wealth,  and its continuation in the same vein which caused many generations to take on a system of moral values which they practice and deny at the same time thinking that others can’t see the lie!

Slavery – the Trail of Tears – the opening our doors to immigrants from all countries and then labelling them as “less than” by those deemed on top of the heap –  all have prices to pay and today we are paying those prices.

Our value system was shown as bereft when we killed African slaves who ran away, when we lynched Africans who dared to vote.  It didn’t matter whether they were 100% or 5% African, they were not on the same high level as others who were redesigned as – not human and a part of the human race – but “White” and better than those who were not white.  The north ignored the lynchings and claimed the moral high ground.  They had psychic ways to deal with such people.  It was a slow painful death they put out.  The south engaged in incredible violence and so Billie Holiday sang “Strange Fruit” and everyone knew what that meant the lynchings were so wide spread.

For years the “flowers of the South”, the “Southern Ladies”, had a stereotype and pictures which showed them as “beautifully” adorned and having their place on top of the pedestal, that very high mythical column.  They were blinded by the compliments, the supposed lifting them up above ordinary humans, the opening the doors for them by others so their gloved hands didn’t have to touch that which many mortals touched before them.  And so much more.  We bought our own horribleness because it flattered our egos and built up our vanity.  The truth of the degradation, demeaning, violence against were all denied by even – or should I say especially by – the women against whom it was thrown.

Today that has been exposed and is continuing to be exposed on all of its levels.  It has been like peeling the onion.  We are almost down to the core so the fighting and brutalizing has become blinding in its attempt to maintain what has been and move it even further by making it function in spite of the fact that the cover has been removed and we can see all of this in its stark truth.  We have become that corrupt?

Alabama is symbolic of these United States and its historic degradation of those in power.  Drunk with its own strength against others “not like them” it is almost as if retribution is at its door step.

We thought the bottom was reached with the carnage on the Petus Bridge, but that was just a way station on the way to greater evil.

To have seen yourself involved in that kind of sin and to move on to ever greater sin and to then claim god on your side, behind what you do, pushing you to ever larger acts of evil – it is mind-blowing how anyone can see you and not recoil from the evil coming from your very pores.

Today, it is not about African Americans on the Petus bridge – it is about the right of males to brutalize, sexually abuse, tear down, misuse and lots of other adjectives – women.  What will it be about tomorrow.  The same souls are calling the future.

Women in corporations were brought in to serve the men and that happened because the women had been trained to acquiesce and to demean themselves.   It becomes understandable how that could have happened when you own a small corporation where you do a lot of the work and see how you can get behind because you become overwhelmed with only 24 hours of the day.  And you then see how easy it would be to bring in people who have been labeled “less than”, “not as bright as”, not meant for the higher things in life – especially the exercise of power,”  to have them do all of the grunt work and most of the real work while you prance around like a terminally ill peacock taking credit, money, power, success.

The campaign of Roy Moore is a Calling.  It is Roy Moore set up as the bait to call folks to maintain a society which allows women to be used as sex objects and then discarded.  He is bait to call folks to lie, cheat, steal, and yes – murder – because women have been murdered in the name of preserving and passing down to our children a society which has institutionalized and wants to continue in the way it has been going for hundreds of years.  He is bait to have some folks turn away and try to set up the same structure, but less transparent.  For these United States to be racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and all the rest means these United States has transgressed in gross ways against its citizens and against others around the world needed to maintain a “better than” society where the hard and dirty work is done by those scraping and scratching 24/7 just to put food on the table and a roof over their heads.  It is a society with trap doors for those who go too far and are not among the group designated as “better than”.  Why else would a man become Secretary of the Treasury who has had tens of thousands of people thrown out of their homes onto the street and who lives in a mansion which could house many more than just himself and his wife?  Why else would we have laws to prevent any other than those selected by that society to succeed with enormous road blocks to trip, fell and kill those who are able to get around those road blocks?  but we have standards which are necessary to continue the denial – we have those few to disprove the rule and maintain them vigorously.  Even the KKK had to have a few blacks to maintain their superiority and proclaim their high morality because they accepted those few – the others were not worthy, not human, not equal to.

Amazingly, my life has escaped the anger that should come from living in such a place, but it has.  Why?  Because that anger is generated in those who share the moral values of those doing the bigotry.  To see how far we have gone off the road is to understand the story of Adam and Eve on a level most ignore and just quote the Bible as a very literal book.  To demand the you read and understand the Christian and Jewish Scriptures literally is to totally miss what it is saying.  The story of Adam and Eve is the story of what could have been.  Where we started from and how far into sin, degradation and evil we have fallen.  Adam and Eve turned their naked bodies into horrible sinfulness and ugliness they had to hide.  Evil crept into their lives, which they cultivated and still today cultivate.

Many of us hoped and thought the horribleness in Alabama would give way to something more beautiful.    After witnessing that period of American history in Alabama and in other places around these United States – that example should have brought many to their knees asking forgiveness.  Instead it seems to have generated a hard hearted response – a determination to continue on the path of violence towards women as not only justified but able to give one entry into the hallowed halls of government.

So much more could be said – however – the one relevant thing is “How long, O Lord, how long!”

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

 

 

Back to the Edmund Petus Bridge

Saturday, November 18th, 2017

by Marceline Donaldson

Something is oddly familiar in this “stand-off: now going on amongst our government officials, politicians, hopefuls and a very oppressed group which Alabama and others are trying desperately to contain and keep in their oppressed state.  Even the current Governor of Alabama has come public and done a modernized version of Governor George Wallace’s stand to keep African Americans from voting and therefore from their civil rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution.

When I heard Governor Kay Ivey on television taking her incredibly historical stance, I could not see her face for the imposition of George Wallace’s face over her face and figure on television.

Nothing hurts more than one of your own, standing up in the most self-righteous and arrogant way, selling you into slavery and she did that beautifully.  She did not lose her very southern lady-like composure in the process of spouting and spewing evil.  Clearly, the Republican Party has maintained its position as “Keepers of the Bigotry” which has long characterized Alabama.  Have you thought about or read the story of what happened on the Edmund Petus Bridge?  Do you see the parallels?  We’ve had the slaughter of the women.  It should now be time for the healing oil and who will do the pouring of that oil to heal our sins?

True – other states and areas do the same, but somehow the theatrics in Alabama and its connecting its maintenance of bigotry to a religion with its own theology is unique.  We know well this heretical religion.  The one which has been developing since slavery and which was used to justify and maintain slavery.  We have lived with it in many places across these United States and still are living with its remnants. You know the religion.  The one where you went into one of its churches and found you could only sit in the back pews, if you were African American – or you could only sit in the balcony – or you were taken out of the church by the ushers if you were African American because you were not allowed into those particular churches.

They still exist today and you can tell them almost upon entering into their ‘holy’ places.  You look on their altar and you see those officiating are almost uniformly white.  Maybe a child of color or two, but the adults of color are missing.  You hear their sermons and they lack that something you hear in other churches.  Their ‘leaders’ are ‘leading’ to gain a foot up in their jobs or chosen vocations.  They are doing everything they can to help those like them maintain their facade of being ‘better than’.  Those more enlightened heretical churches are doing some of the most foolish things you can imagine, but as you watch, they call those things their ‘holy rituals.’  And it becomes clear after a short time that they are keeping the bigotry and maintaining the image of superiority of the white males of Northern European ancestry – those in their midst and the others spread around the globe. You have to leave that space because what you also see and experience is their meanness when pushed to see and remove the bigotry and heresy they practice.  It is time, however, for them and us to do just that!

The blanket has been ripped off.  The psychic violence and physical and emotional destructive confrontation on the Edmund Petus Bridge has happened as the current Governor has let the rest of us see and hear her ‘religious’ beliefs, which are indicative of the many in Alabama who she represents – male, female of all stripes and colors.  She has made a very clear statement that she prefers her political party with all of its shame and sin to anything else because she knows they will continue in the ways of the vile past and they will continue holding her and others like her up in their belief that they are ‘better than’ everyone in the world not like them.  Her very words, however, show clearly that she is not free and equal, she is the governor, but she clearly neither respects her gender nor others around her who are neither white nor of Northern European ancestry.

Governor Ivey today – as did Governor Wallace in yesteryear – has given the green light to the worst kind of evil.  She has called her state to shame themselves.  She has declared her bigotry and the fact that she is conscious of her bigotry and will continue to practice it because that is what she sees her position as governor calling her to do.   She has called her state to let the world know that the citizens of Alabama prefer their bigotry and will maintain it defending themselves against positive change even while exposing their children to the sin of pedophilia, psychic and physical sexual abuse, lying, cheating,  which she has depicted as just fine and good and righteous choices if made defending their ‘white is better than’ status and their declared right to dishonor – disrespect – and so much more – those with whom they share this earth if those people are neither ‘white’ nor ‘male with Northern European ancestry’.  What lessons those children are learning from their parents.

We are back on the Edmund Petus Bridge.   Because of the lessons this current generation learned, while children watching their parents as they cheered for George Wallace and his friends  on the bridge using it as their bully pulpit.   They watched as some of their adult neighbors brutalized, beat and tried to slaughter African Americans and those supporting them on that Edmund Petus Bridge.

The children were present and silently watching that entire drama and so today we have that generation, all grown up, doing their best to follow in the footsteps of their parents, their friends, their government figures, their politicians.  They are going where this evil is leading and, in the end, they will pay the price.

Many of those children have adopted the religion of their parents – who themselves adopted and adapted the religion of the slaveholders and slave owners before them.  They have seen their parents and grandparents erect memorials to those who did their best to keep human beings enslaved because they wanted ‘free’ labor and wanted that ‘better than’, ‘white is superior’, white supremacy identity.  They saw the KKK in their white sheets and pointy caps circling those lit crosses.  They saw African Americans turned away at their city halls in brutal ways when they tried to vote; these children knew the U. S. Constitution was being violated in the process; and they were present in the home where their mothers and aunts and female cousins were treated as second class citizens; they were present in the rest of society to see those same relatives, all dressed up and play acting to avoid their reality as they were treated as the household servants.  They understood who they were and the positions they would take before they reached voting age and they are now taking those positions.

When you sow the wind – you reap the whirlwind.

Alabama is and has been reaping the beginnings of that whirlwind when you look closely and you see it is one of the poorest states in the Union; when you see jobs scarce; when you see children going without; when you see the low level of education throughout the state; when you see the priorities of the politicians and government officials who are absorbed in maintaining their ‘better than’ status at a very high cost to everyone in the state; when you see the corruption overlooked because the ‘official’ is guarding your ‘better than’ identity; when you see all that has been wrought against Alabamians through their keeping their slaveowners religion above all else and crafting a political party which does the actual work the theology of that religion leads them to do.

It is one of the great tragedies of these United States.  AND – not to be overlooked is the fact that our current president – Donald J. Trump – is very popular in this state which condones and gives him positive feedback on all of his evil deeds.  When you see this state raising up politicians who follow his footsteps as he has followed in the footsteps of Roy Cohn, Joseph McCarthy, Adolph Hitler, Stalin and today Vladimir Putin, as well as the leaders of the mafia organizations around the world.

Sieg Heil Kay Ivey!  There were also Jews who sold out other Jews in Nazi Germany and even today there are African Americans selling out other African Americans for what they think will raise them up to the status of ‘almost, but not quite equal to’ – ‘at least not like them’ – ‘different from those others’ – etc.

“Man’s inhumanity to man” – needs a political correctness overlay “We all die and move on out of this earthly sphere – yet we act as though some are better than and their human bodies will not rot.  The color of their skin and the kind of genitals they have will preserve them”.  Folly of follies are these humans, especially when they try to be ‘better than’. – At that point, the evil starts pouring out of them and their actions conform and are uniformly sinful no matter their money, status, history, education…….

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net

 

 

 

You Claim to Believe in God, but do you, really?

Monday, February 15th, 2016

copyright 2016 Bettina Network, inc.

If asked, and it did not include a specific denomination or set of religious beliefs, most people would say – yes, they believe in God.  They would add that this does not mean the traditional Christian God with the long white beard sitting on a throne, but God – the real one!

I would say, even those who claim to believe in the traditional Christian God don’t really believe.  As many of those who claim to believe in Mohammed or Jehovah, don’t.

One of our perennial questions about God is -if there is a God why is there so much evil and destruction in the world? And that is the easiest question to answer – although we generally don’t want to hear, or read, or even come close to the answer.  Keep that in our deepest subconscious where we don’t have to deal with who we are and how we are living our lives.

Who is God?  The only comment I can make about that is – God is!

We have created many trappings around God, none of which we really believe, but we will die defending the right and truth of what we have created, or what our ancestors created and/or contributed to and passed on to us declaring their creation as eternal truth – and called it God, God’s Kingdom, heaven and more.

One small test of our belief system:

If God exists then death as we describe it and believe does not exist.

If God exists then there is another existence which we sometimes describe in our religions, but in which we do not believe because basically we don’t believe in God.  We have created religions with saints and martyrs and heaven and hell and we have peopled our religious universe with a terrain which is amazing and in which we really don’t believe.  And when the chips are down, we don’t believe in any of the supernatural world that we created and put forth as our religious belief..

We have and still fight wars over our religious belief systems.  Isn’t that what is going on with ISIS and other groups in the Middle East and isn’t that what went on with the Christian Wars and all the other wars which we based on religious beliefs that we outlined, but didn’t ever really believe?  We constructed them but knew they were nonsense when we were playing God in our creation and construction time.  If what we created was really God and of God there would be no need to fight over who was right, who was wrong because God would speak to all of us.  But we turned a deaf ear to God’s voice and ignored whatever God had to say because we wanted to control and wanted God out of the way.

Our strongest need seems to be the need for control and the best way to control is to set up a structure with an entity we call God at its head and put everybody under that structure demanding they conform to the behavior system which that structure promotes.  We enforce our system by killing, maiming, ostracizing and shunning those who don’t fit and won’t act the way the religions we developed demands.  Our religious beliefs are clearly not of God because they are full of fear.  They control, grow, and use fear to keep the generations that come after us under the control of our kind – our group.

How do we give ourselves away!  How can you look at us and know we don’t believe in the God we espouse?  We have limited ourselves to what we can see, feel and touch!  We have eliminated everything else because we don’t want anyone to come along to contradict what we have created – especially not anyone of God.

Instead of being a part of God’s universe, we have created a parallel universe that we inhabit; believe in; work towards building. This parallel universe has a god at its head who is really a thinly disguised man.  They say there was a religion eons ago where the god was a thinly disguised woman.  In Israel, there are the remains of a Synagogue whose altar has carved into it a Mr. & Mrs. Jahweh.

I’ve met a few people over the decades who believe God is – who know in ever fibre of their being that there is a God – that God exists.  Generally, the rest of society holds them at arms length and has a difficult time taking them seriously.  These are the people who have seen God.  Or they have talked to those who have died.  Or they have died themselves and been resuscitated. Or they were born with the gift of seeing more than what exists in this physical world.  They are incredible people to be around – especially since the one thing they all seem to lack is the ability to judge other human beings.  They also don’t seem to be able to see human beings as the only beings on this planet who are spiritual, above everything else.

It is so exquisitely beautiful to see beyond the limits we impose upon ourselves and each other because we need to control everything.   It is painful to be around people who declare themselves superior to others and to the rest of the world because of their cultural religion.  To give that up brings us into another reality where very few humans seem to be able to live.

To see the good and the bad in another human being and still love them is special.  It is where God lives.  To give that up to set ourselves up as an imitation of God is such a sacrifice and such a paltry way to exist.  But we have done that, probably for as long as we have been on this earth.

What makes me think that fighting, killing, maiming, torturing others because they don’t believe the way I do is going to please my God and make me one of the martyrs when I die?  What makes me believe that I am doing something other than moving away from God as I insist that my religion is better than.  What makes me believe that God doesn’t want those people to live the lifestyle they have chosen?  What makes me call someone else’s lifestyle sinful and call on the religion I created to justify my call?  What makes me unable to see that maybe God lives that lifestyle, as well as others?

Is that my God bringing down that heavy judgment or my culture/class/ group – the people I hang-out with who make me feel better than everyone else – the people who define what is right and what is wrong – the people who have demolished their own ability to see beyond the physical and into God’s world because they might lose control if we all kept that ability?

Will we ever come to our senses one day or will we realize how wrong we have been when we are at that moment of death!  Hell must be that moment when the realization of what we have done brings us enormous, almost intolerable pain- an eternal pain –  born of the regrets when we realize at that moment that we cannot change how we have lived and we realize the preciousness of the gifts we gave up to take on the self-absorbed life we have lived limited to our own kind.  It is the moment when we realize we really did not believe in God throughout our lives; – when we realize we substituted our own belief and our own religious construct for a beauty and incredible world that we could have lived in and been a part of; – when we see our human sight drop away and in spite of how we have lived, we feel the love of a God who forgives us our iniquities and pardons our weaknesses.  When at that moment, our last human feeling is the one which wishes, if only we could have done the same!  And at that same moment we realize what a poor imitation of God we have been and what a pathetic religion we have created out of our own need instead of having opened ourselves throughout our lives to what should have been.

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Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.

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Theologians Worldwide Join Us!

Tuesday, February 9th, 2016

What a wonderful resource for you and the rest of the world to add your home to Bettina Network Hedge Schools.

Where does one go to learn about your own religion, or other religions of the world?  Not from books which give a very stilted structure and outdated information, but from someone who is doing research, writing about particular interests of theirs and yours and even more.  Maybe there is someone who has a perspective, belief, expounding on something of interest to you – stay a few days and examine what both of you are doing.

And for the theologian – what a wonderful resource to be able to talk to people serendipitously to try out your thoughts, theories and to know where just ordinary people are coming from and their interest and interpretation of your work.

For the guest traveling the world – stay with a theologian.  Have a breakfast seminar and bring up all the issues you have pondered for decades or maybe within your family for generations.  Only thinkers allowed.  Non-believers welcomed – those of very different religious beliefs and very opposing or complimentary theologies welcome.  A theologian traveling?  Why not stay with a theologian who might be doing something in which you are interested?  Want an intense few days to talk with a theologian in a different area – not at a seminar, not presenting a paper, just the two or three or four of you – hanging out for a couple days?

Call us – email us – get more information about how you might fit and what this is all about.

Breakfast Table Talk – I am sure theologians know about kitchen table talk!  Just look at what that wrought for Martin Luther.

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Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.

Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net


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