December, 2017 - Bettina Network's Blog

Archive for December, 2017

Another Bettina Lifestyle Community members’ comments!

Thursday, December 28th, 2017

I just read the article about spending Christmas with a Christian family.  It was great!  My experience in a Bettina Home/Hedge School was different, but still great!

I wanted to spend Christmas with another culture – another group – I wanted to know what it was like spending Christmas in the “ghetto”.  Although today I use that word because the rest of you need that descriptor.

I spent Christmas in a neighborhood in D. C. I would have been afraid to wander into alone.  Not because there was any real trouble, but because my conditioning made me really scared to wander into a mostly black neighborhood.  My thoughts were I would have been taking my life into my hands and better to stay out than to be sorry.  That sounds bad, but I know those thoughts are shared by many of – at least my friends.

It was great.

I hope you forgive any racism you find in this article.  Attribute it to my upbringing and current friends.

When I arrived at the home it was with fear and I wondered as I rang the bell if I was sane or had lost my marbles trying this.

A woman opened the door.  She was expecting me, but maybe not someone so white.  My skin is very white – as is my hair.  I didn’t feel white until I walked into their living room, which was full of people.  As I looked around they were all colors.  None as white as my Scandinavian self, but they were not who I expected.  Somehow, I expected a black family to be black – dark of skin.  These folks varied from very dark to light tan.  There was a lovely Christmas tree and the house smelled of food cooking.  I was just in time for dinner.

The food for dinner was Italian.  Why? Because it was prepared by a couple of the light tan people in the room.  I realized in another context I would have seen them as white, but in this living room I saw them as not white, but light skinned blacks.  They were Italian.  One was an in-law, the other a cousin.  I was too shy at that point to ask more questions.

Dinner was great! There was much laughter, many jokes told at someone else’s expense and I was on the hot seat to talk about why I wanted this “voyeur” experience.  At that moment, all my reasons evaporated and I felt really weird.  After a very feeble attempt at an answer that didn’t sound either racist or ridiculous someone changed the topic and we went back to having a great time.

The table was blessed with an incredibly beautiful poem which I wanted to take home.  Instead I was given a book which contained the poem.

We opened presents, talked half the night and went to bed.

This was not the home of a wealthy person – or even someone who could be called “middle class”.  These folks were struggling financially just to survive from one day to the next.  I slept on the sofa in a small room off the living room.  It was not private, but I knew that before I arrived and privacy in the middle America sense seemed out of place here.  People crossed boundaries I was accustomed to – constantly.

Breakfast the next morning was more of the same.  We had a breakfast I loved, but would never have made.  Eggs, bacon, unbelievable biscuits, and grits! I didn’t want to leave the table.  My breakfast is normally fresh fruit, yogurt and an organic piece of bread.  Since I brought the coffee I got to make it and it was the center of attention and many jokes.  Organic, French roast coffee was great, but not the coffee and chicory the family normally had for breakfast and sometimes all during the day.

Christmas Day was unbelievable! People came and went all day long bringing gifts, food, talk and although I expected to be ‘odd man on the side’, I was just one of the family.  I was clearly expected to be a “host” taking care of people as they arrived, making sure everyone was comfortable, all the things one does when company arrives.  I loved every minute.

All colors of people came and went and families that showed up together were also all colors.  As the day wound down I realized maybe racism was a white thing because the whites and many shades of blacks who shared this Christmas were  just a normal part of life with this family. I remember hearing and making comments with friends that maybe blacks would be uncomfortable in one or another situation with whites.  What I saw was blacks having whites in their families and nobody being uncomfortable about any of it.  I was uncomfortable when I arrived being what I thought was the only white person in the room until I saw the whites in the family and those arriving with other so called “black” families of which they were a part.

We went for a walk in the afternoon, all around the neighborhood and I wondered as we walked and talked what it was that struck fear into my heart and kept me from walking alone through this neighborhood!  As we passed people coming and going from their homes there was always a few words exchanged, if not an entire conversation.  No one passed us during our walk who we didn’t acknowledge with a smile or even a bit of conversation.  To say we were a loud group taking this walk would be an understatement, but we didn’t even notice we were caught up in the back and forth with each other.

The day after Christmas they had a surprise for me.  Someone had gotten a keyboard for Christmas which was standing next to the tree.  A couple musicians arrived with their instruments and we had an incredible session of singing for about an hour, after which the musicians had to leave and I was exhausted.  They were accustomed to having lots of people around all the time.  I was accustomed to having people around who called, made an appointment or a date to get together and mostly other times I was alone.

What struck me with this family – blacks are known to be very religious so I expected to spend all day on Christmas in Church.  We had prayer before eating, but that was it.  We didn’t go to Church. Our Christmas was spent together with family, friends and those who came along with family and friends.  Some were complete strangers who came with a friend or family member and all were instantly incorporated into this family as though they had known each other for years.

At the end of my time in this home I realize I’ve made new friends and took home a new attitude.  And, I spent an unusual and really fantastic Christmas.

Back home, my friends who seemed close and a part of my extended family I realized were really not close to me at all and I didn’t have an extended family.  I have a few people I can call on occasion but who I really can’t just show up to visit with on holidays. or any other time.  If I am not invited I stay away.  It would be awkward for everyone if I just invited myself to a holiday or any time or celebration.  Mostly, I spend those alone because my family is in another state and I don’t make the effort to travel there for holidays.  This Christmas has changed all of that and I am looking at changing my life.  I thought it was great.  At this moment I think it is cold and isolated and I don’t know how that happened or why I made the choices that produced that kind of lifestyle.  I do now have friends in another part of the city which looks very warm and friendly to me and I will probably visit again – if not the family with whom I stayed  I will certainly walk around the neighborhood and shop there from time to time, maybe my shell and shelter will change.  My beautiful bedroom with king sized bed is not nearly as comfortable as that sofa on which I spent Christmas.

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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

 

New to Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community!

Wednesday, December 27th, 2017

Hello Everybody,

I am brand new to this Community and so far, I love it.

So far, I have not taken advantage of much, but I thought I would write a blog,  especially since I am just now beginning to understand what Bettina Network Hedge Schools and being a part of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community means.  I wasn’t sure when I first discovered all of you, but having stayed at a Hedge School, the concept and its execution are really fantastic.

First, I have to tell you that I am Jewish.

Why is that important for you to know?

Because I have always wanted to know what it was like being a part of a “Christian” Christmas and I think that is true of many of us.  I was not looking to convert or anything else, just to satisfy my curiosity.

From the time I was a very small child,  the trees, the toys in the decorated stores and all the rest made me wish to be a part of that – and so this year I took the plunge.  As a start, I called Bettina Network to see what they offered – fully expecting them to hang-up on my request, but instead we made reservations.  I’ve had three days of magic and I am leaving for home this morning with all of my questions answered and a new way of looking at life understanding others, but especially understanding how rich and full a word like “diversity” means and what it has to offer all of us.  I don’t know how this sounds to many of you, but it is where I am at the moment and the reason for my writing this blog.

When I arrived at my Bettina Network Hedge School, I slept in a room with my own Christmas tree;  celebrated around the tree in the family’s living room;  went to Church with them on Christmas morning and to dinner as a part of the family on Christmas afternoon and into the late evening.

One of their traditions was to open one present around the tree on Christmas Eve before going to “midnight mass”.  Not really midnight because it was more like 9:30pm.  There was indeed one present for everyone around that tree.  We had bubbly apple cider or champagne – your choice.  I thought I would be the observer on the sidelines for this celebration and I was prepared to play that role because this was after all, not about my conversion nor inclusion, but to satisfy my curiosity.  Imagine my surprise when my name was called and there was my present.  What I especially liked, nothing was expensive – everything was made by someone in the family and mine was a mixture of real food as a lotion for my hands.  I loved it.

We went to midnight mass and that was beautiful.  I have heard and sung Christmas Carols over past years, but this was the first time I sang them in the context for which they were composed.

By the time we reached breakfast on the day after Christmas I faced the shock of separation I was so fully incorporated into this family and its Christmas celebration.

On Christmas morning – all the presents were opened.  I didn’t get one because none of the adults exchanged gifts, the presents and opening of the presents was for those under 20 years old.  I guess the older teenagers were included to help them gradually move from child to adult.

Christmas dinner was fantastic.  Nothing really different, just lots of food with a beautifully decorated table.  The big attraction was the community the dinner produced.  It included a couple people who were homeless and had been picked up for the celebration.  I don’t know how the family knew them or where they came from, but here we were and you couldn’t tell the difference between us.  That huge economic gap didn’t show. That for me was the most amazing part of this Christmas celebration.  Once in bed for the night, for reasons I don’t quite understand my thoughts went back to the homeless and I cried myself to sleep.

Having to go home has put me into grief.  Not because I wanted to stay.  Nor because I thought their life and religion  and holiday celebration were better than mine, but because I realized how much we have all lost in the way we separate ourselves from one another on all levels.  We have taken away from this world what is best about it and we only seem to be able to move further and further away from one another defining ourselves in such a way that we have to move away to maintain ourselves as ‘different from’, ‘better than’ and all those other descriptors that mean so much to this world and those of us who live in it.

I hope you’ve all had a wonderful Christmas.  I certainly did and I am very grateful to Bettina Network Hedge Schools for being there so I could have the experience of a lifetime.  I am delighted to be a member of your lifestyle community and look forward to my next foray into what you offer.  No resorts – No running around to all the events I could afford – No pressing my nose against the glass wondering what its like on the other side – just a real experience with real people and I will never forget it.

Thanks folks!  And may you all have a wonderful holiday, whatever it is you celebrate!

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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

 

 

My Response! – No Names Please!

Friday, December 22nd, 2017

Don’t want to lose my job.  But if this keeps on the way it has I will be out there on the front lines – dam the job – I will join the homeless if that is necessary to bring about change.

I noticed a couple of Marceline’s Facebook posts.  One included something – in answer to a ‘friend’ about black teachers.  She was too nice to say many black teachers stepped away from the Black Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s because they saw that as the road to losing their jobs to white teachers and didn’t want that to happen.  They were a part of the Black Bourgeoisie and enjoyed a position in black society they did not want to lose.  I don’t know the person she was answering and commenting in her Facebook page so I didn’t add my say so – it seemed intrusive.  Everything goes on this blog so I am answering here.

That said – I really need to respond to your post on Trump and the very ugly picture of the Republicans assembled on the steps of the White House in celebration of their vote on the tax cut.

I lived through Nixon and I didn’t expect to have to live through another such carnage.  And carnage is what this is.  An American President elected – or rather put into office by Russia and the fascists, and I really believe that.  Not from the media or anything else, but from my life experience in the world.  Trump makes Nixon look like a saint.  Nixon covered up a breaking, but Trump is well into treason.

I loved your little comment on the White House built by slaves.

I believe many of the Republican Congress people are being blackmailed.  We have a president who is a bully – ugly and evil bully – who has bullied all of his life and is now president and bullying on a world wide stage.

Why have we tolerated such?  Why hasn’t he been removed?  Why has his sexual assault not been addressed?  Why isn’t he in jail?

He clearly has surrounded himself with people who are as much able to bully as he – like Nikki Haley.  I had great hopes for her and was wondering if she was someone I could support.  After the way she bullied at the U. N. she clearly was chosen by Trump to be a part of his government because he saw this in her and that is what he wants in his administration.  Either bully or grovel.  Push people and governments around in Trump’s name or grovel to show what seems to be Trump support, but in reality the most dangerous people one can have in your circle are those you have blackmailed and forced to do and react in ways they would not otherwise.

Hopefully, they have been blackmailed.  If this is who they have been all these years – I am thinking particularly of Orrin Hatch – then we have been very short sighted to have re-elected them.  It is time for all of them to go.  There must be a way to immediately remove Trump and his administration.  I am sure you folks will think of something – but make it quick.

My response will be following Marceline out of the Republican Party.  I stayed too long, but better late than never.  I remember her when she was precinct chair in Wayzata, Minnesota.  Wondered then how she could be precinct chair in the Republican Party and on the National Board of the National Organization of Women – or is that ‘for’ women?  She stood strong for what she believed.  I didn’t like her much then – thought she was too “pushy”.  I did respect her, however.  I watched her being trashed in some really crude ways, but she didn’t step down, didn’t step away and I don’t think she even blinked.  Having a family to raise that took a lot of guts and she must have been through a lot of pain in the process.

Not been involved in civil rights and these other activities very long, but I am all in now.  And whether that is good or bad we have Donald Trump to thank or blame for my conversion.  From a sort of racist and sexist to somehow trying to walk a different path and make up for a life not always well led or behaved.  Hope you all forgive me.  I was busy trying to make lots of money – but that’s all over.  Getting old changes your values and priorities.

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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

The American Tax Cut

Thursday, December 21st, 2017

by:  Marceline Donaldson

If ever I have seen a group of people who should not be in government, it was those folks standing on the steps of the Capital – built by slaves – awaiting the arrival of their “leader”.

It was like a Greek play!

Along comes four White MEN!

My first thought was that the earth was going to open in front of them and – oops! – there they go!

but that didn’t happen.  They arrived in front of all those people who gave them such an ovation you would have thought they did something great.  But then we traditionally also applaud and give awe to evil!

I’ve never felt more justified in something I did; some action I have taken then at that moment when I thought back and realized I left the Republican Party, I was not one of them.  Today, I don’t understand why I stayed so long.  Trying to get people to change – to recognize where they were going.  I no longer had to hold up to them constantly their incredible history and from whence they had come.  That was futile and energy I spent doing that could have been better placed.  I put behind me the black man who headed the Republican Party in Louisiana – that is history and he would have changed parties along with me, if he were still alive. I wondered, if when Strom Thurmond changed parties to become a Republican this was his vision?  No – couldn’t have been because his reality was two families, one black and one white with his black wife having produced a black child with whom he had a relationship and who he educated.  However, with this display he, Nixon, Regan and all those others who helped bring us to this moment must be in great pain as this result from their life on earth turns up the heat they are experiencing in hell!

The applause was bad enough, but what came after was like watching a satire deserving of Saturday Night fame.

I watched White Men make total fun of their leader as they took the microphone, one after the other, and started out with such exaggerated, extravagant praise.  I wondered how they were able to deliver their acolades without falling down laughing right on the steps.  From watching them they were clearly poking the bear and enjoying their “secret joke” at his expense.  And ‘the bear’ probably was totally unaware of where they were really coming from.

When one called Trump the best president who ever existed as head of these United States I knew, without a doubt, that this was a group of people making fun of their leader.  My eyes widened and it became especially the height of satire when a woman took the microphone to do the same thing.  I wondered if she had ever been sexually assaulted!  And was she now holding up on a pedestal one of her assaulters in front of whom she was still fearful!  But her eyes danced so she must be one of the satirists.

such an incredible few minutes.

Like watching a bad movie!  But this was real life and these were real people!  These are people others elected to be their ‘leaders’.  Hope that changes.  We really need to take a closer look at those for whom we cast our votes.  We need to take our votes more seriously because those elected can and have done much damage.  We need to look pass the manipulations, the lies, the greed, – and yes, the word we don’t think applies to politicians – the evil created when we elect people who lie, cheat, steal, obfuscate. and do whatever to benefit personally from the post to which they are elected.  These folks are SAD!  Tragic!  Self-absorbed!  Turned into themselves to work for their own destruction! etc. etc. etc.

No wonder so many in this society are on drugs.  One probably has to be to take this.  Now where did I put my doctor prescribed pills…………….

MUELLER – WHAT IS TAKING YOU SO 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

 

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

 

 

The Bettina Oracle speaks about the U. S. Tax Cut Bill

Saturday, December 2nd, 2017

The U. S. Tax Cut Bill ends democracy and the republic.

The tax cut bill just passed by the United States Congress has had many detractors for tons of reasons.  The real evil in the bill, which is almost being overlooked, is the little bit which eliminates the estate tax.

It could be called “The Bill to Restructure the United States”.  Or – “The Bill to substantially increase the strength, number and wealth of the American Oligarch’s”.  Or – ” Lopsided Wealth and Privilege on America’s doorstep.”

Now that the tax bill is in place – the next order of business is a recession like the one which started in about 1929.  A stock market bubble followed by a crash.  Serious upheavals are necessary to totally change the government of a country and this is how it is and will be done.

When the economy wipes off some of the dust and the smoke settles, it will be a new country where Political Correctness will have been redefined to mean – White Male Northern European Ancestry people in total power and control.  Everyone else has different and diminishing degrees of middle classless down to poverty.  Those who object, rebel – in jail or dead.

What amazes me is how you are distracted by some media, well meaning, but not understanding what they are analyzing and/or the repercussions from what they are saying – currently distracted by the machinations of the United States President, Donald Trump. You are distracted by your own negating and refusal to take responsibility for ourselves as United States citizens..  Sometimes that is great with many rewards and sometimes that requires sacrifice.

Greed, avarice, jealousy, sin has blown smoke in your faces and all around.  You are definitely not keeping the machinery of government running smoothly and in the direction of equality, etc. etc. etc.  You are devolving down deeper into sin blaming others for your laziness and need to be accepted by others instead of working towards speaking truth to power and taking the risks that requires.

Each time we have been on the verge of a United States which is diverse and which takes responsibility for all of its citizens something comes in to short circuit that and turn us in another direction.  Today, we are suffering from the maturation of the Republican Party’s Southern Strategy started under Richard Nixon and carried to a higher level by Ronald Regan.  We are ranting about Donald Trump’s usurping the end of Barack Obama’s presidency with treasonous acts while not remembering Ronald Regan.  Wasn’t it under this Regan when prisoners were set free from another country on the day he was inaugurated?  How could that happen unless his transition team acted as another government usurping the time and power of the government elected before RR took office?  Regan let you know where he was coming from in a very sophisticatedly racist way – he traveled to Mississippi to announce his run for the office of president.  Trump did and will continue to do some of the same things, but he is not sophisticated and doesn’t know how to camouflage his making sure these United States continues with its white male privilege.

Since the presidency of Barack Obama, we have seen how a more diverse, equal, caring country can look.  It was a shock to some of you who were accustomed to exercising power over and being better than.  You were and are not going to give up those sins.  Better the devil you know than the world of incredible beauty in which you could live, but for……

The result of the eight years spent under Barack Obama’s presidency WOKE those who had assumed that racism, sexism homophobia, xenophobia and all the rest were here to stay and safely intrinsic to the structure of our government.  When the shock of Obama’s presidency hit those accustomed to taking from others; pushing back others, etc. they came out in force and now are able to take off their white sheets; proclaim their Nazi beliefs and more.

The American Oligarch’s, who have never been turned off by working with exactly that segment of this society to gain power and control over opened their pocket books and put out their wish list to those who are moved by money.  And they were and are successful.

One thing those American Oligarch’s have forgotten, if they ever knew it – they have children.  Your children, no matter your wealth or power,  are the most unpredictable people on earth.  Karma says – will your children be in need of what you have taken from others one day in the not too distant future when you are gone?  Will anyone reach out to them or will they be left to spiral down into the same gates of hell which you occupy – only their spiraling down will be while alive?

Be careful! KARMA is a bitch!

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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

 


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