March, 2019 - Bettina Network's Blog

Archive for March, 2019

Harvard Square House for Sale

Friday, March 29th, 2019

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/49-Hawthorn-St-Cambridge-MA-02138/56438592_zpid/

Fantastic historical house built by well known architect, Lois Lily Howe, at the turn of the 19th century. Ms. Howe, along with three other women, developed the architectural firm of Howe, Almy and Manning. This house includes many innovations which Lois Lily Howe designed into the building. She was one of MIT’s first female graduates and developed several houses well known in the area for the care and exquisite design elements which she incorporated into them. She also designed and built homes in New Hampshire and New York.

Anna Freud (Daughter of Sigmund Freud) was a regular visitor and the psychiatric journal, which is still published, was developed in this house by Anna Freud and Lydia Dawes, among others. For quite some time – about 50 years – it was the center of the local psychiatric community because it was the home of Dr. Lydia Dawes, who planted a magnolia tree outside a window in the living room so those she worked with could lie on the couch and be soothed by the wonderful flowers as they talked. There is a dark spot on the floor in the music room – not such a positive, but part of its history – where Dr. Dawes dropped her daughters diapers until she could take care of them and over time they stained the floor.

Many local psychiatrists were trained in this house over the years by Dr. Dawes. One stayed with us for a couple weeks because he wanted to be able to have free access to see the entire house at his leisure. He had been limited to the living room the entire time he trained with Dr. Dawes and he needed to satisfy that unfulfilled curiousity in his life.

Huge Master Bedroom

1/2 Bathroom

The house was built for Dr. William Augustus Maynadier – who taught at the college – well where else but Harvard College. He taught Arthurian Legend (King Arthur and the round table) – probably why there is so much sexism in the country. Every Harvard man and only men attended Harvard at that time, had to take this class because it taught them how to properly treat women – they learned to treat women just like King Arthur and his boys treated the women of their day. We are still trying to overcome that bit of history which is a part of this house. It is very fitting that a strong feminist now resides there and has for the past 36 years, so you can consider that bit of sexist history expunged.

To know more – to see the house – call Marceline Donaldson 617 497 9166

TRUMP FINDS HIS ROY COHN

Monday, March 25th, 2019

It is tragic what is happening in and to the United States of America. This was once a strong, respected, acknowledged world leader. It is now a country with a “president” who lies, cheats and manipulates – all for his own aggrandizement, without thought for anything else – and a structure in place to support him. That was very clear when Barr’s press release came out.

It was actually clear long before, but we have been trying to postpone that day of reckoning which is going to come and soon.

Barr turned up at a signing in the White House – very unusual for a United States Attorney General, especially since he had a starring part of that signing. He initially stood a bit apart as he totally backed, tota and way beyond what was necessary, Donald Trump and his ‘national emergency’. This was not a national emergency. This was Donald Trump pushing this country to a breaking point because he wanted something to honor his father and all of the KKK and White Supremacist who called for such a wall decades ago – even into the 1920’s. They called for a wall with “steel slats” – the same kind of wall Trump called for when he began to seriously push his wall agenda. A memorial to White Supremacy.

The recent Trump rant about John McCain had nothing to do with John McCain. It was Trump letting those around him know what he would do to them if they didn’t do his bidding and they got the message. For those who didn’t get the message he described the carnage that would result from any attempt to tell the truth about his activities with Russia and/or any attempt to remove him from office.

Donald Trump went on a rampage a few weeks before the Mueller Report came out to let all of those around him know exactly what their fate would be at his hands if they did not exonerate him. And they got the message. Has there ever been a time when Republicans in Congress have been so quiet?

The New Zealand murders came right after Trump’s comments about what he would do and the violence that would happen; as did the Pittsburgh murders come right after Donald Trump proclaimed that he was not a Globalist. The bombs being delivered to prominent Americans also came right after Trump made another such threatening declaration.

When Barr was appointed Attorney General, it was clear Roy Cohn had arrived in the form of Barr and was going to do everything he could to support, shore up, clean up Donald Trump – and he did. The threesome of that time in history which wrecked much havoc on these United States – Roy Cohn, Senator Joseph McCarthy and Donald Trump – their protege – have returned and their protege has shown he learned his lessons well and is taking what he was taught to a new level – this is just the beginning.

It was quite unusual raising lots of questions for Attorney General Barr to visit the White House right at the time the Mueller Report was being delivered to him. After that visit Donald Trump and his tweets were silent and he went off to Mar-a-Lago quietly, with his friends and supporters and was not heard from again until he returned to the White House and the deed was done. Clearly, he has control over his tweets and they are done for a reason to create the affect he has been creating.

These United States have been seriously divided almost from its beginnings. Today, we are trying to say this serious division is new – not true. There has been the good and the bad. Those who saw the possibilities and wanted to move in the direction of greatness and goodness as a country and those who were overfilled with greed and power needs who simply wanted what they wanted and if that destroyed everything so be it if they could walk away with what they thought would satisfy those needs.

We have tried to cover up that history, but today it has come home to roost. There are too many diverse people now living, working, raising families in this country for it to be allowed to go back to the filthy past that has hung out here so long.

It is time for these United States to be what its past has promised and to leave behind the sin, the degradation, the filth, the destruction of human life, the self-centeredness and self-aggrandizement which has always brought this country down and has brought it to a place of not fulfilling what could have been its destiny.

When Donald Trump was “elected” president it was with all of the ugliness showing. He had already built Trump University and had ripped off hundreds, if not thousands of people in the process to line his own pockets. During all of the time he was running for president of these United States that and more was in the news with the very ugly details of how people looking for a better life scrimped, saved and denied themselves to pay money to Trump University so they could have a better life only to discover they were in worse shape after they enrolled than before because Donald Trump and his University were ripping them off, not providing them with that bright and shiny future of which they dreamed and which his marketing and advertising promised.. And that is only one such example of Donald Trump ripping off the American people.

White America, do you really need to be better than so badly that this is what you are willing to do to maintain that role and position in this society? Have you no shame? No God? No ethics? A horrible character who allows you to live in this filth created for you by Donald Trump and those who support him and those who went before to clear a path for him? You have no idea how great it is to be free! To live a life of freedom! To be one of instead of better than! It is an incredible feeling, life, way to be.

Millions of people voted for Donald Trump for president. Yes, Russia was a part of his being elected president – they provided the denouement – but also yes – millions of Americans voted for him. The same millions who moved against Native Americans? The same millions who moved to enslave Africans? The same millions who brought Africans over in slave ships to be sold as so much cattle – using the same ships in which they put product they were selling and delivering to other countries and returning from those countries with human beings they had stolen from African countries to sell to Americans? The same millions who saw Native American children, by the thousands, ripped from their families to supposedly be “acculturated” into American Society, but most of whom were never heard from again? And today we are seeing the same thing repeated with thousands of children coming to the United States from other countries and being treated as though they are sex objects and being raped and/or sexually or other ways abused by their captors who have put them in chain link prisons – who have humiliated and demeaned these children for no reason other than the depravity of those in charge and who have ripped even weeks old babies from their mothers to satisfy the needs for superiority of those doing such and the depravity of he who has ordered such to be done? “Suffer the little children to come unto me for of such is the kingdom of heaven”.

The same millions voted for Donald Trump who wrecked havoc across this country for decades trying to intimidate African Americans by being a part of one massacre after another, after slavery ended, as they saw African American families putting their lives together and building communities in places like Oklahoma and other areas? Their anger at seeing such resulted in unspeakable massacres of which our school children know nothing because that history is deleted in our school systems.

The United States has a lot from which to be redeemed and instead we are turning to someone like Donald Trump who lives and works in the mould of the worst of American history. We thought, when Barack Obama was elected, that we had made the collective decision to leave all of that behind. Clearly, that was a wrong thought, because what is showing is that those who were in charge throughout all of American history tainting everything that could have been beautiful are still in charge tainting everything that could have been beautiful.

The press release from Mueller’s Report was written by a man who was officially told, by his employers, of his conflict of interest and who refused to recuse himself. He had a mission and with his press release he carried out that mission. He was not going to be part of a diverse society. He, apparently, wants to give lip service to the goodness that could be America and do his part to make sure that other part, that gross part, which we all share as human beings, would be the part to take over and make sure he and his would still be in charge, wrecking havoc on everything and everyone else. From the dregs of humanity come your oppressors, cleaning themselves up but still instantly recognized.

To people like Barr and Lindsey Graham I say – my God neither sleeps nor slumbers. People like you crucified my Jesus and yet what happened was not the destruction of my Jesus nor of why Jesus came to earth, but the fulfillment of many of those promises. Millions followed – great edifices were built in his honor – ethical systems were created from his teachings – the efforts of the Barr’s, the Grahams’ (both Lindsey and Franklin and their followers) were dispersed. They try to come back periodically and while they succeed on some level for a brief period of time, they simply bring into being by their failure and their notoriety and people finally seeing the sin and flaws they cultivate in themselves, the exact opposite of what they claim to be working to achieve. Self-aggrandizement is their goal – power, money, the feeling of being better than is their goal. Reaching for that goal ultimately is their destruction. Hitler committed suicide, they say, in a dirty, filthy bunker scared out of his mind.

We are today the people who walk in darkness, but shortly, the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf will hear.

It matters not what Scripture you read or which religion you follow or if you follow none – it is not possible to be human with all that means and not see what is happening in these United States. To go along with it says more about you than anything else you do, think or claim to believe.

The Germans went along with Hitler. Average, ordinary people because they wanted someone or something to blame for the mess they allowed and helped happen in their lives. They wanted to be better than and what they received in return for those wants was a time spent in hell. Today, however, as most Germans look back at that history, you don’t see statues in memorial to that time in German history. You don’t see plays being performed to laud those actions. You don’t see people adoring Hitler for what he wrought or because they needed to keep that history alive and in front of them and their children. You see a people trying to make amends for a temporary aberration in their history. We have yet to see that in these United States. We have had many Hitlers-types who we adored. We still fight for and demand the right to worship at the altar of our statues and memorials to slavery as we created it for generations in these United States. We still have a form of slavery in the way we hold dear to sex trafficking and our enslaving of women and children for such purposes.

We have lauded them all and tried to make them our saviors – Donald Trump is just the most recent.

How long – O Lord!

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Or you can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.

If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.

_________________________________________________________

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

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.co



Bettina Oracle Speaks

Wednesday, March 20th, 2019

Well, for once you did not call me – I am here because you need to think seriously about what is happening in your world before the worst degradation, oppression, horribleness takes you by surprise.

I am here because John McCain, who recently joined us, has something he very urgently wants to say to you and he asked if I would be his “transmitter”.

From McCain:

“I have been watching and listening to what is happening amongst you. My concern is that you are defending my reputation without realizing that the insults hurled my way are not about me. Nothing on earth can hurt or harm me. Even my reputation is now cast in stone. It will stand – the good, the bad and the indifferent.

Instead of trying to defend and protect me, please see and understand what this is really about. Use this example to look carefully and clearly and understand what is in front of you.

To Lindsey Graham: I know you wanted to say something in my defense. I know it was painful for you to keep quiet and I know you think that by keeping quiet to get yourself re-elected you think this is the best way you have to counter the evil in the world and the evil which is now so close to you.

Please don’t! You are jeopardizing your eternity and your life. Live it standing firmly on your own two feet as an independent individual and everything you want will happen. The way you have chosen will only bring you and the rest of the world horrors beyond your imagining.

To the rest of you: Donald Trump isn’t fixated against me. He didn’t make his anti-John McCain comments because so many months after my death he is still spitting out insults against me because of some kind of emotional need. Donald Trump made those anti-John McCain comments because he was testing Lindsey Graham. He needed to make sure Lindsey Graham was loyal to Donald Trump to a fault. He wanted to insure that Lindsey would do whatever he was asked by Donald to do and so Donald put him to the test. If he could viciously insult a dear and old friend of Lindsey’s who could not defend himself in your world so you could see and hear that defense and Lindsey kept quiet and let those insults stand, then Lindsey could be trusted and was now loyal to Donald Trump. That is what those supposed insults were all about. Before Donald Trump used any of his resources to back Lindsey’s re-election, he wanted to make sure Lindsey was in the Donald Trump camp and would do whatever Donald Trump asked Lindsey to do.

Please think clearly as this all unfolds. It has reached the point of your world being engaged in major sin. It has reached that tipping point where all of you will either be engaged in promoting the world the way Donald Trump sees it or you will stand up for the goodness that is in you but you and Lindsey have to find the strength to stand.

Lindsay Graham can break this part of the pattern by finding the strength within himself to stand tall and speak the truth. He knows what those insults were about. This is his moment and his immortal soul will either live or die on this hill.

If you look at this pattern you will see why so many others are keeping quiet. They have had their own period of testing and they wanted what was offered if they pledged their loyalty to Donald Trump. You will see what is being done to them and the heavy load they have been carrying. They, like Lindsey, want the power they have as Congressmen. They, like Lindsey, are trying to justify the price they are paying to maintain themselves. Some believe they are doing this for family and country.

To compromise your eternity for a few more years in Congress is not worth it, Lindsey. You have so much more in front of you if you find the strength to stand tall and tell the world what is happening to you and why. Accept this and your life is over.

I could have caved as a prisoner and gone home to live a quiet life without having gone through the pain and agony of the prison life and violence and personal agony that I suffered. I didn’t realize and didn’t think about what the stands I took would mean to my eternity. I have been able to look back at all of it and put it all in perspective and I had no idea the greatness that would come from the way I chose to live my life. I just did what I thought was right.

May you, Lindsey and all of you have the courage to live your lives choosing the right path and making decisions which will benefit you, your families and the rest of the world – and to you Lindsey, you know exactly what you must do. Don’t let that weakness of yours send you hurtling into a life of sin

Your friend always – who will be standing by your side.”

More Bettina Members Comments!

Wednesday, March 20th, 2019

I was heartsick as I watched television news as the New Zealand massacre unfolded. I could not believe we were in that space once again.

I turned on television news to watch young people in their massive demonstration about Climate Change. What a disappointment. A fantastic huge demonstration of such dedicated youth and not one word or picture or anything about what was happening outside my window.

I remembered a couple things – when there was some news out there that Trump wanted to block he had ways to distract and block. Was the New Zealand massacre set up to distract these young people’s demonstration which Trump has worked hard to keep from surfacing? It would take something massive to keep those young people off the television news and it was found. Since the start of that demonstration I’ve seen nothing of the work and actions of thousands of young people – only the New Zealand massacre. Were Muslims used to distract from this powerful day of demonstrations?

The second thing I remembered was Trump asking someone he was interviewing if he would kill for him. The news commentator thought that was strange, but put it down to Trump’s “derangement.” That was either Trump’s “derangement” or Trump having blown past the ethics and morals which would have kept him from doing the Khashoggi thing to his joining his group of fascist, dictator ‘friends’ who he has shown he clearly admires and now has shown he can keep up with ‘mafia speak’ to cause murders in his realm?

My thoughts are constantly with the New Zealanders who had to endure the slaughter. I don’t know how I can help, but something will show itself and I will respond.

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This world has been created, managed and brought along by males. Some white, some pink, some yellow, some brown, some of many colors. All share lives on this planet which are mostly about satisfying their male egos’ and no matter how large or how small they are led first by sex and then all kinds of violence and everything else follows. It is time for a change. Even television shows are about sex and violence in one form or another and getting worse. There is so much more to life, but we don’t seem able to experience anything beyond various forms of sex and violence.

Life has so many other components, possibilities, excitements – isn’t it time for all of you out of control males to sit down, sit back and just stop the BS. It is time for another kind of world order to emerge – one which has caring for others its first concern; which puts others first; which is interested in building bridges not walls; which looks at business as a way of supplying what we all need not as a way to make billions so we can isolate ourselves and show the world our greatness which we gained at their expense?

We need to be a safe place for the poor to get out of poverty; to do everything we can to educate all of us; – and my writing this is so foolish. As you read it I can hear the comments – “a pipe dream, a romantic, an idealist, where did he come from”. It is so sad what we have done to this planet and it is getting worse. It was such a beautiful place – it is no longer.

Problem is, I don’t see any way out. There are too many Donald Trump’s in this world and more coming. We have so screwed ourselves with most of us just alive doing whatever until we die without any thought to the fact that we are all wasting the beauty of life because we have gone after weakness rather than strength and have redefined our values to satisfy our current existence instead of changing our current existence to be of good character. I doubt that we even know of what that consists.

_______________________________________________________

With New Zealand, has this administration taken its first steps into murder to be able to join the fascist nations developing very quickly around the globe? Did we have to prove our “manhood” and have done so with the “mafia speak” that brought about the New Zealand massacre?

It looks as though sex trafficking, pedophilia, the opioids – the new kind of drugs by prescription until addicted are all now in place and arms of this new mafia being created world wide with the United States president one of those doing the creating, promoting, managing. By tweet is a powerful way to create this kind of institutional structure.

________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale

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Or you can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.

If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.

_________________________________________________________

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

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.co


The Story….continued

Sunday, March 17th, 2019

What is racism, bigotry, ethnocentrism, homophobia, etc.?

The actual experiences of people who have had to endure the bigotry of others while they tried to move along and achieve their life goals gives an understanding of bigotry which helps us root it out of our lives and out of the institutions in which we live and work. With that in mind, we hope you learn from and can use the stories in this series.

Usually in instances of racism, it is the person who is acted against – the person who has been forced to experience another’s bigotry – who is chastised or loses an opportunity or is moved out of a home for no reason or denied entrance to an educational institution for which they qualified and ‘but for’ would have been accepted. This needs to stop. Especially, we need to stop the denial when we come across an instance of bigotry. We cannot afford to call for the bowl of water, soap and a towel to wash our hands leaving the responsibility for our sins on others or on the institutions which we created.

___________________________________________

This story continues what we started – another part of the actual life experience of a minority denied:

This is about the Field Education positions at a seminary – which means a part of your course work or your experiences for which you receive a grade and which is a required part of most seminary educational experiences on your way to a Mdiv Degree (Masters of Divinity). Where you are placed for this Field Education experience depends upon conversations and consultations with the person who would supervise your work, the head of the Field Education area, the Field Education Committee and the head of that Committee who is normally very influential in these things, and more.

I applied for and was accepted for a Field Education placement at Church of the Messiah in Auburndale, MA. under the Rev. William Lowe who agreed to serve as my supervisor. He had no problems with my being African American. In fact such a conversation didn’t come up. I had already completed a successful Field Education program at Trinity Church, Copley Square but Trinity agreed to sponsor my ordination process and so the Field Education program I completed could not be considered for credit of any kind leaving that requirement for the Masters of Divinity unfulfilled.

After those initial things were done which included outlining the activities and course work for the year, and the proposal was accepted by the Field Education Committee, we thought all was well until I received a letter from Eric Law who was Chairperson of the Field Education Committee.

It was a letter of rejection and went something like this:

“We admit that our existing Field Education Program, while meeting a lot of the students’ needs, is not adequate in serving others from a different cultural background. I want you to know that you have enabled us to look at ourselves honestly and to question our organization — its strengths and its weaknesses. Hopefully, what has happened, painful as it may have been, will move us to establish a better educational system that is more inclusive.”

The rejection letter went on to state “This is a systemic problem created by conflicts between two different communication systems, based upon different cultural values. We realize that a mediation between the two systems must be set up so that similar situations in the future can be handled with better understanding.”

It was a truly amazing letter especially since it also claimed “our decision depended a great deal on the qualifications of Bill Lowe as a supervisor (then rector at Church of the Messiah). Based on the evidence we had, we had a lot of questions about his qualifications.” The Rev. Lowe was a supervisor in the Field Education program. He had been vetted and certified and had Field Education placements before and after my rejection – all white.) It was a stunning paragraph which not only rejected my proposal for Field Education at Church of the Messiah, but also included down grading the rector of the Church which had accepted me.

Who is Eric Law – the chairperson of the Field Education Committee – who apparently engineered this turndown? A first or second generation Chinese American student at Episcopal Divinity School, who later became an ordained priest and whose work during that time was with the Chinese Community solely and was the same for quite some time after his ordination.

The racism through all of this was stunning, unacknowledged, unaddressed and continued to plague the Field Education program for years after as it had for many years prior. The racism I experienced had been a part of the Field Education Program at EDS for a very long time and had been complained about from the days of the Rev. Kenneth Hughes whose complaints we discovered when my husband and I worked at St. Bartholomew’s Church in Cambridge, a Church Rev. Hughes pastored many years earlier.

What was the problem which caused all of this? An African American woman chose a white suburban church for her placement in the Field Education program. Normally, an African American chooses to do their Field Education at an African American Church. A white American can choose whichever Church he or she decides best suits his or her educational needs, but those choices did not and still today do not extend to minorities

________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale

Project 2 – #WellsFargoBoycott

Or you can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.

If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.

_________________________________________________________

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

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.co


Mafia Speak: The necessity for loyalty within Trump’s circle: The fast moving growth of a mafia within the U. S. Government!

Sunday, March 10th, 2019

We complain about the rapid accumulation of 99% of the wealth within the United States economic system being available to only 1% of the population and we talk about Capitalism to Socialism to Fascism, but we don’t get into the particulars of how that is happening.

Clearly, if we did not have a mafia within the U. S. Economic System trying to take over we would not have a billionaire class. We have a very thriving Billionaire Class structure which is growing dramatically fast and dictating who will and who will not join them.

The kind of investment needed to create such a group; the “loyalty” demanded to keep it going and growing; the flagrant violations of the U. S. Constitution to keep the way clear for the mafia structures needed to replace the structures sustaining the U. S. Republi; the pressures to give up the Republic and take instead the structure of the more fascist-authoritarian governmental structures necessary have taken time and several administrations. With the Trump Administration we have finally arrived at that point where it becomes clear that we are barreling ahead into a government which is fast becoming a criminal enterprise headed by a man whose privately owned company could best be described as a RICO organization.

There have been many examples along the way, but the press has either been reluctant to make the call and do the investigative reporting to bring to the public the structures within which they are now living or they do not know and only see such things in the rear view mirror. And that makes sense since the role of the press is to report the news – to report what has happened.

The examples are becoming increasingly ‘in your face’ and they are being immediately ‘normalized’ as just the way we function today.

The latest example was extraordinarily blatant – and that was the sentencing of Manafort. It was an incredible example of “Mafia Speak” – right out front expecting the public and press to gloss over what was done.

A Prelude to the First Mafia Speak: (Setting the stage)

In the context of the original trial, Judge Ellis attacked one of the witnesses – Rick Gates – by testifying instead of maintaining himself as the judge – “…Manafort could not have been paying that much attention to what you (Gates) were doing. If so, he (Manafort) would have known how much money you were stealing from him.” That comment was apparently an attempt to turn the original trial, as much as possible, away from Manafort – to give him some breathing room and allow any juror listening to be persuaded in Manafort’s favor. That said there is Mafia Speak coming.

First Mafia Speak:

  1. The judge said – right before pronouncing the sentence on Paul Manafort – “You are not before this Court for anything having to do with colluding with the Russian government to influence this election.”

That was a very strange comment for a judge to make. Normally, a judge stays within the confines of the hearing in front of him, he does not wander off as Judge T. S. Ellis did to an unrelated and totally out of context comment which he apparently had a specific reason for doing. That reason became clear as the day progressed. Judge Ellis set up what followed and allowed the mafia “Don” to make his point later in the day for the public to be brought along in the way he wanted the public to go. The “Don” said he was “honored” by his people.

Second Mafia Speak:

2. After the hearing and sentencing when Paul Manafort’s attorney, Kevin Downing, went to the microphones outside the courthouse to say a few words to the reporters gathered outside, he said: “There is absolutely no evidence that Paul Manafort was involved with any collusion with any government official from Russia.”

Interesting in his comments, they were also outside of what the hearing was about. In addition, both the judge and attorney, who are professionals in the law and who know there is no legal term such as “collusion” – it is Donald Trump’s favorite way to characterize the special counsel’s investigation – Attorney Downing’s comments as well as Judge Ellis’ comments began to sound like “Mafia Speak” – things said at the direction of the mafia boss ‘ Donald Trump.

Reason for the First and Second “Mafia Speak” comments:

3. To close the circle and bring it around to why the Judge and Attorney made those statements, which stood out because of their inappropriateness and un-attachment to the hearing and sentencing – later in the day, Donald Trump made comments about the hearing and sentencing when Reporters shouted questions to him at the White House.

Donald Trump’s comments were “I just want to tell you that his (Manafort”s) lawyer went out of his way actually to make a statement last night, no collusion”. “The judge, for whatever reason, I was very honored by it, also made the statement that this had nothing to do with collusion with Russia.”

The mafia don then completes the circle by coming out with what was supposed to be the denouement comment – the reason for the first and second “Mafia Speak” comments. The three of them – the Judge, who set the table, the Attorney, who brought the food to the table and Trump who sat down to eat what was being served to him, let his capo’s know they had done a great job by commenting on his feelings of being ‘honored’ by what had just been done for him. And clearly, Trump had paid for the table and its settings; the food on the table and was going to enjoy his meal knowing that mafia type loyalty still existed within his organization and with his ‘people.’ That is what James Comey missed in why Trump was asking for “loyalty” from him. Every mafia boss has to know that kind of loyalty is crucial because of the way they operate and the necessity for cover when the circumstances call for it.

That type of mafia control is spreading within the U. S. Government and will be hard to extinguish even after Trump is gone. That mafia structure became very clear to us as we looked at Wells Fargo and tried to decide if we should get involved with a boycott against them.

This is what is happening to your government, America. This is what has happened and continues to happen in your Court System. This is why McConnell has so much power – he is the one making this scenario possible so members of this mafia can function without too many repercussions until the society is better controlled by their mafia governing structure.

Even the seemingly innocuous language is telling. After the judge and attorney went out on a limb for Trump – he thanks them publicly and in the way of the mafia he was “honored by it.”

And now kiss the ring!

________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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Or you can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.

If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.

_________________________________________________________

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

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.co


Tell the Story!

Friday, March 8th, 2019

These are actual instances of how institutional racism and personal bigotry work hand in glove to destroy attempts to change this society from one of White Supremacy and Patriarchy to one which looks beyond physical differences. (I will start – send your stories to share with those who need to understand on a conscious level the structure in which they live, work and in which their children’s character, ethics, morality are being formed. – don’t let me stand out here alone. To talk about these experiences on a personal level takes a lot of humility. The first step to break through the ego and ‘better than’ needs is to allow humility to take hold.)

by: Marceline Donaldson

CHURCH

One of the dominant conveyers of bigotry. What follows is one very small example of how it works!

Currently, we are seeing the demolition of the Black Church. That has been happening for decades. It moved along in earnest when the overall society realized the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s was formed, nurtured and carried through successfully because of the Black Church. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a black preacher and Church leader with an ancestry filled with black ministers, organists and more.

This story starts in a Black Episcopal Church in Central Square, Massachusetts. A Church that has had its ups and downs and currently is down. What happens?

This is one small incident, but crucial in how the Black Church is being destroyed.

My husband and I served as interim ministers at St. Bartholomews Church in Central Square – Cambridge, MA. – in the mid-1980’s, a Church which is predominantly Jamaican, African American, with a few people from Barbados and Haiti – in other words, all people of color.

When we arrived there were two people licensed by the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts to serve as Lay Eucharistic Ministers. One was the wife of the last rector.

We worked with several additional parishioners who were interested in serving their Church as Lay Eucharistic Ministers and as required, we sent letters to the Diocese asking that they be licensed. They attended the requisite training offered by the Diocese, were licensed and worked as Lay Eucharistic Ministers with no problems and many ‘thank you’s’.

The following year we added a couple more who also went through training and were licensed. We also encouraged them to get involved with the Diocese – as well as seeking out others in the congregation who were interested in Diocesan work. There were several and we did our share to make the Episcopal Diocese less White and more Diverse.

The Episcopal Diocese had one or two African Americans involved in their work – people they were accustomed to – the people who disproved the rule.

Everything went along fine until the Bishop under whom we made those additions and changes retired and a new bishop was elected. The new bishop was not comfortable with the increased numbers of African Americans having a say in the business of the Diocese and so began the process of elimination. How was that done? – Quietly! Under the radar, so to speak!

We applied for a renewal of the license for the -now – seven Lay Eucharistic Ministers, who had been licensed for a couple years; who had attended all of the training offered, some more than once and who were doing an excellent job. Back came a letter from the Bishop that those licenses could not be renewed because members of St. Bartholomew’s Church had never been licensed as Lay Eucharistic Ministers; the Church had never applied to have anyone so licensed and no one had ever appeared for training. So our request was denied and we were cast as irresponsible or ignorant for attempting to have licenses renewed which had not been issued in the first place.

That is how the constant struggle is set up and the negative stereotype ‘refreshed.’ Take one step forward. Make it a successful step. Others following in your footsteps become a threat and are seen as a ‘horde’. Minorities are put in the position of constantly having to fight against, have to struggle to achieve anything, which is exhausting. Block their path and after a time there are none. The fiction can then be run which goes “we don’t have any because there are none qualified or interested or willing to do the work. One Bishop moves to open doors; another moves to slam them shut.

It is stunning to see the paperwork, which we have kept, which lays out this scenario.

What did we accomplish? Nothing that made permanent change. The destruction of St. Bartholomew’s continued apace. It was time for us to move on and our place in the structure was outlined for us clearly so there could be no misunderstanding.

Time for us to move on meant the next step in the destruction of St. Bartholomew’s – a rector to whom the congregation had to minister instead of being ministered to and a couple steps after that made sure there would be an empty church soon and its small congregation would have to consider a ‘merger’ into a White Congregation – losing their history and identity completely.

We went off to the Bishop’s office to meet and attempt to correct what we thought was a mistake of some kind taking with us the copies of the licenses issued and all supporting paperwork hoping that would clear up any ‘misunderstanding’ or misplaced licenses or other records. It was a meeting that did not go well. It was clear licenses never having been issued was a fiction and one that was thinly veiled. The fiction was maintained even in sight of the licenses signed by the Bishop.. The copies and in two cases the original licenses were characterized as “we don’t know where those came from” and that went on until my well known temper exploded and I wound up accusing the Bishop of racism and outlining how, when, why and what this behavior was meant to create – and that basically was the intentional destruction of a Black Church. All denied with righteous indignation.

The Bishop started the meeting and acknowledged and complimented us on a job well done. He acknowledged the substantial increase in Church attendance over the time we served as Interim, but also said I was not Marceline Donaldson, but Mrs. Bennett and I should act accordingly- which he suggested should be attending Church on Sundays, sitting in the front row so I could be seen ‘appropriately’ as being ‘supportive’ of my husband.

We outlined for the Bishop the circumstances under which we had taken the job. I was in the ordination process at the time and this placement was totally in line with what I was doing in Seminary. I was to do most of the work because my husband had a full time job as a professor at an Episcopal Seminary and he was there to be supportive and the one who was ordained and who could carry out the responsibilities that fall only to the ordained. We also let him know I had never been Mrs. Bennett, would never be Mrs. Bennett and my legal name and the one I used under all circumstances was Marceline Donaldson.

The Bishop responded by saying he was ordaining people who were young, just out of seminary and he preferred to ordain young men because that is really who made the best priests. He added that because we had done such a great job he would use us as Interims in other Churches as needed and if my understanding of my position more closely matched his he thought our work could make a substantial contribution to the Church.

My explosion, which could be heard outside the Bishops office, did not help the situation, but it did make clear to the Bishop that I would not be a part of the picture he drew and that his concept was racist and sexist and we thought the Episcopal Church had and was moving away from that – which was really about sin.

He did agree to renew the licenses and Robert and I went home. We talked about how we were going to withdraw from St. Bartholomew’s and the Episcopal Church. We were clearly only welcome if we could go along with the program of using the reputations and respect we had gained to maintain the Episcopal Church in its current stance with its institutionalized White Supremacy in tact and its Patriarchy moving in such a way to incorporate those who could go along with the program and push out those who wanted the world Jesus promised.

I went back to one of the three places in Scripture which has sustained me:

Ephesians 6:12-18

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.”

It has always been amazing to me how so many people are able to use the institution in which they serve to maintain themselves as “better than” and their institution serving the needs of White Supremacy and the maintenance of the Patriarchy while doing what they consider the work of that part of the world in which they have chosen to make their lives, raise a family, and thrive without a conscious realization that it is being done at the expense of the lives of others. What we also came to see and understand is that those so mired in the maintenance of the Patriarchy and White Supremacy are also mired so deep in sin that the lives they show to the public and the private life they lead are very different and separate from one another. That private life is generally immoral, full of serious ethical problems with a character that peeps out ever so often showing a very ugly personna.

Why was it necessary to keep the Diocese White, male and begin the destruction of a Church which had a long history in the Diocese as well as its neighborhood? WHY? Because that was the beginning necessity for the conversion of the neighborhood back to a White neighborhood. The era of the move to the suburbs was drawing to a close making necessary the “whitening” of neighborhoods which “darkened” when White Flight started. These movements happen over generations and our conscious awareness of them only happens at their end when their goals are being realized and can no longer happen “under cover.”

In the vineyard of the fallen are my brothers and sisters who want to segregate us by color – by sex – by ethnicity – by sexual orientation – by all kind of other ‘differences’ to shore up their ego and identity so they don’t have to do the work of being.

How long before the eyes of the blind are opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped, the prisoners set free, those who walk in darkness brought into a great light.

When we shore up those who are keeping us all in bondage to their need for power, money and dominion-over, our lives are in jeopardy and our eternity closed out.

________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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Or you can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.

If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.

_________________________________________________________

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

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.co



Bettina Members Share…

Saturday, March 2nd, 2019

Congressman Jim Jordan accused of ignoring sexual abuse at OSU. see https://www.daytondailynews.com…/congressman-jim-jordan…sex-abuse…/lzfhebNU

I watched the Michael Cohen hearings and was appalled at Congressman Jordan and the way he led the group denouncing Cohen for lying plus as many other uglies he could think of to throw Michael Cohen’s way. Clearly that group thrives on threat, intimidation, abuse. And by the way, isn’t Jordan the one accused in some kind of sexual abuse thing against young athletes? Either he was involved or knew about it and didn’t report it or..? He fits right into the Trump orbit.

Rep. Jim Jordan Is Named in New OSU Sexual Abuse Scandal… https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jim-jordan-ohio-state-700578

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Hearing those who support and defend Donald Trump is showing what is wrong with the United States. I used to get angry when I heard people say – “if you don’t like this country leave it”. Today, I understand the sentiment. Maybe we should have a bigotry test to move out and keep out those White Supremacist and assorted others. They all seem to have given Donald Trump immunity.

Michael Cohen has admitted and is paying for his lies. Donald Trump’s lies make Michael Cohen look like a choir boy. Trump’s supporters seem totally able to attempt to defame Michael Cohen, calling him a liar and denigrating him for his lies and at the same time not even realizing others are looking at the person they are supporting and counting his lies into the thousands. How are they so tone deaf that they don’t see themselves as they are seen by others.

Cohen has no power, except what he had loaned to him by Trump if Cohen used that power to carry out Trump’s wishes. Trump as a liar, however, is dangerous because he does have power over many and much. He is a major, daily, liar whose lies will negatively affect your children’s future as those lies change this republic into a fascist state with Donald Trump leading the nation as he tries to use this country to become wealthier than Vladimir Putin.

Trump followers are saying- some people can lie to us and that is alright because the end justifies the means. What they don’t understand is that the process by which we reach the end totally changes the end we envisioned. That expected end changes and turns the goals we were willing to compromise our moral values and our character to reach into a monstrosity we are amazed has been created. It will be something we neither recognize nor want.

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CPAC BRINGING IN ANOTHER ROUND OF MC CARTHYISM

I’ve read in Bettina Network’s Blog about Donald Trump’s mentors – Roy Cohn and Senator Joseph McCarthy. After reading that, I did some research to see what that was all about. Shamefully, it was not a part of what I learned in school. I am also discovering other such times in these United States which were much worse. I did not learn about the massacres and slaughters in school. For example – I had to go out of my way to read and learn about the Trail of Tears. My first reaction was to deny. Not here – not in my country did or could that happen.

Germany did not want Nazism. They wanted to be better than the Jews and to have someone to blame the results of the war on and they wound up with a major massacre and horrendous event their children have had to endure.

I am now seeing, from the CPAC Conference, that the direction in which the Trumpians are going is to re-create, Joe McCarthy’s anti-Communist era. Sorrowfully, that is coming on us very quickly with most of us ignorant about what that era was like.

CPAC and its speakers and listeners are now upping the ante – the “wall” in front of which they can stand and single out who goes in and who stays out – by simply proclaiming who, what policies, what acts are to be despised as “Communist” and who should be destroyed in the process. Joe McCarthy’s hearings and the way he upended this country over the years he was in power is the stuff of legend and history. Read that history and see how many people were destroyed. It is tragic. That is what CPAC is setting up. The White Supremacists – the neo Nazi’s – the KKK – and all the rest have found their common ground to bring about their Nirvana. Nothing is as chilling as listening to their talks at this CPAC conference and seeing the audience response. They are ready to come for the rest of us who don’t walk their path and mimic their speech.

Trump has successfully brought back into the present the United States in which he was mentored. He and his followers are working to restore and maintain Joseph McCarthy’s United States which only existed in McCarthy’s alcoholic fantasies.

This United States periodically returns to such brutality. Trump can do this because that kind of thing is a horrendous part of our history which we deny, deny, deny so we can repeat this again and again. When defeated and saner more humane people take over that past is then buried. This time, we need to make sure that history is not buried, but kept alive and taught in our schools so the next generation is not free to destroy itself and its children.

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Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale

Project 2 – #WellsFargoBoycott

Or you can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.

If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.

_________________________________________________________

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

This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.co

_________________________________________________________







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