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Posts Tagged ‘breakfast table talk’

From Trash to Enhancing the Garden!

Saturday, March 4th, 2023

Being a caring human being as you live your life one small step at a time takes time, energy, focus and more.

We have come from a slave society, in which pushing your work, responsibility and clean-up onto others who worked for free or close to free, was how work got done. Many of us, whose ancestry does not trace back to that master/slave relationship have adopted and adapted what it has produced in this world. We want to have without taking on the responsibility. We want others to do our dirty work. Many, if not most, of our inventions or what we call our moving forward in a better way, are based on pushing the clean-up of our lives onto others. We have become accustomed to making a mess as we enjoy and live our lives and leave what we consider the dregs for others to take care of – to clean-up behind our enjoyment – even our work product.

One way we can make up for that history in an improving rather than dying world is to be careful with our garbage disposal.

We are trying to look carefully at what we throw out to make sure it is actually garbage and not the result of trashing what could be reused because we are too lazy to do otherwise. Not so easy, but quite profitable for all of us.

We are trying to move items from garbage disposal to reuse. Sometimes we are just amazed at what we didn’t realize we should keep for some good use rather than just tossing into the garbage and sometimes missing the garbage bag.

COFFEE GROUNDS is one items we discovered should not be in the garbage nor put down the disposal.

Imagine our delight to discover coffee grounds are good for the garden – the plants and foods we are trying to cultivate in our backyard. Or that coffee groundd are good to keep and bring to someone else so their garden can be enhanced.

When cleaning up after breakfast or at other times when you have made coffee – try this means of disposal – simply take your coffee grounds and throw them into your garden on whatever plants or trees or bushes you want to feed. Add a bit of water to the coffee pot to make sure all the grounds are out of the pot and into the soil. If your coffee grounds are from organically grown coffee – so much the better.

We found a great coffee at Trader Joe’s. Their Organic Arabica coffee. What we don’t like is the only form in which we can purchase it is in already ground coffee beans. We have become accustomed to grinding our coffee beans just before we make what we hope will be a fantastic cup of coffee – and it is usually outstanding. (Sorry, sometimes we just have to brag). So, we buy a bit of Trader Joe’s Arabica ground coffee, but until they provide that organically grown Arabica coffee in packages of whole beans, we will stick to the coffee beans we normally use until that changes.

We love adding water to the coffee pot as we are washing dishes and then pouring the coffee into the glass container we use to keep the used coffee grounds until we can get into the garden to pour out those leftovers. A habit we cultivated because some of our master/slave ways of being are still strong. When we first discovered this ability to move used coffee grounds from trash to recover we couldn’t wait to get into the garden and throw out the used coffee grounds with every pot of coffee we made. That didn’t last long. Our need to spend less energy in whatever we try to do took over – and into the kitchen came the glass container.

We feel as though we are doing something really special by converting what was trash into food for the earth so it will produce more beautiful plants for our eyes and nose and nutritionally better food to nourish our bodies while not clogging up everything by creating trash and garbage for others to have to handle.

Dropping the leftover ways of being master over slaves (and yes, we still have that mentality); dropping the destruction of the earth in which we are all participants – could that be called being responsible human beings? Improving humanity by trying, one small step at a time, to eliminate our participation in laziness, evil, greed, destruction, etc just because we can!

Who the X%#&XD^ do you think you are!!!!

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2022

Everytime we read about what is happening with the shootings, destructive behavior against other human beings, racism, sexism, homophobia, etc., those are the words that come to mind.

Much of this is done in the name of Christianity! That is the most amazing of all!

BETTER THAN! is who you think you are to be able to walk into a nightclub, school, home, church, temple, synagogue and start shooting, killing, destroying everything. AND WHAT DO YOU ACHIEVE?

When Moses came down from the Mount with his tablets of God’s commandments – one of the first was THOU SHALT NOT KILL!!

So again, lets ask the question – who do you think you are and what happens to you after!

Maybe the law will get you and to jail you go. However, what strikes us is that it isn’t the law you need to fear. When you have broken such a strong commandment – our theology and religion teaches – to the hottest parts of hell you go.

We do’t believe there is any religion which would accept such killings. We have to say religion because clearly there are many societies which accept killings if they are done in the name of the ascendancy of that society.

Most societies also have television and the largest number of programs on television are about killings. (What a tutoring tool!) The killer is always caught and put in jail, but nevertheless the storyline is about one human being killing another or several others. That is not the only story lines on television and in the movies – others are about how someone did something which made them rise against others – higher than – and what their lives are like now! Or how much better their homes are, etc. The arrogance pervading television is almost unbearable.

We keep thinking, “this has to stop,” “this has to change,” “we have to very soon recognize our shared humanity.” But nothing – silence – loud gun shots – screams from those being stabbed to death and more. And, in many places we mete out a punishment to the killers which reflects exactly what they did – and then we kill them as they have killed others.

White people are killing! Black, brown, red, orange, yellow, purple, pink, chartreuse people are killing. And to what end? Those who kill will either suffer on earth for their sins or they will experience eternal hell fires and whatever else we claim through our various theologies that hell looks like, feels like, is like!

And we continue letting our need to feel better than; our arrogance to think that we are better than; our desperation at our own faults and lives because we can’t get it straight without those better than feelings and off we go!

Dear God – bless this mess! Help us to move way above everything and look back to see clearly with a stark unembellished reality who we really are. Help us to accept and move beyond those ugly times when we move to that “better than” place because we can’t do anything else and feel good about ourselves. They say you created us and everything in this universe. Tell us all clearly and loudly why you left such character flaws in all of us that we can’t stand to be “equal to” and instead when those “equal to” feelings approach we will do any and everything possible to move above them to that “better than” place where we feel – well – better than in that place we have dubbed normal, human and the way things should be. In Jesus’ name – ahhh, you were writing so well, actually it is in Mohammed’s name – nahhhh, all of you are the same – in Krishna’s name. Oh my God can’t we say or do anything without all of this following us around? (Shhh – you forgot a few, I won’t tell)! AMEN!

Bettina’s is ready for the 21st Century pulling from all the centuries that went before!

Thursday, August 25th, 2022

Bettina Network Lifestyle Community

Bettina Network, inc. wants you to know about the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community.

We have had many valued guests staying in our bed & breakfasts over the past 35 years we have been in business.  COVID  19 turned our business upside down and we had to think long and hard about where do we go from here.

Along the way we added Bettina Network Foundation, inc., Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network Journal, and a couple more. Through those experiences we discovered there can be no separation between our commercial selves and our responsibility to work towards a much more giving, loving, gracious society. 

We decided to work through Bettina Network Lifestyle Community, which is a group of people who are always open to and looking for human experiences with the goal of adding diversity, wisdom, learning while going about their ordinary daily lives and businesses.

As a Community, we have homes open to members who can make reservations as they travel. However, we only take reservations from those who are members of Bettina Network Lifestyle Community.  The world is not in shape where any and everyone can make reservations through an open system without taking huge risks. A computerized reservation service open to everyone to stay in homes that have not been thoroughly checked and where you arrive to find a key under the mat (or its current equivalent) is no longer viable and that will become increasingly apparent as society moves into this new era.  

We also only take homes into this Networking Community where people are living in the home and have a talent, interest, doing research, art, music, public affairs , scientists and more who are people who would add to your enjoyment and knowledge base and find that a very exciting thing to do..

If you are not already a member of Bettina Network Lifestyle Community, we invite you to call us and become one of those who cares about where you stay when traveling and who enjoys finding those little nuggets of wisdom from others who have found answers to what you might still be searching and so much more.

We are always searching for knowledge, wisdom and a greater understanding of the world.  We have combined it all in the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community.

To request membership in Bettina Network Lifestyle Community, please fill out the form below:

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Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238

617-497-9166 inside and outside the U. S.

toll free inside the U. S. and Canada 1-800-347-9166

https://www.bettinanetwork.com

email: bettinanetwork@comcast.net

More about – BETTINA NETWORK LIFESTYLE COMMUNITY

This also includes Bettina Network Hedge Schools from which we took  a very old, Irish concept, dusted it off and updated it in such a way that we are deep into lifelong learning.  

Hedge School Families share their histories, experiences, learning and wisdom when you choose to stay with them when you travel. Hedge School Facilitators travel Bettina Network and turn up in the most unexpected places.  They bring an added layer of learning as the Hedge School Families specialize in many different areas of learning and doing.

Instead of depending upon serendipity, some guests ask to stay in a home with a particular emphasis – with a concert pianist;  sculptor;  academics in different fields —which means, for example, you can improve your knitting by staying with a family of expert knitters; a chef with whom you can cook; a priest and more.

Some facts on Bettina procedures

Someone from Bettina Network, inc.spends the night in every home before it is taken into Bettina’s and offered to you. 

We get to know the family with whom you will be staying and we keep up with our homes on a daily basis. We send out a “Guest Questionnaire” to everyone who stays in a Bettina Home and the return rate of these requests for feedback is 90%.   That tells us – usually in great detail – the experience of a guest and keeps us aware in another way of what is happening in Bettina Network homes.

We accept cash, checks, credit cards – OR – we invoice your company.

We invite you to look to Bettina Network, inc., when  looking for a place to stay for those special guests who are traveling to give a lecture; to collaborate on a research project; to be a tourist; those giving a performance in an extraordinary music event, or etc. 

www.bettinanetwork.com/blog

The blog is thought provoking with contributions from members of Bettina’s Lifestyle Community.  Once you become a member of this incredibly diverse community, we invite you to write articles, send pictures, float ideas, try out your latest research on a great audience – which, as of today, includes some 2,000 to 3,000 people who are reading the blogs.  

In addition, Bettina Network Journal joins us as a new publication, incorporating Bettina Network Blogs, ads and much more. Real Estate is our latest addition to the Journal – which brings into your email box some of Bettina Network Blogs plus other information and experience.  

Given our resources, we have information, news, and ideas you won’t find anyplace else.  Join our little group, add your voice and use our services.  If you would like to receive the ‘Journal’ please send us your email address and we will add you to our list of – as of today – 10,000 people who have signed up.

Will Smith and Chris Rock – Ethics

Tuesday, April 5th, 2022

by: Marceline Donaldson

There is and has been a great upheaval about the punch to the face Will Smith delivered to Chris Rock.

Most of the opinions, expressed very publicly, show how deeply entrenched sexism is in this society.

The wrong starts with Will Smith with calls tp “lock him up” from the police; take him down, in one way or another, from everyone else.

What is missing is a clear statement of the wrong that happened. Mostly, that “wrong” violent action is blamed on Will Smith. Let us be clear and truthful without our history of bigotry intervening. This was started not by Will Smith, but by Chris Rock. He is an example of that in which comedians trade – the insults slung at women on a constant basis. The insult is followed by laughter, which re-enforces the sentiment and makes an ugly joke out of most women. Once upon a time this was very prevalent amongst comedians who traded on vicious “jokes” and what were supposed to be “funny” characterizations of African Americans. It is still true whenever there is a group some insecure person wants to take down – like Chris Rock and his attack on Jada Pinkett.

The violence on stage was started by Chris Rock with his vicious joke aimed at Jada Pinkett. The fact that she was sitting in front of him amongst an audience of her peers and could be hurt and diminished and oppressed by this public and ugly joke about her hair is something that the audience reacted to with great hilarity. Will Smith, after a moment spent enjoying this boost to his male ego came to his senses and went to defend his wife.

Chris Rock’s joke was far more deleterious than Will Smith’s punch. Rock will recover quickly and go on to accolades about how “elegantly” he acted in spite of Smith’s crudeness. The real story is that we live in a sexist society in which it is just fine to make crude jokes about women. We have been trained by generations of vicious, oppressive jokes denigrating women that this is “fun”, he meant no harm, don’t you have a sense of humor? The women at whom the jokes are aimed walk away more oppressed, more put down, more discouraged than they were before the joke.

The violence done to women by Chris Rock needs to be held up and dealt with. He is, after all, the one who started this violence. His violence was against women. Will Smith limited his violence to Chris Rock. The comedians who make money and gain fame by doing such are too numerous to mention, but you hear them all the time. The audience’s reaction is always one of hilarious laughter and the woman has been diminished in the sight of her friends and former admirers. She has been “tamed” and now knows a little better, her place.

If punishment is going to come it needs to start with Chris Rock before it moves on to Will Smith. Men are outraged at what happened and have engaged in much talk about Will Smith’s violence – which even his close friends refuse to condone. None of those close friends have commented at all on the violence done to Jada Pinkett by Chris Rock. The rush to punish Will Smith, while raising up Chris Rock because he reacted “like a man” – he was a “mensch” – “how could he keep his composure under such circumstances. All of this belies the extreme bigotry with which we live.

When are we going to see clearly the horribleness of bigotry in this society and how deeply entrenched it is and continues to be? It is time for those who perform on the backs of others to be called to task and with this I am calling Chris Rock to be a better person and apologize for what he did to Will Smith; to call for Will Smith’s punishment to be put on him also because he deserves it; and to make amends to Jada Pinkett for the sexism he sprayed all over her and over women in general, especially over those who suffer from alopecia in a society which judges a woman by her hair.

………An Elegant Historical House for Sale!

Saturday, April 2nd, 2022
Every corner of this home bespeaks elegance, history, beauty and invites you to stay awhile. Across the street is a park; two door down on the same side of the street is another park and look out the windows, you will see the Charles River!

49 Hawthorn Street – Cambridge, MA. 02138 – $5,800,000.

What follows, under “House for Sale” describes a house which we would like to bring to your attention.  We hope you will consider buying the house – either for yourself, your family or for one of your favorite institutions and/or charities.

A kitchen for those who actually cook with room for everything – your utensils, pots, spices and so much more. Many fantastic meals have come out of this kitchen.

     The house we are describing was designed and built by an MIT graduate in 1900.  She was one of MIT’s  first female architectural students..  Her papers are in the MIT Library.  She is Lois Lily Howe with her own architectural firm and all the architects working with her were women.  Such a history in today’s climate makes quite a statement.

This particular house – at 49 Hawthorn Street – is the only Howe designed house in this area in which the interior has not been stripped and re-built taking away all of the historical design. The only room that needs to be brought back to its original design is the kitchen. It is wonderful as it is, however, to bring it back to Ms. Howe’s design would be special.

A fantastic welcome as the front door is opened to you and/or your guests. It speaks of the elegance which shows up all around the house – from French to Spanish to English to African to South American touches making it an escapee from Old New Orleans.

Marceline and Robert have lived in this house for 40 years and love every corner.  Being people who love history (Near Eastern History was the subject of Robert’s Harvard Doctoral thesis) and with Marceline’s educational background in the School of Architecture under Ralph Rapson, they have totally enjoyed living in this house and discovered much in the process. Selling it under duress they want to know it is in the hands of people who would continue in that design preservation route. The area has a penchant for taking beautiful culturally diverse homes and turning them all into a Northern European Scandinavian aesthetic. They look as though they were all designed in the Ikea Showrooms. So sad! There is nothing wrong with the Ikea Designs, however, what is wrong is making them the ultimate, cultural, design touch stone. This house escaped that “remodel”.

Ms. Howe built the house for William Augustus Maynadier – a Harvard Professor who taught “Arthurian Legend.”- the story of King Arthur and the Round Table.  It was a required course for all Harvard men. There were no Harvard women in those days.

Being very strong feminists, the Donaldson/Bennetts found that Harvard/MIT combination quite special.  While “feminist” was not a term in her day, Ms. Howe clearly was a feminist as we know the term today, stepping out into the world of Architecture the way she did.  Prof. Maynadier would be known as an extreme sexist today. He was teaching a class which laid the ground work for the very horrible sexism which most 20th century women have had to deal.  And yet, he hired Ms. Lois Lily Howe to build his house.

Arthurian Legend – King Arthur and the Round Table – was a way of teaching men how to treat women in that “on the pedestal and out of the equality” area.  The necessity of opening doors and standing on the side as she entered the room and etc. for this weaker sex is what was being taught, although not so specifically – it was wrapped in the Arthurian Legend.  All the things women have fought to have removed for decades so they could be treated as equals is what Prof. Maynadier’s class was about.  It was totally accepted at the time. Most people don’t know that this originated at Harvard.  It was in the general world population at the time, but not to the extent that it became entrenched with Prof. Maynadier at 49 Hawthorn Street.

It was interesting to us that Prof. Maynadier chose Ms. Howe to design and build his home. – which he used to live in and invite paying guests to stay with him.  The house has had that use throughout its 100 plus years of existence.  It hosted seminars, class sessions, teas and many famous and not so famous people, still while serving as a very private home.  

One of four bathrooms in this home – designed with jacuzzi, steam/shower room and separate enclosed toilet. The plumber calls it a “no bad smells” bathroom.

The Donaldson-Bennetts used their home to have what today are called bed & breakfast guests and to build the first network of such private homes working their way across the country and turning a national and an international network of bed and breakfast homes into a commonly known and accepted concept. This house was the beacon.  Besides this house, they had homes also in Thailand, England, France and more.

The guys who founded Airbnb stayed with them before those three even thought of such a company.  They were sent by Venture Capitalists – particularly the Capital Network in Cambridge – who wanted to fund such a venture, but not one designed, created and being grown by African Americans.  So they helped themselves to the Bettina Network, Inc’s business plan and everything else they could find to help them get the same kind of venture off the ground.  They sent people to offer their homes to join the Bettina Network, inc. but were really only interested in the process of how that was done – just as they hacked into and used Craig’s List to get their initial clients. The Donaldsons’ believe that when their web site was stolen, locked and offered back to them for enormous sums of money – it had to do with the genesis of Airbnb, although that was not known at the time as Airbnb was just forming.

While the Donaldson/Bennett’s lived and are living in the Lois Lily Howe house, Harvard sent many guests to stay with them, as did MIT, Tufts, Boston University, Boston College and more.  Several admin people called regularly to make reservations for guests visiting Harvard and other Universities in the area as well as private corporations calling for guests to whom they wanted to give privacy.. Everyone who stayed loved their time in the house and totally were taken by its history stories and general feeling.

Many institutions and corporations used the house when guests were visiting who they wanted to have privacy without being worried that their guests would be stalked in the lobby of the hotels to pick up information that could be used for media articles. They also liked the fact that guests wouldn’t need so many levels of security when they came to Boston.  Guests included such as Ambassador Victor Israelian, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, top management from the State Department, many of the USA’s top families, many scientists – mostly physicists – who loved the quiet and privacy of the house where they could enjoy the patio where squirrels and birds would visit them as they worked on the back porch.

If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to call.  If you or someone you recommend would like to see the house, we are available at their or your convenience.

Call Marceline Donaldson – 617 497 9166 or email bettinanetwork@comcast.net putting 49 Hawthorn St in the subject line.

What follows is a fuller description of the house as it appears in different publications.

                              HOUSE FOR SALE – Cambridge, MA. 02138

“Marceline and Robert are selling their home.  If you don’t want to buy it, please pass this along to those you know who might be interested and/or know someone who would love to step into their shoes.  As a private home or as a home with a bit of  income so you can live there and do other things.  Income can be in the neighborhood of $1,080.00/night, not including income from events, etc..  

Marceline and Robert did a wonderful job and are now moving to New Orleans – which is where Marceline grew up.  They have not been able to survive the onslaught against them of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the way they treat minority elderly in what was and is an apparent attempt of a group within the state to relieve Jews, African Americans, Latinx and others of any wealth that could be passed on to the next generation. This is the new racism/bigotry that is replacing the separatism that followed slavery.

The house has been newly painted with, among other improvements, a new 75 gallon commercial water heater with a 20 year rating and lots of other elegant restorations which keep the historical design of the house as much as possible..  

It is one of the few homes in Cambridge, which gives you views of the Charles River from many of the bedroom windows and it overlooks the Riverbend Park on one side  with no other building blocking your view.  There is also a second park (the historical Longfellow Park) just two houses down on the same block and the same side of the street as Marceline and Robert’s house.  Fantastic and very unusually elegant to have so many parks within the same block the home in which one lives.  One of the only homes in the area with such and with a spectacular view.

You would have 9,000 square feet of living space in this house over five floors.  5,400 (apx.) finished into three floors of elegant historical living and 3,500 square feet (apx) of attic and basement which can be finished into fantastic living space.   

For a possible future use of the basement take a look at the basement of Harvard University’s Memorial Chapel’s basement.  

The attic could be refinished into an exquisite ballroom for entertaining with its 16 foot height (apx) at its apex with no beams going across to obstruct the wonderful height of this room.  The architect – Lois Lily Howe, in 1900 was one of the first, (she is credited with being the first), to be able to build such an attic.  Most attics are so clogged with structures to keep the roof from falling in on itself you do not have the breathtaking space one finds here.  This attic is a full floor.  Its footprint is that of the entire length and width of the house.  Just think of the elegant entertaining you could do in that attic.

Historically, guests came to events in such houses and went to the second floor living room to leave their coats, etc. and freshen up and then went up another floor or two to the tea, dinner, dance or etc. on the upper floors.  Today, we don’t have attics large enough for such events, especially not one replicating the footprint of the other floors of the house.

Lois Lily Howe was the architect.  Designed and built in approximately 1900, she was one of MIT’s first female graduates.  She established her own architectural firm and the architects she hired were women. 

In the process of designing and building this home,  Ms. Howe scrounged the area for homes being torn down which had historical touches and she brought that actual history into this house.  The mouldings are exquisite and are some 100 years older than the house. 

The history of this house includes a psychiatric history – Dr. Lydia Dawes, a well known psychiatrist of yore, was an owner for some 40 plus years before the Donaldson-Bennetts arrived and the house frequently  embraced many of her friends who were also famous guests.  Sigmund Freud’s daughter stayed often and worked with Dr. Dawes.  Together they produced one of the first psychiatric journals in the area from this house.  Many local psychiatrists remember a part of their training that happened on the couch by the living room window overlooking the magnolia tree.  So much history goes with this house both  within its structure and with the people who have passed through.  

Marceline and Robert have spent decades trying to preserve and create a garden worthy of Lois Lily Howe who ended her career and life as a landscape architect.

You may have heard of  the many outstanding and famous people who stayed under the Donaldson-Bennett’s roof during their time in the house because you were probably one of them.  You can now own this magnificent property so beautifully located. 

Want more information – call Marceline – 617 497 9166 or email us bettinanetwork@comcast.net

Tiger Woods – No Surprise!

Tuesday, May 7th, 2019

We received little notes from Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Members about the award Donald Trump bestowed upon Tiger Woods.

Several expressed surprise that Tiger Woods accepted the award – given the stand many African American and even mixed race African American sports figures have taken. So why is Tiger Woods standing there grinning and proud?

We didn’t understand the surprise of some of our readers and contributors because – “birds of a feather”.

That should give you some idea of the common values Trump and Woods share. That kind of sexism, that disrespect for, that misuse and abuse of women crosses racial, national, and all other barriers.

Think back a bit. What do you know about Tiger Woods beyond his great talent in the golf game? Remember his ex-wife’s anger when she found out just how ‘outre’ he was with women? Remember the stories which surfaced in the media about how he ‘shacked up’ with multiple women after his golf tournaments and carried on multiple affairs while his wife took care of home and children? Remember all of the womanizing you heard and/or read about concerning how Tiger Woods lived his life? Does that remind you of anyone? Maybe the man putting the necklace (some call it the Medal of Freedom) around Tiger Woods?

Now who is surprised? We are, that so many of you are surprised and/or expected Tiger Woods to refuse the award on principled grounds. Expect him rather to ask ‘what’s that’ – principled grounds?

The surprise should be all of the media reports with no one mentioning that history – those connections between Woods and Trump – etc. Or have we become a society which accepts all of that as normal and those commonalities having nothing to do with why one is chosen? Who you are as a person needs to be the rock foundation from which other talents and accomplishments radiate.

Have we lost our way expecting awards such as the Presidential Medal of Freedom be given to someone who examplifies greatness in what they do as well as who they are and how they have lived their lives – as an example of someone who walks this earth who we would be proud to have our children emulate? A great talent is a wonderful gift. A life well lived is what we give back. An award such as the Presidential Medal of Freedom needs to be given to someone whose life embodies both the gift and what the giver returns to the society. At this point Tiger Woods has shown and cultivated his God given gift. He has given back, however, much that muddies the earth, confuses its children and supports the likes of a Donald Trump and his presidency. From looking at Tiger Woods’ children, imagine them crossing the border – or trying to cross the border from Mexico to the U. S. How do you think he would be treated by those carrying out the dictates and policies of the man putting that award around his neck. Do you think Tiger, having been asked the question would call for the bowl of water, soap and a towel? With the acceptance of that award from Donald Trump, Tiger Woods symbolically did just that.

https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-gives-tiger-woods-presidential-medal-of-freedom-2019-5

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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.

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A New Political and Economics Vocabulary!

Wednesday, April 24th, 2019

It sounds so foolish for people in the United States to be trying to frame this upcoming presidential election around old concepts which were relevant during the time of the Cold War but not today. When used, the concepts being thrown around in preparation for this upcoming 2020 campaign are confusing and the cause of much emotional upset and fighting because of what hangs onto the concepts from a difficult time in the life of this worlds’ political and economic institutions.

Instead of defining our economy in Cold War terms, the Republicans need to be more accurately descriptive of our institutions. We need to make the massive effort to increase our vocabulary with newer more accurate terms or we need to pull out a new vocabulary which fits where we are today – terms that fit what we are actually about. None of the terms the Republicans are using are accurate, fitting, nor descriptive.

The Democrats are going to run their 2020 campaign bringing forth corruption, lying, stealing and all of us will be very well acquainted with terms like “emoluments”. Terms we had probably either never heard of or heard in passing without giving a thought to going deeply into their meaning.

We talk in terms of Capitalism, Socialism, Communism. None of these terms come close to where we are today. Using those terms only exacerbates the ugliness and vileness we are experiencing as a country – brought on by our own.

Capitalism is totally irrelevant and has been for some time because basic to that concept is the assumption that everyone is free and equal in the society and are only limited by their vision, etc. We live in a society which is fraught with sexism, racism, homophobia, ethnocentrism, ageism and so much more of that which separates us and makes us feel better than or less than. A society in which my identify is better than your identity is not able to even begin to describe its economic and political system as based on Capitalism.

Our so called “capitalist” system has venture capitalists who only fund white male northern european types – and will fund minorities and women into the (maybe) $50,000 area to fund their start-ups and actively encourage others to tour the country looking for great start-up ideas being worked on by minorities so they can steal and bring those ideas and that work to the venture capitalists, who are more than ready to see those new and radical business ideas happening and being developed by minorities in this world being carried forward into their substantial billion dollar areas by white male types to maintain the societal structure with those at the top most like our current venture capitalist and other investor groups with serious money that they obtained in the same way. That “serious money” is not available for investment to minority groups. (and from here on “minorities” include women because that is who they are and how they are treated from a power and control perspective in this society.)

Socialism is fraught with many misinterpretations when used today. Most link it to state owned everything and gradually being the economic and political part of the structure of a state which becomes evil and destroys the quality of everybody’s life. In this “Socialism” we all become zombies beholden to a very ugly, vicious and violent state. And – the examples we come up with as to “Socialist States” are indeed horrifying if one thinks that is the direction in which these United States are headed, if we choose the model being proffered by these anti-socialism fighters.

Communism is the most misinterpreted because we hook that term to the Soviet Union at its worse. We hook it to the rampaging McCarthy who destroyed many lives and even more careers fighting phantoms, using a political and economic concept as a means to oppress those he wanted to expel from “his” country and the country which he felt belonged to him and his kind. All others were usurpers trying to turn this great democracy into something vile. Turned out the vileness came from McCarthy and his kind – and who was one of his protege’s – none other than Donald Trump. Trump learned his lessons well at the feet of McCarthy and Cohn and he has brought all of that upheaval and evil back into 2016, 17, 18, 19 America.

And, Communism carries with it the claim by many Christians, that the social and economic system of Jesus was a communist system. That complicates the picture even more as that kind of claim, while not accepted by most mainline Christians was accepted enough to increase the religious bigotry which has existed in these United States from its beginnings with its genoocidal war against Native Americans.

This election cycle is shaping up to be one in which the worst interpretation of the above terms is going to be used to win or lose. At the very least the fight for the presidency and other offices will be embroidered around hurling Socialism, Capitalism, Communism at the opposition as though they were evil and we should not elect anyone who espouses such.

As we look at the above, what becomes clear is that our current system was created, grown and sustained by white male mostly Northern European types who patterned their need for power and control after what they saw in the Middle – Near East – Far Eastern parts of the world which were also male dominated cultures interested in expanding and maintaining power and control in their own ways. Vestiges of those historical groups still exist and today are beginning to rise up to attempt to re-establish their historical societies which are counter to the ways they were beginning to move.

The strong roots such groups have in this society becomes clear as under Donald Trump we are making strong moves to bring those cultures together because it is the only way male domination in its meaness – viciousness – and need for total power and control can continue to thrive and grow.

A more diverse and integrated world is beginning to show-up. Hopefully, as that moves and grows the goodness, beauty and grace of the human spirit will flourish and what has gone before will be permanently in the rear view mirror and will maintain only in history.

Watching that diversity develop is a cautionary tale, however, because even in its extreme infancy we see in the United States powers beginning to move into male groups which were anathema when white males were at the height of their power and control and adopt and adapt these others into their society and culture because that is what is necessary for them to continue developing the mean spiritedness, viciousness, control, tyranny and ugliness of what we have and are continuing to experience.

Looking at the 2018 elections, we celebrated the break through of a new America. We praised our voting citizens for the diversity of people we elected and it looked as though we were reaching through to a new day.

As time goes on, however, we are seeing the sprouts of those weeds which caused and cause so much trouble and evil in the world as talk becomes prevalent of which “white males” can best be elected who will look out for and bring about a more equitable, diverse and “new” America. Which white male will best take care of the rest of the world in a patronizing and paternalistic fashion so that male domination can continue and in a short time raise its ugly head again to attempt to subjugate and push the world into finding its meanest spots to develop. And saddest of all of that talk are the women joining the chorus who are so enmeshed in paternalism they cannot see the worth and ability of other women who can do much better.

The fact that the talk happening is simply a new prelude to another chapter of the “old” slaveowning, segregationist, vile and vicious America has been covered up to be revealed upon the victory and ascendancy of this new talk.

Looking at the way “Bernie” helped to bring in Trump to maintain that old way of life without getting “dirty” in the process should tell us and let us see what is happening with this presidential campaign today. It should also show us that this new, kinder, gentler paternalism will not work.

Think on these things before you reject them out of hand. Look carefully at your government and its history America before you laud yourselves as being “better than” and pray hard that you do not continue in the ways from which you declared you wanted to depart to bring out more of the goodness of America.

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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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Pelosi – Impeach or Move Aside!

Friday, April 19th, 2019

To be so constantly exposed to so much sin takes lots of prayer to maintain.

When one goes into a United States of America Court of law one takes certain assumptions. Basic is the one which outlines how agreements, breach of contract, relationships and more work. You find evidence for your side and move on from there.

When one is mafia, that is an entirely different set of rules. The first of which is, apparently, no direct contracts, promises, etc. One learns early about the circularity of talking, especially to the “Don”. One lives amongst a set of ethics which makes sure you won’t get caught, won’t be exposed, won’t get killed – jailed – —-

Those two ways of living under the “law” came into conflict with the Mueller Report. It was clear Donald Trump lives, works and has relationships under the Mafia Law. The circularity and non-directness of that law is probably why some mafia leaders were not afraid of being wiretapped. The people listening would have to re-educate themselves about language and its use within mafia society. Reasoning and how one draws conclusions would be changed and those listening would have to educate themselves, their court system, their citizens and more to be able to call mafia leaders and followers to account in a court of law. Instead of providing that kind of education to the American public our Criminal Justice System has had to revert to other means and many mafia leaders have been called to account through their taxes where two different ways of living, talking, reasoning is not permitted. These two different ways of communicating became clearer to the general public through Michael Cohen’s testimony during a Congressional Hearing.

As I listened to all of the readings and analysis of the Mueller Report and read a copy of the report which showed up in my email box, what became clear to me was one possible reason why Mueller stopped so abruptly and produced his report. William Barr presents a clear and present and immediate danger to this United States system of governance. Something had to stop him or we would all be totally under Trump and his foreign backers without even knowing what happened. Trump’s circle of loyalist is growing and with each addition the danger increases. When one of those loyalists is the Attorney General of the United States that is beyond simply wrecking havoc on this society. That amounts to its destruction and subjugation to other foreign powers and/or mafia groups.

Russia is such a threat, but not the only one. A much larger threat and more imminent is the one of Trump bringing the United States government into line as a country under mafia rule and mafia control. A country ruled by a complex of mafia bosses with no contracts, no above board agreements, no way to bring anyone before the Courts as we know the Court System to work. Trump has been busy establishing a different way to govern and he is moving very quickly with that endeavor. That was very clear with the ascendancy of William Barr.

I heard many people talking about the end of William Barr’s career. This is not the end of his career, as seen through Barr’s eyes. It is the continuation of a career on a different track, within a different system of values and governances which he apparently sees as taking him much further than he could go taking the traditional U. S. route as an American lawyer.

I doubt that any of this makes much sense to the reader. It certainly makes no sense to the writer. I am just trying to come to grips with what I have been seeing, hearing and looking back at the history of to answer questions I have about much that is totally above my pay grade.

We are living in a country in which the president is a serially accused sexual assaulter and who has not only admitted to such, but bragged about his ability to assault any woman he chooses to sexually assault. This same president looks to me to be also guilty of treason against the country which he is supposed to be leading. He has corrupted many people in his administration and apparently some quite successfully. I especially don’t understand why or how people could follow him and consciously assault and turn against everything they claim to believe. They are afraid of what? Not committing the sins the president is requiring of them? Is that more dangerous and scarier than committing those sins and living in eternal hell? If that is not an alternative in their way of thinking then why do they generally, almost across the board, call themselves Christian? Is that a word they use to identify themselves because it helps them move up in the world of money – power – better than?

What a mess!

And then we look towards those who are supposed to be the keepers of the good flame and we hear them talking about not holding this president’s feet to the fire and not demanding William Barr resign immediately. Their conversation is about political considerations. What happens in 2020 if we move ahead to impeach Trump? What if we make that move and we don’t get enough votes in the Senate for that impeachment and Trump goes free? Well, what if you do nothing – Trump goes free! And he could win in 2020.

What if I kill someone, maybe I should not be tried in Court because the risk of not getting a guilty verdict after the facts are presented might make my accusers look bad. I am sure those folks in jail would have liked to hear such a conversation about their crimes – maybe we should not arrest John Doe or Jane Smith, it might fall back on us politically.

We have all long since stopped thinking or acting ethically. We have this ethics of relativity – or convenience – or of winning. And that tears down the society putting its values in jeopardy and eventually producing a society which is about what is best for those in power to maintain that power and control by any means necessary.

I don’t know what else to say or where to go from here. I saw a man today – William Barr – who is, as my grandmother would say, the scum of the earth. He is calling himself Attorney General. But he was put in his position by a usurper to the presidency so just who is William Barr to be pretending. As a lawyer he knows very well he should not be Attorney General, that he is a pretender. He is also a liar of great facility in his lies. And it looks as though he has no caring about right or wrong. And how does Bush Sr. fit into this – Barr’s last ‘fixer’ moment, the last time he acted as consigliere that I can trace was for Bush, Sr.

We have another liar who calls himself President, who has done and is still doing horrible things. Those things were made public and so the liar president takes a private jet, paid for by the people of these United States and once again costs us over $1,000,000 to take himself and his family and whoever else he wants to take to Mar-a-Lago for the holiday weekend while people who live and have lived honest lives wonder what they are going to eat today let alone any kind of Easter, Passover or any other holiday upcoming. People, watching the president fly overhead while they are left wondering if they will ever get off the street again to know what it is like to live in a home with light, heat, food, clean clothes. And people in Congress debating whether or not those folks, in that overhead jet, should be called up to answer and pay for their crimes against the citizens of this country.

Homelessness is a crime of the society against its citizens and it goes unpunished. These treasonous acts of Trump or whatever you want to call them are crimes of people against their society and those crimes go unpunished.

IMPEACH those you can reach and have a case against like the man who calls himself President of these United States and the man who calls himself Attorney General of these United States. That is the very least that can happen and maybe the rest will begin to fall into place when we know those who call themselves leaders of this society have ethics that are higher than the ethics of winning. Maybe we will all begin to fall into place and realize that we are called to a higher life than one of having more things than; more money than; a higher vocation than; are ourselves better than and we will stop kicking those who are down; we will stop cursing those who are living on the street and blaming them for their plight. Something has got to give in this world before we all either continue in this murkiness or…….

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BARR – Distracting from????

Thursday, April 18th, 2019

Distracting from the evil they are currently putting in place is a strong, ongoing way Trump World operates.

Barr has simply joined the group.

He has been clear about who he is for quite some time now. He has worked from a set of ethics which are in the toilet and are at least as bad as, or are on their way to becoming as bad as Donald Trump’s. My spirit recognizes your core and your real values.

We see people in everyday life and they seem to be “nice” people. So we accept them and become shocked when they show us a very different side and move up in life by having core values which shows they have been corrupt all along we just weren’t paying attention on that level. We have this way of simply ‘whitewashing’ our friends and those to whom we give respect because of the level of achievement they have reached and of being surprised when we see they have been complicit in coverups, lies, cheating, protecting those above, moving ahead by doing evil – that is a part of who William Barr is and who he has been.

Today he is into the kind of distraction we have become accustomed to with Donald Trump. He is now truly a “made man”.

Barr recently intervened in the immigration process and passed the edict which said there will be no bail for asylum seekers. They would have to stay “in jail” – “incarcerated” – until their case has been decided.

Why does this need distraction? Because it is the beginning of the second stage of United States Concentration Camps. If you check back Bettina Network Blogs you will find we predicted Trump Concentration Camps and they would be filled with children. Huge and ugly these Concentration Camps which will soon be quickly erected will make Nazi Germany concentration camps look like a luxury hotel by comparison.

Thousands of people will soon be incarcerated and in vile, filthy, horrid conditions. That has already started with the United States incarcerating people beneath bridges and in conditions which most of us choose to ignore and we have had limited reporting on what they are like and the conditions under which “brown skinned” humans have been forced to live. Limited reporting because so much concerning the Mueller Report has been used to distract the media headlines and stories away from that reality. Barr has done a masterful job with this using the Mueller Report – no wonder Trump hired him as his Attorney General. However, an illegal president cannot hire an attorney general who can legitimately function in that space.

To stop the bleeding from the Mueller Report, someone needs to simply give an un-redacted copy to the media to be printed and distributed for all and any who want copies. That is a risk, but it is one that needs to be taken that in the end truth and justice will prevail. That will end that and we can go on to dealing with all of the other ugliness Trump, his backers and friends are pouring into this American society.

We knew who William Barr was years ago. What he did destroyed or should have destroyed his reputation and should have seriously called into question the reputation of Bush 1. Isn’t it amazing how much of what is happening today traces back to Bush 1?

This is the new world order. Remember those comments, which were stopped in the middle of his making them?

Donald Trump was brought in to stop the darkening of America. He is doing his job magnificently. And wait until American and Israeli Jews discover his other mission. When the truth is told, right-wing Americans are not enthralled with Israel because of its Jewish history. Their interest in Israel is because of its Christian history and as time goes along, if they remain keepers of that flame both Jews and Muslims will discover they are expendable and dividing them was simply a way for Trump and his people to take over Israel and remake it into the ‘Evangelical Christian’ country such folks have dreamed about for generations. In the meantime, have you noticed the “Jews” Trump and his people deal with are the Ashkenazi Jews – those German-type Jews who look white? It makes one think all Jews are very fair of skin. Have you seen any brown skinned middle-eastern Jews amongst those leaders?

My first impression of Israel when we travelled and lived there for several months was the separation of white from black. Not American whites from African Americans and others of such color, but the separation of ‘white’ Jews from those others – who you can’t tell from the brown skinned Palestinians. When we arrived in Israel, driving in from the airport to where we are going to live we saw cotton fields with people of color picking cotton. They were Arabs and Middle Eastern Jews – all the same color. My first lesson upon arrival.

Because I was raised amongst Jews and Christians during my growing up days I was well aware of that separation. If you live long enough and are exposed to the world you live a history that shows you where the cracks and lies are.

In the United States during that time and before, Jews – Ashkanazi Jews included – were called by the “N” word. They did not fill out forms asking for race by checking “white”. Both Jews and African Americans were in and out of our house. Mixing was not unusual. My mother was named after the daughter of one family with whom we were particularly close. I spent lots of time at their home in the city and their home in the country. They were not particularly well off when that friendship formed. It went back to my great-grandfather who was helpful in establishing their fortune which became substantial. My grandfather tutored their children and spending time together was normal. As time passed, Jews became white and those friendships were dropped. It was no longer that close, normal, everyday thing to ‘drop in’. The tutoring because the children needed that learning help and my grandfather was an educator with a Columbia University education and a family friend, gradually became a ‘better than’ relationship and so my grandfather pulled away.

William Barr is the needed extension of what Donald Trump is doing and someone Trump needs to stop the continued “darkening” of America. It is one of those times when people begin to pull away from one another whereas before they were friends and neighbors. Pull away because of skin color and the need of one group to exert a superiority over another. William Barr’s order for bail to stop for asylum seekers is one large step in that process.

Those asylum seekers are, after all, the brown people of the world and they cannot be allowed to continue to come into this country because it is already at the precipice where the majority is or soon will be “brown”. And we can’t allow those incoming brown people to mix with the rest of Americans because friendships develop, family mixing happens and the need to keep white and blacks apart with blacks less than becomes rather impossible.

We need to look closely at the fact that many of the Muslims against whom Donald Trump is moving may be Islamic by religions but they are of African extraction by birth. They are African Americans or Blacks who will become African Americans when they enter this country and become one of those on their way to citizenship. I knew trouble was coming a few years ago – before Trump – when I went to the swearing in ceremony of a friend who was becoming a United States citizen. As I look down on the group of new citizens from the balcony I was amazed to realize they were about 80% “brown” – from many different countries and many shades of the same brown to black skin color. I was sure then trouble was on the way.

Why does Trump have the percentage of supporters he has? They recognize that and their way of wearing a sheet and pointy hat is to allow and support Trump as he moves to insure that this country in which they live will always have different levels of people – whites uber alles and all the rest. And one cautionary note to those who may not have realized the fact that – yellow is not white.

This flap over the Mueller Report is hiding this major next step that Barr made legal – we are now on the way to jailing and destroying as many of the “brown” people of the world as possible and it is succeeding. We will not hear of the many deaths that happen along the way as Germans did not hear of the millions of Jews killed in Concentration Camps. We predicted long ago in a Bettina Network Blog that you would soon be hearing of children being killed or ‘accidentally” dying. That is now happening and the real number will never be known.

Besides a brief report on Barr’s edict to disallow bail for those seeking asylum I haven’t seen any other reporting on what is a major move for the Trump administration and one which is moving brown peoples directly into ever larger and growing numbers of Concentration Camps which will spring up all across the country.

And you natives of the United States whose ancestors were forced to come to the United States in slavery, you may today be citizens, but you are not exempt. There has been almost no reporting on the number of black American citizens who have been picked up and evicted from this country by ICE. A few have been able to contact friends and relatives and have been brought back. They were not able to do that until they were dropped off in foreign countries about which they knew next to nothing. What about those who are still in shock in countries to which they have been transported where they have no friends, no relatives, no connections of any kind, no money, no assets, no jobs, no legal status of any kind and have not been able to contact those in the U. S. who could or would help?

Now, on to getting ready for the farce of a press conference which is scheduled to happen on Thursday at 9:30am. And on to Nancy Pelosi claiming there should not be an impeachment of Donald Trump with Trump’s interesting response of being extremely respectful of Nancy Pelosi. How come?

___________________________________________-

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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.

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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

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Trump – yet another distraction!

Tuesday, April 9th, 2019

by: Marceline Donaldson

Apparently, Vladimir Putin has sent Donald Trump another list of things to do and Trump is carrying them out in his usual manner. However, the Chinese spy was ‘caught’ and the distraction is exposed for what it is – a continued attempt to dismantle these United States.

It is clear from the way this is happening that this is a distraction from the coming revelations from the Mueller Report which Trump, his friends and allies want to arrive in a murky atmosphere so Trump will continue to have time to continue to dismantle the United States government into the kind of structure they can take over.

Sad to say Trump does not realize that he will not be around to enjoy the excitement and celebration if he succeeds. He will be too much of a threat – especially since he can’t keep soda water on his stomach.

With the firing of Nielsen and the comments on her “evil” and the other ways she acted we seem to forget that what happened in Nazi Germany was not due to some special and unique character of Germans. It is a character flaw which is human and is happening in many places on different levels for the same reasons – power and control. It is well underway in these United States. Hopefully, there will be no reason for it to be said – as history goes over our actions during these days – that good people did nothing.

A man with no experience in government and no accurate knowledge of how the United States government works could not do what Trump has been doing without help from someone with the training that Putin has had as an operative of the Society Union. And I am sure Putin is not the only one in the mix seeing this as a good time for them to intervene as they have wanted to do for generations. Favros didn’t show up in such a hurry at the beginnings of the meeting between Trump and Kim Jong Un in Vietnam by accident. My guess – someone was not toeing the line and needed a nudge to get with the program.

And in the end, Trump’s exit is already planned. He is setting the stage for a “crazy persons” exit from the United States presidency from which he expects to go scot free with lots of money waiting him to live happily ever after.

I do not believe all of these recent firings are taking place just as a coincidence when Trump needs some kind of cover for whole or parts of the Mueller Report becoming public. The last time such took place it was a huge explosion and great distraction. This is what Trump needs now to get the public off on a wild goose chase after the seeming upheavals with immigration so they are not focusing on what is happening with Donald Trump and what looks like the continuation of a huge next step in his massive conspiracy to destroy the current United States government so it will be easy to bring it back together again in a non-democratic/republic shape.

What is hopeful is all of this is the extreme diversity of the current United States House of Representatives. We are now a country which represents all of us – well, once the Senate has been “readjusted” – and the new president elected, if the press will stop pushing the white males amongst the candidates and pushing the females into the background, we might have the continuation of a great country. This time, one that represents all of its citizens. A note to the press – remember the great push and coverage you gave to Donald Trump’s campaign. It is time for you to stop self-absorption and the profit motive and realize the influence you have on this society. That needs to cause you to always and forever act with courage, and truth.

With the United States becoming the country we were raised singing, writing and claiming to be great in its diversity representing all of the people, maybe in this generation it will be so.

It is fitting that the old guard, which was the past, is represented in its death throes by this ridiculous caricature of a man who, hopefully, is the last president trying to keep this country white, male and mostly northern European. Dear God, let it be so. Do not let us have to go through another and more vicious Nazi Germany to emerge steps further down the road to a true government of the people, by the people and for the people.

My vision of Donald Trump is of a man ascending the stairs of an airplane with the wind at his back and his hair piece flapping in the wind with toilet paper stuck in one shoe following him up the stairs on his way to explaining to his handlers why he made such a mess of his assignment and couldn’t, in the end, pull it off.

______________________________________________________-

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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.

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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

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THE WALL: A 1920’s KKK Dream

Friday, February 15th, 2019

That dream, in the 1920’s when the KKK was at its height, was complete with steel slats and it was a very high wall on the Southern border between the U. S. and Mexico.

It looks as though Donald Trump, the illegitimate president of the United States, is doing everything he can to fulfill that dream. Is this his memorial to his father, who was apparently a part of the KKK? https://ahtribune.com/us/2016-election/242-trump-grandfather-pimp-father-kkk.html?fbclid=IwAR073Tg7RDAbs2uIjtiWeDGVC09i5tyRk7BTjBk0LMh_SDjsx6WRpbjWonM

His father’s legacy to Trump was to get him started in the same vein in which he lived his life – by incorporating into his life and work discrimination against African Americans, as in not letting them rent in the buildings father and son built. Trump was started on his racist path early in life and continued on that path throughout his life. As the United States became more diverse, the peoples included in this family’s racism became more diverse and today, apparently includes all of the brown and black peoples of the world.

How fitting that his denouement would be fulfilling the dream of many klansmen of his father’s era by pushing through to build this wall (in their honor?). As you look at the determination and energy and effort Trump has put behind this WALL it had to have a very special meaning to him. All of the trying in todays’ world by many talking heads to make it look as though Trump is working for his base just does not fit.

For his base, he could have moved on and worked for something to give them that was doable. This is a strong emotional commitment which has driven Trump. What could be stronger than doing this for his father? Was the part of the WALL Trump was trying to build to have his father’s name?

AND — a little bonus — because of the timing, Trump could also use this point in time to coverup, distract from, mute and diminish the publicity around the roll-out of Andrew McCabe’s book “The Threat”? Trump’s timing wasn’t perfect but it was close. If McCabe’s book was introduced when it was supposed to be – this weekend on 60 Minutes – without the preview of the 60 Minutes interview with McCabe on the morning and evening Talk/News shows, Trump’s efforts would have perfectly wiped “The Threat” off the news. As it is, he was able to reduce and diminish the coverage of McCabe’s book because of his announcement that he was going to declare a “National Emergency” after he signed the bill. Since most of the newscasters either didn’t know or simply eliminated, for better effect, the fact that this bill has enough votes behind it to make it veto proof, neither the House nor the Senate needed Trump’s signature taking away from him the circus he is creating to throw smoke into all of our faces so we can’t see McCabe and his new book. Is this what is called a ‘two’fer?

FROM TRUMP TO SENATOR LIZ CHENEY

Lying in bed, dozing off I was sharply awakened by this woman doing the most intense racist rant I have seen in a very long time.

Fortunately, I was recording that particular news show so I was able to rewind and watch it from the beginning. I was totally shocked to see that the person giving this racist rant in the most arrogant, smug and self-satisfied way was none other than Senator Liz Cheney – daughter of the ex-Vice President. I kept wondering why she had this super smug demeanor as she ranted on and on after having been asked a question about Donald Trump. Her rant focused on Elizabeth Warren and the fact that Senator Warren publicly acknowledged throughout most of her life, her Native American ancestry. Instead of talking about the courage that took, especially during the time frame in which Senator Warren made her family background public, Senator Cheney was ripping Senator Warren apart. What is there about that which set her off? Should we look into Senator Cheney’s racial background?

When the question about Donald Trump was repeated, Senator Cheney simply continued the most racist monologue against Senator Warren that I have heard in decades. My further shock was that no one called her on it. There should have been outcries from every corner of Congress demanding that she apologize. Not one peep. Today, having heard the backlash against one of the brown women, Ilham Omar, in Congress claiming she made bigoted comments and calling for her to apologize, and at the same time the same people ignoring of Senator Cheney’s comments shows up the claims against others for what they are – political attacks wherever and however you can get them.

I kept thinking I was in a time warp. I didn’t always agree with Senator Cheney, but I had never pictured her just inches away from the likes of the most bigoted of those in public life. One becomes accustomed to people like the Congressman Steve King and just dismisses anything he says. But Senator Cheney, I thought, was better than that. Well – so much for that misperception. Now I understand why Steve King was able to spout his racism and walk away unscathed. He has lots of compatriots who are viciously racist and don’t see anything wrong with Steve King’s racism. He is entitled?

EXECUTIVE TIME a la TRUMP

Maybe most of you don’t remember that far back, to the beginnings of Donald Trump’s illegitimate and illegal presidency, but I do. I remember when he talked about being shocked that the job of the president of the United States was so easy he could do both. He could run the Trump Organization and act as though he was President of the United States.

This was not said by a talking head interpreting Trump’s comments, this was said by Trump himself.

Now we have Trump’s schedule showing massive amounts of “Executive Time”. There have been many talking and poking fun at what that means – watching cable tv seems to be the first comment with the most repeaters, but every time I hear that I remember those comments made by Trump – and I’ve seen that he usually tells on himself and does things up front. Is he running the Trump Organization during his “Executive Time”? Are his comments about the Presidency being a part time job true?

THE NEW WORLD ORDER

I remember where I was when I first heard comments about “The New World Order.” The first time I heard this is was George Bush the Sr. making the comments.

As I look at this ‘Trump/vs the rest of us’ round in this war, it certainly looks like one of the battles trying to bring about that vision of such world governance by the Corporate/Billionaire Group.

From the comments I’ve heard – this New World Order seems to be about the Corporate/Billionaire Group ruling everything (and of course, being very patronizing to those not in their Group) and the diminishment of Government by the people, for the people and with the people. The people being those who do the work to maintain, grow and make life easier for that Corporate/Billionaire Group while dedicating their lives to trying to be like them on almost no money and very few assets.

Not like the traditional slavery in this country because slaves were brought in from Africa and they were very dark of skin. The people doing the todays work that would have been done by slaves in that past era includes those we call “white” along with all of the brown and black peoples of the world. And, some of the people in the Corporate/Billionaire Group are brown – haven’t seen any blacks yet, but they will surface.

Are we moving forward as a world where Cyber Warfare takes over and actual hand to hand and gun and other combat using the traditional artifacts of killing being pushed off center stage, being used to distract from the real war. A way to entertain and occupy the workers of the world so they will stop calling for these impossibles where we all benefit and profit?

We are certainly not fighting over Communism. That went out decades ago if it ever existed. What always amazed me about that was the theoretical definition of Communism seemed to be taken straight from the economic system outlined by Jesus in the New Testament and the people most against that economic system were the Evangelical Christians.

And we are definitely not fighting over Socialism – as you can see from this current beginning stage of the election of the next United States president. That word was introduced by Howard Schulz. Isn’t he one of the Billionaire Group? Beginning the anti-Socialist distraction rhetoric?

And, the biggest joke of all is Capitalism, which we claim exists in the United States, but which actually can’t exist anywhere as long as prejudice against groups exists and is a part of the societies in which we function. We can claim some economic system is capitalistic, but in reality we can’t have a capitalistic system as long as we have such strong prejudices in this world. What we have, in the name of capitalism, is a system which allows theft and other such uglies to be made legitimate, normal and actually a good thing in the systems we call Capitalist.

I wish we could clear our eyes to see the world as it is. One of the roles bigotry plays is to cloud the ability of people to see reality. And those who promote bigotry are benefitting mightily from John Q. Public’s mental illness.

Ed. Note: From several members of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community. Hope you learned something from these thoughts shared.


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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.com




An Anniversary Celebration of the Trump Access Tape

Saturday, October 6th, 2018

We have been drowned with comments from members of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community.  We could not publish all of them – most of what is coming in are comments from people about Trump and company and that has been true for several weeks.  To say this country is upheaveled by this man, his horrible character, his mistreatment of women, his ethics that are in the toilet and his superiority to everyone having been raised in a family which encouraged the development of his messiah complex is an understatement.

We have published as many as we could.  Some we combined when more then one person sent us similar comments.  The anger, pain, upset, and looking around for some way to make this right is what we are hearing.  Hope the anger, pain, upset and other negative feelings go away and give way to finding and combining to use this to bring this country into a more equal place.  As human beings, we are not “better than” we are “equal to”.  Some may never realize or accept that.  Most acting out and engaged in that “better than”  culture have submerged what that means to their character development and the moral laws by which they live.  Some – or rather many – are going to have to be dragged into this new world of equality kicking and screaming, but if that is necessary, so be it.

Comments from Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Members:

Member #1

What an incredible way to celebrate the one year anniversary of the publication of the Access Tape which exposed Donald Trump and his contribution to normalizing sexual assault against women.  For his efforts as one of the extraordinary oppressors in this society, trained by Joseph McCarthy and McCarthy’s lawyer Roy Cohn and having adopted McCarthyism as a young man – today he is keeping McCarthyism alive  with its fascination with Russia (then the Soviet Union) so it could be passed on in more intense form by the next generation.  Trump was rewarded, by the “ruling class” in this society by being elected President.

Member #2

Sexual assault is something very common in this society.  Women of all classes, colors, ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientation have been socialized into being ashamed when they have been sexually assaulted and have gone to great means to hide that fact and deny its existence and in the end, have wound up protecting their assaulter because they have been led to believe their reputation would be ruined if anyone found out that, somehow, the sexual assault against them was their fault.  They somehow “encouraged” their attacker.  They said “NO” when their attacker really knew they meant “YES”.

Member #3

Trump brags about the sexual assault in which he engages; clearly believes it is his right as a privileged white male famous person and even goes so far as to defend against women accusing him of sexual assault by claiming he wouldn’t give any woman as unattractive as the one making the claim the time of day.  Braggadocio doesn’t begin to describe Trump.

He articulates and apparently believes the women he talks about have no rights, especially no rights over their bodies.  White males of a certain class and financial standing have that right and how foolish are women to think and act otherwise.  As Trump has talked about the sexual assault aspect of those rights, it is clear he and others like him have removed a woman’s right to control who touches her body and/or anything else about her body coming from that sexual rights claim of the misogynous male.  That certainly gives an understanding as to why so many of these same men are the ones leading the charge against abortion.

Member #4

Trump has appointed to his administration many people who have or who could be accused of sexual assault against women .  His U. S. Supreme Court nomination is only one of many such nominations and appointments of men who are sexual assaulters, abusers, harassers to high and low positions in his administration and who are really the people outside of his administration who he turns to for advice and who he calls “friend”.  That clearly will be his legacy.  Take a look at his administration.  We need a chart to keep track of them.

With what has happened during the course of this horror story to get Kavanaugh confirmed shows  Kavanaugh is now beholden to Donald Trump as well as his beholdenness to people like the two Bush presidents who worked hard to introduce a “new world order” into this country so their friends would benefit even more than they benefitted in the past on the backs of others.  What will happen with that if Kavanaugh actually gets to serve as a U. S. Supreme Court justice? A Republican Political Operative as a justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Member #5

Kavanaugh’s comments during his hearing as he tried to justify himself against Christine Blasey Ford were amazing.  That is the first time I’ve heard a potential political appointee and/or nominee list and threaten those he considers his enemies.  The last time we had an “enemies list” was during Nixon’s days.  At least the last time we had one publicized.

To talk about a “political hit” and all of his other language – that screams mafia language and tactics.  What’s up with that?  Does that mean he is now connected to the mafia because of his connection to Trump?  Or is that a reflection of what he has picked up during the time William Shine, the man who protected Roger Ailes of the Fox channel from the sexual assault Ailes practiced against women for decades.  William Shine is now Trump’s Chief of Communication and preparer of people like Brett Kavanaugh to take his place amongst the officially protected sexual assaulters of this administration.  As Brett Kavanaugh moves along in his friendships with Trump administration sexual assaulters does that mean his wife will have to take her place amongst the Camille Cosby’s of the world?  Is there a trainer for her or will she be cast aside and left in the dust when convenient for “Bart”.

Member #6

As a Mormon I am totally taken back and quite depressed about Senator Jeff Flake.  He helped restore my faith the way he acted, trying to right what is clearly a wrong and a sin.  It seemed genuine when it was happening, but he only did what he did demanding an FBI Investigation to give Bishop Orrin Hatch and the other Republicans on the Judiciary Committee cover so they could confirm Brett Kavanaugh.  Did Senator Flake take advantage of his friendship with Senator Coons to get this done?  It certainly looks that way.  Don’t they see what they are doing?  I’ve had trouble as a woman and a Mormon because of the way I have been treated.  I hoped as I saw from Senator Flake that maybe some good would come out of this for the country and for Mormonism.  It certainly has not through Bishop Hatch.  Senator Flake seemed so genuine.  He is not genuine.  He was posturing, helping his “peers” to be able to vote a man accused of sexual assault onto the U. S. Supreme Court making it look better than the crude, awful way it was happening.  We now have two men very loudly accused of sexual assault and sexual abuse on the U. S. Supreme Court and a President whose example to this country and to the world is that of someone who shows it is alright to sexually assault women.  And there are more in the Trump Administration because he seems most comfortable around such people.  Why?  Who benefits?  It can’t be Russia because they are already white and misogynist and substantially so.  The United States does not benefit unless you want to look at a benefit being the subjugation of one group under another and that is the tradition out of which the Republicans are acting. Where will this lead?

Member #7

Donald Trump is and has made a grand mess of these United States.  However, he is doing it by taking advantage of what has already been done.  In 1954, the U. S. Supreme Court knocked down Plessy vs Ferguson.  A decision made at the turn of the century out of a Court like the one now being put together by Trump and his predecessors.

After the Plessy v Ferguson decision happened, when it was clear integration was real and would be pushed by the Courts the society reacted by destroying the school system.  Rather a destroyed school system than an integrated one.  The attempt was made to establish private schools and have tax payers money underwrite those schools and then keep those private schools white.  That didn’t work.

The Evangelical Christian movement was developing and all white academies – with tax payers money supplied by the Nixon Administration –  came as a result of the splitting off of a “white conservative evangelical christian” side of that movement.   That original Evangelical Christian movement” continues today and one of its leaders seems to be the Rev. William Barber. The split-off group of white conservative evangelical christians also continues today doing the same racist/sexist things which caused the split.  May God reach their hearts and move them away from the heart of Pharaoh from the Old Testament and move them into true communion with the Christ they claim to worship but clearly don’t know and would reject if he appeared to them as Jesus look on earth with his dark skin and kinky hair.

Many whites would not cooperate with Court ordered integration and looked for alternatives schools to send their children. They increasingly rejected the evangelical christian academies because the theology being taught was nothing even closely related to Christianity, which those schools claimed to be their foundational belief.  That attempt has left the white evangelical christian churches the bulwark of racism and sexism because the people who support them and whose children are educated in almost “pure” white schools are among this country’s most racist and sexist citizens.  These schools tried mightily to get federal money to underwrite their children’s education, but – with Hillary Clinton’s help – it was proven that they were “white only” schools so federal money for their support moved away from their grasp.  Wonder why the Clinton’s are so despised by people like Brett Kavanaugh, and all the other racist supporters of these schools?  Here is one reason that is not surfaced by anyone – except a Bettina Blog that recently appeared.

Trump came along and has put the death knell to the public school system by appointing Betsy DeVos to head that area and she is doing exactly what she was appointed to do.  End the school system because integration is not going to be a fact of life in these United States.   And in the meantime have a system in such bad shape that those who go through public education won’t be able to get into college and will spend their lives serving the privileged for very little money and then we will be able to bring all the jobs back into the United States which until now have been moved offshore.  We will soon have a populace which will encompass enough people in dire poverty that they will have to work for the wealthy for practically nothing because they have no alternative.  And if you want to fight that through the Court system – take a look at what will happen with the current makeup of the courts if Kavanaugh is confirmed.

Member #8

Brett Kavanaugh is a wealthy prep school kid from the Maryland/D.C. area who is infected with the immorality of the Catholic priesthood which is destroying its own youth.  That sounds harsh, however, take a good look at this situation and don’t think Kavanaugh no longer drinks, etc.  His acting out like a teenaged juvenile delinquent who couldn’t get his way and went to a hearing to blast everyone shows he is still a wealthy prep  school kid who even though he graduated from Prep School, he still has an overwhelming sense of entitlement from which the rest of us will suffer.

Member #9

I hope you all heard Senator Grassley when he said – about the women protesting the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh – we are not going to have mob rule.  When he went further in answer to a question as to why there were no Republican women on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Grassley said that women were either too incompetent or too lazy to serve.  He used other words, but that is what his words mean.

Grassley was talking about people who are legitimately protesting his and his fellow senators violation of this republic.  Grassley and his kind see this country as their own private back yard in which they play with their own kind and the rest of us are just so much extraneous garbage, useful when needed and if we toe their mark, insulted at other times and constrained when we do not see this country as a private preserve for the privileged few.

Member #10

I hope it goes down in history how Attorney Mitchell, a woman, was used to carry forth the agenda against women.  She was brought in from Arizona, Sheriff Arpaio’s country, to question a woman – Dr. Christine Blasey Ford – so the male Senators would not have to soil their reputations by so doing.  She was apparently told she was being brought in to question the woman for all of the Senators in five minute increments per Senator.

She was taken down when she started questioning the male senators, by Lindsey Graham, but she did not object.  She sat quietly for the rest of the session.

She did apologize to Dr. Ford for having to do that and expressed her opinion that it was not the way to do this, but still she did what the men who hired her wanted her to do.  Even after she saw how those same men treated her, showed her by their oppression of her so publicly, without apology and with disrespect, she continued on with the rest of the plan and wrote her opinion to add her voice to the negatives dumping onto Dr. Ford.  Her opinion was probably written before she arrived to do her dirty work to help Kavanaugh get confirmed.  She doesn’t seem to realize that giving legitimacy to a sexual assault against one woman is giving freedom to sexually assault all women – including Attorney Mitchel and the female children and elders in her family as well as in the families of the rest of us.

Member #11

When Senator Susan Collins was running for election the first time, was welcomed and won as the result of what happened with Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill – sexual abuse –  she answered the question of whether she was for or against term limits.  She said she was for term limits and would not stay in the Senate longer than 12 years.  Well now we see why we should stay strictly to term limits because we can see what has happened with a woman who ran for the Senate on another woman’s back (Anita Hill) and totally overstayed her ability to positively contribute.  Wonder what Lindsey Graham and those folks she had lunch with promised her if she would take the ball over the goal post.

When Murkowski said she was voting NO to the Kavanaugh nomination she was in her senate seat with no one around her – no women, no men just Murkowski giving her reasons.  When Susan Collins said how she would vote she was surrounded on two sides by women in two seats in back of her – not their seats because they were not members of the Republican Judiciary Committee – there are no women on that Committee, but they were put there to make it look as though women were supporting Kavanaugh.  When are we going to stop allowing ourselves to be so used, abused. insulted and assaulted?

That whole thing was a form of sexual assault in which Senator Susan Collins participated and was its star.  She was used, abused and assaulted in return for what?  Nothing should entice you to give up equality for you and those like you. This happens so much I assume she thought this was not only normal, but she was being given a great promotion.   No one will ever again look to look to Senator Collins as anyone interested in the equality of women or in the equality of any other minority.  It takes a certain kind of person to do what Senator Collins did.  In the 1930’s and 40’s during the great days of the KKK and others like them, there was always at least one black person hanging around.  Brought into the group when they needed him and pushed out when his blackness began to irritate.  That is the role Senator Collins played in this Supreme Court nomination farce.

Senator Collins, your true colors and who you really are showed out clearly today.

Member #12

Support Senator Susan Collins of Maine  -oops, no, no. don’t do that.  Support soon to be Senator Susan Rice, as she starts her campaign for election as the Senator from Maine replacing Susan Collins.

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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.com

 

 

 

Trump/Putin/Kim – Creating a World to rule!

Thursday, October 4th, 2018

Does what’s happening around Trump and the Ford sexual assault accusations have a ring of familiarity?

Is the way that is being handled by Trump have the ring of familiarity?

Take a look at Putin’s Russia and Kim Jong Un’s North Korea!

Mitch McConnell, Trump, the U. S. Senate’s investigation into the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh could have happened in Russia.  That certainly must have brought Trump lots of accolades from Putin and from the head of the Russian mafia.  He paid his dues today.

I try to tell myself that what is happening today in these United States is more indicative of how they handle dissent in Russia rather than the way it is handled in the U. S.  I say to myself – self, we have a more open, democratic system than exists in Russia or North Korea. We would never set up a sham investigation so we could gain evil ends by corrupting  U. S. democratic institutions.   I like to think allegations such as those made against Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U. S. Supreme Court would be handled the way our mythological and carefully culled history declares we handle such things in these United States.  But is that true?

Looking at past history, isn’t it more true that the way Trump is making sure this is handled looks exactly the way it would look being handled in a pseudo-democratic state?  A state giving way to form to quiet its citizenry while it goes along behind the screen destroying everything this democratic country claims it stands for?

However, in spite of that, goodness seems to be bursting out all over.  What was hidden will be revealed.  For all of you bible quoting folks – and all of a sudden we are surrounded by such people – read these chapters and verses – Mark 4:22 – “For everything hidden is meant to be revealed, and everything concealed is meant to be brought to light”.  If you don’t like Mark try Luke 8:17 – “For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, and nothing concealed that will not be known and illuminated.”  Don’t like the New Testament – then turn to Proverbs 10:9 – One who walks in integrity walks securely but one who perverts Gods ways will be found out.”  And there can be no denying the fact that we are “finding out” about Trump and his history on a daily almost minute by minute basis.  It seems he can’t do anything anymore that is not immediately exposed.  His history is tumbling out like a television series with unending segments.

But  to all of you bible quoting people – let me also remind you that Satan quoted Scripture and to Jesus.

Trump has warned all of you young men that you better be careful because they’re coming after you. That is true.  What Trump left out is the qualifying clause that says, if you are one of those who engages or who has engaged in sexual abuse, harassment or assault – things for which you were once lauded in raucous groups and quiet groups where such exploits were bragged about – or those of you who did your deeds in private and only the women involved who you abused, harassed and assaulted knew about your tendencies – yes you should be afraid because the culture is changing and that is no loner acceptable.  That is no longer something you can get away with.  That is no longer something you can do and then have the culture back you up by making the women involved feel shame and hide your deeds.  The bright light of truth is shining and becoming even brighter and that spotlight may soon land in your front yard.

To the men – young or old – who have led a different kind of life; one of respect for others.  To those who have not violated women, children,  or even men, your life will change.  You won’t have to be bothered with the filth of those who have engaged in such deeds because their deeds will be exposed and they will be removed from the halls of government and all the other places they inhabit.

What a fantastic world that is about to break in on us.  We can endure this present because we see the future.

As the pressures from the “ruling class” increases and has increased all around, all over, all above and all beneath us as their greed and other such vile needs have grown and have taken tens of thousands of us to protest, to leave our jobs, to bring along our families to expose them to the deeds of these people so they will know the warning signs and protect themselves – as those pressures have increased we have seen the breaking in of God, the God Spirit, Jehovah, Lord, Krishna, Buddha and all of those entities and concepts we turn to as we worship and bring about a world our memories cannot recall.

Donald Trump is being exposed with his own deeds bringing thunder and lightning clouds to surround him and everything he does.

Those who want to see someone like Donald Trump on a high pedestal and want to look up to someone like Donald Trump these were among the shouters and laughters and those jumping for joy at the rally in Mississippi where Donald Trump thought he knew his audience – doesn’t Mississippi have a reputation for extreme racism and violence to back up the racism, sexism and horrible way they have treated human beings who did not fit their image of who is included and who is on the outs subject to being the repository of their society’s fear?  However, even in Mississippi there were dissenters.  Even in Mississippi there is a history of the sacrifices made by whites and blacks when the Black and Feminist Civil Rights Movements moved to bring about change even there.  What their sacrifices, all of which are not a part of history, show is that there is life after what we are experiencing.  There is life after you have made that sacrifice which you think will end the career you were seeking.  There is life after all the horribleness of today caused by those led by all the  negative forces in the world and that life is even more beautiful than you could imagine.

Those too are being exposed to their friends, to their family, their colleagues, those who are the periphery of their community watching.  Yes, we are being divided and when it is over will the lion be able to lie down with the lamb instead of touting his greater size, ability to instill fear in all of those who cross his path, wreck havoc in the world around him; will the lamb show itself to be the greater of the two because of its gentleness and willingness to be sacrificed; or will they lie down together and enjoy that beautiful warm sunlight together?

It is time for these United States to come together, declare the rotters of the community, the destroyers of truth, goodness, graciousness, and run the offenders of such values off the cliff.  And what a time of year this is to do just that – didn’t the Jewish people just celebrate Yom Kippur?  Weren’t there lessons in that celebration which related to this instance.

Every religion rails against people like Donald Trump.  His using  lies to ridicule Dr. Ford shows exactly who he is.  His life’s history is a listing of foul deeds not the least of which is to have been credibly accused of sexually assaulting some 19 plus women and he denied all 19 claims.  But then didn’t Bill Cosby do the same? Didn’t this society, to bring Bill Cosby to justice have to fight for years against the image created for him by the television media?  Isn’t this a society which many times has a problem separating the real from what they see in the stories invented to sell products?

Surely Trump, as president would be expected to nominate and then pull out all the stops to back one of his own?  Isn’t that where his comfort level lies? And hasn’t he done that?  But be careful, he speaks out loud what many men have in their hearts after having assaulted women.  He showed clearly how huge is his disrespect, dislike and arrogance against women.   He constantly shows that in his press conferences in the way he speaks to and tries to insult women reporters.  But what I heard as a child – “he isn’t worthy enough to clean my toilet.  When the universe extracts its punishment he will be lifted high so his crash will be felt. to the measure of his deeds.”  And isn’t that what we are seeing.  And as he crashes he goes down warning men like himself to be careful – they will get you the way they are getting me.  Those men would be well advised to pay attention and take heed.

What a triumph for Trump to install someone like him to the U. S. Supreme Court.  He has appointed many men to serve in his administration who could be called out on such charges and some who have already been so called out before they were called by Trump to serve him – and yet they tried.

Sorry folks – my rant will probably be edited by the gods at Bettina’s – but it reflects the horror and anger I feel at what is happening.  It reflects the disbelief that I live in a country which elected such a man to be its president and gave him powers he is using to subvert and change the hearts of thousands.  When I see what he does and has done and when I see those who are supporting him, my heart bleeds.  The only visions that keep me alive come from people like Senator Flake – a Mormon who redeems Mormonism for all of us from the grip of an Orrin Hatch.  And Susan Collins, who sometimes does the right thing and sometimes gets lost into the horrible ethics of her political party, but still she tries.  And Lisa Murkowski who seems to be clear as to where she is going – sometimes .  I hope she does not disappoint that would be too much trauma for my weak heart.

Let me finish with that Bettina saying which I mean to the bottom of my heart – sometimes – may God forgive!

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

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.

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The Big Day – Corruption and Sin – or Walk into the Light!

Thursday, September 27th, 2018

by: Marceline Donaldson

It is amazing to turn on the television and hear what we are doing to ourselves in the name of politics. – Actually, in the name of maintaining the ability to exercise continued power, control, to satisfy our greed and fear.

Lives are being upheaval and in actual fact, we are in the process of making fools of ourselves for our children to read in history class, shaking their heads in disbelief,  at just how high a price their parents and people they once looked up to  were willing to pay as they moved ahead on this day fueled by fear – and that need for power and control – and the greed being so publicly displayed.   It is overwhelming.

Todays’ hearing, which should be about truth, but is really about moving the boulders out of the way to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the U. S. Supreme Court is being set up as a travesty and distortion of justice.  Those setting up this hearing have been doing everything possible to ignore justice and create the stage on which the result is pre-determined and which the sexual assaulters of the world, watching with keen interest, will be well pleased.  The preparations for this hearing  are displaying how to maintain extreme sexism at any cost  and those preparations are showing the world the misogyny entrenched in this United States system of government and how it works to maintain the position of white upper class men as “better than”.

Not only is this hearing showing that, but it is also showing how all of this is set up to get those who always lose everything, are manipulated into supporting and carrying forth the needs of this small group of WASPs to their own detriment and how they are pushed into doing that with no recompense and with the idea that this is all in their interest too.

It was heartbreaking to hear a Republican woman, who looked like a very middle to lower middle class white woman with a family of two female teens talking to the press and telling the world that all men grope women and girls, that is just a part of who they are and  her daughters couldn’t object to that male inappropriate groping because everybody does it and everybody experiences it so you just have to go with the flow and ignore the groping and its consequences. Two young teen aged girls being taught by their mother to accept male groping and experience it as just a normal part of life.

Todays’ hearing is all about the care and maintenance of a “better than” society.  How to protect it and take down those who would throw open the windows and doors and let fresh air circulate for the health and well being and equality of everyone.

We have the Mormon Church in the dock – represented by one of its past presidents.  We know enough about the Mormon Church and how it works, especially as regards to its leaders, to know Orrin Hatch could not be out there spreading his vileness without the support and protection of his church.

We have the once grand Republican Party – to which I once belonged, having been conditioned in my Republicanism by several generations before me.  It was the party which welcomed African Americans, allowed you to vote and protected you from being lynched.  It was the only Political Party way back then which allowed Negroes to be elected to office and to be a part of and have a seat at its Conventions. It was the only breath of fresh air in the south when violence against Negroes rode the streets in white sheets and pointy hats.

Who would have thought that in 2018 we would have a president of these United States – a Republican, backed by the Republican Party – who has brought all of the fear, violence and bigotry moved out by Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement along with Betty Friedan, Pauli Murray and all the feminist leaders who worked so hard and sacrificed so much to move  out of these United States what this illegitimate president,  Donald Trump, is working so hard to bring back into this society, into these United States of America and who is bringing it back leaning on the shoulders of his ancestors who walked the streets of Washington, D. C. in their white sheets and pointy hats, some of whom made their living on the backs of and at the expense of the lives of women.  Who would have thought that this Republican president would be bringing back into these United States the Nazi Party and beliefs of Adolf Hitler along with all of the White Supremacy groups who are growing stronger by the day.  How the mighty have fallen!

All of this orchestrated by the President of the United States – Donald Trump – in the employ of a foreign country and the mafia to sow as much discord, division, and whatever other negatives he can throw into the pile so that their taking over these United States and getting rid of its democracy will be so much easier as our foreign intruders show up foaming at the mouth to clean up the spoils.  Trump is doing a magnificent job in spite of our best efforts to stop him.  He creates one garbage pile after another and the stench from the work he is doing is becoming unbearable.

It looks as though these Republican Senators today will publicly and flagrantly violate everyone’s rights because their backers are demanding that Brett Kavanaugh be confirmed?  They see him working for their best interest and they want him confirmed NOW?  His grooming and time spent as a Republican Political Operative has shown him to be very good at what he does and that is the kind of person they want on the Supreme Court.

What do we have:

The WASP members of the Judiciary Committee of the Republican Party have decided they cannot and will not do their job representing their constituencies in questioning the candidate for the United States Supreme Court – Brett Kavanaugh and the woman accusing him of sexual assault – Christine Blasey Ford.  The other women so accusing him and the witnesses to all of this have been discarded as though they don’t exist.

WHY?  Because they are still stinging from the feedback from the incredibly mean, vicious, misogynous job they did when Clarence Thomas was sitting in Brett Kavanaugh’s seat.  Today the structure of sexism and racism in this society, firmly entrenched in all that happens in these United States, is on display for all to see.  Also on display is how we act when that structure is threatened with collapse, extinction and more.  Clarence Thomas is an African American male and not one of the upper class men who rule this country – whether they are in or out of office.  Brett Kavanaugh – although Catholic – has been groomed to serve the very upper classes in this society and so far, he has done an incredible job of serving his masters.  They see how useful he will be on the United States Supreme Court.

What is most amazing – the president of these United States – a pathological liar and a self-admitted sexual assaulter of women is accusing the women who have come forward at great expense to their lives, their families and their future to tell the truth – this liar and sexual assaulter has called the women who have been sexually assaulted, liars and he has tried to justify the sexual assault and abuse charges against himself by using what is happening in this Brett Kavanaugh affair.  The rest of us need to call them heroes for the way they have conducted themselves and the determination with which they are moving forward to make their experiences with Brett Kavanaugh public so we have something on which to decide if this man should get the job of a justice of the U. S. Supreme Court or not. And while we are doing that we need to call Donald Trump out for what he is – a sexual assaulter; a racist; a misogynist and a pathological liar.

Standing behind all of this we see the men of the Bush family and their class circle backed by the American Oligarchs – although the Oligarch’s a bit lower in class.  Totally free of the stain of what is happening, but responsible for seeing Kavanaugh as someone who could carry out the wishes and demands of their WASP class in this society. We also have the Bush family to thank for Clarence Thomas.  George Bush, the son, was one of the first people to rush out to endorse Brett Kavanaugh – someone he knew as a Republican Political Operative and someone whose work he knew, which means he knew what that would mean to the rest of society if Kavanaugh became a member of the U. S. Supreme Court.  Whether he knew of the sexual assault is only his to say and his conscience to reckon with

I didn’t see that component as clearly as I do today.  This fiasco has had its silver lining.  Many of us now understand and can see this structure without all of the pretty trappings in which it has been enclosed.  The shiny objects meant to distract us have been shelved and we see – with nothing hiding or shading or obscuring just who we are and the farce that has been playing for generations.

So – back at the ranch, the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee went out and hired an “assistant” to work with them to get the job done of making sure that all of the trash was swept out of the way which was cluttering up the road to Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

I don’t know of one corporation in this world which would hire someone to work for them at any job with the kind of sexual assault allegations hanging over that person as are hanging over Brett Kavanaugh, but the United States Senate is moving and doing everything it can to make sure he is hired by the United States Government to be a justice on the Supreme Court.

What kind of trash has this “assistant” been hired to remove?  The women who were assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh and have had the moral fortitude and civic sense of responsibility to come out and tell their stories.  Tell their stories so the rest of us would have a better life without another sexual assaulter getting a seat of power in this United States Government.

What has this group of Republicans on the Judiciary Committee done to promote their cause – to gain power, control over and to exacerbate their greed and fear?  What have they done to make sure women are never able to stand as equal and independent members of this society?

They went to Maricopa in Arizona to hire an “assistant”  – a woman – to do their dirty work so they could sit back and watch the arena in which they have put one woman against another. A man would have been called an attorney, etc.

       Why did they go to Maricopa?  Well, think carefully now –

isn’t that where Sheriff Arpaio comes from?  

the man Donald Trump pardoned, who is beholden to Donald Trump and has said so publicly?

Isn’t the woman they hired a five year colleague of Sheriff Arpaio?  

And isn’t she a registered Republican?

 And hasn’t she been put on their ‘team’ to get the job done of getting Brett Kavanaugh confirmed? And isn’t she working with her (their) team to prepare everyone to get the best result so they will be successful at the end of the day?

Listen carefully and you will be able to hear the laughter from the back room as they all get together and gloat over what they have put together for this hearing for this confirmation to go through leaving the Democrats destroyed in their wake.  The loudest laugh you hear is coming from Donald Trump.

This is what happens when a self-admitted sexual assaulter and sexual predator, who brags about his deeds and how great and powerful he is at sexually assaulting any woman he so chooses to assault,  is elected as president of these United States.  He appoints sexual predators to important posts.

What does the life of the Republican Congressmen look like if we were to play a movie on a big screen showing their every moment of life?  Would we see interludes where they showed themselves to be just like their president?  Is that why they are so furiously backing him?  Why they cannot and will not see the horror of what Brett Kavanaugh has done – what Clarence Thomas has done?  What all of the sexual assaulters have done to destroy the lives of countless women?  Do they have a tin ear and refuse to look at all of this as wrong because these are activities in which they have engaged and have refused to negatively judge themselves?

Having been referred to as an “assistant” gives you the mind set of this Judiciary Committee.  It also gives you the mind set of Attorney Mitchell who agreed to come across the country to do this job for who she considers her peers – her Republican operatives – Congressmen – and others.  Does she not realize she is considered as no better than the women Brett Kavanaugh is accused of sexually assaulting?  That she is looked upon as an object to be used to abuse other women who expected some other kind of treatment?

There is something called Karma.  Other cultures would say “what goes around comes around”.

That is certainly true of Brett Kavanaugh who spent a good deal of his professional life using claims of sexual assault to destroy the lives of others?

Your day is coming Donald Trump.  You have brought into the current life of these United States the spirit of Joseph McCarthy – the man who upheaveled this country for several years and who destroyed many lives before he was taken down.  He did his deeds in a drunken stupor.  Amazingly, his attacks also circled around Russia.  What is your drug of choice?  He did it with the help and advice of Roy Cohn – and these are two of your most cherished mentors and idols.  You have patterned your life after Joseph McCarthy’s and you are causing as much pain in this country as he and his antics caused in their day.  You learned at his feet and you learned on your knees from Roy Cohn.  You learned your lessons well.  The question is – how well have we learned to recognize the likes of you and to move to put an end to your destruction of all we hold dear and which for several hundred years our ancestors paid with their lives to create for us a country – as best they could – which would open its doors to all people and which would respect and hold all people as equals.

Why is equality such a difficult concept and such an impossible way for many to live their lives?  Are we that lacking in love?

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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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…AND THEY LAUGHED AT HIM! – MY PRESIDENT

Wednesday, September 26th, 2018

I watched as my president took the stage and looked so confident.  He looked as though he was ready, able and knew he would successfully take on and make an overwhelming speech for this crowd which was not his own, but he was the United States President.  He’d done this multiple times to thunderous applause and this would be no exception.  The smug look on his face; the arrogance of his stance; the assuredness of his expression said it all.

He started with how great he was as president of the United States.  He didn’t list his accomplishments he just said they were better than the accomplishments of any other administration in U. S. history.  …..And they laughed.

I didn’t laugh.  My mind went back to all I had witnessed of his accomplishments and how he has affected my life.

I went back to Charlottesville, VA and the neo-Nazi’s, the White Nationalists, the KKK and others coming down that mountain with tiki torches re-enacting Crystalnacht.  The people in that United Nations building knew all that.  Their countries had been negatively affected by the actual Crystalnacht and what happened after.  The United States came to the rescue of more than one of those countries when Hitler reduced them to violence, viciousness, and years of a horrible existence.

This U. S. President and my family are forever intertwined in my mind.  I remembered my grandmother while listening to the laughter. I never met her.  She was taken, before I was born, to one of Hitler’s Concentration Camps where she worked under extreme conditions and finally was killed in the most barbarous way with her body thrown into a ditch so we have no grave nor gravestone for her.  I can only keep her alive in my mind with imaginary conversations I wish we had been able to have over the years.  And today I am standing, listening to  this U. S. President, who called the people, really good people, who re-enacted Crystalnacht, all of those neo-Nazi’s, White Nationalists and others, who acted violently against those who protested against that for which they stood.   This president in front of all of these world wide diplomats talked and they laughed at him.

This U. S. President went on talking and expounded the Nazi doctrine adapted for the United States called “America First”.  A movement initiated by the neo-Nazi’s and fairly successful in America.  A movement started in small ‘cell’ groups to get this doctrine accepted across the United States as one stage in their plan to bring back Hitler’s Germany, reincarnated in the United States.  This president talked positively about that America First campaign and they laughed.

I thought of all the pain and suffering of the little children in these United States, who had experienced some awful things in their own countries which made them and their parents flee.  After months of experiencing everything new and negative as they traveled to reach the safety of the United States arrived to what they had never been able to conceive nor thought possible – being taken away from their parents – their safe harbor – and put into American Concentration Camps so their parents, legitimately or not, could be prosecuted and ejected from the country to which they came seeking refuge.

I heard again, in my mind, people talking about these Concentration Camps for children as though they were summer camp – as though they were private school equivalents – and I watched in my mind all of those children suffering the pain of separation from parents who promised them safety and couldn’t produce it for them because of this U. S. President and his administration. And the background for my memories was the laughter.

Listening to that laughter, I thought and saw again the image of this president selling out the security forces of  the United States while speaking on a platform in Helsinki making clear statements that he trusted Vladimir Putin and Russia, but not the FBI – the CIA – the National Security forces of the government which he was standing there representing as its president.

Having been a victim of sexual assault I stood there remembering how awful that was and remembering the  19 plus women who made even worse charges against this president and in spite of that he was still elected – by who?  Who could be so callous, so cold, so unbelievably vicious as to push forth such a person as leader of America?  And here we were as I listened to the laughter and thought of my pain and the pain of so many other women.

I see an America where a president who has bragged about sexually assaulting women as though he had reached some great level of achievement appointing others to top positions who have done the same thing and turning over to them different parts of the governing of the United States.  I thought of William Shine – a man this president appointed after he knew of the substantial way Mr. Shine supported Roger Ailes, president of Fox, throughout Mr. Ailes sexual assault against many women trying to make a living inside and outside of Fox television.  By this time I was standing there shaking because the realization hit that Mr. Shine was only one of many such sexual predators and enablers of sexual predators with whom this president associated, had as his close friends and who he appointed to serve in this United States Government.  And through those thoughts came the laughter.

So many sexual assaulters in high places and now possibly another being elevated to become the second such person on the United States Supreme Court.  This time, a man accused of sexual assault who claimed, as his defense, that he really did not engage in sex with anyone throughout high school and many years thereafter, didn’t drink and worked very hard at his studies.  It is too much to comprehend.  My mind is totally blown that this is how low we have been brought and still they were laughing.

So much more of this ugliness has happened during this President and his family’s ‘reign’ over these United States, but my mind can’t comprehend anymore.  My reaction to the U. S. President and the comments he made as an introduction to and throughout his talk at the United Nations was to walk out.  Why are they still sitting and laughing and not walking out with me, beside me, for me, around me?

And as I reached the door I could hear the laughter still ringing in my ears.

Will we ever………………

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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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Nutty and Slutty/Crazy and Confused

Wednesday, September 19th, 2018

by:  Marceline Donaldson

With the Congressional hearing in the 1990’s,  held to smear and destroy the reputation of Anita Hill so they could have someone accused of sexual harassment on the Supreme Court, the nominee was approved by the slimmest of margins.

That “show” provided by Congress, was an incredible education.

In spite of what is practiced in the general society, sexism and racism are so intertwined into our structures of government, it is difficult to know, understand and to educate children about these twin evils and their siblings.  The drama of that ‘hearing’ was an incredible education in sexism and racism.  Those of us who watched, unable to do anything until the hearings stopped for the day or were ended – it was an amazing message.  It told us what our government thought of women.  It put black women front and center, but it made sure the understanding and message was spread that if white women didn’t toe the mark this would also be their fate.

I was such a quiet child.  Spent hours practicing the piano because I was going to be a concert pianist just like one of my piano teachers.  They were all incredible women – and very independent women – but independent in  ways that were acceptable in those days, but for one.  They dressed the way society expected cultured, successful women should dress; they talked, walked, trained those coming up in the way society expected they be trained.  But their very lives gave a different message and I got the message.  My childhood days were my ‘quiet time’.  My adulthood has been one long, loud, excruciatingly painful scream against this life to which I have been consigned.

Jean Coston Maloney, one of my piano teachers, was an incredible woman.  She graduated from Oberlin’s Conservatory of Music and in 1937 from the Julliard School of Music – no mean feat for a black woman,   She was the first African American to perform with a nationally recognized symphony orchestra; she was very elegant; tall, willowy and beautifully dressed.   It was an exciting time for the New Orleans community to have the New Orleans Symphony leave Symphony Hall bringing all of their gear to Booker T. Washington’s High School Auditorium for this concert featuring Jean Maloney playing the Tchaikovsky Concerto. I will never forget the evening nor how I felt as someone who I knew and with whom I had studied be the featured artist.

(why did this symphony orchestra disembark from their home just a mile or so away you ask?  With all the upheaval, money and other inconveniences that caused?  Because blacks were not allowed to perform on the Symphony Hall stages anyplace in the United States in that day and blacks could not attend symphony concerts unless they sat in the very few seats reserved for them in what was called the “crow’s nest”- and paid the same price paid by those who sat in much kinder seats.  So for Ms. Maloney to play with the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra they had to move all of their gear to the local black high school auditorium).

Lucille Hutton was another graduate of Oberlin;s Conservatory and my piano teacher.  She was the one under whom I started by music career and who would not let me touch the piano when I was a small child until my practice showed her clearly that I had the proper hand positions on her coffee table.   I went to these piano lessons all alone on the street car from ‘downtown’ to ‘uptown’  in New Orleans, something no parent would let their children do today.  I was about 7 years old at the time.  Most people knew me or my family and I was never one to meet a stranger.  Ms. Hutton was a well known figure in New Orleans society circles – quiet, unassuming and always dressed the way a regular church going lady should be dressed.

Jesse Dent – the wife of the president of Dillard University was yet another very early graduate of Oberlin Conservatory of Music with a promising career in front of her as a concert artist.  She served on the board of Oberlin for many years and was responsible for people from the Conservatory coming to New Orleans to hear me play.  She was a great pianist, but as the wife of the president, her concert work was limited to her husband’s sphere.  She was a wife and mother and promoter of Dillard and then whatever little time was left her music carried on, but normally only on the campus of the University.  She was a beautiful and well respected personage in her society.

Of the three women, the one whose life was tragic was Jean Maloney’s.  What I didn’t understand until years later, she was the only one who stepped out and away from her expected stereotype and place in society.  She knew who she could become based on her talent and its drive.   The career her talent and presence entitled her to were awesome.   She was determined to follow where her talent led.

Jean Maloney was driven by her talent and drove herself with hours of practice.  Her husband was a well known doctor and the Surgeon General of Liberia – and then they divorced.  She was given an ultimatum by her husband – give up this dream of being a concert pianist, give up your music except when playing for husband and children or within a closed community or I will leave you and the children and neither you nor they will have contact with me again.  Jean Maloney rejected that ultimatum and was going to move wherever her talent allowed her to go and it would have allowed her to go far, but for racism and sexism.  Instead of becoming a great and well known artist, her life ended in tragedy.  The price women and minorities pay for following a dream outside of their stereotype – the oppressive structure in which they must live or be crushed.

The way women – especially black women were taken down by this society when they showed the kind of independence shown by Jean Maloney is one of the cruelest things I have seen and I have seen a lot in this life.  The horror of those take downs – they were not explicit, but camouflaged, unbelievably cruel and a part of the institutional structure of these United States.  You – women and minorities –  and those around are led by this society to turn the blame of the society’s racism and sexism on oneself, turning the victimizer into the victim, instead of where it should really be placed – on those who benefit.  That was clear from Donald Trump’s apparently heartfelt sympathy towards Brett Kavanaugh with no mention at all for the pain and suffering over many years he apparently caused Christine Blasey Ford.  In Charlottesville it was -“both sides”.  In Washington, D. C. it was all feelings go towards Kavanaugh.

Our leaders could call for a bowl of water, soap and a towel and make a show of washing their hands and not being the culprits involved doing the dirty work.   In this case, that was and is done by Congress in the way they acted when they felt the need to step up and take down Anita Hill.  Not for being a black woman nor for being a woman, but for not knowing her place as a black woman and for stepping out of her stereotype after the society found a place for her where she could be sort of successful, but still within the bounds of who she was allowed to be as a black woman.  Anita Hill thought and acted as though she was on the same level as others around her and that she had the same duty to keep this society, government, and its court system on the right track.

If you think this is not structural, look at how quickly Congress plucked its pattern for action for such an event, as now surrounds Brett Kavanaugh, to take down another woman.  White, this time.  The pattern they plucked from their recent history is what they have set in place to use against Christine Blasey Ford – without the FBI investigation.

Brings back that old saying – if you are quiet when they come for me in the morning and when they come for your other friends in the afternoon, they will come for you in the evening when there is no one around to help, protect or save you.

Anita Hill was concerned about the appointment of a man unworthy of being a Supreme Court justice being nominated and on the verge of being confirmed.  A man who the “big dogs” wanted because he was a replacement for Thurgood Marshall and the kind of replacement who would bring back into the society the image, stereotype, personhood of the kind of black man who they thought should have been appointed and who should rightly serve on the Supreme Court, if indeed there was a need for a black man to be in that spot.

The way society was moving that had to be, so they made sure the character, image, background, morals, values of a Thurgood Marshall was replaced by someone who would keep blacks in bondage and in ‘their place.’

Clarence Thomas is who they could see as the person for ‘successful blacks’ to imitate.  Clarence Thomas would be the person young black children would idolize.  Clarence Thomas is who teachers would hold up as an example of greatness in African Americans and therefore Clarence Thomas would uphold the negative black stereotype; make sure blacks moved not an inch, but inched backwards away from equality in this society and back into the foot shuffling, head scratching, over-sexed image this society carefully constructed for blacks to fit into for generations.

Anita Hill’s ‘crime’ was the fact that she wanted that horribleness to be corrected and reality to show through and this society move in the direction of a whole, equal, educated, respectful society it seemed to be walking towards.

For that she was put in the dock, so she could be characterized as ‘nutty and slutty’, but with far more words and images than I can describe in this short piece and Clarence Thomas was held up, patted on the back, encircled by whites who patrolled the borders of racism and sexism to make sure it would continue into the next generation and Anita Hill was cast aside and totally discredited.  She was allowed to survive, but with a reputation and characterizations which others in the following generations could pull out, learn from and not imitate.

and then, along comes Christine Blasey Ford – white woman.  Doing in this society and to this society what Anita Hill tried to do. Simply to tell the truth about her experience with Brett Kavanaugh which questioned his fitness to serve as a Supreme Court justice.  Not the first one to question his fitness, but one whose story and experience could not be ignored.

Instead of being characterized as ‘nutty and slutty’ – which was taken by Republican Congressmen at the time as the best line of attack against Anita Hill because it rolled out and re-enforced the negative stereotype of black women, Christine Blasey Ford is beginning to be and will continue to be characterized as ‘crazy and confused’.  And in the mix are the same men who led the charge against Anita Hill.  They are still present in Congress and now taking the role of ‘elder statesmen’ passing along to their younger comrades the way the system works and the tools it provides to them to destroy this woman, smear her reputation, give a lesson to other white women as to their place in this society and as to what will happen to them if they overstep and cross the line challenging the greatness of sexism and its place in the world.  Their message is crucial to their comrades – destroy this woman or all hell will break loose. The next thing you know all women will be ‘outing’ all of us who have sexually abused, attacked, harassed them and will demand that we stop or be removed and not allowed to enter the hallowed halls of economic and financial success in this society.  These women  will want pieces of that success and will want us to clean up our act and not have a group to run off the side of the cliff to atone for our sins.

What we need to stop and take a good look at is the numbers of white men who have and are engaging in sexual harassment, abuse, assault all over the society and demanding their right to so engage against women of all colors, shapes and sizes.  Most horrible is the fact that they have now been strong enough to elect as their leader in these United States a chief of sexual assaulters – a man so arrogant and sure of himself and his way of acting with women that he brags about his success and his methods.

It is time for this to stop.  My grandparents and great grandparents and many generations before them spent their lives fighting racism and sexism because they didn’t want me and my children to go through and experience the kind of pain and agony that was their lot.  I picked up the fight and have done and am doing the same thing for the same reasons, but my children and my grandchildren will experience sexism and racism as the main theme that negatively affects their lives.  But look at us.  We are still in the muck.  Still oppressed.  The oppression has changed and become much more sophisticated, but this so called ‘hearing’ is exactly the same theatre Anita Hill was put through and the Orrin Hatch’s of the world are planning to produce and direct as the kind of theatre that they think will take down Christine Blasey Ford and at the same time stop tens of thousands of women in their tracks who are seeking equality and trying to move this society into a place of equal acceptance.

And Orrin Hatch?  Bringing down his Mormon faith or opening it up for people to see what it is really about?

Fat chance that basic change will happen here!  This is the society which elected a self-proclaimed sexual abuser, sexual assaulter, sexual harasser as its president and is clearly having its Congress people and their supporters come out with guns blazing to  attack women, to oppress them even further and maintain their control spreading as much pain, depression, and more on all so they can claim superiority in their small corner of the world.  This does not bode well for the future.  Now what!

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

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Love and Sex – A reader adds comments

Saturday, September 8th, 2018

Thank you for that blog.  It struck me for some time that we are being led by a group of white men who seem to have sex on their minds and we suffer the consequences because love is required of leaders.

What does it mean that our president – Donald J. Trump – has been accused multiple times of sexually abusing and assaulting more than a dozen women and his reputation goes far beyond that if you go back many years.  That kind of appetite generally will also turn to greed, jealousy, and many other emotions that destroy and will not build up and Trump is showing that he is into destruction of this society as quickly and completely as possible.  This is not new for him because he showed us that in the way he ran and built his Trump Organization.  Why?  Because it will give him worldly goods beyond his imaginings and will give him power over many who want the same thing.

Is he about building up an American Oligarchy the way Russia has an Oligarchy?

As far back as the 1980’s it was clear that Trump was beholden to the Russia and Eastern European mafia.  Take a look and it certainly looks as though his billions were created by those relationships.  And, just think of what he can now acquire as he opens the doors to this country’s treasury and assets to those with whom he was financially related from the ’80’s until today.

Everyone is saying he is beholden to Putin and Russia?  He is actually beholden to the Russian Mafia and is an asset of the Russian and Eastern European mafia’s.  Apparently he didn’t meet Putin until all of this running for the presidency occurred and the Russian mafia did what?  Loaned him to Putin to achieve Putin’s goals?

What a difference it makes to have someone as president who is into love instead of sex.  I don’t like to make comparisons, but when I saw John McCain’s family during his funeral remembrances I don’t think I have seen, in one family, such a coming together of the world’s people.  It was beautiful.  I wish we had more of that.  It was family trying to live a life of love rather than controlled by sex and all such an emphasis entails.

Apparently, McCain tried to bring along those with whom he worked.  His relationship with Lindsey Graham shows that.  He brought along Lindsey Graham and now Graham has resorted to who he was before his close friendship with McCain.  The need for power, recognition, importance can lead to such ugliness.  That is so very sad.  I remember Graham before McCain and he was a flake – racist – sexist – and I could throw in a few more negatives, but if you are that old you should also remember the news coverage of where Lindsey Graham was coming from during those days.  And then he changed and became someone we all began to respect.  That has stopped now that McCain is dead.  He has reversed course and has once again become the man he was back then.  He looks as though he has been working hard to become Attorney General and it also looks as though Trump has promised him the spot to get Graham to be one of his supporters who Trump can bounce around for whatever he needs.  That is so sad!

As I read your article on Love and Sex – how different this world would be if we had that movement towards love.  If we could see each other in that light instead of in the light of sex – which is where we move immediately.  Try to be friends with someone because you have much in common, it could be a great friendship, but the outside world would see it in terms of sex.  We have not been able to rise above how we describe the animals.  Tell someone you love them and it immediately takes on a component of sexual attraction.  What is wrong with us that we have not developed beyond such a place?

The world of love is so superior to the world of sex that it is unimaginable how we are able to maintain ourselves on the lower level of sex and not be able to rise above it when there is this incredible place we could be.  All of our religions tout love.  However, most also have these warnings and judgments against sex except how they define it and how we have tried over the generations to legislate sex – such a waste.  I had not thought before reading your article that this need to reduce love to sex and then control sex had to do with inheritance and who owns and inherits what.  Power – greed – corruption all come into play as we have ruined many lives with our nonsense.

If we could somehow get out of the muck and mess to which we consign ourselves and see another way of living what a great world this would be.  People like Donald Trump would have to re-work their ethics and themselves because they would be odd person out and never in a position to become dog-catcher let alone anything else.

Games like this op-ed thing would not be played – there would be no need.  Who wrote that op-ed piece?  Either Donald Trump or Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, who saw it as a way to raise himself up above his peers and position himself to be able to rise when he got out of the Trump Administration.  He has given himself an excuse and a cover for his being there in the first place.  After Gary Cohn left, he had to do something – and so we have this op-ed.  He won’t admit to it, but he will quietly circulate it when he is ready to be employed elsewhere to shore himself up to a higher place and overcome the negativity he has acquired as a part of Donald Trump’s cabinet.  I could be wrong – but in this guessing game that is my choice.

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LOVE and SEX! – The Bettina Oracle Speaks!

Wednesday, August 22nd, 2018

Humans have substantial ways to obfuscate what they don’t want to face. They build institutional structures to hide, deflect, and keep them in rose colored glasses. Truth is not something easily acknowledged even though someplace inside truth stirs.

You are now into a messy presidential situation in the United States trying to do everything except face the truth of who you have become and how you have structured your society, your families, your lives. This has been generations in the making, but todays generation gets to clean up what you, your parents, your grandparents, etc. have soiled.

You preach God is Love, but you act out and create your life around sex. You look at the animals and feel so much better than, but in reality you have created a society which emphasizes and reflects your animal nature and your animal characteristics.

Why do you have so many wars; why do you kill so many people trying to destroy life itself – for nothing; why is there so much jealousy, hatred, rage, greed, and all the rest – for nothing except as a way to pass the time from birth all the while denying death.

You talk a lot about values, character, ethics, truth, love, grace, kindness, generosity and more – all myths in your lives to set aside the Godlike character. Those who have such values are seen as weak to all but a very few and those few pay a high price if they articulate, in a positive way, what they see. What is real and is seen by everyone as great – ‘now there is a real man’ – is the life you are leading based on your animal instincts – catering to sex, power, control, greed – all called sin, and practiced by nearly everyone.

It has been amazing to watch a group of humans build a society – structure a government – set up rules and laws – all based on their animal instincts. Not their higher instincts, not what comes from their claimed belief in a God who holds up love above all – but their lowest common denominator instincts, shared with the animals with whom you also share the planet earth. In humans those lower instincts are so much more intense and destructive than anything the animal world has ever produced – you make historians gasp even though they can’t see nor report on the very same things occurring during their lifetime.

In the society you have and are creating, Love is much lauded. It is raised to the level of a god. God is love – the shorthand way you describe God, your beautiful mythological creation for which many have given their lives and for which you have demanded the life of others claiming you are just and right and good and full of love and those others are evil, greedy, mean-spirited, and need to be destroyed and/or severely controlled. You have taken the lives of many in the name of love but the fact of sex. You have taken and destroyed the children, the property, the everything of those others. You have done all of that to continue and move ahead the system you have set up on this earth not based on God’s love, but based on sex. You refuse to see, acknowledge and change that. You will, however, change one institutional structure for another if it is also based on sex, as long as it has a better mythological structure which will camouflage the reality of who you have chosen to be.

I can hear the protests already. Take a look around at all that you survey. Can you drink the water in the streams; Is the food grown making many ill; are terminal diseases rampant with everyone denying that they know the ultimate cause; are you one of those who claims the illnesses we face in such high numbers really starting in these last two generations were always there only we didn’t have the ability to diagnose them? Do you really believe that or does that myth make you feel better? That list, the result of this sex based system, could go on for pages and still not be complete.

Love is the beautiful part of your humanity. Your animal instincts deal with your physical selves. You describe love, but before you get too far into the description you veer off into a description of sex. The people you hold up, who get you into much trouble and evil are sexual deviants. Your new president in the United States is a hard to ignore example. He has let his out of control sex drive do awful things to himself and to the society. Driven by out of control sex he has so far surpassed the animals in how he exercises his urges and the depths to which he has gone – and will go in the future, if left unchecked.  It is fast becoming mind boggling and mind numbing. How many women have brought charges of sexual abuse and assault against him? And have you raised that up and fought for the women? Or have you let that rest because you recognize and understand that part of this new president? He personifies what is evil in all of you and so he is untouchable. To call him in – to rein him in – you have to rein in your own sex drives and your own base instincts of greed, lying, filth of every kind and so far, in history, that is something you have neither done nor attempted to do – except on a mythological level. What the United States president has done and is doing brings shame on all of those who helped put him where he is. If you voted for him – if you encouraged others to vote for him – if you saw in him a way to manipulate others and used him in that way – any small thing you did to help him rise will have its day of retribution.

The way animals live, their baser instincts occasionally break out and cause very brief moments of trouble, but when translated to human life and structured into human organizations those instincts while essentially harmless in animals and are there for the animal kingdom’s survival, become corrupt, evil, ugly and at times impossible to control until everyone is exhausted from the letting loose of such extreme evil.

Greed is something you have structured into your government, society, friendships. How else do you achieve and maintain a “better than” society? The beginnings of the United States used slavery to structure that “better than” need and requirement into its governmental structures and it has survived to cause trouble even into today.

Some people have obscene amounts of money. They do not look around and share their excess with anyone. They hoard it to overstuff themselves with houses, clothes, wealth, all kinds of wealth – and when they see the homeless, those in need, those who can’t feed or clothe themselves they turn a blind eye and talk to friends blaming the victims for the excesses of those with averted eyes.  Please -don’t try to justify and claim they share by citing their ‘tax free’ contributions which in the end benefit only themselves.

There is enough on this planet for all to live well. However, it is divided in such a way that only a small percentage thrive. In creating that kind of distribution of wealth you act as though you are going to live forever and take all of your wealth with you when you die. Nothing is further from the truth.

You have made yourselves miserable with this society which you have created and claimed it was from God and that the God you worship is a God who is Love! But you made this god male and although his beginnings was in a story set in poverty, in many of your religions his continued existence is in gold, silver, marble statues, incredible structures and edifices which could feed the world’s population many times over.  And the claim you make is that your god instructed you to do this to show your worship of him and your humility before him. Aaaggghhh!

You point to the theology you created around this god, but in the reality of your lives greed, jealousy, sexual assault and abuse amongst the humans is becoming worse as time goes by. You have created systems of government under which you live and systems of economics which gives power to a few and which makes the rest of you constantly strive, miss your life, and continue the super hypocrisy for very little, thinking one day you will be amongst those chosen for that rarefied air of what used to be the millionaires club, but many were weeded out so the new and rarer billionaires club could be formed.

O ye of no faith do you not know – do you not see where you are headed? You now fight depression, addiction, and so much more. Your created systems are destroying you, the planet and everything in your grasp. You are working hard to leave the planet and reach outer space. Are you going to bring all of your baser instincts with you and re-create out there another hell reflective of what you have done on earth?

We see you afraid to love – your solution is turning love into sex – and obfuscating the difference. Writing love stories which are really sex stories to pass along to future generations. Your leaders are almost all sexual deviants. They blackmail each other to get their way by threatening to “out” another persons mistakes – usually always in the sexual area. Why have you done this? We can’t make any sense of what you have created. You create wars to maintain power. You destroy, humiliate, torture, kill and so much more to maintain a way of life which never should have been created in the first place.

So much hope was placed in you and you have defiled and shown that hope to have been a wasted emotion. Why must you translate your animal instincts into your institutions? What is it about you that you can’t function on any other level. Why can’t you see what you have done and are doing? Why do you only regret after you have destroyed everything around you and don’t know how to get it back?

Sex is about procreation. You are attracted to those with whom you can join and multiply. You have changed all of that and created marriage and ‘morality’ laws not about procreation, but to protect property. You have written your probate laws – your wishes acknowledging death and your mortality – to protect property and these probate laws need the marriage laws to work and to keep the lines of inheritance for your property clear.

You have created a society in which it has been and still is difficult for a woman and a man to be friends without sex in the picture. If they find their way to a friendship without sex those around will keep the sexual thing going by assuming they are hiding something. I could go on, but I think you get the picture. The easiest way to ruin someone in your society is to claim they had sex with a person who would cloud the inheritance picture and jeopardize the line of succession for the power, money and property accumulated.

You have spelled out in your laws who can have sex with whom because your inheritance laws can’t be violated. Not just the inheritance of money and property, but you had laws defining who could have sex with whom because the line of “I am better than you” must be kept and that would fail if you crossed color lines – ethnicity lines – religious lines. Those are fringy definitions because those are not real categories, but you have created the category of race and have religions which make it a sin to marry and/or have sex with someone who would dilute the power of a particular race, religion or someone from a particular country which is not seen as one of the power center countries where it is imperative for those “bloodlines” to remain pure.

Some of that is changing – but other such structures are being put in place which are more stringently keeping to your “better than” needs than what you have already established as “law and custom”.  These are the only ones you recognize as having power in your way of life.

You all have the possibility of being so much more than you have allowed yourself to be; you can create institutions based on God’s love instead of man’s sex and other animal instincts and the instincts of what are called the “lower animals”. It is not understandable as to why that is what you have chosen when you could have been so much more. It is the hardest way to live; the most miserable and painful and difficult way. What is it in you that makes you choose that path? Why do you so raise up and honor those basest of instincts?

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

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

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Omarosa – you go girl!

Tuesday, August 14th, 2018

“Don’t diss me until you have walked in my shoes.”

It should be amazing to hear, see and read all of the press coverage about Omarosa and her firing by the White House, but it isn’t. What should be amazing about it? The fact that she lasted as long as she did even though she was over the area set aside for minorities. To remain for any length of time in such a position in the Trump White House must have taken a lot of will, political skill and knowledge of self-preservation.

We are seeing the racism of those doing the anti-Omarosa reporting come through like spotlights. It is historical.

For example:

– Omarosa was held in the “Situation Room” for some two hours and was taken into that room, one black female, by four white men. I’ve seen that before and it is meant to scare the same way white sheets and pointy hats and burning crosses are meant to scare. However, the only thing we hear the media addressing is the fact that Omarosa recorded the ordeal and what an awful person she is for having done so. Some have even gone to the lengths of claiming that she should be prosecuted for having jeopardized the security of the United States through this act. Does that sound similar to “lock her up”? Is that a clear blame the victim?

It seems to us the only way the national security of the U. S. was jeopardized was by General Kelly using a secure room which should be used for national security meetings, etc. and used it as a setting to intimidate and restrain a black woman in a room against her will. There is no other way to describe what happened to Omarosa during her time in the Situation Room except as a time of instilling fear and intimidation. How come holding an employee of the White House against her will is not worthy of coverage? Unless, of course, this is seen as normal because it is a black woman and because we want to make sure the victim is blamed where race is concerned. No or very little blame has been incurred by General Kelly and his three co-intimidators. Holding someone against their will is generally called kidnapping – “lock him up.”

– And – One needs to go back into the history of the relationship between Trump and Omarosa before reporting how they are the same! That is the most ridiculous claim of all. Let’s paint both with the same brush! Even making the claim that Omarosa, while like Trump, is much worse. Those are flabbergasting charges.

When you look back at the history of their friendship the extent of Trump’s racism didn’t become clear until he was into his run for president. Whenever a black – especially a black woman, works with whites you have to and are raised to turn a deaf eye and ear to a lot of the racism of your friends, co-workers, acquaintances. That is just survival in these United States. Some people handle that better than others. That appears to be what happened to Omarosa, especially looking at the blacks who surrounded her and seeing the blacks who knew the way to attempt to make claims on Trump’s pocket book and power – ie Kanya West.

Looking at the Apprentice TV show, it had a fairly large number of blacks on the show and it was not easy to pick up racism. Not many of the blacks on the Apprentice picked that up – if they did they certainly kept that discovery to themselves. One assumes also that as the star of the show the people picked were chosen by Donald Trump. However, in this ‘dust-up’ we learn and we learn it from Omarosa that Donald Trump did not choose the people who appeared, there was a production company which did that which accounts for the diversity.

– We have yet to hear anyone talk about Omarosa’s composure, her ability to handle the press when they try to demean her in the middle of an interview, how put together she looks always and the way she carries herself.

Maybe we just don’t remember that during the transition period Omarosa was a part of what was happening in Trump Tower and seemed to be the one sitting in the back of the room closely observing the comings and goings. So – when she makes the comment that as president, people will bow down to Trump and be obsequious as they try to share his power (not her exact words, but the sentiment of the famous taping that is playing over and over on news reports) it is more a statement of truth then one of Omarosa bowing down to Trump. She is in the middle and sees people coming and going who once criticized Trump now bowing down to be included somehow – let us remind you of Mitt Romney, Al Gore, etc. etc. people who would not be expected to show up at Trump Tower because of their strong and accurate criticism of Trump. Omarosa’s character and ethics are criticized using that film clip to do the criticizing, but she is simply telling the truth. We don’t want to be faced with the hypocrisy of our leaders – we want that to slide as they become a part of this Trump Administration. That is how the game is played until along comes this black women who stands in front of the camera and articulates exactly what is happening and points out our hypocrisy in that process. She wasn’t puffing up Trump’s ego – she was truth telling.

– What is also clear is the way the press refused to interview Omarosa during her tenure on the White House staff and the fact that no one said she formerly worked at the White House so was the only staff member with any experience on such a staff. That part of her background was enclosed in silence while other parts – which reflect the stereotype of black women – is pulled out and paraded around.

– To look at the entire picture of Omarosa’s life it was clear that we were headed for such a moment as this. A doubly oppressed minority with Omarosa’s family history and her beginnings in fairly poor surroundings, it is no surprise that having been taken up by Trump as she was moving upward on her own steam, aggressiveness, life-history she would praise Trump. Who gave her such an incredible opportunity? To have moved from Omarosa’s beginnings to Senior aid in the White House is an awesome achievement. She was grateful as many are who experience a life beginning of serious and severe oppression.

To her credit, however, Omarosa was not tone deaf. How she conducted herself in what had to be horrendous surroundings in the middle of people who showed themselves to be totally racist and sexist is nothing short of brilliant. That she woke up from those surroundings to take such a clear, strong, stance and came out of it with what she needed to prove what her life was like during her time in the Trump bubble shows who she really is and the strength of her character.

When you compare that to others who came out and felt they had to sign the NDA AND ACCEPT the $15,000 or other figure per month to keep silent speaks volumes about Omarosa, who was offered the same deal and refused it instead, opened the door to the White House for the rest of us to see what her life had been like and what life in the White House is like. Omarosa gave us another pathway to understand what is happening in these United States.

Do you know what it is like to be in a situation and treated in the horrendously negative way she was treated? What do you do? Some would move out, resign and be grateful for the $15,000/month offer.

“Until you walk a mile in my shoes don’t let your self-righteousness cloud your eyes and ears and keep you from learning from my experience. Is your life so pure you can so negatively judge me?”

When you come from Omarosa’s background to double down and try to make a success of where you are because you know those opportunities are not overwhelming determines your daily life and decisions. She was alone in a White House that was very hostile to her yet she stayed and still worked to attempt to open doors for blacks and that in spite of the fact that neither blacks nor whites reached out to her, but instead negatively characterized her, judged her and treated her like a piece of disposable dirt. It is pretty bad and it is a trap from which it is hard to extricate yourself.

Omarosa had to have a sense of justice to tape, write and go out in the front of a storm to confront and expose. She also has to have a strong sense of who she is to go up against all the negative comments about her “lack of credibility.” What lack of credibility. She was rarely covered by the press for anyone to know who she was – lots of assumptions because she was a friend of Donald Trump and backed him even when his extreme racism began to show. That is not lack of credibility.

At one time I would have said that is lack of good judgment. However, seeing what she was doing with her time in the Trump White House and how she documented what they were doing for a future release time I have changed my mind about that. It seems to me Omarosa was taping people and situations during her time with Trump because her way out was going to be to document everything she saw and experienced. To let all of that out in a book which she probably saw as an alternative to the abyss which awaited her whenever she did decide to leave or would be removed from the White House. She certainly has eliminated the prospect of being called a “go for coffee girl.”

Omarosa is a touch stone for a whole lot of blacks. Those still in the Republican Party and feel they are contributing to moving blacks ahead – staying to be able to document history correctly; feeling that they are keeping really horrendous things from happening to blacks inside and outside the Republican Party; being present to document their experience which could be skewered by others if she didn’t. That is just a few – there are many more.

Omarosa is no better nor worse than the black attorney who is called on to represent clients accused of racism – that happens so much it is automatic and to be expected, We see the black attorneys complimented for their work not dissed for allowing themselves to be so negatively abused; women called to diss other women because coming from a woman it is a stronger dissing; blacks called on to make negative claims against other minorities and so much more.

Omarosa is and has been a black woman whites don’t understand; don’t like; don’t want around because she violates everything about blacks and the black experience that they think they know and understand – she can’t be trusted therefore her character and ethics are in question; but mostly she is the foil against whom we see sharply the failings of other blacks, male and female, those who parrot and are promoted by whites to do their bidding in exchange for 20 pieces of silver and a brief time appearing to be considered equal. She uncovers those blacks as they try to put her down and uncovers those whites who desperately want to protect and continue to cultivate “their” black who helps them hold the line against the onslaught of equality.

Put all of the above against what you will hear over the next few days about Omarosa. You can agree or disagree, but this is what we see.
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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

Keep U. S. Conferences White?

Sunday, August 12th, 2018

ed.note: We are beginning to notice that this Trump/Sessions keeping black/brown people out of the U. S. is not simply an immigrant thing. It is not just about keeping America White by keeping out non-white immigrants, nor is it only about throwing out resident and/or non-white immigrants with green cards who have become U. S. tax payers under as many pretexts as possible. Others are being kept out or their attempt to visit for a brief time, especially for research and collaboration, is made unnecessarily difficult and that difficulty is new – it is not a carry over from past administrations. One person – a member of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community has shared his experience with us and it follows.

“I was raised and educated in China till college. I came to the US to obtain my PhD at Princeton and continued as a postdoc at Harvard. In total I stayed in the US for 10 years before returning to China to accept a faculty position in Beijing in 2017. I have maintained collaborations with both institutions.

This year, I planned a 2-week visit to Princeton in June, but my visa application was denied during the interview. No specific reason was given other than “the purpose of the visit is not consistent with the visa type for which you have applied”, which is a standard business/tourist visa. I realized later that what caused the denial was my honest statement that this trip was for research collaboration. In fact, this is never allowed under this visa type. The J-type visa serves this purpose, though it is much more complicated and is usually for long-term visit (e.g., I was under the J-visa during my 5-year post doc).

This is really upset, besides the fact that the visa interview process itself is very uncomfortable and time-consuing: no bags or cell phone is allowed in the embassy, and one has to wait in long queues multiple times throughout the process which sometimes can be quite chaotic. One generally wastes half a day just for the interview without anything else done.

With this application denied (and trip cancelled), I will have to do another visa application for a workshop in mid-July to early-August. It is a special workshop running for 3-weeks, and the purpose is to bring people in the field together in a relaxed setting to promote interactions/discussions and inspire new ideas. Participants are asked to stay for at least two weeks, and I planned to join for the later two weeks. This time, the visa officer questioned why my previous application was denied, and also why a conference takes such a long time. Despite my explanation, he asked me to provide more materials to demonstrate the purpose of the visit, in particular a “conference schedule”. Well, this is not a standard conference no such schedule exists before the workshop actually begins when people start to figure out an agenda. I had to write to my conference organizer for an additional letter (he already wrote an invitation letter for me) to explain the situation.

Upon collecting everything, I resent my application, which is then sent for “administrative processing”. This is not uncommon for Chinese scholars, which usually takes 4-6 weeks. My application was sent in early June so I thought there should be enough time. However, I waited and waited and waited. There was no news before my originally planned travel date (I was wise not to purchase an air ticket). The week after, I realize I can check the status of my visa application online, and found that it is finally issued. By the time I actually received the visa, the workshop was already more than half-way done, and even if I purchase ticket to join it, most participants would already have left (in the 3rd week). As a result, I simply cancelled the trip.

On the visa, it is indicated that the “administrative processing” completed in 4 weeks where my case was cleared, but the visa was not issued until some 3 more weeks later. They clearly didn’t want me to attend the conference. Moreover, the visa could have been valid for 10 years, but mine is only valid for 1 year.

Nevertheless, with the visa finally at hand, I temporarily planned a trip to visit Princeton the week after, though the original 2-week plan becomes 3 days. This is followed by a 2-day visit to Cambridge to attend another conference. The visit is brief due to my other time constraints, but is fruitful. I stayed at a Bettina Network Hedge School in Cambridge, the same place I stayed back in 2011 when I came to visit Harvard for a job talk. Everything is very enjoyable with illuminating conversations at breakfast as well as meetings and gatherings with many of my colleagues and friends.

I am at the airport now to return to China soon. Thank you for the warm and welcoming experience that you offer and I will come back again despite the disgusting experience with the embassy.”
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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


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