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By Your Fruits You Shall be Known

Thursday, January 7th, 2021

The United States has had an amazing ride on this earth for several hundreds of years. Many of those years have been punctuated by horrendous racial violence.

We have created a very wealthy country on the backs of black Africans for a few hundred years. Where blacks began to thrive after the civil war we had massacres like Tulsa, Oklahoma and many other places.

We have a history complete with the slaughter of many of the innocents because genocide denied has been rampant in these United States for generations. We have had genocide in this country almost from its beginnings. Need I mention American Indians, Jews, Chinese, etc. etc.

The anger, hate, resentment and more flowing from the veins of the whites who were out supporting Donald Trump shows how deeply rooted is the assumption that whites are the ones with privilege; the ones who can vote and whose votes are to be counted – how dare we consider and allow blacks to vote; who ‘own’ the top jobs; who can live in declared white only neighborhoods where most of the city services are placed; who are the privileged, the entitled, the ‘better than’ people in this country. AND, it is no accident that Trump has been tied by his naval cord to Russia – a white country, or to Turkey a country which also has some of those color problems. It is no accident that the Chinese were great as long as we could use and abuse them economically by having the goods made for corporations in China at rock bottom prices enslaving the Chinese for generations – along with other countries of color who have also experienced the same economic treatment from the United States.

It is time for a reckoning. A truth telling time. A time to tell and hear the stories of those who have suffered this violence for generations. It is also a ‘make amends’ time. A time for those who have destroyed to make whole those they used so they could be great without doing the work of greatness.

Today, what we saw in Washington, D. C. looked like the kind of “carnage” we saw in places like Chicago decades ago when the Italian Mafia split and there was fighting and destruction in the streets. Washington, D. C. was that kind of “carnage” on steroids.

It was a time which showed us clearly racism, sexism and all the other ‘isms and bigotries are not dead they are alive, well and in your face.

As a result of yesterday it is time for the Department of Justice to revisit its “memo” which does not allow the president of the United States to be arrested and jailed during his time as president. That is a piece of paper written by someone with the president and not the United States’ best interest at heart. That “memo” needs to be destroyed and the president arrested for inciting the riot, the killings, the destruction of property and all the rest. At the same time those also involved like Rudi Giuliani need to also be arrested and jailed for their part of what they have done to these United States.

It is interesting that such a discussion has not and is not taking place. It is out of the picture because we don’t want to solve the problem, we simply want these United States to go back to “normal” with everyone in their proper place doing things in the cultural way we have approved of and enjoyed for generations.

That is possible. It is not, however, what we need to do.

It is clear that what happened in Washington, D. C. was intentional and meant to wreck havoc with the United States. It was meant to create horror and shock. It was meant to scare the Congress into doing what “President” Donald Trump wanted Congress to do, but instead it caused the death of some four people and so much more.

The 25th Amendment is a ridiculous way to treat Donald Trump after what he has done over the past four plus years. Four plus years because his “carnage” started years before the killings and destruction and attempt to tear down the American democracy started. Was being elected president Donald Trump’s reward for making sure the American citizens and the world were always kept aware of the fact that Barack Obama was, in these United States, not as good as whites? By constantly making life ugly for President Obama with Trump’s claims about his citizenship and so much more – Trump has not stopped from those activities. Why should he, because of them he was rewarded with the presidency. The rest of us could continue being and feeling better than because we were able to wash our hands in that bowl of soap and water presented to us so we could pretend to be free of any complicity and/or guilt.

Take a look at history. We can directly trace Donald Trump’s walk through life with several very close friends and mentors who helped to set him on his way. There was his grandfather who taught him about business, mafia style, and the abuse of women for financial and other kinds of gain. Most, if not all, of Donald Trump’s friends – those he is closest to – engage or have engaged in the kind of sexual assault and abuse and rape of which so many have accused Donald Trump.

There was his father who taught him about racism and more lessons on building a business. Both guided him into the mafia as the way to become wealthy at the expense of others.

There followed Roy Cohn who brought Trump and his business from Queens, New York to Manhattan where he met and learned at the foot of McCarthy. So, we have McCarthyism followed by Trumpism and Trump has passed all of his learnings and doings on to his children who are showing they are happy and skilled at following in their father’s footsteps.

What stops that? What has not yet happened. Donald Trump needs to be immediately arrested and jailed for what happened in Washington, D. C. and with other charges added as time passes.

Unless Trump is above all other American citizens then his actions do not allow him to be passed over – he needs to be treated as an equal amongst equals along with his co-conspirators and co-workers.

There is nothing in the United States Constitution which says an American President who has caused the death of others, the kind of horrendous destruction of the American democracy Trump very clearly caused goes free from having done such and cannot be immediately arrested whether he is still president or not.

What an examination of what happened on Wednesday will show is who caused those riots and insurrection to have a clear field in which to function because they made sure there would not be the police to stop it. With all the police forces around the Capital to have allowed the unleashed Trump-ites to roam and rummage and destroy the way they did on Wednesday could only have happened if someone high up slow walked any police involvement. That alone is a reason to arrest Donald Trump. He is the one who set the crowd on its way and was he also complicit in the lack of police preparedness to mitigate and/or eliminate the violence and destruction!

All of the people involved in the group doing the destruction when interviewed talked about Wednesday being only the beginning, there would be daily attacks to reverse what they considered a “stolen election” and those attacks would be severe. Trump followers interviewed in other places far away from Washington, D. C. all said they did not believe Biden “won” the election and when asked what they would do since he really did and there was no alternative – several in all the tv interviews said “civil war” was a good alternative. That was usually passed over by the interviewer. What else could be said or questions asked?

What Wednesday also showed was the fact that bigotry is alive and well and living in the many police forces in Washington, D. C. which are around the Capital for its protection. Not only are police still killing blacks and walking away free, but the way the Black Lives Matter demonstration was treated as compared to the Donald Trump president for life movement was treated on Wednesday is stark in your face racism.

To push the envelope just a bit further, one shot was fired into someone’s body as a killing shot and into whose body? A woman’s! Just like another demonstration where one person was killed by having been run over by a car – whose body was so treated? A Woman’s!

What are we hearing as the aftermath of what happened which is drowning out everything else? Denial of the racism involved and the horror that the American image is being destroyed around the world. What are people thinking of us with all of this now happening in the United States.

Romney – Pelosi – Trump

Friday, February 7th, 2020

by: Marceline Donaldson

The experience of having seen and heard Mitt Romney lay out in all its rawness, his reasons for voting to convict Donald Trump was amazing, confirming and an experience I shall never forgot and one for which I give thanks.

In doing so, Romney gave all of us a pattern for how our particular religious practice, our faith, our politics could go together.

We live in a country founded on the separation of religion and politics. In spite of that, we have the religious right demanding that their religious beliefs be the foundation which creates the policies on which this country continues to exist. How do we reconcile all of this? How can you live without your religion when it claims to be all consuming and the basis on which you live, breathe and from which comes all of your life decisions and function in a country which attempts to keep religion and politics separate!

Mitt Romney and Nancy Pelosi have given us one way to walk being able to live our religion with dignity, respect and honesty and function in these United States. In addition, Mitt Romney has opened the door for the acceptance in these United States of all religious beliefs. Who would have thought that would be done by a Mormon. A fairly “new” religion and one still being pushed aside; its believers and belief system ridiculed; and its adherents not often accepted by the rest of the country.

My study of theology over the years gave me an image of Donald Trump and his religious belief system which is clear, unequivocal and straight out of scripture. You have, no doubt, read what other writers in this publication have written as they outlined this belief system and tracked Trump’s walk through it with some clarity and quotes from Scripture.

There is a story in the Christian bible which is incredibly parallel to the walk Donald Trump is taking through his life. It apparently started when he was a young man and has become stronger over the years as he has walked this path with all of its trappings to get to his current post. That is the story of Satan tempting Jesus on the mountain top and offering Jesus all the beauty and power of this world if he will bow down and worship Satan. Jesus refuses and we move on from there.

Looking at Trump’s life you get a clear picture of what would have happened if Jesus had accepted Satan’s offer. Trump is only one of many men who have come along and said – “Let me replace Jesus, I will bow down and worship you Satan and I will do your bidding throughout eternity. Give me the power Jesus rejected.” We have seen and read about the life these men led and their “achievements” along with the power they sought after, grabbed for and finally had to relinquish at the end.

Yesterday, when I was at a very low point, sitting aimlessly in front of the television, there was Mitt Romney saying- my God and my faith are the center of my life and from that comes the decisions by which I live. Those are not his exact words, but that is the meaning of his preface as to why he was voting to convict Donald Trump.

After that short speech by Romney came another one on television by Donald Trump, who said “I do not believe in anything this Jesus – the Christ – person has said, nor do I nor will I live my life making decision that go along with His Gospel – how ridiculous. I will make decisions that go along with my belief and my dedication to the worship of Satan which I have cultivated throughout my life. Given that, I will retaliate in the worst way possible against all of those who did not, do not, will not do my bidding. I will attempt to destroy their quality of life and where possible the very lives of those who do not do my bidding. I will get others to “take them out”. They are horrible people. They are people who have blocked my ability to do Satan’s will and live the life Satan has required of me so I will have absolute power on this earth.

Those are not Trump’s exact words, but they are the meaning of what he said. He clearly abrogated the very core of what it means to be a Christian, to follow, to live into and to attempt to walk the path Jesus – the Christ – laid out for all Christians. He very clearly, loudly and in some detail said to everyone at that National Prayer Breakfast that he was not a follower of Jesus – the Christ; he did not believe in Holy Scripture; he would not live his life following the dictates of what – up to that point – he had called his religion. This weak and out-of-date belief system entraps those tending towards the same power grab that is sending many politicians into the arms of Trump and so into the arms of Satan. Christianity is not going to ‘entrap’ Satan – a few thousand years of experience shows that. It is also not going to entrap Trump he is now far beyond its grasp.

Trump has been able to move many others off the path of Christianity and helped them find the path Satan carved out for him and for those who would follow him. At the same time, in another setting, I watched Trump, still on television, bringing before the cameras, commending and raising up for all of watching, many of those he has been able to corrupt. Or rather, he gave us another lesson on how to recognize and bring into your ‘group’ those already corrupt to combine together to do Trump’s bidding. One such person received a sustained standing ovation when his name was called. The whole scene made you want to vomit.

Those are the people I was struggling trying to understand before this extravaganza happened. It was as though God said – turn on your television I am going to show you the answer to your prayers and relieve your consternation over what is happening in your world. And on came Trump and Company celebrating their “victory”.

God didn’t actually sit next to me and say that. This is my interpretation of what I heard and learned from the unveilings of the past few days.

Donald Trump has, in the past, walked up to the line of destroying Christ for many, but in his talk at the Prayer Breakfast he crossed it and was very clear that he is not Christian, never has been and finds Jesus and his teachings the extreme opposite of who he is and what he is about. That makes me wonder about the White Evangelical Christians who almost rabidly support Trump and all he is about. Donald Trump has been very clear about his belief system, how he lives his life, what he is going to do moving into the future and what he expects from his supporters.

It does not take much to realize what he is planning for those who don’t get in line, join the “team” and follow him.

It was amazing to me that all of this was revealed so quickly and in the context of a National Prayer Breakfast. I heard in my head a little ditty which many repeat – “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me; fool me three times – wow, am I that morally corrupt?:”

So many people have told me over the years – when someone tells you who they are; what they believe; where they are going; and how they are going to treat you if you don’t behave in a certain way- believe them and make your decisions in life including that knowing instead of a hope and a wish that they were otherwise, were going to magically learn lessons which would allow them to be otherwise and better than they seem.

Thank you Senator Romney! I too try live my life by my faith in God and my belief in God’s promises. Lots of people I know live the same way. I just happen to be Episcopalian. My friends, who live the same way, are a gathering of people from Catholic, Baptist, Hindu, Muslim, and many more denominations/religious belief systems. I saw when you were Governor of Massachusetts that out of your belief system came the health care system that we now enjoy in Massachusetts and beyond. Out of the lives of many of my friends have come some amazing achievements – not grand and glorious which the world celebrates, but quiet and necessary and with large contributions to the lives of those around them.

Thank you Nancy Pelosi! As an African American/New Orleans Creole woman my life has been a continuum of one oppression received from this society after another. Not one day passes that I do not have to deal with racism or sexism or a combination of the two. And when those hits come I also have to deal with the denial of that experience by the rest of the world, even at times from my own family. And I know and have seen I am not alone in those experiences – many are forced by others to go through those horrors for reasons they don’t even seem to know or want to know, but which they put out there and demand that many go through so they can keep their identity as ‘better than’ whether that identity has served them for good or for ill.

In the process, I have learned to keep on keeping on and maybe help someone else to do the same. Trying to help someone climb over a particularly large stone they were having a difficult time getting over or getting around. Watching you on a national scale has been one a truly wonderful gift. May you continue and move from great to true greatness as you do your job on a daily basis.

My experience has been – there is nothing in this world stronger than prayer. The miracles I have seen coming from people joining their prayers together have been earth changing. May you continue to find strength in your faith to do what you needs to be done, standing in your own light, without need for the approval of those around you.

Satan is still looking for those to do his bidding who will fall down and worship him. Donald Trump needs to look at the example of those who did just that and how the end of their lives came exposing their evil and sin to the world as they went out in a blaze of horror, filth, agony and huge regrets never able to see the beauty which comes from the love of God and from those around seeing who they really are and caring for them in spite of their failings.

Trump is clear, that is not his way. He showed that for all to see when he walked away from a mentor who spent much of himself and his resources and fortune helping to educate and move Trump to the place he now holds – even moving him and his business from Queens to New York without which help none of what Trump has done would have been possible. When Roy Cohn became ill and in need at the end of his life, the person to whom he had given much and who very greedily accepted everything given to him assuming he could always go back for more and did while giving nothing back in return walked away from him, turned his back on this ‘friend’ and attended his funeral only briefly standing in the back for just a minute before beating a quick retreat out of there.

Throughout life you have to make life affirming, life changing or life destroying choices at many points. I hope the choices which those reading this make will be for good, for love, for kindness, for caring, to help relieve the suffering of others, realizing the humanity -the fragility – the tendency to fall and fail we all share and experience at different times of life is what joins us together.

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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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Trump bringing McCarthyism back to U. S.

Wednesday, July 17th, 2019

by: Marceline Donaldson

I am on a roll -maybe its age, but ‘deja vu’. It is like watching history repeat itself. What is that old adage – either you learn from history or you are doomed to repeat it. And we clearly are being doomed to repeat the worst of our history – for which we sent out a dog whistle when Trump became the Republican running for President and then the fog horn blowing out of control when he was elected.

I was once a Republican. For most of my adult life starting with the first time I voted – I registered as a Republican. Being from the deep south it was the Republicans who were there to make sure you could vote without being strung up to a tree or worse. My cousin, an African American, had been head of the Republican Party in Louisiana. And then things began to change.

Having a huge ego, I was sure I could fight this and keep my Republican Party moving in the right direction. Well, that didn’t happen. I knew it was all over when Trump won the Republican primary. That was the day I changed my party designation from Republican to Independent.

When I looked around. Most of the people I knew as Republicans were now in my category – Independents all.

My rude awakening came in Minnesota when I was precinct chair in Wayzata. I was also suing Pillsbury for race and sex discrimination and George Pillsbury was in my precinct with me having to help him with his re-election to the Minnesota Senate. That wasn’t so bad. I sat next to George and Sally Pillsbury in Church on Sundays and we smiled and talked after church so how could that be different? Or difficult?

Difficult happened, in my capacity as precinct chair in the Republican Party, when Reagan ran for president. His first run was astounding. The scales began to drop from my eyes as I saw just how dirty was politics.

At the first precinct meeting of the season, the room was filled with people I didn’t know. Given the informality of how politics worked in the Republican Party at that time – you talked to people, got a consensus of what they wanted and that is what you did at the meeting. This time was different. First, most of the new people who showed up had southern, Texas accents – in Minnesota? Second, they were appalled that I was precinct chair. Not because they knew me, but because I was an African American woman. Well, they took care of that promptly and after a very ugly meeting I was no longer precinct chair, but I had gathered a lot of information. They were all sent to Minnesota specifically to get Reagan through the primary process and then elected president. Some had jobs, some were living on other folks money. It was a baptism by fire. I knew about Louisiana politics and its fringy sides, but that didn’t hold a candle to what these folks were about. It was like having experience in the minors and then all of a sudden being thrown into the big leagues.

From that and my experiences after that in the Republican Party I can guess what happened to get Trump elected and Russia would have been only a small part. After Trump’s election folks couldn’t wash the dirt off their ethics, their values, their lives, no matter how hard they tried.

Now that he is here – just look at the mess. He has called on all of his past experiences and they were putrid. Today he is calling on and acting out of his experiences having had Joseph McCarthy as one of his mentors when he was a very young man and having seen first hand how McCarthyism developed, what it could do and the power it wielded over this society. Trump had a seat at the table or rather at the feet of McCarthy and Roy Cohn. Cohn sat right next to McCarthy as his right hand man and Trump was in the mix learning and doing and he is now in the process of bringing all of his experience and learnings back into the United States government as he uses “the Squad” as his first intended victims to bring in McCarthyism to attempt to win the 2020 election.

Instead of having Jews in his sightline as he aims, he has people of color hurling them at Jews leading to the destruction and maiming of Muslims. Notice how he has singled out the Muslim woman in “the Squad” as he and his cooperators attempt to use her to destroy both Jews and Muslims.

At first the call was to hold up Democrats as being Socialists. Now all pretense has been dropped and “Communist” has come to the forefront and will be the clarion call from here on in. This time, Trump will make McCarthyism look like kindergarten because he now has his masters degree in destruction, carnage, filth, lies, and all the rest.

He will make “the Squad” the first of those against whom he will fling Trump-style McCarthyism and then many more will follow until the primary and then the election when he sees this becoming a huge movement which sweeps him into office in such a way that he has total sway over this government and all of its people. He looks to the entire country to treat him the way his Republican followers treat him – scared to do anything except respond and act out – Yes sir, President Trump.

Think this is just a conjecture? – look at Lindsey Graham and all the others who are now in the position of doing little else except “yes sir, President Trump.” Remember when they regarded him as not much better than scum? Whatever happened to those opinions they expressed before he become president and before they realized and were faced with his expert ability at blackmail. At some point in life one has to stand up and be counted, no matter the cost. There is life after the attempt on your life of an expert, experienced, blackmailer who can do so without actually putting himself in any legal jeopardy.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said – (paraphrased because I don’t remember the exact quote) – there comes a time in ones life when you must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but your conscience tells you this is right. The ultimate measure of a human being is not where you stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where you stand during times of challenge and controversy. – and the ultimate one – if you have nothing for which you will die, you have nothing for which to live.

We are living in a world where the “good and right” thing to do, the ethical thing to do is what the institution in which you function tells you is the good and right thing to do. To stand beyond that and to live, work, love, play in a universe which has ethical standards which you follow beyond those of a particular institution is a totally foreign concept to those in control, in charge in todays’ world. We honor Mueller because of his refusal to do anything outside of the structure in which he functions as “Special Counsel” or in whichever role he has functioned. Keep to the four corners. We need to live in a world in which we have ethics and take stands beyond that. If the institution is constricting our sense of right and wrong and allowing evil to thrive we need to stand up, break those chains of that institution and do and say what brings all of us back to a sense of what is just, what is righteous, what is merciful.

Nancy Pelosi needs to pay attention to what is happening and let go of the four corners of her box.

Donald Trump comes from a several generation racist, sexist, extremely bigoted family. He has chosen to be mentored by the most extremely evil people who have shown themselves to be so full of greed and lust and evil that they upheaveled this country for a time.

We need to see that and learn from the lessons of the past. We don’t need to return to McCarthyism; we don’t need to bring back the KKK or the White Nationalists nor the Nazis. That is Trump’s world and to allow him to replace what is with what he knows and sees where-in he can thrive at the expense of whoever is to engage in his evil and to become a part of his evil dream for this world while he is an inhabitant here and beyond when he is forced to leave this world leaving behind his evil being inflicted on the rest of us the way he is being inflicted upon us by Roy Cohn, Joseph McCarthy and others who he holds up as his examples for life.

Joseph McCarthy was an extreme alcoholic who wrecked havoc in this country as Senator in a political way using the forum of the U. S. Senate to destroy lives and institutions in an institutional way we now call McCarthyism. – what Donald Trump is very fast bringing back to these United States.

Trump’s father was a part of the KuKlux Klan and marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in a parade of some 10,000 plus people in white sheets and pointy hats.

We give Emmanuel Macron credit for being the genesis of Trump’s idea and fixation on this grand military parade. Was he really? Or did Trump’s own father put these ideas in his head by exposing him to what could have been for both of them. Ideas Trump has worked hard to bring into existence. We are all partially captive to our upbringing. Turn around and take a look at Donald Trump’s upbringing and several generation family.

We look at Trump’s criminality and we ignore his family connections. We ignore the rumor that his father’s business partner was a large part of the Italian mafia. Trump has graduated from that group to one a lot more horrific.

His grandfather, who came to this country from Germany bringing some ugly connections, wound up with a hotel for prostitution, which he obtained on the backs of women. And his grandson comes along with direct connections to that lifestyle with some 19 plus accusations against him of assaulting, abusing, raping women. That kind of disrespect is profound when it comes down the family and comes from that everyday family influence. Did you ever ask how a man with so many claims of abuse of women against him became president of these United States? We have an ever growing group of men somehow closely connected who has horribly abused women and moved into substantial, strong, positions in this society – besides Epstein – across the street in another town house we had Bill Cosby – and connected to both men we have Donald Trump.

Do I need to go on?

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What follows are some of the ways you can support our work:

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale*

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Project 2 – #WellsFargoBoycott*

This contribution is to the Bettina Network Foundation, inc. which is a 501(c)3 organization and tax deductible.

Project 3 – Growing Bettina Network’s Blog

into a major media outlet bringing to the public news, recipes, thoughts, reviews of businesses, etc. from the perspective of those who belong to Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community.

Project 4 – Boycott the Twenty Dollar ($20) bill

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

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

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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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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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TRUMP FINDS HIS ROY COHN

Monday, March 25th, 2019

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How long – O Lord!

__________________________________________________________


Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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

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

_________________________________________________________

Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

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

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

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

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

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.co



Donald Trump and Gay Folks!

Monday, December 31st, 2018

A series of articles to look at, give a partial analysis and outline of Trump’s base and what it cam expect of him.  We are starting with that portion of Trump’s base which are those who are very anti-gay, homophobic, are sure gay folks are trying to convert their children, destroy Christianity and the values they claim to hold close to their hearts and so much more.  You know the rhetoric and you know that portions of Trump’s base overlap.  It is very true that those who are homophobic have other bigotries against other groups which overlap, but this article addresses itself to the anti-gay community portion of Trump’s agenda.

Trump has tried to satisfy them by attempting to ban transgender people from serving in the armed forces, throwing out of the armed forces those transgender people already serving and more.

We will not say much about Donald Trump in his teens because those are tender years and can be the background for the direction in which a person travels, but could also be just experimental and a passing phase.

When we get to Donald Trump in his 20’s, however, we see a person beginning to show his values and to set his life’s path.

One of the people Donald Trump met, who became his mentor, was Roy Cohn.  Roy Cohn was a prominent New York attorney with an awesome reputation for bullying.  He was, at the time, a very famous attorney in these United States and not always for the best of reasons.  At the end of his life he was disbarred for many reasons like – particularly reprehensible conduct, and his ethics were called into question and so much more.   Cohn’s clients included several of New York City’s mafia, who he defended along with a large and impressive roster of clients.

Roy Cohn connects – Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, the Rosenbergs, Roger Stone, Joseph McCarthy, and many more.  A surprising confluence of people.

For the purpose of this article, that which is right out there about Roy Cohn is that he was gay and he died of AIDS.  He is the person most responsible for helping Donald Trump move from his father’s businesses in Queens, New York to Manhattan.  In the process Donald Trump and Roy Cohn were extremely close.  If you could not find one you called the other and that person could tell you where to go or call to find the other – they were that close.

They spent evenings together over candlelight dinners at Club 54; once Trump married, Roy Cohn spent many evenings having dinner with the Trumps at their condo in Trump Tower and that in spite of the fact that Roy Cohn did not think Ivana was the person Donald should have married.  

Donald Trump was in the middle of the male gay community which surrounded Roy Cohn.  He was accepted as one of the boys and his relationship with Roy Cohn was common knowledge and also accepted.

Donald Trump was one of Roy Cohn’s most important clients.  If you did anything with Trump that would or could have resulted in a legal battle you had to deal with Roy Cohn, but Trump rarely, if ever, paid Cohn.  And if you went to Trump’s office during that time there would be a large picture of Roy Cohn on his desk.

We could go on for pages about Donald Trump’s relationship with Roy Cohn, but the point of this article is that during that time and for many years after Roy Cohn’s death, Donald Trump was in the middle of a very sophisticated gay group in Manhattan in which he was totally accepted.  According to some he provided an apartment, at Roy Cohn’s request, to one of Cohn’s friends who was dying of AIDS so he could live out his shortened life in relative comfort and Trump did just that – giving up a condo in Trump Tower – for free.

With that background, where does this hatred of people who are gay come from?  Where does this doing whatever he can to limit access to the gay community of the many things previously granted them as equality – like gay marriage?    The question becomes – why does Trump’s background and relationships  show that he would do the exact opposite?  Why did he have a mentor who was very gay and in the middle of a gay community bringing Trump into the middle of that community in a very public way?

At no time has Trump acknowledged that lifestyle, nor has he said anything about that personal history.  He did not come out, for example, to say that “at one time I was very supportive of the gay community, but in xxxx year I discovered my fault and reformed – turned my back on that history and all of the people with whom I had a close association and friendship and now have decided that homophobic is what I really am and have cut off associations and friendships with any and all gay people except those who have recanted, turned their lives around and are now straight.”

From where in his soul does this close association and friendship with many gay males come from – people with whom he had an extremely close relationship – to make him today able to move his campaign to take an active homophobic stance on many issues; to talk about people who are gay in very negative and subhuman terms; to go after those who are transgender to keep them away from serving in the armed forces and in many other ways.

More to the point would be – how and why do the people who really are homophobic and whose agenda is to rid society of everyone who is gay, transgendered, etc.  have simply taken Trump at his word.  Even knowing this background and history, they have never questioned any of this background.  What is going on here that they believe that he, without political campaigns to win,  would continue to act to make sure this gay group of people are clearly oppressed and not equal to the rest of society?

Surely they have had at least a passing thought that when Trump has no more campaigns to win he would then govern in such a way as to bring the gay community into equity with the rest of society and the goals of the homophobic community destroyed and turned against them.

Anything else makes no human sense.  To say God is using Trump makes even less sense because in my many decades of reading scripture God does not involve me and mine in any evil that God moves to eliminate.  God takes the evil hitting me and turns it into good.  God does the work and humanity benefits.  God upheavals and me and mine are playing God as we see fit.  But this part of Trump’s base has many excuses as to why they are supporting Trump because they believe, in the long run he will act in the interest of and promotion into society of their anti-gay, homophobic, anti transgender beliefs and life actions.

We believe that is nonsense and we believe something else is operating here and we believe we know what that is about.

Take a look at Bill Cosby and the evil he inflicted on dozens of women with his corrupt actions.  Look at how many years and how much pain and suffering and hard work it took to expose Bill Cosby and bring him to justice.  Why was that?  Why did so many people for so long support Bill Cosby in spite of what was showing right in their faces up close and personal?

For many, many decades television, books, and much more of media coverage portrayed Bill Cosby as this loving father and great man.  He received all kind of awards – not based on who he was, but based on his media persona – which many believed and would not let go of even in the face of facts which proved otherwise.  It took decades before it began to seep into the world’s conscience that the Bill Cosby on television and all of those Cosby family books and other kinds of media that circulated was created fiction and not the real Bill Cosby.  The real Bill Cosby was the person going to Court who was finally proven to be the sexual predator that he actually was and not the great, kind, with it father he portrayed in many media settings.  The kind of father we all want and many of us don’t have.  It is extremely difficult to give up on that kind of dream.  And the kind of dream Turmp portrayed – great business executive, incredibly successful giving others and maybe one day us the opportunity to follow in his footsteps.  That is like giving up on the lottery for those so addicted.

For many years, Donald Trump has been portrayed on television as this great business mogul with all of the trappings to create a romantic figure to get us to tune in year after year.  We have in mind the man created by good writers, camera people, directors, producers, in books ghost written for him by others.  We have not been able to believe and to take down the man so constructed for us by the media to see the real person who is the real Donald Trump.  The media is now doing its best to show us that person, but many are resisting because Donald Trump is putting himself in front of the public as the created, romanticized person who actually exists only on television and not in real life. 

Don’t you think it is time to look carefully and scrutinize this man the way many had to scrutinize Bill Cosby to see who he actually was and to look away from and put in the fairy tale books the Bill Cosby and Donald Trump created as marketing tools to sell all kinds of products to the average American citizen?

And don’t you think, given those two examples of human beings turned into almost monsters by their media persona and how far we have had to go to expose them as other than that romantic image – that we should give lots of thought to what we create and watch and give credence to in the media because clearly that is now roiling our society by the way it has seeped into our consciousness and affected decisions in real life and in how we make choices for ourselves and others?  

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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

Start writing or type / to choose a block


The Bettina Oracle Speaks!

Thursday, November 22nd, 2018

It is time for all of you to step up to your responsibility as human beings living, working, caring for one another.

That means – when one of you goes far off the rail, it is all of your individual and collective responsibility to make sure the damage that person does is limited and not allowed to hurt, maim or bring others along down into the bowels of hell.

Whatever else you do in this life, that responsibility cannot be shirked without your taking on, experiencing and paying the price for the sins of your brothers and sisters who you allowed to roam free among the shoals of evil that are all around you.

DONALD J. TRUMP – we call you out as a murderer, a thief, a cheat, a liar, a corruptor of others for what you perceive as your own good and it is time for this to stop.  You are the illegitimate president of the United States – a position you attained by lying, cheating, corrupting others and conspiring with those like you to add to the world’s evil so you and those working with you could attain power over others and worldly goods.

You have only a very short time to live and you need to spend that time repenting for how you have spent what started off as a precious life intended to change the world for good, but you were not up to the task so you changed your life’s goals and have brought instead to all of those who hear your voice a misery that they do not deserve.  You have made a pact with evil and are carrying out your promise to that evil being in a way much stronger than you could have carried out what you were put on earth to do for good.

When you agreed to remain silent and back the brutal murderer of Khashoggi your fate was sealed.  Forgiveness is available to all of us.  At that point, in your life and your journey  – forgiveness was taken away from you.  The intentionality with which you forged ahead and carried out your commitment to promote and back the person who committed that brutal murder, which further encouraged him in the path he then took knowing he had your backing, closed the doors to forgiveness, to love, to grace.  In addition to no forgiveness, you shall live the rest of your life without love.  There is nothing so painful as living on this earth without love.

You will walk this earth on hot coals in bare feet for an eternity.  You will see others as you walk, but only a few will be able to see you.  You will see Hitler, Stalin, and all those like them who went before and the pain you feel when you see them will each time overwhelm you.  Any who try to give you succor or comfort will feel so much pain they will back away and never acknowledge you again.  You will meet Roy Cohn again.  You will see him, but he will not be able to see you.  He asked forgiveness before he died so his way as he passes you is not nearly as horrible as your way.  His youth, as one of the oppressed peoples of the world, turned his adulthood into one filled with evil doings, but something came back to him.    – After you took everything you could from him and then rejected and turned your back on him – that flash we all have before death where he saw his life caused him to say “please, forgive me.”  You will also see Joseph McCarthy, but alas he will not be able to see you.  He caused much pain and agony to others unnecessarily, but his brain and soul, adled with alcohol and drugs for most of his adult life, helped to cause much of what he did as he struggled to break free in a long hysterical scream.  But you – you saw, you understood, and you patterned your life after the evil you saw in other people.  The good was never within your ability to understand, but you grasped the evil quickly, almost from birth.

To agree to be a participant in another’s brutal murder is that step forward from which you cannot return and you have taken that step.  You emboldened a child of God to murder, in a horrific way, one of God’s own, who God held close because of his truthfulness and the road which he trod, willingly, to bring others to see, hear and live the life God chose for us all.

YOU REJECTED GOD DECADES AGO (“The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want) when you decided you would want for nothing in this earthly sphere because you would provide for yourself and you would do whatever it took to gain power, control and wealth.  No green pastures for you – cement walls, casino games, roulette wheels, stealing bits and pieces from others all through that time of your life.

Great fountains of your own creation, water gurgling up in your hotels. (God restoreth my soul). When you walk through the valley of the shadow of death you will fear greatly because all of the beauty and goodness and light of that valley will disappear and in its place will be every gruesome monster, pit of fire, hellish horribilius that exists and you will have to walk through it to the other side, which will be even worse.

(Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death  I will fear no evil; for thou, God, art with me)

You created your life.  You continue to destroy and make more difficult the lives of others.  You extend yourself wherever you can if you see a chance to bring another human being into the evil in which you live.  And you do so much more.  That does not happen without a price to pay and you have arrived at that point where it is too late to turn around and to turn away – the price you have set forth for yourself will only grow larger as you continue to walk in the way of evil.

Those who walk with you, (Thou, God, prepares a table before me) hoping for earthly power and goodies in return need to be aware of what they are doing to their lives.  When a woman starts to talk about lynchings and other kinds of evil preparing the path for you to walk with her when you arrive to speak for her in Mississippi has a price tag.  (Thou annointest my head with oil). You have only an empty cup, but the power she seeks, with your help, comes at an incredibly high price – which she is more than willing to pay.  All those who listen to you and her and cheer, also acquire a price tag they have to pay.  All of those kind of things you have done in the past have all been gathered together along with the people you drew into your orbit.

DO YOU NOT KNOW, DO YOU NOT CARE WHAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR YOU?  DO YOU NOT REALIZE HOW FINITE IS LIFE AND HOW CLOSE TO THE END OF LIFE YOU ARE?  AND AFTER THAT…………………

A voice says “Cry out”

I answer, “What shall I cry out?”

“All humankind is grass and all their glory like the flowers of the field.

The grass withers, the flower wilts, when the breath of God blows upon it

Though the grass withers and the flower wilts the word of God stands forever.”

God is just and continues the chain of tradition that binds generation to generation

God’s love and justice is being established on this earth and God’s peace pervades the world.

“I am the resurrection and the life, says our God

Those who believe in me shall live, even though they die,

And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die….

Have you now known? Have you not heard? God is the everlasting God

God does not faint or grow weary, God’s understanding is unsearchable.

God gives power to the faint and to those who have no might God increases their strength.

Those who wait upon God shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles,

they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

When I think of Khashoggi’s death I think of these words of Scripture………

“unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies it produces much fruit.  ……Yet what should I say?  God, save me from this hour?  But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour.  God, I glorify your name.”  Then a voice came from heaven………….

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Treason – Sexual Assaulter – Mafia – Lies – and so much more!

Saturday, January 6th, 2018

Would anyone believe their would ever come a time when the above title would describe the activities and involvements of the United States President?

Everything we see is questionable.  As the Attorney General starts a crack down on marijuana, the first thing that comes to mind is if the Trump administration is moving to protect a profit center for the mafia as long as possible by keeping marijuana in the illegal area as long as possible.  Clearly, marijuana is becoming legal in many states, but Trump and his administration can move to maintain the mafia’s position in that drug trade until the last possible moment.  It is awful to have that thought pop-up so immediately.  We should be about other things and have wonderful, strong, substantial thoughts as to the future of this country – strong, honest, working to make sure all benefit and are well cared for – or is that a pipe dream and as humans we are not able to reach such a goal?

The current president has quite a mafia involvement.  And it stretches from McCarthyism on.  Even today he opines Roy Cohn – the right hand of McCarthy – the alcoholic Congressperson who terrorized the United States with his Communist hunt causing people to lose jobs, families, etc. etc.  People paid obeisance to McCarthy and praised him in front of his face with no critiques, negatives, etc. because they wanted to stay out of his line of sight.

He has this reach – McCarthy – Roy Cohn – John Gotti – the Gambino Crime family – and on it goes. Let’s not forget his high school career during which his friend was John Gotti’s son.  We have a president with long, deep mafia connections and we try hard to keep that under cover in spite of the fact that these United States are beginning to look like mafia country and begins to be structured like a mafia organization.  The Republican Party seems to me to have become a criminal enterprise.  AND – do you see the connection between Trump and his claimed ‘sensitivity’ having people grovel and praise him and the mafia don who no one criticizes to his face, but grovels in front of him and praises him the way Trump insists on being praised..

And we elected this man president of these United States.  What is wrong with American voters?  Is Trump’s base composed of the racists, the sexists, the homophobes in combination with the different mafia’s in this country, which is why his numbers are holding steady?

This country today shows what it is like to live in a place controlled and very quickly being restructured by the mafia and a country that used to be a foreign enemy, with its Oligarch’s.  We don’t have such Oligarch’s in the United States – we have equivalents who we call Tech Billionaires and they are multiplying and mostly today those joining that group look very much like thugs.

This isn’t a first – slaves suffered in these United States for some 250 years.  This is a country which used its marriage laws to enslave Africans.  Slaves were freed, but their progeny are still suffering the results of that slavery and being forced to accept second class citizenship.  Many people suffered during McCarthyism.  Many more are suffering today and from its current trajectory Trumpism is going to make McCarthyism look like a walk in the park.  When are we going to grow up and take over this country to make it into a substantial democracy?  Are we so afraid of that responsibility?

One thing this shows is how weak and mired in sin are our politicians.  To see people grovel to evil for a few silver coins is an ugly scene and that is what we have playing out in front of us.  What is it they expect?  To benefit?  The wages of sin are not gold or silver, but death.  Didn’t their parents tell them when you lie down with dogs you get fleas?

One of the lessons Trump learned at Roy Cohn’s feet was to push your friends and others into a position of having to grovel at your feet.  Have them compliment you all the time.  Trump doesn’t have a weak ego – he has lessons he has learned and lives by.  If those under you have to constantly compliment you – the hordes of people around you, a little ways off,  will hear and assume they know what these others are talking about and you have followers who think you are great.  Trump told those stories of lessons he learned from Roy Cohn himself.  Not to even touch on those he learned from his father – in or out of a KKK white robe and pointy hat.

Wake up America!  You have slept through too much and been complicit with too many evil movements and people.  Clean up your act and soonest or what is coming will make the rest look like Sunday school.

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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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