ed. note: It is always great to receive your responses. If you have anything to which you want to respond from Bettina Network’s blog or if you just have something to say, please send your comments to us via email – bettina-network@comcast.net.
Person 1. I read your Omarosa blog and it was fantastic. I would like to point out the racism I saw in the news reports as people respond to what is happening. Many, many people start with what has almost become a tag line – “they are so much alike, after all, Trump created Omarosa.” Or some version of that ie “after all Omarosa is a Trump creation, Trump created her.” Variations on that comment have been on several news shows. The bigotry of that is palpable, but the persons making the comment seem so free and sure of themselves in those kind of comments without realizing they are simply satisfying their need to put a black woman in her place and remind others that to them she is really not human – really no different from the way the Trump people disregard the humanity of those they consider not as good as.
Omarosa is not a puppet and Trump is not a puppeteer. She was quite intelligent before she met Trump and will continue to be – from what I’ve seen. Her growth over the years, as I followed her career, has been phenomenal. When she moved out of her early beginnings she moved into a different society, class, culture and must have gone through culture shock. She entered a world where values were very different from those with which she was raised. From a people oriented group where interpersonal relationships were primary and the back and forth was about relationships and values were around all of that into a society where interpersonal relationships are practically non-existent and everyone is ‘striving’ for whatever power, money and control they can accumulate. The values in such a group are very different and probably seemed immoral to Omerosa when she entered. At best, they were very different from those values with which she was raised. She seems to have started out adopting and adapting those ‘new’ values and ‘striving’ for the kind of success she saw around her and in the middle of it something clicked and her values changed to those with which she was raised. My guess would be that she started taping people when that “click” happened. The precipitating factor for that “click” was probably the very ugly and dehumanizing way she was being treated. That is extemely painful to the black woman experiencing it and totally unrecognizable by the people doing the mistreating. When she realized she was “invisible” to most people. That she could move around fairly freely because she wasn’t seen or if she was seen by some her presence was completely ignored.
What shows most strongly in what she is doing, she is out there truth telling and clear eyed about it and very good showing an extremely intelligent human being. That is almost unknown in the circles in which she was travelling and must have been painful. From what I am seeing she has much more integrity than those who surrounded her – those knocking her and claiming her lack of integrity. In the system in which she was trying to be a part and ‘fit in’ she did lack integrity by their standards and their definition of the word. In the system in which she was raised they are probably repeating your comment “You go girl.”
I am happy you mentioned how impressed you were with the way she carried herself and responded to the media. It was self-composed, in control, with no problems correcting people, backing them off, standing strongly in an independent place and her responses were always right on target. I join the chorus – you go girl.
Person 2. I am encouraged by what I am seeing in this United States society. The headlines and the current president are very discouraging, but I have to applaud Trump. The bottom line of what he has done is to create a more open, questioning, more mature society then that which existed before his election. We are not as much dependent upon the “system” because we are seeing the system only works if we are very much engaged and taking responsibility.
Before Trump, it was anathema to talk about people being racist and what that means. In fact, if you brought up the subject of racism or commented on some action of someone which was racist you were jumped on by everybody with the traditional denial that maintains a bigoted system – “that’s not racist, everyone experiences it”. Talk about racism and bigotry was not nice and needed to be kept under wraps. It was something one didn’t talk about anyplace. Now, it is all out in the open and the media talks about racist and racism in practically every news show. News anchors have become quite skilled at talking about and identifying racism and bigotry. There is nothing which creates change and takes out ugly like taking off the blanket and airing it out letting everyone see the windows are open and fresh air is flowing through.
What is especially encouraging for me, in spite of seeing the neo-Nazi’s trying to recreate Crystal Nacht and the KKK, White Nationalists and all the others out there parading – many of those who took part with their tiki torches in that Charlottesville parade lost their jobs because their companies did not want the taint of such clear racists working for them who were also out advocating for the kind of society we don’t want in these United States. That is what didn’t happen as Nazi Germany was getting started. Maybe there is hope for us after all.
Person 3. It is amazing to see the contrast in this country between the present administration and what is happening where elections are being held. I can’t wait for November. We have Donald Trump as president and a White House full of bigots, Nazi’s and such assorted folks. At the same time, as you look around at who is being elected in these contests happening around the country – it is the most diverse group of people I have ever seen. Our politicians going forward will have problems and cause us problems, but they will be doing so representing all of us. All we have to do now is undo the Gerrymandering that happened under the very bigoted Republican Party.
I knew when Ronald Regan went to Mississippi to announce his run for the presidency and even before that when Strom Thurmond left the Democratic Party and took his friends and followers into the Republican Party that the day would come when we would have to face this conflagration. Which way it would go was something I could not see because we could become another very racist society. The move towards Russia that Trump is making is clearly a move towards trying to start a race war to subjugate all of us and to maintain a White Supremacy country aligned with other White Supremacy countries – all led by fascist dictators. That is certainly not the profile of our traditional allies so he had to begin the process of dumping our traditional allies and moving towards others more amenable and trying to maintain their countries as all white, fascist and controlled by their Oligarch’s.
Person 4. You are doing something new and I want to help support you in what you are doing so it is successful and continues and others follow your example. We have a country where corporations are supposed to be “neutral”. They never are because most companies support groups and people moving in the direction of Trump and his people while claiming to be neutral. Billions of dollars go to manipulate all of us. It is always difficult for me to know what is real and what is corporate-hype. However, I feel very much involved with Bettina Network. I use your services when I can and want to know what else I can do to make sure you survive? You don’t claim to be neutral, you just stand up for truth and allow whoever to participate and air their comments. Facebook, among others, claims to give you a grouping of friends of your choosing with whom you create your ‘community’. That is one of the big lies on the internet today. In reality the people you see on your “Facebook Wall” and who you hear from are strangers and people you’ve never heard of before. Your “friends” mostly don’t see your posts if they don’t fit the algorithm – so choosing your friends and your community on Facebook is a myth set up to allow them to market your information not encircle you with your chosen friends. Neutral is not something human beings can be without hurting everyone. Truth telling is stronger, better and beneficial for everyone.
I do not know many places where truth-telling is happening. How are you surviving and paying the costs of Bettina’s Blog? I know from experience it costs money to do the research showing up in this blog – and I know the kind of flak that comes from truth telling. Don’t stop – more companies need to keep watch and put out what they know as truth. Sometimes I think marketing and advertising are great, but most times I realize they have turned us into liars and manipulators and hypocrits for the sake of making a dollar. We need to clear the air so our children will know truth and not be taken in by stories put out to sell products and services or manipulative slants on events to guarantee the corporation will get what it wants and the rest of us suffer. Sometimes I wonder if living breathing human mortals head up these corporations or if they are headed by robots immune to things like the environment, the quality of the food they eat, etc. etc. When cigarettes were such a threat I wondered how those who kept the research which said cigarettes were bad for your health and could cause cancer realized they were also negatively affected by such. They smoked a lot and some died of lung cancer, but nevertheless they kept on going with the mythology which gave them their positions, money, etc.
Keep going – some of us are very strongly behind you.
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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.
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