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Some Parallels – the KKK and the Police at Dr. Bennett’s House!

March 18th, 2020

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Before we start this article I would like to leave a note as to Robert Bennett and how he is doing. It was very concerning to me after visiting to see how he is treated. My husband is not used to be called “cutie”, “hi, handsome,” “oh, isn’t he cute” and more. He is talked to as though he has a hearing problem which he does not and talking to him in his room as though he can’t read or write. He is accustomed to be addressed as Rev. Bennett and he needs to be respected enough to call him by his name. He does not lose his identity because the police have put him into this situation and the powers that are attempting to rip off the aged puts them in this ‘lock up’ so that can proceed with things put in place needed for that to happen.”

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I had a phone call today from a friend of over 70 years ago.

Friends from your growing up days may get lost through the years as you do other things, but you don’t forget them and you think of them off and on while you move ahead doing what you think is so important. But really, when the chips are down good friends are life’s gold, silver, diamonds and more

I grew up in this circle of friends in New Orleans, LA. We all went to Central Congregational Church, which was a church vey important in the civil rights movement of the 1960’s and beyond. St. Luke’s, at that time was the society church. My great-grandfather was an Episcopal priest – the Rev. Dr. Taylor. He was rector at St. Luke’s in NOLA – half Black Feet Indian, married to a woman who was French and didn’t hide her race, joining and being active in the exclusive tennis club in NOLA – for white’s only and then only for a very upper class white. Don’t know what that was about so don’t ask. Don’t know how it happened – I have pictures of her and her daughter in their tennis clothes, some pictures in front of the club and while she was very white, her daughter was fairly dark skinned so they could not have been a part of that tennis club “passing.”

Rev. Nicholas Hood was the pastor at Central during my time there. His son is now pastor of a church in Detroit, Michigan where his father moved from New Orleans and where they built a tremendous congregation of caring people. I read the lessons he sends out every week from Plymouth United Church of Christ in Detroit where he pastors the Church his father and now he, following in his father’s footsteps, is building.

Besides Walter and Andrew, another friend from those early days called today and said “Cookie, get out of yourself and look around. What do you see? What similarities are there between where you are now and where you were then.”

We used to get into all kinds of civil rights battles. Going home from school I would throw the signs out the window of the bus which said “for colored patrons only.” Nobody bothered me for doing that then because they knew my grandfather – co-founder of the Louisiana Weekly and all around upsetter of the racist status quo and builder with George Schuyler of the Pittsburgh Courier. The first office of the Pittsburgh Courier in NOLA was our living room. Sure wish he was here now.

My mind went back to what happened to us when the police invaded our house; demanded that Robert leave with them; refused to give me a copy of the paper giving them the right to take my husband out of our house by force. It was so familiar. And then it hit – the KKK took on this persona and its mission to scare N*****s with their white sheets and pointy hats to scare blacks into doing whatever they demanded. Sit, stand, talk, shut up, and more which was much worse. Whenever they found a Negro who wasn’t bowing to them and showing them “respect” – shining their shoes, doing whatever they bid, they turned up at his home and wrecked havoc. On horseback with torches and most times much more.

Wow! It hit me. The police being sent to our house was the same thing only in 20th century garb. Folks have been trying to make Robert and I heel for decades. We just keep on keeping on and ignore the insults, the jabs, the hurtful actions. This time it was so in your face that it was impossible to ignore. The new neighbor high up in the medical profession who made complaints against us and wound up trying to stomp on my toes on the sidewalk, who was stopped in the act by Robert he came walking fast around the corner because he had seen what was happening from the window where we sit and have coffee most days. – At least where we used to sit and have coffee before this attempt to destroy our lives together.

My mind started clearing further when I called Medicare and they spelled out what Medicare Fraud was about and when they told me about forcing someone to get services fraudulently, mistreating that person in the process. Wow! That is exactly what we have experienced. That wallop from the past is another part which defines this experience. When my friends from days past started calling on the same day with the same message – Thank you, Jesus, I know from whence that has come!

No one we have ever talked to has ever heard of anyone being forced into a hospital with policemen forcing them from their home with EMS/EMT’s with a Court Order allowing the police to break down doors and don’t worry about the damage being done in the house if you have to go in to find Robert Bennett as long as you drag that black man out of his house, scare the life out of him, bring him back and lock him up. There are many ways to incarcerate a Black Man. It doesn’t have to be in jail because he committed a crime. It can be all of these other ways you have to engage, especially when he has done nothing wrong. I don’t know many people being forced into the hospital for medical treatments they don’t want, being classed as indigent by a judge who had no idea what he was doing and apparently didn’t care. I have met a couple women to whom that happened, but they were not called “indigent” they were classed as “homeless” when they lived in very nice homes – and of course were African Americans.

I guess we forget the big money made on slavery was made in this New England part of the country.

We forget that you do not have to accept medical treatment, medicines or anything like that. It is your choice to go to a hospital. It is your choice to see a doctor. l It is your choice to take medicines some people think might be good for you. If you choose yes, that’s fine then that is the way you go. If you choose no and to go in another direction that is your choice and should be respected by everyone – police, attorneys, judges, people of all colors, religions, descriptions, etc.

I wonder what it takes to have someone disbarred. That would certainly be something I would consider attempting around someone like O’Sullivan who, they say, was the attorney who has this relationship with the Court which would allow him to get these Court orders for the police to appear and for a hearing at which he presents what he wants and makes sure the other side is not informed so nothing counter to his presentation would be seen by the judge. I don’t know that, but I have certainly heard a lot about him since this started. We will have to do a Bettina investigation to see what’s up and publish what we find.

In that hearing, at which Robert was the topic but the judge refused to have notice served on Robert so he could present his side of what was being claimed – not the first such extreme miscarriage of justice. Apparently, documents to disprove what was being said were withheld from the Court. And so many other mistakes and intentional twisting of the facts happened. The judge was apparently happy for that kind of Court hearing. What are the penalties, if any for such abuses and for so ruining the lives of people.

I always hearken back to the black woman who was awarded $10 million dollars in damages by the Court because of how she was mistreated by Cambridge people in charge. The Courts don’t normally award black women anything and you can be sure whatever the award to a black woman it is peanuts compared to what she suffered and what happened that she was awarded anything.. You can be as damaged as possible and any award you get as a black woman will be minimal. What must they have done to have caused those kind of damages. And what happened that the award received so little coverage in the press. Hardly anyone knows about this. Because of the tax payers money that has had to cover those damages you would think every Cambridge taxpayer would know all the details.

Having experienced some of the kind of damage of which they are capable I can do a little more than imagine what that woman suffered.

To hear from Walter Young with his brother Andrew Young it brought back so many good memories. Of going to Andrew’s wedding; of singing in the Jr. Choir at Church; of playing the organ with friends who crowded into the first pew when I played the organ because I played in my bare feet – it was how I could best feel the pedals at that age and the teasing after the service could be merciless.

It was a relief from what is going on today. Didn’t ever think I would experience eight (8) policemen coming to my door with one just as happy as he could be showing me his cell phone with the Court Order and refusing to give me the actual order. Using his ‘power over’ at that point to draw himself up and make himself ‘better than’. Dusting off his identity to try to make it larger and closer to that of the local White Supremacist ( if he wasn’t already one.) What an ugly sight that was. It was not as bad as this, but do you remember Skip Gates and the police?

That must be illegal and the people who did it need to have to pay the price.

What should also be illegal is bringing someone into Court for the same thing over and over again with dire results for the person. Robert was brought in twice in the same week. Twice within four days on a section 12. It was removed by Mass General Hospital people who examine people under those circumstances. Robert was brought in again by the police on a section 12 – identical – just two days after Mass General discharged him from the first one with no medicine prescribed; normal blood pressure and other such markers in the normal area. What happened when the attorney for Somerville Cambridge Elder Affairs presented that to the Court. Did the Court decide it should be done again and jeopardize the health of a man shortly out of the hospital from a real problem? Or did the Court not care and simply do what it was asked by someone who does this on a regular basis.

And first off, Jim O’Sullivan needs to be removed if indeed he is the person who moved ahead that Court and police business KKK style. He should come under serious questions even if he was the one who sent someone else to do this dirty work.

But in the meantime, my husband is still in Massachusetts General Hospital and the Hospital needs to take an action to stop allowing itself to be used in such vicious ways. They can’t cure beautifully on the one hand and let others destroy what they have done on the other. There is a ground point where a part of the responsibility for this falls on the Hospital.

Thank you, Walter. Give Andrew a big hug for me and God bless Raljean.

Robert and I have always looked out for each other and I will continue to look out for him. I know he will also do the same for me. I also know he would not want me to grovel or demean myself anymore than I have already been demeaned and disrespected with this attempt to destroy our lives together. Why! Because someone wants our assets?

They weaponized my daughter against me and I will never forget that. I live in a universe, however, in which my God is a just God and a God with a memory that does not fail.

This to shall pass – the sun will shine on all of it and God’s justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

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Posted in Andrew Young, Feminism, Marceline Donaldson, Mass General Hospital, Police Brutality, Police Violence, politics, racism, Raljean Henderson, Robert Bennett, sexism, Spiritual Reflection, Walter Young | Comments Off on Some Parallels – the KKK and the Police at Dr. Bennett’s House!

MEDICARE FRAUD AND MORE. What has Robert Bennett Lost!

March 17th, 2020
  1. His vote as an American citizen. Eight (8) policemen picked Robert up on March 3rd in the morning – 10-10:30am. He was set to vote in the Primary and could not. He asked several times during his “incarceration” at the hospital, but could not. So his right to cast his vote was taken away with all of this.

2. This is continuing in the worst way. People are now talking about Robert needing 24 hour care. He was walking with no problems – meeting friends – to the post office and back – how can someone’s freedom be taken away and their health destroyed – their ability to live on their own taken away – I am overwhelmed with this.

3) The Court’s took away an African American man’s freedom on so many levels. He clearly could make his own decisions on the Tuesday and Wednesday that the police pushed into our home. He also clearly could make his own decisions on the Wednesday and Thursday following that Tuesday/Wednesday ‘incarceration’ before the police pushed into our home for the second time in a week for the same reason to repeat a process because the Somerville Cambridge Elder Affairs group didn’t like the result the first time. Both times the police pushed themselves inside my home with the Court’s suggestion and permission and dragged Robert Bennett out against his will. The Court said if he did not want to come – the police had the Court’s permission to take him out anyway. Robert was very clear with everyone he did not want to go and refused the request. The police made it clear he did not have a choice. Both times they threatened to arrest his wife because she also did not want him taken away.

Robert Bennett was totally able to make his own decisions about his life. The Court took that away by invoking a Health Care Proxy which was invalid and replaced at least twice. The Court gave Robert Bennett’s health care proxy to a woman who is a non-blood related person who was not his wife. To do that they had to invalidate a Health Care Proxy created by Massachusetts General Hospital and a prior Health Care Proxy created by a reputable probate attorney with of which reflected what Robert wanted because they talked to Robert and knew what he wanted. Two witnesses who had known Robert for some 20 to 30 years said so and Robert himself was present when the Health Care Proxy was signed November 18, 2019 and Robert was very clear at that time who he wanted as his Health Care Proxy. Mass General had someone interview Robert for some 30 minutes to make sure they knew who he wanted as his health care proxy. The Court had never met Robert, never talked to him, knew nothing about him and the people making the presentation to the Court didn’t know Robert or his wishes either. This is how they operate in Cambridge MA? How could a man’s freedoms and right to choose be so destroyed. The more this goes on the more appalled I become.

What is clear – there is something not quite right in Cambridge, MA. which is putting its citizens at risk – especially its older, minority – especially African American citizens. if you go into old age with any substantial assets, they will be targeted and taken away from you in the name of “taking care of you” when you don’t need other people to push themselves into your life, take up residence and push their wishes and needs on you.

What happened and the way it happened looks as though it is also Medicare Fraud and the taking away from a citizen his right to decide the choices he wants to make with his health care.

If you don’t go along with the program and max out your Medicare and other medical insurance you will be picked up by the police, your rights taken away from you and among other things – your freedom also as you sit in a hospital with your health declining and it is clear the condition Robert is in today was created by Mass General Hospital following an order of the Court.

This is happening, has happened and will continue to happen unless someone stops it.

In this case the agency controlling all this and carrying out this apparent Medicare Fraud is Somerville/Cambridge Elder Affairs aided by its attorney Jim O’Sullivan. Has he been involved in other such situations like this? Any attorney involved in this should be disbarred. Was he involved in the complaints and law suit which resulted in Cambridge, MA. having to pay an African American woman $10 million dollars in damages because of the way she was treated?

When a person makes a decision that they do not want rehab services as offered by the agency the hospital referred them to -that they would prefer such services at their own home and privately secured and paid for – and the local state agency files for the police to pick up that person and force them into the hospital on a section 12 making the hospital prove the person is sane – not on drugs – not on alcohol – not psychotic, Medicare has to pick up the bill for that hospital stay – that looks to me like Medicare fraud. Forced medical treatment billed to Medicare.

When that person is discharged by the hospital and the next day Somerville/Cambridge Elder Services goes into Court and manipulates the Court System to force that person back into the hospital with no reason and no right, but the Court goes along that is Medicare fraud taking place – that is forced medical treatment which takes away an individuals rights and at the same time increases the Somerville Cambridge Elder Affairs group’s standing with its reporting to the state and others, inflating what it claims as legitimate services, which in fact are spurious and nobody checks – not the lawyer for the agency, nor anyone else affiliated with that agency and the people employed are allowed to make sworn statements which do not represent the facts as they are – but changes them to fit the Medicare requirements for such services – that is apparently Medicare Fraud.

To go into Court – Somerville/Cambridge Elder Services mischaracterized Robert Bennet as “indigent”. Who follows that up? No one. Why bother with an indigent – poverty stricken person. That made it easier for Somerville/Cambridge and any other institutions to present the bills to Medicare for Mr. Bennett. The Court aided these mischaracterizations by allowing this state agency to have a hearing without notifying Mr. Bennett, making all kinds of untrue, spurious, twisted statements to the Court.

To compensate, the Courts appointed an attorney to represent Mr. Bennet after the hearing and after Mr. Bennett was in the custody of the police. An attorney who never met Mr. Bennett, knew nothing about him, and that attorney was appointed after the hearing in which the Court gave Somerville Cambridge Elder Services unbelievable latitude over Mr. Bennett and lied extensively about Mr. Bennett’s wife – in fact slandered and libelous are their accusations.

That Court appointed attorney contacted Robert Bennett after a hearing which sent police to his house to forcibly pick him up and incarcerate him in Massachusetts General Hospital against his will – especially when no medical doctor, agency or anything comparable had declared Mr. Bennett unable to make decisions for himself. It took more than a week for this Court appointed attorney to see Mr. Bennett – too busy.

That attorney has subsequently put Mr. Bennett at risk because she is an attorney who is in and out of nursing homes and then visited Mr. Bennett in the hospital possibly exposing him and others to the coronavirus and that visit took place after she was told Mr. Bennett did not want her to represent him.

After Somerville/Cambridge Elder Affaires went Court with Jim O’Sullivan apparently representing them and hiding relevant information from the Court to gain a decision which they wanted and asking the Court to make a Protective Order without allowing Mr. Bennett or his representatives to appear to present the other side to what they were claiming, the Court by not notifying Robert Bennett and Marceline Donaldson that there was to be such a hearing – for the second time in four days to harass Mr. Bennett to the point of having police pick him up at his home to once again incarcerate him at Massachusetts General Hospital to once again undergo the same thing he had undergone just two days before when he was discharged from the hospita in very good shape, after the first police pick up of Mr. Bennett and after that first forced visit Robert Bennett was discharged from the hospital with no medicines prescribed and a date for a return to check up on his past surgery.

This was forced and fraudulent treatment which was to be billed to Mr. Bennett’s Medicare.

To be able to do this they had to move Mr. Bennett’s wife out of the way so the Somerville Cambridge Elder Services had Mr. Bennett’s wife charged with abuse in this same Court hearing where neither knew about the hearing and were therefore not given the opportunity to defend themselves against such horrid, reputation destroying, life destroying charges.

We believe it is illegal to bill Medicare for forced treatment which the patient and his Health Care Advocate rejects and Marceline Donaldson had been named as Health Care Proxy by Mr. Bennett, but it was not invoked because Mr. Bennett was able to make his own decisions. We believe it is fraudulent to make such charges to Mr. Bennett’s Medicare account.

If Mr. Bennett needed therapy – it was possible to get that at home – even through Medicare. That was not a consideration because there was no such therapy prescribed.

After leaving Massachusetts General Hospital, after surgery, Mr. Bennett took the hospital’s advice and went for rehab to Sherrill House in Jamaica Plain expecting that to be a great experience. The connection between Mr. Bennett as an Episcopal Priest and Sherill House’s Episcopal connection he expected that to be a special experience on many levels. Instead it was a horror story.

If you read other Bettina Network blogs you will see some of the reasons for that horror story. The one we will repeat here – Mr. Bennett left Sherrill House after a stay of some 24 hours because Sherrill House was quarantined – there were patients on the second floor – we were told three or four who had the flu. No one knew what kind of flu and with all of the publicity around the coronavirus, Mr. Bennett took the precaution of leaving Sherrill House rather than being exposed to the flu and his wife concurred. Especially when he heard that several months prior Sherrill House had again been under quarantine because of the flu and apparently “only a couple people” caught the flu at that time so there was nothing to worry about. The outrage at Robert Bennett making such a decision, which he had every right to make on his own behalf as did his Health Care Proxy – was astounding.

After that experience Mr. Bennett and his wife read the reviews about Sherrill House online and were totally freaked out by what they read – people who died because nurses did not respond to their buzzer for a very long time and more.

To call the police and incarcerate someone in the hospital by sending the police to pick them up – twice – because they refuse the service Somerville Cambridge Elder Services tries to force on them when they have said clearly they prefer any necessary services at home and paid for privately, should be a crime. That is an abuse of the police and since Mr. Bennett is an African American from the national experience with the police forces around the country that possibly opened Mr. Bennett to serious physical harm.

In addition, Mr. Bennett’s health has now been negatively affected by all of this. We have witness statements which talk about how Mr. Bennett was walking around Harvard Square with his wife and enjoying the sunshine and their life together before the police forcibly invaded his home on March 3rd and again on March 6th while refusing to give him or his wife a copy of the order which the police claim gave them the right to break down his door and go into the house doing whatever damage was necessary to take him out refusing to listen if he said no and taking him out against his will.

Instead, with the police involvement he has been confined to a very small room at Massachusetts General Hospital – which he shares and is so tight there is no room between his chair and the bed and he goes from bed to the chair, from the chair to the bed. He had a walker, which he no longer has because he can’t walk even with such a device.

Being 87 years old and having been kept in bed from Friday to the next Friday to the next Wednesday and still ongoing, his ability to walk has been impaired and it is possible other health issues may arise because of his confinement imposed unethically by the Courts and illegally by Somerville Cambridge Elder Services.

Is this to scare others into accepting the Somerville Cambridge Elder Services when they come around because you too may be so confined and the police may be called to enforce their right to control your health care by lying, hiding the truth, causing fraudulent claims to be filed on your Medicare insurance causing you to have to pay 20% for services you rejected and Medicare having to pay 80% for services that were forced treatment and hospital confinements which should not have happened.

We have found people – and in reviews also – who complain about the Somerville Cambridge Elder Services because of the way they squander the agency’s money – taking cabs to the bank – and in many other ways, calling it a very amateurish group.

The kind of ignoring and destruction of a persons’ rights is huge and this has been a horrifying experience for all.

It is time to release Robert Bennett from being held in “police lockup” at Massachusetts General Hospital under a protective order which was spuriously obtained. Yes, he is still being held under Police lockup. No one can visit him. His wife can only visit 1/2 per day and then only with a Security Guard and Police present. She is treated in very abusive ways. And most days she is not allowed to visit for one reason or another – if you read other blogs you would have seen when she was told her husband had taken out a restraining order against her and she could not go up to his room under any circumstances. That was not true but she was not allowed to visit that day and the Security Guard who said such a Mr. DuBois also put her out of the hospital.

The attorneys the Bennetts hired did not take care of this and should have immediately filed an emergency motion for his release. They took the case knowing his health would be at risk if they delayed in any way and in spite of that they made their busyness with other things a higher priority which has contributed to this.

It is time for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Massachusetts General Hospital and all others involved to release this man from confinement and take whatever steps are necessary to reimburse him for what they have caused; make his wife whole after demeaning and disgracing her with their charges of abusing her husband when that was not true and so much more. It is past the time for the Governor, Mayor of Cambridge and others to step in and stop this abuse of this African American family in this case – by the state – this is a state agency.

Mr. Bennett, on information and belief, is not the only person who has been so held in the past – turned into an “indigent” so the forces doing the deed can better access Medicare. It is time for all of this to be investigated by those who do such and it is past time for this cover-up to stop and be uncovered.

The attempt now is to blame others who Somerville/Cambridge Elder Services weaponized to help them in this effort and that also needs to stop.

Robert Bennett needs to be put in an ambulance and sent home IMMEDIATELY, especially given all of the coronavirus warnings to which he would be a primary target. This needs to be done without trying to force Robert Bennett and his family to accept all the trappings being attempted – which are needed to take Somerville Cambridge Elder Services off the hook and leave them blameless so they can continue in their efforts to destroy others – apparently mostly African Americans.

What comes after this for the rest of us? Forced medical care and treatment – whether you want it; need it; in the place the agency harassing you or targeting you decides that should happen. Somerville/Cambridge Elder Services has been hounding this family for years.

It is tough to be African American and live in the Brattle Street neighborhood. Institutional attacks come from many places. Read other related blogs and you will see a fuller picture.

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Posted in Forced Medical Treatment, Jim O'Sullivan attorney, Marceline Donaldson, Medicare Fraud, Robert Bennett, Sherrill House | Comments Off on MEDICARE FRAUD AND MORE. What has Robert Bennett Lost!

An Open Letter to the Governor of Massachusetts – the Mayor of Cambridge – the Mayor of Somerville, MA

March 15th, 2020

by: Marceline Donaldson

It is time for Massachusetts to give up its title of the most racist area in the United States.

Having lived in the Cambridge/Boston area for some 36 years, it is clear that title is well deserved and I was born and raised in the deep south and experienced places like Mississippi and Alabama at the height of their most racist actions.

We – my husband and I – have challenged that over many years and each time it had disastrous results because of the slam back we had to take. What is happening now is the worst of times because it has put my husband in Massachusetts General Hospital in their area for people “Protected” by Court Orders.

I went to visit my husband yesterday (Saturday). A Security Guard was called because I needed to have a Security Guard and Policeman present and then I could only stay for 1/2 hour. So far, I have only been able to see him once. Why? One time I couldn’t see him because the staff on his floor said they were short staffed and did not have a Security Guard or Policeman who could be present. With all that has happened and is happening it is clear the goal is to keep me away from my husband by any means.

What happened this time? A security guard by the name of DuBois arrived, asked for identification, left and returned to tell me I was not allowed to see him at all because he had taken out a restraining order against me. That was amazing because I thought that was clearly not true – or it happened after they gave him drugs. The last time I saw him he was clearly on something and you could tell that by the way he looked and how glassy his eyes were – and my husband is a man who does not drink, does not take drugs.

The Security Guard was vicious – as though this was really personal for him. I asked his name a second time because the first time was before he came back to tell me I was under a restraining order and could not see my husband. He refused to give me his name; said he had already given it to me and he wasn’t going to do it again. I asked for the name of the supervisor who said I was under a restraining order and he said he was not going to give that to me because I didn’t need it and he said more. To say he was vicious is an understatement. He finally gave me his name – for the second time – and told me to leave the hospital immediately.

My husband is in the hospital during this coronavirus pandemic when he needs to be home. What are you going to do if he gets the coronavirus while in the hospital? Deny any responsibility? Do what bureaucrats do?

Somerville Cambridge Elder Services brought charges against us. Against me, claiming I was abusive in some horrible ways. Since we have people in our home most of the time that would be impossible. We have many people ready to talk about the relationship they have seen over 20 to 30 years. And the fact that I am even having to prove that to you and others within the state system is unreal and beyond severe retaliation for challenging the racism, sexism etc in this state – city – county.

On a Tuesday march 3rd they had some 8 policemen – all white – come to my home with the authority to break in, if needed. They took him to MGH to undergo tests under a section 12. Disbelief ran through everyone we know. I stayed with my husband at MGH from about 10-11am on the 3rd until 3:30am the next morning.

Do you know what it is like to be African American with all those police at your door, pushing their way into your house, threatening you and demanding to take away your husband? It is terrifying. You should experience the same thing with African Americans at your door doing the same thing so you know what a part of the citizens of your state, city, county experience on a nearly regular basis. Head in the sand is one way to deal with this.

He was released at about 3:30am the next day after he had been put through unbelievable trauma. Not by MGH – they were doing in that department what they were set up to do. When you are put in that department for political reasons – you experience it in a very different way.

When released, his blood pressure was normal and all of his other numbers were within the normal range – especially for an 87 year old man. He was released with an appointment for another visit; a note at the bottom which said no medicines were being prescribed. Since then I have heard about how he was not getting anti-seizure medicine and more and I was supposed to be the person who was keeping this away from him. The story goes that CVS tried to call me to pick up prescriptions left there by doctors and I refused. That was astounding to me. When we called CVS there were no prescriptions to be picked up and no calls made to me or anyone else to pick up the medicine. MGH told us the anti-seizure medicine was only to be given to him for 7 days after his operation and he was in the hospital for all of that time. So the lies throughout all of this are monstrous and all being told through Somerville Cambridge Elder Services.

We were able to get out into the sun for the rest of the day and the next day. I am glad we enjoyed that brief time because it looks like the last time we could even be together. My husband has not seen sun, been out in the fresh air, taken a walk since then. Why? Because the police came back – this time on Friday evening after the Courts closed for the weekend and it was impossible to reach attorneys, with an order which was more draconian than the first. The police were given the right to break into our home; to do whatever they had to do there to take my husband out; with orders that said even if he objected they should ignore his objections and drag him out anyway and anyhow.

They were taking him back to MGH under the same Section 12 and given the same tests he had been through less than 48 hours before and he had to go over again what he went through on March 3rd-4th. Why would a court order such? To send someone back through terror because the state agency filing the order and signed by the court with no notice to the person involved wanted him under their control?

Our right to challenge this was taken away from us by the court because the court signed the order presented by Somerville Cambridge Elder Services without our even knowing such was happening and that with a state law which says such notice was necessary.

To go through twice in just a few days the same terror is unbelievable. But, the first time didn’t do the job so try again and make sure you lock this man up for the rest of his life? There was even the suggestion that he be sent to a nursing home with Somerville Cambridge taking guardianship or giving it to someone “responsible.”

The man involved and being so attacked is African American. So it is alright for that to happen.

He is not wealthy, but he is also not living in poverty. The Court ruled that he was “indigent” and so the Court needed to appoint an attorney to represent him. An attorney he did not know, did not want, he had his own attorneys, so even the right to choose his own attorney was taken away from him by this court. Why? Is there something else in here that is not known? Let my paranoia fly to ask if this collusion by the court the state agency and the attorney?

What is being done to him and his family is what happened in the deep south at the turn of the century and in the 1930’s and 1940’s when whites went into black areas and cities and massacred the people there because the whites were terrified that their White Supremacy might be taken away or diminished? The African Americans at that time had no defense and what happened to them was subsequently ignored and is only recently resurfacing in the history books. The outrage at such relating that to what is its modern counterpart is the same.

This time the massacre is being done using the Court System and a retired judge called back to sign this order.

Yes, the people involved who the Court System acted against have worked for decades trying to change the racism, sexism and all the other bigotry in this area. Yes, the people involved are living in a neighborhood where African Americans are not welcome – not by the neighbors, but by the institutional structures which run these cities – and they have been clear that they do not want African Americans living where this couple lives.

I could go on, but my husband is being held in jeopardy to his life and health. At 87 years old he has been kept in bed from Friday through the following Friday through Saturday and will probably be kept as long as they can keep him in bed. What does that do to such a person? It limits his life span – it destroys the quality of his life – it takes away from him all of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution – it took away from him his right to vote on Tuesday March 3rd even after he asked about being allowed to vote and that was denied. That is what you – the Mayors of Cambridge and Somervile. the Governor of Massachusetts and others are allowing to happen by doing nothing – putting your head in the sand. Is he being held until he is broken and his health is irretrievably negatively affected?

We have been harrassed for years. Most recently by a new neighbor who moved in and went bonkers when he discovered after spending millions on his house he was living in the middle of a block with African Americans living on the corner. That was very sad, because the neighbor who lived there before he moved in was a dear friend. And just by coincidence he is rumored to be high up at a major health institution.

I want my husband out of the hospital and home. I want my husband detached from the Somerville Cambridge Elder Services. I want Elder Services investigated. They are ruining the lives of African Americans by their actions and need to be closed and investigated with the people responsible for this FIRED. As I look into this I am discovering that this may not be so strange in Massachusetts and certainly not foreign to Somerville Cambridge Elder Services.

And as I look into this I discovered that in spite of our knowing nothing about it, the Somerville Cambridge Elder Services has been attempting to hound us for many many months, possibly years.

It is time for action instead of this foot dragging and ignoring and doing nothing and I hope this does not result in the police coming for me and dragging me off someplace.

My hands are also tied because his health proxy, named by the Court is someone who is not a blood relative. That person appointed by the court in spite of a health proxy form created by massachusetts general hospital creating a health proxy form naming his wife as his health proxy and that after they talked to him to find out his wishes. In addition, there was another health proxy created by an attorney who works in probate and estate matters in which my husband named his wife his health proxy and that was witnessed by people who knew both of us for some 20 to 30 years and are substantial members of the Cambridge community. The Court decided it knew better and negated both of those in favor of one which both of those health proxies negated. The health proxy created by the attorney was done after Robert discovered the health proxy by the person unrelated to him.

What – if anything – are you going to do about this? I would like my husband home immediately if not sooner and my husband has been begging to be allowed to go home since they locked him up in this “protected” area where, in my youth would have been called the “police lock-up” in the hospital.

marceline donaldson – 49 Hawthorn Street – Cambridge MA. 02138 – 617 497 9166

Letters to the governor, mayors, and other political figures would be much appreciated. All of you who know us and have known us for decades know that this is a travesty – tragic and ruining of live – especially the quality of life of two elder people.

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Posted in Marceline Donaldson, Robert Bennett | Comments Off on An Open Letter to the Governor of Massachusetts – the Mayor of Cambridge – the Mayor of Somerville, MA

Living in Cambridge/Boston While Black! – Part 3

March 14th, 2020

This is the third segment on what is happening with Robert and Marceline. It is horrible and the racism is being compounded by the way this is being handled. The agency responsible is Somerville Cambridge Elder Services. They are known to be racist and work beautifully with many in the Harvard Square area (all white) and rumor has it they put blacks in institutions the way they have Robert and drain their insurance and other benefits while labeling them “indigent”. The move they make against blacks in the Cambridge Somerville area always characterizes the black and their families in the most negative stereotypical way possible. Why are they still being allowed to destroy Robert and Marceline and why is there and has there been no investigation over the years – at the very least closing this agency? This has been going on for at least 20 plus years with people around this agency knowing what has been happening.

More to the point what involvement do the Courts have in this situation? They have to be involved – when you think they facilitated this by making a decision without any notice to the other side. Clearly, they look as though they are implicated somehow. And the Cambridge Somerville administrative people who are heads of these agencies, particularly this state agency has done nothing to investigate these goings on and the attorneys who represent these agencies. They have to know what is going on within them.

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I saw Robert and Marceline walking together in Harvard Square last Thursday. – March 5th. They are the cutest couple. What amazed me when I heard this, that was a day before Robert was forced into Massachusetts General Hospital. They went into the post office and were talking to an African American woman in the most animated way. It looked as though they were having a great conversation.

I saw them a bit later as I turned onto Memorial Drive. They were sitting on a bench by the river.

Since then and hearing that Robert was put into Mass General by the police and kept there – I thought about the contrast. He was in the sunshine, walking with his wife, enjoying life and maybe that was too much for the people involved in this. Apparently, the next day or the day after he was confined in an institution where he is in bed all the time, under police supervision, no sun, no walks around his neighborhood and his wife kept from seeing him because of the bad influence she would have? Good and bad take on very different meanings in this context.

Values count! These values are that an African American man can’t walk around Harvard Square in pleasant circumstances, talking to friends, sitting on the benches by the river. We have to stop that, other African Americans might find that a great picture of life and come to live in Harvard Squarte themselves and then what would we do – have an integrated neighborhood? That is being stopped in the ugliest way. I know Robert and Marceline have had to fight almost daily the intrusions on their lives living where they do. This fight is beyond despicable.

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I saw Robert Bennett and his wife on Thursday, March 5th in Harvard Square in the post office talking to Mrs. Clark. He looked great. I waved as I passed and they all looked as though they were having a lovely conversation. Is that what caused all of this? I can’t believe I really live in a place where this happens. With all the people pouring into New England from places like California, is this how we get housing for them? Since they are mostly white we have to move blacks out of white areas to find room for these white immigrants among their own kind? Even if it means doing this?

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by: Marceline Donaldson

I would like to tell you how Robert is doing, but I am not allowed to see him. There has to be a Security Guard and a Policeman present for me to talk to Robert and one time I tried the hospital people turned me down because they were short of personnel and didn’t have a Security Guard and Policeman to be able to allow me to see him and then I am only allowed 30 minutes.

I wanted to keep all of you up to date on what is happening with daily updates, but that won’t be possible. We have hired attorneys and you know what that means. They don’t want to work in full, real time exposure.

We hired Burns and Levinson as attorneys to work with Shippen Page to bring some justice out of this farce.

Things were horrible in the deep south where I grew up, but I experienced nothing like this.

The attorneys don’t want me to put out all the gory details because they have their work to do and prefer to do it without my writing about what they are doing. After it is done I will have the freedom to write about this, but in the meantime you will hear very little from me. I wanted to share the letters we are receiving from all over, but I won’t even be able to do that. Those letter are going to the attorneys.

It is unbelievably painful not to see your husband of 36 years with whom I lived 24/7. We have never been separated this long ever.

When I saw Robert in the hospital my heart broke. Before the police picked him up he was beautiful and vibrant and strong. Now he is almost shriveling as he sat in a large chair with pillows propping him up looking just miserable asking me to take him home. The mean, viciousness which put him there and is keeping him there is beyond my ability to understand.

Most heartening about all of this is the support from so many people who call to let me know they are there if we need anything. What they don’t have is the magical power to get Robert out of confinement enforced by the police. Call it what they want, the establishment has put an African American man under the police in spite of his not having done anything even close to what would have put him under police control. They have also weaponized my family and friends.

I think constantly of what I used to hear as a child. It was, at the time, related to the holocaust – ‘ if they come for me in the morning and you do nothing and they come for my family in the afternoon and you still do nothing, they will come for you in the evening and there will be no one to help you because there will be no one left.”

We have great lawyers with Lisa Cufier with Burns and Levinson and Shippen Page. The cost is going to be exorbitant. One way or another the goal of destroying us and getting rid of African Americans in the Brattle Street-Harvard Square area will have been achieved. We’ve had lots of problems with people doing all kinds of little harassment over our time living in Harvard Square. We overcame that. We cannot overcome this without your help.

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For those of you who have asked – the attorneys we hired are:

Lisa Cukier is a firm partner and Executive Committee member. She concentrates her practice on all aspects of estate and trust litigation, fiduciary litigation, probate law, child custody, parentage issues and divorce, planning and litigation for blended families, adoption, guardianship and conservatorship, and elder financial exploitation.

Recognized for her expertise and skill, Lisa is a frequent speaker on the topics of trust and estate litigation, estate planning, and family law, including undue influence and financial exploitation of elders. She is also a regular contributor to various publications, including Boston Spirit Magazine, and a columnist for the Weston Town Crier and Wicked Local Wayland.

Lisa serves as private adjudicator, Special Master, Guardian ad Litem, and mediator. 

You can look at the last Bettina Network Blog and you will see a paragraph telling you something about the other attorney – Shippen Page of Page and Powell attorneys.

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Posted in Marceline Donaldson, racism, Robert Bennett | Comments Off on Living in Cambridge/Boston While Black! – Part 3

Living in Cambridge/Boston, MA while Black.

March 12th, 2020

THE SECOND INSTALLMENT OF THE Marceline Donaldson and Robert Bennett story as it is happening.

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We have to start this article with our deepest appreciation to Carolyn Tribe who knew what was happening to the Bennett/Donaldsons and spent time finding an attorney who would hang in there with them and get Robert out of Protective Custody. Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett is certainly experiencing first hand what happens to people who wind up in some incredible places and who has not done any of the things which gets most people in those situations.

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Shippen Page of Cambridge, MA. is now representing Marceline Donaldson and is one of a team of attorneys we are pulling together. Hopefully, if our current talks go well we will be able to tell you shortly who is representing Robert Bennett. If you would like to contact Attorney Page he can be reached at 174 Lake View Avenue, Cambridge, MA. 02138-2132. His telephone number is 1-617-967 0318. We are sure he would welcome your legal and/or financial help since this looks as though it will be a very long, tough grinding problem to solve and in the end we hope the results will help many who have been treated the way the Donaldson/Bennett’s have but could not fight this very intransigent, unjust and myopic system.

Mr. Page is a part of the law firm of Page and Powell and he has been a practicing attorney since 1979. He is president of the Cambridge Public Library Foundation and serves on the board of Cambridge Homes. He has been a supporter and responsible for the success of many local nonprofits over the past 35 years.

We are, in addition, putting together a team of attorneys because from the very intransigent and ugly way we see this growing it will probably move on to substantial law suits.

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Marceline visited Robert yesterday and she came back heartbroken. I can’t imagine how it feels to have lived with someone so long, 24/7 and now have to face this kind of situation. I wonder who the Cambridge/Somerville people think they are?

Mostly, she was appalled to see how glassy Robert’s eyes were. It looked as though he was being given sedatives and/or some other kind of drugs. His lethargy went along with that description. His mind was sharp, however. They had a conversation in which Robert remembered everything they discussed and participated in the discussion with no memory lapses. Trying to claim Robert is mentally unstable is the worst of this, considering he is a Harvard graduate with a doctorate from Harvard’ Graduate School of Arts majoring in Near Eastern studies and having taught for some 35 plus years Hebrew Scripture, Ancient Hebrew and other Semitic languages plus his work in archaeology and the books he has written. Cambridge/Somerville is trying to push all of that under the cover while they carry out this really vicious action against a very substantial African American man. Is this how African American history is changed? Is this how those who contributed and their contributions shove out the window never to be included in anything except a broken dialogue pushing and creating the negative black stereotypes which are strong in the minds and hearts of many in the Cambridge/Boston area?

Think of the amount of public money being spent and the resources being sucked up to push this unjust, unnecessary and really evil thing. It is clearly, among other things – extreme racism. That is not unknown to Cambridge. Check your history and you will find the $10 million of public money Cambridge spent – in damages – because of the way they treated a black woman a few years ago. I think there are also smaller amounts that have also been spent to allow this kind of bigotry to thrive, grow and hurt many. The money being spent on calling out the police to do this dirty work must have been substantial. I seem to remember a Cambridge policeman going to Skip Gates house to ring his doorbell, call him out of his house in a gross and unnecessary attempt to demean, disgrace and embarrass him. That bottle of beer at the White House does not wash out that action – it happened – and clearly was a racist act. From what I know of Marceline, who doesn’t drink any alcohol – there will be no such “beer reconciliation.”

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We have had lots of response to our last email trying to keep folks up to date on what is happening. The question everybody asked was – who are the women pushing this – and who started this? The names we have come up with are Angela Clary and Norah Al-Wetaid.

When we can, we will put in this series of articles copy of the unbelievable Protective order – obtained by not giving notice to Robert Bennett so he was not able to respond – does that come from the Court’s racism? Not feeling an African American should be given those rights but should be rushed into the police state quickly before the opportunity passes?

We will also publish the Affidavit ofNorah Al-Wetaid and the Affidavit of Marceline Donaldson responding to the unbelievable number of easily provable lies in what Somerville Cambridge Elder Services promoted.

The City and State Government that funds this group and supposedly exercises some kind of management over them needs to do their job and have a better hold and knowledge about what they are doing. There is something at stake here that the Donaldson/Bennett’s have uncovered and we are beginning to understand what that is. Future articles will lay all of that out in full.

The agency’s affidavits and materials filed with the Court have never known the names of the people they are filing against. If you don’t know who you are legally accusing – one of the first rules should be – your action is questioned and denied. An agency like Somerville/Cambridge Elder Services should at least know the names of people they are making such egregious claims against. They don’t even know that much.

A second rule is that the people managing the agency on a state level needs to know if the people who work for them are accurate and not out there making wild accusations which negatively affects others lives and the quality of their lives. To allow such irresponsible people out making such charges is the height of irresponsibility and the appropriate Commonwealth People need to immediately investigate what this is really about. Robert Bennett’s wife is characterized as Marceline Davidson all throughout their filings. That is not her name. The agency also mis-named others they quote. If the people making such charges are found to be so irresponsible they need to be fired and the agency cleared out of such ways of acting.

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We have suggested that the Bennett/Donaldsons be prepared to file major law suits against all offending parties because their Constitutional and all other rights have been trashed as though we are a country in which the police, the Court’s and others can go wild the way they have here, negatively affecting people’s health and lives.

Before the police pushed into the Bennett Donaldson home forcing him to leave home and family, Robert Bennett was doing very well. He took long walks in-between those police ‘arrest’ times; enjoyed the sun and great weather; had good organic food; and so much more. The food he has been exposed to since has been unbelievable and its quality seriously questionable as to whether it would help heal or destroy the health of those eating such.

Since he has been pushed into first the emergency department which works with those who have alcohol, drug and mental problems that would negatively affect the public if they were not pushed into the hospital and then into a section of the hospital for those under “Protection” – which means you cannot visit him because he is not listed as a patient. He has to be hidden from who? His wife who cared for him for over 36 years? Their relationship is well known in the community because they moved in many circles in the Cambridge/Boston areas as well as nationally – and many people in different countries know them and their relationship intimately because of the business they were in before the police, the Courts and others did everything and are continuing to do everything they can to destroy that business.

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Letters talking about the Bennett Donaldsons are pouring in – we will print some of them so you understand what we are dealing with here. This is not something to take lightly. When you read about this does it sound familiar? Does it sound like what is going on at the border to immigrants where families are being separated? When you read the articles in Bettina Network’s blog which preceded this you will have some questions about who weaponized people – friends, family of the Bennett Donaldsons against them – for this to happen.

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So much has been put into the affidavits which are lies. That is what has me over the top. I read them and was appalled. There is the accusation of Robert Bennett having broken ribs with the implication that it came from his wife. The hospital verified that this was not true – Robert Bennett did not have anything wrong with his ribs.

There is the accusation in the affidavit that Robert Bennett had prostate cancer and his wife refused to get him treatment. That is also not true and Robert Bennett was capable of going to the doctor himself, but did not. This affidavit both makes Robert Bennett’s wife responsible for something which was supposed to have happened years ago and has taken away Robert Bennett’s humanity and ability to lead his life and make his own decisions. Isn’t that where this society goes when they are trying to destroy an African American man? First take away his right and his ability to function on his own and make decisions for himself.

The reason to seek treatment – not to seek treatment – take medicine – not to take medicine – is a decision reserved to each one of us. To do this to someone who does not want the services of Somerville/Cambridge Elder Services is beyond humanity. Are there problems – financial and/or otherwise that Somerville/Cambridge Elder Servicesis having that they need to force people to accept their services or else? That is certainly what this looks like. Since the Bennett Donaldsons thanked Somerville/Cambridge Elder Services for their offer, but no thank you, it is as if they rejected the services of a mafia and they are now paying the price the mafia extracts for refusing such. Where are we? the USA – really? I don’t think so.

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There needs to be some laws passed here that monies spent by Somervile/Cambridge Elder Services and all the other Elder Services in other areas of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts need to be replaced by the people who so clearly and so easily spent the agency’s monies and other resources un-necessarily because what was most important to such people was the satisfying first of their bigotry needs to keep themselves as higher than, better than the people they are supposed to be serving. Certainly declaring a person as indigent who is not and who clearly is known not to be indigent shows a very evil kind of bigotry operating within that agency which needs to be stopped..

In addition, the Somerville/Cambridge Elder Services needs to be investigated for other violations which they clearly have committed in this process of acting more like a mafia group than a group responding to the actual needs of those they serve.

They no doubt have helped some people. That does not justify them in their destroying the lives of others. A thorough investigation needs to happen and the agency closed until it is completed. There needs to be a report produced which shows who, what, when and how this agency, which is not carrying out its mandate, but has let the bigotry of its employees get in the way of doing an acceptable job is going to do to change. And such an agency needs to be and do a job which is much than just acceptable. How many people could this agency have helped with the money being spent on this action.

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One reference letter written follows to give you an idea as to who the Bennett Donaldsons. We have received many more and will publish several of them so that you know more fully what this is about.

March 10, 2020

“To Whom It May Concern:

I have known Marceline Donaldson and Robert Bennett for twenty years. While serving the Shady Hill School as Executive Director of the school’s Teacher Training Center, Robert and Marceline have been gracious hosts of college students traveling from across the United States to Cambridge, MA. Shady Hill partners with Bettina Network to recruit aspiring teachers for Shady Hill School and graduate students for Boston University and Lesley University. When students or families travel to Cambridge seeking a place to stay, I highly recommend that they stay with Robert and Marceline. Their home is warm and inviting and their kindness knows no bounds. Guests usually reach out to me at the end of their visit and report that their time with Marceline and Robert was the highlight. They have been instrumental in helping these students transition to the area and successfully complete their apprenticeship and master’s degrees in education.

Recently, Robert and Marceline hosted two students from Morehouse College who were visiting Shady Hill School…..Because of Marceline and Robert’s wise counsel, kindness and support, (Name withheld) has decided to apprentice at Shady Hill School, the Epiphany School, and Boston University in the fall of 2020. I have Robert and Marceline to thank for playing a significant role in supporting Shady Hill School’s recruitment efforts and the partnership between Shady Hills and Morehouse College led by President David Thomas, former Associate Dean of Harvard University’s Business School.

Robert is a generous and kind person. I witnessed an expression of love and compassion for his wife, his family and his sister when he co-led the Eucharist for friends and family who honored the memory of his sister as a lovely memorial service several weeks ago. It was moving to witness not only Robert’s compassion but also the ministerial role he played while also celebrating his sister’s life. It is a memory and an experience hat has stayed with me and will stay with me.

My gratitude for Robert and his wife Marceline is deep. I treasure them, trust them and love them.

Sincerely,

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That is one of many such letters we have received. We will publish several of them so you know who the people are who the Somerville Cambridge Elder Services very clearly tried to destroy – and how they have played with Robert Bennett’s health and life, while claiming to be concerned about him and his health.

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My concern is that Robert Bennett needs to be home NOW. Considering the Coronavirus it would be criminal for him to be locked up in MGH instead of being home. I saw him walking to the post office on Thursday (the day before the police ‘picked him up’. He was clearly in a great mood, talked about things we needed to talk about, and his strength was amazing. If he is held in the hospital and they are quarantined because of the coronavirus that should result in some kind of action against the people responsible. Return him home.

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You asked? The person who gave Marceline that bible quote which helped her through the day was Lynette Saxe Leveau. The quote – for those who didn’t see the comment on Facebook was ” “No weapon formed against you shall prosper.”

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The Bennett Donaldsons are going to need help paying these legal bills. We hope you will help them and let us know if there are other ways you can help.

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Posted in Marceline Donaldson, Robert Bennett | Comments Off on Living in Cambridge/Boston, MA while Black.

Black in Cambridge/Boston

March 11th, 2020

a series following what is happening to Rev. Dr. Robert A. Bennett and Marceline Donaldson in the Harvard Square area. Please send this to everyone you know – . They need a lot of help – it is a system stacked against them – Being African American, in business, in the Greater Boston area is unbelievably and they are not the only people to whom this has happened.

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by: Marceline Donaldson

My anger is over the top. I am going to pullout every stop to get Robert out of the hospital under a very bogus protective order which was heard without giving notice to both sides.

I will post every thing that happens and I hope you will send these posts to everyone you know.

The latest? I went to Mass General Hospital to see Robert yesterday with my lawyer. We had to wait for Security Guards to come to make sure we didn’t tear the hospital down or whatever was their problem. Two guards appeared to guard the hallways in front of us – two other guards appeared and asked us to step out while they consulted with whoever. We were ushered into a conference room and told we could not see Robert because they were short handed yesterday and did not have the requisite personnel – a policeman and a security guard – to be present during our visit. Who is the “our”? My attorney and myself. My attorney is a well known well respected Cantabridgian and what could an 82 year old woman do to the hospital?

Then we discovered when we received the file from the Court that an attorney had been appointed to represent Robert. Why had the attorney been appointed? Because Robert was declared INDIGENT.

Interestingly, we have the affidavit filed by Somerville Cambridge Elder Services and they talk about two young women who visited our house. After having been in the house to take out a filing calling us INDIGENT is about as racist as life was in the 1930’s for Blacks.

You want to see where these INDIGENT people live? Put in 49 Hawthorn Street Cambridge and there should be pictures of the house valued at about $5 million dollars.

In an earlier filing, the house was considered “unsafe”.

And by the way – it is clear that this is the real issue because the end of those affidavits talk about taking supervision over Robert and his wife – two elderly people who need such supervision.

I think you now can see better what this is about.

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African American Family harassed, demeaned, opened to police harassment and more in Harvard Square Cambridge, MA.

March 4th, 2020

by: Marceline Donaldson

That African American family is mine. The harassment, demeaning, threats and more happened on Tuesday March 3, 2020 in my home. Your home is supposed to be sacred, but was violated on that Tuesday morning in the most horrific ways.

On Tuesday morning, the door bell rang about 10:30am. When I went to open the door there were some 8 policemen (all male, all white) and six or more EMT’s also all white and all male. They were standing on the porch and said they had a “warrant” – a Section 12 order to take my husband out of the home and bring him to Mount Auburn Hospital because he was not safe in his home and they went into so much more.

It was unbelievable. 2020 in the United States with a Constitution and other protections, piled into my home were all of these white males in uniforms which traditionally destroy, harass, kill, maim African Americans.

The last time I felt so terrified was in New Orleans walking on Canal Street on my way to school as a high school student when a man grabbed my hair – which at the time was close to my waistline – and using a cutting instrument he had in his hands he cut it off quite short, nearly breaking my neck in the process. A policeman was standing nearby and instead of responding to my cries, he turned his back and walked away – having seen clearly what happened to me. And now, here I was in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2020 experiencing something very similar only they were after my African American husband.

When I looked out the door there were police cars all over the street, an ambulance, policemen guarding the entry to the house, on the porch and in the house.

When I asked why he was being sent to Mount Auburn Hospital when he had been a patient at Mass General, no one had any answers.

What happened that they felt they had the right? My husband was discharged from Massachusetts General Hospital and sent to Sherrill House for rehab after surgery. When I went to visit him at Sherrill House on Sunday everything seemed fine and I was not unhappy that he was there because as an Episcopal Priest I thought Sherrill House would be a good place for his rehab. It was not my idea to send him to Sherrill House, it was one of the people at the hospital who made the suggestion. I was more interested in him going to Spaulding in Charlestown, but I was told the place which had a bed for him was Sherrill House. With his Episcopal background and my own, I was open to him going there. Once we arrived at Sherrill House I discovered why most of the hospitals I had seen and visited and the related medical places were all white with blacks providing the cleaning and other upkeep services. There is a black and a separate white apartheid system in the Cambridge/Boston area for those who need medical services. Sherrill House was mostly black – African Americans, Caribbeans, etc. The patients were also mostly minority. So that visit to Sherrill House cleared up what I did not understand. Separatism bordering on apartheid is what I was witnessing.

On Monday, when I returned to spend time with my husband I was not allowed to see him. Why? Sherrill House was being quarantined because there were three or four patients with the flu on the second floor where he was staying and that second floor was quarantined to keep the flu from moving further out into the society.

I was unhappy, upset, confused and didn’t understand any of what I was being told. My attention was on what would happen to my husband in a place with three or four people with the flu on the same floor with windows not open and lots of ways the flu could spread to those in the facility – the healthy and those there to become healthier. My husband was not there to come down with the flu, especially with all of the coronavirus possibilities going around. I asked what kind of flu – no one had an answer.

I spent time in the lobby talking to people and the receptionist about what this was about – discovered it was not a first for such to happen at Sherrill House, it had been under quarantine just months prior. My decision was, as my husband’s health proxy, to take him out of Sherrill House. I did not feel he should be exposed to the flu and have to deal with that as well as his recovery. People were going into Sherrill House if they were on the first floor or visiting someone on the first floor. They were going to visit family and/or friends on the third and fourth floors, but the second floor, where my husband was, it was quarantined – no one knew how long this would last nor the extent of what would happen to those on the second floor.

I checked my husband out of Sherrill House that Monday afternoon and we went home – away from an active flu spot exposing him 24 hours a day. I hope you would have done the same thing – if you loved and were concerned about your family. I had not read the reviews of Sherrill House on the internet before Robert went there. The Episcopal connection made me think it would be a great place for him to be. When I read those reviews I was appalled – most of the reviews were not only bad, but talked about the hurt that had unnecessarily happened to patients at Sherrill House, including a death under difficult and what was characterized as negligent circumstances.

Robert was very happy to be home. He was thriving. On Monday, we walked to the post office and enjoyed the rest of the day going places and doing things he enjoyed.

On Tuesday morning all hell broke loose. All of the white policemen and white EMT’s, some 12 to 14 people arrived to in affect, arrest him and take him to a place for people who were seriously alcoholic and had been sent against their will – sectioned because their alcoholism was a danger to them and the society; who had a drug habit on the same level; was a danger to themselves because they were ‘committed’ and sectioned’ because they were a suicide threat; and because they had other mental illnesses which caused them to be forcibly picked up and held in a large emergency room full of security people walking around to make sure the people in that room were ‘safe’. There were a couple ‘runners’ while we were there – people who were constrained and had somehow gotten loose and were chased and returned to an examining room in constraints. That is normaly what this sectioning “warrant” is used for – not the way it was used with Robert.

This ‘arrest’ of my husband was ordered by Cambridge/Somerville Elder Services by a woman who should not have been able to sign such a sectioning order and the Court should have been involved if this were really such a serious threat.. She is a psychologist and none of my husbands reasons for having been in the hospital had to do with psychiatric or psychological reasons. She filled out the forms necessary and noted that she had neither seen, nor examined the patient – she had not seen nor been in his home to see its condition to know whether or not it was ‘safe’ although she declared it unsafe. She was backed by two young women who lied to help her take out this section 12 order. They claimed prescriptions had been sent for Robert to CVS. She claimed that I had been notified by CVS but refused to pick up the prescriptions. When a friend of mine who accompanied us to the hospital and stayed most of the evening as a support checked with CVS all around Cambridge and/or reasonably close to where we live, there were no such prescriptions at CVS waiting for Robert.

We spent 14 hours under this sectioning order which were a strain on my husband and put him under unbelievable stress. No one with any real concern for him or his health would have done this. A call to me would have been in order to attempt to understand and clear up any concerns she may have had. That is what usually happens with people who use these Section 12’s, but she simply filled out the form and sent it to the police for their action. A cruel slam against an African American who racism says does not deserve such consideration.

I insisted that, if Robert had to go, it would be to Mass General instead of Mount Auburn Hospital because it was clear to me there could have been political friendships going on that could make this worse. I wanted to know why the police had been told to take him to Mount Auburn where he had no history and no prior visits.

After their examination, Mass General lifted the sectioning and discharged my husband.

It is time to change this ability of people clearly not qualified to do such to be able to use this sectioning to exercise their racism and other bigotry and possibly even personal vendettas. It was the meanest thing I have seen done to another human being in a very long time. What could have happened with all the white policemen and the circus environment created outside my house with neighbors and others stopping to see what was happening was clearly the possibility of physical harm, extreme emotional and mental stress and a display of racially based violence.

It is clear this would not have happened to a white family in the Harvard Square neighborhood and the police and all the others were able to do what they did because they were dealing with an African American family. In that Brattle Street neighborhood this does not happen. The whites who live there are given much more respect, privacy, and more.

I am talking to attorneys and encourage any attorneys who would like to be involved in this, please don’t hesitate to call and/or visit. This needs to be changed – there should be the necessity of a Court being involved when someone’s freedom is being taken away with what is characterized as a “warrant’; civil rights people need to be involved when this happens to an African American or any other minority family and so much more. Your feedback is requested.

Whether it has relevance or not I do not know, but we published a Bettina Network Blog on Tuesday morning at 5am entitled ‘Hospitals and Bigotry – Institutional Racism, alive and well!’. The police arrived at approximately 10:30am with their section 12

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IT COSTS MONEY TO PRODUCE THIS BLOG. WE HOPE YOU WILL CONTRIBUTE SO WE CAN EXPAND AND CONTINUE THE RESEARCH AND WRITINGS WHICH KEEP YOU KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT MANY THINGS THAT WOULD NOT REACH YOU OTHERWISE ALONG WITH THE OPINIONS AND WORK OF THOSE WHO ARE MEMBERS OF BETTINA NETWORK’s LIFESTYLE COMMUNITY.

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

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale!*

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

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.  This is not a tax deductible contribution. You can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check payable to “Bettina Network, inc.”

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

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 will be used to support the many activities in which we engage to try to make this a better world. 

_________________________________________________________

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 




Posted in #meToo, bigoty, Sherrill House | Comments Off on African American Family harassed, demeaned, opened to police harassment and more in Harvard Square Cambridge, MA.

Hospitals and Bigotry – Institutional Racism, alive and well!

March 3rd, 2020

Every place you live, work, visit is imbued with racism and other forms of bigotry. They are entrenched and have not gone away in spite of the many lives which have been sacrificed to change things.

We stayed away from the medical/health industry for years, but were recently forced to get involved.

What I saw as a child in the deep south is being re-enacted in the Greater Boston area. Racism is alive and well and functioning throughout the health care system. The difference? No one comments or analyzes or tries to change things – from what we could tell.

We recently interacted with two hospitals – Beth Israel and Massachusetts General. The experiences were so different I thought I was in different countries. One was horrific and one was unbelievably good.

Our first interaction was with Beth Israel and we barely survived.

We entered Beth Israel through the Emergency Department. That was a horrifying experience. We were directed by the Primary Care Physician to the wrong Beth Israel. We were directed to a suburb of Boston It did not have what was needed to deal with the problem we presented. It was quite some time – with a serious problem – that we stayed in the waiting room and at first had to endure ugly treatment until one of us complained and then everybody started smiling at us. We were then moved by ambulance to the Beth Israel in the downtown Boston area.

When we arrived we were brought to the examining area. A room with a curtain across the front and lots of equipment. That was time spent for a couple days seeing nobody – waiting for something which didn’t happen – watching what was happening outside this examining room.

There were people stacked all around the hallways in hospital beds which apparently brought them to the hospital. Along every wall – every turn of the corridor, people sick enough to have come to the hospital were all over the place – not in private rooms, not in examining rooms, not in any space which could even remotely be called a room, but in the hallways almost stacked one on top of another.

One of us started walking around the hallways and stopped periodically to try to deal with the shock to our system. At one stop in the middle of the hallway a nurse was vicious accusing us of violating the patients confidentiality by having stopped to catch our breath. My face must have shown the shock I was in, but she was just ripping me apart for this violation of her patients confidentiality. How was that done? When I stopped, in the middle of the hallway, she was in the process of talking to a patient asking questions about that patients health and background. I wasn’t aware of any of that I was just looking around at the horribleness of what was in front of me. I wasn’t even aware of the patient – who was in the hallway, on a hospital bed – apparently rolled there from an ambulance and left barely covered with all kinds of people all around.

I stuttered to the nurse that I wasn’t violating any patients confidentiality I was simply walking down the hall trying to cope with the shock I was feeling. The nurse continued to just rip me apart and demanded that I leave the area. Since we were in the examining room just on the other side of the hallway to the patient who was against what wasn’t even a wall, but a desk. Someone was working at the desk, not family nor medical person involved with this, and was clearly closer to the patient whose rights I supposedly violated and was being ignored by the nurse as someone also possibly violating this patients right to privacy. I don’t know where the nurse expected me to go.

That was just the tip of the iceberg. I was also in shock and reacting to the fact that there was a “bull pen” in the middle of this very large room filled with rows of desks and people working, talking, relaxing, joking in this “bull pen”. What I was shocked about was not all of the above, but by the fact that everyone in that bull pen – the professionals in that part of the hospital, were white. Not black, not brown, not colored, not asian, not any of those things – traditional white northern european types working and communicating back and forth about the patient and hospital business. They were, from what we saw, the closest to the top of the pyramid in that hospital.

As I took in that scene I looked around this very large room and blacks – mostly black women were seated around the periphery of this group, working. They looked as though they were the receptionist for the group, but they were not doing receptionists work.

And other minorities? Blacks occasionally came to the floor working, but they always carried a pail, mop, broom, etc. because they came to clean the examining rooms when a patient left and before another patient arrived.

What was striking was that most of those blacks had Caribbean accents and clearly came from another country.

TO BE CONTINUED

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IT COSTS MONEY TO PRODUCE THIS BLOG. WE HOPE YOU WILL CONTRIBUTE SO WE CAN EXPAND AND CONTINUE THE RESEARCH AND WRITINGS WHICH KEEP YOU KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT MANY THINGS THAT WOULD NOT REACH YOU OTHERWISE ALONG WITH THE OPINIONS AND WORK OF THOSE WHO ARE MEMBERS OF BETTINA NETWORK’s LIFESTYLE COMMUNITY.

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

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale!*

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

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.  This is not a tax deductible contribution. You can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check payable to “Bettina Network, inc.”

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

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 will be used to support the many activities in which we engage to try to make this a better world. 

_________________________________________________________

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 




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Posted in American Corporate Businesses, Bettina Network Blog, Health, health Industry, racism, sexism | Comments Off on Hospitals and Bigotry – Institutional Racism, alive and well!

Real Estate Taxes (cont’d)

February 14th, 2020

Big business – trying to become overwhelmingly bigger – have shown that they will rip off the American public. Sadly, they will do this in partnership with other institutions other financial, governmental and private institutions.

We have spent months looking into real estate taxes and the results make you realize how slanted to “the rich get richer” is this process of banks “escrowing” your taxes.. The end of that little ditty is “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” Problem with that is the poor are marketed to in ways to make them believe they are really doing very well, especially as compared to the poor in other countries. In fact, the machinery – the mechanism by which the rich get richer comes from the hard work and back breaking life lived by the poor. All the penny pinching most folks do would not have to be done if these little things in life were changed so the money of the middle class and the poor is kept by them and not “given” to those in the upper stratosphere of wealth.

Real estate taxes is a biggy.

The reason banks have become bullies and push people around as badly as they do can be traced directly back to real estate taxes. A mechanism used to make sure banks can use tens of billions of dollars of poor to middle class folks money to do whatever they choose and the banks and some other financial institutions benefit grandly because they pay nothing for the use of that money. Some of the money squandered by financial institutions in this last “fall out” came from your giving your real estate taxes to banks to use as they please – for free. They were way too wealthy to be careful – why should they, it wasn’t their hard-earned money. It was majorly your money given to banks to do with as they please returning nothing to you. We have not been able to find one bank that would give us anything “for free”. Everything banks offer comes with a high price tag to those to whom their “largesse” is offered. Some of the things they claim are “free” are the things which come with the highest price tags.

How does this happen?

When you take out a mortgage you are asked to escrow your real estate taxes – in other words – the bank will add a monthly charge to your mortgage-plus-interest due each month for the purpose of collecting and keeping your real estate taxes until they pay the city or other government entity which has determined that is what you owe. You make your payments to the bank monthly, they make their payments to the city every six months. Divide what you owe the governmental institution that collects real estate taxes into twelve and that is added to your monthly mortgage total. Just think of how you could live if you had that deal with the public. What a fantastic hedge fund you could create or other such investment vehicle – or you could just squander it all on nothing.

In addition, banks have other ways to force the issue.

One cute way is to wait until after the mortgage closes – with nothing said to you about real estate taxes and then the bank will surprise you when you receive statements including, adding in, additions to your mortgage. That would be mortgage-plus interest – plus 1/12th your real estate tax bill. Complain and several possibilities come into play – you are told ‘if you show us you can handle the two bills then in three to six months you can pay your own real estate taxes.’ Until then you have to pay your real estate taxes to us each month in addition to your mortgage plus interest. What do you get from the bank in return? An amount of interest equivalent to what you would receive if you had that money in a savings account, stock account, other account you may have? – not on your life. You get nothing.

But – you were investigated and went through a whole process during which the bank determined you qualified for the mortgage. They look at your income compared to the expenses you will incur with your new mortgage so you already qualified and should not have to “prove” anything.

Another thing said to people – Sorry, we must have had a misunderstanding. We escrow real estate taxes for everyone. You are not an exception. We did talk about that with you – no they didn’t – and, they then claim, ” you must not have understood.”

Why do banks play these games?

It brings them billions of dollars into the bank for their use – free. It is what allows them to bully you and the rest of the world in other ways.

We urge you to pay your own real estate taxes. Do whatever you have to do so you control the payment of those real estate taxes.

How do they work with real estate taxes in other ways?

Your city or whatever agency set real estate taxes in place, determines how much you pay for real estate taxes. They also put in place ways to help those who are having problems so they don’t loose their homes. They pass such through their City Council or other relevant agency and the bank counters and makes sure that is in name only – not a reality anyone can actually use when they need that kind of help.

One way many cities are working to help the elderly stay in their homes is by allowing people who are 65 or 75, or whatever age the city determines, to be able to apply to have their taxes deferred. There are also tax deferrals given to citizens, not yet at the required age for the elderly, based on other needs. You accumulate interest on the amounts deferred and when you die or sell the house the city is repaid including interest and the elderly person has had some breathing room and has been able to make decisions they could not make otherwise. One very large decision is that such a policy allows the elderly and others to stay in their homes. That also lifts some major expenses from the city which otherwise would probably have to subsidize housing for people in these situations were this not possible.

At least that is how it is supposed to work – in theory.

In actual fact, it does not work like that. We contacted several cities and discovered they had practically no elderly people with deferred real estate taxes. Why? Because the banks decided they would not go along with such a program and denied the person the right the city granted. Since cities have written an ‘escape’ clause into such programs – the bank power is what determines if those programs are viable or not.

The escape clauses, which are 100% active in such programs, says you can defer your taxes if your bank agrees to such a deferral – and they know full well when they come through with such a statement the bank will not agree to the deferral no matter how much equity an elderly person has in their home. – It is clear this is a game and not a real attempt to help the elderly and others bridge a time of life when they need such help.

There are many such ways games are being played while the city looks good to its elderly citizens and passes the buck to the bank. Banks are happy to go along with that program. They receive billions for their effort.

What to do: To pay your real estate taxes you have many options, especially if you need to put money aside monthly so you will have what you need when the time comes to pay the taxes. You can open a stock account with one of the online brokerage firms and put the amount into that account. Put so much in each month – or every other month – whichever best suits your finances. You can open a savings account, with a bank or credit union or, and put in whatever you need over a monthly or bi-monthly or what works best for you based on the time interval over which you receive your income. With an online brokerage, a savings account, a credit union account or whatever you choose, you can send your taxes to the city electronically or you can transfer the money to your checking account and pay the city by check. You have untold options on how to handle this.

Even if it turns out you will not make huge amounts of money – at least it is your money and you are receiving whatever earnings come from the use of your money. When you control your money you have a kind of power that helps to keep you financially viable in this society.

You need to always keep tight control of your money. Do not let anyone automatically transfer money from your account. At some point that will go against you and you will feel the helplessness of not being able to do anything about whatever is being done to you and such things happen lots – by accident – on purpose – by theft.

Laws are not going to mitigate what the banks are doing. You need to do that by paying your real estate taxes to the entity which determined you have to pay so much to them to own a house. There are problems with that, but this blog is focused on you controlling your money and paying to the entities you need to pay to when you need to pay to them and not otherwise allowing other institutions to come in, take over your money, use it for free for whatever they so choose and leave you minus what you could have if you kept control of those functions.

If you have comments, questions, etc. please feel free to email us at bettina-network@comcast.net

________________________________________


IT COSTS MONEY TO PRODUCE THIS BLOG. WE HOPE YOU WILL CONTRIBUTE SO WE CAN EXPAND AND CONTINUE THE RESEARCH AND WRITINGS WHICH KEEP YOU KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT MANY THINGS THAT WOULD NOT REACH YOU OTHERWISE ALONG WITH THE OPINIONS AND WORK OF THOSE WHO ARE MEMBERS OF BETTINA NETWORK’s LIFESTYLE COMMUNITY.

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

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale!*

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

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.  This is not a tax deductible contribution. You can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check payable to “Bettina Network, inc.”

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

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 will be used to support the many activities in which we engage to try to make this a better world. 

_________________________________________________________

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 




Tags: ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Real Estate Taxes (cont’d)

William Barr’s Memberships!

February 12th, 2020

Looking at what William Barr is doing for Trump, I winder if this does not come out of a membership in Opus Dei. Read up on this organization and if you have more knowledge about this, please let Bettina Network Blog people know. I have thought this was true for sometime now, but I have no way to check on its veracity. Barr certainly acts like a substantial member of this group. And so does Vice President Pence.

_______________________________________________


IT COSTS MONEY TO PRODUCE THIS BLOG. WE HOPE YOU WILL CONTRIBUTE SO WE CAN EXPAND AND CONTINUE THE RESEARCH AND WRITINGS WHICH KEEP YOU KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT MANY THINGS THAT WOULD NOT REACH YOU OTHERWISE ALONG WITH THE OPINIONS AND WORK OF THOSE WHO ARE MEMBERS OF BETTINA NETWORK’s LIFESTYLE COMMUNITY.

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

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale!*

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

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.  This is not a tax deductible contribution. You can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check payable to “Bettina Network, inc.”

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

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 will be used to support the many activities in which we engage to try to make this a better world. 

_________________________________________________________

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 




Tags: , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on William Barr’s Memberships!

Romney – Pelosi – Trump

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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Posted in #DonaldTrump, #JosephMcCarthy, #meToo, #MichaelPence, #NancyPelosi, Adolph Hitler, Attorney General Barr, Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas, Congressman Jim Jordan, Episcopal Church, Feminism | Comments Off on Romney – Pelosi – Trump

Bettina Members talk Trump!

February 5th, 2020

Ed. Note: It seems to be all Trump all the time. A disgusting use of resources. It also seems that those who were looking for ways to maintain their White Privilege and White Nationalism and just plain bigotry over many areas have been able to do so with the foul backing of this man who calls himself President of these United States.

We received much, from Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Members, about the State of the Union address many times yesterday starting in the morning and becoming a tsunami by the time it was over. Mostly, people are becoming unanimous in their call for Trump’s removal because he was never legitimately elected in the first place and that call is beginning to be heard. When foreign governments interfere with an election – in some ways that won’t be known for decades – it is time to stop being “nice”; stop trying to preserve the un-preservable and time to speak truth. That has not happened and clearly is not going to happen.

We are including here a few responses which represent the main complaints we received.

Bettina Member #1 – It is amazing to hear the lies being told by the President of the United States on television and during the State of the Union. Starting with “his” promotion of Charles McGee to Brigadier General. https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2019/december/19/tuskegee-airman-mcgee-to-be-promoted-to-brigadier-general

This was an honorary promotion backed by others, not Donald Trump, although at this State of the Union speech he did take credit. What was needed was for President Trump, who was not responsible for this promotion, to add his own touch by making sure that Charles McGee received the difference in salary and pension benefits that he would have received had this honor happened decades earlier.

As a part of the Tuskegee Airmen, Brigadier General McGee went through much trauma during his early adulthood, his time in the armed services and pushing ahead with a life of service. He deserves at least that salary and those pension benefits even though it comes years later.

What I also need to say in this publication I will take from the Facebook posting that Marceline Donaldson put out last night during Trump’s speech. You all need to read that posting.

What was the Trump family doing during the time of Charles McGee’s epic struggle to help this country succeed in its struggle happening at the time with the other Tuskegee Airmen trying to do their duty to this country? Trumps were building apartments in Queens, New York and refusing to rent those apartments to African Americans. It was so bad, the United States government stepped in to force them to stop that racist practice.

How did the Trump family do this? They blocked, obfuscated, obstructed the Courts and refused to produce what was normally expected to be produced in Court. They disrespected all of us by disrespecting the Court System under which they lived. They generally acted the way Trump acted recently obstructing Congress, demanding the right to continue their unlawful practice without any penalties for having violated the law. It is a behavior model Donald Trump has followed in all the many ways he has violated the rights of citizens, immigrants, businesses and anyone and/or any group he felt the need to rip off for what he perceived to be to his benefit and today he has even hired the lawyers who worked for him to rip off students through Trump University to defend him in this impeachment action and they complied, using the same tactics. Rip off students, rip off U. S. citizens, rip off whoever. A Trump family theme song. Now about to be practiced again as his son-in-law works with others to set up the rip off of Palestinians.

To TELL THE TRUTH is not something Donald Trump does. To TAKE CREDIT FOR WHAT OTHERS HAVE DONE is something Donald Trump does regularly and does not give credit to those who actually did that for what he claims credit.

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Bettina Member #2 It is amazing how much Donald Trump needs to attempt to put down Barack Obama and use that attempt at trashing Obama to build himself up and to take credit for work done by Obama. It has been one of the consistencies of Trump’s presidency. Whenever I hear him – once again – putting down Obama I know he is trying to cover up what he has done that is not great and is trying to take credit for someone else’s work, assuming his base will follow along – after all their reward is to remain being “better than.” in this case, he attempted throughout his talk to take credit for the current state of the economy of the United States. We will pay, over years. for what Donald Trump is doing today attempting to become an Oligarch.

Trump claimed in this State of the Union speech that he took over an economy which was failing and a mess and he moved in, took it over and produced a great and successful and the best economy ever seen on the face of the earth. What Trump took over was an economy that Obama turned around from moving into a depression under George Bush into an economy which is now in its 10th year of moving ahead. The economy is moving ahead in spite of the many ways Trump has tried to sink this economy, but it was too strong for him to accomplish the last wish in Putin’s Christmas stocking left for Santa Trump Claus.

It is also time for the media and others to recognize what Barack Obama accomplished and to give him credit for the work of his administration and stop sucking up to Trump, who is not going to favor you with any interviews that mean anything to your career over the long run. That will sink your career because it shows your inability to analyze and report what is most important seeing the lines, strings, things that lead to others things which need to be reported on accurately not in ways that CYA so you can continue sucking up to Trump for what you think is the protection of your future.

Trump’s racism is so strong he assumes the citizens of this country and those around the world will believe him when he trashes Obama. Amazingly, some of them do believe him, not because what Trump is saying is true, but because their racism needs the relief of someone trashing a fantastic human being who is also African American. Extreme bigotry works that way. It is why so many African communities after Reconstruction were trashed and people massacred with so many laws passed to attempt to keep the lid on the possibility that African Americans stolen from other countries would always be subjected to their needs and their control

This is why Andrew Jackson could push forward with his Trail of Tears. It is why Donald Trump can now claim to be President of the United States and he knows he holds his office because of the need people have, like those who created and now are members of the KKK, the White Nationalists, the neo-Nazi’s, etc. They cannot live with the reality that they are equal to and not greater than those who are not the same color, the same sex, the same everything. Most times, those trying to lift themselves up on the backs of others are society’s failures who manage through manipulation and other such means to achieve. How could anyone believe an African American could achieve what Barack Obama achieved by being a decent, truthful, God loving man? Many can believe such, but not those with the extreme bigotry of a Donald Trump and his followers. Obama was not perfect, but his failings were the failings of a human being who believed in what he was doing and accomplishing and not in creating a smoke screen on which he could project things he wanted people to believe he excelled in and did while actually being furiously failing in life and destroying everything he touched – as is the case with Donald Trump.

Lets put Trump’s criticisms and claims into perspective and put out there the reasons he dumps on so many people.

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Bettina Member #3 I am so tired of hearing how divided we are as a country – never before have we been so divided against each other. And then the story goes into the many ways this is shown.

It is time TO TELL THE TRUTH.

We are not so divided in this new era of one person against another. One House of Congress against another. We are pretty much where we have always been, if anything we are less divided than we have been in the past and we are in a position to be able to resolve some age old separations which were killing of human beings and deprived many of their rights under the Constitution in this country.

Why? How?

We have appeared to be together, but we have been a country of White Supremacy over all. When we seemed to be less divided we were more successfully divided against those we wanted to keep down – those less than.

We have had a Congress of all white, all male representatives. We have had businesses of all white, all male representatives and they worked together behind closed doors on how to rip off the rest of us – and they did that very successfully.

Well, today, we are not more divided, we are more representative. We have at least one half of Congress with representatives from many different groups working together to make sure we are all represented and to keep in check people like the racists, sexists, total bigots on everything from religion to sexual orientation to culture to language .

In every corner of this country there are people challenging others on their need to be “better than” and their push to keep white northern european males superior in every way. There are also those who are trying to make sure any advances made are being done by that one group and being served by so called “minorities.”

That has changed because those minorities will very soon be the majority and people like Donald Trump are manipulating and attempting to become extremely wealthy by ripping off even those they claim to partner with to maintain that superiority. They will even destroy the planet in the process.

That is not new. We have a planet on the verge of destruction because that white, male, northern european group has gained its advantage, its wealth, its clout by promoting themselves, their businesses, their lifestyle in ways that have hurt us all and demanded and still demands the birthright to be able to continue to do such. That is certainly the message of Trump to his followers – they will back him and he will maintain the Supremacy they are accustomed to even if they don’t gain materially or in any way benefit therefrom – other than in the maintenance of their identity as superior.

To root that out of society is an impossibly difficult task. It is one that has currently taken over the look of extreme division because the minorities have gained some power, a little money and have maintained the values, the morality, the spiritual beliefs with which they were raised and with those things they intend to make sure the places where they live and work remain under an ethical system which recognizes the equality of us all. That is very divisive and will be until the group that was the “majority” group gives up and decides to back down and take the lesser place of equality.

Instead of walking into that sunset, we are hearing public complaints and warnings about how “divisive” some folks are; how divided we are and how horrible that is and will be for the government and society in which we live. So many warnings are now coming out to help scare us all and attempt to force us to back off. Those warnings are coming from those who claim to be on “our side”. Who want to see this new world come into being just not with such divisiveness. Lets keep the status quo for a time until we can work out the problems and then lets move forward together.

That was the old argument – now in new clothes – which paraded around the King Movement, the Malcolm X movement, the NOW movement, the feminists of all kinds organizing to change society from a “better than” to an “equal to” society, in the LGBTQ Society – ‘lets opt to work for marriage equality and those things that are culturally accepted and makes us like everybody else.

That is why we are still having to fight so hard. The evil in us comes out and we cannot stand to see such goodness about to break through into this world. ‘What will I do if I am expected to be equal?’

During the Black Civil Rights Movement it was said the only way to solve the problem of racism is for Whites to give up White Privilege. In todays world Whites who have done just that have been singled out by the media and others and the attempt to destroy them has been unrelenting. Somehow, a White woman giving up her “white superiority” is a super huge threat.

We have attempted to make life a living hell for the few who came out publicly with such a declaration .

A White Male who comes out and claims he is not going to take it anymore announces he is running for President under the name Donald Trump. He is going to move to make sure equality does not come about. He is going to run for president because he sees and feels the fear in others as they look at such a possibility. He is going to become super wealthy with his friends by fighting against such and he will become the greatest man who ever lived. He was so insistent on his way of living he has now taken to comparing himself to Jesus and he has followers who are beginning to promote such beliefs.

He has corrupted the Republican Party and it has become a cult, following him down this road. He has combined with those like minded people who want to accomplish their ascendency over others for power and control. He is training his children to do the same thing and they have learned well at his knee.

He has been so successful that today he is working, successfully, to bring in the teachings and work of Joseph McCarthy accusing folks of Socialism and now moving to accusations of Communism which are the charges McCarthy made which totally disrupted these United States. He won’t move directly into the way McCarthy moved, but he does understand the pattern and will make a few cuts to make it fit his ways.

where will it end. Will the equal people succeed? Will the fascists come back and take over pushing us back brutally with killings and violence and their Concentration Camps to get things back to normal?

Our current president is pulling for the return of the fascists with him being the chief. He certainly has the ability to lie, cheat and steal to make it happen and worth his while.

Stay tuned. Hope you are on the right side.

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Posted in #DonaldTrump, #JosephMcCarthy, #meToo, African American history, American Corporate Businesses | Comments Off on Bettina Members talk Trump!

Before You Acquit Donald Trump!

February 3rd, 2020

Bettina Network Oracle speaks:

Ed Note: We have called in the Bettina Network Oracle because much needs to be revealed which is not now showing and we thought it was important to be able to put out whatever the oracle had to say – good, bad or indifferent.

“It is amazing that you have to call me in to say what is obvious. If humans in the United States will only get to know their history they will be able to see immediately the background for anything that happens in the U. S.

What is going on with this impeachment and all the other related things?

If you go over a review of your United States history you will see it is about time for a movement to come along, once again, to force the politics, business, legal, social sides of the United States to remain stringently White, Male, Northern European. Things are beginning to get out of hand, if you are one of those who sees his or her identity beginning to disappear into an identity of equality.

Such a movement that we are now seeing, which put Donald Trump and his family and friends in office was necessary for those who have benefitted from an identity which holds them above everyone else and keeps them preferred for those positions and other things on top of the society with basically the jobs and lifestyles to support that superior lifestyle going to those considered “lesser people”.

Such times have arrived and it has been brutal. Hopefully, this will be different, but it does not look hopeful.

To understand today take a look at what happened after the Civil War and after Reconstruction. Those who were accustomed to turning human beings into slaves and put in place an institutional structure which defined themselves as much better than others were horrified at the fact that Reconstruction was moving fast to make every citizen of the United States equal to every other citizen. The outrage of those who lost the war and some of those in the north who quietly approved of what the confederate people were doing began to make itself felt in massacres, lynchings of those who attempted to vote and were not white and male and those who were in the upper classes. The horribleness of what happened to those who thought they were equal to and moved to make that a part of the structure of society was horrendous.

Your Michael Bloomberg gave a talk recently which went back to recapture the history of the massacre in Tulsa Oklahoma when a small city of Blacks which worked hard and smart and was called the “Black Wall Street” was destroyed. Whites who could not stand seeing Blacks even survive went into that city and killed men, women, children and burned the homes and businesses in the city to the ground until there was nothing left except the remains of the carnage from the Whites who were unable to live with themselves if they were not “on top”, “better than”, reducing Blacks to nothingness and poverty through their own actions and blamed the Blacks for the situation they were in.

If you are having a difficult time understanding those who are defending Donald Trump and those working with him to bring about something very similar – think on those and other such happenings which are not captured in our history books unless you take the time to search long and hard to find such happenings.

Joseph McCarthy, a United States Senator came along several decades after the carnage in Tulsa and caused huge misplacements of the same kind, but he did it using the governmental processes. It was not the physical massacre, but he did an excellent job He called hearings and set up circumstances under which he and his followers and helpers could destroy anyone by calling them “Communists”. Many lives were destroyed in that process. It was not the kind of physical massacre that happened in Tulsa, but it was a massacre nonetheless.

Your present president knows about that because he had experience on the side of those doing that damage. He learned the craft he is now practicing at the feet of Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn during the days of those hearings and he has been looking for a way to bring that kind of ugliness back into the society so he will have more complete control over these United States. He started recently to bring McCarthyism back as he turned to accuse your Bernie Sanders of being a “Soviet- style Communist.” You will hear more of the same from him as he tries to bring others under that banner and see that they receive the kind of abuse that will bring them down and him up. Add his immigration killings and so much more and you will have a more complete picture of his lack of a soul.

Songs were written because of the viciousness of many trying to keep one group of people down. “Strange Fruit” – which you can hear on this blog with the story of its writing, came about because of the hundreds of Africans who were hung from trees ( which is the “Strange Fruit) because they dared to vote.

There are many more such happenings. Just search history and you will be overwhelmed at the evil it contains.

Andrew Jackson, Donald Trump’s favorite president, was censured for his actions which could be compared to Trump’s. He also was the president under whom the Trail of Tears happened during which thousands of Native Americans were destroyed. They were forced to walk from the Southeast to the middle of the country so Whites could live where their homes had been for generations. They walked with nothing – no food, no clothes, no place to sleep, and on and on it goes. This done by Donald Trump’s favorite president. How have you missed all of this? Or is it of no consequent to you?

I could go on for pages to make this a book instead of an article and there would be other such happenings still not included. When Trump embraced Andrew Jackson as his favorite president he was giving a message to the world. Some heard him loud and clear and knew from that point on how to deal with him and what to expect. Others, who did not have the ability to understand the connection still don’t get why Jacksons portrait is in the Oval Office and other such connections. The Trail of Tears was a time of killings and more which could parallel what has been started with the immigration and the way children and others are being treated. Did you realize death has come to some of the children put in “cold boxes” if they were sick and other such incredibly inhumane things?

And now, today, we are experiencing the beginnings of yet another one. Donald Trump is the evil who has come along to do what his mentors did and those in Reconstruction times did, and the KKK did with their lynchings and what so many others have done.

In past times, you came to me asking about what was happening with the immigrants and others things beginning to surface looking very much like the beginnings of Hitlers Germany. Didn’t that mean anything to anyone? What I said in answer to your questions has now come about. What good is it to give you this information if you ignore it and go ahead doing what will not be effective?

Don’t be so foolish as to be a part of the evil beginning to rain down on your United States. This is only the beginning. It is a gathering storm which will tear the world apart for one man’s power needs.

When there are as many leaders as you now have in your U. S. Senate who are willing to compromise their very soul for status, money, power and more, hope is a small flickering candle being buffeted in the winds blowing all around it and that candle will not be lit for long. When it goes out – so has hope.

Be very careful, you are playing with your eternity. Even small actions now count.

Posted in #DonaldTrump, #JosephMcCarthy, #meToo, Adolph Hitler, African American history, American Corporate Businesses, American Oligarchs, Armenian Genocide, Bettina Network Educational Institute | Comments Off on Before You Acquit Donald Trump!

Bettina Members Respond to Trump

February 1st, 2020

Bettina Member Speaks: Thank you for the blog on Kobe Bryant. No one wants to go there, but Donald Trump has pulled out all the stops to distract from his horribleness and he has been very good at it. It took me quite awhile before I realized the distractions he and his followers apparently created were just that and neither news nor anything else. When it came to the time of Trump’s trial to remove him from office it is clear there would be another distraction to make other distractions look small by comparison to attempt to lessen the impact of his criminality being in the news. Kobe Bryant’s death was just that and its timing was exactly at the time Trump needed such. It did serve as a distraction like nothing else could have.

When John Bolton’s book excerpts started coming out at the same time as Trump’s removal trials were starting, I felt something really big would happen because something outrageous and vile and extremely evil would be needed to attempt to diminish Trump’s negative headlines. After the killing of the guy at the top of Iran happened because Trump gave the order for what looked like the same reasons, it did come to mind that someone could have caused Kobe Bryant’s death and that someone would probably be Donald Trump and his supporters. No one has had the guts to say anything about that, but you folks always come out with truth and this could very well be truth and not a conspiracy theory.

Looking at what is happening around the world, it all seems geared to keeping a white master race over all. So it has been almost from the beginning of this country and so it is now. Those in control have been feeling insecure as the United States moves towards the minorities becoming the majority and the same thing is happening in other parts of the world. The people fighting to maintain the kind of control they have maintained over the generations is becoming more visible and shows their insecurity and the lengths they will go to maintain themselves as white and – as you folks would say – “better than.” Russia, under Putin, is the first to come to mind and aren’t they a very white nation? And on and on it goes.

You had a down time with the blog which worried me. I called to find out what was happening that we weren’t seeing blogs. I was sure before I called you would be in the midst of some kind of harassment, but I was equally sure you would come out of it. Glad to see you back. I am enclosing a contribution to keep you keeping on. Keep fighting back. You are trying to combine a great business with an outlet for those who who use your services to have things to say that are not credibly being said by others. Keep it coming and don’t let up.

You have lots of followers, lots of love and many people pulling for your success. We know what happened with Airbnb and it was ugly. Every time I see their name I get angry, especially when I see the mess they are making of what was a fantastic industry that survived over the generations. I also see Marceline’s family background in journalism coming through. That is a powerful combination and I hope you pull it off. – call me when you need help and I will certainly positively respond. In the meantime, I will be out here spreading the word about all of you and your business.

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Ed. Note: Thank you so much for the contribution and for being there for us as we move ahead growing and changing the business, keeping the blog moving towards our goal of a media outlet which puts out the ideas and more that we pick up in the process of meeting folks who become supporters and our source of news, ideas and more. You are the reason we keep going.

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IT COSTS MONEY TO PRODUCE THIS BLOG. WE HOPE YOU WILL CONTRIBUTE SO WE CAN EXPAND AND CONTINUE THE RESEARCH AND WRITINGS WHICH KEEP YOU KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT MANY THINGS THAT WOULD NOT REACH YOU OTHERWISE ALONG WITH THE OPINIONS AND WORK OF THOSE WHO ARE MEMBERS OF BETTINA NETWORK’s LIFESTYLE COMMUNITY.

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

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale!*

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

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.  This is not a tax deductible contribution. You can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check payable to “Bettina Network, inc.”

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

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 will be used to support the many activities in which we engage to try to make this a better world. 

_________________________________________________________

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 




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Posted in #DonaldTrump, #KobeBryant, #meToo, Airbnb, Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Blog Response, Conspiracy Theories, Donald Trump, racism, sexism | Comments Off on Bettina Members Respond to Trump

The Most Corrupt Country is the U. S.?

January 30th, 2020

by: Marceline Donaldson

It is amazing to watch and listen to the impeachment trial of Donald Trump.

I was a Republican from the time I first voted. Coming from the deep south and with a relative a few generations removed who was head of the Louisiana Republican Party and who was African American; and coming from a part of the country where African Americans were harassed and sometimes lost their lives if they registered and voted; and knowing that the back-up you had to even partially participate in the political life of the United States was the Republican Party; and having experienced the ugliness of the Democratic Party at that time and its close relationship with the KKK and other White Nationalist Groups, I didn’t see any other choice.

I stuck with the Republican Party for decades after it was clear the direction the Party was taking, I kept trying to say – honor your history – look at where you are going – see the Democratic Party refusing to seat Blacks at their Convention – but look at the overwhelming numbers of racists joining the Republican Party – be loyal to the Republicans – forget that, look at where the Democratic Party is going and doesn’t that look as though the two Parties are going to exchange places! Clearly, I overstayed my welcome in the Republican Party by decades. And as I tried to be some kind of mitigating force I should have given up years ago as the handwriting was clearly on the wall.

My Waterloo came when Donald Trump became the Party nominee for president. It was unbelievable. I followed Trump for years; knew his extreme racism; saw his talent for taking every corrupt advantage that presented itself and who very carefully walked past the high road as though he had a terminal allergy to such; saw the sexual abuse and assault charges against him which constantly reached newspaper headlines and saw the extreme corruption accompanied by a set of morals which hit the gutter and kept going down.

Even with all of that, I could not imagine him nor anyone else reaching the presidency of the United States and being so unbelievably, publicly, corrupt. He was and is clearly what Corporate America could become and is becoming as Trump leads the way. All of my civil rights and other fights surfaced extreme evil in these United States, but there was always these clouds of good which seemed to gain the advantage and take us in a different better direction. That has almost come to a halt with Trump and the evil forces have become unbelievably strong.

I have been trying to look into who are his followers. We don’t want to believe the racism in these United States, however, there can be no dispute that whatever Trump does is acceptable to his followers because he has given out the clear signal that he will do his thing and make himself rich and powerful at the expense of the rest of us and his followers will accept and glorify him in spite of that, because he will keep back the hordes of minorities who will soon be the majority and in keeping them constantly submerged, oppressed, fighting for their economic and actual lives so he has the space to keep the United States Government, Corporate America and every other crack and crevice in this country where power resides White, Northern European and male. He is keeping his pledge to his supporters and they are keeping their pledge to him. In other words, he has made a pact with his followers that he will preserve their identity as being a part of a country where the overwhelming money, power and everything else resides in the White, Male, Northern European with the rest of us picking up the pieces they cast aside and being used as the scapegoats to justify their claimed greatness that they hold up as who they are.

Trump seems to have been taking lessons and receiving support from Putin in Russia, Erdogan in Turkey, the prince in Saudi Arabia and a few other smaller actors and putting those lessons to great service to his cause – which is the aggrandizement of himself, the accumulation of limitless wealth, the power to do whatever he wants with some of the most corrupt people who have made it to a substantial place in this society supporting and coming around him to add to the evil he is spreading all over the world. It is clear his supporters on this high level supporting and covering up his evil have been on a questionable moral level as they moved through their professional lives, but they did not show themselves as corrupt as they could be and have become in their push to support Trump and cover-up his sins that he is spewing over all of us. The problems Putin, Erdogan and the Prince are going to have will surface – big time – if Trump clears these hurdles. His needs are limitless and with the United States swamping their countries in wealth, power and much else, he will be quick to put them in their places and they will not begin to be Trump’s equal.

We have a president of these United States who is a sexual abuser and assaulter of almost two dozen women who have come forth and made their charges against him. Who knows how many others there are who have not had the courage or moral fortitude to come out with what happened to them. He sees his sexual abuse as his right and nothing wrong with his assaulting women – he has earned the right.

We have a president of these United States who has “stolen” the hard work of those ordinary citizens who worked hard to build a business and had him come along to destroy – in some cases – their life’s work. Again, he sees that as his right and normal for him. He is doing that to these United States and to as many people in it or trying to cross over to become a part of these United States as he needs to destroy to push himself and keep himself at the top of power and wealth.

As I interact with many of his supporters, I feel the need to go home and take a long, hot shower. You know this kind of evil exists, but you don’t normally encounter it on such a prolonged basis. What is horrible about the encounters I have had is the attitude of his supporters that they are right, good and Trump is doing nothing but supporting their current identity as better than and their right to continue to be better than.

When Nixon resigned it was said he did so because he did not want to put this country through the trauma that would come if he stayed to fight. That wasn’t so real to me when it happened, I was enmeshed in the horror of what he did and his attitude towards it. As I see what Trump is putting this country through so he can stay in power and do all of the other evils that he has to do to stay in power, I understand the gift to this country that Nixon gave us as a partial atonement for his sins.

There are questions in all of this that I have not heard asked or answered. The most crucial is the one I have been asking for months and at times on this blog – We all acknowledge that Mitch McConnell kept Barack Obama from being able to appoint a Supreme Court Justice during the end of his time in office. I don’t hear anyone talking about, asking about, being amazed and disgusted about the conclusion one has to come to about Mitch McConnell when the answer to that questions begins to dawn. – “What did Mitch McConnell know about the intervention of foreign governments and their heads intervening and manipulating our presidential election. What does he know and what does he see as his involvement in this world when that success happens.”

My conclusions about Mitch McConnell is that he is beholden to and working with foreign influencers who want control over these United States. When McConnell started withholding the Supreme Court nomination from Obama it looked as though Hillary Clinton was going to be the next president of these United States. Clearly, McConnell was not keeping the Supreme Court nominee from Obama to give Hillary the ability to make such an appointment. It seems to me he had to have knowledge that the results of that election would be Donald Trump being elected president and that would be the beginning of his and his groups’ appointing judges who would do their bidding and change this country for decades if not generations – as a beginning of what they would do. If he did indeed have such knowledge, what were and are his involvements in what would be treason. We haven’t heard much of anything about that.

And then there is the role of Pence………………

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IT COSTS MONEY TO PRODUCE THIS BLOG. WE HOPE YOU WILL CONTRIBUTE SO WE CAN EXPAND AND CONTINUE THE RESEARCH AND WRITINGS WHICH KEEP YOU KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT MANY THINGS THAT WOULD NOT REACH YOU OTHERWISE ALONG WITH THE OPINIONS AND WORK OF THOSE WHO ARE MEMBERS OF BETTINA NETWORK’s LIFESTYLE COMMUNITY.

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

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale!*

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

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.  This is not a tax deductible contribution. You can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check payable to “Bettina Network, inc.”

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

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 will be used to support the many activities in which we engage to try to make this a better world. 

_________________________________________________________

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 




Posted in #DonaldTrump, #meToo, #MichaelPence, African American history, American Corporate Businesses, American Oligarchs | Comments Off on The Most Corrupt Country is the U. S.?

A Beauty Treatment for the Ages

January 29th, 2020

I have been so tired of spending obscene amounts of money on beauty products which don’t work. I decided to work with a friend and explore what alternative food/real things would do without the boost from chemicals and other additives which I think do more harm to your skin and health than good.

Alicia Keyes gave us a boost when she announced she was finished with makeup/lipstick, etc. If she can do it where her livelihood is partially determined by her looks then we can experiment where our looks are totally irrelevant to our lives.

We’ve seen and read other articles on this Bettina Network’s Blog about how others stay fresh looking for a lifetime. We took that advice to heart, but decided we wanted to explore something in addition.

First – we gave up lipstick. That didn’t work too well because we wound up with seriously chapped lips.

We cleaned our faces of all makeup and we were ready to start with notebook in hand.

Second – we tried liquid vitamin C. The kind you buy in what looks like an orange milk container. After rinsing our faces by splashing warm water 10 times (picked up from this blog), we poured a bit of liquid vitamin C into our cupped hands and gave our faces the once over by rubbing the liquid C into our skin. This might also make a great overall massage medium, but we weren’t ready to go there yet.

We let the vitamin C stay on our skin as we went about our morning chores.

About noon, when we had to go on errands outside of the house, we rinsed off the vitamin C, looked in the mirror and were delighted with the results.

But – being encouraged with that success, we were only egged on to try more. Maybe we could drop some 30 years off our face. It is worth a try.

Third – while the vitamin C was great, we needed something in addition like an oil to give our faces a finish. We turned to the blog written by Marceline who gave out her deepest secrets and thought we would try the vitamin A – E thing. We weren’t yet ready to try adding her dry milk thing.

The next morning when we met for our next step beauty treatment we rinsed our faces again with very warm water splashing it on from cupped hands for what is now a requisite 10 times. We decided not to wipe our faces dry with a towel, but to let the water evaporate.

Once dry we re-did the liquid vitamin C pouring it into our cupped hands and massaging it into our skin and we included around our eyes – although we were kind of scared about doing that, but what the —-.

After about half an hour we rinsed off the liquid vitamin C and clipped a vitamin A capsule (actually it took two capsules to cover our faces and each was 10,000) gave ourselves a careful facial massage, especially paying attention to our eye lids and under the eye because we decided that just might help our eyesight, having discovered the possibility of an eye stroke as you grow older.

After rubbing in the vitamin A we clipped a vitamin E capsule and rubbed that into our facial skin over the vitamin A and off we went for the day.

Needless to say we looked rather “oily” because we did nothing to mitigate the oily look that created.

We decided we really needed to do something about that oily look because it was not the best so I rinsed by face with the cupped hands and at least 10 times splashing warm water on my skin while my co-experimenter put dry milk in her cupped hands and wiped that all over her face. To say she looked ridiculous and would not let me take a picture is an understatement.

She continued to rub the dry milk into her skin and finally wiped most of it off with a towel finally reaching the point of having beautiful looking skin. My look had also become really beautiful. Don’t know how to describe the look. It was not oily, but it had a healthy, lots of outside walking and exercise look. My friends look was different. Her skin looked very matte, non-oily, really fantastic. My look was more casual and sporty, hers more formal and elegant.

We have a couple more ideas, but will write more as we try them. So far, we are batting 1,000 and for very little bits of money.

____________________________________________________


IT COSTS MONEY TO PRODUCE THIS BLOG. WE HOPE YOU WILL CONTRIBUTE SO WE CAN EXPAND AND CONTINUE THE RESEARCH AND WRITINGS WHICH KEEP YOU KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT MANY THINGS THAT WOULD NOT REACH YOU OTHERWISE ALONG WITH THE OPINIONS AND WORK OF THOSE WHO ARE MEMBERS OF BETTINA NETWORK’s LIFESTYLE COMMUNITY.

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

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale!*

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

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.  This is not a tax deductible contribution. You can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check payable to “Bettina Network, inc.”

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

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 will be used to support the many activities in which we engage to try to make this a better world. 

_________________________________________________________

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 




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Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on A Beauty Treatment for the Ages

Hard to Write This Trump Conspiracy Theory!!

January 28th, 2020

Ed. Note: Progressives can engage in conspiracy theories as well as right wing conservatives. We thought long and hard before publishing this, however, we give our members the right to send us articles to include in Bettina Network’s Blog and so we will hold to our promise to publish!!

Member 6 – I was appalled, sickened and heartbroken to see and read about the death of Kobe Bryant, his 13 year old daughter and others involved in their incredible work to make this a better world.

At the same time I was wondering what Trump was going to come up with to cover, mitigate and distract from his defense teams presentation. So far, he was always on time and on the money with horrendous events which have been full of lies, misrepresentations and more which we all have been able to see through quickly.

While I was watching television with these thoughts going through my head, the program I was watching was interrupted and the announcement of Kobe Bryants’ death came across the news.

Maybe that is how I conflated the two, but it looked unbelievable that at the very moment all of Trump’s defense started to fall apart as John Bolton’s book excerpts became public, Bryants helicopter crashed – an event that would engage the world because of who Kobe Bryant was and how beautifully he lived his life and he was an African American man, which traditionally has meant he was a threat to Trump’s identity and ego.

What caught me was the 15 minutes Kobe Bryants’ helicopter circled while being held from landing in crucial circumstances.

I know next to nothing about aviation, but that stuck with me and I could see all kinds of things causing that delay which, in my mind could have caused the crash. And probably there would come out all kind of explanations as to why that 15 minute circulation in the sky under circumstances which could clearly cause catastrophe would be justified.

At first I decided to keep these thoughts to myself – given how horribly I reacted to Trump and his group’s conspiracy theories. But after watching non-stop reporting on both Trump’s defense people and the helicopter crash almost seeing them side by side, Trump’s murder of the Iranian came into view and the Khashoggi’s murder came to mind with Trump’s support of those who were claimed to be responsible and a whole lot more. I was looking at people who have no respect for human life and act out that there seems to be no boundaries those folks will not cross.

I don’t want to intrude on the grief of Kobe Bryant’s family, friends and supporters. It is a horrible loss for all of them and all of us to have been deprived of Kobe’s next act and the things he and his family have to contribute and would have contributed to all of us with great generosity. What an example Kobe Bryant has been to this upcoming generation and how few such examples do w have today for Kobe’s life to have been cut so short by some kind of “accident”.

But power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Trump has declared that he has complete power over all and he is acting out the part.

I don’t know what, if anything, all of this means, but I felt totally compelled to put it out in case it is more than a conspiracy theory – and if not – then to give you some idea as to the direction thoughts are going as events happen around us. I have not in life thought of things like one man in Iran being murdered to cover the ugliness of another. Nor had I thought the head of a large country would kill a newspaper commentator because he said uncomplimentary things about him and where his leadership was heading. Maybe it is the times corrupting my thinking and thoughts and then again——— the timing of Kobe Bryants death, killing, accident…………

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Posted in #DonaldTrump, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Conspiracy Theories | Comments Off on Hard to Write This Trump Conspiracy Theory!!

“Better Than” – The Power that built the United States!

January 24th, 2020

We have held off on our postings because we could not believe what we were seeing from those sending their comments to be published in Bettina Network’s Blog. It is time for us to put all of that together and lay out for you what many in our community are thinking.

This is an opportunity presented in these United States to citizens, immigrants, illegals, temporary residents, permanent residents, students and others to put your professional lives on the line. We haven’t done much, but have paid a high price for some of the things we have written about in this blog. We knew that was a possibility when we started this blog, but took an oath that we would write without letting the possibility of negative consequences mitigate our voice. It is the collective voice of those who use Bettina Network, inc. And yes, sometimes we can publish diametrically opposed ideas in the same week. That is who we are – not “better than” because we are “politically correct”, but “every person” expressing themselves for all to see and hear.

Member #1: Until this Trump conflagration came along I struggled to understand why my life was so oppressed; why many around me felt so free to step all over me without holding back; denying what they were doing; and blaming me for their sins so blatantly committed against me and those like me. I also could not understand why even many of those like me felt the need to commit the same sins against me. None of it made sense.

Along comes Donald Trump and his followers and promoters and his attempt at a movement. In the process, we have not joined his “movement” but he and his totally and completely answered the questions that have haunted my life. The downside of it all is that it comes at the end of my life. Hopefully, there are others on whom these messages and this morality play, being acted out in front of us daily, will have meaning and who will recoil from everything it lays bare. Take its message to heart – it is the difference between life and death for all of you. For some of us to deny, turn away, claim otherwise really does separate the sheep from the goats – the good from the bad – those wallowing in sin and those pulling themselves out of the muck and cleaning themselves of all that has gone before.

Member 2: When I take in the entire spread of history in these United States it doesn’t bode well for human beings. It casts us as evil;, as harboring a gene we pass on from one generation to the next to destroy others because we hold ourselves to be “better than” all life on earth even at times including our own families. Where does that come from? How did we get here? Why are we constantly moving in and out of times which can make Hitler’s Germany look like a relief from what we are living? Or is this that final wake-up cal!, which if not answered correctly moves into another period of human degradation of us killing each other and declaring those we kill as less than. Or is this the time during which we can repent all of the evil we and our ancestors have done and/or caused to have done!

Member #3: How could people who came to these shores looking for a better life – a freer life – a life full of goodness and not the “better than” we were struggling under and being oppressed by in another country – experiences which made us take the risk of crossing an unknown ocean seeking Nirvana. How have wound up with the history we read about even in the redacted history books we use to teach our children of our past?

We came and survived with the help of those who were already here and had been for generations. We were immediately grateful until that gratitude was blown away by the storm clouds gathering from the “better than” universe. As our beginnings in this country moved from struggling to just survive; learning from those already here how to plant what grew in these climates; build houses; have a life which began to grow to see us enjoy freedoms denied from whence we came – we moved to being “at home”. Just as that began to happen we didn’t thank those who were there for us when we were in need. We turned to fight them because we began to consider ourselves, once again, as better than. We let our “better than” genes come out and they won the day culminating in Andrew Jackson’s Trail of Tears.

Member #4: Andrew Jackson, who we claim to have been the founder of the Democratic Party, has seen his political group move from racist developers of the Ku Klux Klan to people doing their best to free us from the likes of Donald Trump and move us into a more equal place. As years later Abraham Lincoln, who we claim was the founder of the Republican Party has seen his political group move from defenders of liberty; as the group Africans looked to as we voted in a country which hung you if you tried such; which worked to defeat segregation has now moved to become the group which works to make sure segregation is maintained and never changes. The GOP today shows itself in its current administration of 99% white, northern European ancestry people with a president who is showing his potential to make even Adolph Hitler, who he studied during his young adult years, look good.

How could we come to these shores running away from persecution and set in place a government with leaders who clearly persecute others and claim our right to do such because we and our governmental structures and business structures are so much better than those others.

How could we not acknowledge our greed and laziness which moved us to traffic in human beings who we called slaves and set in place to do the work of making us great in this country and certainly “better than” the slaves who actually did the work of such while we strutted around like peacocks taking the credit.

How could we set our women up to look like peacocks and buy into a lifestyle which oppressed them from birth to death, to get the women in this society to be the pattern we used to enslave Africans and maintain ignorance as to their real position in this society? One of oppression and maintained in slavery of a different kind only with a different mythology keeping them in place? How did we convince women to continue in that space when we used the marriage laws, which enslaved women to be the basis upon which we passed laws to enslave Africans.

How could we massacre and slaughter in this country those who tried to move into a more equal place? And deny what we were doing even unto today?

How can we see the economic inequalities which cause some to be homeless, on the street with scraps to eat from the throw aways of those in control; with clothes thrown away by others as what they wear; as make shift tents or simply beds on the cement benches around the parks and other places or even worse on the sidewalk and in the doorways until our police force comes along to force them to move along.

How can we see the storms gathering as those with enormous greed develop businesses which take away from others to put largess into their own pockets and consider themselves “better than” because they have figured out how to move ahead at the cost of tens of thousands of peoples lives?

Member #5: As we look at what is happening with the Trump Administration; within the Trump family; with their friends and others we can see ourselves over the centuries. Different clothes, a different political system, different words to describe the same thing, and using denial, greed, murder, oppression, theft and more to maintain themselves to satisfy their need to be “better than” – in and among those people we see ourselves. Not clearly, because we have our own denial, greed, murder, oppression, theft and more having constructed a curtain we cannot see through which reflects us and our lives in the mirror behind that curtain we designed to be able to have complete denial of who we are and what we are about.

Today, we have the advantage of seeing this morality play over television and our other technology that we use to “keep up” with what is happening. Amazingly, in spite of watching this reality play in front of our eyes we can see “them”, but we can’t see how “they” are a reflection of “us” and are a part of “us”. We cannot see what we have done and are doing to others just as egregious as what they are doing that we are watching daily.

Instead, that morality play is making some of us even much “better than” they are and shoring up our next chapter in this life so that it continues and we do not have to deal with who we are in this life and the part we have and are playing.

Trump and his group are making it possible for us to continue as “better than” and to usher in another chapter with the next generation of those who are much, much better than in a society which has all white business owners, all white in polite society, all white and male in government, with those who are not taking secondary places and feeling blessed to be able to do so because that means they are “better than” those in their own group who didn’t make the cut. The fact that they are the ones in their group parroting and allowing “better than” to continue and those cut out have called out truth just can’t get through into the discussion to attempt to make total, real change.

Posted in #DonaldTrump, #meToo, Adolph Hitler, bigoty, Feminism, Native Americans, Nelson Mandela, racism | Comments Off on “Better Than” – The Power that built the United States!

An Illegitimate President – now Impeached!

December 19th, 2019

An amazing process. We have had an illegitimate president for three years and many have acted as though he was duly elected. It is time for that farce to be dropped.

Donald Trump has clearly caused lots of problems; has diminished the United States in the eyes of the world; has diminished the power of the United States within its boundaries; has caused lots of grief and harm to so many over his few years in office. How long, O God!

Remember – this is a man who “won” the presidency with only 70,000 plus votes spread over three states. Hillary Clinton had over 3 million votes more and yet he was declared president. The 70,000 plus votes could be accounted for by the help Trump received from Russia during the campaign so we have, in actuality, had a president elected by a foreign power. And this so called “president” has now set about lining up foreign powers and heads of state to insure he will be re-elected. How long, O God!

Listening to the short talks within the House of Representatives from the many Republicans giving excuses for Donald Trump made it a very harrowing time because it was not possible to understand why the Republicans made the statements they made, especially considering that most knew they were lying; knew that they were working for a “president” who is a bully of the worse sort – who is a self-confessed sexual assaulter who brags about how he enjoys assaulting women – who has done so much against all of us including those giving the talks of support against his coming impeachment. It would take pages to list his sins and he is not done yet. How long, O God!

The most grievous were those who compared Trump and what he was going through with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and in that case, to the teller of the comparison, Trump came out as having suffered more. To hear that, shouted to everyone that the person making the comparison was not Christian and did not believe any of the stories in the Bible. If he did he would not have been able to begin to make that comparison. Christianity was to him what it was to those who went to Church on Sundays for almost three hundred years and came home to have their slaves do the work and suffer the humiliations that would be heaped upon them that day. The comments were so horrible a Jesuit felt compelled to come out with a push back against the Trump supporter in the House of Representative outlining the sufferings of Jesus and putting the Trump impeachment in perspective.

There were others who compared Trump to those killed, drowned, mutilated as a result of the Salem Witch Trials. In that comparison the, mostly women, came off as not having suffered nearly as much as Trump during his impeachment trials, leaving out the history of Trump which preceded his claiming the title of “president.”

There is so much more that could be said – but so much has already been said I think each one of us needs to retire within and think on these things.

As for me and mine, this process – these comments – have been totally revealing of the interior, of the souls, of so many people. As we listened we heard people, elected to Congress, expose their values – their future hopes and dreams – the length they are willing to go to maintain the world according to Donald Trump and to move and keep this world closer to one which is racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic, weak, brimming with sin and more. It was clear many had already sold out. To expose to who and for what is the next stage of this process. We do need to know what it was worth to each one of them living in a republic and giving it up to live under the tyranny of a vile, vicious bully who lies with practically every breath he takes.

So much has been written – spoken – quietly prayed about. It is now time for us to stop and take a deep breath.

The last word remains and it is – Donald Trump has been the closing parentheses for a group of people who have been accepting, going along to get along, who have raised children with values they themselves don’t recognize and who don’t know from whence those values have come, because they have not recently looked into that mirror of truth. People who have been willing to give up everything for 30 pieces of silver and a small very tenuous connection to power. How long, O God!

The last statement I have about Donald Trump came from what I heard at his rally in Michigan when he resented and called Senator Dingell’s wife to task because she dared vote against him when he had so honored her husband in death. Dingell’s wife, who succeeded him and now has his seat responded that after 60 years of hard work given to this country – the honors he received were hard won and deserved. The pattern of Donald Trump’s life. – take credit for everything, give only to those from whom you expect everything. And in the end take even that back.

The only thought that came to mind after hearing the Dingell comments was – a true, total and completely evil bully who will always and forever move from one crime to another and in the end wind up like his mentors Joe McCarthy – an unrepentant drunk who caused tens of thousands of U. S. citizens untold misery because of it and Roy Cohn, a man who used his knowledge of the law to support and help others like McCarthy do even more and deeper damage to themselves and others. And didn’t both men, in the end die destitute surrounded by a very few friends who saw their evil and conspired with them to hurt, maime, destroy others? For nothing?

“….and as for me and mine, our hope is in God. May we never so transgress to cause a moment’s harm to anyone.”

And as for Donald Trump, it is as if “the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. All this I will give you,” he said, “if you bow down and worship me.” What Trump has not heard is the continuation of Scripture – “..the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.” “Repent and atone for all the years of harm and hurt you have created for others because the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

It is not the many who do not believe and who are following Donald Trump into the homeland of sin, but the many more who have seen a great light and have stepped out putting their earthly, vocational, material wants and needs aside to follow what is right and to hold up the righteous instead of following those who are sliding into universal and eternal darkness. Love guides one group – the absence of love guides the other. Trump’s world shows us what happens when sex in its many deformed forms replaces love in this world. One watches the deterioration of life and the defacing of everything good.

=============================================


IT COSTS MONEY TO PRODUCE THIS BLOG. WE HOPE YOU WILL CONTRIBUTE SO WE CAN EXPAND AND CONTINUE THE RESEARCH AND WRITINGS WHICH KEEP YOU KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT MANY THINGS THAT WOULD NOT REACH YOU OTHERWISE ALONG WITH THE OPINIONS AND WORK OF THOSE WHO ARE MEMBERS OF BETTINA NETWORK’s LIFESTYLE COMMUNITY.

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

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale!*

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

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. 

_________________________________________________________

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 
===============================================






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Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on An Illegitimate President – now Impeached!

A Response by a Bettina Member

December 5th, 2019

First – I am young, white and male. I need to put that out front so you know something about where I am coming from. I am also a scientist who has been using Bettina Network for several years and look forward to my time spent in one of your homes in Harvard Square – it is my favorite place to go. I get the education in that house that I didn’t get at home and I get to stay in real luxury surroundings at the same time – something I also did not get to do at home.

I read Marceline’s article on Kamala Harris and there are things I would like to add that she did not say. Things I researched after many breakfasts in her home which just blew my mind. Mostly, about telling the truth.

To tell the truth about Kamala Harris means to say that she was one of those who supported Barack Obama from the beginning. At the beginning of Obama’s candidacy, when others were looking elsewhere, Kamala Harris was strong in using her time and other resources to work towards getting Obama elected president. She has yet to be given credit for that. What blows my mind is the fact that so called “older blacks” are supporting Joe Biden because of his closeness to Obama. How such is that?

That should not be such a surprise to me because I noticed over the years African Americans are not great supporters of Bettina Network. I have yet to meet one using this network and my conversations with those I know blow my mind. A couple African Americans I know and who are friends of mine would rather stay in lesser accommodations and pay more than to stay at the Bettina Network. They don’t articulate why, but after a short conversation it becomes clear they do not give much credit to a company owned by another African American, especially a woman. Given that I have some understanding as to why blacks are not supporting Kamala Harris. To support their own seems to be a negative to just about every African American I have met. This is an article, after all, in which I am determined to tell the truth as I see it in this life. If that violates you or makes you angry so be it. I have had to struggle years to be able to face life as it is rather than as it is described to me for me to believe as the truth.

To tell the truth about Joe Biden, which few are doing, means to say that he was not one of those supporting Barack Obama when Kamala Harris was out on the campaign trail doing exactly that. My research shows that from the very beginnings of Barack Obama’s campaign there was Kamala Harris doing everything she could to support his candidacy.

It is to admit that Biden was instrumental in seeing that Thurgood Marshall was followed by Clarence Thomas – and that is who “older blacks” are supporting instead of supporting Kamala Harris? I was too young to remember the hearings, but I went back to read about what happened when Clarence Thomas was put on the Supreme Court and it was vile and who was instrumental in seeing that happen? Pictured in newspaper clippings as chair of the panel that made sure Thomas was exonerated enough to be elected to the Supreme Court – Joe Biden. So now we have to live with him on the Supreme Court without acknowledging who was instrumental in making that happen.

To tell the truth means to talk out loud without being intimidated to say Joe Biden treated a black woman – Anita Hill – disgracefully, and this is the man being promoted as the successor of Barack Obama? The man promoted as the next president while Kamala Harris’ campaign is suspended? I do not wonder why we now have Donald Trump as president. Sometimes I wonder if he is not who we deserve.

To tell the truth means to point out the upset and upheaval that happened when Elizabeth Warren was, briefly, the front runner in the Democrat’s primary presidential campaign. Such furor and upset was palpable. A flurry of activity and out comes Michael Bloomberg and even DeVal Patrick running into the campaign to stop what looked like an election getting out of control – how? a woman was then the front runner taking control out of the hands of the white males who normally oversee and dictate such things whether they be Republican or Democrat. That should have been done generations ago, but we are still here fighting the same battles we have been fighting for generations. I hope it stops with my generation. At least there seems to be some hope after we have seen an African American man as president doing an outstanding job followed by an out of control White man who someone said wears “clown shoes” and will engage in treason to keep himself up front and in control because his ego needs that. The job he does is irrelevant, only a by-product of his stage settings for himself. And that job includes turning the United States Government into a criminal enterprise over which he rules as the godfather? Is this what I am inheriting?

All of a sudden there were people coming out from all corners to stop Elizabeth Warren. The last time I saw anything like that was when it looked as though Hillary Clinton might win and out came even Russia and Vladimir Putin to stop that and stop her becoming president even if they had to sully the process to achieve their goal.

We don’t tell the truth. And so we help elect the likes of Donald Trump. The man whose closest long term adviser is Steven Miller – a Jew who hates other Jews and has promoted and helped to bring about things that were prevalent during Hitler’s reign and Nazi Germany. Just like Trump’s mentor Roy Cohn who was a gay man who hates gays.

To tell the truth means that we have a straight line we can draw in our government from Joe McCarthy of “communist” days straight through to Donald Trump. I heard at many breakfasts how Trump learned at the feet of Cohn and McCarthy and as my research bore that out I was stunned. That is not something I would have put together otherwise.

We have constantly had to fight such people and why? Is it because we put forth a scenario which skewers the truth and puts forth instead a story line which is meant to manipulate the voting public into a stance that we want which will maintain the system as it is rather than tell the truth to gain a fully functioning system open to all which reflects the equality we claim to be about?

We had a senator in Joe McCarthy who was rumored to be a total drunk and yet he had lots of support as he careened all over the place making life a living hell for many, seeing to it that their lives were upheaveled, their jobs lost, their beliefs lied about for the convenience of the many who wanted to see the kind of “purge” McCarthy undertook. I didn’t realize until my stay in a Bettina home the connection between McCarthy, Cohn and Trump. There was even talk about the role Robert Kennedy had sitting at McCarthy’s right hand as he made his way up the political ladder. I heard it at a breakfast seminar and still didn’t believe it until I did my own research and the shock that this is my country and this is what we are about hit with crude power and I have not been the same since.

I could go on for pages, but this is what we need in this country – tell the truth and deal with the consequences. What a totally refreshing idea. Maybe then we wouldn’t have to worry about the “billionaire group” who deserve to be a part of this society also. And we wouldn’t have to worry about the feminists, or the lesbians, or the homosexual males, or the angry blacks, or the immigrants, or……… All people we have in our immediate families – well, maybe not all, but certainly one or two. We can have family dinners with them, but not allow them to be an equal part of our lives. Is that why our family lives are so screwed up? To be better than, we have to hide and/or try to change those who share our genes?

Maybe when I get a bit older I will understand and join this group, but now, as a young person I hope I continue learning and speaking truth. It is freeing like nothing else. At least if I decided to support Joe Biden it would be after I knew the truth about his history and who he is today. But even so I agree with you Marceline, I would rather support someone like Kamala Harris for president. I was lukewarm about her until I read your article. Today, I would like to be one of her supporters.

______________________________________


IT COSTS MONEY TO PRODUCE THIS BLOG. WE HOPE YOU WILL CONTRIBUTE SO WE CAN EXPAND AND CONTINUE THE RESEARCH AND WRITINGS WHICH KEEP YOU KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT MANY THINGS THAT WOULD NOT REACH YOU OTHERWISE ALONG WITH THE OPINIONS AND WORK OF THOSE WHO ARE MEMBERS OF BETTINA NETWORK’s LIFESTYLE COMMUNITY.

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

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale!*

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

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. 

_________________________________________________________

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 




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Posted in #DonaldTrump, #meToo, Anita Hill, Barack Obama, Bettina Network, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Clarence Thomas, Donald Trump, Feminism, Guest comments, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nazism, President Obama, racism, sexism | Comments Off on A Response by a Bettina Member

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