May your day be full of love, God, and so much more. May it overflow with goodness, wisdom and God’s love.
________________________________________________
Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!
[give_form id=”3763″]
________________________________________________
ed. note: It is always great to receive your responses. If you have anything to which you want to respond from Bettina Network’s blog or if you just have something to say, please send your comments to us via email – bettina-network@comcast.net.
Person 1. I read your Omarosa blog and it was fantastic. I would like to point out the racism I saw in the news reports as people respond to what is happening. Many, many people start with what has almost become a tag line – “they are so much alike, after all, Trump created Omarosa.” Or some version of that ie “after all Omarosa is a Trump creation, Trump created her.” Variations on that comment have been on several news shows. The bigotry of that is palpable, but the persons making the comment seem so free and sure of themselves in those kind of comments without realizing they are simply satisfying their need to put a black woman in her place and remind others that to them she is really not human – really no different from the way the Trump people disregard the humanity of those they consider not as good as.
Omarosa is not a puppet and Trump is not a puppeteer. She was quite intelligent before she met Trump and will continue to be – from what I’ve seen. Her growth over the years, as I followed her career, has been phenomenal. When she moved out of her early beginnings she moved into a different society, class, culture and must have gone through culture shock. She entered a world where values were very different from those with which she was raised. From a people oriented group where interpersonal relationships were primary and the back and forth was about relationships and values were around all of that into a society where interpersonal relationships are practically non-existent and everyone is ‘striving’ for whatever power, money and control they can accumulate. The values in such a group are very different and probably seemed immoral to Omerosa when she entered. At best, they were very different from those values with which she was raised. She seems to have started out adopting and adapting those ‘new’ values and ‘striving’ for the kind of success she saw around her and in the middle of it something clicked and her values changed to those with which she was raised. My guess would be that she started taping people when that “click” happened. The precipitating factor for that “click” was probably the very ugly and dehumanizing way she was being treated. That is extemely painful to the black woman experiencing it and totally unrecognizable by the people doing the mistreating. When she realized she was “invisible” to most people. That she could move around fairly freely because she wasn’t seen or if she was seen by some her presence was completely ignored.
What shows most strongly in what she is doing, she is out there truth telling and clear eyed about it and very good showing an extremely intelligent human being. That is almost unknown in the circles in which she was travelling and must have been painful. From what I am seeing she has much more integrity than those who surrounded her – those knocking her and claiming her lack of integrity. In the system in which she was trying to be a part and ‘fit in’ she did lack integrity by their standards and their definition of the word. In the system in which she was raised they are probably repeating your comment “You go girl.”
I am happy you mentioned how impressed you were with the way she carried herself and responded to the media. It was self-composed, in control, with no problems correcting people, backing them off, standing strongly in an independent place and her responses were always right on target. I join the chorus – you go girl.
Person 2. I am encouraged by what I am seeing in this United States society. The headlines and the current president are very discouraging, but I have to applaud Trump. The bottom line of what he has done is to create a more open, questioning, more mature society then that which existed before his election. We are not as much dependent upon the “system” because we are seeing the system only works if we are very much engaged and taking responsibility.
Before Trump, it was anathema to talk about people being racist and what that means. In fact, if you brought up the subject of racism or commented on some action of someone which was racist you were jumped on by everybody with the traditional denial that maintains a bigoted system – “that’s not racist, everyone experiences it”. Talk about racism and bigotry was not nice and needed to be kept under wraps. It was something one didn’t talk about anyplace. Now, it is all out in the open and the media talks about racist and racism in practically every news show. News anchors have become quite skilled at talking about and identifying racism and bigotry. There is nothing which creates change and takes out ugly like taking off the blanket and airing it out letting everyone see the windows are open and fresh air is flowing through.
What is especially encouraging for me, in spite of seeing the neo-Nazi’s trying to recreate Crystal Nacht and the KKK, White Nationalists and all the others out there parading – many of those who took part with their tiki torches in that Charlottesville parade lost their jobs because their companies did not want the taint of such clear racists working for them who were also out advocating for the kind of society we don’t want in these United States. That is what didn’t happen as Nazi Germany was getting started. Maybe there is hope for us after all.
Person 3. It is amazing to see the contrast in this country between the present administration and what is happening where elections are being held. I can’t wait for November. We have Donald Trump as president and a White House full of bigots, Nazi’s and such assorted folks. At the same time, as you look around at who is being elected in these contests happening around the country – it is the most diverse group of people I have ever seen. Our politicians going forward will have problems and cause us problems, but they will be doing so representing all of us. All we have to do now is undo the Gerrymandering that happened under the very bigoted Republican Party.
I knew when Ronald Regan went to Mississippi to announce his run for the presidency and even before that when Strom Thurmond left the Democratic Party and took his friends and followers into the Republican Party that the day would come when we would have to face this conflagration. Which way it would go was something I could not see because we could become another very racist society. The move towards Russia that Trump is making is clearly a move towards trying to start a race war to subjugate all of us and to maintain a White Supremacy country aligned with other White Supremacy countries – all led by fascist dictators. That is certainly not the profile of our traditional allies so he had to begin the process of dumping our traditional allies and moving towards others more amenable and trying to maintain their countries as all white, fascist and controlled by their Oligarch’s.
Person 4. You are doing something new and I want to help support you in what you are doing so it is successful and continues and others follow your example. We have a country where corporations are supposed to be “neutral”. They never are because most companies support groups and people moving in the direction of Trump and his people while claiming to be neutral. Billions of dollars go to manipulate all of us. It is always difficult for me to know what is real and what is corporate-hype. However, I feel very much involved with Bettina Network. I use your services when I can and want to know what else I can do to make sure you survive? You don’t claim to be neutral, you just stand up for truth and allow whoever to participate and air their comments. Facebook, among others, claims to give you a grouping of friends of your choosing with whom you create your ‘community’. That is one of the big lies on the internet today. In reality the people you see on your “Facebook Wall” and who you hear from are strangers and people you’ve never heard of before. Your “friends” mostly don’t see your posts if they don’t fit the algorithm – so choosing your friends and your community on Facebook is a myth set up to allow them to market your information not encircle you with your chosen friends. Neutral is not something human beings can be without hurting everyone. Truth telling is stronger, better and beneficial for everyone.
I do not know many places where truth-telling is happening. How are you surviving and paying the costs of Bettina’s Blog? I know from experience it costs money to do the research showing up in this blog – and I know the kind of flak that comes from truth telling. Don’t stop – more companies need to keep watch and put out what they know as truth. Sometimes I think marketing and advertising are great, but most times I realize they have turned us into liars and manipulators and hypocrits for the sake of making a dollar. We need to clear the air so our children will know truth and not be taken in by stories put out to sell products and services or manipulative slants on events to guarantee the corporation will get what it wants and the rest of us suffer. Sometimes I wonder if living breathing human mortals head up these corporations or if they are headed by robots immune to things like the environment, the quality of the food they eat, etc. etc. When cigarettes were such a threat I wondered how those who kept the research which said cigarettes were bad for your health and could cause cancer realized they were also negatively affected by such. They smoked a lot and some died of lung cancer, but nevertheless they kept on going with the mythology which gave them their positions, money, etc.
Keep going – some of us are very strongly behind you.
______________________________________________________
Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!
[give_form id=”3763″]
________________________________________________________
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
Thank you for the blog in which a member of the Bettina Community wrote about his experiences trying to get a visa to attend a conference.
I have had the same experience of late and many times. Twice this year I applied for visa’s to attend conferences in the United States. The visa’s were not denied, they just didn’t arrive until two days after the conference started. Unfortunately I already had my airline tickets and accommodation reservations so I lost a bit of money. Rather, my institution lost a bit of money.
Last week Trump talked about all Chinese students in the United States were spies for the Chinese Government. I wondered at the time if that is how he is going to try to justify his visa policy keeping scholars out of the United States when they attempt to apply for visa’s to attend conferences.
I would like to add a look into the future at what is beginning to happen which will take care of that kind of meanness of spirit and bigotry the Trump administration is displaying. A change that will be negative for the United States on many levels. Conferences that are normally held in the United States are being put together to be held in other countries. It will take a couple years for that to be felt but it will negatively impact researchers in the United States as well as the United States economy. Not a large part of the economy, but conference attendees from the U. S. will spend money on airline tickets, but everything else will be spent in another country – accommodations – food – entertainment – touristy things, etc. Conference attendees from other countries will not even spend airline ticket money in the United States. All of their expenditures will go to other countries. So, in the long run, while this is really hurtful today, by 2020 that should be turned around and the United States will be on its way to becoming a lesser light in many important research areas through Donald Trump’s use of visa’s to be really mean against those who are not immigrants, nor trying to settle in the United States, but simply would like to attend a conference being held in the United States over a few days or a week or a couple weeks.
That is probably what will happen in several areas where Trump is trying to exert power over other countries. In this case, there are alternatives which will be good for research and collaboration because it will put those from other countries on a more equal footing and gradually they will surpass the United States. In other non-science areas the same thing will happen and you owe it all to your current president and his friends and allies.
______________________________________________
Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!
[give_form id=”3763″]
______________________________________________
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
ed.note: We are beginning to notice that this Trump/Sessions keeping black/brown people out of the U. S. is not simply an immigrant thing. It is not just about keeping America White by keeping out non-white immigrants, nor is it only about throwing out resident and/or non-white immigrants with green cards who have become U. S. tax payers under as many pretexts as possible. Others are being kept out or their attempt to visit for a brief time, especially for research and collaboration, is made unnecessarily difficult and that difficulty is new – it is not a carry over from past administrations. One person – a member of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community has shared his experience with us and it follows.
“I was raised and educated in China till college. I came to the US to obtain my PhD at Princeton and continued as a postdoc at Harvard. In total I stayed in the US for 10 years before returning to China to accept a faculty position in Beijing in 2017. I have maintained collaborations with both institutions.
This year, I planned a 2-week visit to Princeton in June, but my visa application was denied during the interview. No specific reason was given other than “the purpose of the visit is not consistent with the visa type for which you have applied”, which is a standard business/tourist visa. I realized later that what caused the denial was my honest statement that this trip was for research collaboration. In fact, this is never allowed under this visa type. The J-type visa serves this purpose, though it is much more complicated and is usually for long-term visit (e.g., I was under the J-visa during my 5-year post doc).
This is really upset, besides the fact that the visa interview process itself is very uncomfortable and time-consuing: no bags or cell phone is allowed in the embassy, and one has to wait in long queues multiple times throughout the process which sometimes can be quite chaotic. One generally wastes half a day just for the interview without anything else done.
With this application denied (and trip cancelled), I will have to do another visa application for a workshop in mid-July to early-August. It is a special workshop running for 3-weeks, and the purpose is to bring people in the field together in a relaxed setting to promote interactions/discussions and inspire new ideas. Participants are asked to stay for at least two weeks, and I planned to join for the later two weeks. This time, the visa officer questioned why my previous application was denied, and also why a conference takes such a long time. Despite my explanation, he asked me to provide more materials to demonstrate the purpose of the visit, in particular a “conference schedule”. Well, this is not a standard conference no such schedule exists before the workshop actually begins when people start to figure out an agenda. I had to write to my conference organizer for an additional letter (he already wrote an invitation letter for me) to explain the situation.
Upon collecting everything, I resent my application, which is then sent for “administrative processing”. This is not uncommon for Chinese scholars, which usually takes 4-6 weeks. My application was sent in early June so I thought there should be enough time. However, I waited and waited and waited. There was no news before my originally planned travel date (I was wise not to purchase an air ticket). The week after, I realize I can check the status of my visa application online, and found that it is finally issued. By the time I actually received the visa, the workshop was already more than half-way done, and even if I purchase ticket to join it, most participants would already have left (in the 3rd week). As a result, I simply cancelled the trip.
On the visa, it is indicated that the “administrative processing” completed in 4 weeks where my case was cleared, but the visa was not issued until some 3 more weeks later. They clearly didn’t want me to attend the conference. Moreover, the visa could have been valid for 10 years, but mine is only valid for 1 year.
Nevertheless, with the visa finally at hand, I temporarily planned a trip to visit Princeton the week after, though the original 2-week plan becomes 3 days. This is followed by a 2-day visit to Cambridge to attend another conference. The visit is brief due to my other time constraints, but is fruitful. I stayed at a Bettina Network Hedge School in Cambridge, the same place I stayed back in 2011 when I came to visit Harvard for a job talk. Everything is very enjoyable with illuminating conversations at breakfast as well as meetings and gatherings with many of my colleagues and friends.
I am at the airport now to return to China soon. Thank you for the warm and welcoming experience that you offer and I will come back again despite the disgusting experience with the embassy.”
____________________________________________________________
Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!
[give_form id=”3763″]
____________________________________________________________
Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
by: Marceline Donaldson
Looking at the election in Ohio in a district which has been badly gerrymandered over the decades we need to seriously define what it means – especially in politics – to steal, lie, attempt to destroy an old republic trying to become a democracy using gerrymandering as one of many tools. If you want a quick end to this United States Government with all it has meant over the decades and few hundred years it has been trying to move to a place of freedom for its citizens – try lending your hand to those working hard to bring about gerrymandering in many districts so they can have power, control and more in their attempt to satisfy their greed.
I lived in Ohio for several years around the late 1970’s into 1980. It was a place I loved and would move back to in a heartbeat. I called Cincinnati home, but visited and worked all around the state.
What I remember are events which probably were the genesis for what is going on in Ohio today = the Gerrymandering part and where and how the Republicans took hold.
I was Republican in those days – and Ohio was pretty much in the Democratic Party.
Driving around the country side there was an amazing phenomena. When you came close to what was a lovely body of water – a pond, a small lake, etc. – there was a loud and ugly smell of feces. Looking into what could have caused such a smell I discovered a corporation from Germany which was financing Germans who were dairy farmers and leaving Germany in fairly large numbers to do their dairy farming in the United States.
What was driving them out of Germany were laws being promulgated which would have made them control their cows and more properly dispose of cow manure in ways that were beneficial to the rest of society and did not cause the kind of blight and nose rebellion I was experiencing driving through some farm lands in Ohio.
Those dairy farmers from Germany used the ponds as cow toilets. They put their cow’s feces in those ponds and in a short period of time – well, you know what happened.
As I looked at the map, those areas which became very Republican Conservative and today Trump supporters are the areas back in the 1970’s and 80’s which were being taken over by German dairy farmers putting their cows feces in places to wreck the beautiful pastoral quality of the land. These were not the good Germans who stayed home and obeyed laws meant to protect everyone. These were the Germans who had the mind set of some Americans who expected to be able to pollute, etc. as their god given right. So they combined.
When I last checked it out – there was no stopping them. The corporation, with lots of money, which was financing them, made it possible for many to “immigrate” to the United States so they would not have to depend upon American banks to finance their land purchases nor to upfront them the money they needed to get their dairy farms operational.
When you talk about unwanted immigrants against whom the United States should erect barriers and walls – they were the group. Trump, however, with his German ancestors who, it is alleged, had these mafia connections and gained wealth through what is also alleged to be illegal means – with Trump himself gaining his wealth through casinos,and many schemes which bilked lots of people as he filed serial bankruptcies impresses me as one immigrant family which should have been blocked at the border. I doubt that he sees anything wrong with that kind of immigration or those immigrants. They are simply taking advantage of the ‘freedom’ offered in the United States and being very industrious in the process. I think of them when I have to drink pasteurized instead of raw milk because of the way so many such people fouled up the milk supply.
It is a straight line from those events to the control Republicans were able to wrest for their own re-elections by incorporating those “immigrants” into their scheme of gerrymandering – who I am sure as time passed have became U. S. Citizens. They did not seem at all inclined to clean up their ways or their dairy farms or to stop polluting the lakes, ponds and streams of the United States with their cows feces – which means they would not be able to go back to Germany and meet its understandable requirements that Dairy Farmers respect the land and others in the areas surrounding their dairy farms.
Haven’t seen any of that in the analysis of what happened in those areas of Ohio and how what happened affected todays election and the previous elections where gerrymandering became the standard way to power and political control. People with that kind of mindset would be very open to schemes like Gerrymandering.
Anything except – be a good citizen and respect others. Sometimes you win and sometimes others win, but at all times mutual respect is the order of the day not artificially creating situations and circumstances in which you control all the time to your detriment, the detriment of others and most especially the detriment of the United States of America. We stand for something. A republic demands mutual respect. Freedom does also. Get with it and stop all of this nonsense or you will wind up with a politician in charge who makes Trump look like an angel and a do gooder instead of the corrupt power hungry, greedy, grifter, alleged sexual abuser and assaulter and pathological liar he has shown himself to be.
by the way – have you noticed the one thing all of these folks have in common? Their need to engage in sexual abuse, sexual assault and misogyny against women with its concurrent disgraceful behavior towards children.
____________________________________________________
Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!
[give_form id=”3763″]
____________________________________________________
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
It becomes harder each day for those who support Donald Trump to continue in that space without having to take that step into a treasonous space.
This morning, we watched the Hitler history on cable television and it was amazing. Our host family brought us breakfast on a tray because we couldn’t move away from the television. A real wake up call. There was no way to watch that without realizing the similarities.
I remember years ago all the publicity surrounding Donald Trump’s divorce from Ivana Trump. Big in all of that were things which seeped into the media from the divorce proceeding. Things like the claim that Trump kept a copy of Mein Kampf next to his bed on his nightstand and read a part of it every night. When you see how he is walking through his presidency, the lessons of those days comes through. He learned them well.
The first part of this many part documentary talks about how Hitler started out – before he got to first base – requiring loyalty from his friends and those around him. Personal and complete loyalty and requires them to make public statements of that loyalty. What struck me as I watched that was the cabinet meetings and other times when Trump required each member of his cabinet to pledge their loyalty to him in those two to three minute public speeches and to say wonderful things about him personally. They were not pledging their loyalty to the U. S. Constitution, they were pledging their loyalty to Trump personally.
In the middle of all this personal loyalty, Hitler in return had his best friend -Rohm – killed along with others. Just like Trump, who requires loyalty of others, but gives none to anyone in return.
What also struck me was Trump’s speeches being very much like Hitlers’ after 1934 when Hitler made a power grab like Trump is contemplating for 2018.
Striking too was the way Hitler folded his arms in front of himself when seriously speaking – exactly the way Trump does, especially around the table (among other times) when he threatened North Korea and Kim Jong Un with fire and fury like nothing the world has ever seen.
I’ve heard many talk about the Trump narcissism. In this documentary outlining Hitler’s “reign” what is talked about and what fits for Trump is not Hitler’s narcissism but his messiah complex. His need for absolute rule. Everything Trump has done since taking office and before seems to have come out of such a Messiah complex. Which says Putin and all those others who see Trump as a buddy and member of the club are, one day soon, in for a very rude awakening. If Trump continues in office they will rue the day they hooked up with him and it will probably be a sharp and complete surprise.
Trump’s messiah complex paralleling Hitler’s comes out when he talks in his campaign speeches and other places about only Trump being able to solve the people’s grievances. Only Trump can solve the problem aobut which he is talking. In this documentary comes Hitler talking about how only Hitler can solve the people’s grievances.
What was off for me in Trump’s campaign was his slogan to “Make America Great Again”. Since America was and is already at the top of its game his slogan seemed a stolen slogan from Reagan with Trump not wanting to do the work of coming up with one of his own. Many have tried to put that into some kind of context and explain what Trump and his supporters mean. With this documentary, Hitler’s slogan – Hitler-type nationalism will make Germany a great power and restore Germans to greatness. Deutschland UBER Alles.
Given the economy and the condition Germany was in after the war that kind of promise had a context which could be put into some kind of real space. For Trump to have taken that part of Hitler’s history and made it a part of his campaign when America was not in the lowered economic position that Germany was in at the time, shows just how much Trump copied from Hitler and his history without any thought to the actuality of the situation of America and Germany. Barack Obama brought America from the brink of a serious recession into a slow, upward moving economy – which is the kind you most want, since it will last over the long term and not suffer a blazing blow out.
If you are stealing – ‘whole hog’ – from another those things won’t register until years later when your mind clears of the fog created by such devotion to and copying of another man’s life.
Hitler’s history with women so totally parallels Trump’s that it is amazing – except there is, so far, nothing in Trump’s history to parallel the murder of one of his women, although lets just give that a bit of time.
Hitler constantly had a parade of increasingly younger women until Eva Braun, who was 17 at the time their relationship started and Hitler was well into his 40’s. Each one of Hitler’s paramours was much younger than the last. I don’t think I need to go into any detail to make that comparison with Trump – who is now with Melania, someone the age of Donald and Ivana Trump’s children.
Another very striking parallel is Hitler’s dependence upon unrest as a means to gain power. That is clearly what Trump is trying to do and maintain as president. He has constant unrest on every level. When the press and people see him as having something positive going there is much discussion and attempts to explain why he upheavals his own work. Looking at what happened in Hitler’s Germany – unrest for the sake of taking total power totally parallels Trump.
And the biggy – using minorities to galvanize his power – distract the populace – and give them something to do while he moves ahead consolidating his position in the country without their interference is very familiar. Trump has used the immigration issue unbelievably close to how Hitler used the Jews. A distraction which gives his base something to do to feel better than and to keep them busy constructing hell while he makes sure other large parts of his agenda get accomplished with very little blow back.
If the Republicans remain in power after 2018 I am sure we will see violence against every kind of minority such as the world has never seen before as Trump prepares to take over complete power in 2020.
The institutional structures which most helped Trump achieve his goal are the global billion dollar companies which are pulling together immense power through money, control, ability to respond in seconds, ability to manipulate very large numbers of people through propaganda and how to most effectively abuse technology is a done deal.
Relatively new global corporations are destroying others, blocking minorities and taking away whatever economic steps forward they have been able to make. They are what is being used to the corporate world at the top all white, all male, all norther European ancestral roots. That has become increasingly clear as we’ve seen Russian ‘infiltrators’ and others pointing out constantly to Americans in their circle how much alike they are and how much they have in common. The clear script running at the bottom of the television screen as they do this is the White Racism, White Nationalism, White Supremacy they are pointing to with moving.
When you come right down to it what would that commonality be that the Russian want Americans to see, believe and adopt? Not governmental structures; Not democracry; Not republican forms of government; ……but the need to be and include only white and ‘better than’.
____________________________________________________
Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!
[give_form id=”3763″]
____________________________________________________
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
We have had a long experience with Facebook, particularly with harrassment.
Bettina Network suspended managing estate sales because of the harrassment we received which became quite threatening and will keep that suspension until we can figure out how to deal with the kind of things that happened.
Our harrassment came in the form of Alan Davidson with Chestnut Hill Estate Sales in the Greater Boston area. They claim to be related to Chestnut Hill Realty – which manages many buildings around the Greater Boston area so Mr. Davidson and Chestnut Hill Estate Sales have a kind of protective cloud around them allowing him – as a member of their family (which is his claim) – to engage in foul business practices making it difficult for others to survive. Or at best to survive in the midst of his incredibly foul business practices, especially against those he considers his competition.
We knew Mr. Davidson, having been to several of his estate sales and had conversations with him as a friend of a friend.
When we had an estate sale we would find people arriving to attempt to destroy what we were doing and just cause a general mess. We began to recognize the people, who actually identified themselves as being connected with Mr. Davidson.
At one point we went to a sale managed by a very new (at the time) estate sale company – Consignworks. That same weekend we went to another sale managed by an estate sale company – which seemed new since we had not heard the name before – which called itself “Consign….” and discovered it was Mr. Davidson trying to muddy the waters and cause problems for Consignworks. Consignworks survived and has grown into a substantial part of the estate sale community.
We thought Mr. Davidson was a friend – more acquaintance – but he was related to people in the business we had known for a couple decades – the Shermans. Mr. Davidson identified himself as the son of Mr. Sherman’s then girl friend and subsequently his wife – so we considered him a friend.
On our Facebook page we embraced Mr. Davidson as a “friend”. Whereupon Mr. Davidson started putting some of the foulest posts on our Facebook Wall which were extremely racist – the language was foul – and the things he said were unbelievable.
Upon talking about this with others, we discovered he was doing the same thing, even to some of those who worked closely with him. It was shocking.
We contacted Facebook, referred them to the posts which were so foul they should not have been published anyplace, and asked them to please eliminate Mr. Davidson’s account. We also gave Facebook the names of others who were experiencing the same thing.
Facebook’s response was they could do nothing. The only recourse we had was to block Mr. Davidson from our account. We asked about the others who were at their wits end about the same thing. Facebook acknowledged there had been other complaints, but their policy was such the only thing they could do was to advise whoever complained to block Mr. Davidson’s from their accounts. When I pointed out to them that when someone threatens you their right to free speech stops, which gave Facebook the right to act – they were clearly more interested in keeping eveeryone than keeping everyone safe and the harrassment eliminated.
The posts in question were complete with some of the foulest language I had ever seen published by any kind of substantial public publication.
That happened several years ago.
Having tried to fend off Mr. Davidson’s attacks, we could not so instead of jeopardizing those who came to us to manage their estate sales, we decided to suspend that part of our business until we could find a way to address it.
It was clearly a very successful way for Mr. Davidson to eliminate an African American business. His friends must have been proud. What happened is something that used to happen in Mississippi or Alabama or any of the other states which specialize in bigotry at its worse and need to keep blacks out of the corporate business world.
It is way past the time for Facebook to take on its responsibility to make sure those who use its services are not open to being trashed and their lives being drastically changed while Facebook continues on down the road to incredible amounts of money earned at other people’s expense because they do not conduct their business with good business ethics, a good character and accepting the responsibility of making sure they are not invaded by such people. Russia may be what caused this discussion to become so public, but there are also homegrown people who make the lives of many on Facebook miserable. They can either not use the service or suffer from Facebook’s abdication of its basic responsibility.
Our experiences as a minority owned business have been legion and unbelievable. When one talks about the very limited number of minority-owned businesses in existence one needs to talk about and realize the forces that constantly do everything they can to limit and destroy such businesses. They are usually quite successful.
____________________________________________________
Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!
[give_form id=”3763″]
____________________________________________________
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
I suffered a loss, that could have destroyed everything I’ve built over some 30 years.
In very bad shape emotionally,
I came to your back door
and asked for your help.
You were busy and would not let me in.
You kept me standing outside your back door while we talked
I heard people inside so I knew you were busy
All that I had was on the line
if I could not solve the problem I came to you with
all would be lost for me
I would not have come
if I saw some other alternative
You went inside and came back giving me $40. and asked if that would help.
I thanked you, but did not take the money
it was not money I needed
it was help solving the problem
You said you had company and were busy
I asked who
You said your father and his family
So I went away.
My thoughts went way back
to when my daughter was just 4 years old
Her father and I separated
and eventually divorced
One day,
in desperation
shortly after the separation
I went to him
because we were homeless
and on the street
He was busy with his new ‘friend’
they didn’t have time to deal with us
he told me this was just like me
pretending to have a problem
and he sent us away.
Help came to us then
in the form of someone who always loved unconditionally
And gave unstintingly
out of the little she had
and she had very little
so we survived
and even thrived.
WHO AM I?
I am your mother!
_______________________________________
ED NOTE: A new feature appearing irregularly in Bettina Network’s Blog
Membeers of Bettina Network Lifestyle Community are invited to submit articles for WHO AM I?
As usual, with or without your name appearing – let us know. If you say nothing we will assume you don’t mind your name appearing. This could be submitted as poetry, prose, a short story, whatever form you choose.
________________________________________
Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!
[give_form id=”3763″]
_________________________________________
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
It is amazing to hear Donald Trump calling on the United States to change the immigration requirements. Amazing because if we had immigration by merit the Trump family would not be in the United States. They would have been amongst those rejected for immigration on any level – including asylum.
Trump’s grandfather’s specious background was outlined in another blog.
In this one let’s look at where Fred Trump – Donald’s father – got his wealth.
Fred Trump had a partner with whom he grew his wealth. Willie Tomisello, a man who – it is claimed – fronted for the mafia – in particular the Gambino and Genovese families. That explains some of which we found – receipts where Trump purchased concrete from the Gambino family and more.
Donald Trump himself, as he grew up and took over from his father beat at least four federal grand juries – which could explain his arrogance and the way he is now handling his response to the Mueller investigation.
So, we now have a president who has the style and ways of the mafia – so the United States is changing into a country where mafia style relating is becoming the norm. The foul language used normally and in practically every speech and appearance Trump makes is setting quite a low bar for our children, let alone the lifestyle of this president. Our children are watching and their teen years are going to be very different because the ethical example they are now seeing will set them on a very different path than that which their parents are trying to put their feet.
I prefer to think the presidential election of 2016 was hacked. I would hate to think that United States voting citizens elected such a person.
Mafia background – KKK, White Supremacist, White Nationalist from the time he was a very young boy who was influenced by his father’s connections to such organizations – serial adulterer – claimed abuser and assaulter of women – evil enough to kidnap children from their parents and keep both in Concentration Camps exposing them to the possibility of death through the “cold rooms” and to the sexual assault we are now hearing about which is taking place in those “Concentration Camps” in which they are put and so much more – business man who filed bankruptcy some 9 to 11 times – that evil shows forth in his past – learned at the knees of Jos McCarthy during the time of McCarthyism and during the time Donald Trump was the protege of Roy Cohn – expects everything from others and gives nothing as particularly shown in how he treated his mentor Roy Cohn when Cohn was dying of AIDS and Trump just disappeared when before he was seen around town having candlelight suppers with Cohn and socializing with Cohn’s friends, accepting all kinds of legal help from Cohn without paying, etc. etc. etc. – and that does not mean Cohn was such a great person that does mean Trump treats everyone including his mentor who was majorly responsible for bringing Trump and his company from Queens to Manhattan as though they are responsible to him without a vice versa. His choice of Roy Cohn and Joe McCarthy as mentors says even more about this United States President and his choices. We can see that being played out in his choices of people to serve in his administration. They will be forever tarred by the Trump brush.
And now you have Trump playing footsie with the Eastern European mafia and probably also the Russian mafia as he seems to aspire to become an Oligarch – one of those boys. Does that mean he has given the finger to the Italian mafia? – if so, how do you guys feel about that?
When you add it up – people wise – that all accounts for Trump’s base except for a few bigots who are hiding behind what they are now calling “Conservatism”, but in actuality are supporting the “Don” because inside all of his rhetoric is the one promise – that he will make sure they stay as White on top stepping on all minorities and does everything he can to reduce the numbers and positions of minorities and women. Keeping women within the old stereotype of a “lady” – barebreasted, pregnant, powerless, beholden to and doing the work of “her man” or “her men”. And so you have the “Don” strongly behind anti-abortion. How can you keep a woman subservient if she can legally control her own body.
So there you have America exposed. And the rest of us are still mightily struggling to develop and keep this as a republic on a sound ethical base on its way to becoming a democracy.
____________________________________________________
Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!
____________________________________________________
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
by: Marceline Donaldson
We hope you will take notice and respond to a crucial request!!!!!!!!
As a business partially owned by minorities and women, Bettina Network, inc. constantly has to protect itself and put up barriers to those who seem to need to undermine and attack us in any way possible. We are asking all of you to take notice. Not only for Bettina Network, inc. but to be responsible consumers and require companies to be ethical, moral and treat others with respect.
That is how we have tried to live and work. We know there are many of you out there who do the same. I think these past few years with what is happening in the United States should bring all of us to the realization that we have been given a choice. We can live and work in a world in which we undercut others; insult others; demean others or we can succeed through hard work, being of good character and morals.
We have had a very ugly experience when a member of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community called to tell us we were being undercut by a web site called IloveInns.com
How were they doing this?
By telling the world on their web site that Bettina Network, inc. was closed and no longer in business.
I was amazed and could not understand why anyone would do such a thing.
When I checked, sure enough there was the message in more than one place on their web site with Bettina Network, inc. listed – with other companies – but the line under the name Bettina Network, inc. has a little message for the readers telling them this company is no longer in business.
Bettina Network, inc. was the only company on their site with such a listing.
If they thought that was the case, they could have called to verify – they did not. If they didn’t want to call they could have looked up the web site for Bettina Network, inc. – they did not. Nor did they do anything else before taking such a step which could drastically and negatively affect someone else’s business.
They deliberately chose to put out this bit of negative advertising in an attempt to hurt our business.
Why do I say it was done to hurt us?
Most people would have simply eliminated a company which they determined was out of business. And before taking that step, most people would have made sure their information was accurate. To have kept Bettina Network, inc. listed with the additional tag of being out of business is negatively advertising another company and quite clearly, intentional.
I hope all of you respond.
______________________________________________________
Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!
______________________________________________________
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
1) It is amazing to hear all of these folks talking about Donald Trump possibly being compromised – to explain his actions. What a load of crap. The assumption wrapped into the claim of someone acting in a certain way because they have been compromised assumes they would normally act in a different, better way. It is time to acknowledge that Donald Trump is simply corrupt and has been for decades. His life’s history shows that clearly. Putin has not corrupted Trump. Trump has acted and said the things he has said and done because he sees that to be to Trump’s advantage. My assumption is that Trump sees himself becoming an Oligarch and having the wealth he has pretended to have for decades through his association with Putin and Russia.
Before he became president Trump apparently, according to those around him, had lots of money passing through the Trump Organization from Russia. After he filed so many bankruptcies – six they say – American bankers would not deal with him so he went through Deutsche Bank where Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s son works and money flowed to him.
Is his nomination of Kavanaugh for Supreme Court Justice really about a deal cut with Anthony Kennedy from Ivanka through Kennedy’s son to Kennedy resulting in Kavanaugh? Novels were written about such deals – businesses thrive through cutting such deals and here we are with this one right out in the open. There is no longer hidden evil, it is right out there for all to see and still it thrives.
When Trump leaves the presidency he won’t have much chance of making the kind of money he seeks. After all the Obama’s only made several million through their book deal, and a few talks, etc. and the Clinton’s the same and those who went before were a little wealthier because of their service to their country.. Trump, however, is looking for multi-billions not multi-millions and he can’t do that through book deals or speeches. He can accomplish that through ripping off the American government and its people and coming out in the multi-billions category. After all, he has something to sell – and that is the American Government and its influence to the highest bidder and currently, that seems to be Russia.
Enough of this business about Trump having been compromised. Trump is doing what he has always done – looked out for Trump in a greedy way going in the direction of the money with no thought to the trashing of everything he has left in his wake. I think often of the missed opportunity many of those trying for an education were screwed out of through Trump University.
2) I have never understood why Mitch McConnell and the other Republican Congress people held up the confirmation of Judge Merritt Chase for the Supreme Court. They wanted a Supreme Court appointee made by a Republican President. BUT, the person who looked like the winner and the next president was Hillary Clinton. So to follow that logic, they would have wanted someone like Merritt Chase rather than risk who Hillary would appoint – unless they knew something the rest of us did not know. They knew as long as a year before the election that Donald Trump would be elected president. How could that be unless they were involved in colluding with the Russian to bring about the election of Donald Trump, or they knew about the collusion of others and stood by and watched and approved since they saw themselves as benefitting. Either way it is despicable. Trump nominating Kavanaugh seems to be another spit at Obama from Trump as Trump appoints the man who works under Merritt Chase to a position over him. The filth being spewed by Donald Trump over all of us is monumental, foul and that for which we will repent and have to work hard to clean up for generations.
3) I heard many rumors that Trump’s rallies are being stacked with paid attendees. Any truth to that rumor?
4) Trump likes and understands Kim Jong Un because he would like to be in that kind of position and because Trump sees someone like himself? What does that say about those sucking up to Trump?
5) The abortion issue seems to miss a big point. Why do so many “Conservative” men and very sexist Paternalistic institutions wind up seriously, loudly and aggressively anti-abortion? Many men who are serially sexually abusive and engage in sexual assault against women are also anti-abortion. Does this mean the out of control male ego needs to know it can spread its sperm and wants no intervention to stop the children it is spreading around the world to prove its virility – especially those not caring for such children?
6) No worries that Kavanaugh, if he becomes a Supreme Court Justice, would be led by a good character, ethics, etc. His career shows his great ability to suck up to advance. We are so accustomed to so many advancing through that suck-up avenue we demur from calling that what it is. In this case, he would be coming to the Supreme Court as another mafia member where there have been so many appointed in the Trump Administration. The only question open is whether or not he will become a “made man”. Trump has made a few mistakes with his appointments thinking he was appointing “Trump Loyalists” who would kiss the ring. In actuality Trump’s corruption has become so extensive and so public that those appointed who thought they were being “promoted” and this was their chance in a job they wanted badly, have discovered their character and ethics have not allowed them to “suck up” the way one needs to if one wants to continue being a part of the Trump Administration. So many have been fired after having discovered that fact. Having been fired from your job in the Trump Administration has become a badge of honor – they should wear it proudly because it does say something about their character. That does not include those who had to leave because the public outcry against their corruption was so loud and strong they had to leave under disgrace.
7) This is all too much for me. This is not at all the country in which I was born – my parents were born – into the fourth generation. Some things I didn’t even think about before now. I’ve lived my life with the American mythology rather than the reality of who we are – I haven’t even faced the reality of who we are as human beings. All this took was for the United States to elect a black president? And a very competent and substantial black person who set a tone and reached a level that few have reached in that office. Have we all gone crazy because our identity – our White Supremacy – was threatened by that and now it has to be turned around so we won’t have to suffer the ignominy of equality? And we elected a Donald Trump to do that job?
I now understand how Hitler’s Nazism took over Germany; how Joe McCarthy held sway in the United States and destroyed so many lives for several years; how the Japanese Concentration Camps were founded and kept alive and thriving; how the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed and acted upon for a very long time; how the Native Americans were so destroyed after they put themselves out to help those who came to these shores very unprepared for what they found; how Jim Crow became the law of the land verified and solidified by the United States Supreme Court and kept the law of the land by that Court until recently. Where have I been, thinking I am living in this great democratic country? This fantastic republic? Look how quickly and how easily Donald Trump has taken over and turned everything around to move this country into an evil place. What kind of a dream state have I been occupying! Even knowing all of the above and starting to re-read history I slip up and go back to that naive person who was wrapped up in the unreality, the untruths sold to me from childhood. I don’t want to face this reality. There has to be redemption in here someplace. Goodness can’t have gone missing. Greed, powerhunger and all the rest can’t take the place of the values my parents instilled in me. Stop this and let’s get on with life as I knew it once again – only lets keep marching to an even better place. At the moment we are all in lock step on our way to hell.
ed note: The above was sent by members of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community. No other comments are necessary.
________________________________________
Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!
[give_form id=”3763″]
________________________________________
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
Just a brief note to hope you mention the fact that many of us believe several Congressional people have been compromised by Russia and Putin.
Every-time I hear someone expecting the Republicans to respond to the horrific things happening I wonder what’s wrong with them? It is clear many in Congress have been compromised by Russia – we think, through the NRA.
Didn’t the NRA give Trump some $20 million for his campaign. And hasn’t the NRA contributed multi-millions of dollars to the campaigns of quite a few Congress people? And don’t the Congress people take great care not to alienate the NRA? This nonsense about not wanting to alienate the base needs to be revisited. It looks instead that the Congress people don’t want to alienate the goose that lays the golden egg for them. And what happens when the NRA reveals to those Congress people where their money is actually coming from? The NRA does not seem to have the multi-millions it contributes. That money is coming from someplace – and where would that be? Would the genesis of their funds be Russia? and Putin? looking to compromise as many Congressional people as possible?
Will the day ever come when people serving the public good be those who don’t cower behind their need to keep their position, their income, their extras, their power and will give up their ethics, their character, their beliefs just to maintain? It was time for those working in the immigration area to take their belongings and leave when they realized what they were being asked to do – but many stayed on and helped separate children from their parents and even worked into the wee hours of the morning to move children at 1, 2 and 3am. Why do people give up so much for so little? Why do we cause others so much pain as we simply try to stay on top to continue with the money coming in and the little bits of power we exercise?
To stand in your own truth. To own your values. To live out of your belief system. What a luxury. You may not be the wealthiest of people doing that, but you certainly sleep well and don’t scare easily. How many have given their lives so you might live. You, Congress, will not give up your extravagant lifestyle and bits of power so democracy might live and grow and be strengthened for all of us. So what exactly are you doing in Congress. You should have resigned already.
It doesn’t take much. But it does take commitment – truth – justice – faith – and over everything it takes love. We have moved love out of its God sphere into the sex sphere and there we can be as corrupt as possible. Notice how many of those making these compromises of their core beliefs for money and power are also those being held up today for their sexual abuse, sexual assault, disrespect of women and many others because they so disrespect and abuse themselves.
Thanks for this “blog” space. Keep it up – we are reading.
___________________________________________
Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!
[give_form id=”3763″]
____________________________________________
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
It was amazing at the Republican Convention to hear Melania Trump give a talk which was lifted practically verbatim from a talk given by Michelle Obama. So it was not too much of a surprise to see her choice of clothes.
For the formal dinner in England just a few days ago, Melania Trump chose to lift the dress choice of Lupita Lyongo, the Kenyan/Mexican actress and model – only in yellow instead of the red chosen by Lupita for her appearance at the Golden Globe awards. www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/158540849363070263/
And then there was the jacket Melania wore to visit the site where children were being held in cages. remember? It said “I really don’t care. Do U?
All of the conjectures about the jacket missed a very crucial point. It was designed and manufactured by a company which routinely designs and manufactures anti-semitic clothes, of which that jacket was one – fit right in with the anti-brown/black immigrant goals of a White Nationalist family, don’t you think?
On a different wave length, to her more serious events she wears designs by people who would fit into the “better than” category the Trump administration and its White Nationalist philosophy has chosen to designate as those who are “better than” – “more/better culture than”, etc.
The Trump’s fit into the “Nouveau Riche” category and they are acting out their newsness to wealth and their inability to acclimate and fit into the society. Apparently, before the wealth arrived, the Trump family had some secrets to keep hidden in the “culture” department and are trying to do so by giving themselves a very different background from the one which is their reality.
Donald Trump labels himself as half-English/half-Scottish. With the claim that his mother came from England and the other side came from Scotland. Nothing about his real grandfather who came from Germany, which means that Donald Trump himself is an immigrant one generation removed from the man who arrived in these United States with no money – very broke – no education – scraping the bottom of the barrel and who reportedly moved himself up on the backs of women who he used to scrape together the means to build a hotel – and- it is rumored, used the hotel as a brothel.
This is the background of the man who is now trying to lift himself up by pushing down other immigrants and lifting up Northern European culture as at the top and currently endangered by all of the bare foot, dirty, non-English speaking immigrants he is trying so hard to keep out of the United States and strongly advising England to keep them out of their country or their “superior” culture will be lost. The Trumps clearly have worked hard to move themselves up class wise, but don’t quite seem to know how to do that. Their recently learned knowledge about this “cultural” phenomenon has come late and with lots of defects in the knowledge. The KKK, White Nationalists, neo-Nazi’s take you down the cultural ladder, Donald, not up. The “Upper Class” in these United States will never embrace someone with your background. Probably not your family until the third or fourth generation – which means Ivanka’s grandchildren – if they keep their noses clean and out of what you are constantly involved with and which Ivanka is, apparently, helping you to achieve.
Problem is, every time Donald Trump opens his mouth he shows his lack of a decent “cultured” upbringing and out comes all the crude, lying, greedy, lifestyle he apparently learned at his father’s knee. His presumptions and characterizations about himself show a great gift for storytelling. – Wasn’t it Donald and his father who were sued by the United States of America for the racism they were practicing in their buildings? And wasn’t it Donald’s father trying to lie his way out of being jailed with the KKK after they marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in their sheets and pointy hats trying to scare the entire American society? And given the choice wasn’t it the Donald who found his associates and friends among the mafia, the gamblers, those who stole from others to pad their own pockets ie his six bankruptcies which took away from many and gave him assets without a cost to the Trumps?
This is now the president of the United States – How the mighty have fallen!
The Evangelical Christians of a certain stripe support him strongly and claim their god sent him
Their god sent an
Adulterer
pathological liar
cheat
man full of greed – ripping off others as though it was his right
takes his failures and proclaims them as great successes
glutton
and so much more – do we really need to list everything?
______________________________________________________________________He needs to find GOD! and give up on his evangelical imitation leading him down the road to sedition and sin which leads him straight to hell! It is extremely interesting that the Trumps imitate the peoples they consider inferior and want to push down and characterize as “less than”. Wonder what that means?
______________________________________________
Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!
[give_form id=”3763″]
______________________________________________
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
I loved the poem about trees. I would love to respond with my own poetry, but until that day this is what I found which i find beautiful and an addendum to Lynn O. Cohen’s poem –
“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all ridicule and deformity, and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, Nature is Imagination itself.”
– William Blake, 1799, The Letters
“I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.”
– Henry David Thoreau, 1817 – 1862
“Around a flowering tree, one finds many insects.”
– Proverb from Guinea
“Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?”
– Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road
“God is the experience of looking at a tree and saying, “Ah!” “
– Joseph Campbell
____________________________________________
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
Leaves moving this way and that
sounds just like big ocean waves.
i am elsewhere.
Ah! the leaves giving me
a kiss on my cheeks
cooling me
even moving my short hair
i have arrived at the ‘mentor tree’
bottom looks like gargoyles,
witches faces
But look up! many big branches
tall and strong!
parts chopped off
but see how it still grew from there
Welcome to me
i am life!
i get wrinkles
and i move on
i’ll give you shelter anytime you want.
see that ant crawling on me?
for you it would be bothersome
doesnt bother me
i let it crawl
i welcome it.
i have persisted
nor’easters, wrinkles, ugliness, parts missing.
But i keep going and growing
Learn from me.
Lynn O Cohen
A Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Member
6/12/18
____________________________________________
Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!
[give_form id=”3763″]
____________________________________________
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
Quite some time ago I read a blog on these pages about “The Manchurian Candidate” and that was before Trump was elected president and today he is the president of these United States and clearly into treason against the United States.
Patterns?
Trump went to Canada and alienated U. S. Allies demanding that Russia be included in the “7” making it “8” and then he went on to North Korea and was smiley and extremely complimentary of Kim Jong Un, a dictator with a terrible record which included, apparently, killing members of his own family and other atrocities and Donald Trump found that laudatory. His flattery of Kim Jong Un was extravagant.
And now, on to the NATO meeting followed by an extremely private meeting with Vladimir Putin and another “I love Russia and Putin” and those NATO folks are $#%&%#S….
Those meetings are not accidental timings, they are arrogant.
The extreme privacy of his meeting with Putin violates his role as President of these United States. He is the U. S. President not a private citizen and as such he is responsible to the citizens of these United States in everything he does. Meeting privately with Vladimir Putin is against the interest of the United States.
Donald Trump is breaking laws in this country and turning it into a dictatorship which rivals that of Kim Jong Un. Given enough time he will make the atrocities in North Korea look small by comparison. That is what he clearly prefers and what he wants of his presidency – by his own admission.
He has probably done enough to be tried by an International Court and to call in the United Nations and any other international body that has jurisdiction over such acts.
Trump has, in the United States, created a crisis which has allowed him to establish Concentration Camps, Internment Camps and Death Camps. The post in this blog which made those statements early on was clearly correct. What he has created parallels Nazi Germany and takes it many steps beyond.
Trump has turned the “Brown and Black people” arriving in the U. S. seeking asylum from horrendous situations into criminals. He takes away their children and according to the news reports has “lost over 1,000 of them”. Lost them to what? The young girls lost to sex slavery? The young children lost to adoption by others? Any of them sold? It is certainly a slavery situation and closely parallels preparations for slavery auctions with people particularly children in wire cages.
Muslims, Hispanics are currently targeted. Trump has indicated the other non-whites will be next.
Are Naturalized Citizens from those “Brown and Black people” next? Will their citizenship be turned around and they thrown out of the United States after the DACA people are put in the wire cages and deported? Or will they be put into wire cages and moved to the Death Camps when no semi-lawful way is found to deport them? Are African Americans next? And then Native Americans – don’t know where they will be deported, but Trump will think of something. Or will they be jailed on”trumped” up charges and turned into caged slaves. Allowed out during the day to do the free work of the establishment and returned to jail in the evening. Maybe they will simply be killed. And then comes Asians and Asian Americans? He has already cancelled the passports for Asian Americans in Silicon Valley.
And in the process Trump has ignored the Constitution as though it does not exist.
He is isolating the United States and undercutting its economy.
It is clear what is needed to create a fascist dictatorship from a democracy or a republic is isolationism – trade wars – leading to a heavy depression and those are the circumstances under which we are living. That has already been done we just have to wait a couple months for the depression to take hold.
Those three things helped create the ground on which Nazism flourished.
To those who think that is a conjecture too far? It is not conjecture: –
We have death camps – only there is no gas to turn on. Trump has found something more excruciatingly lethal and they are called “cold boxes”. If you are ill when you arrive in this country looking for asylum, having walked over hundreds of miles to get here you are probably over tired, may have the flu and other problems. Are you given health care to help you along – no, you are put in a “cold box”. A place kept at 50 degrees to somethimes as “warm” as 55 or 60 degrees and there you stay until you are ‘decontaminated” of the germs you carry – which in several cases has been weeks. Everything you have is taken away from you and you are left in those “cold boxes” with a thin sweat shirt, thin pants and inconsequential to no shoes and those cold boxes include children and toddlers.
There can’t be doctors around because I don’t know of any doctor or other health person who would recommend such a treatment. All you need is a lowered immune system and a body underfed and exhausted to cause gradual death. If you get to leave the “cold box” you need a very heavy constitution to overcome its effects and over time you will succumb because that stay in that “cold box” compromises your entire system.
Trump supporters are a group of people who are on a level with, if not worse than, the MS-13 gangs Trump loves to threaten people with when the real enemy is Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions. The killing of the five news media recently and the serious injuring of more sits directly in Trump’s lap and comes from the kind of rhetoric he has encouraged and is spreading.
Sessions, the AG who Trump claimed to be against and wanted to fire when all along -while he was talking that rhetoric – dumping on Sessions to get people who neither liked nor respected him, but didn’t think Trump was treating Sessions “fairly” substantially supporting Sessions. And all the time, behind the curtain, Sessions with Trump were planning and working on a model of this current immigrant plan, put it into operation as a model to see what happened and when it worked to their satisfaction rolled it out as a full blown operation. Children taken from their parents, asylum seekers criminalized, “cold boxes” to increase the chances of immigrants dying – but not until they left the “cold boxes” so Trump would not be held responsible, and all that we see happening in front of our eyes. – AND, at the same time we are hearing Trump supporters bragging about what is to come next – even “better than” what we are currently experiencing with the immigrant question.
Nothing you see is what is real in this Trump presidency. The obfuscation, the hiding, the lying, the destruction of human life is extensive.
And then we have Donald Trump meeting with Vladimir Putin behind the curtain just before the mid-term vote in the United States. Another coincidence? I don’t think so. Trump has had a dream of a Trump Tower in Moscow since the 1980’s and it certainly looks as though he has made a deal to get his Trump Tower in Moscow. The timing is unbelievably arrogant – but then so was the call by Trump on television, during the Presidential Campaign, for Putin to hack the DNC computers which happened with Russian help. Trump’s denial of Russian interference with the United States presidential election is simply to make sure they are able to do it again when the next election comes up and he does nothing to negate the process. So he goes to meet Putin conveniently just before that mid-term election and at the beginning of that election season with whatever information Putin needs to be more effective this time with Trump having access to all of the United States intelligence so Putin and his boys can do a better job.
And this time there is an added flourish. – United States Congresspeople meet in Russia, just before Trump’s arrival, to insure that Putin knows and sees Trump’s ‘power’. The Congress people met to exclaim and proclaim their support of Russia and wish for great ties binding Russia and the United States peoples – the “White” ones who are the only ones who will survive Trump and his administration.
Make America White Again – coming from Trump means alliances with “White Nations” like Russia – which is all White and the power structure 99% male. It also means alliances with other such countries while dumping on those which are not “White” and/or which have given in to the women and have women in the power structure.
Some Americans wanted a business person as president. That meant all kind of positive things to them. Well take a look and then take a look at our corporate structures and some of the leaders of that corporate structure and their ethics and character match Trump’s – they are also clearly not building republics nor anything close to democracies and probably never will. Only a handful really profit, the rest of us work all of our lives for those few to immensely benefit. I believe the blog in this series which says -the growth of U. S. Billionaires parallels and causes the growth of the homeless.
So in summary:
Parallels to Nazi Germany
Death Camps which gassed people = Trump Death Camps which destroy peoples already compromised immune systems in “cold boxes”. Cold boxes take longer and are more painful than gassing and people die after being released from the cold boxes so Trump and his people can deny, lie, obfuscate and abdicate responsibility.
The SS for enforcement = ICE for enforcement, burying the facts and lying to U. S. Citizens and the world to cover what is actually happening.
no rule of law = Trump has made a mockery of the U. S. Rule of Law by, among other things, having 3 and 4 year olds, who sit in Court on chairs, where their feet can’t touch the floor, alone, defending themselves
Trump – a pathological liar which means the institutions over which he has power have become pathological liars and so have those who are the administrators and others in those institutions. It is the only way they can survive.
____________________________________________________________
Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!
[give_form id=”3763″]
____________________________________________________________
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
Members of the Supreme Court, appointed by Republicans and being Republicans, came together to make a decision on the latest version of Trump’s Muslim Band and decided to support the personal bigotry of the Republican President – Donald J. Trump – instead of the Constitution of the United States.
When the second African American man was appointed to serve on the United States Supreme Court, those who made that decision appointed Clarence Thomas, a man accused of sexual abuse, sexual harrassment and more. Nevertheless, Clarence Thomas’ nomination was validated by Congress because the White Males in this country, especially those in Congress even after hearing the incontrovertible evidence as to Clarence Thomas’ character knew their own culpability in such sexist activities and cherished their sexist playground peopled by females more than they did the honesty, reputation and accurate interpretation of the Constitution. Their decision in passing Clarence Thomas through to the Supreme Court showed one role females play in this society, which the Congress representing the society would not give up. A woman’s abuse as sex object and her availability as object of sexual abuse , sexual harassment and sexual assault without penalties of any kind insured for the future.
That is still true as evidenced by the fact that we elected Donald J. Trump as president of these United States. An illegitimate president, but one still in office almost two years on. A man accused of sexual abuse, sexual harassment and sexual assault who admitted to such over national television and bragged about his illegal sexual activities.
We are now in the process of making sure that the institutions of these United States, including its Constitution all bow to his wishes – his autocratic wishes – his clearly evil wishes and actions which he is undertaking to remake this country from a Republic into an evil dictatorship with him as the dictator.
If this sounds angry, it is. My life has been fighting against such evil and it just reoccurs. We then start the process all over again. Those who want to live in a society where they and ‘their kind’ are better than get better at it each time because we have had experience of knowing how to be more sophisticated and hidden in what we are doing and how we are changing the structures in which we live while, at the same time, keeping them the same.
This latest Supreme Court ruling putting the stamp of acceptability on Donald J. Trump’s wishes to make sure these United States discriminate against its citizens and those who would like to become citizens\based on their religion. In the past the United States Supreme Court has ruled in such a way as to discriminate against African Americans slaves, making that legal and later against supposedly “freed slaves” by ruling that separate and unequal was legitimate and the law of the land – a ruling which stayed in affect from the late 1880’s until 1954. A law which destroyed many lives and caused millions to live lives of quiet and sometimes not so quiet desperation. The Trail of Tears under which Native Americans suffered and attempted ethnic cleansing and its ruling in 1944 that it was legal to incarcerate Japanese Americans in Concentration and Internment Camps because they were Japanese Americans and as such could not be trusted the way German Americans and Italian Americans could be trusted.
There were rulings by this same United States Supreme Court which is claimed to be color blind and sees all Americans as equal no matter their race, sex, sexual orientation, religions ethnic origins, etc. So much for that mythology.
This ruling came about to facilitate the ethnic cleansing that we are in the middle of, led by Donald J. Trump who ran on such a platform – who set in place an Administration full of neo-Nazi’s; racists, sexists, anti-every religion except his kind of ET.Evangelical Christianity espoused by the likes of Franklin Graham and others who give this president a “mulligan’ whenever he transgresses God’s laws.
We held up to you what was happening – the United States was on its way to becoming another country following in the footsteps in Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany only worse. You heard those warnings and said – that is an extreme comment. We pointed out to you that Concentration Camps would soon be established in these United States and you said – that is ridiculous and an exaggeration. And you now have Concentration Camps, Internment Camps and you are on your way to Death Camps. Those steps were taken in swift succession.
Today, they are peopled by children who have been weaponized to bring about Trump’s dream of an America over which he and his family rule like the worst despots, the fascist leaders he has clearly articulated admiring like Kim Jong Un; Vladimir Putin and several others.
One thing Adolf Hitler did not do, but Donald J. Trump has done, is the weaponizing of children – “suffer the little children to come unto me for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven” – these are the ones he has weaponized and will continue and worsen his use of them. Donald Trump is the man who bragged about deliberately walking into a room full of 16 year olds unexpectedly and unannounced. – The 16 year olds in various stages of undress as they prepared to be a part of his beautiy pageant and as such were in a position under him with his fairly substantial power over them. Sounds like today? Only this is not a beauty pageant; the children are much younger and much more vulnerable under his complete control as he can decide whether they live or die. Try that when you think of all the children who are now unaccounted for, who cannot be found. The United States military is preparing to house the world’s children in what is the equivalent of “black sites”. Today, they are Hispanics. Tomorrow they will be Muslims. And after that? After he has expanded his internment camps to accommodate the 100,000 and more he is currently demanding – will he then ‘intern’ the DACA people and be able to do so other quietly as he ushers them out of the country keeping them in the interim in these camps? Camps that he could not establish for DACA because the uproar would be deafening. But he can take this move very sneakily and by the time we know what he is doing it will be well along the way with many DACA people having been ‘evicted’ from the United States irrevocably. He is moving fast to achieve #MAWA.
What has he needed to take this country all the way to an evil dictatorship which destroys its own people? Trade Wars – we have that. A recession that will make the “Great Depression” look like a wonderful time in the life of this country by comparison. We are moving fast into that place.
We now have the largest federal deficit in history and we are moving extremely fast to make it as large as possible as Trump rips off everyone. Here is a man who talks about saving money to his electorate and outlines how his latest evil scheme is going to save the United States tons of money. How is that working for you?
Trump spends almost $1,000,000 per weekend as he travels to his golf courses and to his private club Mar a Lago to take on his management oversight of his property. To make sure the marketing and oversight – by Trump – is still in place and producing results? He manages and checks on all of his places at the expense of the United States tax payer making sure the marketing is such that the world thinks they have access to him on weekends and can get their projects funded and more if they patronize his privately owned businesses.
Trump has set up Concentration Camps and Internment Camps with children currently in residence. The cost of keeping children in those camps is about $2,000 per day. Before the camps were set up the cost was something like $360/day.
And the Trump administration is turning out to be the most corrupt administration in the history of this country. His appointees are being exposed one at a time and he ignores the corruption of those who do his bidding and show him their loyalty – not to the country they are supposed to be serving, but to Donald Trump persoanlly. They can be as corrupt as they want to be and rip off everyone and everything as long as they are loyal to Donald Trump – A current example of a mafia “don” – only this time angling to be a mafia “don” on a world wide scale.
All of this gives new meaning to Melania Trump’s jacket and its meaning – “I really don’t care.” Is this Donald Trump’s attitude and thoughts about the United States Constitution and the United States of America as it relates to and affects everyone except him?
Turning back to the United States Supreme Court. What role has it played in this democracy?
We could go all the way back to slavery and when that was made legal and the law of the land. But this would become a very long article. How did slavery become legalized? See any coincidences and similar ways to achieve the evil a small group wants to install within the structures of these United States to maintain themselves as “better than”?
Let’s skip to the 1880’s when Plessy vs. Ferguson was before the Court. How did it rule? It made separate and (un)equal legitimate and that stayed in affect until 1954. the U. S. Supreme Court turned back every attempt to turn back Plessy vs. Ferguson.
To insure that there was no equivocation and no misunderstanding that the Plessy decision was the intent of the Court, it ruled in the Korumatsu case that Japanese Americans – American citizens – many of more than one generation Americans – could be held in what are now called “black sites” because they were a threat to the National Security of the United States – and stripped of everything they owned.
Isn’t that what is being claimed by the United States Supreme Court today? Trump’s travel ban must stay in place because it addresses the national security of these United States. Just in case you missed the confluence of these cases – at the same time the Chief Justice Roberts complained about the dissent statement of Justice Sotarmeyer he also declared the Koramatsu case to have been reversed and closed. What he didn’t say – there was no longer any need for the Koramatsu case as any kind of exmaple as the Court moves along in other deliberations because the Trump Travel Ban does much the same thing – insures that now Religion is added as one reason which can be used to discriminate against American Citizens and others.
Those Concentration Camps and Internment Camps and Death Camps now hold Hispanic children. They will probably soon hold Hispanic families. They will, no doubt, move from there to holding DACA and from there to Muslims in general. And then what? Are those plans being laid within the White House for the rejection and cancellation of the citizenship of Naturalized United States citizens because of “National Security”?
Those being held in the 1940’s in Internment were not German Americans nor Italian Americans. Both groups would have posed a threat to the United States if the reasoning behind the Koramatu case was real and not a bunch of lies put together by the United States Government with the intent to incarcerate in Concentration and Internment Camps United States Citizens.
That goal was clear recently when “reparations” for the Japanese still alive who were interred in those camps. Reparations for that group was passed by Congress and the people charged with investigating, for the purpose of handing out those reparations to the Japanese American families negatively affected by their incarceration without cause – those people were pushed to “slow down” their investigations and to “slow down” their handing out of the reparations because the Japanese Americans to whom the reparations would be going were getting old and if the process moved slowly many would be dead before they received their reparations and the United States would not have to fully reimburse “saving money” in the process.
And what is behind all of this? All because many of you need to maintain your identity as “better than” and you are going to do that no matter the cost to others or to yourselves. So evil is taking over this country and swiftly.
If you dig a grave for me – make sure you dig a second grave and line it with a lovely and comfortable mattress because you will, without a doubt, be your own undoing and wind up in the same place. I heard that someplace – and the more I think about it the more I realize what a true statement.
GREED – POWER and CONTROL over others – STEALING from others because of your own laziness – and on and on and on! – that is what is ruling these United States today under Donald Trump.
________________________________________________________________
Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!
[give_form id=”3763″]
________________________________________________________________
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
Many breakfast table conversations move into the areas of health and beauty. We have heard just about everything people do to enhance their natural looks and we have tried everything talked about. We don’t put everything out for you to try or know about because we want to make sure someone in the Network has tried it and thinks it is marvelous.
As you get older your hair ages just as your skin, your bones and everything else. So trying to “fix it”, “stop it”, “shape it up”, “strengthen it” and in this case “keep my beautiful locks” can become a constant pre-occupation. A fun pre-occupation, but time consuming – so, expecting great results goes along with the staying beautiful and always at my peak of perfection. My grandmother used to say “when you step out of that front door you should look as though you just stepped out of a band box.” During those years I knew what she meant. Today, I often wonder just what is a “band box”?
Entering into this discussion comes “Henna” – a hundreds of years old solution to all kinds of hair problems. One not so popular today because it is simply a plant which has been mashed and ground to a powder.
Several of us have been using Henna in different ways for several years and it has turned out to be fantastic. It has taken all those years to learn how to get the best results but it was worth the trial and error and the gnashing of teeth. My hair has never been so beautiful and we are 20 times (4) years old, or maybe its is 20 times (2) years old or maybe it is something else?
The Henna we found most usable is the kind which is pure organically grown Henna. No chemicals of any kind added; no preservatives; no anything else – just the crushed leaves of the Henna plant. If you are going to try Henna, make sure it is real and not a part of a mixture of other things.
Now to – how to use Henna for your hair:
First: Wash your hair with a good shampoo. The Henna we settled on advises that you wash your hair with a shampoo without essential oils. I use an organic shampoo with lavender essential oil and it seems to do fine although it is possible that the Henna would last longer if I listened to the experts.
Second: Decide with what you want to mix your Henna. We’ve tried eggs, organic apple cider vinegar, tea, coffee, yogurt and much more. I found eggs and organic apple cider vinegar works best in my hair which is naturally curly and can look unruly if it gets dry – which can be often.
Don’t try eggs and organic apple cider vinegar at the same time. Try one and next time try the other. Inbetween applying Henna I now use a raw egg in my hair after I shampoo. Crack the egg, beat it to mix yolk and white, cover your hair with the raw egg and make sure your all hair is covered while you sit with your hair and head wrapped in something like Saranwrap or a shower cap and wrapping a towel around my head for 1/2 hour or more depending upon what else I have to do. This is the same process I use for the Henna. If I mixed Henna with organic apple cider vinegar. then when I wash my hair in-between Henna applications I go back to using the egg as a conditioner.
I was totally amazed at what the raw egg did for my hair. At first I thought it was the Henna, but after many tries I realized it was the raw egg. My hair comes out softly curled in spite of my doing nothing to it after the egg application except drying the hair with a towel and putting on a bit of organic Avocado Oil to keep it from drying out. I know the effect has not come from the Avocado Oil because I used that before I started with Henna and eggs and after a day or two my hair dried out and looked as though it was breaking off and out of control. With the egg and Avocado Oil my hair lasts looking great for about a week before it needs to be re-washed.
I don’t use organic apple cider vinegar in-between Henna-ing my hair because I didn’t see what good it did. When I use it combined with the Henna the color seems brighter and shinier.
Third: Ready to apply Henna to freshly washed hair – mix the Henna powder (which is ONLY Henna leaves pounded into a powder) with one or two raw eggs which you have whipped before adding and then add enough water to this mixture to end up with something the consistency of a thick, wonderful yogurt – which, by the way, is something you can also add to Henna.(Instead of the egg or apple cider vinegar).
Those who used tea and coffee didn’t see any observable results. Their hair didn’t change in any way neither for the good nor the bad. It didn’t seem to affect the color nor did it seem to contribute to how long the Henna results lasted.
My results last for about two months. After that it is time to try again. It lasts two months not because the color changes or leaves the hair, but because the grey grows back in and I have that color line between the new growth which is grey and the Henna’d hair. What I really like is the new growth once I put in Henna, comes out a bit lighter than the old hair and it sort of mimics the grey and dark brown of my original hair. The lighter color around my face has a softening effect.
I also like the fact that my hair looks as though I have had it streaked as the grey throughout comes out lighter than the hair which is still dark brown and that is also an effect I love.
You have to experiment to finally get the results you like and if you enjoy variety you won’t stop there, but keep on going so each time you step out you have a new look. Not a drastic new look, but one of which you are aware. Friends notice how nice you look. It isn’t dramatic enough to notice and be able to see what the changes really have been.
Fourth: Once you have the Henna mixed the way you would like – making sure the water you add is very hot – apply Henna to your scalp and hair until you have used it all up and have a thick coating with every hair strand covered well down to the scalp and root.
Fifth: Wrap your head and hair with something like Saran Wrap or other material which will hold heat. If you have a salon type hair dryer – where you put your head in the bubble and turn on the heat; or a hand held dryer with the cap attached to the hose that is great. Go ahead with either of them.
If you use the Saran Wrap or a plastic shower cap – the ones you used to get from the airlines when you travel are great for this – after you have covered your hair completely then wrap a towel around your head to keep in the heat. If you have the salon dryer or cap style dryer turn them on for at least 1/2 hour. The darker your hair the longer you need to keep the Henna covered and heated.
Sixth: Once the time has passed – I keep Henna on my hair for one hour for best results for me (you have to decide your best time through trying different times) – rinse your hair thoroughly with very warm water until the Henna has all washed out. Be very thorough in this wash.
Seventh: After rinsing the Henna out of your hair completely, shampoo as usual, towel dry your hair, and add a bit of organic Avocado oil.
Eighth: After all of the above go about life as normal. If you set your hair on huge rollers, do that. If you shake your head, do nothing and go about your business do that also. If you comb and arrange your hair the way you would like it to look when dry and then put on a netting to keep your hair in place while it dries – do that also.
Let us know your results. This is a give and take article. We’ve given and now we are ready to take in your experiences. Let us know if you want your results published with or without your name. You do have to be a member of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community to have your results published in the Bettina Network blog.
_________________________________________________________________
Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!
[give_form id=”3763″]
_________________________________________________________________
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
If you have comments, questions, suggestions, etc. please send them to bettinanetwork@comcast.net.
Omarosa – you go girl!
August 14th, 2018“Don’t diss me until you have walked in my shoes.”
It should be amazing to hear, see and read all of the press coverage about Omarosa and her firing by the White House, but it isn’t. What should be amazing about it? The fact that she lasted as long as she did even though she was over the area set aside for minorities. To remain for any length of time in such a position in the Trump White House must have taken a lot of will, political skill and knowledge of self-preservation.
We are seeing the racism of those doing the anti-Omarosa reporting come through like spotlights. It is historical.
For example:
– Omarosa was held in the “Situation Room” for some two hours and was taken into that room, one black female, by four white men. I’ve seen that before and it is meant to scare the same way white sheets and pointy hats and burning crosses are meant to scare. However, the only thing we hear the media addressing is the fact that Omarosa recorded the ordeal and what an awful person she is for having done so. Some have even gone to the lengths of claiming that she should be prosecuted for having jeopardized the security of the United States through this act. Does that sound similar to “lock her up”? Is that a clear blame the victim?
It seems to us the only way the national security of the U. S. was jeopardized was by General Kelly using a secure room which should be used for national security meetings, etc. and used it as a setting to intimidate and restrain a black woman in a room against her will. There is no other way to describe what happened to Omarosa during her time in the Situation Room except as a time of instilling fear and intimidation. How come holding an employee of the White House against her will is not worthy of coverage? Unless, of course, this is seen as normal because it is a black woman and because we want to make sure the victim is blamed where race is concerned. No or very little blame has been incurred by General Kelly and his three co-intimidators. Holding someone against their will is generally called kidnapping – “lock him up.”
– And – One needs to go back into the history of the relationship between Trump and Omarosa before reporting how they are the same! That is the most ridiculous claim of all. Let’s paint both with the same brush! Even making the claim that Omarosa, while like Trump, is much worse. Those are flabbergasting charges.
When you look back at the history of their friendship the extent of Trump’s racism didn’t become clear until he was into his run for president. Whenever a black – especially a black woman, works with whites you have to and are raised to turn a deaf eye and ear to a lot of the racism of your friends, co-workers, acquaintances. That is just survival in these United States. Some people handle that better than others. That appears to be what happened to Omarosa, especially looking at the blacks who surrounded her and seeing the blacks who knew the way to attempt to make claims on Trump’s pocket book and power – ie Kanya West.
Looking at the Apprentice TV show, it had a fairly large number of blacks on the show and it was not easy to pick up racism. Not many of the blacks on the Apprentice picked that up – if they did they certainly kept that discovery to themselves. One assumes also that as the star of the show the people picked were chosen by Donald Trump. However, in this ‘dust-up’ we learn and we learn it from Omarosa that Donald Trump did not choose the people who appeared, there was a production company which did that which accounts for the diversity.
– We have yet to hear anyone talk about Omarosa’s composure, her ability to handle the press when they try to demean her in the middle of an interview, how put together she looks always and the way she carries herself.
Maybe we just don’t remember that during the transition period Omarosa was a part of what was happening in Trump Tower and seemed to be the one sitting in the back of the room closely observing the comings and goings. So – when she makes the comment that as president, people will bow down to Trump and be obsequious as they try to share his power (not her exact words, but the sentiment of the famous taping that is playing over and over on news reports) it is more a statement of truth then one of Omarosa bowing down to Trump. She is in the middle and sees people coming and going who once criticized Trump now bowing down to be included somehow – let us remind you of Mitt Romney, Al Gore, etc. etc. people who would not be expected to show up at Trump Tower because of their strong and accurate criticism of Trump. Omarosa’s character and ethics are criticized using that film clip to do the criticizing, but she is simply telling the truth. We don’t want to be faced with the hypocrisy of our leaders – we want that to slide as they become a part of this Trump Administration. That is how the game is played until along comes this black women who stands in front of the camera and articulates exactly what is happening and points out our hypocrisy in that process. She wasn’t puffing up Trump’s ego – she was truth telling.
– What is also clear is the way the press refused to interview Omarosa during her tenure on the White House staff and the fact that no one said she formerly worked at the White House so was the only staff member with any experience on such a staff. That part of her background was enclosed in silence while other parts – which reflect the stereotype of black women – is pulled out and paraded around.
– To look at the entire picture of Omarosa’s life it was clear that we were headed for such a moment as this. A doubly oppressed minority with Omarosa’s family history and her beginnings in fairly poor surroundings, it is no surprise that having been taken up by Trump as she was moving upward on her own steam, aggressiveness, life-history she would praise Trump. Who gave her such an incredible opportunity? To have moved from Omarosa’s beginnings to Senior aid in the White House is an awesome achievement. She was grateful as many are who experience a life beginning of serious and severe oppression.
To her credit, however, Omarosa was not tone deaf. How she conducted herself in what had to be horrendous surroundings in the middle of people who showed themselves to be totally racist and sexist is nothing short of brilliant. That she woke up from those surroundings to take such a clear, strong, stance and came out of it with what she needed to prove what her life was like during her time in the Trump bubble shows who she really is and the strength of her character.
When you compare that to others who came out and felt they had to sign the NDA AND ACCEPT the $15,000 or other figure per month to keep silent speaks volumes about Omarosa, who was offered the same deal and refused it instead, opened the door to the White House for the rest of us to see what her life had been like and what life in the White House is like. Omarosa gave us another pathway to understand what is happening in these United States.
Do you know what it is like to be in a situation and treated in the horrendously negative way she was treated? What do you do? Some would move out, resign and be grateful for the $15,000/month offer.
“Until you walk a mile in my shoes don’t let your self-righteousness cloud your eyes and ears and keep you from learning from my experience. Is your life so pure you can so negatively judge me?”
When you come from Omarosa’s background to double down and try to make a success of where you are because you know those opportunities are not overwhelming determines your daily life and decisions. She was alone in a White House that was very hostile to her yet she stayed and still worked to attempt to open doors for blacks and that in spite of the fact that neither blacks nor whites reached out to her, but instead negatively characterized her, judged her and treated her like a piece of disposable dirt. It is pretty bad and it is a trap from which it is hard to extricate yourself.
Omarosa had to have a sense of justice to tape, write and go out in the front of a storm to confront and expose. She also has to have a strong sense of who she is to go up against all the negative comments about her “lack of credibility.” What lack of credibility. She was rarely covered by the press for anyone to know who she was – lots of assumptions because she was a friend of Donald Trump and backed him even when his extreme racism began to show. That is not lack of credibility.
At one time I would have said that is lack of good judgment. However, seeing what she was doing with her time in the Trump White House and how she documented what they were doing for a future release time I have changed my mind about that. It seems to me Omarosa was taping people and situations during her time with Trump because her way out was going to be to document everything she saw and experienced. To let all of that out in a book which she probably saw as an alternative to the abyss which awaited her whenever she did decide to leave or would be removed from the White House. She certainly has eliminated the prospect of being called a “go for coffee girl.”
Omarosa is a touch stone for a whole lot of blacks. Those still in the Republican Party and feel they are contributing to moving blacks ahead – staying to be able to document history correctly; feeling that they are keeping really horrendous things from happening to blacks inside and outside the Republican Party; being present to document their experience which could be skewered by others if she didn’t. That is just a few – there are many more.
Omarosa is no better nor worse than the black attorney who is called on to represent clients accused of racism – that happens so much it is automatic and to be expected, We see the black attorneys complimented for their work not dissed for allowing themselves to be so negatively abused; women called to diss other women because coming from a woman it is a stronger dissing; blacks called on to make negative claims against other minorities and so much more.
Omarosa is and has been a black woman whites don’t understand; don’t like; don’t want around because she violates everything about blacks and the black experience that they think they know and understand – she can’t be trusted therefore her character and ethics are in question; but mostly she is the foil against whom we see sharply the failings of other blacks, male and female, those who parrot and are promoted by whites to do their bidding in exchange for 20 pieces of silver and a brief time appearing to be considered equal. She uncovers those blacks as they try to put her down and uncovers those whites who desperately want to protect and continue to cultivate “their” black who helps them hold the line against the onslaught of equality.
Put all of the above against what you will hear over the next few days about Omarosa. You can agree or disagree, but this is what we see.
____________________________________________
Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!
[give_form id=”3763″]
_____________________________________________
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
Tags: African American history, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, breakfast table talk, Donald Trump, Racism, Sexism
Posted in African American history, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Breakfast Table Talk, Donald Trump, Guest comments, John Kelly, Omarosa, racism, sexism | Comments Off on Omarosa – you go girl!