From a Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Member 1.
Who writes this stuff! I had in mind the same thing, but didn’t have the guts to say out loud what I have been thinking about all of these forces being acted out in this world today. I am incredibly delighted that your people did.
It is worrisome as a Christian – at least that is what I call myself – to have this history of my Christianity backing slavery and all the other evil causes it has backed. Going through school and studying all of this made it even worse because there was no explanation. You were just left with nothing but a violent memory.
I took this to a further stage. Talk is now resurfacing about Gucifer 2.0. Every time I hear the name of this Russian group which worked to elect Donald Trump as president of these United States I think of and my mind automatically substitutes “Lucifer” for Gucifer and Lucifer is what we call Satan. And then I wonder if this is Russia’s sense of the absurd or if someone named this group without a conscious connection between Gucifer and Lucifer. I also can take this further still by remembering that the New York city building Trump’s son-in-laws family owns with its address being 666 (the sign of Lucifer) and which was rumored to be in financial trouble with the possible Saudi’s bailing them out which is the set-up for another genocide with Trump sending U. S. Troops to help the Saudi’s with another genocide, this time of the Yemens.
At any rate, true or not, it explains a lot that happened with Trump’s election. And explains a lot about Trump himself.
_______________________________________________
From Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Member 2
I have been really disappointed not to have read or heard any comments coming from the Armenian community in support of the Kurds. Having gone through the same thing with the Kurds on the tip of becoming annihilated by Turkey it really gives another look at what happened to the Armenians and into the Turkish National Memory and Character.
The Armenian Genocide has come around again, this time with the Kurds substituting for the Armenians. If anyone wonders what happened. Here it is being acted out again on the world stage.
______________________________________________
From Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Member 3
I read and heard so many people warning about what Trump would do if he was impeached. Mostly, they expected him to start World War III. I shoved that off as hysteria or ridiculous, no one in this world is that bad. Well, here we are today and what is the distraction Trump and probably his fascist brother leaders have come up with? A war! An outrageous war with Turkey vs the Kurds plus more nations involved and another genocide.
I am glad you added in the article about the Armenian massacre by the Turks is what generated the term “genocide.” We need to be reminded of our history.
_____________________________________________
From Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Member 4
The “anti-Christ” is quite appropriate for Trump and his buddies. It looks as though Trump is coming way down and is trying to take the world with him in a fiery storm. To go back to Scripture – doesn’t it say “…the fire next time.”
Thank you for putting that in print in a publication that has put out some substantial stuff. Months ago you wrote about all of this and now it is just coming into print in the mainline media. Keep writing – whether it is by a group, or one, or an occasional article. I have one to send on beauty, but it seems too out of it right now. Do I send my password to make sure my article gets printed?
ED. NOTE: To submit an article for Bettina Network’s Blog – please include your name and the password you receive and which is renewed yearly. That is your ticket to become one of our writers. You can write many articles – detailed scientific articles to cover yourself on being the first to publish – funny stories – serious items of interest – breaking news or news we can break, etc. – your thoughts, concerns, philosophy, religion. Love to have your contributions. Since we are surrounded by theologians we try to go slow on those publications, but we will soon take the restraint off them.
This is to Marceline Donaldson – please publish it in Bettina Network’s Blog and make sure she gets a copy. Is she still overworking? That was one workaholic family. They didn’t do much besides work. Hope that is changed. I remember Cookie from school. She practiced her piano for several hours each day, was a reporter for her grandfather’s radio and television show reporting on school news and I think she was about 9 or 10. The things she has been into over her lifetime – it is amazing.
Hi Cookie
Just found this publication and was amazed, but not really surprised. You are following your family footsteps. I remember your grandfather – O. C. W. Taylor – who was a co-founder of the Louisiana Weekly along with CC Dejoie, Sr. and who helped bring the Pittsburgh Courier to New Orleans, among other places. My mother used to tell me “OC” stories and she said the first office of the Pittsburgh Courier was in your home. That must have been exciting although we were both too young to have much memory of that. Printers ink must be in your veins plus dress design (and I remember with hysterical laughter your sculptures) and God knows what else.
What I am reading about here are the things your family was always into. This is what I heard your grandfather had in mind when he and Mr. Dejoie started the “Weekly”. A paper which, when it was founded tries to publish substantial stories and especially editorials to give the “Community” another way to think. We have too much on parties, fashion articles, who had dinner with who – except I have to take that back because I remember your mother and she was the society editor for the Courier and I think also for the Weekly. Keep up the good work. If I can help in any way, let me know. I hope others are thinking the same because this needs good support, which is why I am writing this to you for publication in Bettina Network’s Blog.
Don’t go off on me and put this aside, I am writing it as an article for you to put in Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community’s publication. My password is enclosed to make sure you have to print this.
Thanks,
_____________________________________________
IT COSTS MONEY TO PRODUCE THIS BLOG. WE HOPE YOU WILL CONTRIBUTE SO WE CAN EXPAND AND CONTINUE THE RESEARCH AND WRITINGS WHICH KEEP YOU KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT MANY THINGS THAT WOULD NOT REACH YOU OTHERWISE ALONG WITH THE OPINIONS AND WORK OF THOSE WHO ARE MEMBERS OF BETTINA NETWORK’s LIFESTYLE COMMUNITY.
What follows are some of the ways you can support our work:
*This contribution is to the Bettina Network Foundation, inc which is a 501(c)3 organization and tax deductible.
Project 2 – #WellsFargoBoycott*
This contribution is to the Bettina Network Foundation, inc. which is a 501(c)3 organization and tax deductible.
Project 3 – Growing Bettina Network’s Blog
into a major media outlet bringing to the public news, recipes, thoughts, reviews of businesses, etc. from the perspective of those who belong to Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community.
Project 4 – Boycott the Twenty Dollar ($20) bill
You can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net
What causes some people to become beautiful human beings and some to be horrible? That is a consistent thought of mine as I go about work, play, eating with many different souls and see the total difference in how they live their lives. None, however, reach the depth of evil that Donald Trump is exploring and taking joy in as he tries to become wealthy, maintain power and just ignore humanity.
Evil begets evil! Take a look at his growing up years, his young adult years, his family environment and more.
Rudy Giuliani – the name most often associated with Trump today. Having followed his career, his morals, ethics, character are defined by one act: During his time as mayor of New York City he lived in the mayors mansion with his wife and son. One day, Rudy held a press conference in front of Gracie Mansion. With him for this conference was his ‘mistress’. They announced at that press conference, which was the reason it was called – Rudy and this ‘mistress’ were getting married. Turns out his wife was inside making breakfast for their son and had no idea what was going on until a reporter called her to verify what he had just heard. Can you imagine learning about your husbands affair, your upcoming divorce and his upcoming marriage in such a way? That, in a nutshell, says it all about Rudy Giuliani. We could go into pages on his affairs with others, but that one event defines him and he has not strayed from the ethical, moral character this describes.
2. Jeffry Epstein – a close friend of Donald Trump. Some think they should not be lumped together, but they were close and their supposed falling out was over what? Something that changed Trump for the better? Or something that caused one to step on the toes of another and they parted ways to maintain their respective areas of power.
So much has been talked about and written about we really don’t have to go into anymore detail except to point out that Epstein has or had a beautiful townhouse in Manhattan. His neighbor, across the street, in a very lovely townhouse was Bill Cosby.
Epstein was very generously given a start by having been given a job at a fairly exclusive private school by Attorney General Barr’s father. “Given” is used generously because Epstein had no college degree nor any of the other qualifications one looks for hiring a person into such a job. Does that reach out to tell us something about AG Barr?
3. Donald Trump, as has been reported, used lots of concrete in building his buildings and bought his concrete from a person reputed to be Italian Mafia – the same person/family who was Trump’s fathers business partner which, no doubt, helped him become as successful as he wound up able to leave Trump over $400 million dollars. Trump didn’t forget his mafia connections because as you look at the wall, there have been many iterations considered. The one Trump decided on was metal rods filled with concrete. Was that Trump’s way of bringing along a benefactor? Although, we understand, his connections to the Italian Mafia pale compared to the ones with the Eastern European mafia for whom he has almost totally dropped the I.M.
4. Trump’s immigrant family – which started when his grandfather immigrated to the U. S. from Germany – dirt poor, no education, and wound up fairly wealthy having built a hotel – we heard on the backs of women prostitutes – and used that hotel as a brothel.
All of this was public knowledge before Trump became president. I used to think ill of the American voting public, however, today I realize they tried – with Hillary Clinton, in spite of Russia, et al dumping on her and trying to handicap her campaign for president in favor of Donald Trump. Hillary wound up with over 3 million more votes than did Donald Trump. Her reputation almost totally destroyed and all the years of very hard work she did for this country and many of its citizens crapped on = but time has a way of pulling back the lies and replacing them with the truth. Hillary’s legacy will be golden. Foreign intervention didn’t quite do the job, but did enough so that Russia and Putin benefitted immensely from the effort. The major difference, Russia, Putin and Trump’s benefits are fleeting. Hillary’s will last for many generations.
5. Looking at those appointed to different positions by Donald Trump it is very difficult to find someone of those who does not have sexual assault complaints in their background; someone who has done a great job in life before working with Trump; in other words someone not tarnished by the brush showing their evil predilections working out in parts of their lives – and that includes the sycophants he attracts and uses, along with those willing to sacrifice their reputations for what they see at gold at the end of the rainbow, only to discover that rainbow they see is a mirage. All of that also holds for Donald Trump’s friends.
6. And let us not forget the evangelical christians. Those who call themselves Christians and come from a long line of people who did the bidding of the one they call god ( clearly not of God) from the time we took goodness from Native Americans and gave them death, destruction, and all kind of horrors; those evangelical christians who gave cover and justification to those, also calling themselves christians, during the time of slavery when they tried to right the wrong of treating human beings with as much evil as they could muster – when they hanged, burnt, beat, starved and more human beings they stole from another country and used to build the new country to which they ran after their lives in their “old” country turned out to be not great – people, who by the way they were treating ‘slaves and others’ made the treatment they received from their “old country” look beautiful by comparison; and when some of the new “Americans” with others fought back, they received a retaliation which showed forth the evil being sown into the soil of these United States.
This is neither reserved nor limited to those who traveled to this new land looking for a better life and took that “better life” at the expense of others because we could go back to the horrors of Joan of Arc and others who paid huge prices for what they believed, but we are living in the time when Donald Trump moves quickly from bullying coming from his life of entitlement to killing because his power escalated to the point of allowing him to do such and his evil is now totally out of control.
Evil has almost enveloped and devoured this U. S. A. And where are you! Protesting that it isn’t that bad? Working to bring about change in your area? Complaining that we should stop fighting and just wait it out, things will change for the better? Or are you doing something else which will not make things better, but insure this too shall pass allowing the evil to wait in the corners of the globe for the next time it can break out. We have had so many “break outs” in these United States it is tiring to even try to chronicle them.
So what now America!!!!!!!!
_______________________________________________-
IT COSTS MONEY TO PRODUCE THIS BLOG. WE HOPE YOU WILL CONTRIBUTE SO WE CAN EXPAND AND CONTINUE THE RESEARCH AND WRITINGS WHICH KEEP YOU KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT MANY THINGS THAT WOULD NOT REACH YOU OTHERWISE ALONG WITH THE OPINIONS AND WORK OF THOSE WHO ARE MEMBERS OF BETTINA NETWORK’s LIFESTYLE COMMUNITY.
What follows are some of the ways you can support our work:
*This contribution is to the Bettina Network Foundation, inc which is a 501(c)3 organization and tax deductible.
Project 2 – #WellsFargoBoycott*
This contribution is to the Bettina Network Foundation, inc. which is a 501(c)3 organization and tax deductible.
Project 3 – Growing Bettina Network’s Blog
into a major media outlet bringing to the public news, recipes, thoughts, reviews of businesses, etc. from the perspective of those who belong to Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community.
Project 4 – Boycott the Twenty Dollar ($20) bill
You can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net
We received little notes from Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Members about the award Donald Trump bestowed upon Tiger Woods.
Several expressed surprise that Tiger Woods accepted the award – given the stand many African American and even mixed race African American sports figures have taken. So why is Tiger Woods standing there grinning and proud?
We didn’t understand the surprise of some of our readers and contributors because – “birds of a feather”.
That should give you some idea of the common values Trump and Woods share. That kind of sexism, that disrespect for, that misuse and abuse of women crosses racial, national, and all other barriers.
Think back a bit. What do you know about Tiger Woods beyond his great talent in the golf game? Remember his ex-wife’s anger when she found out just how ‘outre’ he was with women? Remember the stories which surfaced in the media about how he ‘shacked up’ with multiple women after his golf tournaments and carried on multiple affairs while his wife took care of home and children? Remember all of the womanizing you heard and/or read about concerning how Tiger Woods lived his life? Does that remind you of anyone? Maybe the man putting the necklace (some call it the Medal of Freedom) around Tiger Woods?
Now who is surprised? We are, that so many of you are surprised and/or expected Tiger Woods to refuse the award on principled grounds. Expect him rather to ask ‘what’s that’ – principled grounds?
The surprise should be all of the media reports with no one mentioning that history – those connections between Woods and Trump – etc. Or have we become a society which accepts all of that as normal and those commonalities having nothing to do with why one is chosen? Who you are as a person needs to be the rock foundation from which other talents and accomplishments radiate.
Have we lost our way expecting awards such as the Presidential Medal of Freedom be given to someone who examplifies greatness in what they do as well as who they are and how they have lived their lives – as an example of someone who walks this earth who we would be proud to have our children emulate? A great talent is a wonderful gift. A life well lived is what we give back. An award such as the Presidential Medal of Freedom needs to be given to someone whose life embodies both the gift and what the giver returns to the society. At this point Tiger Woods has shown and cultivated his God given gift. He has given back, however, much that muddies the earth, confuses its children and supports the likes of a Donald Trump and his presidency. From looking at Tiger Woods’ children, imagine them crossing the border – or trying to cross the border from Mexico to the U. S. How do you think he would be treated by those carrying out the dictates and policies of the man putting that award around his neck. Do you think Tiger, having been asked the question would call for the bowl of water, soap and a towel? With the acceptance of that award from Donald Trump, Tiger Woods symbolically did just that.
into a major media outlet bringing to the public news, recipes, thoughts, reviews of businesses, etc. from the perspective of those who belong to Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community.
You can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
It sounds so foolish for people in the United States to be trying to frame this upcoming presidential election around old concepts which were relevant during the time of the Cold War but not today. When used, the concepts being thrown around in preparation for this upcoming 2020 campaign are confusing and the cause of much emotional upset and fighting because of what hangs onto the concepts from a difficult time in the life of this worlds’ political and economic institutions.
Instead of defining our economy in Cold War terms, the Republicans need to be more accurately descriptive of our institutions. We need to make the massive effort to increase our vocabulary with newer more accurate terms or we need to pull out a new vocabulary which fits where we are today – terms that fit what we are actually about. None of the terms the Republicans are using are accurate, fitting, nor descriptive.
The Democrats are going to run their 2020 campaign bringing forth corruption, lying, stealing and all of us will be very well acquainted with terms like “emoluments”. Terms we had probably either never heard of or heard in passing without giving a thought to going deeply into their meaning.
We talk in terms of Capitalism, Socialism, Communism. None of these terms come close to where we are today. Using those terms only exacerbates the ugliness and vileness we are experiencing as a country – brought on by our own.
Capitalism is totally irrelevant and has been for some time because basic to that concept is the assumption that everyone is free and equal in the society and are only limited by their vision, etc. We live in a society which is fraught with sexism, racism, homophobia, ethnocentrism, ageism and so much more of that which separates us and makes us feel better than or less than. A society in which my identify is better than your identity is not able to even begin to describe its economic and political system as based on Capitalism.
Our so called “capitalist” system has venture capitalists who only fund white male northern european types – and will fund minorities and women into the (maybe) $50,000 area to fund their start-ups and actively encourage others to tour the country looking for great start-up ideas being worked on by minorities so they can steal and bring those ideas and that work to the venture capitalists, who are more than ready to see those new and radical business ideas happening and being developed by minorities in this world being carried forward into their substantial billion dollar areas by white male types to maintain the societal structure with those at the top most like our current venture capitalist and other investor groups with serious money that they obtained in the same way. That “serious money” is not available for investment to minority groups. (and from here on “minorities” include women because that is who they are and how they are treated from a power and control perspective in this society.)
Socialism is fraught with many misinterpretations when used today. Most link it to state owned everything and gradually being the economic and political part of the structure of a state which becomes evil and destroys the quality of everybody’s life. In this “Socialism” we all become zombies beholden to a very ugly, vicious and violent state. And – the examples we come up with as to “Socialist States” are indeed horrifying if one thinks that is the direction in which these United States are headed, if we choose the model being proffered by these anti-socialism fighters.
Communism is the most misinterpreted because we hook that term to the Soviet Union at its worse. We hook it to the rampaging McCarthy who destroyed many lives and even more careers fighting phantoms, using a political and economic concept as a means to oppress those he wanted to expel from “his” country and the country which he felt belonged to him and his kind. All others were usurpers trying to turn this great democracy into something vile. Turned out the vileness came from McCarthy and his kind – and who was one of his protege’s – none other than Donald Trump. Trump learned his lessons well at the feet of McCarthy and Cohn and he has brought all of that upheaval and evil back into 2016, 17, 18, 19 America.
And, Communism carries with it the claim by many Christians, that the social and economic system of Jesus was a communist system. That complicates the picture even more as that kind of claim, while not accepted by most mainline Christians was accepted enough to increase the religious bigotry which has existed in these United States from its beginnings with its genoocidal war against Native Americans.
This election cycle is shaping up to be one in which the worst interpretation of the above terms is going to be used to win or lose. At the very least the fight for the presidency and other offices will be embroidered around hurling Socialism, Capitalism, Communism at the opposition as though they were evil and we should not elect anyone who espouses such.
As we look at the above, what becomes clear is that our current system was created, grown and sustained by white male mostly Northern European types who patterned their need for power and control after what they saw in the Middle – Near East – Far Eastern parts of the world which were also male dominated cultures interested in expanding and maintaining power and control in their own ways. Vestiges of those historical groups still exist and today are beginning to rise up to attempt to re-establish their historical societies which are counter to the ways they were beginning to move.
The strong roots such groups have in this society becomes clear as under Donald Trump we are making strong moves to bring those cultures together because it is the only way male domination in its meaness – viciousness – and need for total power and control can continue to thrive and grow.
A more diverse and integrated world is beginning to show-up. Hopefully, as that moves and grows the goodness, beauty and grace of the human spirit will flourish and what has gone before will be permanently in the rear view mirror and will maintain only in history.
Watching that diversity develop is a cautionary tale, however, because even in its extreme infancy we see in the United States powers beginning to move into male groups which were anathema when white males were at the height of their power and control and adopt and adapt these others into their society and culture because that is what is necessary for them to continue developing the mean spiritedness, viciousness, control, tyranny and ugliness of what we have and are continuing to experience.
Looking at the 2018 elections, we celebrated the break through of a new America. We praised our voting citizens for the diversity of people we elected and it looked as though we were reaching through to a new day.
As time goes on, however, we are seeing the sprouts of those weeds which caused and cause so much trouble and evil in the world as talk becomes prevalent of which “white males” can best be elected who will look out for and bring about a more equitable, diverse and “new” America. Which white male will best take care of the rest of the world in a patronizing and paternalistic fashion so that male domination can continue and in a short time raise its ugly head again to attempt to subjugate and push the world into finding its meanest spots to develop. And saddest of all of that talk are the women joining the chorus who are so enmeshed in paternalism they cannot see the worth and ability of other women who can do much better.
The fact that the talk happening is simply a new prelude to another chapter of the “old” slaveowning, segregationist, vile and vicious America has been covered up to be revealed upon the victory and ascendancy of this new talk.
Looking at the way “Bernie” helped to bring in Trump to maintain that old way of life without getting “dirty” in the process should tell us and let us see what is happening with this presidential campaign today. It should also show us that this new, kinder, gentler paternalism will not work.
Think on these things before you reject them out of hand. Look carefully at your government and its history America before you laud yourselves as being “better than” and pray hard that you do not continue in the ways from which you declared you wanted to depart to bring out more of the goodness of America.
Project 3 – Growing Bettina Network’s Blog into a major media outlet bringing to the public news, recipes, thoughts, reviews of businesses, etc. from the perspective of those who belong to Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community.
You can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
To be so constantly exposed to so much sin takes lots of prayer to maintain.
When one goes into a United States of America Court of law one takes certain assumptions. Basic is the one which outlines how agreements, breach of contract, relationships and more work. You find evidence for your side and move on from there.
When one is mafia, that is an entirely different set of rules. The first of which is, apparently, no direct contracts, promises, etc. One learns early about the circularity of talking, especially to the “Don”. One lives amongst a set of ethics which makes sure you won’t get caught, won’t be exposed, won’t get killed – jailed – —-
Those two ways of living under the “law” came into conflict with the Mueller Report. It was clear Donald Trump lives, works and has relationships under the Mafia Law. The circularity and non-directness of that law is probably why some mafia leaders were not afraid of being wiretapped. The people listening would have to re-educate themselves about language and its use within mafia society. Reasoning and how one draws conclusions would be changed and those listening would have to educate themselves, their court system, their citizens and more to be able to call mafia leaders and followers to account in a court of law. Instead of providing that kind of education to the American public our Criminal Justice System has had to revert to other means and many mafia leaders have been called to account through their taxes where two different ways of living, talking, reasoning is not permitted. These two different ways of communicating became clearer to the general public through Michael Cohen’s testimony during a Congressional Hearing.
As I listened to all of the readings and analysis of the Mueller Report and read a copy of the report which showed up in my email box, what became clear to me was one possible reason why Mueller stopped so abruptly and produced his report. William Barr presents a clear and present and immediate danger to this United States system of governance. Something had to stop him or we would all be totally under Trump and his foreign backers without even knowing what happened. Trump’s circle of loyalist is growing and with each addition the danger increases. When one of those loyalists is the Attorney General of the United States that is beyond simply wrecking havoc on this society. That amounts to its destruction and subjugation to other foreign powers and/or mafia groups.
Russia is such a threat, but not the only one. A much larger threat and more imminent is the one of Trump bringing the United States government into line as a country under mafia rule and mafia control. A country ruled by a complex of mafia bosses with no contracts, no above board agreements, no way to bring anyone before the Courts as we know the Court System to work. Trump has been busy establishing a different way to govern and he is moving very quickly with that endeavor. That was very clear with the ascendancy of William Barr.
I heard many people talking about the end of William Barr’s career. This is not the end of his career, as seen through Barr’s eyes. It is the continuation of a career on a different track, within a different system of values and governances which he apparently sees as taking him much further than he could go taking the traditional U. S. route as an American lawyer.
I doubt that any of this makes much sense to the reader. It certainly makes no sense to the writer. I am just trying to come to grips with what I have been seeing, hearing and looking back at the history of to answer questions I have about much that is totally above my pay grade.
We are living in a country in which the president is a serially accused sexual assaulter and who has not only admitted to such, but bragged about his ability to assault any woman he chooses to sexually assault. This same president looks to me to be also guilty of treason against the country which he is supposed to be leading. He has corrupted many people in his administration and apparently some quite successfully. I especially don’t understand why or how people could follow him and consciously assault and turn against everything they claim to believe. They are afraid of what? Not committing the sins the president is requiring of them? Is that more dangerous and scarier than committing those sins and living in eternal hell? If that is not an alternative in their way of thinking then why do they generally, almost across the board, call themselves Christian? Is that a word they use to identify themselves because it helps them move up in the world of money – power – better than?
What a mess!
And then we look towards those who are supposed to be the keepers of the good flame and we hear them talking about not holding this president’s feet to the fire and not demanding William Barr resign immediately. Their conversation is about political considerations. What happens in 2020 if we move ahead to impeach Trump? What if we make that move and we don’t get enough votes in the Senate for that impeachment and Trump goes free? Well, what if you do nothing – Trump goes free! And he could win in 2020.
What if I kill someone, maybe I should not be tried in Court because the risk of not getting a guilty verdict after the facts are presented might make my accusers look bad. I am sure those folks in jail would have liked to hear such a conversation about their crimes – maybe we should not arrest John Doe or Jane Smith, it might fall back on us politically.
We have all long since stopped thinking or acting ethically. We have this ethics of relativity – or convenience – or of winning. And that tears down the society putting its values in jeopardy and eventually producing a society which is about what is best for those in power to maintain that power and control by any means necessary.
I don’t know what else to say or where to go from here. I saw a man today – William Barr – who is, as my grandmother would say, the scum of the earth. He is calling himself Attorney General. But he was put in his position by a usurper to the presidency so just who is William Barr to be pretending. As a lawyer he knows very well he should not be Attorney General, that he is a pretender. He is also a liar of great facility in his lies. And it looks as though he has no caring about right or wrong. And how does Bush Sr. fit into this – Barr’s last ‘fixer’ moment, the last time he acted as consigliere that I can trace was for Bush, Sr.
We have another liar who calls himself President, who has done and is still doing horrible things. Those things were made public and so the liar president takes a private jet, paid for by the people of these United States and once again costs us over $1,000,000 to take himself and his family and whoever else he wants to take to Mar-a-Lago for the holiday weekend while people who live and have lived honest lives wonder what they are going to eat today let alone any kind of Easter, Passover or any other holiday upcoming. People, watching the president fly overhead while they are left wondering if they will ever get off the street again to know what it is like to live in a home with light, heat, food, clean clothes. And people in Congress debating whether or not those folks, in that overhead jet, should be called up to answer and pay for their crimes against the citizens of this country.
Homelessness is a crime of the society against its citizens and it goes unpunished. These treasonous acts of Trump or whatever you want to call them are crimes of people against their society and those crimes go unpunished.
IMPEACH those you can reach and have a case against like the man who calls himself President of these United States and the man who calls himself Attorney General of these United States. That is the very least that can happen and maybe the rest will begin to fall into place when we know those who call themselves leaders of this society have ethics that are higher than the ethics of winning. Maybe we will all begin to fall into place and realize that we are called to a higher life than one of having more things than; more money than; a higher vocation than; are ourselves better than and we will stop kicking those who are down; we will stop cursing those who are living on the street and blaming them for their plight. Something has got to give in this world before we all either continue in this murkiness or…….
Distracting from the evil they are currently putting in place is a strong, ongoing way Trump World operates.
Barr has simply joined the group.
He has been clear about who he is for quite some time now. He has worked from a set of ethics which are in the toilet and are at least as bad as, or are on their way to becoming as bad as Donald Trump’s. My spirit recognizes your core and your real values.
We see people in everyday life and they seem to be “nice” people. So we accept them and become shocked when they show us a very different side and move up in life by having core values which shows they have been corrupt all along we just weren’t paying attention on that level. We have this way of simply ‘whitewashing’ our friends and those to whom we give respect because of the level of achievement they have reached and of being surprised when we see they have been complicit in coverups, lies, cheating, protecting those above, moving ahead by doing evil – that is a part of who William Barr is and who he has been.
Today he is into the kind of distraction we have become accustomed to with Donald Trump. He is now truly a “made man”.
Barr recently intervened in the immigration process and passed the edict which said there will be no bail for asylum seekers. They would have to stay “in jail” – “incarcerated” – until their case has been decided.
Why does this need distraction? Because it is the beginning of the second stage of United States Concentration Camps. If you check back Bettina Network Blogs you will find we predicted Trump Concentration Camps and they would be filled with children. Huge and ugly these Concentration Camps which will soon be quickly erected will make Nazi Germany concentration camps look like a luxury hotel by comparison.
Thousands of people will soon be incarcerated and in vile, filthy, horrid conditions. That has already started with the United States incarcerating people beneath bridges and in conditions which most of us choose to ignore and we have had limited reporting on what they are like and the conditions under which “brown skinned” humans have been forced to live. Limited reporting because so much concerning the Mueller Report has been used to distract the media headlines and stories away from that reality. Barr has done a masterful job with this using the Mueller Report – no wonder Trump hired him as his Attorney General. However, an illegal president cannot hire an attorney general who can legitimately function in that space.
To stop the bleeding from the Mueller Report, someone needs to simply give an un-redacted copy to the media to be printed and distributed for all and any who want copies. That is a risk, but it is one that needs to be taken that in the end truth and justice will prevail. That will end that and we can go on to dealing with all of the other ugliness Trump, his backers and friends are pouring into this American society.
We knew who William Barr was years ago. What he did destroyed or should have destroyed his reputation and should have seriously called into question the reputation of Bush 1. Isn’t it amazing how much of what is happening today traces back to Bush 1?
This is the new world order. Remember those comments, which were stopped in the middle of his making them?
Donald Trump was brought in to stop the darkening of America. He is doing his job magnificently. And wait until American and Israeli Jews discover his other mission. When the truth is told, right-wing Americans are not enthralled with Israel because of its Jewish history. Their interest in Israel is because of its Christian history and as time goes along, if they remain keepers of that flame both Jews and Muslims will discover they are expendable and dividing them was simply a way for Trump and his people to take over Israel and remake it into the ‘Evangelical Christian’ country such folks have dreamed about for generations. In the meantime, have you noticed the “Jews” Trump and his people deal with are the Ashkenazi Jews – those German-type Jews who look white? It makes one think all Jews are very fair of skin. Have you seen any brown skinned middle-eastern Jews amongst those leaders?
My first impression of Israel when we travelled and lived there for several months was the separation of white from black. Not American whites from African Americans and others of such color, but the separation of ‘white’ Jews from those others – who you can’t tell from the brown skinned Palestinians. When we arrived in Israel, driving in from the airport to where we are going to live we saw cotton fields with people of color picking cotton. They were Arabs and Middle Eastern Jews – all the same color. My first lesson upon arrival.
Because I was raised amongst Jews and Christians during my growing up days I was well aware of that separation. If you live long enough and are exposed to the world you live a history that shows you where the cracks and lies are.
In the United States during that time and before, Jews – Ashkanazi Jews included – were called by the “N” word. They did not fill out forms asking for race by checking “white”. Both Jews and African Americans were in and out of our house. Mixing was not unusual. My mother was named after the daughter of one family with whom we were particularly close. I spent lots of time at their home in the city and their home in the country. They were not particularly well off when that friendship formed. It went back to my great-grandfather who was helpful in establishing their fortune which became substantial. My grandfather tutored their children and spending time together was normal. As time passed, Jews became white and those friendships were dropped. It was no longer that close, normal, everyday thing to ‘drop in’. The tutoring because the children needed that learning help and my grandfather was an educator with a Columbia University education and a family friend, gradually became a ‘better than’ relationship and so my grandfather pulled away.
William Barr is the needed extension of what Donald Trump is doing and someone Trump needs to stop the continued “darkening” of America. It is one of those times when people begin to pull away from one another whereas before they were friends and neighbors. Pull away because of skin color and the need of one group to exert a superiority over another. William Barr’s order for bail to stop for asylum seekers is one large step in that process.
Those asylum seekers are, after all, the brown people of the world and they cannot be allowed to continue to come into this country because it is already at the precipice where the majority is or soon will be “brown”. And we can’t allow those incoming brown people to mix with the rest of Americans because friendships develop, family mixing happens and the need to keep white and blacks apart with blacks less than becomes rather impossible.
We need to look closely at the fact that many of the Muslims against whom Donald Trump is moving may be Islamic by religions but they are of African extraction by birth. They are African Americans or Blacks who will become African Americans when they enter this country and become one of those on their way to citizenship. I knew trouble was coming a few years ago – before Trump – when I went to the swearing in ceremony of a friend who was becoming a United States citizen. As I look down on the group of new citizens from the balcony I was amazed to realize they were about 80% “brown” – from many different countries and many shades of the same brown to black skin color. I was sure then trouble was on the way.
Why does Trump have the percentage of supporters he has? They recognize that and their way of wearing a sheet and pointy hat is to allow and support Trump as he moves to insure that this country in which they live will always have different levels of people – whites uber alles and all the rest. And one cautionary note to those who may not have realized the fact that – yellow is not white.
This flap over the Mueller Report is hiding this major next step that Barr made legal – we are now on the way to jailing and destroying as many of the “brown” people of the world as possible and it is succeeding. We will not hear of the many deaths that happen along the way as Germans did not hear of the millions of Jews killed in Concentration Camps. We predicted long ago in a Bettina Network Blog that you would soon be hearing of children being killed or ‘accidentally” dying. That is now happening and the real number will never be known.
Besides a brief report on Barr’s edict to disallow bail for those seeking asylum I haven’t seen any other reporting on what is a major move for the Trump administration and one which is moving brown peoples directly into ever larger and growing numbers of Concentration Camps which will spring up all across the country.
And you natives of the United States whose ancestors were forced to come to the United States in slavery, you may today be citizens, but you are not exempt. There has been almost no reporting on the number of black American citizens who have been picked up and evicted from this country by ICE. A few have been able to contact friends and relatives and have been brought back. They were not able to do that until they were dropped off in foreign countries about which they knew next to nothing. What about those who are still in shock in countries to which they have been transported where they have no friends, no relatives, no connections of any kind, no money, no assets, no jobs, no legal status of any kind and have not been able to contact those in the U. S. who could or would help?
Now, on to getting ready for the farce of a press conference which is scheduled to happen on Thursday at 9:30am. And on to Nancy Pelosi claiming there should not be an impeachment of Donald Trump with Trump’s interesting response of being extremely respectful of Nancy Pelosi. How come?
Or you can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
One can’t help but notice the incredible “coincidences” that now abound. Are they really coincidences or are we in the middle of people who are just plain dishonest, manipulative, power hungry and see bigotry as the way to gain what they couldn’t come close to without that way of functioning.
Politics has become really ugly. We no longer have to worry about how Hitler came to power. We are seeing real-time examples showing us just how he did it with todays’ improvements by people like Steve Bannon, Donald Trump et al.
Yet one more “coincidence” of violence against…..speculate a bit about the burning of Notre Dame in Paris. This happens just two days after Steve Bannon announces the purchase of the monastery which he intends to convert into some kind of training camp for people to take down the pope and the Catholic Church. And Please don’t say – ‘but Steve Bannon is Catholic.’
That matches the two days after Trump announces he is not a Globalist and the results are felt in Pittsburgh. And just a couple days after Trump grossly attacks people against whom he plays the victim with those people who Trump has characterized as victimizing him subsequently receiving bombs – which apparently didn’t go off because of the incompetence of their maker……. and so many more such coincidences. They have now become difficult to list or recount they are so numerous.
Lets get international and look at New Zealand – shootings right at the time Trump needed something really big to distract from what was coming, exposing his evil within days. What came were the New Zealand shootings – what was diminished and distracted from – look it up in your news feed and see for yourselves. Do the work people and keep on that edge as you read the news which is grave and see the proximity to Trump’s need for distractions from the horribleness of his life, his so-called presidency and more.
Notre Dame burns – just two days after Bannon called for and talked about how the Pope and the Catholic Church needed to be taken down and this “hit” on the Catholic Church- this time a “two’fer – Trump facing the release of the redacted Mueller Report just a couple days later.
Don’t be dissuaded from looking closely because Bannon is Catholic and Stephen Miller is Jewish along with the claim that Trump is crazy. Crazy like a fox.
Some of the most racist people against Blacks I know are Black. Why? Because, apparently, they see power within the group and their power-over dissipating if integration comes along. That has been the case. It is how Whites have chosen Black leaders over the centuries. Look for those who will do the most damage and exercise the most control over the Black Community. That is who you help become leader of the group. Same thing goes in the female community and in all the other minority groups. It has always been so. Those in the minority communities don’t seem to have clear vision to be able to see such. We even define terms to make sure those power dynamics are skewered. We make the claim that Blacks cannot be racist – one must call such Blacks who clearly show their racism – prejudiced. That is one of the most ridiculous definitions I’ve heard in a very long time, but those so declared as “leaders” totally talk about that definition, correcting those who see otherwise so nothing will dilute their power.
The biggest disgrace of this the century, however, is the ascendancy of Donald Trump into the office of president of the United States. He is clearly someone who showed before he was “elected” that he would take down the country and would turn it into a racist, fascist dictatorship preferably with him as the fascist dictator. Trump was discovered as that kind of person by influential people in governments hostile to the United States, people who thus far had not been able to get far in weakening and taking down America. So let’s try Trump. And they did.
They have gone very far with Donald Trump. He has and is consistently weakening every institution within these United States and he has done a very good job at such. As the days pass he is acquiring a collection of people around him who will go to jail doing his bidding because they have blindsided themselves to the point of believing they will be great in his administration if they do his bidding. They are people with histories of having done ugly, lying, illegal things before he found them and brought them into his inner circle. William Barr being the latest. Someone who has had extensive influence and changed America with the way he has obstructed justice for at least two previous presidents. He has now stepped forward – at just the right moment – to attempt to do the same thing for Donald Trump.
He issued a statement which Trump could use and did to claim he was “exonerated”. He has postponed until a holiday weekend with Congress out of town to release the redacted Mueller Report. He is redacting the report and our guess is his “redactions” will be blackening out those parts which tell the truth about Donald Trump – the ugly truth. And Congress will go along with the program dragging its feet and talking big and bad throughout.
Why is Donald Trump still in office being called President. Even casual observers saw he would not win the election because he had – what – some 25% of the vote without the help of those within those hostile governmental and other kinds of communities who saw themselves benefitting from such an evil soul?
Trump’s very vile history is well documented on thousands of videos around the world which are played constantly over some kind of media. They were played even before Trump and his supporters claimed he was the next President. People who voted for Trump knew his reputation; they knew his evil; they knew the kind of history he created; they knew him to be dishonest, – a casino operator, unethical contractor person who stiffed those very middle class people trying to establish themselves in their corporate entities as well as others who he could reach any way his evil mind allowed – those wanting to move ahead educationally; those interested in wine, cheese and goodness knows what else he put out to stiff the rest of the world so he could thrive.
But then so was Hitler’s history before he became head of Germany – although videos and other instant replay devices were not available during Hitler’s reign. That had to go by slower means and sometimes even word of mouth. The need for power and control amongst those who would follow was so great they gave up their eternity for a few months of following a monster. And isn’t that true of Donald Trump’s followers?
What bothers me most is why he is still in office? Why those who claim to be against him have not so moved and are passively doing what they can to allow him to remain in office – why? Because they are larger than life as the opposition and their power and control is more complete by so passively allowing Donald J. Trump to remain while claiming to be on the side of John and Jane Q. Public. They see power in allowing Trump to remain in office damaging the world because if he is removed now someone else might run for the office of president and win, ruining their chances to come to power in a sprint rather than the very difficult road that would present.
Where do you stand? Don’t you realize your children are watching? How are they taking this in and how is this affecting their lives as they learn and grow? Are these the lessons you want them to act on as adults? As of now you have no choice. What they are being shown is what happens in this country when an African American is president and what happens when a so called White American is president. What Trump is teaching them about “whiteness” is lessons I would not want my children to learn. And those lessons are being allowed by both Black and White Americans.
And to you racists. They are being taught – thanks to the lessons you are making possible – that if you want a great president vote for an African American. If you want one who is a mess-up, who is evil, who is vile and will engage in corruption, attempted murder by remote control and more, then vote for a White man.
Or you can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
Apparently, Vladimir Putin has sent Donald Trump another list of things to do and Trump is carrying them out in his usual manner. However, the Chinese spy was ‘caught’ and the distraction is exposed for what it is – a continued attempt to dismantle these United States.
It is clear from the way this is happening that this is a distraction from the coming revelations from the Mueller Report which Trump, his friends and allies want to arrive in a murky atmosphere so Trump will continue to have time to continue to dismantle the United States government into the kind of structure they can take over.
Sad to say Trump does not realize that he will not be around to enjoy the excitement and celebration if he succeeds. He will be too much of a threat – especially since he can’t keep soda water on his stomach.
With the firing of Nielsen and the comments on her “evil” and the other ways she acted we seem to forget that what happened in Nazi Germany was not due to some special and unique character of Germans. It is a character flaw which is human and is happening in many places on different levels for the same reasons – power and control. It is well underway in these United States. Hopefully, there will be no reason for it to be said – as history goes over our actions during these days – that good people did nothing.
A man with no experience in government and no accurate knowledge of how the United States government works could not do what Trump has been doing without help from someone with the training that Putin has had as an operative of the Society Union. And I am sure Putin is not the only one in the mix seeing this as a good time for them to intervene as they have wanted to do for generations. Favros didn’t show up in such a hurry at the beginnings of the meeting between Trump and Kim Jong Un in Vietnam by accident. My guess – someone was not toeing the line and needed a nudge to get with the program.
And in the end, Trump’s exit is already planned. He is setting the stage for a “crazy persons” exit from the United States presidency from which he expects to go scot free with lots of money waiting him to live happily ever after.
I do not believe all of these recent firings are taking place just as a coincidence when Trump needs some kind of cover for whole or parts of the Mueller Report becoming public. The last time such took place it was a huge explosion and great distraction. This is what Trump needs now to get the public off on a wild goose chase after the seeming upheavals with immigration so they are not focusing on what is happening with Donald Trump and what looks like the continuation of a huge next step in his massive conspiracy to destroy the current United States government so it will be easy to bring it back together again in a non-democratic/republic shape.
What is hopeful is all of this is the extreme diversity of the current United States House of Representatives. We are now a country which represents all of us – well, once the Senate has been “readjusted” – and the new president elected, if the press will stop pushing the white males amongst the candidates and pushing the females into the background, we might have the continuation of a great country. This time, one that represents all of its citizens. A note to the press – remember the great push and coverage you gave to Donald Trump’s campaign. It is time for you to stop self-absorption and the profit motive and realize the influence you have on this society. That needs to cause you to always and forever act with courage, and truth.
With the United States becoming the country we were raised singing, writing and claiming to be great in its diversity representing all of the people, maybe in this generation it will be so.
It is fitting that the old guard, which was the past, is represented in its death throes by this ridiculous caricature of a man who, hopefully, is the last president trying to keep this country white, male and mostly northern European. Dear God, let it be so. Do not let us have to go through another and more vicious Nazi Germany to emerge steps further down the road to a true government of the people, by the people and for the people.
My vision of Donald Trump is of a man ascending the stairs of an airplane with the wind at his back and his hair piece flapping in the wind with toilet paper stuck in one shoe following him up the stairs on his way to explaining to his handlers why he made such a mess of his assignment and couldn’t, in the end, pull it off.
Or you can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
Congressman Jim Jordan accused of ignoring sexual abuse at OSU. see https://www.daytondailynews.com…/congressman-jim-jordan…sex-abuse…/lzfhebNU
I watched the Michael Cohen hearings and was appalled at Congressman Jordan and the way he led the group denouncing Cohen for lying plus as many other uglies he could think of to throw Michael Cohen’s way. Clearly that group thrives on threat, intimidation, abuse. And by the way, isn’t Jordan the one accused in some kind of sexual abuse thing against young athletes? Either he was involved or knew about it and didn’t report it or..? He fits right into the Trump orbit.
Rep. Jim Jordan Is Named in New OSU Sexual Abuse Scandal… https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jim-jordan-ohio-state-700578
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Hearing those who support and defend Donald Trump is showing what is wrong with the United States. I used to get angry when I heard people say – “if you don’t like this country leave it”. Today, I understand the sentiment. Maybe we should have a bigotry test to move out and keep out those White Supremacist and assorted others. They all seem to have given Donald Trump immunity.
Michael Cohen has admitted and is paying for his lies. Donald Trump’s lies make Michael Cohen look like a choir boy. Trump’s supporters seem totally able to attempt to defame Michael Cohen, calling him a liar and denigrating him for his lies and at the same time not even realizing others are looking at the person they are supporting and counting his lies into the thousands. How are they so tone deaf that they don’t see themselves as they are seen by others.
Cohen has no power, except what he had loaned to him by Trump if Cohen used that power to carry out Trump’s wishes. Trump as a liar, however, is dangerous because he does have power over many and much. He is a major, daily, liar whose lies will negatively affect your children’s future as those lies change this republic into a fascist state with Donald Trump leading the nation as he tries to use this country to become wealthier than Vladimir Putin.
Trump followers are saying- some people can lie to us and that is alright because the end justifies the means. What they don’t understand is that the process by which we reach the end totally changes the end we envisioned. That expected end changes and turns the goals we were willing to compromise our moral values and our character to reach into a monstrosity we are amazed has been created. It will be something we neither recognize nor want.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
CPAC BRINGING IN ANOTHER ROUND OF MC CARTHYISM
I’ve read in Bettina Network’s Blog about Donald Trump’s mentors – Roy Cohn and Senator Joseph McCarthy. After reading that, I did some research to see what that was all about. Shamefully, it was not a part of what I learned in school. I am also discovering other such times in these United States which were much worse. I did not learn about the massacres and slaughters in school. For example – I had to go out of my way to read and learn about the Trail of Tears. My first reaction was to deny. Not here – not in my country did or could that happen.
Germany did not want Nazism. They wanted to be better than the Jews and to have someone to blame the results of the war on and they wound up with a major massacre and horrendous event their children have had to endure.
I am now seeing, from the CPAC Conference, that the direction in which the Trumpians are going is to re-create, Joe McCarthy’s anti-Communist era. Sorrowfully, that is coming on us very quickly with most of us ignorant about what that era was like.
CPAC and its speakers and listeners are now upping the ante – the “wall” in front of which they can stand and single out who goes in and who stays out – by simply proclaiming who, what policies, what acts are to be despised as “Communist” and who should be destroyed in the process. Joe McCarthy’s hearings and the way he upended this country over the years he was in power is the stuff of legend and history. Read that history and see how many people were destroyed. It is tragic. That is what CPAC is setting up. The White Supremacists – the neo Nazi’s – the KKK – and all the rest have found their common ground to bring about their Nirvana. Nothing is as chilling as listening to their talks at this CPAC conference and seeing the audience response. They are ready to come for the rest of us who don’t walk their path and mimic their speech.
Trump has successfully brought back into the present the United States in which he was mentored. He and his followers are working to restore and maintain Joseph McCarthy’s United States which only existed in McCarthy’s alcoholic fantasies.
This United States periodically returns to such brutality. Trump can do this because that kind of thing is a horrendous part of our history which we deny, deny, deny so we can repeat this again and again. When defeated and saner more humane people take over that past is then buried. This time, we need to make sure that history is not buried, but kept alive and taught in our schools so the next generation is not free to destroy itself and its children.
Or you can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
As I turn to New Orleans, many things come back into focus. One is the breakfast phenom called “Lost Bread”. It has now probably become national – maybe even further – so I thought I would share two recipes with you which have geographical significance. French Toast I learned in the North – Lost Bread I grew up with in New Orleans. It is amazing how similar they are.
Lost Bread
In a mixing bowl whip together two eggs (organic), one cup organic turbinado sugar, enough organic milk to make a nice dipping sauce – but not too liquid/runny. If you want to use almond milk – coconut milk – or some other kind of liquid, enjoy!
Keep your bread until it is stale. If you don’t have time and/or throw away bread instead of keeping it for such things as Lost Bread or bread pudding, or for making bread crumbs when you have a minute, then put the new bread you want to use in the oven on a very low light – 250 degrees or 300 tops – until it has stiffened. And feel very ashamed if you actually throw away what some consider old stale bread. You could always sprinkle that stale bread with a bit of water, put it in the oven and ‘voila’ – you have freshly baked bread for supper.
Add cinnamon, nutmeg, grated ginger to your taste. Maybe a little organic hazelnut oil – whatever combination of tastes you especially like.
Drown the sliced bread in the sauce above, pick it up with a spatula and let the liquid drip off for a few seconds and then fry it in an iron skillet or grill or griddle until nicely browned on one side and then turn it over to the other side.
Either sprinkle turbinado sugar on the bread when you turn it over or just continue to let the bread fry until done and pour a bit of organic maple syrup over the Lost Bread once you put it on your plate for eating.
FRENCH TOAST
The basic difference between Lost Bread and French Toast is the kind of bread you use and the method of cooking.
For French Toast buy a loaf of organic french bread. For this you can buy the organic bread which is stale and being sold at a substantial discount. French bread is long and thin – Italian bread is sort of the same, but fat in the middle. I think French Bread is best used for this, however, it all comes down to a matter of taste – or culture.
Let the loaf harden if it isn’t already ‘stale and hard’.
Slice the long thin french bread into about 1 1/2 or 2 inch slices. Let the slices soak in the sauce above for a couple minutes until they seem spongy and then fry on an iron grill turning when one side is light brown. This serves up well when cooked on a circular iron grill and served on the same grill.
Once both sides have a bit of color arrange them on an iron grill or griddle and pour more of the sauce on top of the bread so it is soaked. It is also important to use generous amounts of grated organic ginger mixed with the sauce for a really fabulous taste.
Put the french toast, which is nice and shiny with the added sauce on top, in the oven to continue cooking. Make sure you are generous with the sauce because it turns into custard inside the bread with the sugar on top making the bread a bit crispy and crusty on top. This takes only about five minutes. The bread will puff out and become beautiful and very tasty. Don’t let it stay too long. It takes a bit of experimenting to get the hang of exactly when to take this French Toast out of the oven. Each oven takes a different amount of time.
Serve it with a platter of sliced ham and you have a fabulous breakfast.
Or you can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
That dream, in the 1920’s when the KKK was at its height, was complete with steel slats and it was a very high wall on the Southern border between the U. S. and Mexico.
His father’s legacy to Trump was to get him started in the same vein in which he lived his life – by incorporating into his life and work discrimination against African Americans, as in not letting them rent in the buildings father and son built. Trump was started on his racist path early in life and continued on that path throughout his life. As the United States became more diverse, the peoples included in this family’s racism became more diverse and today, apparently includes all of the brown and black peoples of the world.
How fitting that his denouement would be fulfilling the dream of many klansmen of his father’s era by pushing through to build this wall (in their honor?). As you look at the determination and energy and effort Trump has put behind this WALL it had to have a very special meaning to him. All of the trying in todays’ world by many talking heads to make it look as though Trump is working for his base just does not fit.
For his base, he could have moved on and worked for something to give them that was doable. This is a strong emotional commitment which has driven Trump. What could be stronger than doing this for his father? Was the part of the WALL Trump was trying to build to have his father’s name?
AND — a little bonus — because of the timing, Trump could also use this point in time to coverup, distract from, mute and diminish the publicity around the roll-out of Andrew McCabe’s book “The Threat”? Trump’s timing wasn’t perfect but it was close. If McCabe’s book was introduced when it was supposed to be – this weekend on 60 Minutes – without the preview of the 60 Minutes interview with McCabe on the morning and evening Talk/News shows, Trump’s efforts would have perfectly wiped “The Threat” off the news. As it is, he was able to reduce and diminish the coverage of McCabe’s book because of his announcement that he was going to declare a “National Emergency” after he signed the bill. Since most of the newscasters either didn’t know or simply eliminated, for better effect, the fact that this bill has enough votes behind it to make it veto proof, neither the House nor the Senate needed Trump’s signature taking away from him the circus he is creating to throw smoke into all of our faces so we can’t see McCabe and his new book. Is this what is called a ‘two’fer?
FROM TRUMP TO SENATOR LIZ CHENEY
Lying in bed, dozing off I was sharply awakened by this woman doing the most intense racist rant I have seen in a very long time.
Fortunately, I was recording that particular news show so I was able to rewind and watch it from the beginning. I was totally shocked to see that the person giving this racist rant in the most arrogant, smug and self-satisfied way was none other than Senator Liz Cheney – daughter of the ex-Vice President. I kept wondering why she had this super smug demeanor as she ranted on and on after having been asked a question about Donald Trump. Her rant focused on Elizabeth Warren and the fact that Senator Warren publicly acknowledged throughout most of her life, her Native American ancestry. Instead of talking about the courage that took, especially during the time frame in which Senator Warren made her family background public, Senator Cheney was ripping Senator Warren apart. What is there about that which set her off? Should we look into Senator Cheney’s racial background?
When the question about Donald Trump was repeated, Senator Cheney simply continued the most racist monologue against Senator Warren that I have heard in decades. My further shock was that no one called her on it. There should have been outcries from every corner of Congress demanding that she apologize. Not one peep. Today, having heard the backlash against one of the brown women, Ilham Omar, in Congress claiming she made bigoted comments and calling for her to apologize, and at the same time the same people ignoring of Senator Cheney’s comments shows up the claims against others for what they are – political attacks wherever and however you can get them.
I kept thinking I was in a time warp. I didn’t always agree with Senator Cheney, but I had never pictured her just inches away from the likes of the most bigoted of those in public life. One becomes accustomed to people like the Congressman Steve King and just dismisses anything he says. But Senator Cheney, I thought, was better than that. Well – so much for that misperception. Now I understand why Steve King was able to spout his racism and walk away unscathed. He has lots of compatriots who are viciously racist and don’t see anything wrong with Steve King’s racism. He is entitled?
EXECUTIVE TIME a la TRUMP
Maybe most of you don’t remember that far back, to the beginnings of Donald Trump’s illegitimate and illegal presidency, but I do. I remember when he talked about being shocked that the job of the president of the United States was so easy he could do both. He could run the Trump Organization and act as though he was President of the United States.
This was not said by a talking head interpreting Trump’s comments, this was said by Trump himself.
Now we have Trump’s schedule showing massive amounts of “Executive Time”. There have been many talking and poking fun at what that means – watching cable tv seems to be the first comment with the most repeaters, but every time I hear that I remember those comments made by Trump – and I’ve seen that he usually tells on himself and does things up front. Is he running the Trump Organization during his “Executive Time”? Are his comments about the Presidency being a part time job true?
THE NEW WORLD ORDER
I remember where I was when I first heard comments about “The New World Order.” The first time I heard this is was George Bush the Sr. making the comments.
As I look at this ‘Trump/vs the rest of us’ round in this war, it certainly looks like one of the battles trying to bring about that vision of such world governance by the Corporate/Billionaire Group.
From the comments I’ve heard – this New World Order seems to be about the Corporate/Billionaire Group ruling everything (and of course, being very patronizing to those not in their Group) and the diminishment of Government by the people, for the people and with the people. The people being those who do the work to maintain, grow and make life easier for that Corporate/Billionaire Group while dedicating their lives to trying to be like them on almost no money and very few assets.
Not like the traditional slavery in this country because slaves were brought in from Africa and they were very dark of skin. The people doing the todays work that would have been done by slaves in that past era includes those we call “white” along with all of the brown and black peoples of the world. And, some of the people in the Corporate/Billionaire Group are brown – haven’t seen any blacks yet, but they will surface.
Are we moving forward as a world where Cyber Warfare takes over and actual hand to hand and gun and other combat using the traditional artifacts of killing being pushed off center stage, being used to distract from the real war. A way to entertain and occupy the workers of the world so they will stop calling for these impossibles where we all benefit and profit?
We are certainly not fighting over Communism. That went out decades ago if it ever existed. What always amazed me about that was the theoretical definition of Communism seemed to be taken straight from the economic system outlined by Jesus in the New Testament and the people most against that economic system were the Evangelical Christians.
And we are definitely not fighting over Socialism – as you can see from this current beginning stage of the election of the next United States president. That word was introduced by Howard Schulz. Isn’t he one of the Billionaire Group? Beginning the anti-Socialist distraction rhetoric?
And, the biggest joke of all is Capitalism, which we claim exists in the United States, but which actually can’t exist anywhere as long as prejudice against groups exists and is a part of the societies in which we function. We can claim some economic system is capitalistic, but in reality we can’t have a capitalistic system as long as we have such strong prejudices in this world. What we have, in the name of capitalism, is a system which allows theft and other such uglies to be made legitimate, normal and actually a good thing in the systems we call Capitalist.
I wish we could clear our eyes to see the world as it is. One of the roles bigotry plays is to cloud the ability of people to see reality. And those who promote bigotry are benefitting mightily from John Q. Public’s mental illness.
Ed. Note: From several members of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community. Hope you learned something from these thoughts shared.
Or you can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
One of the best ways we have discovered to stay healthy and away from those things like colds, the flu and other such diseases and infirmities is through drinking different kinds of tea.
NO – not the tea bags you buy in the store which you bring home and drop into hot, boiling water thinking you have done something great for yourself, but the drink you have thought about, analyzed and see as helping you and giving you lots of enjoyment and nutritional nourishment during the drinking.
We will give you one of our tea recipe’s if you respond and give us one of yours.
BETTINA TEA Number One
For this tea you will need the following:
Organic parsley
Organic ginger root
organic lemon
Fill a pot full of water. Which size pot depends upon how much tea you want to make. This tea gets better with age. Brew it today and let it sit on the stove overnight so you can have more when you re-heat the pot tomorrow.
and for all of you southerners – you will need, in addition, organic turbinado sugar to turn this innocent drink into ‘sweet tea.’
Squeeze a lemon into the pot of water. If the pot is quite large squeeze two or three lemons into the pot.
Chop the lemon, after you have squeezed the juice into the pot of water, rind and all, into small pieces and put this into the pot so the only thing left is the end of the lemon which attached to the tree. It may be perfectly respectable to use this piece of the lemon, but we prefer to throw it away.
Ginger Grater – one of many kinds. The sharper the teeth the better the grater. Steel, ceramic – they all suffice.
Using a ginger grater, grate a fairly large piece of the organic ginger into the pot of now boiling water. Again the size of the ginger root you use depends upon the size of the pot of water and your taste buds.
Pick the parsley leaves off the stems and put a generous hand full of parsley leaves into the still boiling water.
Cover the pot and let it simmer for as long as it takes the parsley leaves to dissolve so when you drink the tea practically every drop has a remembrance of parsley.
For those of you who can’t resist – immediately before serving, put your organic turbinado sugar into the pot and let it simmer about two minutes.
Or, if there are those who don’t want sweet tea and you do, put the sugar in your cup and then pour in this BETTINA TEA Number One.
The taste is fantastic. It relaxes you instantly and just think for a moment about the incredible nutrients sliding down your throat and going into your body to increase your well-being.
Enjoy! And may you live as long as you have something to give or receive.
Or you can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
We have been studying this for years. I can remember a time when there didn’t seem to be homelessness. At least it was so carefully hidden most of us were not aware of anything except the romantic tale of the hobo who couldn’t live in a house – did not want to be closed in, but spent his life riding the freight trains from one place to another. Little did we know that was real, except for the part about the hobo not wanting to live in a house and wanting to spend his life riding freight trains, cooking over fires he made from whatever he could gather that would burn, freezing to death along the railroad tracks, etc. He was pictured in movies and other media as a happy camper living this life. There was usually happy music in the background when talking about such.
That was and is an extremely painful way to live and not one lived that way by choice. What was also carefully hidden from John and Jane Q. Public was the fact that the hobo was the hobo he and some were the hobo she.
I have always asked – why would a seemingly wealthy society allow such within its borders? I have no answer.
Homelessness is caused by banks. Oh, Wow! I can hear the screams, objections and denials. You can hem and haw. You can object and protest. When you sit down, clear your head and do the work and the investigation you will discover HOMELESSNESS IS INDEED CAUSED BY BANKS.
Within the bank, accountants and others sit and get paid to figure out ways banks can make more money at the expense of the middle class. Sometimes banks hire consultants – usually outside accountants to do the same thing. “How can we charge for services we don’t render. How can we increase what we make on services we do render.”
Well lets take this one profit making pocket at a time. What is the number one way banks cause homelessness?House foreclosures. How does that make so much money for banks?
The fastest way banks cause homelessness and increase their profits exponentially in the process is through their ability to collect the real estate taxes (RET) levied on John and Jane Q. Public, by the government.
Cities and other governmental entities are supposed to levy and collect their own real estate taxes. In fact, that has been turned over to banks to do and it is done by banks in such a way that hundreds of billions of dollars flow into banks from this function. Bank charges to city entities; fees of all kind levied on home owners for many reasons, etc. It is one of the reasons we have such huge banks and why it is difficult to impossible for the smaller banks to grow at the rapid rate seen in the larger banks.
If you take out a mortgage with a bank – you most likely have to agree to paying your real estate taxes directly to them instead of to the city or other governmental entity. Those RET are kept within the bank for at least six months doing nothing except making money and being used by the bank. That is an amount of money the bank can “bank” on receiving and when and know it will be received with regularity and they know how long it will be in the bank. From that they can plan how to use that money to increase their profits exponentially because you can’t come to withdraw any of that money, it has to stay put for the requisite period of time and when it has to be turned over it will have been a work horse for the time it stayed. But – you should say – that money should be a work horse for the governmental entity to which the real estate taxes are owed.
Look at how much better that money would work for you and me instead of being used to work against you and me keeping us poor or with a glass money ceiling over our heads. How did this happen?
This is one answer to the question – “How did banks grow so big!” How come they have so much money! Why are they so arrogant, independent, can be ugly to their own customers and still grow and stay in business. How can they throw so much money around (not the least of which is throwing it around political campaigns to keep the politicians beholden to them). This is one of the ways banks have grown so very large and are awash in hundreds of billions of dollars and it is a biggie. It is also one of the ways banks promote foreclosure. – It is one of the ways they become the largest promoter of homelessness in this society.
Homelessness is not about mental institutions which put its patients out on the street for lack of money to sustain, treat and cure them where possible? That is the marketing/advertising campaigns that are out there to mislead us all. NO! Susie. It is not. That is and was a smoke screen. Homelessness can be traced directly back to banks as its beginnings and root cause. And, banks are a causer of homelessness dates back beyond the founding of these United States. Banks have had this role for eons of time.
There is no reason for banks to collect real estate taxes on houses. The taxes have work to do taking care of different needs of the people who pay the taxes. If your real estate taxes must sit for six months in a bank – having been paid some six months before they are due so the bank can have that bit of huge money inflow to help it grow ‘big time’, that is a ‘big time’ problem for the people for whom those funds should be working.
The money paid to banks far in advance of when the city says they are due should actually be working to gain more income for you or for the city – if indeed it is not obscene and a violation of your rights to make such a requirement. In fact, almost all of the real estate monies are collected in this country by banks; sit in the bank working very hard for the bank; and earning untold billions to help grow that banks strength and reach into the community.
Many games are played around real estate taxes and banks. We, the tax payer, assumes the present system is the way it should be and we go along with the program – much to our detriment. We make that assumption because we don’t think of ourselves and our rights. We accept what is, if it is dressed up in Patrician clothes and exhibits the mores of a Patrician class.
Banks collect RET (Real Estate Taxes) on a monthly basis from people who acquire mortgages from them. The people must then repay the mortgage, usually monthly, along with 1/12 of that years real estate taxes each and every month. The bank keeps that money and uses it because real estate taxes are usually only paid by the bank to the city every six months. The average mortgage holder much pay their real estate taxes monthly and six months in advance of their being due.
This is an inviolable thing. No one questions it – and it goes so unquestioned that banks can foreclose and they do foreclose on homes and families even if the mortgage is paid in full each month. If the real estate taxes are not paid six months in advance the foreclosure happens – not by the city because it does not see taxes owed by citizens and does not foreclose if a citizen misses one six month period of paying taxes, but the bank does this on a regular basis. Claiming a person is behind in their mortgage even though that is not true and even though the taxes – which they are behind in paying – are taxes, amounts of money, not due for another month or two.
To put that in its proper context. Banks make substantial sums of money on funds that stay in the bank overnight. And they maximize that in every way possible. These are funds that stay in the bank for six months, definite, not able to be withdrawn, tied up in the bank no matter what. Imagine the money made on that. The bank pays a very small amount of “interest” to the mortgage holder on their “escrowed real estate taxes” – minuscule to the amount it is making on those funds.
When that happens – add a little push to get the family headed into financial problems which results in the house being foreclosed, and banks have been known to do this frequently. Add a minority to whom the bank has given a mortgage; add a minority who has somehow skipped past the banks red-lining policy; add to that a property which has a very small mortgage compared to the large equity position of the property owner – no matter the race, color, class, ethnic origin, religion of the property owner and, in a bank with lousy ethics which is or is bordering on becoming a criminal enterprise, another game usually moves hand in glove with the real estate taxes game.
Banks have been known to target families where there is a large gap between the value of the house and the balance of the mortgage. When a person has a small mortgage and a large equity position they are sitting ducks for a bank to salivate over future profits.
That was out of control during the last recession and banks were so overcome running where their greed pushed them that our banking system almost collapsed. Their greed overcame their ability to function any other way. Many bankers and realtors became wealthy with such a scheme – one amongst many. Many individuals faced poverty, bankruptcy, homelessness – especially homelessness.
More on this story in another blog. Maybe even a few real life stories!
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
A series of articles to look at, give a partial analysis and outline of Trump’s base and what it cam expect of him. We are starting with that portion of Trump’s base which are those who are very anti-gay, homophobic, are sure gay folks are trying to convert their children, destroy Christianity and the values they claim to hold close to their hearts and so much more. You know the rhetoric and you know that portions of Trump’s base overlap. It is very true that those who are homophobic have other bigotries against other groups which overlap, but this article addresses itself to the anti-gay community portion of Trump’s agenda.
Trump has tried to satisfy them by attempting to ban transgender people from serving in the armed forces, throwing out of the armed forces those transgender people already serving and more.
We will not say much about Donald Trump in his teens because those are tender years and can be the background for the direction in which a person travels, but could also be just experimental and a passing phase.
When we get to Donald Trump in his 20’s, however, we see a person beginning to show his values and to set his life’s path.
One of the people Donald Trump met, who became his mentor, was Roy Cohn. Roy Cohn was a prominent New York attorney with an awesome reputation for bullying. He was, at the time, a very famous attorney in these United States and not always for the best of reasons. At the end of his life he was disbarred for many reasons like – particularly reprehensible conduct, and his ethics were called into question and so much more. Cohn’s clients included several of New York City’s mafia, who he defended along with a large and impressive roster of clients.
Roy Cohn connects – Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, the Rosenbergs, Roger Stone, Joseph McCarthy, and many more. A surprising confluence of people.
For the purpose of this article, that which is right out there about Roy Cohn is that he was gay and he died of AIDS. He is the person most responsible for helping Donald Trump move from his father’s businesses in Queens, New York to Manhattan. In the process Donald Trump and Roy Cohn were extremely close. If you could not find one you called the other and that person could tell you where to go or call to find the other – they were that close.
They spent evenings together over candlelight dinners at Club 54; once Trump married, Roy Cohn spent many evenings having dinner with the Trumps at their condo in Trump Tower and that in spite of the fact that Roy Cohn did not think Ivana was the person Donald should have married.
Donald Trump was in the middle of the male gay community which surrounded Roy Cohn. He was accepted as one of the boys and his relationship with Roy Cohn was common knowledge and also accepted.
Donald Trump was one of Roy Cohn’s most important clients. If you did anything with Trump that would or could have resulted in a legal battle you had to deal with Roy Cohn, but Trump rarely, if ever, paid Cohn. And if you went to Trump’s office during that time there would be a large picture of Roy Cohn on his desk.
We could go on for pages about Donald Trump’s relationship with Roy Cohn, but the point of this article is that during that time and for many years after Roy Cohn’s death, Donald Trump was in the middle of a very sophisticated gay group in Manhattan in which he was totally accepted. According to some he provided an apartment, at Roy Cohn’s request, to one of Cohn’s friends who was dying of AIDS so he could live out his shortened life in relative comfort and Trump did just that – giving up a condo in Trump Tower – for free.
With that background, where does this hatred of people who are gay come from? Where does this doing whatever he can to limit access to the gay community of the many things previously granted them as equality – like gay marriage? The question becomes – why does Trump’s background and relationships show that he would do the exact opposite? Why did he have a mentor who was very gay and in the middle of a gay community bringing Trump into the middle of that community in a very public way?
At no time has Trump acknowledged that lifestyle, nor has he said anything about that personal history. He did not come out, for example, to say that “at one time I was very supportive of the gay community, but in xxxx year I discovered my fault and reformed – turned my back on that history and all of the people with whom I had a close association and friendship and now have decided that homophobic is what I really am and have cut off associations and friendships with any and all gay people except those who have recanted, turned their lives around and are now straight.”
From where in his soul does this close association and friendship with many gay males come from – people with whom he had an extremely close relationship – to make him today able to move his campaign to take an active homophobic stance on many issues; to talk about people who are gay in very negative and subhuman terms; to go after those who are transgender to keep them away from serving in the armed forces and in many other ways.
More to the point would be – how and why do the people who really are homophobic and whose agenda is to rid society of everyone who is gay, transgendered, etc. have simply taken Trump at his word. Even knowing this background and history, they have never questioned any of this background. What is going on here that they believe that he, without political campaigns to win, would continue to act to make sure this gay group of people are clearly oppressed and not equal to the rest of society?
Surely they have had at least a passing thought that when Trump has no more campaigns to win he would then govern in such a way as to bring the gay community into equity with the rest of society and the goals of the homophobic community destroyed and turned against them.
Anything else makes no human sense. To say God is using Trump makes even less sense because in my many decades of reading scripture God does not involve me and mine in any evil that God moves to eliminate. God takes the evil hitting me and turns it into good. God does the work and humanity benefits. God upheavals and me and mine are playing God as we see fit. But this part of Trump’s base has many excuses as to why they are supporting Trump because they believe, in the long run he will act in the interest of and promotion into society of their anti-gay, homophobic, anti transgender beliefs and life actions.
We believe that is nonsense and we believe something else is operating here and we believe we know what that is about.
Take a look at Bill Cosby and the evil he inflicted on dozens of women with his corrupt actions. Look at how many years and how much pain and suffering and hard work it took to expose Bill Cosby and bring him to justice. Why was that? Why did so many people for so long support Bill Cosby in spite of what was showing right in their faces up close and personal?
For many, many decades television, books, and much more of media coverage portrayed Bill Cosby as this loving father and great man. He received all kind of awards – not based on who he was, but based on his media persona – which many believed and would not let go of even in the face of facts which proved otherwise. It took decades before it began to seep into the world’s conscience that the Bill Cosby on television and all of those Cosby family books and other kinds of media that circulated was created fiction and not the real Bill Cosby. The real Bill Cosby was the person going to Court who was finally proven to be the sexual predator that he actually was and not the great, kind, with it father he portrayed in many media settings. The kind of father we all want and many of us don’t have. It is extremely difficult to give up on that kind of dream. And the kind of dream Turmp portrayed – great business executive, incredibly successful giving others and maybe one day us the opportunity to follow in his footsteps. That is like giving up on the lottery for those so addicted.
For many years, Donald Trump has been portrayed on television as this great business mogul with all of the trappings to create a romantic figure to get us to tune in year after year. We have in mind the man created by good writers, camera people, directors, producers, in books ghost written for him by others. We have not been able to believe and to take down the man so constructed for us by the media to see the real person who is the real Donald Trump. The media is now doing its best to show us that person, but many are resisting because Donald Trump is putting himself in front of the public as the created, romanticized person who actually exists only on television and not in real life.
Don’t you think it is time to look carefully and scrutinize this man the way many had to scrutinize Bill Cosby to see who he actually was and to look away from and put in the fairy tale books the Bill Cosby and Donald Trump created as marketing tools to sell all kinds of products to the average American citizen?
And don’t you think, given those two examples of human beings turned into almost monsters by their media persona and how far we have had to go to expose them as other than that romantic image – that we should give lots of thought to what we create and watch and give credence to in the media because clearly that is now roiling our society by the way it has seeped into our consciousness and affected decisions in real life and in how we make choices for ourselves and others?
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
We are having a wonderful holiday. Hope your holiday is full of love, family, friends and so much more.
Many members of Bettina Network Lifestyle Community sent us bits and pieces for Bettina Network Blog. They also sent financial contributions to keep us going so we feel well fed both materially and in the soul with what looks like the success of Bettina Network, inc.
What follows are some of what we received to go in the blog. It would be even better if all of you sent full blown articles on whatever topic you want information published – political, historical, scientific, literature-your short stories-poems- expositions. Whatever you want to share.
Before we start sharing we would like to remind you that Bettina Network Oracle said some months ago that children would start dying – murdered by Donald J. Trump and his Administration.
Into this happy season comes the tragic and vicious news that Donald Trump – the illegitimate president of these United States has started killing children and the pace will accelerate. Where do you stand and what are you going to do about this? Trump wants to scare the brown and black people of the world away from the borders of the United States. What better way than to put those who arrive, after experiencing horrible trauma and an extremely difficult trip looking for asylum, into American Concentration Camps. Moving them through a “cold box” to jeopardize any resistance they may still have left to illness, while exposing their children to sexual traffickers and so much more.
We get the news of their children’s death at the hands of a liar, thief, sexual assaulter, murderer, mafia don etc and there is no uprising in this country? We were quiet through the first death we knew about – although you will soon hear of many more – from the past – not those dying today. That is also a part of this holiday season.
Are you going to take the road of Germans – the middle class Germans – who kept silent, went about their daily lives as though Jews were not being slaughtered and turned into slaves by Hitler or are you going to make sure the same thing does not happen in these United States? It was the ordinary citizen who allowed Hitler to rise and wreck his evil. Not willing to jeopardize their middle class economic position to take a stand against the evil which stared them in the face. As long as it wasn’t one of their family?
From the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community:
” Is one of the reasons Trump is so enamored of Russia and Putin the fact that Russia is a white country? And one of the few such places left in the world? Is that what makes him drawn to the particular fascist dictators he shows a complete attraction to?”
“Donald J. Trump sent out an order to withdraw United States troops from Syria. He did that while on the telephone with Erdogan or shortly thereafter. Erdogan’s first choice was that Trump send Methullah Gulen to the Turkish prison island. – so he could be imprisoned and possibly killed there? Trump did everything he could to comply, but his power as president did not extend to his being able to do that – although he did try. We heard the figure of $15 million tossed around as payment for the deed. Trump could and did comply with Erdogan’s second choice – to withdraw U. S. troops from Syria. Why would he allow himself to be complicit in this cover-up? Trump was clearly looking for some way to distract the world from Mohammed bin Salam’s involvement in the brutal and vicious killing of Khashoggi and to begin the process of putting Saudi Arabia on a positive footing with the world as he managed to wipe the story out of the media. To do that he needed Erdogan to stop telling the media about the details of the killing and to not provide the proof the rest of us needed to bring some kind of justice for the killing. This pulling the U. S. troops out of Syria solved that, we have not heard one word from Erdogan about the tapes, the killing nor anymore details about what he and his knows about what happened. That has not been brought into the world’s view for action. Trump’s indebtedness to Saudi Arabia and his beholdeness to MbS was partially satisfied.”
“Trump is a man who does not think! He is not dumb, stupid nor all of those negative adjectives. He is a man who, instead of thinking and feeling has substituted manipulation, shrewdness, insults to and intimidation of others in his path – particularly those he has to address as President of the United States. The worst I have seen of anyone was the performance Donald Trump made in front of the rally after the hearing on the Brett Kavanaugh/Christine Blasey Ford sexual assault allegations which moved his people to vote for Kavanaugh. Was that because they did not believe Blasey Ford? Or was that because of the fear such a performance raised in them of Trump doing the same thing to them and their political and public destruction imminently following. What was tragic was the fact that Trump’s performance did not destroy Trump, it scared his people into falling into line and doing his bidding. That speaks volumes for the ethics, morals, character of those in politics and those supporting them in these United States. Truthfulness, integrity, honor, – none of those things apply anymore. Manipulation to gain power and control over to do the kind of scumbag actions which have been carried out by this president are what holds the day. The United States Government has become a criminal mafia headed by the mafia “Don” – Donald J. Trump. In fact, I am beginning to think the mafia, as we have known mafias, is several steps above Trump in the way it operates.”
“The elegance, thoughtfulness, grace, compassion of the Obama Administration has been replaced by the cruelty, viciousness, untruthfulness, cheating and sexual abuse by almost all those in this current administration. Every time someone is appointed, one of the first scandals that comes out is of that persons past scandalous involvement in the sexual assault, abuse, denigration of women – white, black, pink, green, purple women.”
“I am constantly stunned at the similarities between Trump and Hitler. Trump folds his arms in front of himself when seriously speaking around the table – so did Hitler. Hitlers messiah complex was strong and evil – so is Trump’s. It has pushed Trump to come out with his need for absolute control – he showed that in his call to take troops out of Syria without consulting anyone. His Messiah Complex is right at the peak of being the destruction of Western Civilization. Hitler blamed the Communists for everything – Trump blames the Democrats whether it is true or not and he pushes that song with his Republican Congress following his lead.”
“I know many of us make parallels to Donald Trump and Adolph Hitler. I would like to remind all of us, including Donald and Melanie Trump that Hitler ended in a fulthy bunker alone except for the woman who lived through him, got her identity from him as well as her self-worth and called it love. This was the face of evil. The United States is becoming the country which has supplanted that history by attempting to recreate it. Hitler ended his reign by committing suicide. Before he did, however, he was manic about his need to kill as many Jews as quickly as possible. The United States’ killing spree has just begun. Are there those who are going to stop this madness or are we going to let our passive bigotry lead us into a pretense to be helpless in the face of it and let it go on until we have reached the point where White Supremacy is no longer threatened by the Black and Brown peoples of the world.”
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
Several times a year I face this conversation. It comes from living in a diverse community with friends, colleagues, family and acquaintances who question Christianity – especially today with Donald Trump being the hero and the one “evangelical christians” glorify – all in the name of Jesus – or are they talking about ‘jesus’.
It came up when Roy Moore from Alabama was running for office and pushing out for all to see, hear and hopefully believe – his evangelical christianity. He used his form of this ‘christianity’ to claim he could not have done all the things folks claimed he did because he was a Christian. He believed in Christ. He loved Jesus – and on and on it goes. Problem with that was, I was raised a Christian all of my life and I didn’t recognize anything he said or did as being Christian – let lets put him in the ‘christian’ and ‘jesus’ religion. And so, I dispensed with that problem – yet again.
In the last undecided Congressional race, watching the people involved comment – the Republican chair talking to Chris Hayes on MSNBC claimed he did not believe Republican Mark Harris would be involved in the voter fraud scandal in North Carolina because he loved Jesus and wouldn’t do anything against that. Once again – he loved which one – Jesus or ‘jesus’?
It looks very much as though his choice was ‘jesus’. Jesus got pushed out the door so he couldn’t witness the scandal. He will be brought back in when all of that voter fraud stuff is over.
In these United States we have two religions which call themselves “Christian” – because they claim to be followers and believers in “Christ.” That has been true for generations – way back to slavery. How many slave owners went to Church on Sunday and professed Christ and promised to follow Christs’ teachings only to return home and beat their slaves for one reason or another feeling perfectly justified in the doing and seeing no conflict?
I’ve tried to make peace with this by putting the bad guy “evangelical christians” in small letters along with the “jesus” and “christ” they claim. But that is not quite satisfying. That still lets me get upset with all of those ‘christians’ professing their ‘jesus’ because it is too close to mine and I have to answer to others who don’t understand the differences. I have to justify my Christianity too many times because of them.
Having been raised in the A.M.E, the Congregational and Episcopal Churches all at the same time, with a heavy dose of Catholicism having lived in New Orleans and Downtown at that, I guess some conflict seems normal to me. (The Intellectuals and the Protestants lived Uptown – the Catholics, the artists, a conglomeration of everyone else lived Downtown).
The conflict between these two totally separate religions, which go by the same name, is way beyond normal and they certainly espouse totally opposite beliefs and theologies.
So maybe its time for a name change!
I remember Jimmy Carter’s dilemma when he started his campaign for President of the United States. It was noted and reported world wide, but after a time left in the dust.
James Carter was a very strong, believing ‘christian’. It defined his life, his work, his relationships and everything about his life.
Problem with that was the Church he attended and where he taught Sunday School and (I think) served as an usher was very segregated. That accorded with his then ‘christian’ religion, but not with the public’s thoughts about Christianity when they heard his religious beliefs discussed. If Blacks came at all to his Church they had to sit in the back row and mostly they clearly understood they were not welcome.
It was quite something in this country when James Carter realized and rejected that ‘christianity’ and left the Church in which he was raised because of its overt racism – common across the country in such ‘christian’ churches. He left one religion – or religious denomination – for another. He left ‘christianity’ and became a Christian.
Todays’ “evangelical christians’ are big supporters of Donald Trump – a sexual assaulter by his own admission. Interesting thing about that – so are many of the leaders of the ‘evangelical christians’. Some have been called out and their ‘sins’ exposed, but they are back in the fold doing the same things they did to get expelled and they are supported by the people and their money to whom they preach every Sunday. I could call them out by name, but there is not enough room on this computer to contain all of them.
All through United States history the claims that this is a ‘christian’ country have been made loud and clear and that declaration used to move aside, push out, treat abusively those who are among the “non-believers”, the atheists, those others who ‘jesus’ supposedly called ‘christians’ to convert. Many if not most of the abusive, hatred, pain, agony and more inflicted on the world has been done in the name of some religion. Today and yesterday it was done in the name of this ‘christianity’. White Privilege – White Nationalists – the KKK and all the others live by and proselytize their ‘christianity’ and use it to justify the evil they do and have done. That ‘christianity’ has maintained such beliefs and actions because it makes the doers feel as though they are on their gods side – on the side which makes them better than everyone else. And they define their god as one who supports and has defined and brought into being the beliefs they live by – a theology that only satan could love.
And most especially – have you noticed the class distinctions between these two religions? “Jesus and the Disinherited” runs through from the beginning until now of the Christian religion. Foul up everything with even the ability and justification to kill and not see that as a moral flaw of your religion runs through the other – with its striving of its members to be better than; more important than; wealthier than. Isn’t that the theology which allowed Trump to proclaim to the nation that they should support MbS because after all Saudi Arabia brought us wealth in our interactions with them and isn’t that what is most important? Dismembering a human being is nothing when compared to the acquisition of the kind of wealth the Kingdom could bring to the United States. A basic belief of this ‘christian’ religion after the one which claims they are ‘better than”.
Don’t you think it is time for a renaming ceremony? Time to clearly distinguish between these two religions? My Christianity certainly does not begin to be anything like that of Roy Moore’s. Et tu?
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
We have been drowned with comments from members of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community. We could not publish all of them – most of what is coming in are comments from people about Trump and company and that has been true for several weeks. To say this country is upheaveled by this man, his horrible character, his mistreatment of women, his ethics that are in the toilet and his superiority to everyone having been raised in a family which encouraged the development of his messiah complex is an understatement.
We have published as many as we could. Some we combined when more then one person sent us similar comments. The anger, pain, upset, and looking around for some way to make this right is what we are hearing. Hope the anger, pain, upset and other negative feelings go away and give way to finding and combining to use this to bring this country into a more equal place. As human beings, we are not “better than” we are “equal to”. Some may never realize or accept that. Most acting out and engaged in that “better than” culture have submerged what that means to their character development and the moral laws by which they live. Some – or rather many – are going to have to be dragged into this new world of equality kicking and screaming, but if that is necessary, so be it.
Comments from Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Members:
Member #1
What an incredible way to celebrate the one year anniversary of the publication of the Access Tape which exposed Donald Trump and his contribution to normalizing sexual assault against women. For his efforts as one of the extraordinary oppressors in this society, trained by Joseph McCarthy and McCarthy’s lawyer Roy Cohn and having adopted McCarthyism as a young man – today he is keeping McCarthyism alive with its fascination with Russia (then the Soviet Union) so it could be passed on in more intense form by the next generation. Trump was rewarded, by the “ruling class” in this society by being elected President.
Member #2
Sexual assault is something very common in this society. Women of all classes, colors, ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientation have been socialized into being ashamed when they have been sexually assaulted and have gone to great means to hide that fact and deny its existence and in the end, have wound up protecting their assaulter because they have been led to believe their reputation would be ruined if anyone found out that, somehow, the sexual assault against them was their fault. They somehow “encouraged” their attacker. They said “NO” when their attacker really knew they meant “YES”.
Member #3
Trump brags about the sexual assault in which he engages; clearly believes it is his right as a privileged white male famous person and even goes so far as to defend against women accusing him of sexual assault by claiming he wouldn’t give any woman as unattractive as the one making the claim the time of day. Braggadocio doesn’t begin to describe Trump.
He articulates and apparently believes the women he talks about have no rights, especially no rights over their bodies. White males of a certain class and financial standing have that right and how foolish are women to think and act otherwise. As Trump has talked about the sexual assault aspect of those rights, it is clear he and others like him have removed a woman’s right to control who touches her body and/or anything else about her body coming from that sexual rights claim of the misogynous male. That certainly gives an understanding as to why so many of these same men are the ones leading the charge against abortion.
Member #4
Trump has appointed to his administration many people who have or who could be accused of sexual assault against women . His U. S. Supreme Court nomination is only one of many such nominations and appointments of men who are sexual assaulters, abusers, harassers to high and low positions in his administration and who are really the people outside of his administration who he turns to for advice and who he calls “friend”. That clearly will be his legacy. Take a look at his administration. We need a chart to keep track of them.
With what has happened during the course of this horror story to get Kavanaugh confirmed shows Kavanaugh is now beholden to Donald Trump as well as his beholdenness to people like the two Bush presidents who worked hard to introduce a “new world order” into this country so their friends would benefit even more than they benefitted in the past on the backs of others. What will happen with that if Kavanaugh actually gets to serve as a U. S. Supreme Court justice? A Republican Political Operative as a justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Member #5
Kavanaugh’s comments during his hearing as he tried to justify himself against Christine Blasey Ford were amazing. That is the first time I’ve heard a potential political appointee and/or nominee list and threaten those he considers his enemies. The last time we had an “enemies list” was during Nixon’s days. At least the last time we had one publicized.
To talk about a “political hit” and all of his other language – that screams mafia language and tactics. What’s up with that? Does that mean he is now connected to the mafia because of his connection to Trump? Or is that a reflection of what he has picked up during the time William Shine, the man who protected Roger Ailes of the Fox channel from the sexual assault Ailes practiced against women for decades. William Shine is now Trump’s Chief of Communication and preparer of people like Brett Kavanaugh to take his place amongst the officially protected sexual assaulters of this administration. As Brett Kavanaugh moves along in his friendships with Trump administration sexual assaulters does that mean his wife will have to take her place amongst the Camille Cosby’s of the world? Is there a trainer for her or will she be cast aside and left in the dust when convenient for “Bart”.
Member #6
As a Mormon I am totally taken back and quite depressed about Senator Jeff Flake. He helped restore my faith the way he acted, trying to right what is clearly a wrong and a sin. It seemed genuine when it was happening, but he only did what he did demanding an FBI Investigation to give Bishop Orrin Hatch and the other Republicans on the Judiciary Committee cover so they could confirm Brett Kavanaugh. Did Senator Flake take advantage of his friendship with Senator Coons to get this done? It certainly looks that way. Don’t they see what they are doing? I’ve had trouble as a woman and a Mormon because of the way I have been treated. I hoped as I saw from Senator Flake that maybe some good would come out of this for the country and for Mormonism. It certainly has not through Bishop Hatch. Senator Flake seemed so genuine. He is not genuine. He was posturing, helping his “peers” to be able to vote a man accused of sexual assault onto the U. S. Supreme Court making it look better than the crude, awful way it was happening. We now have two men very loudly accused of sexual assault and sexual abuse on the U. S. Supreme Court and a President whose example to this country and to the world is that of someone who shows it is alright to sexually assault women. And there are more in the Trump Administration because he seems most comfortable around such people. Why? Who benefits? It can’t be Russia because they are already white and misogynist and substantially so. The United States does not benefit unless you want to look at a benefit being the subjugation of one group under another and that is the tradition out of which the Republicans are acting. Where will this lead?
Member #7
Donald Trump is and has made a grand mess of these United States. However, he is doing it by taking advantage of what has already been done. In 1954, the U. S. Supreme Court knocked down Plessy vs Ferguson. A decision made at the turn of the century out of a Court like the one now being put together by Trump and his predecessors.
After the Plessy v Ferguson decision happened, when it was clear integration was real and would be pushed by the Courts the society reacted by destroying the school system. Rather a destroyed school system than an integrated one. The attempt was made to establish private schools and have tax payers money underwrite those schools and then keep those private schools white. That didn’t work.
The Evangelical Christian movement was developing and all white academies – with tax payers money supplied by the Nixon Administration – came as a result of the splitting off of a “white conservative evangelical christian” side of that movement. That original Evangelical Christian movement” continues today and one of its leaders seems to be the Rev. William Barber. The split-off group of white conservative evangelical christians also continues today doing the same racist/sexist things which caused the split. May God reach their hearts and move them away from the heart of Pharaoh from the Old Testament and move them into true communion with the Christ they claim to worship but clearly don’t know and would reject if he appeared to them as Jesus look on earth with his dark skin and kinky hair.
Many whites would not cooperate with Court ordered integration and looked for alternatives schools to send their children. They increasingly rejected the evangelical christian academies because the theology being taught was nothing even closely related to Christianity, which those schools claimed to be their foundational belief. That attempt has left the white evangelical christian churches the bulwark of racism and sexism because the people who support them and whose children are educated in almost “pure” white schools are among this country’s most racist and sexist citizens. These schools tried mightily to get federal money to underwrite their children’s education, but – with Hillary Clinton’s help – it was proven that they were “white only” schools so federal money for their support moved away from their grasp. Wonder why the Clinton’s are so despised by people like Brett Kavanaugh, and all the other racist supporters of these schools? Here is one reason that is not surfaced by anyone – except a Bettina Blog that recently appeared.
Trump came along and has put the death knell to the public school system by appointing Betsy DeVos to head that area and she is doing exactly what she was appointed to do. End the school system because integration is not going to be a fact of life in these United States. And in the meantime have a system in such bad shape that those who go through public education won’t be able to get into college and will spend their lives serving the privileged for very little money and then we will be able to bring all the jobs back into the United States which until now have been moved offshore. We will soon have a populace which will encompass enough people in dire poverty that they will have to work for the wealthy for practically nothing because they have no alternative. And if you want to fight that through the Court system – take a look at what will happen with the current makeup of the courts if Kavanaugh is confirmed.
Member #8
Brett Kavanaugh is a wealthy prep school kid from the Maryland/D.C. area who is infected with the immorality of the Catholic priesthood which is destroying its own youth. That sounds harsh, however, take a good look at this situation and don’t think Kavanaugh no longer drinks, etc. His acting out like a teenaged juvenile delinquent who couldn’t get his way and went to a hearing to blast everyone shows he is still a wealthy prep school kid who even though he graduated from Prep School, he still has an overwhelming sense of entitlement from which the rest of us will suffer.
Member #9
I hope you all heard Senator Grassley when he said – about the women protesting the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh – we are not going to have mob rule. When he went further in answer to a question as to why there were no Republican women on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Grassley said that women were either too incompetent or too lazy to serve. He used other words, but that is what his words mean.
Grassley was talking about people who are legitimately protesting his and his fellow senators violation of this republic. Grassley and his kind see this country as their own private back yard in which they play with their own kind and the rest of us are just so much extraneous garbage, useful when needed and if we toe their mark, insulted at other times and constrained when we do not see this country as a private preserve for the privileged few.
Member #10
I hope it goes down in history how Attorney Mitchell, a woman, was used to carry forth the agenda against women. She was brought in from Arizona, Sheriff Arpaio’s country, to question a woman – Dr. Christine Blasey Ford – so the male Senators would not have to soil their reputations by so doing. She was apparently told she was being brought in to question the woman for all of the Senators in five minute increments per Senator.
She was taken down when she started questioning the male senators, by Lindsey Graham, but she did not object. She sat quietly for the rest of the session.
She did apologize to Dr. Ford for having to do that and expressed her opinion that it was not the way to do this, but still she did what the men who hired her wanted her to do. Even after she saw how those same men treated her, showed her by their oppression of her so publicly, without apology and with disrespect, she continued on with the rest of the plan and wrote her opinion to add her voice to the negatives dumping onto Dr. Ford. Her opinion was probably written before she arrived to do her dirty work to help Kavanaugh get confirmed. She doesn’t seem to realize that giving legitimacy to a sexual assault against one woman is giving freedom to sexually assault all women – including Attorney Mitchel and the female children and elders in her family as well as in the families of the rest of us.
Member #11
When Senator Susan Collins was running for election the first time, was welcomed and won as the result of what happened with Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill – sexual abuse – she answered the question of whether she was for or against term limits. She said she was for term limits and would not stay in the Senate longer than 12 years. Well now we see why we should stay strictly to term limits because we can see what has happened with a woman who ran for the Senate on another woman’s back (Anita Hill) and totally overstayed her ability to positively contribute. Wonder what Lindsey Graham and those folks she had lunch with promised her if she would take the ball over the goal post.
When Murkowski said she was voting NO to the Kavanaugh nomination she was in her senate seat with no one around her – no women, no men just Murkowski giving her reasons. When Susan Collins said how she would vote she was surrounded on two sides by women in two seats in back of her – not their seats because they were not members of the Republican Judiciary Committee – there are no women on that Committee, but they were put there to make it look as though women were supporting Kavanaugh. When are we going to stop allowing ourselves to be so used, abused. insulted and assaulted?
That whole thing was a form of sexual assault in which Senator Susan Collins participated and was its star. She was used, abused and assaulted in return for what? Nothing should entice you to give up equality for you and those like you. This happens so much I assume she thought this was not only normal, but she was being given a great promotion. No one will ever again look to look to Senator Collins as anyone interested in the equality of women or in the equality of any other minority. It takes a certain kind of person to do what Senator Collins did. In the 1930’s and 40’s during the great days of the KKK and others like them, there was always at least one black person hanging around. Brought into the group when they needed him and pushed out when his blackness began to irritate. That is the role Senator Collins played in this Supreme Court nomination farce.
Senator Collins, your true colors and who you really are showed out clearly today.
Member #12
Support Senator Susan Collins of Maine -oops, no, no. don’t do that. Support soon to be Senator Susan Rice, as she starts her campaign for election as the Senator from Maine replacing Susan Collins.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
Does what’s happening around Trump and the Ford sexual assault accusations have a ring of familiarity?
Is the way that is being handled by Trump have the ring of familiarity?
Take a look at Putin’s Russia and Kim Jong Un’s North Korea!
Mitch McConnell, Trump, the U. S. Senate’s investigation into the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh could have happened in Russia. That certainly must have brought Trump lots of accolades from Putin and from the head of the Russian mafia. He paid his dues today.
I try to tell myself that what is happening today in these United States is more indicative of how they handle dissent in Russia rather than the way it is handled in the U. S. I say to myself – self, we have a more open, democratic system than exists in Russia or North Korea. We would never set up a sham investigation so we could gain evil ends by corrupting U. S. democratic institutions. I like to think allegations such as those made against Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U. S. Supreme Court would be handled the way our mythological and carefully culled history declares we handle such things in these United States. But is that true?
Looking at past history, isn’t it more true that the way Trump is making sure this is handled looks exactly the way it would look being handled in a pseudo-democratic state? A state giving way to form to quiet its citizenry while it goes along behind the screen destroying everything this democratic country claims it stands for?
However, in spite of that, goodness seems to be bursting out all over. What was hidden will be revealed. For all of you bible quoting folks – and all of a sudden we are surrounded by such people – read these chapters and verses – Mark 4:22 – “For everything hidden is meant to be revealed, and everything concealed is meant to be brought to light”. If you don’t like Mark try Luke 8:17 – “For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, and nothing concealed that will not be known and illuminated.” Don’t like the New Testament – then turn to Proverbs 10:9 – One who walks in integrity walks securely but one who perverts Gods ways will be found out.” And there can be no denying the fact that we are “finding out” about Trump and his history on a daily almost minute by minute basis. It seems he can’t do anything anymore that is not immediately exposed. His history is tumbling out like a television series with unending segments.
But to all of you bible quoting people – let me also remind you that Satan quoted Scripture and to Jesus.
Trump has warned all of you young men that you better be careful because they’re coming after you. That is true. What Trump left out is the qualifying clause that says, if you are one of those who engages or who has engaged in sexual abuse, harassment or assault – things for which you were once lauded in raucous groups and quiet groups where such exploits were bragged about – or those of you who did your deeds in private and only the women involved who you abused, harassed and assaulted knew about your tendencies – yes you should be afraid because the culture is changing and that is no loner acceptable. That is no longer something you can get away with. That is no longer something you can do and then have the culture back you up by making the women involved feel shame and hide your deeds. The bright light of truth is shining and becoming even brighter and that spotlight may soon land in your front yard.
To the men – young or old – who have led a different kind of life; one of respect for others. To those who have not violated women, children, or even men, your life will change. You won’t have to be bothered with the filth of those who have engaged in such deeds because their deeds will be exposed and they will be removed from the halls of government and all the other places they inhabit.
What a fantastic world that is about to break in on us. We can endure this present because we see the future.
As the pressures from the “ruling class” increases and has increased all around, all over, all above and all beneath us as their greed and other such vile needs have grown and have taken tens of thousands of us to protest, to leave our jobs, to bring along our families to expose them to the deeds of these people so they will know the warning signs and protect themselves – as those pressures have increased we have seen the breaking in of God, the God Spirit, Jehovah, Lord, Krishna, Buddha and all of those entities and concepts we turn to as we worship and bring about a world our memories cannot recall.
Donald Trump is being exposed with his own deeds bringing thunder and lightning clouds to surround him and everything he does.
Those who want to see someone like Donald Trump on a high pedestal and want to look up to someone like Donald Trump these were among the shouters and laughters and those jumping for joy at the rally in Mississippi where Donald Trump thought he knew his audience – doesn’t Mississippi have a reputation for extreme racism and violence to back up the racism, sexism and horrible way they have treated human beings who did not fit their image of who is included and who is on the outs subject to being the repository of their society’s fear? However, even in Mississippi there were dissenters. Even in Mississippi there is a history of the sacrifices made by whites and blacks when the Black and Feminist Civil Rights Movements moved to bring about change even there. What their sacrifices, all of which are not a part of history, show is that there is life after what we are experiencing. There is life after you have made that sacrifice which you think will end the career you were seeking. There is life after all the horribleness of today caused by those led by all the negative forces in the world and that life is even more beautiful than you could imagine.
Those too are being exposed to their friends, to their family, their colleagues, those who are the periphery of their community watching. Yes, we are being divided and when it is over will the lion be able to lie down with the lamb instead of touting his greater size, ability to instill fear in all of those who cross his path, wreck havoc in the world around him; will the lamb show itself to be the greater of the two because of its gentleness and willingness to be sacrificed; or will they lie down together and enjoy that beautiful warm sunlight together?
It is time for these United States to come together, declare the rotters of the community, the destroyers of truth, goodness, graciousness, and run the offenders of such values off the cliff. And what a time of year this is to do just that – didn’t the Jewish people just celebrate Yom Kippur? Weren’t there lessons in that celebration which related to this instance.
Every religion rails against people like Donald Trump. His using lies to ridicule Dr. Ford shows exactly who he is. His life’s history is a listing of foul deeds not the least of which is to have been credibly accused of sexually assaulting some 19 plus women and he denied all 19 claims. But then didn’t Bill Cosby do the same? Didn’t this society, to bring Bill Cosby to justice have to fight for years against the image created for him by the television media? Isn’t this a society which many times has a problem separating the real from what they see in the stories invented to sell products?
Surely Trump, as president would be expected to nominate and then pull out all the stops to back one of his own? Isn’t that where his comfort level lies? And hasn’t he done that? But be careful, he speaks out loud what many men have in their hearts after having assaulted women. He showed clearly how huge is his disrespect, dislike and arrogance against women. He constantly shows that in his press conferences in the way he speaks to and tries to insult women reporters. But what I heard as a child – “he isn’t worthy enough to clean my toilet. When the universe extracts its punishment he will be lifted high so his crash will be felt. to the measure of his deeds.” And isn’t that what we are seeing. And as he crashes he goes down warning men like himself to be careful – they will get you the way they are getting me. Those men would be well advised to pay attention and take heed.
What a triumph for Trump to install someone like him to the U. S. Supreme Court. He has appointed many men to serve in his administration who could be called out on such charges and some who have already been so called out before they were called by Trump to serve him – and yet they tried.
Sorry folks – my rant will probably be edited by the gods at Bettina’s – but it reflects the horror and anger I feel at what is happening. It reflects the disbelief that I live in a country which elected such a man to be its president and gave him powers he is using to subvert and change the hearts of thousands. When I see what he does and has done and when I see those who are supporting him, my heart bleeds. The only visions that keep me alive come from people like Senator Flake – a Mormon who redeems Mormonism for all of us from the grip of an Orrin Hatch. And Susan Collins, who sometimes does the right thing and sometimes gets lost into the horrible ethics of her political party, but still she tries. And Lisa Murkowski who seems to be clear as to where she is going – sometimes . I hope she does not disappoint that would be too much trauma for my weak heart.
Let me finish with that Bettina saying which I mean to the bottom of my heart – sometimes – may God forgive!
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
I saw Hillary Clinton on television today talking about the Kavanaugh situation, among other things.
She has been dumped on by Donald Trump unbelievably and when in trouble, it seems as though Brett Kavanaugh has picked up the habit. For white males – when things don’t go your way, dump on a prominent woman. Especially, dump on one who has accomplished much and is about eliminating the misogyny you practice. The way both have treated women is an example of evil. Given that, I thought I might summarize some of the things I remember about Hillary.
When Richard Nixon was in office, one of the negative things he did was to give money to white only academies claiming that was a great way to expand the educational offerings and a good use for tax payers money. Those were the days when schools were being pushed to integrate and white families were sending their children to these “academies”. – They were for whites only, private schools, many evangelical church sponsored and all seem to have been financed with government funds.
These academies were draining books and equipment and everything else from schools open to all children, but there was a lot of anger among whites that their children were being put in this ugly position of having to go to the same school African American children attended so they had no thoughts about going after and accepting this money – probably without one thought in their heads that some of the money they were accepting for the schools they were establishing for whites only came from money earned by African Americans.
Hillary Clinton was working with Marian Wright Edelman at the time. When she left Wellesley College, the first place she went was to work with Ms. Edelman trying to establish schools for those children who were orphans.
In 1972 Hillary went undercover in Dothan, Alabama because everyone knew the money the government was giving to these academies was being given to schools which did not accept blacks. That would have violated what the money was to be used for and the kind of schools which should have been given that government money. The schools denied that they were racist and declared they were open to every child, the problem – according to the administration in those school was not that they were eliminating and not accepting blacks, but the problem was blacks didn’t apply.
Hillary went undercover posing as a white parent – and of course she found that only whites were accepted, any and all blacks were rejected and so some of those academies lost their government funding.
I suspect that is something Donald Trump and his follower hold against Hillary. It is, however, something about her that we celebrate.
Over the years Hillary – between jobs as she moved up the ladder job wise and politically – always found time to go back to work with Marian Edelman and was quite successful in what both she and Marian accomplished.
I thank her for caring and apologize because many in the society in which we live cannot and will not accept women as equal and particularly can’t accept a white woman who has worked as hard for the equality of blacks as she has. It is certainly not because Hillary wasn’t out there fighting to open doors for all of us.
When things get tough for you Ms. Rodham, remember that there are lots of people like me out here holding you up in prayer, thanking you for your work and thanking God for your life.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
It is amazing to turn on the television and hear what we are doing to ourselves in the name of politics. – Actually, in the name of maintaining the ability to exercise continued power, control, to satisfy our greed and fear.
Lives are being upheaval and in actual fact, we are in the process of making fools of ourselves for our children to read in history class, shaking their heads in disbelief, at just how high a price their parents and people they once looked up to were willing to pay as they moved ahead on this day fueled by fear – and that need for power and control – and the greed being so publicly displayed. It is overwhelming.
Todays’ hearing, which should be about truth, but is really about moving the boulders out of the way to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the U. S. Supreme Court is being set up as a travesty and distortion of justice. Those setting up this hearing have been doing everything possible to ignore justice and create the stage on which the result is pre-determined and which the sexual assaulters of the world, watching with keen interest, will be well pleased. The preparations for this hearing are displaying how to maintain extreme sexism at any cost and those preparations are showing the world the misogyny entrenched in this United States system of government and how it works to maintain the position of white upper class men as “better than”.
Not only is this hearing showing that, but it is also showing how all of this is set up to get those who always lose everything, are manipulated into supporting and carrying forth the needs of this small group of WASPs to their own detriment and how they are pushed into doing that with no recompense and with the idea that this is all in their interest too.
It was heartbreaking to hear a Republican woman, who looked like a very middle to lower middle class white woman with a family of two female teens talking to the press and telling the world that all men grope women and girls, that is just a part of who they are and her daughters couldn’t object to that male inappropriate groping because everybody does it and everybody experiences it so you just have to go with the flow and ignore the groping and its consequences. Two young teen aged girls being taught by their mother to accept male groping and experience it as just a normal part of life.
Todays’ hearing is all about the care and maintenance of a “better than” society. How to protect it and take down those who would throw open the windows and doors and let fresh air circulate for the health and well being and equality of everyone.
We have the Mormon Church in the dock – represented by one of its past presidents. We know enough about the Mormon Church and how it works, especially as regards to its leaders, to know Orrin Hatch could not be out there spreading his vileness without the support and protection of his church.
We have the once grand Republican Party – to which I once belonged, having been conditioned in my Republicanism by several generations before me. It was the party which welcomed African Americans, allowed you to vote and protected you from being lynched. It was the only Political Party way back then which allowed Negroes to be elected to office and to be a part of and have a seat at its Conventions. It was the only breath of fresh air in the south when violence against Negroes rode the streets in white sheets and pointy hats.
Who would have thought that in 2018 we would have a president of these United States – a Republican, backed by the Republican Party – who has brought all of the fear, violence and bigotry moved out by Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement along with Betty Friedan, Pauli Murray and all the feminist leaders who worked so hard and sacrificed so much to move out of these United States what this illegitimate president, Donald Trump, is working so hard to bring back into this society, into these United States of America and who is bringing it back leaning on the shoulders of his ancestors who walked the streets of Washington, D. C. in their white sheets and pointy hats, some of whom made their living on the backs of and at the expense of the lives of women. Who would have thought that this Republican president would be bringing back into these United States the Nazi Party and beliefs of Adolf Hitler along with all of the White Supremacy groups who are growing stronger by the day. How the mighty have fallen!
All of this orchestrated by the President of the United States – Donald Trump – in the employ of a foreign country and the mafia to sow as much discord, division, and whatever other negatives he can throw into the pile so that their taking over these United States and getting rid of its democracy will be so much easier as our foreign intruders show up foaming at the mouth to clean up the spoils. Trump is doing a magnificent job in spite of our best efforts to stop him. He creates one garbage pile after another and the stench from the work he is doing is becoming unbearable.
It looks as though these Republican Senators today will publicly and flagrantly violate everyone’s rights because their backers are demanding that Brett Kavanaugh be confirmed? They see him working for their best interest and they want him confirmed NOW? His grooming and time spent as a Republican Political Operative has shown him to be very good at what he does and that is the kind of person they want on the Supreme Court.
What do we have:
The WASP members of the Judiciary Committee of the Republican Party have decided they cannot and will not do their job representing their constituencies in questioning the candidate for the United States Supreme Court – Brett Kavanaugh and the woman accusing him of sexual assault – Christine Blasey Ford. The other women so accusing him and the witnesses to all of this have been discarded as though they don’t exist.
WHY? Because they are still stinging from the feedback from the incredibly mean, vicious, misogynous job they did when Clarence Thomas was sitting in Brett Kavanaugh’s seat. Today the structure of sexism and racism in this society, firmly entrenched in all that happens in these United States, is on display for all to see. Also on display is how we act when that structure is threatened with collapse, extinction and more. Clarence Thomas is an African American male and not one of the upper class men who rule this country – whether they are in or out of office. Brett Kavanaugh – although Catholic – has been groomed to serve the very upper classes in this society and so far, he has done an incredible job of serving his masters. They see how useful he will be on the United States Supreme Court.
What is most amazing – the president of these United States – a pathological liar and a self-admitted sexual assaulter of women is accusing the women who have come forward at great expense to their lives, their families and their future to tell the truth – this liar and sexual assaulter has called the women who have been sexually assaulted, liars and he has tried to justify the sexual assault and abuse charges against himself by using what is happening in this Brett Kavanaugh affair. The rest of us need to call them heroes for the way they have conducted themselves and the determination with which they are moving forward to make their experiences with Brett Kavanaugh public so we have something on which to decide if this man should get the job of a justice of the U. S. Supreme Court or not. And while we are doing that we need to call Donald Trump out for what he is – a sexual assaulter; a racist; a misogynist and a pathological liar.
Standing behind all of this we see the men of the Bush family and their class circle backed by the American Oligarchs – although the Oligarch’s a bit lower in class. Totally free of the stain of what is happening, but responsible for seeing Kavanaugh as someone who could carry out the wishes and demands of their WASP class in this society. We also have the Bush family to thank for Clarence Thomas. George Bush, the son, was one of the first people to rush out to endorse Brett Kavanaugh – someone he knew as a Republican Political Operative and someone whose work he knew, which means he knew what that would mean to the rest of society if Kavanaugh became a member of the U. S. Supreme Court. Whether he knew of the sexual assault is only his to say and his conscience to reckon with
I didn’t see that component as clearly as I do today. This fiasco has had its silver lining. Many of us now understand and can see this structure without all of the pretty trappings in which it has been enclosed. The shiny objects meant to distract us have been shelved and we see – with nothing hiding or shading or obscuring just who we are and the farce that has been playing for generations.
So – back at the ranch, the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee went out and hired an “assistant” to work with them to get the job done of making sure that all of the trash was swept out of the way which was cluttering up the road to Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
I don’t know of one corporation in this world which would hire someone to work for them at any job with the kind of sexual assault allegations hanging over that person as are hanging over Brett Kavanaugh, but the United States Senate is moving and doing everything it can to make sure he is hired by the United States Government to be a justice on the Supreme Court.
What kind of trash has this “assistant” been hired to remove? The women who were assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh and have had the moral fortitude and civic sense of responsibility to come out and tell their stories. Tell their stories so the rest of us would have a better life without another sexual assaulter getting a seat of power in this United States Government.
What has this group of Republicans on the Judiciary Committee done to promote their cause – to gain power, control over and to exacerbate their greed and fear? What have they done to make sure women are never able to stand as equal and independent members of this society?
They went to Maricopa in Arizona to hire an “assistant” – a woman – to do their dirty work so they could sit back and watch the arena in which they have put one woman against another. A man would have been called an attorney, etc.
Why did they go to Maricopa? Well, think carefully now –
isn’t that where Sheriff Arpaio comes from?
the man Donald Trump pardoned, who is beholden to Donald Trump and has said so publicly?
Isn’t the woman they hired a five year colleague of Sheriff Arpaio?
And isn’t she a registered Republican?
And hasn’t she been put on their ‘team’ to get the job done of getting Brett Kavanaugh confirmed? And isn’t she working with her (their) team to prepare everyone to get the best result so they will be successful at the end of the day?
Listen carefully and you will be able to hear the laughter from the back room as they all get together and gloat over what they have put together for this hearing for this confirmation to go through leaving the Democrats destroyed in their wake. The loudest laugh you hear is coming from Donald Trump.
This is what happens when a self-admitted sexual assaulter and sexual predator, who brags about his deeds and how great and powerful he is at sexually assaulting any woman he so chooses to assault, is elected as president of these United States. He appoints sexual predators to important posts.
What does the life of the Republican Congressmen look like if we were to play a movie on a big screen showing their every moment of life? Would we see interludes where they showed themselves to be just like their president? Is that why they are so furiously backing him? Why they cannot and will not see the horror of what Brett Kavanaugh has done – what Clarence Thomas has done? What all of the sexual assaulters have done to destroy the lives of countless women? Do they have a tin ear and refuse to look at all of this as wrong because these are activities in which they have engaged and have refused to negatively judge themselves?
Having been referred to as an “assistant” gives you the mind set of this Judiciary Committee. It also gives you the mind set of Attorney Mitchell who agreed to come across the country to do this job for who she considers her peers – her Republican operatives – Congressmen – and others. Does she not realize she is considered as no better than the women Brett Kavanaugh is accused of sexually assaulting? That she is looked upon as an object to be used to abuse other women who expected some other kind of treatment?
There is something called Karma. Other cultures would say “what goes around comes around”.
That is certainly true of Brett Kavanaugh who spent a good deal of his professional life using claims of sexual assault to destroy the lives of others?
Your day is coming Donald Trump. You have brought into the current life of these United States the spirit of Joseph McCarthy – the man who upheaveled this country for several years and who destroyed many lives before he was taken down. He did his deeds in a drunken stupor. Amazingly, his attacks also circled around Russia. What is your drug of choice? He did it with the help and advice of Roy Cohn – and these are two of your most cherished mentors and idols. You have patterned your life after Joseph McCarthy’s and you are causing as much pain in this country as he and his antics caused in their day. You learned at his feet and you learned on your knees from Roy Cohn. You learned your lessons well. The question is – how well have we learned to recognize the likes of you and to move to put an end to your destruction of all we hold dear and which for several hundred years our ancestors paid with their lives to create for us a country – as best they could – which would open its doors to all people and which would respect and hold all people as equals.
Why is equality such a difficult concept and such an impossible way for many to live their lives? Are we that lacking in love?
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net or info@bettina-network.com
Trump – the anti-Christ? Readers Comment
Friday, October 18th, 2019From a Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Member 1.
Who writes this stuff! I had in mind the same thing, but didn’t have the guts to say out loud what I have been thinking about all of these forces being acted out in this world today. I am incredibly delighted that your people did.
It is worrisome as a Christian – at least that is what I call myself – to have this history of my Christianity backing slavery and all the other evil causes it has backed. Going through school and studying all of this made it even worse because there was no explanation. You were just left with nothing but a violent memory.
I took this to a further stage. Talk is now resurfacing about Gucifer 2.0. Every time I hear the name of this Russian group which worked to elect Donald Trump as president of these United States I think of and my mind automatically substitutes “Lucifer” for Gucifer and Lucifer is what we call Satan. And then I wonder if this is Russia’s sense of the absurd or if someone named this group without a conscious connection between Gucifer and Lucifer. I also can take this further still by remembering that the New York city building Trump’s son-in-laws family owns with its address being 666 (the sign of Lucifer) and which was rumored to be in financial trouble with the possible Saudi’s bailing them out which is the set-up for another genocide with Trump sending U. S. Troops to help the Saudi’s with another genocide, this time of the Yemens.
At any rate, true or not, it explains a lot that happened with Trump’s election. And explains a lot about Trump himself.
_______________________________________________
From Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Member 2
I have been really disappointed not to have read or heard any comments coming from the Armenian community in support of the Kurds. Having gone through the same thing with the Kurds on the tip of becoming annihilated by Turkey it really gives another look at what happened to the Armenians and into the Turkish National Memory and Character.
The Armenian Genocide has come around again, this time with the Kurds substituting for the Armenians. If anyone wonders what happened. Here it is being acted out again on the world stage.
______________________________________________
From Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Member 3
I read and heard so many people warning about what Trump would do if he was impeached. Mostly, they expected him to start World War III. I shoved that off as hysteria or ridiculous, no one in this world is that bad. Well, here we are today and what is the distraction Trump and probably his fascist brother leaders have come up with? A war! An outrageous war with Turkey vs the Kurds plus more nations involved and another genocide.
I am glad you added in the article about the Armenian massacre by the Turks is what generated the term “genocide.” We need to be reminded of our history.
_____________________________________________
From Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Member 4
The “anti-Christ” is quite appropriate for Trump and his buddies. It looks as though Trump is coming way down and is trying to take the world with him in a fiery storm. To go back to Scripture – doesn’t it say “…the fire next time.”
Thank you for putting that in print in a publication that has put out some substantial stuff. Months ago you wrote about all of this and now it is just coming into print in the mainline media. Keep writing – whether it is by a group, or one, or an occasional article. I have one to send on beauty, but it seems too out of it right now. Do I send my password to make sure my article gets printed?
ED. NOTE: To submit an article for Bettina Network’s Blog – please include your name and the password you receive and which is renewed yearly. That is your ticket to become one of our writers. You can write many articles – detailed scientific articles to cover yourself on being the first to publish – funny stories – serious items of interest – breaking news or news we can break, etc. – your thoughts, concerns, philosophy, religion. Love to have your contributions. Since we are surrounded by theologians we try to go slow on those publications, but we will soon take the restraint off them.
___________________________________________________
From Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Member 5
This is to Marceline Donaldson – please publish it in Bettina Network’s Blog and make sure she gets a copy. Is she still overworking? That was one workaholic family. They didn’t do much besides work. Hope that is changed. I remember Cookie from school. She practiced her piano for several hours each day, was a reporter for her grandfather’s radio and television show reporting on school news and I think she was about 9 or 10. The things she has been into over her lifetime – it is amazing.
Hi Cookie
Just found this publication and was amazed, but not really surprised. You are following your family footsteps. I remember your grandfather – O. C. W. Taylor – who was a co-founder of the Louisiana Weekly along with CC Dejoie, Sr. and who helped bring the Pittsburgh Courier to New Orleans, among other places. My mother used to tell me “OC” stories and she said the first office of the Pittsburgh Courier was in your home. That must have been exciting although we were both too young to have much memory of that. Printers ink must be in your veins plus dress design (and I remember with hysterical laughter your sculptures) and God knows what else.
What I am reading about here are the things your family was always into. This is what I heard your grandfather had in mind when he and Mr. Dejoie started the “Weekly”. A paper which, when it was founded tries to publish substantial stories and especially editorials to give the “Community” another way to think. We have too much on parties, fashion articles, who had dinner with who – except I have to take that back because I remember your mother and she was the society editor for the Courier and I think also for the Weekly. Keep up the good work. If I can help in any way, let me know. I hope others are thinking the same because this needs good support, which is why I am writing this to you for publication in Bettina Network’s Blog.
Don’t go off on me and put this aside, I am writing it as an article for you to put in Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community’s publication. My password is enclosed to make sure you have to print this.
Thanks,
_____________________________________________
IT COSTS MONEY TO PRODUCE THIS BLOG. WE HOPE YOU WILL CONTRIBUTE SO WE CAN EXPAND AND CONTINUE THE RESEARCH AND WRITINGS WHICH KEEP YOU KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT MANY THINGS THAT WOULD NOT REACH YOU OTHERWISE ALONG WITH THE OPINIONS AND WORK OF THOSE WHO ARE MEMBERS OF BETTINA NETWORK’s LIFESTYLE COMMUNITY.
What follows are some of the ways you can support our work:
Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!
Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale!*
*This contribution is to the Bettina Network Foundation, inc which is a 501(c)3 organization and tax deductible.
Project 2 – #WellsFargoBoycott*
This contribution is to the Bettina Network Foundation, inc. which is a 501(c)3 organization and tax deductible.
Project 3 – Growing Bettina Network’s Blog
into a major media outlet bringing to the public news, recipes, thoughts, reviews of businesses, etc. from the perspective of those who belong to Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community.
Project 4 – Boycott the Twenty Dollar ($20) bill
You can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check out to “Bettina Network, inc.” since the blog income is not the foundation income.
If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation currently is going to support the Wells Fargo Boycott.
_________________________________________________________
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
This is a curated blog so you cannot write your responses at the end of each entry. TO RESPOND TO THIS BLOG email bettina-network@comcast.net
Tags: anti-Christ, Armenian Genocide, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Doris Taylor, Kurds, Louisiana Weekly, Lucifer, Marceline Donaldson, O. C. W. Taylor, Pittsburgh Courier
Posted in #DonaldTrump, #meToo, Armenian Genocide, Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Blog Response, Breakfast Table Talk, Guest comments, racism, sexism, Theology | Comments Off on Trump – the anti-Christ? Readers Comment