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Senator Danforth – Episcopal Priest – White //// Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett – Episcopal Priest – Black “A democracy for white Americans, but simultaneously a dictatorship over black Americans.”— MLK

Tuesday, January 19th, 2021

Part two of a series: – Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett – black Episcopal priest

You and we have seen the power of one Episcopal priest – white. He was able to subvert the democratic process by using money and power. Not the power inherent in why he was called to the ordained priesthood nor giving a thought to what God was calling him to do.

Using his earthly power and money he did his own thing. Something that would bring him – Senator Danforth – more power and money and earthly prestige rather than something that would help bring in God’s kingdom on this earth.

He brought us one Josh Hawley. A man who did what he thought he was called to do, subverting and attempting to destroy American democracy. Senator Hawley saw himself, with the blessing of his backers, as being the one to lead the charge calling Americans to overturn a legitimate election for president of these United States and put a fascist, authoritarian government in its place. He was, after all, backed by the aristocracy of these United States. He was close to the powers which put Donald Trump into office as United States President.

Hawley has been living an autocrat’s dream and the nightmare of those who choose to live under a democratic government. Backed by One who used the money and power he inherited ( Senator Danforth) to help install a government more in tune to corporate America’s need for an authoritarian government which could subvert, overturn, patronize and so much more the lives of the people it needs to produce and carry to fruition its programs, projects, products and/or services.

Before there was a Josh Hawley to spend time, money and other resources on, for Senator Danforth there was a Clarence Thomas and probably even more. Clarence Thomas is a man who many believe should never have been confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice, but who was with the advice, consent, power and money of the Rev. Senator Danforth.

Clarence Thomas, a black man, widely disrespected in the African American community and even more so amongst many white Americans. By manipulating the system the way only one with power and money can manipulate, the objections to Clarence Thomas were cast aside. The people who could have shed more light onto who he was and his character were not allowed to testify in the hearing at which Anita Hill was allowed to testify and then nothing. Senator Danforth’s inability to see those he is moving to a more powerful place in the light of who they are and what they might contribute to or destroy the society over which he is majorly responsible for placing them carries a lot of negative weight for what he has done for and with Hawley and Thomas.

Thomas is a man whose wife recently sent her love to the insurrectionists of January 6, 2021 during their time of uprising against the government her husband serves as a Supreme Court Justice. The insurrectionists who tried to destroy democracy along with its Capitol buildings. Insurrectionists she has been encouraging and supporting for quite some years.

Clarence Thomas cannot be so above board with his actions, but he clearly supports his wife. As a Supreme Court justice, what does it mean when his wife goes the distance and sponsors 80 buses to transport those who were a part of the “Save America” rally on January 6, 2021. The Thomas family aided and abetted those trying to overthrow a legitimate United States election in favor of putting in place a government which was, apparently, not legitimate from its beginnings, but which had philosophies, beliefs, actions of which Virginia Thomas approved and for which she spends a great deal of time publicly backing. I think it can be safely said and by his own admission that Clarence Thomas is now a Supreme Court justice thanks to Senator Danforth – white Episcopal priest.

Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett – black Episcopal priest – is the other American side of that story. The side on which he is vulnerable to white Americans who feel they can obliterate African Americans who step out of their place and have institutionalized ways to establish a dictatorship over even in 2020 and even in places like Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Cities which constantly brag about their ‘openness’ and where Black Lives do not matter – especially those of consequence; those that dare criticize white Americans in power positions; those that are not subservient to the autocracy. In fact, many believe Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts are among the most racist cities in these United States.

We recently wrote many Bettina Network articles about what was happening to Dr. Bennett. We wanted everything to be public because we were taken off-guard by the way he and his wife were attacked and having had decades of civil rights experience we knew where those attacks were headed from the day Rev. Dr. Bennett, after brain surgery at MGH, was forced into Sherrill House against his will when he was told places like Spaulding Rehabilitation Center were not open to him and he had no choice.

After his discharge from MGH, Dr. Bennett and his wife were told an ambulance was going to immediately take him to Sherrill House. Neither Rev. Bennett nor his wife, Marceline Donaldson – who was his Health Care Proxy – had a choice in the matter. What was the problem? Two fold -Sherrill House was under quarantine for the flu at the time and they did not know about that and were not told Rev. Bennett was being sent to a rehab center after brain surgery which was under flu quarantine. When, having arrived at Sherrill House and they discovered the quarantine and they complained there was no doctor available. Not physically present nor available via telephone or other communication possibilities. So their choice was to go home where they had a set up which was far superior to what they were exposed to at Sherrill House.

What they discovered through that experience were the racial discrepancies between Sherrill house and Spaulding. Once you turn from Huntington Avenue into Jamaica Plain the medical institutions mostly turn from white to brown to black.

A black man – a black family which did not choose Sherrill House as a place for rehab was forced into that institution and told Spaulding Rehabilitation Center was not where they could go. When they checked, there was space available so what was the problem. No one ever said, however, their investigation showed a clear color problem.

That was not the first nor the last such situation with which Rev. Dr. Bennett and his family had to deal during some very difficult times in their lives. Because Dr. Bennett needed brain surgery, it was as though the society had gone crazy with glee over being able to be the dictators over this African American man and his family. Because Dr. Bennett needed surgery, he was exposed to the worse and discovered there were other elderly African Americans who had and were going through very similar situations with no help and had to face the overwhelming and very racist power of “Protective Services” in Massachusetts. This was supposed to be an organization to aid the elderly in need. In fact, it is an organization which pushed into families that do not need nor want their help.

Actually, elderly and protective services is out of control and their racism, sexism, sins against immigrants virulent and long standing. It is instead becoming the means of making the minority elderly vulnerable to many health care institutions with no choice of any kind as they enter or are pushed into this world. Most often their assets are drained and redistributed into the white community so the minorities die with a life of hard work spent accumulating assets for their children to have better and more comfortable lives taken away and given to the white establishment – the white autocracy/aristocracy with many in the middle to upper classes assisting, most without even realizing the damage being done and not interested.

That was the first in many steps to drag down and attempt to destroy the end of life of a man who achieved and received a Harvard University Doctorate; had a life of service to the Episcopal Church; taught in its seminaries; taught as an adjunct professor at Princeton University, Atlanta University and several more. A man who served on the National Council of Churches Lectionary Committee using his work and study to help edit scripture to make it more available to both sexes. Well, maybe that wasn’t so good since the FBI had to intervene at that point because the members of that committee received death threats – through the National Council as well as at their homes. The minorities we have heard from or heard about include African Americans, Jews, Latina’s, Immigrants, and more.

We could go on for pages with how Dr. Bennett spent his life, but that is all well documented. We are outlining here the way this society tried to strip him of the quality of his life, making horrible the end of his life, his assets, his reputation and so much more. Who? Which institutions? The Commonwealth of Massachusetts through its Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services. Particularly its ‘Protective Services”

Recently, they were dubbed #1 in the state. That was not even surprising to us because we knew the forces which support such institutions would be coming to their assistance to try to drown out what Dr. Bennett and his wife were exposing.

The real “tell” of what was in store for Dr. Bennett happened when 8 white Cambridge police arrived at Dr. Bennett’s home demanding to remove him from his home to put him into the psych ward at Mount Auburn Hospital. Besides the eight white policemen there were TWO ambulances, five or six EMT’s and assorted people. No one knew where all the people were coming from until a neighbor of the Donaldson-Bennett family saw and talked about all the attention the police and their coterie were receiving as people came running from the Charles River to see what was happening with all the police and people and police cars parked and left in the middle of the street around the Bennett/Donaldson home.

The police arrived to force Dr. Bennett into the Mount Auburn Hospital psych ward. He was just a couple days out of MGH after brain surgery and had no relationship to Mount Auburn Hospital. He had a very low opinion of Mount Auburn Hospital, had expressed his concern for the racism he knew about as a minister. His family insisted that if he had to go someplace it be to the hospital he left just days earlier. After some back and forth the police agreed. They did not, however, arrive with any Court papers to back up their demands. After quite awhile and with Marceline Donaldsons’ insistence they produced such a paper which was a Section 12 – used by the police to hospitalize people who have had too much to drink and were a public nuisance; people who overdosed on drugs; people having a psychiatric break of some kind and are endangering the public, etc.

Rev. Dr. Bennett did not fit any of those categories. In fact, once in MGH having been forced into the psych ward after leaving days earlier having been discharged from the Neurology Department and having undergone the indignity of having been examined against his will by one of the MGH psychiatrists, Dr. Bennett was found to be someone who should not have been so treated. They saw no reason for his having been picked up and forced into the hospital in the first place. No medicines prescribed no reason for his having been forced into MGH nor did they find any reason to keep him. So the Section 12 was lifted and Dr. Bennett was sent home.

Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services are the group – the state agency which signed out the Section 12 against Dr. Bennett. No one at that agency knew Dr. Bennett – no one there had ever interviewed him – no one had any kind of relationship with him of any kind. They would not have known him if they passed him on the street.

Dr. Rebecca Warner, the psychiatrist who had Dr. Bennett so “committed” said on the papers she signed to send him to the hospital with which she was affiliated – Mount Auburn Hospital – where several African Americans have complained of their very racist treatment – that she did not know Dr. Bennett, had never met him, had never examined him, had never been to his home – but she claimed his home was ‘not safe’. So much for medical ethics and why does she still have a license to practice?

After Dr. Bennett was released from MGH it is as if enormous anger broke out amongst the people at Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services. Who did he think he was, after all. And then the fun started.

Attorney James O’Sullivan, who was given an award by the Archbishop O’Malley for the great work he supposedly does amongst the poor, especially the poor elderly, was in Court the very next day with an “emergency motion.” As we did research on Attorney O’Sullivan and the award he was given we discovered that the last recipient was ex-Attorney General Bill Barr. There is something wrong in the Diocese that this is the case, especially with the elderly because much suffering has happened and been condoned by Archbishop O’Malley with such an award.

O’Sullivan is actually someone known to use and from this experience abuse “emergency motions”. He asked the Court not to notify Dr. Bennett of the hearing, claimed he was not capable of participating, claimed Dr. Bennett was “indigent” and asked for “Protective Orders” so Dr. Bennett would not be further hurt, etc. Attorney O’Sullivan was acting on behalf of his clients, but he had never met Dr. Bennett nor his wife nor his adult children yet he talked knowingly about someone he was asking the Court to forcibly remove from his home and family and put into a psych ward for reasons not even clearly spelled out in Court.

The “Protective Orders’ were against Dr. Bennett’s wife who Attorney O’Sullivan claimed was abusive to Dr. Bennett and because of that Dr. Bennett was in grave danger. The Court refused to give Attorney O’Sullivan the “Protective Orders”.

What Attorney O’Sullivan did not tell the Court that this was not his first move against Dr. Bennett on behalf of Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services. He did not tell the Court that his first move failed because it should not have been filed in the first place. He did not tell the Court the hospital into which Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services tried to force Dr. Bennett dismissed and lifted the Section 12 his clients tried to get against Dr. Bennett. As we further investigated we found Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective services were trying to have Dr. Bennett committed for an extensive time in Mount Auburn Hospital’s psych ward and they had no reason, authority nor anything else to have pushed themselves into this family nor to try such a thing.

Leaving out the most important information when Attorney O’Sullivan went to Court, what he included was the lie which said Dr. Bennett needed to be represented by attorneys, but said Attorney O’Sullivan on behalf of Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services – Dr. Bennett was “indigent” and could not afford attorneys. Since O’Sullivan claimed Dr. Bennett could not afford attorneys and asked for a state appointed attorney, the Court appointed Cheri Myette to represent Dr. Bennett without Dr. Bennett’s knowledge – without anyone speaking to Dr. Bennett or his family about all of this and Dr. Bennett still not being notified of any motions filed in Court against him and with Attorney O’Sullivan moving ahead with an ex parte motion to take away Dr. Bennett’s freedom in violation of state law. To circumvent state law, Attorney O’Sullivan on behalf of his clients constructed what we have been told has been done many times against elderly black people in Massachusetts and other places – a series of court events which actually did not take place as represented, but put in place to be able to “win” against Dr. Bennett who then had all of his rights taken away from him as though this was a fascist Court system which sets up a case without the defendant knowing anything about the case against him and putting in place what was needed to move against the Defendant giving a public relations set of motions, etc. so the plaintiffs – Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services could gain their ends without going through the democratic process, but coming out with the result they wanted with this very fascist way of functioning. It is common today and many are in great pain because of this allowed way of functioning violating everything this country and its court system stands for.

Attorney Myette immediately filed a motion – in Rev. Dr. Bennett’s name without Rev. Bennett’s knowledge or consent. That motion had Dr. Bennett swearing to the attorneys claims that he was “indigent” and needed the state to pay his bills and that his wife was guilty of elder abuse against him.

Dr. Bennett knew nothing about that motion. In fact, that motion stayed very “secret” for quite some time because it was immediately impounded by the Court as soon as it was filed by Attorney Myette. We found out about it when someone put the papers showing that through the mail slot at the Donaldson/Bennett home with copy of the motion and more papers having to do with the workings of SCES and some of the papers needed for Dr. Bennett which had been withheld.

Because the Court appointed an attorney for Dr. Bennett even though Robert Bennett knew nothing about any of this – the Court moved ahead and gave the attorneys who were clearly conspiring with each other over this the right to have Rev. Bennett picked up by the police, forced out of his home for a second time and forced into the psych ward of MGH.

When the police arrived with this Court order, copy of which they again refused to give to Dr. Bennett or his wife or to anyone else in the house at that time, but insisted on taking him out of his house and if he refused they would carry him out. They said to all present that if anything was broken in the process of chasing all over the house looking for Dr. Bennett to drag him out of his own home, it was not their fault or responsibility and they claimed the Court gave them the authority to go anyplace in the Bennett/Donaldson’s home that they had to go to get Dr. Bennett and drag him out if necessary. They claimed Dr. Bennett was in grave danger because of the abuse they accused his wife of and because he was alone with no one else to care for him.

That was March 6th at 6pm. A Friday. Dr. Bennett’s wife was not allowed to see him from the time he was shoved into MGH for more than a week. She had to have the attorneys they hired go to MGH to negotiate some way for her to see him. When she tried to see him she was told many different things like Dr. Bennett did not want to see her; Dr. Bennett had been to court to get a restraining order against her which said she could not come near him; Dr. Bennett was asked and declined to see her. In actual fact, Dr. Bennett knew nothing about this. He was told his wife had done this to him and didn’t want to see him ever again. All of this time, Dr. Bennett was being drugged apparently by MGH people getting him ready for his “independent Exam” by Dr. Rebecca Warner. When she was finally able to see him he didn’t recognize her, he was so groggy he couldn’t keep his eyes open and more.

What was happening at the Bennett/Donaldson home at the time Attorney O’Sullivan was in court describing Dr. Bennett as being alone, destitute with an abusive wife and no one to care for him or protect him? Dr. Bennett, his wife, his adult daughter, his adult son and his wife were about to sit down to a candlelight dinner. They spent the day cooking and preparing for this celebration meal because Robert’s surgery was a success and they were giving thanks. Robert Bennett did not have dinner that day because the police and hospital were so concerned about him they shoved him in a corner of a room and left him there.

When Dr. Bennett arrived at MGH and was shoved into a room, he was immediately started on anti-psychotics; anti-seizure medications, hallucinatory drugs, blood thinners forced on a man just days from brain surgery, plus 10 more medicines. 10 days later Dr. Rebecca Warner shows up at MGH to do what she called an “Independent Exam” although she is affiliated with Mount Auburn Hospital. She – the one who signed out the Section 12 against Dr. Bennett for which the Commonwealth of Massachusetts paid her $2,000 because, after all, Dr. Bennett was “indigent”. So many people and institutions road that “indigent” gravy train that our minds have been twirled around many times trying to nail down all of it.

Dr. Warner appeared 10 days after Dr. Bennett was forced to take all of the above drugs, which he did not want, but did not have a choice. Examining him those 10 days later – a man who did not want to be there and constantly wanted to leave, but was kept on an alarm blanket on his bed so nurses would be notified if he tried to get out of bed; he could move to a chair next to the bed, but that was also alarmed and he could not move without someone moving him; being forced to take medicines which could do serious and long term harm to him was then given an “Independent Exam” – which he already had been given the first time he was taken to MGH, but the circumstances were very different. This time, Dr Warner found him to be “incapacitated”. Those drugs were not put on his medical chart until months after Marceline Donaldson discovered the discrepancy and insisted on an answer as to why. They knew about the drugs because they were sent home with him with MGH insisting that he be required to continue to take them daily or he would be brought back to the hospital for a more “permanent” commitment.

How did would they know if Dr. Bennett was not taking the drugs? Dr. Bennett’s family was forced to accept a Home Health Care Company coming to the house daily – 5 or 6 people each day going in and out of the house during the time of the Pandemic. They were supposed to give him the pills and watch while he swallowed them. And – one thing that resulted from this – Dr. Bennett was sexually abused in the process. His family reported all of this to the Massachusetts District Attorney and the Attorney General’s Office and to the office of Elder Services. None of them paid any attention and in spite of the fact that there were witnesses, none of those institutions bothered to contact and/or interview those witnesses.

Before his transport to the MGH he was walking, talking, in a good state of mind and friends interacted with him – he walked to Harvard Square – sat by the river to soak up the sun and more. When he was sent home from MGH some 5 weeks later he was in horrible shape. He had no shoes on – his feet were swollen and his shoes didn’t fit – he hadn’t been able to get out of bed for five weeks and at Dr. Bennett’s age that could have been a death sentence or one which would have produced an “incapacitated” person for the rest of his life. He looked as though he had been homeless on the street for years. and he could not walk. That is what MGH and SCES contributed to Dr. Bennett’s “health”. It was disgraceful and heartbreaking.

The Court Order said Dr. Bennett was being taken to MGH not for medical reasons, but because of elder abuse and because of that they had to immediately take him from his home. They treated him in a disgraceful way. He spent the five weeks in a space 7 by 9 feet and he shared that space with unused hospital equipment. He shared the room with someone else who had two beautiful picture windows, the sun coming through, a chaise lounge kind of chair he could sit in during the day and a lot more. Dr. Bennett didn’t see the sun because curtains were kept drawn around his bed. If you entered his room you would not know anyone else was in that room.

We are finding others who have gone through the same thing. The elderly are particularly vulnerable because most who have gone through this have not fought civil rights battles the way the Donaldson/Bennett’s have nor have they had any other fights so they are ‘taken over’ by people like Nora Al Wet-Aid and Angela Clary with the acquiescence and consent of their superiors.

During the entire time no one talked to Dr. Bennett. They did what they wanted to do and what they felt they needed to do pursuing the goal they have for people like him. Being moved from a psych ward into a nursing home for life with the Court’s permission to feed him and others like him anti-psychotics for life along with others drugs which ruin their health and the quality of their life. Why? Assets!

Dr. Bennett’s wife was told – and a letter to other lawyers attest to the fact – that she would be given a small stipend and could find a room someplace – maybe even with her own bathroom because the family’s assets would be needed and taken over by a Guardianship Corporation – drained down by that Corporation to supposedly pay for Dr. Bennett’s bills.

It gets worse from here so we won’t go through all of the gory details, but as you read this can you imagine Senator Danforth being so treated? Or reaching out to help someone like Rev. Dr. Bennett? And how have others in the Episcopal Church reacted?

As you read this we hope you realize the very authoritarian system in which the health care institutions are functioning and the way it is so much easier to have blacks put out of commission with their assets stripped so their children cannot inherit and therefore lose the edge in this society that assets inherited would bring to them.

Add to that the very aggressive stripping of the vote from minorities which is what Senator Hawley – who was backed by Senator Danforth – is trying to do with his attempted takeover of a democracy turning it into an authoritarian government.

Dr. Bennett, who hired attorneys to represent him was not able to be represented by the attorneys of his choice. The Court appointed an attorney to represent him before he even knew he needed any kind of representation. Dr. Bennett was not “indigent” and paid the retainers requested by those attorneys. Didn’t matter. The attorney appointed by the Court in an “emergency motion” about which Dr. Bennett knew nothing – he was not served or contacted in any way; the attorney so appointed by the Court did not contact him she simply did what others told her to do, resulted in the “dictatorship over” way he was treated during every moment of what must have been a nightmarish experience for him. He was treated as though these United States are a system of “dictatorships over” in the areas necessary for whites to keep control.

There is talk of “defunding the police”. The problem is much more serious than what is happening with the arrest and killings of blacks and other minorities who supposedly have committed some kind of crime. When the police can push their way into your home without your knowledge of why or what for and can forcibly take you out for no reason the ‘police problem’ in this society needs to have its entire structure and what it can do unearthed before any solutions are sought or rendered.

When the people, like Senator Danforth, with the power and money are calling the shots on who is elected; who is appointed to important positions in this society which can bring substantial changes to our individual and collective lives those people need to be highlighted and call out on what they are doing and why they are allowed to wield so much more power and have so much more money than the rest of society.

We are still living in a “slave society” which we inherited from the many generations who went before. Instead of looking at that and making major changes, we are playing games with “riots” and attempting to force those changes in physical ways which will most hurt those making the physical and psychic sacrifices to bring in a new way of being in society, which will simply bring a more concentrated form of wealth and power to the aristocracy at the top calling the shots – manipulating the strings of the puppets who are dancing without any thought to what it is they are doing.

Don’t you think it is time to stop all of this? Don’t you think it is time for us to live in some other kind of community which benefits all? That is such an incredible threat to most we are afraid to even go there. We might encounter people who don’t look like us – talk like us – have our history – etc, etc, etc. and isn’t that the greatest threat of all?

Senator Danforth – Episcopal Priest – White //// Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett – Episcopal Priest – Black

Tuesday, January 12th, 2021

A two part series: Part One – Senator Danforth.

Two different people – two different lives – two different lifestyles – two different sets of ethical choices to live by.

I heard Senator Danforth preach at Harvard University’s Memorial Chapel and it was a stunning sermon in hypocrisy, upper class morality putting self first, and a huge emphasis on how what is happening in politics today – especially Republican politics is not evil it is simply……..

Senator Danforth, white Episcopal priest, is today loudly proclaiming his “error” in being the mentor and backer of Senator Hawley. A not unexpected loudly proclaimed admission and chest thumping comment. Considering that Senator Danforth is one of the main reasons for the success of Clarence Thomas becoming a Supreme Court Justice, it is not only Josh Hawley for whom Senator Danforth should dress in rags covered in ashes and sit in a corner in repentance for trying to move Christianity – in which he claims to believe – away from the far evangelical white right. Which is better, a far right white evangelical christian or an upper class white ‘priest’ person who uses religion to justify their cultural lifestyle and beliefs as “better than” and the way the world should work.

Senator Danforth has lived what most would consider a “successful” life. We would consider it an abject failure because he does not even try to get out of his upbringing and his way of thinking about himself and his own as the good people of society – why can’t we all be like them (and him). The world would be a much better place.

Danforth is explicit in these thoughts, but it doesn’t take long observing his career, reading his books and seeing the people he has mentored to realize the horrific damage he has done to these United States.

Senator Danforth chose to back Josh Hawley for the Senate in 2018 over then Senator Claire McCaskill. One had a substantial career in the Senate and lives out of a set of ethical beliefs which show her thoughtful, careful life in a serious Christian context. The other showed his instincts and needs for power and money putting him in a place where it clearly showed there was no limit to what he would do to achieve those goals of being “better than”, having “more than”, being an important person at whatever the cost – and clearly we have now seen that the cost the rest of us would be expected to pay so Senator Hawley could achieve his goals in life would be loss of our democracy. To see those instincts in another human being does not take a genius who is skilled in observing such and who has a deep knowledge of human beings.

Senator Danforth also backed Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court. He did not just back him, he was his mentor and guided the way removing whatever he had to remove so Danforth’s person would be successful in becoming the black justice to replace the likes of Thurgood Marshall. This time, a black person who was not as clear about his identity as ‘equal’, who was not a great thinker, and whose ethics were those that a black man should have out of which he lived his life.

Clarence Thomas’ flaws were many and very publicly known. How Senator Danforth justified overlooking his abuse of women, his attempted sexual assault on many, how he even was able to ignore the extended testimony of Anita Hill, who was one amongst several women who charged Clarence Thomas with sexual harassment. Anita Hill worked for Thomas and so it was aggregious to have her testimony, but with Senator Danforth’s blessing and support Thomas was passed on and became a Supreme Court Justice. Was it also with Danforth’s interference that the other women, who had similar claims were not allowed to testify and so passing along and confirming Clarence Thomas would not seem so horrendous to the rest of society who had not heard the many testify to very similar sexual abuse and harassment claims?

These are two of the men Senator Danforth has used his considerable influence and resources to back and move along to the top of the United States government. You don’t rectify those kind of mistakes by making a public statement when something extremely ugly has happened and you have to either make such a statement beating your chest over your bad judgment or be quiet and hope you are overlooked in all of the upheaval and publicity around the huge mistakes you made – people judgment mistakes. However, what calls Senator Danforth into question is the people judgment mistakes he made as an Episcopal priest with training – supposedly – to help him avoid such and the consistency of the kind of people Danforth sees as ‘great’ who he can mentor and help move to the top of this society.

In both instances, Senator Danforth severely rejected the women involved on the other side calling into question the men he chose to mentor. – Claire McCaskill as Senator running against Danforth’s chosen person Josh Hawley and Professor Anita Hill who risked her reputation to come forward because she thought the American people needed to know of her experience with this man – Clarence Thomas – being considered for a position on the Supreme Court of these United States.

Anita Hill had nothing to gain and everything to lose, but she followed her ethical beliefs in not closing her eyes to what was happening. Besides Claire McCaskill, how many other women has Senator Danforth shoved aside and helped to humiliate because of his ethical base which shows clearly through his choice of people to mentor and push ahead to the top positions in American government.

In his sermon at Harvard’s Memorial Chapel, Senator Danforth argued strongly for those in attendance and all others in the world to not classify what was happening and beginning to show up in this American Government as evil. It was simply – what – people doing their jobs in the best way they could? Or something like that. No moral judgment on all of those missteps. Especially nothing seen as “evil” done by the people he mentored. The recent killing of five people in the process of a planned take over of the American government by a group of people egged on by one who Senator Danforth mentored. Nothing evil about that – just a Senator doing his job as best he could.

And through it all, very substantial support of Senator Danforth by the Episcopal Church.

Here ends the first lesson in this two part series.

Romney – Pelosi – Trump

Friday, February 7th, 2020

by: Marceline Donaldson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale!*

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

Project 2 – #WellsFargoBoycott*

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

Project 3 – Growing Bettina Network’s Blog

into a major media outlet bringing to the public news, recipes, thoughts, reviews of businesses, etc. from the perspective of those who belong to Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community.  This is not a tax deductible contribution. You can send a check to Bettina Network, inc. P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 to support this blog! Please make your check payable to “Bettina Network, inc.”

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

If you prefer your gift go to the Foundation, make your check payable to Bettina Network Foundation, inc. The money we receive for the Foundation will be used to support the many activities in which we engage to try to make this a better world. 

_________________________________________________________

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

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

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

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

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




A Response by a Bettina Member

Thursday, December 5th, 2019

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

______________________________________


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

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

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale!*

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

Project 2 – #WellsFargoBoycott*

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

Project 3 – Growing Bettina Network’s Blog

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

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

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

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

_________________________________________________________

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

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

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

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

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




Bettina Community Members Respond About – Tiger Woods, Mitch McConnell, Trump and Erdogan, Nancy Pelosi

Wednesday, May 8th, 2019

Many comments from members. This one seemed to represent what all of you sent. If we left out something you wanted aired, please resend your comment and we will add it as an article to this Bettina Network publication.

Thanks for all that you do and for sending us information to include in Bettina Network’s Blog. It is your publication and we would never know all that we do without your input.

TIGER WOODS

I have been disgusted in the past with Tiger Woods behavior – the womanizing, the drugs, the awful way he took his talent and seemingly threw it to the wind. When he won the tournament recently and so many were praising his “come back” I had hopes that things had changed and we would now be able to enjoy, respect and look forward to great things from Mr. Woods.

How could one be so wrong. Instead of that, we get Tiger Woods as a member of the Trump Mafia/ Criminal Enterprise.

I watched the ceremony with Trump giving him the Presidential Medal of Freedom; heard Trump’s comments and the highly emotional way Tiger Woods tried to respond. I wanted to throw up.

Tiger needs to get his life in order. What is most missing from his life and how he lives it is a good ethical base; good character and an understanding of his responsibility as a human being.

To accept the award from someone posing as president of the United States is bad enough – but to accept the award from his “boss”, a man for whom he is working, for whom – among other things he is designing golf courses and more and getting paid by this man bestowing on him this “honor” is beyond my ability to think anything of Tiger except – so we get more of the same that you gave us in the past only now – instead of drugs and women – you are cultivating within yourself and learning mafia ethics while working for and being a part of a criminal enterprise – who would have thought Tiger could have sunk so low. That show of emotion Tiger Woods made during his acceptance speech should have been grief for the life he could have lived and the respect he totally gave up for a round disc hanging on a piece of ribbon. What a disgrace and a waste of an incredible talent. Just think of what could have been with Tiger Woods. He is not someone I want around my children.

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Mitch McConnell

Living in Kentucky what is clear to me is how difficult it is going to be for McConnell in 2020 to keep his seat in the Senate. His candidacy is underwater at the moment and he is losing followers and those who used to think he was the man for whom to vote.

Clearly, Mitch is tied into the Trump Criminal Enterprise and the Bettina Blog was correct when it asked why McConnell blocked Obama’s nomination for the Supreme Court long before we even suspected Hillary might not win the Presidency. More of us are asking what did he know – how did he know it – when did he know Donald Trump was going to be declared the next President of the United States. It certainly looks as though he knew that months before we cast our votes and Russia’s interference blocked Hillary Clinton’s candidacy in favor of putting Donald Trump on the throne.

What makes it even worse, many of us are extremely unhappy that he put a man credibly accused of sexual assault into that position on the Supreme Court. Some of those so unhappy were friends who called me racist when I refused to support Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court. With Clarence Thomas’ nomination, I could not believe that someone I loved and respected and supported – George H. W. Bush – had actually nominated someone like that for the Supreme Court. They are probably going to be appalled at my thoughts about Tiger Woods, but I was so happy to see Bettina Network’s Blog spelling out the horribleness of giving Tiger Woods the Presidential Medal of Honor. The two of them – Tiger and Trump – standing together on that podium with Trump looking at Tiger as though he was going to be dinner for a sexually hungry man after the award ceremony was way beyond my ability to cope. I turned off the television and went back to work seething. What is wrong with folks that they either can’t see that or are willing to accept it?

McConnell was able to support and still totally supports a man who has been credibly accused of many instances of sexual abuse against some 20 woman that we know about and who has spent over $100,000 to hide his inability to control his penis during the presidential campaign, or apparently at any other time. What kind of man is Mitch McConnell anyway. His morals are in the dumpster.

I will be contributing to whoever is running against him and I will be a Republican working for whichever Party’s candidate looks as though they will unseat Mitch McConnell.

I hope there are many like me out there. I was a McConnell supporter for a very long time. This, however, is my Waterloo. Never thought in my adult life that I would support, help fund and work for a Democrat, but if that is what it takes I will be upfront and center in this upcoming election, working as hard as possible with those like me.

I have never thought of myself as particularly ethical or requiring a standard good character of people. I am so sorry I have not done that and now look at what we have to endure.

______________________________________

Trump and Erdogan

Trump is looking more and more as though he is talking to Erdogan and getting lessons on how to become an autocrat in these United States with a Congress totally emasculated.

I look at what Donald Trump is doing and can’t help but parallel his actions to those of Erdogan in Turkey and how he moved that country to the autocratic state it is today and with its populace trying to escape that one man’s tyrannical rule.

Turkey just had an election which went against Erdogan and so the results of the election were cancelled and Turkey now gets to vote again. Take a look at what is happening there and see if you don’t think Trump is taking ideas and what to do from his fascist friends around the world.

What do we do when it becomes clear that one person whispering in the ear of the Donald is Kim Jong Un – the love of Donald Trump’s life?

_____________________________________________

Nancy Pelosi

What a disappointment. Trump, apparently “respects” Pelosi – if you believe he comments coming out as to why he has not given her one of his infamous nicknames.

Does he respect her or do they have an agreement whereby she may go after him, but she will block impeachment so Trump can swagger around daring the Democrats to impeach him when he knows he has a friend at court who will make sure that does not happen.

It is past time Nancy – at least a year overdue – for Trump to be impeached.

To want to be guaranteed of success before you start any process is to be either totally naive or to not want the result to happen because you have other fish to fry.

Get real here Nancy – Bettina Network’s blog called for you to ‘impeach or step aside’ – I want to verify that I am behind that sentiment 100%. You are becoming a liability and a disappointment in the way you related to Trump.

__________________________________________


Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

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.

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

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

_________________________________________________________

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

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

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

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

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

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.co










More from Bettina Members

Friday, January 11th, 2019
  1. I must admit when I first read “Thoughts on Color”, I thought it was frivolous and reaching to make a point. How foolish to put racism into the color one chooses to wear or the color of the car one chooses to drive. Then I saw Donald Trump on his trip yesterday to #TheWall. I was struck dumb for a few seconds. If ever I have seen a “dog whistle” there it was. If ever I thought the wall was about other than racism, Trump’s appearance at the wall in his MAGA Cap brought those thoughts crashing down.

The red MAGA cap was gone. In its place was a white MAGA cap. As I researched, that is not the first time the MAGA Cap’s color has changed. I owe an apology to the person who wrote the “Thoughts on Color” article. It is a powerful way to look at many of the things happening in this society. They range from dog whistles on bigotry to bull horns, all camouflaged with the color one uses.

Given the fact that #TheWall goes back to the KKK, White Nationalists, White Supremacists as one of their projects – made of steel – that they did not complete and have tried through others to bring life back to again – a white MAGA hat conveys the message symbolically, the way Trump’s call to Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails was made. That didn’t take a genius to understand, neither does Trump’s white MAGA hat. His arrogance knows no bounds.

It has been clear from day one with Trump that the presidency for him is all about re-aligning the races and bringing us back as close as he can get to slavery. Trump, in the middle of treason with Russia, has to be concerned about the color of people in the U. S.

Russia is a white country – as are the others with which he is trying to align himself. Kim Jung Un may be basking in glory today, but he needs to realize he heads a nation of people of color and his involvement with Russia et al will be as a minority nation.

Trump changed the color of the U. S. cabinet and every place else in his administration he has eliminated, almost entirely, people of color and replaced them with people today we call “white”. Where he has reach and influence, we have moved from the beautiful flower garden of the Obama’s with its many colors and kinds of flowers to the Trump manufactured and very artificial white flower which looks as though it was produced in a factory producing the same product on its assembly lines day after day. A flower that was designed by a robot.

2. This Wall thing is not a dog whistle it is a bull horn. Go back into your history and look at the parallels. There was the Emancipation of slaves under Abraham Lincoln. That was followed by Reconstruction. After Reconstruction came the reaction which saw the KKK grow into an organization which could march down Pennsylvania Avenue in the 1920’s with tens of thousands of people in white sheets and pointed hats declaring white supremacy, making the country miserable and scared. Donald Trump’s father was one of the people in the white sheet with pointed hat walking with that group of klansmen. He was one the police arrested during the “march” which is one reason why we know Trump’s father was involved with the KKK.

One thing the KKK wanted was a wall on the southern border to keep out people of color – only they were called much nastier names by the klan. They wanted #TheWall to be made of steel. When Trump changed from cement to steel, I think you were right in your blog saying that was a clear message to the extreme bigots of this country. Isn’t that why racism has lasted so long? Because it is overtly and coverly supported by people like Trump with a long line of predecessors, many in Congress, who saw an opportunity and a way to gain power with as much cheating and illegalities as they could muster. All they had to do was to rise up on the backs of all of us – white, black, brown, tan, purple, pink. orange.

Today you can’t call someone the N word without getting into trouble, but you can push to build #theWall and you will be doing the same thing with an excuse and defense against people who will call you racist.

You can let the world know sexism is back and stronger than ever by making sure an alleged sexual assaulter winds up on the Supreme Court. You can have pictures go around the world of the U. S. Cabinet being made up of White Males and the Republicans in Congress being the same with only a 1% difference. That sends out a huge, direct message.

That is what #thewall is all about. Trump even changed the color of his MAGA hat, in case his followers didn’t catch on. That was a more specific signal.

The atmosphere in this country has been changing and it has become very tense with white males feeling their “superiority” threatened, as more people of color move into positions where once an unqualified white male would be hired rather than a more qualified person of color.

We had Mexico – where years ago its borders changed so parts of Mexico would become Texas – remember that piece of history?. The Mexicans who had lived for generations in the areas where the borders were redrawn didn’t leave. Their property and goods were taken and they were thrown out on the streets, but they stayed – what choice did they have – and the work then began by the “ruling class” in this country to make sure the ex-Mexicans were pushed as close to the bottom of the ladder as possible and kept there for generations. Got to keep people around to do the “dirty work”. With those “Texas” brown and black people threatening white supremacy, just by their numbers”, something had to be done.

To be sure some things were done even into the time of Hitler’s Germany. The Nazi prisoners of war were brought to Texas for their incarceration while the war was still going on. African American soldiers, on leave or visiting Texas, or working in Texas, were denied entrance into restaurants and other places because of their color supported by the separate and unequal laws. The Nazi prisoners were picked up on Sundays by the locals who took them to dinner at those same restaurants where the German prisoners of war were welcomed in their native language.

Much upheaval happened and the klan, among other groups, grew exponentially. They could never quite keep those ex-Mexicans down – although they made their lives a living hell most of the time. When you are next in Texas, think of this history as you look around at the substantial Mexican culture you see all around. That culture didn’t pop up as Mexicans came into the United States over the past couple generations, that has been there for quite a few years.

And now along comes Trump. In this time after our modern day equivalent of Reconstruction as Trump and his minions do their job of deconstructing and trying to turn as negative as possible the accomplishments of the Obama Administration, they have reached back into the history of one of our most racist times and come up with #theWall. That unfinished piece of White Nationalism, which they were not able to achieve before they were diminished.

Trump has brought back as much bigotry as he could possibly muster and when folks talk about his “base” they never quite talk about what that means. That means, for those of us who are a little obtuse and did not live that history, Trump’s base means the most bigoted people in this society gravitate to him and his administration because it means a little more time hanging onto their claimed white supremacy and a letting loose of their evil to make life as miserable as possible for the people of color amongst us. Let me note here that this also includes some few lost souls who are not white, but are overwhelmingly lazy, jealous, believers in their own inferiority and more. Even the KKK had those people of color, especially of African descent, who attached to their organization.

Amongst the other things he has done, Trump has certainly done an amazing job of bringing back the modern day equivalent to the Supreme Court which kept Plessy v Ferguson around for generations and guarded against anything that looked like it might facilitate a break in the extreme bigotry in which this country has been gripped almost from its beginnings. The Plessy v Ferguson racial apartheid ruling stayed in this country kept there by the U. S. Supreme Court because of the political beliefs of those on the Court for over 50 years. Isn’t that why Conservatives are so adamant about accepting anything Trump does if he appoints the” right people” to the Court? Look at the straight jacket in which the U. S. Supreme Court kept this country because of its own racism and look at how many years and how many attempts were made unsuccessfully to bring about a change. Thurgood Marshall and those who served with him are justifiably celebrated as “heroes”.

To get the Democrats to contribute to #TheWall would be a huge step forward for Trump’s connection to his followers. It would fulfill one of their great needs. That is why his advisers are saying if he caves on this he is finished politically.

Hopefully, something decent gets into his brain which moves him into joining the forces of good instead of the evil to which he has apparently irrevocably attached himself. It has brought him a future, not of hundreds of millions of dollars, but of total disgrace. How much better to stop lying and start living a decent, respectable, God filled life. He certainly isn’t even close to that today. He is moving in the other direction sending his Secretary of State to the Middle East to attempt to dismantle Obama’s foreign policy and turn it into something ugly. What that has actually managed to do is to remind people of Khashoggi and just how low the Trump administration has sunk. His activities in trying to pull down Obama has reminded everyone that Trump’s foreign policy includes condoning and giving cover to murderers who do gruesome things in addition to all of the rest – the adultery, the lying, the cheating, the stealing, the setting up a criminal enterprise in the White House and so much more.

How long is this going on? Will we find relief soon or will this carry on for years to come? Will we be free of bigotry when Trump moves off stage? Or will something or someone else replace him to keep the U S. bigotry within its borders simmering and waiting for another chance to explode? Will the narrative of the United States contain long chapters of the goodness we have wrought and the road we have taken to walk with others to a better life? Or will we forever replicate a government which leads us down the ugly path finally to perdition.

3. Bar (r) the fixer. It is time – actually past the time – for Congress to put on its “big boy pants” and refuse to clear Barr for Attorney General.

As Trump brings ever more disgrace to these United States and moves us back into a morass from which it will take generations to extricate ourselves, we are also seeing and learning about the sins of those who went before and how they are coming home to be repeated.

Barr was a part of the Reagan/Bush disgrace. Some say he was one of the architects who made sure all of the sins of the Reagan and Bush administrations were not revealed to the voting public.

He was a “cover up” artist and he is now being pushed for Attorney General to do the same thing under Trump. Do we see the invisible hand of Bush, Jr. in this? There can be no equivocating as to why Bar (r) the Fixer was nominated. He volunteered for the job of “cover-up artist” and the only thing he will actually do is denigrate the name and reputation of George H. W. Bush. A lot of what happened in the Bush administration as he became president after Reagan has flown under the radar. Bush the Sr. got away with his reputation intact because of the machinations of Barr. With the ascendancy of Barr to Attorney General in this atmosphere and environment, that will no longer be true. Already the stories have started to uncover and dig up what would have been exposed to the Americana voting public and then to the world, but for Barr.

Are we going to allow that to happen again? Thanks to the Bush family we now have a Supreme Court with TWO sexual deviants. One an abuser and one an alleged assaulter. What Bush started Trump is finishing. The alleged sexual assaulter was started on his career which brought him to the Supreme Court by the Bush family. George Sr. and Jr. The alleged sexual abuser was moved into his career as a Supreme Court Justice totally by Bush, Sr. who in the pictures of them together with members of their respective families, Bush Sr. seems very proud to have moved up into society an African American man who could fit into the negative stereotype of African American men and carry that negative stereotype several degrees uglier and further into this society.

Barr brings the Bush family several steps down and negate their reputations. He is the latest star in the – from Bush to Trump saga. It is time for all of this to be acknowledged and stopped. This society has carried a heavy weight for most of its life. It is time for that burden to be lifted, not for more stones to be put on the backs of those carrying this society forward.

It is time for us to move out of the muck, the filth, the dirt we have walked through and take a hot shower to wash off the muck so we can keep on moving forward with respect for ourselves and to gain some of the world’s respect. It is time for us to treat all parts of the world as equals, not as people to whom we respond with noblesse oblige as we have in the past. Trump has been so outrageous and full of evil that he has presented us with an imperative – “shake off the dirt from your feet” and walk into the beautiful sunlight over lush grassy grounds.

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

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

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Donald Trump – Don’t You Dare…

Tuesday, October 9th, 2018

by: Marceline Donaldson

apologize on my behalf.  Your apology to the Kavanaugh family on behalf of the American people included me as a citizen – the daughter of a citizen – the granddaughter of a citizen – the great granddaughter of a citizen – the great-great granddaughter of a citizen and even further back to before American citizenship when a part of my ancestors owned this land and were put on that long walk without food or water so the land they lived on and owned for generations could be taken from them, given to and used by people like you.

I have nothing to apologize for and will never apologize to someone like Brett Kavanaugh who has been credibly accused of the assault of at least three women and who knows how many more who are afraid to come out and tell their story.

Why do they not come forward?   Because you and people like you have made sure to keep them scared and ashamed so you could sexually assault whoever whenever you decided your ego needed that.  So you nominate and hold up another credibly accused sexual assaulter.  I could say like you – but so far only three women have come forward to accuse Brett Kavanaugh.  Some 19 and counting have come forward to accuse you, Donald Trump.

No, Donald Trump, don’t you dare include me in some apology that you make, not for yourself, but on behalf of millions of others for whom you have no right to include in any apology.  More than half the citizens of this country did not want and do not want Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court and you arrogate to yourself the right to apologize for them?  Who do you think you are!

Apologize for your own sins and the mess you continue to make of this country with your racism, your sexism, your Nazi leanings, your White Nationalism.   – Brett Kavanaugh was not on the Federalist list – you put him there for your own evil reasons and you nominated the person you put on the list and then you fought in the filthy way you have shown yourself capable for decades, to get him confirmed.

You have a lifetime of ugly for which you have never apologized, not even once for anything and you have done much that a thousand apologies won’t begin to address.  – Your mentor, Roy Cohn, taught you to never apologize but claim your failures and uglinesses as greatness.  He did a fantastic job on you because he had a willing student who acted like a sponge and who stayed on his knees in front of Cohn for decades taking in everything Cohn put out.

You have continued McCarthyism in this country from your association with Joseph McCarthy when you were young.  A man who was a drunk and who upheaveled this country in horrible ways.  You are doing the same.  You claim you don’t drink, but there is such a thing as a “dry drunk” and that is the style I see you showing in how you live and in the way you have been “governing” – to use the term ‘governing’ loosely.  A style you picked up from McCarthy and are projecting into the future – you have also picked up his politics, his belief system and are throwing them into the face of the world.  Putin may be your friend today, but he needs to be careful because you will throw him overboard the first chance you get when you see how to claim his power and control.

Under your leadership I see the United States of America sinking to a new low.  I am always amazed thinking your ethics and evil have hit rock bottom, but you then manage to go even lower.  You have this ability to  make sure there is no bottom to the lies you will tell, the filth in which you will engage and now you have taken on this bold, upfront projection of your unbelievably sinful actions onto others.  Today it is the Democratic Party you are blaming for your evil – tomorrow?

I do not apologize to the Kavanaugh family for anything.  So your apology to that family needs to be modified.  I DO NOT APOLOGIZE TO BRETT KAVANAUGH FOR ANYTHING!  Take my name out of the general apology you made on behalf of all the citizens of this country.  How arrogant of you to apologize on my behalf when you have sinned big in your lifetime and have never apologized for any of it. Brett Kavanaugh needs to apologize to me for his part in being so entitled and so in need of power and control that he will work with you and Shine and McGahn and McConnell and Grassley and so many others to bring this country to a new low and for arrogating to themselves the right to degrade women – so he and others can gain money and some kind of male ego power. He showed the direction in which he was going when he sexually assaulted Christine Ford – was that a preview of things to come?  He would then go on to assault not just women, but the institutions in which he lives and works?  He has certainly done a job on the U. S. Supreme Court.  He has taken that body very low and they just might not recover.

However, I have to thank them all of those good ole boys for the way their evil has exposed how the sexist structure of this country works.    I thought I knew.  This, however, has exposed a whole deeper and unbelievably uglier level.

The way the white, northern european-ancestry male, – today’s ‘ruling class’ which clearly includes the Bush family – who came to this country under heavy clouds even hundreds of years ago and whose ancestors enslaved Africans and did so much more and who are now demanding that they be allowed to continue their right to rule even if that includes the ‘enslavement’ and constant sexual assault of women.  Look at the uproar when it appears that sexual assault may come under castigation and be held accountable with women no longer afraid or ashamed.  How will they exercise their out of control male egos?

And don’t be surprised that this ugliness has the Bush family in the middle.  Under their ‘rule’ the Supreme Court has been brought low.  They are responsible for both Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, the two credibly accused of sexual abuse and sexual assault, being members of that high court.

To confirm to the United States Supreme Court a man who has been credibly accused of sexually assaulting at least three women and whose public drunkenness is out there for all to see and whose character has been on display as he totally disrespected members of the Senate who were not a part of his “group” is not something I need to apologize for.  He needs to apologize to this country and resign.

You and your friends and followers now leading this country have as one of the talking points on your “manipulate the voters scam”  call the women and men “a mob”, who peacefully demonstrated their objection to Brett Kavanaugh being confirmed to the United States Supreme Court.  That tells us all as loudly as you can that the Republican Party is now the Party of White Nationalists, led by the Eastern European and Russian Mafias.

By calling a peaceful demonstration, in the image of the demonstrations under Martin Luther King, Jr., “mob rule” says exactly where you come from.  You and those following you said the same thing about African Americans and others who demonstrated against the extreme racism practiced in this country which they were trying to get addressed and changed.  What were they trying to achieve? To get African Americans treated like human beings – to get people like you and your friends to respect the United States Constitution.  Until then they were treated abominably and that treatment was out of control – especially in places like Mississippi where you received such accolades for the sexism you were promoting and the ridicule you were parading out for all to see as you called Dr. Ford “evil” and ridiculed her in many other ways and held up sexual assault as the right of privileged white males that was being threatened by a King-type mob.

It is no accident that all 11 Republican members of the Senate Judicial Committee are white men.  Your entitlement keeps you from even seeing the problem you are perpetrating.  You see only your right to rule being threatened.  And your right to rule in the style of Adolph Hitler – Josef Stalin – Mussolini and others.

To call those demonstrations against you and those who follow you “mob rule” and other names even worse says you and all your followers are completely in line with neo-Nazi’s.  The neo-Nazis who reenacted Kristallnacht in Charlottesburg who you called good people.  They killed a woman standing on the sidewalk; they re-enacted Kristallnacht making a statement to the world who they were and what they were about; they brutalized, beat, attempted to kill peaceful demonstrators who you then characterized and continue to characterize as the people in the wrong, Donald Trump.  When you call the people peacefully demonstrating against Brett Kavanaugh being confirmed when he should not have been – a mob – and we all remember your calling the people who brawled, maimed and killed in Charlottesville “good people” we know exactly where you stand and where you have stood your entire life.  This is nothing new.  You and your family were racists and sexists, KKK members, Nazi supporters and today people who have cheated the United States of America  through the way your family handled its finances.  The United States of America, the government over which you claim you are president.  You were trained into evil by your parents – your immigrant parents – and you have taken their training steps further down the road to perdition.

And to set the record straight – Senator Grassley, another racist, sexist and probably neo-Nazi is someone who follows you and does your bidding  is who he is not because of his age.  He has always been like that – go back into his record and you will see he comes out as he is today through years of experience acting out his racism, sexism, and Nazi tendencies.

McConnell simply wants power and is shrewd and without ethics enough to do whatever he has to do to get and keep power even if his actions border on the same evil you are spreading around the world.  Power is addictive and he is a total addict, probably irretrievable.

Beyond all of the above, I would like to know what part Christopher Wray – a Trump appointee – played in all of this?  The FBI has been mentioned, but its leader, who could have and probably did have some influence in how those investigations went, has not been mentioned at all.

To call Dr. Ford evil and to mock her the way you did in front of the people, some of whom claim, you paid them to sit there in your rallies and yell their approval of whatever you had to say, is evil Donald Trump.  It also says you have one use for women and after that they should just go away until the next time you need to sexually assault another human being.

Sexual assault is something you see as your right.  Not my words, Donald Trump, but your own words.  You and those with you think sexual assault is not a crime, but something they should not be harassed about because that is what they engage in.  You set the example.  Your election, with all that you have done, clearly says the Republican Party is a sexist, white nationalist group intent on remaking this country into a country led by fascists who have not one shred of decency nor ethics and whose character is in the toilet.

Not one corporation in America would have hired Brett Kavanaugh.  He is not innocent until proven guilty – he has not been charged in a court of law.  He is credibly charged, as his background is exposed in the process which all candidates for Supreme Court Justice must engage,  with at least three sexual assaults against women and incredible intolerable drunkennes and American Corporations will not, under any circumstances, hire such a person.  You made sure, however, that he was promoted to the highest position in his field in these United States of America because those are the kind of people with whom you always have surrounded yourself and now as president you do the same in spades.  You clearly have no tolerance for good, clean, law abiding people because they will not serve your purposes.  They will be fired or resign before they do or will tolerate some of the things you have pulled in what was a republic on its way to a democracy.  You have intervened and your illegitimate presidency has taken this republic and put it on the road to a fascist, intolerant, Nazi-type country – and of that you are proud.

Judgment Day is right around the corner and I don’t mean Mueller’s.  No one can get away with what you have done and are doing – the universe will not allow it.  Not just what you have done as president but all the years before your presidency.  I have seen people who fell off that straight and narrow road, but who worked to pull themselves together and become better functioning members working to bring about a just society.  You have been evil from your youth with no thought of apologizing nor atoning for your sins.

The only thing keeping you today are your years when the television industry dusted you off and used your image to create a person many people would like to be or befriend.  The fact that you are not that person – you only played that person on television the way Bill Cosby played a great father figure while sexually assaulting women – and when you did play that person for whom you were the avatar you were told what to do and how to act with many supporting even putting on your makeup, combing your hair, picking out your clothes and so much more.  That is who we now have as president of these United States.  A figurehead performing, as if on television, the role of President of the United States of America and this is who the Republican Party supports.  And please don’t say I am just another angry Democrat.  I have never been a part of the Democratic Party in my life.  I was a life-long Republican.  I saw the beginnings of the making of this forest of evil startingg with Strom Thurmond when he left the Democratic Party and moved into the Republican Party.  I thought it was temporary and I could fight what was happening because the Republican Party had such a fantastic history.  I had an African American cousin who was head of the Louisiana Republican Party.  This was my Party.  Well, wasn’t I foolish and emotional when I should have stepped back to see the reality of what was happening.

The Republican Party has become the playground of every bigot in the world with political aspirations and it isn’t even ashamed as everyone inside and outside of the Republican Party sees what is and has happened.

People are fleeing – I am not alone.

You think this is angry?  I had to calm myself way down before I could even begin to write this.  This is above any anger I have ever felt.  I will have to pray hard for months to overcome this.

May God have mercy on your soul.

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

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An Anniversary Celebration of the Trump Access Tape

Saturday, October 6th, 2018

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.

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

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

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The Big Day – Corruption and Sin – or Walk into the Light!

Thursday, September 27th, 2018

by: Marceline Donaldson

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?

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

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

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

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

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A CALL TO LOVE

Saturday, September 22nd, 2018

by: Marceline Donaldson

My name is on this writing because it is time for all of us to come out of the shadows of shame and into the light with our truth. We have been attacked and are being attacked, apparently to shut us up.  Trying to destroy Bettina Network, inc. and me is keeping some few people busy.   However, we shall go on as long as we can.

Nothing you do –   nothing that others do to you – nothing in your life as you have lived it should be in even a small bit of shade.  Nothing should be pushed into that corner of your memories where you shove those things of which you are ashamed.  Clean them out!  Bring them out into the open.

Shame is what has allowed sin to fester and grow into the slime and horribleness that is showing all around us.  The most effective part of sexual abuse and sexual harassment and sexual assault is the shame which has been dumped on the victim by the victimizer and the society.  Isn’t that one large reason why it is so hard to recover from abuse, harassment and assault?

Society’s message is – SHUT UP – we don’t want to know what happened to you because it does not enhance the mythology we have created around this society for generations.

It is time for that message to be – OPEN UP, PLEASE.  We want all of this awfulness to come out into the light of day.  We want to know what happened to you.  We want you to know we love you, we understand, we are here for you as you work towards healing.  WE SUPPORT YOU.

To all victims of sexual abuse, harassment, assault, please share what happened to you we want to take a part of what you have gone through into ourselves to share that part of your life which we should have been there to help you with.  We are so sorry we were busy doing other things with other priorities that we could not be your support.

WE ARE HERE NOW!

HOW?

This “COMING OUT” – this “OUTCOMING” of Christine Balsey Ford needs to be a coming out for all women.

Her hearing needs to be the second stage of Congressional Hearings on the sufferings of women inflicted by men all over these United States.  In her case it is a coming out by telling the truth about someone who is a Republican Political Operative and was trained to be such to attain to and acquire glory and money and reputation in his field.  He needs to be saved and CHRISTine can offer him the opportunity to look at, hear and address his values before it is too late for all of us.

The Congressional Hearings need to be the beginnings of hearings by many groups around this country holding open hearings to which women are invited and supported in telling their stories and shining light into those dark corners we have kept musty, damp, full of all kind of germs which infect the soul.

Those hearings need to be held in an environment free of bullying, threats, and all the other uglinesses that were characteristic of Congress as exhibited during the hearings held to hear what happened to Anita Hill.  The conditions under which she had to suffer to be able to do the job she enjoyed, was qualified to do and which she did very well were replicated in those hearings.  That was not our finest hour.  Everything said about her carefully excluded her qualifications for the job she was doing and the incredibly efficient and substantial way she did her job.  The shame of those hearings even went to the Republican Congress people hiding and not allowing corroborating witnesses to appear.

The focus in all of these cases is on sex.  While sex is used as the weapon against women, it is really about power, control, greed and a sex drive completely distorted in ugly ways to serve bullying, over-aggressive, insecure males.

It is no accident that these happenings in Congress very much parallel and reflect what is happening in the Catholic Church.  The priests who have been sexual predators and those higher up in the Catholic Church trying to cover the sins committed very much reflect the Congressional people now trying to stifle, submerge, crucify and destroy CHRISTine.  Those same needs and urges are behind the way sexual predators in high places are handled by Congress and all the other “big dogs” in this society.

The thousands of children in the Catholic Church who were the victims of such sexual predatory priests are replaced in this society by women – their mothers, sisters, aunts, cousins.  And very soon, if we do not act to stop all of this, those women – as they have been in the Catholic Church –  will be replaced by our children.  That has already happened in the immigration area – Donald Trump and his administration are replicating the Nazi Concentration Camps with Immigration camps being designed to house children.  And those children will soon and are currently becoming the object of sexual predators.  Rape of the children is not uncommon in the structures Donald Trump has designed and which are coming to pass.  We have heard only the beginnings of such as the stories leak out.

Either we act now or this society is consigned to total corruption. Evangelical christians claim Donald Trump is being used as their gods instrument to bring about his view of the world.  It looks more like their god is named Satan and for him Donald Trump is doing an excellent job.

Regular weekly Congressional Hearings need to be set up to follow the hearing in which CHRISTine tells what happened to her and the planning for that needs to start NOW.

State Legislatures need to organize to take up from the U. S. Congress hearings in their areas where women are invited – supported – and where their stories are given wide national coverage as are the hearings being held in the U. S. Congress on a weekly basis and laws need to be drawn up from those hearings which allow and support us as we put sex out of the picture and acknowledge the humanity, the love, the work we can do together as a society without all of the power, control, greed tactics which are now structured into all of our institutions.

Universities need to take up the banner and hold such hearings for what happens on their campuses.  Sexual attacks, rapes, sexual abuse, sexual harassment needs to be outed in their hearings as well so our college campuses can be about the business of sharing knowledge and maybe even a bit of wisdom instead of shoring up their sexist and racist structures as their administration tries to figure out how to suppress women from coming forward to talk about what happened and is happening to them on these campuses, because that currently is looked upon as a failure of the school and a blot on its reputation so those in charge suppress and thereby provide fuel for the continuation of such attacks and uglinesses against women and against the souls of the men who are guilty of such attacks.

And lets not ignore churches, synagogues, temples and all religious groups because there is a very fine line between religious fervor and sexual passion, which very few know about and study, but which can ravage and destroy or change a religion in short order – from where it started to what it becomes after giving way to such emotions incorporating the way to hide and camouflage them in its structures and destroy those who come forward to speak their truth.

At the same time, there needs to be structured into each institution a way for the men to be treated for what they were raised to believe was their god-given right – superiority over the entire universe.  Treatment to relieve their male ego, which today needs to parade itself around in such a way as the current Republican Congress is giving us a premier example hoping we will follow.

The GOP Congress is out its bullying and its need to exercise control – to destroy to prove its manhood even if that means destroying democracy in the process.  Total destruction is what this white male ego has wrought on this society.

Who wants this democracy anyway.  It only stifles their ability to move back to what they consider the greatness of America, to the time when “White” men in this society were slave owners – “Make America Great Again” came from that wish trying to become a fact of life today in these United States.  Sex trafficking and all the other forms of human slavery still alive and well and protected by our structures are all thriving. These followers of Donald Trump want to go back to being those who could pass laws such as the Chinese Exclusions Act of 1882 to protect their superiority – the first act passed by Congress restricting immigration into the United States.  And that was passed after we horribly abused the Chinese living in these United States as no better than slaves who were conscripted to build our railroad under inhumane conditions and more.

That is the act Donald Trump wants replicated to keep brown and black people out of this country.  He even wants to go into other countries to do the same for their governments.  That is who we will become if we don’t act now.  We have inched up to this place and now the forces of evil are breaking out all over since we elected that champion of evil as president.  Who has he hired as his White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications and who will probably replace General John Kelly as White House Chief of Staff?  William Shine –  Roger Ailes’ former head of Fox right hand man and co-president of Fox News and before that Senior Producer of Hannity & Comes.  He was the man who spent his career covering up Roger Ailes’ sexual abuse, harassment and assault of women. He is the man now preparing Brett Kavanaugh for the testimony he will give at this hearing being planned and they have spent hours each day in that endeavor. He is the man who is programming Donald Trump when he goes out to give speeches and who programs and controls the White House’s face to the press and more.  How low are we going America!

Maybe these hearings need to continue first by hearing from all of the women who have brought charges against the current president of these United States – Donald Trump.  Certainly that is an “oversight” area legitimately dealt with by Congress. A legitimate continuation of Congressional Hearings after the one set up for CHRISTine would naturally flow from that and then on to welcoming the women who have such stories to tell about others in Congress.  If these hearings are blocked by the Republicans in Congress I am sure others can find a way for such hearings to happen.

We need to recognize that the conservative evangelical christians lobbying Congress and providing money to individual congressmen are the Protestant equivalent to the Catholic bishops, archbishops, and above who have worked mightily to hide and therefore allow the continuance of the sex crimes which happened on their watch and on the watch of those who went before.

It has been clear to me for some time that to reach out to befriend a male creates a problem for both you and he.  He doesn’t know what to do if he is not attracted to you sexually – because friendship is not something he knows about nor is a friend without special privileges someone he can be.   He assumes that offer of friendship has a sexual component.  That does not describe all men, but it certainly describes the majority.  That is a very sad – no, very tragic comment to make because that is what maintains and continues this system of misogyny defined as “dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women”.  A human being turned into an object which can be used, abused, shamed and then cast away or better yet kept around as an example and symbol to keep other women walking the trail of tears instead of being able to walk in her truth.

Once a date has been set for the hearing of what happened to CHRISTine, another date needs to be immediately for the next hearing, inviting women who have been sexually abused, harassed, assaulted by the president of the United States.  A group needs to be constituted for the next hearings to pick up after those are finished to go on until the problem is solved, stopped and redirected.

AMEN?

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.

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

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Bettina Network Members Respond to Kavanaugh and more!

Thursday, September 20th, 2018

Wow! We had no idea emotions were running so high.  Nor did we realize how sophisticated Americans are in their understanding of politics.  We expected outrage from this claim of attempted rape – we did not expect what follows.  Here are some of the responses:

  1. “Is it possible there will be no FBI investigation of this situation with Brett Kavanaugh because the Senators and the president know the risks.  What do I mean?  There is a lot of drunkenness, heavy intoxication to the point of passing out and not knowing what one was doing, and the hint of drugs which has been kept quiet because the boys know the risks to their careers which would not be there if it is only about alcohol – but that is just as bad as drugs if not worse.  There are many and very detailed forms to fill out for the FBI vetting process and I wonder if Kavanaugh was complete when he filled out those forms.  Did he include the kind of drunkenness he and his friends engaged in – if he did why did that not eliminate him from consideration from the time of his first vetting from his first promotion to the bench.  Apparently, the president has no line he will not cross because his ethics and morals are in the tanker – and – it looks as though the Senators on the Judiciary Committee are following him right down that black hole to hell.  Would an FBI investigation reveal all of that and that it was not in his original papers?  Since this heavy intoxication started in high school did the FBI not go that far back and now there are people who will lead them to that truth?  Is that why some possible witnesses are not being allowed to testify in this proposed new hearing?  There was an FBI investigation after the charges against Clarence Thomas surfaced, but there was no heavy intoxication, especially with his friends in wild uncontrollable times and parties so those who vetted him didn’t have to worry about that.  Why did that not stop Brett Kavanaugh when he was first vetted many years ago?  That was certainly an issue that would have stopped other nominations.  The Bush Administrations are guilty of having brought us Clarence Thomas.  They are now equally guilty of having thrust upon this country Brett Kavanaugh.  When will this stop and we pick ourselves up out of this morass – certainly it is going much further under Donald Trump.

2.  We have seen how far the Evangelical Christians will go, embracing a man their Jesus would have condemned.  is that because they understand what these guys are about because they are guilty of the same sexual assault; public drunkenness and more?  I am certainly seeing many at the head of the Evangelical Church doing stuff I found embarrassing and in violation of what they are supposed to believe.  When is this parade of sexual assaulters going to stop?  The end does not justify the means.  Just look at how far we are going to embrace these guys who collectively make the “swamp” look “saved.”

3.  It is clear this Judiciary Committee is afraid of something the FBI could find if they went into another investigation of Kavanaugh.  They will not even let his friend, Judge, be questioned at their rally of the klan brothers.   It is bad enough that in 2018 we have an entire, complete racist/sexist panel on the Republican side that will hear these charges – white males all – are they also WASP males?

4.  It is clear Orrin Hatch comes from a background where inebriation through too much alcohol consumption or even any alcohol consumption is looked at as a sin.  His Church needs to call him home and have him respond to many charges.  He has done nothing but embarrass us for decades.  Are the things we teach only meant to be subscribed to when convenient or are they supposed to be a constant and enduring lifestyle?  To be a part of a political system which embraces the Kavanaugh’s of the world is something we have to do.  To defend the people who have done what this guy has done and to defend him and promote him to sit on the Supreme Court – I don’t understand why Bishop Hatch is one of those and has been one of those out front making sure he has Kavanaugh’s back?  Do you talk one thing and practice another? In the LDS Church you practice what is preached and clearly Orrin Hatch has not and is not doing that.  He has been a missionary, a bishop  and has been past president of the LDS Church.  The height of hypocrisy is his book “An American, a Mormon and a Christian.”  I remember what an incredible affect his books had on me. Bishop Hatch is clearly none of those.  He is a politician willing to do whatever is necessary to maintain power and if that means violating his faith – he has done that seemingly with no regrets and no pull backs.  His role in the Clarence Thomas embarrassment to this country was bad enough.  I thought it was something for which he would atone as he looked back on his role.  Clearly, that is not true.  Just to let us know that was not an accident nor a one time thing he has now regretted he is now an incredible leader in this immorality on the wrong side.  CALL HIM HOME!

5. Did Kavanaugh lie on his FBI forms from the beginning and that is why he and his supporters are trying to make sure the FBI does not re-investigate his background?  And lying also includes not telling negatives which might hurt his chances at being passed through.  One man was passed over because he smoked marijuana or some such thing.  Kavanaugh, from his early days clearly has a background of intoxication over the top.  How did he get through from his very first appointment?  Those were years such indulgences would have made a strong difference.

6.  Public drunkennes is not something we should have approved in an appointee for any bench let along the bench where you are appointed for a lifetime.  How did his early history get passed over?  His attempted rape seems to be the result of his not being able to contain or control himself when drunk.  If he exhibited that from high school is he now in a position to be blackmailed from some of his history when on the bench?  Is that who we are now passing through and defending?  Nothing justifies that kind of enabling by our politicians of our judges who they could very well hold up or blackmail as they needed decisions from his bench.  And, others could do the same.  Not being able to control yourself when drunk should be a primary disqualification and Kavanaugh has clearly shown from his high school days that he is not able to exercise any kind of control when so inebriated.  A lifetime is a long time to go if you started off life with a group of friends where “community” was gained as the result of group drunks.  Is this how low we have come – drunks and sexual assaulters beginning to make up the Supreme Court and liars, cheaters, mafioso and more making up our Executive suite?  No wonder the president calls the FBI a cancer on our society.  A mafia connected person as president would first go after the press so he could act for his mafia group without public attention being called to their raping the public and the U. S. treasury.  The second group to go after would be law enforcement so he could do whatever without being called to the bench for his actions.  Isn’t that what Donald Trump is doing?  Isn’t that what Brett Kavanaugh would help him do?

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.

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

 

Nutty and Slutty/Crazy and Confused

Wednesday, September 19th, 2018

by:  Marceline Donaldson

With the Congressional hearing in the 1990’s,  held to smear and destroy the reputation of Anita Hill so they could have someone accused of sexual harassment on the Supreme Court, the nominee was approved by the slimmest of margins.

That “show” provided by Congress, was an incredible education.

In spite of what is practiced in the general society, sexism and racism are so intertwined into our structures of government, it is difficult to know, understand and to educate children about these twin evils and their siblings.  The drama of that ‘hearing’ was an incredible education in sexism and racism.  Those of us who watched, unable to do anything until the hearings stopped for the day or were ended – it was an amazing message.  It told us what our government thought of women.  It put black women front and center, but it made sure the understanding and message was spread that if white women didn’t toe the mark this would also be their fate.

I was such a quiet child.  Spent hours practicing the piano because I was going to be a concert pianist just like one of my piano teachers.  They were all incredible women – and very independent women – but independent in  ways that were acceptable in those days, but for one.  They dressed the way society expected cultured, successful women should dress; they talked, walked, trained those coming up in the way society expected they be trained.  But their very lives gave a different message and I got the message.  My childhood days were my ‘quiet time’.  My adulthood has been one long, loud, excruciatingly painful scream against this life to which I have been consigned.

Jean Coston Maloney, one of my piano teachers, was an incredible woman.  She graduated from Oberlin’s Conservatory of Music and in 1937 from the Julliard School of Music – no mean feat for a black woman,   She was the first African American to perform with a nationally recognized symphony orchestra; she was very elegant; tall, willowy and beautifully dressed.   It was an exciting time for the New Orleans community to have the New Orleans Symphony leave Symphony Hall bringing all of their gear to Booker T. Washington’s High School Auditorium for this concert featuring Jean Maloney playing the Tchaikovsky Concerto. I will never forget the evening nor how I felt as someone who I knew and with whom I had studied be the featured artist.

(why did this symphony orchestra disembark from their home just a mile or so away you ask?  With all the upheaval, money and other inconveniences that caused?  Because blacks were not allowed to perform on the Symphony Hall stages anyplace in the United States in that day and blacks could not attend symphony concerts unless they sat in the very few seats reserved for them in what was called the “crow’s nest”- and paid the same price paid by those who sat in much kinder seats.  So for Ms. Maloney to play with the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra they had to move all of their gear to the local black high school auditorium).

Lucille Hutton was another graduate of Oberlin;s Conservatory and my piano teacher.  She was the one under whom I started by music career and who would not let me touch the piano when I was a small child until my practice showed her clearly that I had the proper hand positions on her coffee table.   I went to these piano lessons all alone on the street car from ‘downtown’ to ‘uptown’  in New Orleans, something no parent would let their children do today.  I was about 7 years old at the time.  Most people knew me or my family and I was never one to meet a stranger.  Ms. Hutton was a well known figure in New Orleans society circles – quiet, unassuming and always dressed the way a regular church going lady should be dressed.

Jesse Dent – the wife of the president of Dillard University was yet another very early graduate of Oberlin Conservatory of Music with a promising career in front of her as a concert artist.  She served on the board of Oberlin for many years and was responsible for people from the Conservatory coming to New Orleans to hear me play.  She was a great pianist, but as the wife of the president, her concert work was limited to her husband’s sphere.  She was a wife and mother and promoter of Dillard and then whatever little time was left her music carried on, but normally only on the campus of the University.  She was a beautiful and well respected personage in her society.

Of the three women, the one whose life was tragic was Jean Maloney’s.  What I didn’t understand until years later, she was the only one who stepped out and away from her expected stereotype and place in society.  She knew who she could become based on her talent and its drive.   The career her talent and presence entitled her to were awesome.   She was determined to follow where her talent led.

Jean Maloney was driven by her talent and drove herself with hours of practice.  Her husband was a well known doctor and the Surgeon General of Liberia – and then they divorced.  She was given an ultimatum by her husband – give up this dream of being a concert pianist, give up your music except when playing for husband and children or within a closed community or I will leave you and the children and neither you nor they will have contact with me again.  Jean Maloney rejected that ultimatum and was going to move wherever her talent allowed her to go and it would have allowed her to go far, but for racism and sexism.  Instead of becoming a great and well known artist, her life ended in tragedy.  The price women and minorities pay for following a dream outside of their stereotype – the oppressive structure in which they must live or be crushed.

The way women – especially black women were taken down by this society when they showed the kind of independence shown by Jean Maloney is one of the cruelest things I have seen and I have seen a lot in this life.  The horror of those take downs – they were not explicit, but camouflaged, unbelievably cruel and a part of the institutional structure of these United States.  You – women and minorities –  and those around are led by this society to turn the blame of the society’s racism and sexism on oneself, turning the victimizer into the victim, instead of where it should really be placed – on those who benefit.  That was clear from Donald Trump’s apparently heartfelt sympathy towards Brett Kavanaugh with no mention at all for the pain and suffering over many years he apparently caused Christine Blasey Ford.  In Charlottesville it was -“both sides”.  In Washington, D. C. it was all feelings go towards Kavanaugh.

Our leaders could call for a bowl of water, soap and a towel and make a show of washing their hands and not being the culprits involved doing the dirty work.   In this case, that was and is done by Congress in the way they acted when they felt the need to step up and take down Anita Hill.  Not for being a black woman nor for being a woman, but for not knowing her place as a black woman and for stepping out of her stereotype after the society found a place for her where she could be sort of successful, but still within the bounds of who she was allowed to be as a black woman.  Anita Hill thought and acted as though she was on the same level as others around her and that she had the same duty to keep this society, government, and its court system on the right track.

If you think this is not structural, look at how quickly Congress plucked its pattern for action for such an event, as now surrounds Brett Kavanaugh, to take down another woman.  White, this time.  The pattern they plucked from their recent history is what they have set in place to use against Christine Blasey Ford – without the FBI investigation.

Brings back that old saying – if you are quiet when they come for me in the morning and when they come for your other friends in the afternoon, they will come for you in the evening when there is no one around to help, protect or save you.

Anita Hill was concerned about the appointment of a man unworthy of being a Supreme Court justice being nominated and on the verge of being confirmed.  A man who the “big dogs” wanted because he was a replacement for Thurgood Marshall and the kind of replacement who would bring back into the society the image, stereotype, personhood of the kind of black man who they thought should have been appointed and who should rightly serve on the Supreme Court, if indeed there was a need for a black man to be in that spot.

The way society was moving that had to be, so they made sure the character, image, background, morals, values of a Thurgood Marshall was replaced by someone who would keep blacks in bondage and in ‘their place.’

Clarence Thomas is who they could see as the person for ‘successful blacks’ to imitate.  Clarence Thomas would be the person young black children would idolize.  Clarence Thomas is who teachers would hold up as an example of greatness in African Americans and therefore Clarence Thomas would uphold the negative black stereotype; make sure blacks moved not an inch, but inched backwards away from equality in this society and back into the foot shuffling, head scratching, over-sexed image this society carefully constructed for blacks to fit into for generations.

Anita Hill’s ‘crime’ was the fact that she wanted that horribleness to be corrected and reality to show through and this society move in the direction of a whole, equal, educated, respectful society it seemed to be walking towards.

For that she was put in the dock, so she could be characterized as ‘nutty and slutty’, but with far more words and images than I can describe in this short piece and Clarence Thomas was held up, patted on the back, encircled by whites who patrolled the borders of racism and sexism to make sure it would continue into the next generation and Anita Hill was cast aside and totally discredited.  She was allowed to survive, but with a reputation and characterizations which others in the following generations could pull out, learn from and not imitate.

and then, along comes Christine Blasey Ford – white woman.  Doing in this society and to this society what Anita Hill tried to do. Simply to tell the truth about her experience with Brett Kavanaugh which questioned his fitness to serve as a Supreme Court justice.  Not the first one to question his fitness, but one whose story and experience could not be ignored.

Instead of being characterized as ‘nutty and slutty’ – which was taken by Republican Congressmen at the time as the best line of attack against Anita Hill because it rolled out and re-enforced the negative stereotype of black women, Christine Blasey Ford is beginning to be and will continue to be characterized as ‘crazy and confused’.  And in the mix are the same men who led the charge against Anita Hill.  They are still present in Congress and now taking the role of ‘elder statesmen’ passing along to their younger comrades the way the system works and the tools it provides to them to destroy this woman, smear her reputation, give a lesson to other white women as to their place in this society and as to what will happen to them if they overstep and cross the line challenging the greatness of sexism and its place in the world.  Their message is crucial to their comrades – destroy this woman or all hell will break loose. The next thing you know all women will be ‘outing’ all of us who have sexually abused, attacked, harassed them and will demand that we stop or be removed and not allowed to enter the hallowed halls of economic and financial success in this society.  These women  will want pieces of that success and will want us to clean up our act and not have a group to run off the side of the cliff to atone for our sins.

What we need to stop and take a good look at is the numbers of white men who have and are engaging in sexual harassment, abuse, assault all over the society and demanding their right to so engage against women of all colors, shapes and sizes.  Most horrible is the fact that they have now been strong enough to elect as their leader in these United States a chief of sexual assaulters – a man so arrogant and sure of himself and his way of acting with women that he brags about his success and his methods.

It is time for this to stop.  My grandparents and great grandparents and many generations before them spent their lives fighting racism and sexism because they didn’t want me and my children to go through and experience the kind of pain and agony that was their lot.  I picked up the fight and have done and am doing the same thing for the same reasons, but my children and my grandchildren will experience sexism and racism as the main theme that negatively affects their lives.  But look at us.  We are still in the muck.  Still oppressed.  The oppression has changed and become much more sophisticated, but this so called ‘hearing’ is exactly the same theatre Anita Hill was put through and the Orrin Hatch’s of the world are planning to produce and direct as the kind of theatre that they think will take down Christine Blasey Ford and at the same time stop tens of thousands of women in their tracks who are seeking equality and trying to move this society into a place of equal acceptance.

And Orrin Hatch?  Bringing down his Mormon faith or opening it up for people to see what it is really about?

Fat chance that basic change will happen here!  This is the society which elected a self-proclaimed sexual abuser, sexual assaulter, sexual harasser as its president and is clearly having its Congress people and their supporters come out with guns blazing to  attack women, to oppress them even further and maintain their control spreading as much pain, depression, and more on all so they can claim superiority in their small corner of the world.  This does not bode well for the future.  Now what!

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.

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

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Brett Kavanaugh for Supreme Court?

Monday, September 17th, 2018

If you ever wondered why there is a #me too movement and if there is a need for a #me too movement – here is your answer.

The United States has a president who is the sexual abuser and sexual assaulter in chief.  Why?  He has some nineteen plus women accusing him of sexual abuse and sexual assault and in spite of that and in spite of having admitted to and having bragged about such behavior for all to hear he was elected president.

He has now appointed someone who has a sexual assault charge against him and what will be Donald Trump’s response?  His history and his mentors say he will go after the woman making the allegation – and so will many Congressmen and women as they think it is to their advantage to do so.  I have already puked every time I see Orrin Hatch comment on Clarence Thomas and on the current scenes where he excoriates those who seem to think women are something above being an object who is there as a man’s convenient depository for his sexual needs – whether she consents or not.

The United States Supreme Court is becoming a group of people with growing numbers of sexual assaulters on the bench.  If Trump has the ability to appoint more who knows how many we will wind up with.  So much for the trustworthiness of their decisions.  If you ever wondered why and how the Supreme Court of the United States could have ruled in favor of separate and unequal in the 1880’s and why the rulings against the American Japanese stood until recently – here is the beginnings of your answer.

And – let’s not start or stop with Donald Trump.

There is Clarence Thomas – appointed by a Republican – George Bush Senior.

That was an interesting appointment.  The Bush family comes across as trying to be on the right side – for the elimination of racism and sometimes even sexism.  However, the appointment of Clarence Thomas belies all of that and in the process ‘outed’ people like Orrin Hatch and even Joe Biden.

To decide to appoint an African American to the United States Supreme Court was a great and glorious thing for George Bush, Sr. to do.  To have that appointment go to Clarence Thomas screamed out loud to everyone and showed just how racist a move Bush Sr. was making and the message he was sending with that appointment.  And that message was heard loud and clear.

There were and are many African American men and women who could have been appointed.  When one appoints one like Clarence Thomas that says to the world you are doing the form thing, but making sure the content is flawed because you really don’t want to bring about change in the society to the point where racism will begin to abate.  In fact, the appointment of Clarence Thomas simply increased the racism and sexism in this society and reinforced stereotypes.  That was not a ‘dog whisper’ that was a megaphoned message.

And now we have the choice of Brett Kavanaugh who is flawed on so many levels and who is quite clearly someone who can continue the corruption of the United States society and government which we have seen  ongoing before Donald Trump, but which has intensified dramatically since Donald Trump was elected.

The Republican Congress has shown just how low they have gone with this appointment by their reaction and their planning and support of those who refused to produce records which normally would have been produced for such an appointment so the man’s history could have been clear.  Little bits and pieces have been pried loose to show – if you hadn’t already guessed – that this was a case of hiding the negatives so the appointment would go through.  And now come the charges of sexual assault.

And so the story continues.  The morality of the United States is once again on display without anything in the middle to hide from the world who we are and what we are about.  And where are you John and Jane Q. Public?  Going along with the program because your white privilege is being preserved and protected and you John Q. Public going along because your male superiority will not be breeched but will be pushed forward as one of the things these United States supports and makes sure is neither breeched nor lessened?

With this, I can no longer say – God forgive!

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Want to join us? Have a home that you want to open to become one of Bettina Network’s Hedge Schools? Call us and lets talk – or email us.

Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.

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

 


Bettina's Lifestyle Commnity!

Join us!

Bettina’s Lifestyle Community

Making a difference in this very difficult and changeable world.

Bettina's Lifestyle Commnity!

Join us!