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Archive for the ‘Feminism’ Category

Bettina Network Lifestyle Members Comments

Tuesday, December 3rd, 2019

ONE MEMBERS COMMENTS:

So much talk about Attorney General Barr. It is clear we give credit to people who have foul ethics and carry them along making excuses for their failings. In the case of Barr it is crystal clear that his family is the reason Jeffrey Epstein was foisted on this society. Epstein was given his start by Barr, Sr. giving him a job teaching young children in an elegant private school where he was served a banquet he could drool over for months and it was a gift because Epstein was totally unqualified for the job. No degree, experience, etc. All the qualifications expected of someone in such a position were missing. So what did he have that qualified him in the eyes of the Barr family?

And now we are lamenting how surprised we are that Attorney General Barr is showing his ethical and moral lacking? Please! Don’t waste my time. I don’t use ugly language often, but this is scum. We talk about WT? Here you have a real WT family going down the generations to maintain their spot at the top of that group!

To be surprised we even have to overlook what Barr did his last times serving as Attorney General. The same thing he is doing now only since he was recently called into action by someone whose ethics are so much more foul than the ethics of those he served before he has to expose himself and move into uglier waters to get results. We are the ones who need to shape up and clean up this society’s ethics and morals.

SECOND MEMBERS COMMENTS:

Questions are periodically raised about the “Christians” who are acting as though their religion is expected to produce great people. We have had so called “Christians” worshipping who they call their god on Sundays and even as far back as slavery and before with the Native Americans, they have been killing, maiming, hanging, oppressing, mutilating and totally destroying the lives of generations of Africans and others. Now we are destroying immigrant children’s lives and futures – that destruction is including murder.

I am just recently “Woke” and realize how much I benefitted from watching and doing nothing. I maintained a sense of myself as “better than” those designated as “less than” and I also had the greatness of designating myself as “much much better than” those doing the dirty work which allowed me to maintain myself above everybody else in this society.

It is an embarrassment and disgrace to have to make such an admission. As a member of Bettina’s I can do this without my name appearing. That is an act of cowardice, however, I am not quite ready to come out publicly. And when and if I do many others will have to come out with me.

THIRD MEMBER COMMENTS:

The presidential primary with Pete Buttigeig involved shows clearly what is happening within the Democrat Party. It has always been a party which recruits from movements. I have seen your comments on this blog about such. It recruited from the KKK in the early and into the mid-1900’s and was quite successful at that. They were involved in the ugliness of those White Nationalist groups.

That began to change in the 1950’s and 1960’s as it became clear that the movements of the day were diametrically opposed to what the Democrat Party was about. As the Black Civil Rights Movement and the Feminist Movement became stronger, it was clear the makeup of the Democrat Party would change and it did. It started recruiting from those movements and backing the people therein and became the party of the civil rights movements which is where it is today.

And now we have another change as the Gay Movement becomes stronger the Democrat Party can’t resist now recruiting in that movement and moving their goals into the Party. So the candidacy of Buttigeig and its success.

It is tragic that the first primary is Iowa – a very white state. Followed by New Hampshire – another very white state. If the Democrat Party is serious about its recruitment and those from whom it is recruiting members – it needs to be flexible with the order of its primaries and start someplace other than what has been their overall sequence. Through the order of their primaries across the country, that seems to be a throwback to their recruitment within the White Nationalist Group. The KKK and others still have an edge when it comes to the Democrat Presidential Primaries. They can’t make major changes, but they can keep their toe in the water through the primary ordering of which states go first and which down the road.

To show clearly and give voice to those being recruited into the Democrat Party they need to clear out the negativity of those they just stopped recruiting.

What a mess. We need a third Party soonest. So far, that has not been possible, the Republicans and Democrats come together on that point and seem to do everything they can to prevent such. It is time for that to stop and for all to see the advantage to this republic of the need to move from a republic to a democracy and that will only happen with the advent of a successful third Party.

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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. 

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 




Racism Obscures Black Male Sexism

Wednesday, September 18th, 2019

by: Marceline Donaldson

This presidential campaign, including a black female – Kamala Harris – will experience black male sexism. The major question becomes – how does that look; how has it exhibited in the past; how will it exhibit during this presidential campaign and what is my responsibility to see that it is held in check as we need to also continue to hold in check white male sexism and all the other bigotries our society normally practices – mostly with impunity.

We have been able to have such continue and remain in the structures within which we live, work and have our being because we practice denial and keep actual experiences of bigotry covered over. When they are uncovered and the people who practiced such are uncovered we practice an extreme denial threatening the person who “outed” the practices instead of the people promoting and taking part in the bigotry into which they were born.

I can give you at least two examples of such – one personal and one the experience of a close friend.

As some of you know I was the first African American stock broker, licensed by the New York, American, Nasdaq, etc. exchanges – way back in the 1960’s. That was an incredible experience. I was very young – in my late 20’s and early 30’s during that time, recently divorced, and my ex-husband was Jewish with grandparents from Latvia. I give you that information because it was quite relevant to what happened during my time as a stock broker.

A friend of mine – Lillian Anthony – suggested I apply for the job of stock broker – which I did with several companies. Dain, Kalman and Quail, inc. in Minneapolis hired me, put me in their training program and eventually sent me off to New York to learn enough to pass the exams and to get acquainted with the environment in which I would be working.

It was an exciting, trying, interesting, time. Before that stint I owned an antique auction gallery, antique shop and interior design studio. I sold antiques based on their investment value – which is why Lillian thought I would do well as a stock broker. If you were a client of mine we talked about the current value of the antique of your interest and its future possibilities – up, down or remaining the same for quite some time. I sold antiques the way most stock brokers sold stock. That was not unique to me. It was the way my grandmother furnished her home. She loved antiques and when she could afford something she always first talked about its current value and in which direction its societal value was going in the future. Her conversations went into things like “Cookie, when you become an adult this piece will have tripled in value. Don’t buy that manufactured stuff which will have to be dragged off to the dump years later.” We also designed furniture for people who collected antiques and wanted a way to display them which was in line with what they were collecting. It was important that these display pieces have the possibility of increasing in value over time, either because of their design or the hand craftsmanship that went into their execution.

As I became ever more knowledgeable about what it took to sell stock I became involved with civic, and other activities and groups, had regular dinner parties, and generally became known and got to know the city and all of its groups, corners, ideals, ideas, how things worked and more. It was a great time. I could do all of that in the process of doing my job – something that was new to me. I was on my own for the first time in life and that was not easy especially since I had very small children, but it was quite exhilarating.

The next thing I knew life became extremely difficult and quite abruptly. I was facing people who actively attacked me; did whatever they could to take me down in some incredible ways I didn’t know possible and more. I had no idea what changed and I was not to discover what changed for several years.

I eventually left Minnesota and when I did the covers fell from my eyes because people who knew what happened kept quiet until then. When I met them in other cities what happened began to come together. What happened? A group of leading black male citizens of Minnesota went to Dain, Kalman and Quail and demanded that I be fired and a black man be hired because it was totally embarrassing to have a black female in such a position. Gleason Glover, head of the Minneapolis Urban League, Harry Davis, head of the Minneapolis Urban Coalition and several more had a meeting with the heads of Dain Kalman and laid out their case. – They brought along with them Alfred Babington Johnson who was the person they wanted to see hired in my place.

Hearing all of that and from quite a few people who knew the details was unbelievably painful because I talked and thought all of those folks were friends. I worked with them in their organizations; had lunch with them; discussed much about how to help bring about a better community – one in which we were all equal and so much more.

In addition, as I was told by several people, this group added the claim that I was really not black enough. I was actually pretending to be divorced from my Jewish ex-husband but in reality I was being used by the Jewish Community to get benefits which should have been given to the Black Community – benefits like the job as a stock broker which should really have gone to a black man. They apparently made the claim that once I was settled in the job and in a position to influence who would be brought in that would be Jews and not Blacks because that is why I was being pushed by this Jewish community to do this and Dain Kalman would see that my marriage would be magically put back together again because, according to them, it was never broken. I heard this in the context of having gone through a horrendous divorce.

Experiencing the aftermath of such a meeting in real time and not knowing why was horrendous enough. Hearing about it several years later from friends who knew about this meeting, but felt it best to keep quiet about it was devastating. That is until I talked to Lillian Anthony.

Lillian was an African American woman who worked hard in civil rights and major changes came from some severe and serious sacrifices. She was head of the first Civil Rights Office established by the city of Minneapolis and it was one of the first such offices in these United States. She also worked very hard for and sacrificed much to majorly help establish one of the first African American Studies Departments in these United States. That happened at the University of Minnesota. Lillian was chosen to head that department and was extremely effective in both jobs.

Lillian, at the time we had this discussion, was at the University of Massachusetts working on a doctorate – which she received and then went on to other things.

She left Minneapolis to start on that educational journey because of the incredible push back she was receiving from a group of black men who wanted her out of the job as head of the African American Studies Department at the University of Minnesota because they felt a black man should have that job and she was an embarrassment to them for being in that position keeping it from a more “qualified” black man.

The fact that she was the one who put herself on the line and worked to see the department established and those who were pushing to get her removed were among the missing, but then showed up to take that job away from her was not part of any of the discussions that went on around Lillian and her job.

I remembered how hard it was for her to work with others to get the Civil Rights Office established as a part of the City of Minneapolis’ structure. I am sure you can imagine what she went through in the 1960’s to have helped establish such an office. I also knew what she sacrificed because her goal was to see an African American Studies Department established at the University of Minnesota. It was a natural fit for her to head the department which she and those working with her envisioned and worked to bring into existence. And I saw the change happen when someone who dropped in out of the sky almost and took over that job did not handle it very well and did not have the vision nor the power nor the internal fortitude to bring that department into what it could have been. I saw all of that and was a part of those “movements”, but was too young and inexperienced to get what was actually happening. There were many blanks.

As Lillian filled in the blanks of what happened to her I sat there with tears streaming because I knew how she felt. I had been through something very similar and only recently knew what that was, why it happened and had a chance to look back at some of the people involved. The most hurtful part of that was the fact that those who fought to get me out of a job were black men and women and the same thing was true for Lillian.

I have sought out other such stories because I wanted to know how extensive this sexism was and as I researched and sought out other black women who had been through similar experiences I heard commonalities in each story.

As I looked at Kamala Harris and the road she has chosen, I started reflecting on my experiences way back when. I pray that some of the people around her understand this dynamic and know how to expose and fight it so her candidacy has a chance without others going under the table to attempt to cut off the legs and reduce her chances at this nomination.

It has been a negative – and still is – to say such things out loud. After all we must all support the black male who has such a horrible time moving ahead in this society. I am always struck by those who say such things and used to wonder why they did because the problems and experiences of the black woman in this society are far worse – but as my experiences of sexism has grown understanding has happened.

I don’t want to get into who has it hardest – I do want to expose and call out loud this bit of sexism that will be a drag on Ms. Harris’ candidacy and be something used quietly by those running against her.

It was not easy to write this. I am doing so hopeful that my experience and that of others like me will mitigate and lessen such things happening to other black women in todays world. Please God make it so.

___________________________________________________


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!

[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.

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







$20 Bill Boycott – Dynamite

Thursday, August 15th, 2019

While stopping in the bank to make a deposit I stumbled over some incredible information which I would like to share with you.

If you want to contribute and are frustrated with Donald Trump and all the rest, but don’t know how to make a difference, this boycott of the $20 to make sure Harriet Tubmans picture is on this bill is the way in. It does not take a lot of time. You can make your voice heard just in the process of going about your daily business.

What does this have to do with my stopover at the bank?

I heard and was assured that if you stamp the picture of “Moses” – Harriet Tubman – over the picture of Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill this was not illegal and could be done. I now have certification of that from the bank.

A really fantastic branch manager outlined what this was all about and I am in her debt.

Before the end of the Obama Administration, replacing Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill and putting Harriet Tubman on that bill, was a done deal. At least until Trump became the illegitimate president of these United States -who gained his presidency with the help of foreign powers adversarial to these United States. When that happened, Trump declared there would be no Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill and his Treasury Secretary Mnuchin carried out Trump’s wishes. (Probably so he and his wife could return to Fort Knox next year and once again watch the fireworks from the roof of Fort Knox on the 4th of July arriving via private plane at taxpayers expense – yet again.)

The Bettina folks called a boycott of the $20 and I joined in making sure when I received change for whatever, it did not contain a $20 bill. That seemed a bit slow, but nevertheless I was right there doing my thing refusing to accept a $20 no matter where or for what.

I have discovered something better. If you go on Etsy.com you can buy a stamp designed by Dano Wall which can be superimposed on the $20 covering up Andrew Jackson and showing an elegant image of Harriet Tubman.

What good will that do?

Once stamped and you use that $20 bill to pay for whatever or you take it to the bank to exchange it for other monies – that $20 bill is taken out of circulation. Just like the bills are taken out of circulation when people write on them or otherwise mark up any bill. I understand people have been known to write poetry on their money.

If we constantly stamp the $20 bills – and all of you who want to get involved and are frustrated with Donald Trump and his racism along with Mnuchin and his following of Trump – here is how to rid the world of Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill and let your voice be heard that you want the Obama program replacing Jackson with Harriet Tubman to happen immediately.

I sent for a stamp. When it arrives I will stamp every $20 bill that comes my way and set it back into circulation. With thousands of you joining me and others – the $20 bills will be out of circulation and kept out of circulation until the program put in place by Barack Obama and his administration will be honored instead of set into the filth and foulness of the Trump Administration and its White Supremacy.

Count me in! I have not taken part in anything close to a civil rights action ever in life. This will be a first for me, but I am certainly going to go at this with gusto.

What about Andrew Jackson? Whose picture on that $20 bill we will be covering over? Did you know Jackson signed the 1830 Indian Removal Act which forced more than 60,000 Native Americans from their land and onto the Trail of Tears? Why would anyone have ever tried to honor such a man and continue to honor him into the 21st century?

We honor the Hitlers’ of this world and we denigrate and spit on those who have truly moved us closer to a good and honorable place. How many times did Harriet Tubman risk her life to bring others out of slavery!!!!!!!

Good luck! Let Bettina Network know what you are doing to they can continue to move this boycott forward. You can find me on the street corner stamping $20 bills. I have not been this excited in years.

To purchase a stamp: go to etsy.com and the cost is $25.30 with free shipping and a self inking stamp. To include more ink the cost is $30.00. And what a souvenir for your family to keep for generations to come with the story of how you helped move us to a more diverse, good and kind, gracious and elegant society.

___________________________________________________

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!

[give_form id=”3763″]

Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sal

*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





Declassify and Tweet the Pee Pee Tapes, NOW! And other related subjects!

Sunday, May 26th, 2019

Ed.Note: We have several communications from members of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community which we share with you below. Your feedback is appreciate via email to: bettina-network@comcast.net

Person One:

With all that is going on with declassifying – it is time to release the Pee Pee Tapes. If you have such and/or, in the spirit of the Trump-released-Nancy- Pelosi-distortion-video, you should feel free to creat distortions to show such tapes. It is time for you to tweet them to the world. Trump attempts to create fear because that is his area of substantial vulnerability. Lets turn the tables. Congress can’t do it, but you, individual citizen, can exercise your creativity and let it loose for all to see.

Have I really reached such a low point? Yes! It is time for good people to act. What happened when good people did nothing? Hitler’s Germany happened.

If you receive responses Bettina, we hope you will share them through this blog.

Person Two:

Have you read about Trump and Mnuchin trying to keep Andrew Jackson on the twenty dollar bill? Jackson, the man who was the chief architect of the Trail of Tears, which killed thousands of Native Americans and wrecked the lives of the rest; the man who was responsible for many other such atrocities, who should have been removed from U. S. currency decades ago, but instead is being kept on the $20 bill because of Trump, Mnuchin and their friends seeing him as a better person representing the U. S. history instead of replacing him with a heroine who spent her life helping slaves reach freedom through leading them from their slavery post to freedom; who was a spy for the Union Army saving many lives and helping to save the Union instead of committing treason the way Andrew Jackson did (maybe that is what Mnuchin, Trump and Jackson have in common).

Donald Trump’s need to do such is understandable when you look at his history and his family history – a father who worked with the KKK and as a young man Donald followed his father’s footsteps by refusing to rent apartments he and his father built to any “brown” person and so much more racism that portraying himself as a billionaire helped people around him “forget” or claim not to know.

We can make a response to this racist act of Trump and his administration and Bettina Network’s publications can help. I read and followed your advice on the Wells Fargo boycott. I am still passing that blog around to whoever I reach and with whom I interact. It gave me strength knowing that I am not helpless. It is not much, but please God help me to have the strength to do whatever I can no matter how small.

It is time to support Dano Wall – the artist who created the Harriet Tubman stamp. Whenever you have a $20 bill, before using or spending it put Tubman’s face on that bill. You can read more at including where to buy the stamps.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/05/24/harriet-tubman-20-bill-stamp-puts-tubman-face-twenty/1219952001/

If you feel you don’t want to stamp each and every $20 bill you receive with Andrew Jackson on its face, then refuse to accept a $20 bill from anyone – any bank, any store, any person – don’t ever again accept a $20 bill unless it has been stamped with Harriet Tubmans face blotting out Andrew Jackson. I hope Bettina’s will call such a boycott. You have lots of followers and it is time for such to happen. As a member of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community I ask that you take this action.

Person Three

Have any of you noticed or have information about the Attorney General appointed by Donald Trump – the illegitimate president of these United States – being in collusion with Pence pushing this anti-abortion movement? With the rumor being that it is in collusion with Opus Dei – a group to whom both Barr and Pence may belong or at least be hangers on at the fringe? It is a long complicated process to become a member of Opus Dei and their political careers would never stand them being outed as a real member.

Do any of you have information about Bill Barr’s connection to Opus Dei? The rumors of a close connection are strong in my part of the world. We have seen several comments and read brief articles from people who claim this new emergence of a very strong move to make a religious belief, anti-abortion, a part of the United States Government structure is only the beginning of having the Opus Dei belief system installed as the belief system of the United States.

There are many reasons to impeach both Barr and Pence. With Barr, allegedly aligned with a group to infiltrate and bring about its goals through using and changing the U. S. Government structures ought to be number one. I might not know how to phrase this, but it is quite serious if we have a man who is called Attorney General of these United States and is using the powers of that office having been illegitimately appointed to bring about a Catholic fringe group’s goals using this country – wiping out the constitutional separation of church and state.

Opus Dei is not like the Jesuits. It has members who do some really strange things including physical atrocities to achieve their goals – some self-inflicted atrocities including mortification of the flesh – and other really gross ways of being in community. It is a secretive organization with strict requirements for membership.

Anti-abortion is one of their biggies and the way this is coming about in the United States with the draconian laws being passed screams of Opus Dei, especially with Barr in the picture and when you outline those involved in this new part of the anti-abortion movement, which is draconian, you see the hand of the Opus Dei movement all over it. The power that Barr is now able to exercise and the recent additions to that power given to him by Trump he can use to bring about a Spanish style 2019 inquisition in these United States.

Please note that these new anti-abortion laws have things like jail and execution for those who perform abortions on women and it will get worse before it gets better.

And also note that Pence’s strangeness about women – not meeting with a woman without his wife present, etc. goes right into the Opus Dei model. Pence claims that as adhering to the Billy Graham rule, in which husbands avoid spending time alone with women to whom they are not married, however, the way he practices it better fits the Opus Dei model.

Please don’t dismiss this as craziness nor as a conspiracy theory. It is real and the planning for worse is being done today. William Barr is up to his neck in this and he has helpers. Pence is also involved in a very quiet outside the spotlight way.

With a man who calls himself “President of the United States” – like Donald Trump, the door to the country is thrown wide open for people and groups to enter and wreck all kinds of havoc, as we have seen with the Russian interference in the 2019 election.

_______________________________________

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!

[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













Bettina Oracle Speaks – New World Order

Friday, May 3rd, 2019

So much happening in your world and there are so few people – beyond those doing the planning – who understand and get what is probably going to be their future.

George H. W. Bush – Donald Trump – New World Order – blocked by the Clintons.

Have you noticed the continuum between H. W. and DJT? What you can’t have missed was H. W. diminishing Thurgood Marshall by replacing him with Clarence Thomas. What you can’t miss today is William Barr – Attorney General during the Bush Administration and now Attorney General during the Trump Administration. And please don’t be so obtuse that you can’t connect the dots with Barr committing impeachable offenses during both times he supposedly served the country, but actually served as one of those on the front line for the New World Order.

Who will lead the world in the coming years – Government, the way you have lived under, preferably elected governments; or the Billionaire Class which is strongly moving to take over so they can accumulate more, more and more without government muddying up the waters. That is the war going on in the earth sphere. So primitive and with such incredible ugliness because you are still bound by greed, horrible ethics, lack of integrity in those you have chosen to lead and on down the list into more and more muck.

Every once in a while someone comes along sacrificing themselves for the good of the whole, but that never works. At most it buys you time and space to get your act together to move ahead into a more beautiful space. But the uglies always have a plan and people to carry out the plan to make sure liars, cheaters, thieves, those who have no integrity and mostly greed take over and turn the earth sphere into something ugly.

Once upon a time earth was a beautiful place. But those who were in that beautiful place gradually turned it into the filth it is fast becoming where disease is rampant following the greed which has created the many diseases now plaguing the earth.

Sexual deviants have taken over bringing in sex trafficking, rape, and all the other horribleness perpetrated on others. You can see the filth in their souls as they try to blackmail those who might break out and they always use some kind of sex threat in the process. Sex is beautiful and is the way you survive on earth. How else do you help in the creation of others being born into what should be an ideal existence? Those full of greed, sin, filth and more have taken the core of existence to blackmail and try to turn others – and they have been majorly successful because we have not rescued sex from the ugly into the beauty that it is and was created to be.

Look at how you treat serious sexual deviants: You just elected one president of the United States. Trump, who uses sex as a tool to gain power and control over and to feed his sick male ego, has been majorly rewarded for his braggadocio and the things he has done to attempt to debase women. There are so many more, but I won’t dwell on that negative you see it on a daily basis.

You have taken the basics of life and allowed those who will destroy even life or at the very least the quality of life to gain money, power and control to use those basics of life to gain material wealth leaving many destitute, in pain, sick, homeless – and many on earth have done this over even too many generations. Instead of thinking on and creating real wealth and beauty and making sure you have no homeless – instead you cordon off what you can claim as wealth, put it into the hands of a few like those who are so ugly and so full of sin.

Food is something which you decided to cordon off and manipulate to gain material wealth. So are the other necessities of life. And now instead of turning around to make right what you have destroyed you will do even more ill by trying to go off into space to do the same thing elsewhere, leaving the poor, the destitute, the hungry, those without adequate clothes and shelter in their state because you need them to be so.. How else can you claim and feel so victorious and better than if others don’t pay such a price to your egos?

As life move along and you continue in this path things will all of a sudden become excruciatingly painful for you and lets not even begin to talk about your death.

At this point the business interests are winning and that is tragic. All forms of bigotry have made that possible and irreversible. The different forms of bigotry invented on earth are now coming close and rubbing elbows with each other. The nazi’s, the racists, the sexists, the homophobes, those who hate muslims, and all the rest are living cheek by jowl and shoring up their “leaders”. They think they are about to gain control. In fact, they are about to reap their Armageddon.

And those who do nothing will stay in a sphere of nothingness. That is a state which makes solitary confinement in your jails look like a party.

You all need to wake up and understand what is happening around you.

Make the parallels between H. W. and DJT and see the progress that has been made. Thurgood Marshall to Clarence Thomas to Kavanaugh. Plot that path.

Take a look at the Clinton’s. Why is Hillary such a threat? Try answering that question and you will unlock the evil in Donald Trump.

What are the billionaires doing with their money? Even those who seem to be “do gooders”. You will be shocked – maybe into sanity and an understanding of the direction in which your world is going.

Who is really running your government? In the United States it certainly is neither Trump nor Putin.

Are the great empires of the past really beginning to come back and reassert themselves?

Is Trump crazy? weak? or is something else going on?

How come the people in power today are those who were mentored by the evil of yesterday – Trump and the combination of Roy Cohn and Joseph McCarthy. And didn’t Bobbi Kennedy come out of that Communist threat McCarthy brought into the United States. Wasn’t he a staff attorney to the McCarthy hearings and more? Look at those in power and see who mentored them! It is an amazing lesson in why the world is in the state it is in today. And, don’t stop at the United States. Do the same thing around the world and you will have a greater understanding of where we are – where we are going – and why.

Think about what it means to have a president who was mentored in his young adult years by serious alcoholics who were almost always drunk. McCarthy was a known and dangerous alcoholic, but he remained in office and was allowed to do a substantial amount of harm to tens of thousands of people. So was Roy Cohn. And now their protege has reached a level of power they couldn’t dream to reach. In spite of that history, today we try to look for reasons for Trump’s actions – he is weak; he is crazy; he is, etc. etc. We look every place to try to explain Trump except where we will find answers. He was raised within a mafia family of influence which goes back through his father to his grandfather and who knows what beyond that. He was mentored by drunks and those with no integrity and horrible ethics. How was he supposed to turn out. AND, we voted him into the highest office in the United States even knowing his family history, his adult years, the evil he did through his life. Is that a Trump problem or is there something wrong with the rest of us? The leader you get is the one who most reflects you.

Think and watch and wait.

_______________________________________________


Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale

Project 2 – #WellsFargoBoycott

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








Ethics and Integrity in Business

Monday, April 29th, 2019

We have published blogs on the beginnings of Airbnb and outlined how and when the idea was stolen from an African American woman by three white males who were sent to her home to get info on the business she had been building for many years. If you want to know more about that, search this blog for Airbnb. The complete story is in a couple of blogs. some are titled as follows:

Sex Trafficking, Airbnb and more!

Ethics and Integrity in Business

BILLIONAIRES UNITE!

The ‘Sharing’ Community????

Happy New Year – 2016

She was going to a Venture Capital group in Central Square Cambridge, MA which gathered on Thursdays. She was there most Thursdays with her name and company in their computer system and she asked for meetings with relevant people and an indication of interest each Thursday. There was never anything forthcoming.

Instead of working with her to gain investment support, the Capital Network sent Brian Chesky and his friends to see what she was doing and to bring back as much of her business information as possible. They followed through on that visit by stealing her ideas, gaining the venture capital support she was seeking, and her name and company name were taken out of the Capital Network’s computer – on which those who attended on a regular basis signed in to and were admitted to these Thursday sessions. Her business plan was also stolen and she had to re-register for the Thursday gatherings re-entering her name into their computer system. At the time, the reaction to her appearance was really strange and the reasons for it didn’t become apparent for a couple years down the road.

All of this to satisfy the mythology that the business ideas, acumen, experience, success etc. comes from the white male community with the assumption that others have not yet reached that level of business ability. When, in fact, the reason for this monopoly of white, mostly northern european males’ hegemony over the substantial businesses that make up this society had more to do with their questionable ethics and lack of integrity than anything else.

Venture Capitalists have made sure that this is the only avenue the current potential billionaire businesses have and the only way they can come into being. The venture capitalist community has been a very racist/sexist group of people and they have kept the gate closed to all except their own kind and this shows up clearly today and will be even clearer and exceptionally vile in the generations to come. Most of the civil rights work of the past generations will/is being negated by the way these venture capitalists are working to establish a “New World Order” which clearly will not include those not like them – racially, culturally, etc.

This, however, is not the only business nor the only minority person so negatively affected by that particular form of racism/sexism in the society. This way of segregating and oppressing goes back many generations. Most businesses thriving mightily today show themselves as first thought of, established and the start-up part of those businesses – the part that required much blood sweat and tears to get it through to smoother sailing has been done by minorities.

It is an example of why the top 1% of the wealth in this country is now held by that same white male group, how that came to be and the structures they use to insure that this will forever be unless something and many someones intervene in drastic ways – or the ethics and integrity of the entire society demand they clean up their act – make amends – and open the doors to everyone leaving the great ideas with the people who came up with them and are in the process of bringing them to life..

We will continue at later dates with more specific examples – check the blog to make sure you don’t miss any of these stories:

Did you ever wonder where Trump Shuttle came from? Donald Trump, his family and their incredible business ideas? Or – is there another story circulated only within the African American community.

A black man approached Donald Trump with his idea and with the work he had done and was doing building a short term shuttle from Cape Cod to Boston/ New York/ Washington, D.C. etc.

It was a dream of his and a business he had been building one small step at a time because of his limited funds and the refusal of others to invest in his venture. – until along comes Donald Trump.

The African American made many trips to New York to Donald Trump’s offices with his business plan, sharing his experience in this area and he made many return trips as Trump indicated he wanted to invest in this business and gave this Black man things to do so that he, Trump, could invest.

The man came to visit us before and after each one of these trips and talked about his visit to Donald Trump; Trump’s interest and promise to invest because he thought it was a great idea; Trump’s request for the man to do additional work, which Trump always applauded – according to the feed back and notes we saw.

When all was in great shape and “they” were ready to move ahead with the introduction and execution of this new shuttle service, Donald Trump slammed the door on this black man and would not see this African American anymore; was very nasty to him when he called expecting to move ahead; Trump cut off all contact. This gentleman had been paying his own way to visit New York and Trump at a substantial expense to his current business and he always left the work he did with Trump, pending the additions and changes which resulted from those meetings.

After that abrupt and ugly cut off – well, look at this – Trump announced the formation of Trump Shuttle and as he unrolled this business it was an exact copy of what the two of them had been planning and working on for months.

And so, another African American’s business ideas, acumen, hard work, start-up – stolen by another white male business man who simply and blatantly stole his years of development and the initial work of establishing such a business and strategizing/planning for its future.

There are many more such stories. They basically show the lack of integrity in the corporate/business world and the acceptance as normal of such things happening.

______________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale

Project 2 – #WellsFargoBoycott

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







A New Political and Economics Vocabulary!

Wednesday, April 24th, 2019

It sounds so foolish for people in the United States to be trying to frame this upcoming presidential election around old concepts which were relevant during the time of the Cold War but not today. When used, the concepts being thrown around in preparation for this upcoming 2020 campaign are confusing and the cause of much emotional upset and fighting because of what hangs onto the concepts from a difficult time in the life of this worlds’ political and economic institutions.

Instead of defining our economy in Cold War terms, the Republicans need to be more accurately descriptive of our institutions. We need to make the massive effort to increase our vocabulary with newer more accurate terms or we need to pull out a new vocabulary which fits where we are today – terms that fit what we are actually about. None of the terms the Republicans are using are accurate, fitting, nor descriptive.

The Democrats are going to run their 2020 campaign bringing forth corruption, lying, stealing and all of us will be very well acquainted with terms like “emoluments”. Terms we had probably either never heard of or heard in passing without giving a thought to going deeply into their meaning.

We talk in terms of Capitalism, Socialism, Communism. None of these terms come close to where we are today. Using those terms only exacerbates the ugliness and vileness we are experiencing as a country – brought on by our own.

Capitalism is totally irrelevant and has been for some time because basic to that concept is the assumption that everyone is free and equal in the society and are only limited by their vision, etc. We live in a society which is fraught with sexism, racism, homophobia, ethnocentrism, ageism and so much more of that which separates us and makes us feel better than or less than. A society in which my identify is better than your identity is not able to even begin to describe its economic and political system as based on Capitalism.

Our so called “capitalist” system has venture capitalists who only fund white male northern european types – and will fund minorities and women into the (maybe) $50,000 area to fund their start-ups and actively encourage others to tour the country looking for great start-up ideas being worked on by minorities so they can steal and bring those ideas and that work to the venture capitalists, who are more than ready to see those new and radical business ideas happening and being developed by minorities in this world being carried forward into their substantial billion dollar areas by white male types to maintain the societal structure with those at the top most like our current venture capitalist and other investor groups with serious money that they obtained in the same way. That “serious money” is not available for investment to minority groups. (and from here on “minorities” include women because that is who they are and how they are treated from a power and control perspective in this society.)

Socialism is fraught with many misinterpretations when used today. Most link it to state owned everything and gradually being the economic and political part of the structure of a state which becomes evil and destroys the quality of everybody’s life. In this “Socialism” we all become zombies beholden to a very ugly, vicious and violent state. And – the examples we come up with as to “Socialist States” are indeed horrifying if one thinks that is the direction in which these United States are headed, if we choose the model being proffered by these anti-socialism fighters.

Communism is the most misinterpreted because we hook that term to the Soviet Union at its worse. We hook it to the rampaging McCarthy who destroyed many lives and even more careers fighting phantoms, using a political and economic concept as a means to oppress those he wanted to expel from “his” country and the country which he felt belonged to him and his kind. All others were usurpers trying to turn this great democracy into something vile. Turned out the vileness came from McCarthy and his kind – and who was one of his protege’s – none other than Donald Trump. Trump learned his lessons well at the feet of McCarthy and Cohn and he has brought all of that upheaval and evil back into 2016, 17, 18, 19 America.

And, Communism carries with it the claim by many Christians, that the social and economic system of Jesus was a communist system. That complicates the picture even more as that kind of claim, while not accepted by most mainline Christians was accepted enough to increase the religious bigotry which has existed in these United States from its beginnings with its genoocidal war against Native Americans.

This election cycle is shaping up to be one in which the worst interpretation of the above terms is going to be used to win or lose. At the very least the fight for the presidency and other offices will be embroidered around hurling Socialism, Capitalism, Communism at the opposition as though they were evil and we should not elect anyone who espouses such.

As we look at the above, what becomes clear is that our current system was created, grown and sustained by white male mostly Northern European types who patterned their need for power and control after what they saw in the Middle – Near East – Far Eastern parts of the world which were also male dominated cultures interested in expanding and maintaining power and control in their own ways. Vestiges of those historical groups still exist and today are beginning to rise up to attempt to re-establish their historical societies which are counter to the ways they were beginning to move.

The strong roots such groups have in this society becomes clear as under Donald Trump we are making strong moves to bring those cultures together because it is the only way male domination in its meaness – viciousness – and need for total power and control can continue to thrive and grow.

A more diverse and integrated world is beginning to show-up. Hopefully, as that moves and grows the goodness, beauty and grace of the human spirit will flourish and what has gone before will be permanently in the rear view mirror and will maintain only in history.

Watching that diversity develop is a cautionary tale, however, because even in its extreme infancy we see in the United States powers beginning to move into male groups which were anathema when white males were at the height of their power and control and adopt and adapt these others into their society and culture because that is what is necessary for them to continue developing the mean spiritedness, viciousness, control, tyranny and ugliness of what we have and are continuing to experience.

Looking at the 2018 elections, we celebrated the break through of a new America. We praised our voting citizens for the diversity of people we elected and it looked as though we were reaching through to a new day.

As time goes on, however, we are seeing the sprouts of those weeds which caused and cause so much trouble and evil in the world as talk becomes prevalent of which “white males” can best be elected who will look out for and bring about a more equitable, diverse and “new” America. Which white male will best take care of the rest of the world in a patronizing and paternalistic fashion so that male domination can continue and in a short time raise its ugly head again to attempt to subjugate and push the world into finding its meanest spots to develop. And saddest of all of that talk are the women joining the chorus who are so enmeshed in paternalism they cannot see the worth and ability of other women who can do much better.

The fact that the talk happening is simply a new prelude to another chapter of the “old” slaveowning, segregationist, vile and vicious America has been covered up to be revealed upon the victory and ascendancy of this new talk.

Looking at the way “Bernie” helped to bring in Trump to maintain that old way of life without getting “dirty” in the process should tell us and let us see what is happening with this presidential campaign today. It should also show us that this new, kinder, gentler paternalism will not work.

Think on these things before you reject them out of hand. Look carefully at your government and its history America before you laud yourselves as being “better than” and pray hard that you do not continue in the ways from which you declared you wanted to depart to bring out more of the goodness of America.

___________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale

Project 2 – #WellsFargoBoycott

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







Mitch – How did you know? Barr – Who is your handler?

Thursday, April 11th, 2019

It is time to acknowledge that something is very wrong in our government and with our politicians which is beginning to show publicly in some strange ways.

For example: Mitch McConnell blocked Obama’s appointment of Supreme Court justices months before the end of his term. One such appointment he blocked was a relatively middle of the road/conservative justice from being appointed to the Court. Appointed instead was the man who is known as an extreme political activist, credibly accused sexual assaulter and who was brought onto the political stage by the Bush family.

We have talked lots and printed much about that, but no one has asked how Mitch McConnell knew his blocking Obama’s appointment of Merrick Garland would result in Donald Trump appointing conservative political operatives like Kavanaugh and Gorsuch. If Hillary Clinton had won the presidency, which was widely expected and seemed to be a done deal, her appointments would probably have been to the left of Obama’s. Does anyone believe Mitch was holding open Supreme Court appointments for Hillary’s nominations?

Mitch McConnell proceeded in the face of what was showing and expected and blocked not only the Supreme Court justice appointment by Obama, but much else also, which he then released when Donald Trump reached the point where his friends and supporters called him “President”. We were not amongst those.

Who majorly ushered Mitch McConnell onto the political stage?

How did you know Mitch? What connections do you have not showing? Add that to all else you have done, what kind of country are you helping to shape? Would you and your children want to live in the kind of country you are helping to create when those whispering in your ear become those in total control of that country? Do you really think they will allow you and your family to prosper after your work is done and you are gone? Or does that matter to you?

**************************************

William Barr we have the same question of you!

Who is whispering in your ear? From whom are you taking your orders? Do you really expect us to believe that you just happened to turn up at the exact time your writing that lengthy opinion for Donald Trump would result in your being named Attorney General and your carrying out the wishes of whoever is giving you marching orders at this time?

Didn’t you help bail the Bush family out of an Iran mess? Or was that Reagan?

Just before Mueller’s investigation ends, you, Mr. Barr, turn up having laid recent ground work to become Attorney General to stop the Mueller investigation without the public being aware of your role in wrapping up that investigation putting yourself in place to put out an “exoneration” of a man who calls himself president of these United States so he can finish the work of destroying what took hundreds of years to build? You were clearly put in that place by – who? – the same people who called you up to duty and now will keep you in front of us where you can play your part in this farce?

Who benefits here? Who has orchestrated this? Or did this happen accidentally with everyone acting independently and this just comes together in such a smooth way? We don’t think so!

We saw “Mafia Speak” within the Court setting, when the judge in the Manafort case did his mafia speech before sentencing Manafort. Remember that little ditty about how this had nothing to do with “collusion”. Shortly thereafter on the front steps of the Court Manafort’s attorney made the same speech = one having nothing to do with the case he was coming outside from having represented his client making the announcement not about the case he was in front of the judge to carry forth but to say – Manafort was judged free of any collusion. That was not true, but this attorney carried his speech off as though it were.

And then shortly thereafter Donald Trump, that same afternoon, talking to the press shouting questions at him, makes his speech about how “honored” he was that day by the judge and Manafort’s attorney. Trump’s speech in its words and tone was that of a man who, that day, became comfortable with his role as “the Don”. His choice of words – striking – “honored”. ‘I am honored.’ ‘You have honored me’. That is about as close as a mafia don comes to humility. But then one discovers it is not about the “Don’s” humility, but about the “Don” allowing you to show your humility because having done his bidding and the bidding of those supporting him he is about to allow you to show your humility by allowing you to kiss the ring

Today we had “Mafia Speak” in the reverse. Donald Trump comes out with his bit of “Mafia Speak” which sets the stage and then William Barr, before Congress, follows him almost within minutes saying almost the exact same thing Donald Trump said to the press shouting questions at him.

This is a well orchestrated play being enacted in front of us and are we all too stupid or too innocent to see this?

Who gains? Who loses? What is at stake? This is a game with real life consequences in which the United States as a republic wins or the mafia in which Donald Trump was once a participant, but now apparently is the “Don” wins. Today he may be shored up by his fascist friends around the globe – supported by the billionaire’s club, but tomorrow? Donald Trump is not the type of person to be grateful or to be one of those serving and working with. His “friends” will soon see they are working for him and it will not be pleasant for any of them. Barr may see himself wielding power today, but he needs to take a good look at history to realize his future and it is not pleasant.

We have entered the era of a world-wide mafia generating from and controlled by the United States government which is in the process of forming a very tight, very strong mafia from which there will be no relief nor any turning back.

Today you can call us crazy, paranoid, delusional! However, tomorrow when you realize the situation in which you are living what will you call us then? And what will we call you? Involved? Taking action to preserve a democracy? Or one of the good people who allowed this to move to its conclusion by doing nothing?

Take a look at past Bettina Network Blogs and you will see we predicted this. It does not take a genius to see what is happening. We also talked about children being murdered and Concentration Camps – different from those in Nazi Germany. Concentration Camps where children would be incarcerated and then disappear.

We hope you are listening. We do not want to be in the position of saying “we told you so.

______________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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

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

_________________________________________________________

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

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

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

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

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

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.co





TRUMP FINDS HIS ROY COHN

Monday, March 25th, 2019

It is tragic what is happening in and to the United States of America. This was once a strong, respected, acknowledged world leader. It is now a country with a “president” who lies, cheats and manipulates – all for his own aggrandizement, without thought for anything else – and a structure in place to support him. That was very clear when Barr’s press release came out.

It was actually clear long before, but we have been trying to postpone that day of reckoning which is going to come and soon.

Barr turned up at a signing in the White House – very unusual for a United States Attorney General, especially since he had a starring part of that signing. He initially stood a bit apart as he totally backed, tota and way beyond what was necessary, Donald Trump and his ‘national emergency’. This was not a national emergency. This was Donald Trump pushing this country to a breaking point because he wanted something to honor his father and all of the KKK and White Supremacist who called for such a wall decades ago – even into the 1920’s. They called for a wall with “steel slats” – the same kind of wall Trump called for when he began to seriously push his wall agenda. A memorial to White Supremacy.

The recent Trump rant about John McCain had nothing to do with John McCain. It was Trump letting those around him know what he would do to them if they didn’t do his bidding and they got the message. For those who didn’t get the message he described the carnage that would result from any attempt to tell the truth about his activities with Russia and/or any attempt to remove him from office.

Donald Trump went on a rampage a few weeks before the Mueller Report came out to let all of those around him know exactly what their fate would be at his hands if they did not exonerate him. And they got the message. Has there ever been a time when Republicans in Congress have been so quiet?

The New Zealand murders came right after Trump’s comments about what he would do and the violence that would happen; as did the Pittsburgh murders come right after Donald Trump proclaimed that he was not a Globalist. The bombs being delivered to prominent Americans also came right after Trump made another such threatening declaration.

When Barr was appointed Attorney General, it was clear Roy Cohn had arrived in the form of Barr and was going to do everything he could to support, shore up, clean up Donald Trump – and he did. The threesome of that time in history which wrecked much havoc on these United States – Roy Cohn, Senator Joseph McCarthy and Donald Trump – their protege – have returned and their protege has shown he learned his lessons well and is taking what he was taught to a new level – this is just the beginning.

It was quite unusual raising lots of questions for Attorney General Barr to visit the White House right at the time the Mueller Report was being delivered to him. After that visit Donald Trump and his tweets were silent and he went off to Mar-a-Lago quietly, with his friends and supporters and was not heard from again until he returned to the White House and the deed was done. Clearly, he has control over his tweets and they are done for a reason to create the affect he has been creating.

These United States have been seriously divided almost from its beginnings. Today, we are trying to say this serious division is new – not true. There has been the good and the bad. Those who saw the possibilities and wanted to move in the direction of greatness and goodness as a country and those who were overfilled with greed and power needs who simply wanted what they wanted and if that destroyed everything so be it if they could walk away with what they thought would satisfy those needs.

We have tried to cover up that history, but today it has come home to roost. There are too many diverse people now living, working, raising families in this country for it to be allowed to go back to the filthy past that has hung out here so long.

It is time for these United States to be what its past has promised and to leave behind the sin, the degradation, the filth, the destruction of human life, the self-centeredness and self-aggrandizement which has always brought this country down and has brought it to a place of not fulfilling what could have been its destiny.

When Donald Trump was “elected” president it was with all of the ugliness showing. He had already built Trump University and had ripped off hundreds, if not thousands of people in the process to line his own pockets. During all of the time he was running for president of these United States that and more was in the news with the very ugly details of how people looking for a better life scrimped, saved and denied themselves to pay money to Trump University so they could have a better life only to discover they were in worse shape after they enrolled than before because Donald Trump and his University were ripping them off, not providing them with that bright and shiny future of which they dreamed and which his marketing and advertising promised.. And that is only one such example of Donald Trump ripping off the American people.

White America, do you really need to be better than so badly that this is what you are willing to do to maintain that role and position in this society? Have you no shame? No God? No ethics? A horrible character who allows you to live in this filth created for you by Donald Trump and those who support him and those who went before to clear a path for him? You have no idea how great it is to be free! To live a life of freedom! To be one of instead of better than! It is an incredible feeling, life, way to be.

Millions of people voted for Donald Trump for president. Yes, Russia was a part of his being elected president – they provided the denouement – but also yes – millions of Americans voted for him. The same millions who moved against Native Americans? The same millions who moved to enslave Africans? The same millions who brought Africans over in slave ships to be sold as so much cattle – using the same ships in which they put product they were selling and delivering to other countries and returning from those countries with human beings they had stolen from African countries to sell to Americans? The same millions who saw Native American children, by the thousands, ripped from their families to supposedly be “acculturated” into American Society, but most of whom were never heard from again? And today we are seeing the same thing repeated with thousands of children coming to the United States from other countries and being treated as though they are sex objects and being raped and/or sexually or other ways abused by their captors who have put them in chain link prisons – who have humiliated and demeaned these children for no reason other than the depravity of those in charge and who have ripped even weeks old babies from their mothers to satisfy the needs for superiority of those doing such and the depravity of he who has ordered such to be done? “Suffer the little children to come unto me for of such is the kingdom of heaven”.

The same millions voted for Donald Trump who wrecked havoc across this country for decades trying to intimidate African Americans by being a part of one massacre after another, after slavery ended, as they saw African American families putting their lives together and building communities in places like Oklahoma and other areas? Their anger at seeing such resulted in unspeakable massacres of which our school children know nothing because that history is deleted in our school systems.

The United States has a lot from which to be redeemed and instead we are turning to someone like Donald Trump who lives and works in the mould of the worst of American history. We thought, when Barack Obama was elected, that we had made the collective decision to leave all of that behind. Clearly, that was a wrong thought, because what is showing is that those who were in charge throughout all of American history tainting everything that could have been beautiful are still in charge tainting everything that could have been beautiful.

The press release from Mueller’s Report was written by a man who was officially told, by his employers, of his conflict of interest and who refused to recuse himself. He had a mission and with his press release he carried out that mission. He was not going to be part of a diverse society. He, apparently, wants to give lip service to the goodness that could be America and do his part to make sure that other part, that gross part, which we all share as human beings, would be the part to take over and make sure he and his would still be in charge, wrecking havoc on everything and everyone else. From the dregs of humanity come your oppressors, cleaning themselves up but still instantly recognized.

To people like Barr and Lindsey Graham I say – my God neither sleeps nor slumbers. People like you crucified my Jesus and yet what happened was not the destruction of my Jesus nor of why Jesus came to earth, but the fulfillment of many of those promises. Millions followed – great edifices were built in his honor – ethical systems were created from his teachings – the efforts of the Barr’s, the Grahams’ (both Lindsey and Franklin and their followers) were dispersed. They try to come back periodically and while they succeed on some level for a brief period of time, they simply bring into being by their failure and their notoriety and people finally seeing the sin and flaws they cultivate in themselves, the exact opposite of what they claim to be working to achieve. Self-aggrandizement is their goal – power, money, the feeling of being better than is their goal. Reaching for that goal ultimately is their destruction. Hitler committed suicide, they say, in a dirty, filthy bunker scared out of his mind.

We are today the people who walk in darkness, but shortly, the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf will hear.

It matters not what Scripture you read or which religion you follow or if you follow none – it is not possible to be human with all that means and not see what is happening in these United States. To go along with it says more about you than anything else you do, think or claim to believe.

The Germans went along with Hitler. Average, ordinary people because they wanted someone or something to blame for the mess they allowed and helped happen in their lives. They wanted to be better than and what they received in return for those wants was a time spent in hell. Today, however, as most Germans look back at that history, you don’t see statues in memorial to that time in German history. You don’t see plays being performed to laud those actions. You don’t see people adoring Hitler for what he wrought or because they needed to keep that history alive and in front of them and their children. You see a people trying to make amends for a temporary aberration in their history. We have yet to see that in these United States. We have had many Hitlers-types who we adored. We still fight for and demand the right to worship at the altar of our statues and memorials to slavery as we created it for generations in these United States. We still have a form of slavery in the way we hold dear to sex trafficking and our enslaving of women and children for such purposes.

We have lauded them all and tried to make them our saviors – Donald Trump is just the most recent.

How long – O Lord!

__________________________________________________________


Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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

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

_________________________________________________________

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

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

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

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

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

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.co



The Story….continued

Sunday, March 17th, 2019

What is racism, bigotry, ethnocentrism, homophobia, etc.?

The actual experiences of people who have had to endure the bigotry of others while they tried to move along and achieve their life goals gives an understanding of bigotry which helps us root it out of our lives and out of the institutions in which we live and work. With that in mind, we hope you learn from and can use the stories in this series.

Usually in instances of racism, it is the person who is acted against – the person who has been forced to experience another’s bigotry – who is chastised or loses an opportunity or is moved out of a home for no reason or denied entrance to an educational institution for which they qualified and ‘but for’ would have been accepted. This needs to stop. Especially, we need to stop the denial when we come across an instance of bigotry. We cannot afford to call for the bowl of water, soap and a towel to wash our hands leaving the responsibility for our sins on others or on the institutions which we created.

___________________________________________

This story continues what we started – another part of the actual life experience of a minority denied:

This is about the Field Education positions at a seminary – which means a part of your course work or your experiences for which you receive a grade and which is a required part of most seminary educational experiences on your way to a Mdiv Degree (Masters of Divinity). Where you are placed for this Field Education experience depends upon conversations and consultations with the person who would supervise your work, the head of the Field Education area, the Field Education Committee and the head of that Committee who is normally very influential in these things, and more.

I applied for and was accepted for a Field Education placement at Church of the Messiah in Auburndale, MA. under the Rev. William Lowe who agreed to serve as my supervisor. He had no problems with my being African American. In fact such a conversation didn’t come up. I had already completed a successful Field Education program at Trinity Church, Copley Square but Trinity agreed to sponsor my ordination process and so the Field Education program I completed could not be considered for credit of any kind leaving that requirement for the Masters of Divinity unfulfilled.

After those initial things were done which included outlining the activities and course work for the year, and the proposal was accepted by the Field Education Committee, we thought all was well until I received a letter from Eric Law who was Chairperson of the Field Education Committee.

It was a letter of rejection and went something like this:

“We admit that our existing Field Education Program, while meeting a lot of the students’ needs, is not adequate in serving others from a different cultural background. I want you to know that you have enabled us to look at ourselves honestly and to question our organization — its strengths and its weaknesses. Hopefully, what has happened, painful as it may have been, will move us to establish a better educational system that is more inclusive.”

The rejection letter went on to state “This is a systemic problem created by conflicts between two different communication systems, based upon different cultural values. We realize that a mediation between the two systems must be set up so that similar situations in the future can be handled with better understanding.”

It was a truly amazing letter especially since it also claimed “our decision depended a great deal on the qualifications of Bill Lowe as a supervisor (then rector at Church of the Messiah). Based on the evidence we had, we had a lot of questions about his qualifications.” The Rev. Lowe was a supervisor in the Field Education program. He had been vetted and certified and had Field Education placements before and after my rejection – all white.) It was a stunning paragraph which not only rejected my proposal for Field Education at Church of the Messiah, but also included down grading the rector of the Church which had accepted me.

Who is Eric Law – the chairperson of the Field Education Committee – who apparently engineered this turndown? A first or second generation Chinese American student at Episcopal Divinity School, who later became an ordained priest and whose work during that time was with the Chinese Community solely and was the same for quite some time after his ordination.

The racism through all of this was stunning, unacknowledged, unaddressed and continued to plague the Field Education program for years after as it had for many years prior. The racism I experienced had been a part of the Field Education Program at EDS for a very long time and had been complained about from the days of the Rev. Kenneth Hughes whose complaints we discovered when my husband and I worked at St. Bartholomew’s Church in Cambridge, a Church Rev. Hughes pastored many years earlier.

What was the problem which caused all of this? An African American woman chose a white suburban church for her placement in the Field Education program. Normally, an African American chooses to do their Field Education at an African American Church. A white American can choose whichever Church he or she decides best suits his or her educational needs, but those choices did not and still today do not extend to minorities

________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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

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

_________________________________________________________

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

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

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

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

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

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.co


Tell the Story!

Friday, March 8th, 2019

These are actual instances of how institutional racism and personal bigotry work hand in glove to destroy attempts to change this society from one of White Supremacy and Patriarchy to one which looks beyond physical differences. (I will start – send your stories to share with those who need to understand on a conscious level the structure in which they live, work and in which their children’s character, ethics, morality are being formed. – don’t let me stand out here alone. To talk about these experiences on a personal level takes a lot of humility. The first step to break through the ego and ‘better than’ needs is to allow humility to take hold.)

by: Marceline Donaldson

CHURCH

One of the dominant conveyers of bigotry. What follows is one very small example of how it works!

Currently, we are seeing the demolition of the Black Church. That has been happening for decades. It moved along in earnest when the overall society realized the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s was formed, nurtured and carried through successfully because of the Black Church. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a black preacher and Church leader with an ancestry filled with black ministers, organists and more.

This story starts in a Black Episcopal Church in Central Square, Massachusetts. A Church that has had its ups and downs and currently is down. What happens?

This is one small incident, but crucial in how the Black Church is being destroyed.

My husband and I served as interim ministers at St. Bartholomews Church in Central Square – Cambridge, MA. – in the mid-1980’s, a Church which is predominantly Jamaican, African American, with a few people from Barbados and Haiti – in other words, all people of color.

When we arrived there were two people licensed by the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts to serve as Lay Eucharistic Ministers. One was the wife of the last rector.

We worked with several additional parishioners who were interested in serving their Church as Lay Eucharistic Ministers and as required, we sent letters to the Diocese asking that they be licensed. They attended the requisite training offered by the Diocese, were licensed and worked as Lay Eucharistic Ministers with no problems and many ‘thank you’s’.

The following year we added a couple more who also went through training and were licensed. We also encouraged them to get involved with the Diocese – as well as seeking out others in the congregation who were interested in Diocesan work. There were several and we did our share to make the Episcopal Diocese less White and more Diverse.

The Episcopal Diocese had one or two African Americans involved in their work – people they were accustomed to – the people who disproved the rule.

Everything went along fine until the Bishop under whom we made those additions and changes retired and a new bishop was elected. The new bishop was not comfortable with the increased numbers of African Americans having a say in the business of the Diocese and so began the process of elimination. How was that done? – Quietly! Under the radar, so to speak!

We applied for a renewal of the license for the -now – seven Lay Eucharistic Ministers, who had been licensed for a couple years; who had attended all of the training offered, some more than once and who were doing an excellent job. Back came a letter from the Bishop that those licenses could not be renewed because members of St. Bartholomew’s Church had never been licensed as Lay Eucharistic Ministers; the Church had never applied to have anyone so licensed and no one had ever appeared for training. So our request was denied and we were cast as irresponsible or ignorant for attempting to have licenses renewed which had not been issued in the first place.

That is how the constant struggle is set up and the negative stereotype ‘refreshed.’ Take one step forward. Make it a successful step. Others following in your footsteps become a threat and are seen as a ‘horde’. Minorities are put in the position of constantly having to fight against, have to struggle to achieve anything, which is exhausting. Block their path and after a time there are none. The fiction can then be run which goes “we don’t have any because there are none qualified or interested or willing to do the work. One Bishop moves to open doors; another moves to slam them shut.

It is stunning to see the paperwork, which we have kept, which lays out this scenario.

What did we accomplish? Nothing that made permanent change. The destruction of St. Bartholomew’s continued apace. It was time for us to move on and our place in the structure was outlined for us clearly so there could be no misunderstanding.

Time for us to move on meant the next step in the destruction of St. Bartholomew’s – a rector to whom the congregation had to minister instead of being ministered to and a couple steps after that made sure there would be an empty church soon and its small congregation would have to consider a ‘merger’ into a White Congregation – losing their history and identity completely.

We went off to the Bishop’s office to meet and attempt to correct what we thought was a mistake of some kind taking with us the copies of the licenses issued and all supporting paperwork hoping that would clear up any ‘misunderstanding’ or misplaced licenses or other records. It was a meeting that did not go well. It was clear licenses never having been issued was a fiction and one that was thinly veiled. The fiction was maintained even in sight of the licenses signed by the Bishop.. The copies and in two cases the original licenses were characterized as “we don’t know where those came from” and that went on until my well known temper exploded and I wound up accusing the Bishop of racism and outlining how, when, why and what this behavior was meant to create – and that basically was the intentional destruction of a Black Church. All denied with righteous indignation.

The Bishop started the meeting and acknowledged and complimented us on a job well done. He acknowledged the substantial increase in Church attendance over the time we served as Interim, but also said I was not Marceline Donaldson, but Mrs. Bennett and I should act accordingly- which he suggested should be attending Church on Sundays, sitting in the front row so I could be seen ‘appropriately’ as being ‘supportive’ of my husband.

We outlined for the Bishop the circumstances under which we had taken the job. I was in the ordination process at the time and this placement was totally in line with what I was doing in Seminary. I was to do most of the work because my husband had a full time job as a professor at an Episcopal Seminary and he was there to be supportive and the one who was ordained and who could carry out the responsibilities that fall only to the ordained. We also let him know I had never been Mrs. Bennett, would never be Mrs. Bennett and my legal name and the one I used under all circumstances was Marceline Donaldson.

The Bishop responded by saying he was ordaining people who were young, just out of seminary and he preferred to ordain young men because that is really who made the best priests. He added that because we had done such a great job he would use us as Interims in other Churches as needed and if my understanding of my position more closely matched his he thought our work could make a substantial contribution to the Church.

My explosion, which could be heard outside the Bishops office, did not help the situation, but it did make clear to the Bishop that I would not be a part of the picture he drew and that his concept was racist and sexist and we thought the Episcopal Church had and was moving away from that – which was really about sin.

He did agree to renew the licenses and Robert and I went home. We talked about how we were going to withdraw from St. Bartholomew’s and the Episcopal Church. We were clearly only welcome if we could go along with the program of using the reputations and respect we had gained to maintain the Episcopal Church in its current stance with its institutionalized White Supremacy in tact and its Patriarchy moving in such a way to incorporate those who could go along with the program and push out those who wanted the world Jesus promised.

I went back to one of the three places in Scripture which has sustained me:

Ephesians 6:12-18

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.”

It has always been amazing to me how so many people are able to use the institution in which they serve to maintain themselves as “better than” and their institution serving the needs of White Supremacy and the maintenance of the Patriarchy while doing what they consider the work of that part of the world in which they have chosen to make their lives, raise a family, and thrive without a conscious realization that it is being done at the expense of the lives of others. What we also came to see and understand is that those so mired in the maintenance of the Patriarchy and White Supremacy are also mired so deep in sin that the lives they show to the public and the private life they lead are very different and separate from one another. That private life is generally immoral, full of serious ethical problems with a character that peeps out ever so often showing a very ugly personna.

Why was it necessary to keep the Diocese White, male and begin the destruction of a Church which had a long history in the Diocese as well as its neighborhood? WHY? Because that was the beginning necessity for the conversion of the neighborhood back to a White neighborhood. The era of the move to the suburbs was drawing to a close making necessary the “whitening” of neighborhoods which “darkened” when White Flight started. These movements happen over generations and our conscious awareness of them only happens at their end when their goals are being realized and can no longer happen “under cover.”

In the vineyard of the fallen are my brothers and sisters who want to segregate us by color – by sex – by ethnicity – by sexual orientation – by all kind of other ‘differences’ to shore up their ego and identity so they don’t have to do the work of being.

How long before the eyes of the blind are opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped, the prisoners set free, those who walk in darkness brought into a great light.

When we shore up those who are keeping us all in bondage to their need for power, money and dominion-over, our lives are in jeopardy and our eternity closed out.

________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale

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

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

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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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THE WALL: A 1920’s KKK Dream

Friday, February 15th, 2019

That dream, in the 1920’s when the KKK was at its height, was complete with steel slats and it was a very high wall on the Southern border between the U. S. and Mexico.

It looks as though Donald Trump, the illegitimate president of the United States, is doing everything he can to fulfill that dream. Is this his memorial to his father, who was apparently a part of the KKK? https://ahtribune.com/us/2016-election/242-trump-grandfather-pimp-father-kkk.html?fbclid=IwAR073Tg7RDAbs2uIjtiWeDGVC09i5tyRk7BTjBk0LMh_SDjsx6WRpbjWonM

His father’s legacy to Trump was to get him started in the same vein in which he lived his life – by incorporating into his life and work discrimination against African Americans, as in not letting them rent in the buildings father and son built. Trump was started on his racist path early in life and continued on that path throughout his life. As the United States became more diverse, the peoples included in this family’s racism became more diverse and today, apparently includes all of the brown and black peoples of the world.

How fitting that his denouement would be fulfilling the dream of many klansmen of his father’s era by pushing through to build this wall (in their honor?). As you look at the determination and energy and effort Trump has put behind this WALL it had to have a very special meaning to him. All of the trying in todays’ world by many talking heads to make it look as though Trump is working for his base just does not fit.

For his base, he could have moved on and worked for something to give them that was doable. This is a strong emotional commitment which has driven Trump. What could be stronger than doing this for his father? Was the part of the WALL Trump was trying to build to have his father’s name?

AND — a little bonus — because of the timing, Trump could also use this point in time to coverup, distract from, mute and diminish the publicity around the roll-out of Andrew McCabe’s book “The Threat”? Trump’s timing wasn’t perfect but it was close. If McCabe’s book was introduced when it was supposed to be – this weekend on 60 Minutes – without the preview of the 60 Minutes interview with McCabe on the morning and evening Talk/News shows, Trump’s efforts would have perfectly wiped “The Threat” off the news. As it is, he was able to reduce and diminish the coverage of McCabe’s book because of his announcement that he was going to declare a “National Emergency” after he signed the bill. Since most of the newscasters either didn’t know or simply eliminated, for better effect, the fact that this bill has enough votes behind it to make it veto proof, neither the House nor the Senate needed Trump’s signature taking away from him the circus he is creating to throw smoke into all of our faces so we can’t see McCabe and his new book. Is this what is called a ‘two’fer?

FROM TRUMP TO SENATOR LIZ CHENEY

Lying in bed, dozing off I was sharply awakened by this woman doing the most intense racist rant I have seen in a very long time.

Fortunately, I was recording that particular news show so I was able to rewind and watch it from the beginning. I was totally shocked to see that the person giving this racist rant in the most arrogant, smug and self-satisfied way was none other than Senator Liz Cheney – daughter of the ex-Vice President. I kept wondering why she had this super smug demeanor as she ranted on and on after having been asked a question about Donald Trump. Her rant focused on Elizabeth Warren and the fact that Senator Warren publicly acknowledged throughout most of her life, her Native American ancestry. Instead of talking about the courage that took, especially during the time frame in which Senator Warren made her family background public, Senator Cheney was ripping Senator Warren apart. What is there about that which set her off? Should we look into Senator Cheney’s racial background?

When the question about Donald Trump was repeated, Senator Cheney simply continued the most racist monologue against Senator Warren that I have heard in decades. My further shock was that no one called her on it. There should have been outcries from every corner of Congress demanding that she apologize. Not one peep. Today, having heard the backlash against one of the brown women, Ilham Omar, in Congress claiming she made bigoted comments and calling for her to apologize, and at the same time the same people ignoring of Senator Cheney’s comments shows up the claims against others for what they are – political attacks wherever and however you can get them.

I kept thinking I was in a time warp. I didn’t always agree with Senator Cheney, but I had never pictured her just inches away from the likes of the most bigoted of those in public life. One becomes accustomed to people like the Congressman Steve King and just dismisses anything he says. But Senator Cheney, I thought, was better than that. Well – so much for that misperception. Now I understand why Steve King was able to spout his racism and walk away unscathed. He has lots of compatriots who are viciously racist and don’t see anything wrong with Steve King’s racism. He is entitled?

EXECUTIVE TIME a la TRUMP

Maybe most of you don’t remember that far back, to the beginnings of Donald Trump’s illegitimate and illegal presidency, but I do. I remember when he talked about being shocked that the job of the president of the United States was so easy he could do both. He could run the Trump Organization and act as though he was President of the United States.

This was not said by a talking head interpreting Trump’s comments, this was said by Trump himself.

Now we have Trump’s schedule showing massive amounts of “Executive Time”. There have been many talking and poking fun at what that means – watching cable tv seems to be the first comment with the most repeaters, but every time I hear that I remember those comments made by Trump – and I’ve seen that he usually tells on himself and does things up front. Is he running the Trump Organization during his “Executive Time”? Are his comments about the Presidency being a part time job true?

THE NEW WORLD ORDER

I remember where I was when I first heard comments about “The New World Order.” The first time I heard this is was George Bush the Sr. making the comments.

As I look at this ‘Trump/vs the rest of us’ round in this war, it certainly looks like one of the battles trying to bring about that vision of such world governance by the Corporate/Billionaire Group.

From the comments I’ve heard – this New World Order seems to be about the Corporate/Billionaire Group ruling everything (and of course, being very patronizing to those not in their Group) and the diminishment of Government by the people, for the people and with the people. The people being those who do the work to maintain, grow and make life easier for that Corporate/Billionaire Group while dedicating their lives to trying to be like them on almost no money and very few assets.

Not like the traditional slavery in this country because slaves were brought in from Africa and they were very dark of skin. The people doing the todays work that would have been done by slaves in that past era includes those we call “white” along with all of the brown and black peoples of the world. And, some of the people in the Corporate/Billionaire Group are brown – haven’t seen any blacks yet, but they will surface.

Are we moving forward as a world where Cyber Warfare takes over and actual hand to hand and gun and other combat using the traditional artifacts of killing being pushed off center stage, being used to distract from the real war. A way to entertain and occupy the workers of the world so they will stop calling for these impossibles where we all benefit and profit?

We are certainly not fighting over Communism. That went out decades ago if it ever existed. What always amazed me about that was the theoretical definition of Communism seemed to be taken straight from the economic system outlined by Jesus in the New Testament and the people most against that economic system were the Evangelical Christians.

And we are definitely not fighting over Socialism – as you can see from this current beginning stage of the election of the next United States president. That word was introduced by Howard Schulz. Isn’t he one of the Billionaire Group? Beginning the anti-Socialist distraction rhetoric?

And, the biggest joke of all is Capitalism, which we claim exists in the United States, but which actually can’t exist anywhere as long as prejudice against groups exists and is a part of the societies in which we function. We can claim some economic system is capitalistic, but in reality we can’t have a capitalistic system as long as we have such strong prejudices in this world. What we have, in the name of capitalism, is a system which allows theft and other such uglies to be made legitimate, normal and actually a good thing in the systems we call Capitalist.

I wish we could clear our eyes to see the world as it is. One of the roles bigotry plays is to cloud the ability of people to see reality. And those who promote bigotry are benefitting mightily from John Q. Public’s mental illness.

Ed. Note: From several members of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community. Hope you learned something from these thoughts shared.


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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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Elizabeth Warren and Pocahontas!

Friday, February 8th, 2019

by: Marceline Donaldson

It has been a busy day! The writing from a Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Member on Elizabeth Warren has caused a bit of a blowup. So you know I have to chime in. Who would guess that among hard working people; thoughtful people; intellectual people there would be this bit of racism.

Is it racist to dump on Elizabeth Warren for talking about her Native American ancestors and as some are doing, claim that is reason for the Democratic Party to rethink her candidacy for president? “Drop her” is what I have heard from some and looking for justification to back their negativity towards Senator Warren is what I have heard from others.

What is the racial mythology fueling this? The claim that Blacks, African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanic Americans and all those other minorities out there really want to be White. What negates this is a White American acknowledging her Native American ancestors and at a very young age. -That is clear in the past reporting on Michael Jackson. It came out periodically. The claim that Michael Jackson wanted to be ‘white’. He used ‘white’ make-up on his face to cover his blackness, etc. etc. The reality of his life was never acknowledged.

The fact that Michael Jackson had a disease that turns your skin from dark to stark white was never injected into those conversations. Neither was the fact that makeup on the white portions of your face where the pigment has gone away does not take very well so your choice is limited and it must be the white makeup. That was constantly reported, but the facts were skewered to accommodate the mythology of White Supremacy. No matter how great Michael Jackson was – and he was pretty outstanding in his day – what he really wanted was to be white. That is the other side to the rejection of and demand for an apology from Elizabeth Warren for acknowledging her Native American ancestors.

How do I know about this disease? My grandfather had the same disease. His hands were spotted as the darker pigment was moving away and his hands and face and neck were turning white as the disease progressed. Some people live to see themselves turn completely white, some die before that happens. I don’t think it is the disease which causes their death, it doesn’t seem to have any other affect on the body.

That is only one reporting which brought out and emphasized how blacks wanted to be white. There have been more. What does that do? It shores up White Supremacy. Those who are not white want to be. The opposite – those who are seen and accepted as white hide any minorities they may have in their background. “Passing” has always been looked down on, but once you have “passed for white”, married and have children that look white you are sort of safe, just stay put and don’t bring up those minority ancestors.

What Elizabeth Warren has done is turn all of that on its head. She had a life as white – until she started talking about her Native American ancestry. What is that? It is a violation of the contract whites have with each other. If every ‘white’ persons’ minority ancestry was outed we would have chaos in this country there are so many. Slavery wasn’t mostly on plantations, most of slavery happened in one house with one white family living “cheek by jowl” with one black slave family. The result of this produced many white plus children. White Supremacy would be in total confusion and destroyed if history were more accurate. The hold that the need to be better than has on all of us becomes clearer by the decade. The hypocrisy of racism and its ridiculousness is lost on most of us.

One great example of the ridiculousness comes from the life of Senator Strom Thurmond. A son of the south and one who viciously articulated hatred of blacks who should always know and stay in their place. His political career was founded on his racism. Senator Thurmond had a black daughter who he knew, educated, with whom he had a relationship, but everyone conspiratorially around him kept his secret. Thurmond was in the forefront of those Democrats who left the Democratic Party because they saw the possibility of taking control of and changing the Republican Party into a replica of the KKK and other such groups. And as we have seen from this current man who calls himself President of these United States, he was successful.

Our hypocrisy on race is the stuff of legend. So how does White Supremacy and racism remain? It stays put because of the inferiority and arrogance of whites – conservative and liberal – who need to have that feeling of being better than to feel normal.

How does that relate to Senator Warren, her Native American heritage and the societal reaction?

If we are going to maintain White Supremacy we must abide by the rules. A cardinal rule is that one follows the mythology – in this case that blacks and other minorities want to be white. To break that happens when a white person – one who is totally accepted as white – comes out talking about her Native American ancestors – that is the stuff which gets one stoned.

Senator Warren – you are white. Defined as being better than and as a young person just getting started in your career you came out putting “Indian American” on forms that need to be filled out with race on the form. Just look at what you are doing to this society. You have upended and disregarded and violated one of the basic rules that maintains White Supremacy. The mythology which is one of the pillars holding up White Supremacy is that Blacks and other minorities want to be white and here you are coming out to say I am White but I acknowledge and respect my Native American ancestors. Look around Senator Warren, even the Native American leaders can’t handle that. Why not? If basic change happens. If everyone starts coming out and acknowledging and respecting all parts of their heritage just look at what that will mean. Those leaders of minority groups, among others, will be out of work.

Hey, you put out your heritage let me put out mine, which includes Native Americans. But wait – that doesn’t do anything. For one minority to lay claim to their ancestors in another minority group – no sweat. That changes nothing and is barely noticed. Many of my African American friends acknowledge their Native American ancestors and no one notices. The problem comes when you – white female – comes out to dare to acknowledge and respect your Native American heritage, and lordy, to even talk about it in the highest places.

And to all of those claiming you do not belong to any Native American tribe and therefore can’t be Native American, that is mind blowing. Why? Because that is the way Native Americans are annihilated – eliminated – become obsolete . That is something we have been trying to do almost since the Pilgrims landed.

If you are mixed and live as white and the generations pass, your Native American heritage is lost and it is also lost to all of those Native American Tribes. Gradually Native Americans will become extinct as we become a more mixed society. Just think of what that means if only those who are members of a Native American Tribe can call themselves Native Americans. That is a form of genocide.

My great grandfather was Black Feet Indian. He worked for and received a Doctorate of Divinity from Philips University. He was an ordained Episcopal Priest who wound up in New Orleans where he was rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church; head of a school; and did a lot more. His story counts – his life was important – his ancestors deserve a place in history as who they were. He lived in an African American community and was considered African American. He was not a member of a Native American Tribe. If he and his life and his true identity are lost to history and he becomes submerged in other groups histories, Native Americans suffer as their history is degraded. That does not happen to the Irish, the French, the English or to any other group considered white. They accomplish and their progeny do not deny their ancestors because they were not citizens of Ireland or France or etc. It is tragic that we do not live in a time or in a country where your Native American heritage is not denied but celebrated.

We are watching, under Donald Trump, history repeating itself in another century with some changes, but basically the same annihilation of a group of people considered ‘minority’. The brown peoples attempting to come into the United States. Their children are being taken away from them at the gate. Native American children were taken from their parents and who knows what happened to most of them. A generation lost. That part of Native American history can only be reclaimed by those families which integrated and included Native Americans who were ripped from their families and thrown to the wind. That history will be an expansion of Native American history. For a more accurate history we need the stories from those mixed people who talk about their Native American ancestry and who tell the stories from their youth which have been passed down through the family. The Native American stories passed down through minority communities sort of remain. The Native American stories are totally discouraged from being passed down through white communities.

Your history and the history of your Native American ancestors is also a part of Native American history and should be talked about, included and accepted, especially by those Native American Tribes who are what -growing or shrinking?

Our society used to believe – if you had just 1% of minority “blood” you were a minority. That means, if you were mixed with any of the groups of the world that we call “races” and those ‘races’ were white you were considered “white” unless in the mix even as little as 1% was one of the minority ‘races”. Then you were considered a minority and then you, your history, your legacy, your life were thrown on the dump heap.

Some of us have begun to see otherwise. As blacks, latina’s, native americans, philippine’s and more begin to achieve greatness the conversation has turned. The conversation around the “black” golfer , who was number one and couldn’t be unseated, that public conversation went – he is not really black, he has these other ancestors and should not be called black. Isn’t his mother something else? How can he neglect and push aside her contribution to who he is. And she was not white, but enough to help turn the conversation. That gave us enough of a view to the future that we realized racism will continue, but it will be in us in other ways – which are beginning to be newly defined.

Minorities can be raised up into this group which espouses White Supremacy either overtly or covertly if their achievements are so great they question the negative stereotype by which we are raised. But, “whites” must give up, hide and not claim their minority ancestors. That is necessary because if it went in the other direction we would lose this great bonus of White Supremacy and many would have to live out their lives being equal to. What a death sentence to their ego.

So, Senator Warren, do you have the guts to continue respecting, honoring and raising up your Native American ancestors or are you going to be one who apologizes because you slipped and acknowledged the family history with which you were raised. Those Native American Tribesmen get it – or they should. They clearly understand that there are those outside registered tribe members who have Native American ancestors and can freely talk about them. Or do you need to be in lock step with the White Supremacist who are trying desperately to keep their ‘better than’ position by any means necessary?

And all of you Native American Tribes – you demonstrate for other things are you going along with what is happening to Elizabeth Warren? Are you going to stand up for those who acknowledge their Native American ancestors and heritage even if they are not a member of a particular tribe. Is that such a threat to you that you will jump on that White Supremacist band wagon and go along with the program? If you do, it will be to your extreme loss and to the loss of your progeny and to those who went before.

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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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Native American or White!!!!

Thursday, February 7th, 2019

Because God knows in this society you can’t be both and be proud of your entire ancestry!

I am Native American and I need to weigh in on this conversation.

It is an amazing conversation to me because we are talking about the fact that Elizabeth Warren’s ancestors at some point “passed”. We are looking at a time in history when 1% was the criteria for whether or not you were a minority. If you had 1% African blood you were African. If you had 1% Native American blood you were Native American. If you had 1% Chinese blood you were Chinese – at least in America.

Today we are dumping all over Elizabeth Warren because she attempted to claim her Native American heritage. That is such a threat in a racist, bigoted society that we get up in arms about it and begin to dump on the person who is causing this uproar. MAKE HER APOLOGIZE SO THE REST OF US CAN RELAX AND NOT BE THREATENED WITH THE POSSIBILITY THAT ‘OUTING’ YOURSELF AND YOUR FAMILY MIGHT BECOME THE NORM!

Once upon a time, not that many years ago we would have dumped on Elizabeth Warren for trying to “pass”. Today we dump on her for trying to acknowledge her ancestry -trying to respect the stories that circulated in her family when she was a girl – because the ancestry she has held up as a part of her ‘racial’ identity is of a group considered a part of the oppressed minority in this country. We can’t have that! Just think of the chaos that will ensue! Most of you would have to move to the ghetto!

We are even trying to re-write history to get people to believe that if you were Native American during the time when Elizabeth Warren filled out the forms everyone is holding up you would have received some kind of special consideration and that special consideration would have gotten you rights, privileges and other goodies from this society that non-Native Americans could not have received.

Get real people! Stop lying and trying to redeem yourselves and your society at someone else’s expense.

There has never been a time in this society when you would have gotten any small part of the “goodies” passed around to everyone else if you were Native American. You would have been discriminated against and you would have been pushed aside and pushed back in favor of white males – and then black males – and then white females – and then black females – and then male Native Americans and at the bottom would have been any leftovers doled out to female Native Americans, but there never were any. That is history – what you are trying to create is another myth to ease your guilt at your participation in this racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. etc. society.

Today, Native American tribal leaders are concerned because they have profits from the gambling casinos on their reservations which are given to those members of the tribe who “qualify” and the tighter the definition of those who are members of the different tribes who “qualify” the more money and benefits they receive and the less competition for leadership of the tribes.

Remember when the United States took Native American children from their homes and families and reservations and put them into pograms where they were to be acculturated? They were never returned home and they and/or their progeny are someplace in this society where they have ‘integrated’, ‘intermarried’ and whatever else happened to them which successfully insured they would have no connection to any Native American tribe. So what are they? and where are they? Are they Indian Mongrels? No family – no ancestors they can admit to without risking the scorn of a nation? And what of all those other Native Americans who intermarried and became Irish, English, French, etc. plus Native American? Is their history also to be hidden because society does not want to see it to have to acknowledge that a Senator of the United States who was an attorney tenured professor of law at Harvard University is part Native American? My God – there goes the unravelling of hundreds of years of creating and nurturing White Male Supremacy in all things!

That is what this comes down to! Does this Elizabeth Warren thing challenge and upend White Supremacy? You can bet the store that it does, especially in the eyes of those who need to be White better than Black, better than Native American, better than etc. which is most of you. Isn’t that a large part of what elected and is keeping Trump in office? His racist, bigoted appeal to our lowest nature succeeds.

How do you explain such achievement, as attained by one like Elizabeth Warren who has Native American blood? Shouldn’t that disqualify her? How could she and her family have done such a thing to this society?

We have had other members of the White Privileged Supreme Society members who have been “outed”. Major difference – they didn’t out themselves to claim their minority heritage.

Wasn’t John Kerry accused of having Jewish ancestors or was it Madelin Albright? And then there were those accused of having African ancestors who they didn’t acknowledge and being dumped on because of it and because they were accused of ‘passing for white.’ When that is the narrative with the society doing the outing White Supremacy is safe. When the narrative is about someone the rest of you considered “White” and who is fairly frequently throwing up in your face that she really also has Native American ancestors – that is a very different narrative and threatens the very fabric out of which this society was woven.

Elizabeth Warren acknowledges her Native American ancestors without shame and in fact with some pride and so she has to be excoriated because that is totally unacceptable in this society. What if others started to do the same following her example? What a mess we would then have on our hands.

Bigotry pops out in many different ways and this is one way bigotry has jumped out without a white sheet and pointy hat, but with the same emotion and to do the same job.

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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.

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

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Trump Talk @ Congress Stirs

Wednesday, February 6th, 2019

A Conglomeration of Comments

by: Bettina Network Members

  • I heard and saw Donald Trump’s talk to Congress, the Supreme Court Judges and so many more and couldn’t keep my mind focused. It has strayed whenever anything about Trump surfaces because what I can’t reconcile is TRUMP – PROSTITUTION – STONE!                                    
  • We have just been through a lot with the arrest and indictment of Roger Stone. Most striking to me was the fact that Roger Stone shared an apartment in New York with a woman who was referred to as an ex-madam, who commiserated with Roger Stone because she remembered what it was like to be arrested by the police. And she talked about knowing Donald Trump, who she considered a friend.
  • Given how close Donald Trump and Roger Stone have been over the years Trump could not help but know about this arrangement and knowing Rogers’ friend he would know she was an ex-Madam. I couldn’t help but take the next step to wonder if the compromat Russia has on Trump is his involvement with prostitution. Not the kind of hanging around in a Russian Hotel peeing on the bed with other prostitutes, but the kind of being a mafia Don where prostitution – the kind which is the selling of women’s bodies – is generally always a part of most mafia organizations’ income.
  • I could be wrong about this, but looking at the history and all else it certainly rings true in my mind. et tu?

The Look of Congress during Donald Trump’s Talk!

It was quite something to see the cameras pan across Congress to show us the look of our government when all are gathered together.

I saw one group, interspersed with many Congress people in white – the women of Congress. However, they were all seated on one side with one group – the Democrats. There were also hijabs sprinkled amongst them and colors from white to brown to black. The features of those seated in the Congressional Seats on the Democrat’s side were from Asian to Middle Eastern to African to Northern European. They were the America we mythologize; the America we sing to; the America we strive to be; the democracy we are and our ancestors were trying to build.

On the other side they were all white; almost totally northern european in looks – features – hair – ancestry; and almost totally male. They looked as though they would be at home in a Russian Parliament where the color is white and the gender is male.

Could that be what and why the collusion? the conspiracy? For white males to continue to dominate they must conspire to keep their countries with white males first and everyone else oppressed under them supporting them?

Elizabeth Warren and her Native American Ancestry!

I have been reading the coverage of Elizabeth Warren and her claim of a Native American Ancestry. It reminds me of the coverage of Rachel Dolezal when she clearly made a conscious decision to move from white to black and has lived her life in a black community ever since. The way the media attempted to pull her apart, to denigrate her, to make her the butt of many jokes, it was clear that Ms. Dolezal had touched a nerve.

Elizabeth Warren and her putting out in the public her family stories about being part Native American and not running away from that, but making it very public shows up the mythology of Affirmative Action. Our response to that says we know Affirmative Action did not work, did not give opportunity to minorities except in token ways, was not something we wanted to continue because we wanted the superiority of white and male to continue unabated. Anything that touches our myths attempting to destroy them must be ridiculed and the people who step out with something showing the lie of the myths by which we live must be either destroyed or made to heel.

The latest news story on Elizabeth Warren and her ancestry is about a form she filled in to attend a Texas School and goodness, she put in the place of race “Native American”. We can now all come running to bring up and make our denial of racism very clear. One can hear the jumps for joy and shouts as she is pilloried for doing such. Why pilloried? Because the media and others can claim that she was trying to take advantage of all of the ‘opportunities and goodies’ and advantages over whites which this society supposedly gives to Native Americans.

All of that sounds like a Trumpian – a lie told to hide a very ugly truth or to distract one from seeing something which would be damaging.

I was raised in a neighborhood which was very ‘integrated’. Quite unusual for these United States, but there are pockets of such here and there. In those pockets you will find people from blonde with blue eyes to very dark with kinky, thick hair. How does that happen? Especially since in this ‘integrated’ neighborhood everyone identified as black. You also had Jews in these neighborhoods because until the 1960’s Jews were considered black.

That happened because early on – even through the 1950’s and 1960’s there were many ‘mixed’ marriages. Marriages between African Americans and European Americans. That happened even during the time when that was against the law and you could wind up in jail. Whites who married blacks would quietly move into the black community and they, from that point on, identified as black because their children were to be considered and it was easier on everyone if that happened.

In our small community we knew those who were white, although that was not a topic of polite conversation.

Given the extreme mixing of Blacks, Irish and Native Americans in the deep south, there are many walking around this country with Native American ‘blood’ – or what we should more properly refer to as Native American roots. – hey Boston!! Check your ‘Irish” ancestry lately?

Since Native Americans were on the bottom of the ladder, not many acknowledged their ancestors if they were Native American. Anything but Native American was a step up. In most families, stories about Native American ancestry were ‘hushed up”. In Senator Warrens family, apparently they were told and passed down the generations.

What we have missed in this Elizabeth Warren story – or maybe we have not missed it because we want to have any opportunity to participate in the denial of our history and our bigotry – it took a lot of guts for Senator Warren to acknowledge her Native American roots in an application which she was filing to be able to move ahead. To know from family history that some part of your ancestry was in the Native American community is whispered about in close quarters not spread in public on application forms because the result would be your denial – with the claim of other reasons – or your not being able to move as far ahead as you would like to go because…… What the press and others want to make of this is quite Trumpian. It is an opportunity for them to pass back and forth in the society the lies about race told in their circles.

To take that stand in Texas, all those many years ago, was to put the possibility of your future move up in this society on the chopping block in favor of acknowledging and shouting out to everyone that you indeed walked around in this society carrying your Native American ancestry in the open – letting the sun shine in on it because it is a part of who you are. That is speaking truth and living that truth and making your move in your career taking along your total self. Look at how many people and how much custom and bigotry you aggravate and stir up.

Cudos to Senator Warren. May you live long and prosper and may you always continue to walk in your truth no matter the negative repercussions that might come therefrom. There are many of us who support your strength to be able to publicly and constantly acknowledge a family inheritance that many in this society would hide and run away from. The fact that you were acknowledging that inheritance all those many years ago and continue to do so today speaks to your courage, your truth and your character.

PLEASE do not allow the static you are going to receive constantly make you think, even for a moment, of denying your racial heritage – wear it proudly whether it brings you good or ill. In the end you will be encircled by those who appreciate what you have done because they realize and have lived the oppression even from those who do otherwise and hide their ancestry.

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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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

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.com

BILLIONAIRES UNITE!

Thursday, January 31st, 2019

The only thing Mr. Starbucks’ announcement about the possibility of a run for the presidency of these United States did for most people was to remind us that we have been screwed, raped, pillaged with practically everything taken away from us unless we spend our lives working from dawn to dusk for meager rewards – which will become even more lean as time goes on if they are allowed to continue.

Human beings and greed go together. It is one of the sins with which we are born and if we don’t work at constantly curbing our appetites we will all look like our current billionaire class – unmitigated greed, constantly searching for more, feeling poor unless that more comes into our coffers hourly; working to keep what we have, talking magnanimously about the charity we do and blaming the victim for not having what we have as billionaires. Those others could be in this group but for their laziness, lack of initiative, inability to lead, lack of vision, etc. etc. etc.

Some of us have helped to set up and enhance this system under which we operate; others work to make sure it continues; while still others see the evil, complain about it, speak eloquently about working to relieve the pain of the poor, but do nothing; others teach their children how to maintain within this system without sliding down another rung and others work hard just because that is how they were raised.

A few stories about this part of the societal structure and how it comes about:

  1. Because we have a vested interest in ‘bed & breakfast’ I will start with #Airbnb as an example of how the billionaire class is created – why it thrives – what it is about.

Bettina Network, inc. and Bettina’s Bed & Breakfast, inc. were the genesis for Airbnb. It is a classic example of how bigotry remains, thrives and supports the billionaire class and how the billionaire class supports its own and decides who will be let in. There is a thuggishness to those within and those chosen to enter.

When #Airbnb was founded it was on the back of an African American woman who worked over 20 years developing the concept and growing it by inches because venture capital money was and is not available to minorities or women. That is the most solid block in the foundation of this billionaire class. If they have a creed its foundational stone would be on the refusal to admit minorities or women except as tokens to disprove the rule.

Venture Capitalists sent Brian Chesky and two of his friends to the home of this African American woman to find out what she was doing, how, all the details they could glean. Our feelings about what happened circulate around the fact that they did not have an idea, a vision and saw Bettina Network, inc. from afar. They went into a Black woman’s home and family – put their feet under her table, ate her food and stole her business plan and vision. And – they knew nothing about bed & breakfast before that – they didn’t ‘find’ her through their own machinations or investigations or search for places to stay, they were sent by Capital Network in Central Square in Massachusetts to look at what she was doing as something they might steal and copy.

They were not graduates of Ivy League schools nor had they attended Ivy League schools and they had practically no business experience. Their experience consisted of brief times spent as entry level admin people. What they showed was their lack of character and their willingness to steal from someone else with all of the character traits that go along with that – and they did that in spades. Once established they even lied about their beginnings and where the idea for Airbnb came from.

What they created was a structure which incorporated their racism, their greed and more. It is clearly visible in the business they brought about for all to see.

Their racism structured into their corporation? It is entrenched and has many forms within the structure of Airbnb. The most obvious spits on the work of the civil rights leaders of the 1950’s and beyond. The Thurgood Marshall’s, the Jack Greenberg’s, those who litigated for years to move society to a more integrated place and were successful in that endeavor for a brief period of time. Before their legal work, if you applied to college you submitted your resume, your grades, your references and YOUR PICTURE.

Because it was not always possible to tell the color of a persons skin by their application alone, the picture helped Universities at the time to distinguish between applications and to make sure their entering classes were composed of majority white males and very few others.

That practice was deemed illegal through several law suits filed during the 1960’s and beyond. Universities stopped the practice of requiring a picture to accompany your application for admittance because of those law suits and because that practice was declared racist. That practice is now being turned on its head by Airbnb because to make a reservation at an accommodation through Airbnb one must submit a picture and that picture is more often than not used to determine whether or not you will be accepted as a guest.

Many have been discriminated against and have not been able to get reservations. There have been instances of minorities arriving at a home and being turned away with the owner or person at the house claiming the person engaged in ‘subterfuge’ to get a room. What was the subterfuge that got them turned away? A mixed Asian couple in California was turned away at about 10pm in storm conditions because one was Asian and the other of Northern European extraction. The picture they submitted for their reservation was of the Northern European extraction half of the couple. When the Asian woman appeared she was not acceptable so they had to find accommodations elsewhere. The host family claimed they “cheated” to get the room. That was not an isolated incident. The stories of discrimination from Blacks who tried to get accommodations, had to submit pictures and were subsequently turned down are legion.

It is a corporation structured to bring back that kind of racism from the 1950’s and earlier.

It is a corporation structured to make affordable housing almost unavailable and to bring out the greed of those who come near to use the web site.

It is a corporation which has been used by sex traffickers because it has set itself up in such a way that whoever has a need can use their web site and hide a lot they could not get away with, but for.

It is a corporation which, because of the way it is structured, has been a part of at least one client being murdered.

It is a corporation whose structure has allowed the destruction of many houses and estates in some of the most vile ways, causing the upheaval of neighborhoods with the wild parties that have happened in homes which were supposed to be used as a room or an estate for the night.

Investors put 1.2 billion dollars of investment money into Airbnb in promoting some of this society’s worse traits. It will soon go public and if that is successful we will have a corporate structure carrying on what many of us have tried to eliminate from this society for generations – and so it goes.

Isn’t it striking that the three people who started Airbnb and wound up with substantial venture capital money are people who showed themselves to lacking in good character, ethics, and more. Isn’t it striking that those character traits are what has handicapped this country to the point of finally seeing us wind up with a Donald Trump as president? A man who epitomizes exactly what Airbnb is about?

2. Let us move on to another such company founded and structured around questionable morals and character. – Take a look at Facebook. The vision of twins who engaged Zuckerberg to code their business idea. That however wound up the property of Zuckerberg who carried the idea into a corporate structure which is today wrecking havoc on this society in very gross, immoral and unethical ways.

What we are now trying to do is right this wrong which will not be possible because the corporate structure of Facebook has become too strong. It is being credited with being majorly responsible for the election to the presidency of Donald Trump, with the destruction of the privacy guaranteed to the citizens of the United States by the Constitution, with using private conversations and back and forth between family and friends as a front when in reality it sells every scrap of information it can glean to the marketeers and advertisers and others for 20 pieces of silver.

Take a look and analyze most of the corporate structures which have come up and have brought their owners billionaire status and see how they have used the backs of tens of thousands of people to attain their goals and have left the society stripped almost bare with a path for those without character, without good morals, without honesty.

Take a look and analyze and you will find they are all either northern european descendants – some middle easterners – ……

These are two of the most graphic examples, but there are many others.

Most notably, what has been happening and continues to happen is the groups of people looking around the world for up and coming corporations or LLC’s or neighborhood gatherings whose structure and ideas they can steal; that they can get funding for because those doing the developing could not – mostly because of their color and sex.

Because of our experience with the theft of our idea and work by what became Airbnb we have come across many. The stories were all eerily similar and nothing was done about any of it. Look furiously – not within yourselves – but at what others are doing which looks successful – find venture capitalists to fund your stealth and move on into the billionaire’s club. Once you get there all will be forgotten and those who do remember the unethical road you took will soon be dead so just hang on and you will become one of the racist, sexist corporate structures in this society which maintains who we are without any of those others moving up to challenge our superiority. It may happen temporarily, but the business class has insured that this move to open up this society making it more diverse will not last. Remember Martin Luther King, Jr’s sacrifice? How much of what was achieved by so many has been reversed seriously by those now moving up?

And it is not limited to the United States. In other countries where people of brown and black complexions have begun to move up in these corporations – they are swiftly removed and replaced with a whiter skin person with a penis. We have heard many of those stories. Stories that parallel what has been happening in this country for generations. Remember Madame C. J. Walker? Think about all those others, people of color and women, who struggled so mightily with others, white, male, etc. reaping the rewards for their labor, their vision, their imagination.

And what happens now?

A note from Marceline Donaldson: My garden has been torn up – literally the garden in front of my house. My business has been upheaveled! I have been threatened! and so much more. but I am old and neither sickness nor death fazes me so none of that scares me nor does it make me drop the struggle.

What does move me to a furious state is to continue to see this and to know that my children will have to undertake this same struggle when I thought my work and life would make theirs easier. My grandfather worked his entire life to change this society so his children and grandchildren would have a better life and would not have to dedicate so much of their lives and times to this struggle; so did my grandmother; so did my mother; and so have I. My children deserve better and so do your children. I have not paid nearly the price others have paid trying to bring about basic change.

Watching the young people coming along behind the disaster that was Donald Trump thinking they are going to make basic change is heart breaking – the system looks stacked against them. All I can do from my perch is to wonder when and how they will be taken down and replaced with Northern European – very white males and our young people made to pay for their arrogance of thinking they can make such basic change. If they could, the color of our total billionaire group would not be white, male, with some middle easterners – Saudi Arabians – thrown in and one or two African American men and a woman or two. That billionaire group – those who will totally control tomorrow look like Donald Trump’s cabinet and all those other groups where color is absent and women are practically extinct.

_______________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale

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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

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.com

_________________________________________________________

Bettina Oracle Speaks

Tuesday, January 29th, 2019

The end of Donald Trump: Illegitimate President of the United States

You folks need to stop bothering me and take care of your business. If you don’t, the next generation will simply have to repeat this scenario which has been repeated for generations without resolving anything. Learn a bit of history, your own history and you will be appalled at what you see – if you have any goodness left in your genes.

You are riddled with liars, murderers covering for each other, persecutions of innocent children, and so much more. The Jews of Hitlers Germany have been replaced by the Children of the United States who are being slaughtered with guns in your streets and in their schools and the Children of Immigrants, who are being put in Concentration Camps and are now being murdered. Those children who have have come to your country – some with their parents, some without – seeking asylum and refuge from so much evil. Their skin is brown and black and your bigotry won’t allow for that. Too many such colors in these United States already.

You need to be full of integrity, good character, working to eliminate poverty, homelessness, BIGOTRY – which is the genesis of all of your society’s ills. You need to stop allowing the likes of Donald Trump who is taking from his evil twins in history and ripping children from their parents; making slaves of those in prison who have suffered under massive incarcerations to do the bidding of the evil institutions in this world of yours and so much more. And no, Trump did not start all of this, but he is the inheritor and chief propagator of the evil coming through today. And to end this, all it takes is moral courage and who amongst you has that? You are all called, but who amongst you answers the call? This is still happening today after thousands of years of such history because only a few answer the call. The rest of you raise up those few and feel that your work is done because of that raising up and acknowledging those heroes. Interestingly, your heroes are never raised up in their own generation. That happens only after they are safely dead.

OK! So you want to know what is happening?

Roger Stone was indicted – did you notice how swift that happened with all of the charges against him not in that court document of indictment? Have you noticed the rumblings of major change? Are you beginning to hear many voices raised to call out the evil? Evil doubles down when those rumblings start.

What do we see: We see Whitaker having stopped the Mueller investigation by declaring to them they will not be allowed any more indictments. Stone is the last and he slipped through by a fluke. No indictments allowed against Donald Trump, against Jr., against Jared Kushner, against Steve Bannon, against Ivanka Trump, against Eric Trump.

Mueller can’t step up to the microphone to tell you this. There are enough bread crumbs along the way, however, for you to see this yourselves.

All of this must be settled and ended before or shortly after Barr takes on the post of Attorney General. He will clear Trump using the foundation set by Whitaker, a man who has been promised much, but who will be dumped on and pushed aside after his work is done – without his promised rewards. If he is lucky, he will leave with a loaf of bread, but no butter. Maybe as he sees his expectations so dashed he will step up to the moral plate and attempt to bring about something else – but he does not look like a soul who is destined to be a great hero.

All bets, in your society, are on the Democrats coming through in 2020 and taking over the government so the United States does not have to step up to the plate and deal with its sins. That is the way taken by lazy souls who want, but don’t want to give or risk. Cover-up is whats going on. Isn’t that what went on with Nixon? And his sins don’t begin to compare to the Trump Family Criminal Enterprise. Didn’t the Trump followers just blatantly take the sanctions from one of the wealthy, prominent Russians in their last days? And who will go against that and set it right? No one, so far.

What always amazes me is the ability of human beings to see themselves as ‘different from’, better than, – Trump may have treated those others badly, but I am going to be treated differently. All of my dreams will be realized because Trump promised me that…………..

And Khashoggi? Does Trump walk away having done a major work in covering up and taking the Saudi prince out of the spotlight? Did that give you a peep under the rug to see who is really working the gears and producing the results? It is definitely not Putin, although all media has anointed him as the one to whom Trump is beholden.

Trump and Putin are beholden to a mafioso who is so big in this world he makes the Italians look like thugs on the street and the Irish not far behind and lets not even begin to talk about the African American and other mafia.

You are going to be witnesses to how the clean-up ends. You can watch it with clear eyes or you can let the mythology replace reality. What mythology? That which was put into place to insure the rich get richer; the evil don’t pay; the thugs realign and move off into the sunset with new partners to get richer in tomorrows world. And the rest of you? Passing your lack of moral courage on to your next generation to preserve them in that struggling middle to upper middle class so they can pass the lack of moral courage you inherited on for many more generations.

So you asked – so I’ve said!

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Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale

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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

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.com

_________________________________________________________

Marceline’s Story – continued!

Thursday, December 6th, 2018

Ed. Note:  We invite you to send us your story.  You can send and request that we not put your name as the person in the story.  Having discovered how rich are the lives of those in Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community, it would be great for you to share with the rest of us.

This story was not written by Marceline Donaldson.  It was sent to us by someone who knows her – more having observed her life than someone who was a close friend.  She was not too happy to publish it, but we prevailed so your feedback by sending your stories would be much appreciated.

The “Marceline’s story” she refers to, in case you are confused – because we were – can be found in this blog https://www.bettina-network.com/blog/archives/4804

 

A “Friend’s” Observation of a life full of lessons on oppression and how it affects those who are forced to experience it.

A difficult and awkward title, but its is the best I could do and I am not sure you are going to publish it.  Hope you do.  In this era of Donald Trump and the rise of the racist/sexist groups we need to know what others experience.

I was born and raised in Minneapolis.  Most would consider me fairly wealthy.  Until Marceline came along I really didn’t think much about that.  I suppose I took it for granted that I was supposed to live as I did.

My first conscious experience of race and sex discrimination was when I saw what happened to Marceline when she moved into a house not far from me in Wayzata.  I would see her in Church on Sundays, but didn’t pay much attention.  We didn’t travel in the same circles, but the affect what happened to her had on my life was profound.

I always lived in White communities.  My neighbors and everyone around me were White.  Somehow that didn’t strike me as being racist or racism and certainly not sexism.  I just lived the way I was raised without question.  It was a comfortable life.  My friends were great and people I had known for a lifetime.  And then along comes this woman with small children and the neighborhood went ballistic.

From a very safe distance I watched what happened.  A friend of mine was involved and all were very angry like – ‘who does she think she is; doesn’t she know her place; why did she have to move into our community wasn’t her own good enough for her?”  And then I saw the damage done to her house before she could move in and felt the shock that I knew people who could do such a thing.  It was profound.

That wasn’t the first time this same woman caused a stir.  I heard the stories of what happened before Marceline moved into my neighborhood.  Apparently, she lived in another neighborhood in Wayzata and the man who owned the house was appalled at a black family living in his house.  I don’t know how she moved in without his knowing she was African American, but watching Marceline over the years, today, that doesn’t surprise me one bit.

He bragged about waiting until Marceline left the house with her children and he then went in and ripped the faucets apart all over the house so there would be no water.  I couldn’t imagine coming home with my children and finding the faucets all over my house ripped off and lying around.  It was when I heard that story that I began to realize I lived in a White neighborhood without any of “the others” living around me because people like that horrible man existed.  He and others were people in the society in which I lived who made sure my neighborhood would always be White.  That was an eye opener and I have never been the same.

There was a small buzz at Church that Sunday and when I joined the “buzz” group I discovered what happened after the faucets were removed.  Apparently, Marceline called an attorney and was going to have the home owner arrested for what he did.  He backed down because she was in the process of also calling the media and I don’t think he wanted the publicity.

After that, everyone expected her to leave the neighborhood and move into a black neighborhood where – as the talk went – she would be more ‘comfortable’, but she didn’t do that.  She moved into a more exclusive part of the neighborhood – which means an area where the kind of separatism with which I grew up reigned and the people would do everything they could to fend her off – and they had the power to do it ‘under the table’.

“Her story” picks it up from there, but her life was not easy and with several small children I still don’t know how she survived all of that to still be here and still fighting the battles that we set her up to fight so she and others like her would not move into “our” neighborhoods.

That changed my life.  I was no longer unconscious about the dynamics in my neighborhood.  I haven’t become a civil rights fighter.  In fact I don’t get involved, but I do send money to others who are fighting and keep up with many of the battles going on.

You are probably calling me a coward about now, but that is all I could and can handle and unless lightning strikes I will continue in that vein.  It isn’t much, but it did determine how I raised my children and they are far more active than I am and very much aware of the diversity or lack of it in whatever they do and wherever they live.  I don’t think they realize they owe that to their mother’s experience many decades ago.

If you don’t print this, its alright.  I just wanted you to know a part of how my story and Marceline’s intersected. I wish I could have been more involved, but that is just not who I am.  Mostly, I feel guilty from having watched all of that and did not reach out to help.  That is probably why I decided to write this.   I often think if I had called her to tell her what was going on in the background even that little bit could have helped, but I couldn’t bring myself to do even that.  What I did do was to raise my children in a very different way from how I was raised.  I am amazed I’ve written this and fully intend to send it to you.  Please don’t put my name to anything.

P. S.  I am sending a donation and will continue to send donations because I very much want to see this publication and this business succeed.

_________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale

Project 2 – 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.com

 

It Is Time to Boycott Wells Fargo Bank! – #WellsFargo

Sunday, December 2nd, 2018

Bettina Network Foundation, inc. is calling on everyone to join in and actively participate in this boycott of Wells Fargo Bank.

For a very long time banks have been fundamental in making sure there is none to very little change in this society.  Racism, sexism, homophobia, class discrimination, who owns and keeps the wealth in this country and so much more are determined by your local bank – which is probably no longer local but is the branch or unattended outlet of a major, international banking plus other businesses institution.  And most notably they are majorly responsible  for homelessness.  Not entirely, to be sure, but they do maintain the structure – in tact – no matter how loud or long they protest their innocence.

What do they gain?  One thing is keeping us divided against each other so communication as to what they are doing is knowledge kept and known only to a few.

How is wealth created in these United States?  Through either real estate or stock.  Either through ownership of land – real property – as it increases in value, or through ownership in corporations as they increase in value.

Many people have tried to increase their wealth and have been stymied.  Mostly by the banks – even though we are not ignoring the role of other institutions. Unfortunately, in spite of our great educations, most of us are ignorant of how this happens and therefore it continues.

How has this happened?  Little by little we hope to unfold for you all of it so you can function with a knowledge that makes your actions and your life more productive.

Banks have in the past and still do today majorly maintain segregated neighborhoods through “red lining”.  They are helped in this endeavor by some realtors, but brokers, dealers, realtors can’t take all the credit.  Most of it goes to the banks.

Red lining is an old way of maintaining separation of peoples based on things like color, economic and financial status, etc. which has not gone out of existence.   It has just gone underground and periodically takes on new forms.  Banks do not maintain that separation of peoples only through red lining, they do it through the intentional destruction of neighborhoods targeted for “urban renewal” or for a change of a neighborhoods racial make-up or etc.  There are billions of dollars involved and to be made by those who are a part of such transactions along with the loss of lives, livelihoods and more.

Which bank is the most egregious bank of them all?  WELLS FARGO!

In spite of tens of thousands of dollars having gone into the legal process to get them to change and many other ways which have been tried to approach this problem, Wells Fargo is still ripping off the American public – and probably many overseas as well.  As a result of the legal processes, which they lost, the only change we can see is a new and improved marketing and advertising program which the bank has rolled out instead of making restitution in real ways to those they have hurt.  That marketing and advertising program is nothing more than smoke and mirrors to get you to continue doing business with them so they can continue doing that business as usual.  And lets not talk about fines, etc. imposed on Wells Fargo.  To you and me that is like money to go to the store to buy ice cream or a pizza given their overall finances.

The ugliness, which has hurt so many,  is still enshrined within the bank along with its structures and the people who carry them out.  Most are people who carry out these policies to put food on their tables and to keep a roof over their heads.  Many are people competing to have better food and a more expensive roof over their heads.  It is time to take another look at what you can do and how you – Wells Fargo employees – can contribute to bringing about basic change, accepting your responsibility for being one of those making the lives of others extremely difficult so you and yours can benefit.  There are ways you can help bring about basic change and maintain your job and your increasingly lucrative and going up the ladder of success lifestyle.  You don’t have to concentrate on or be involved in only the one – because you are likely to be one of those against whom you moved to make their lives difficult to impossible.  History shows that is probably going to be the result of your efforts, if you continue on the path you are now taking.

Exposure is one way!  Open the windows, throw open the doors and let fresh air flow through.  Let the general public know what is going on and what we can do to make basic change so we all benefit.

Bettina Network Foundation, inc. is calling one way we can all move towards changing this society for the better:

  1.  If you have a savings account with Wells Fargo – close it.  You can open it with another bank.  And yes,  all banks are complicit, but you have to start someplace.  One bank has to make change and one very large bank with lots of influence and which has been shown to be a bank which destroys lives, property, the quality of lots of peoples way of life and keeps on keeping on going down the wrong street ripping peoples lives apart is a good place to start.

2.  Once you have closed your savings account, let us know and let Wells Fargo know you closed your account and why!

3.  If you have a checking account with Wells Fargo – close it.

4.  And once again, let us know and let Wells Fargo know you closed your checking account and why!

5.  If you own stock in Wells Fargo – sell it.  And let Wells Fargo know you sold your stock in their bank and any subsidiaries you can find – let us know about the subsidiaries and let us and Wells Fargo know you sold your stock and why!

6.  And this is a biggy!  Do you own stock in other publicly traded corporations?  Check out who is the transfer agent responsible for keeping the records for that publicly traded corporation.  If it is Wells Fargo Shareowner Services or EG by Equiniti – demand that the corporation change its transfer agent and hire another totally unconnected to Wells Fargo.

Wells Fargo Shareowner Services, from our experience, did lots to hurt John and Jane Q. Public.  Instead of responding to what they did they simply changed their name, ignored the problems they created and kept on moving ahead.  This is common for many corporations.  It is time for this to stop and you have the power to stop these under handed activities.

A statement taken from Equinity’s marketing materials – “Even though Wells Fargo has sold its transfer agency business, our relationship with Wells Fargo remains strong. We will continue to use banking and brokerage services provided by Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo will continue to use us as its transfer agent.”

Today’s Story is only one, but it begins to unfold why we are promoting and managing this boycott and what we want changed?  Bettina Network Foundation, inc’s goal is to eliminate homelessness.  That is a growth area in this society and the ways it has been attacked have not worked.  It is time to look at the base reasons and eliminate and change them so everyone has food, shelter and work in this very wealthy society.  We do not need to continue on this path of the rich getting richer and the middle class becoming homeless.

TODAY’S STORY!

“We owned Dayton-Hudson stock and we owned Target Corp stock for decades. When
Dayton-Hudson became Target Corp. all of our stock became Target Corp. stock. We kept that stock for decades. When we needed to sell the stock because we needed the money
for business purposes and needed that asset changed to cash quickly – as promised it would be by Target Corporation and the Securities and Exchange Commissio – we had to go through Wells Fargo Shareowner Services.

When we contacted Wells Fargo Shareowner Services to ask that they sell the stock – it became a several years consumption of money, time, emotional energy and more.

A transaction that should have taken a few minutes to send a letter with the appropriate form – accurately filled out – and then the next step taken by Wells Fargo Shoreowner Services should have been just four days for the stock to be sold and just a very short time after that for the money to be deposited into my account.  That process  actually took almost three years. Why? We have many theories, but why is irrelevant. What is relevant is
that our money was kept and our access to an asset which the Securities and Exchange Commission supposedly is the watch dog agency to make sure things like this does not happen all were useless in the face of Wells Fargo. Whatever they did was accepted and acceptable and I was put in the position of first a supplicant – please get this done, I need my money;  through to a very angry woman demanding her assets be treated and acted upon per her request.

WHY did I have to go through this? Because the Direct Purchase Plan with Target Corporation gave Wells Fargo Shareowner Services – the transfer agent for Target Corporation – the right to keep the stock certificates of the stock we owned. I was told many stories as to why that was the best thing to do – “when you are ready to sell there is no issue with the stock certificates, they are in the possession of Wells Fargo Shareowner Services or whichever transfer agent Target Corporation was using and the sale of the stock will be stress free for everyone and able to be executed in minutes.”

That was a lie! If, for any reason one of those corporations wants to move against you without showing their hand because you are a political or other kind of nuisance, you have given them the ability to do just that and they will use it – to harass you and make your financial life a shambles at their discretion and Wells Fargo Shareowner Services was the champion at doing that.  Leave your stock certificates for safe keeping with their services and they control your asset and no one is going to come to your rescue.  Attorneys will, costing more than the stock is worth, but no one else moves to help no matter their job description or their mandate.

Target Corporation, in spite of going all the way up the ladder from Customer Service to the “investment” area to the CEO of Target Corporation refused any kind of help.  To them, the responsibility was with Wells Fargo Shareowner Services and they closed off communications of all kind.  Letters went unanswered, pleas went unheeded, the door to the Executive Suite slammed shut.  This was not their problem.  But – said I – this is your stock not Wells Fargo’s stock.  Mean silence prevailed.

It took almost three years of going back and forth with Wells Fargo Shareowner Services, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Attorney Generals Office and more such institutions. When a lawyer became involved – only then were our wishes heeded.  At that point the asset was gone – attorneys don’t come cheap.  So while their goal was not fulfilled one way, it was indeed fulfilled in another way even more effective because it took my time, the asset and emotional energy to get to that solution.

When we started the process of asking that the Target Stock be sold, Wells Fargo Shareowner Services had just taken over as Target Corporations transfer agent. Today just three plus years later ownership of that Wells Fargo Shareowner Services has been transferred to Equinity. The same people are at the top and all through the ranks so what happened? Did their problems multiply because of the way they did business and the number of people they hurt that the easiest thing for them to do was not to make amends for their sins, but to transfer ownership so they did not have to take responsibility and did not have to correct their wrongs?  Talk to Equiniti and you will be told – sorry that is not our problem, we are not the company with whom you had problems.  Clean – swift – vicious!”

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

That is a common way for such corporations to act and it is time for that to stop. If you hurt someone you need to make amends and make those people whole again at the same time changing the processes which caused the problem in the first place.

So we will go back to asking you to check your stock certificates on any stock you own – if the transfer agent is Wells Fargo Shareowner Services or if it is Equiniti, demand that the corporation whose stock you own change their transfer agent or you sell the stock and buy into another corporation which uses another transfer agent and let us and them know what you have done.

We will publish your story with or without your name depending upon your request to us. Why without the name of the person involved? Because retaliation by corporations is common and many have experienced unnecessary hassle and harassment and loss because of corporations trying to silence the public so they can be allowed to continue doing ugly, vile things without taking responsibility and without making those people whole.

Small steps in the right direction have been taken, in the past, by expensive and long lasting law suits from which almost no one benefits.  It is time for that to change!

Your basic responsibility is to the human beings with whom you inhabit this earth, to make it a better – more viable – kinder – gentler – more caring place to live without the ugliness we have all had to endure because of greed, power hunger and other such emotions and character flaws which have pervaded the institutions which are supposed to be there to help us navigate this world in a more flawless manner.

Please pass this along to as many people as you can possibly reach who you think need to read this message and to keep up with this boycott.

What do we need to continue, promote and make this a successful boycott?

Your ideas

Your time and energy to do the work of carrying this forward

Your money to help us meet the costs of such an action

______Ways to Contact Wells Fargo Bank to let them know you will not do business with them

Corporate Headquarters*

420 Montgomery Street
San Francisco, California 94163
United States
Phone: 866-878-5865
_______________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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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

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.com

 

 

NOT Hillary Clinton – Heart Breaking!

Thursday, October 18th, 2018

by: Marceline Donaldson

Not long ago, I wrote a blog which held up Hillary and talked about her many contributions to the equality of everyone, especially women.

What I said in that blog was true and laudable, however, when I saw the interview Hillary just gave which absolved Bill Clinton from any responsibility in the Monica Lewinsky history, my Hillary Clinton statue sitting way up high in my interior house came crashing down with loud noises and bits and pieces flying all over the place until it all crashed to the ground.

You can’t have it all Hillary. There are times when hard stances have to be taken and to admit the failings of your husband is one of those hard stances.

Either you are a feminist or you are a politician who can lie to absolve someone you love.  When you and Bill met and became involved in a relationship which led to marriage, it was apparently a relationship between equals.  Bill Clinton, however, showed you who he was when he went on to other relationships, while keeping you as his “main fling”.  Those were not equal relationships, they were liaisons which were formed out of unequal positions and totally reflected the unequal power of women in this society in which he used women for his own male superiority needs. Clearly he is conflicted and while he has tried hard to work for the equality of all of us he still has vestiges of male superiority which he has either not worked to eliminate or can’t.

When you absolve him and you tell the world there was nothing he did wrong in that relationship with Monical Lewinsky – that he did not take advantage of the power differences to move on Lewinsky taking advantage of her needs, known or unknown to her, he was the adult in the room and he showed himself ready, willing, able and moving to use his power to compromise women for his own needs with no consideration for the women.

Not only did he show that tendency with Lewinsky, but he used his growing power to subjugate other women – clearly shown by the affairs he had while still married to you.

I don’t want to abrogate everything Bill Clinton has done in this society.  He has made substantial contributions, but while making those contributions he was not able to control or subdue his male superiority needs – his misogyny.

You also had a choice.  Follow and act out of your beliefs or stop espousing them and keep quiet.  You can’t have it both ways.  You have claimed a feminist stand, but when it really counted you were among those on the other side.  Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton were not equals.  Bill Clinton, as president of the United States took advantage of a 22 year old intern working in and around his offices and society condemned the young woman because of its misogyny.  If you can’t admit that – your feminism is a game you play when convenient.

I had no idea that is where you stood on the Lewinsky affair until I heard and saw you in that interview.  Clearly, you knew better.  Your demeanor, your face, your expressions and your answer showed that.  I am so sorry that one of my idols has fallen.  I guess that is why my religion does not allow idols made of clay – they fall and break.  Does that make a lie of your life?  No!  You have achieved much and you have done much for the equality of women.  But it does make a lie of much that you have espoused.  When put to the test you came up among the missing. That is what’s wrong with our political system.  We need to be able to distinguish the Hillary Clinton’s from the Heidi Heitcamp’s.  And, even while I make that comparison, I am sure one day Heidi will come up missing.  I will pray she is strong enough to continue to stand for what she believes, but I will know our humanity always overcomes.

We  sacrifice, as you have done, our own moral and ethical standards to support someone who claims to believe what we believe.  That is what is happening around this country with people supporting Donald Trump.  They claim his ethics and character don’t matter as long as he supports their issues.  The immorality of that is blatant and we are all now paying the price for electing someone with that excuse.  That is an extreme example of what you did supporting Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky affair, but in the end isn’t that the fatal flaw in our republic?

Looking at your life and actions, so sure and so strong,  I thought you were one of those people who lived her beliefs and I was wrong.

____________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

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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

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.com

 


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