It has been amazing to see how Trump has gone about destroying America and bringing it down to size so Putin could benefit and control the world. Who will manage to gain world control first – Putin or Bezos? Very different play books; lifestyles, goals and objectives.
First: Giuliani.
Why was he brought in? What is his goal? What are his marching orders?
One can only hope he has more care and concern for the United States than he does for Trump. Sometimes, however, that has not been so clear. His morality and values have been showing for quite some time and they don’t look as though he wears a “white hat”.
We think Giuliani’s two week deadline is dead serious. Not that Mueller’s investigation will be wrapped up by that time – this coming Thursday – but it didn’t sound to us as though those two weeks were about Mueller finishing his investigation. He can’t be allowed to do that because Trump isn’t coming out looking good. In fact, Trump is looking like crap with morals and values that make Giuliani’s look like Jesus’.
What has been clear to us is that by this coming Thursday, Giuliani will be present at Trump’s side as he fires Mueller. Hasn’t Giuliani surfaced to be present at the ‘execution’ – so to speak. To help pick up the pieces and be one of Trump’s people helping so Trump won’t be alone as he manages the fallout from that act. And, possibly so Giuliani comes out ‘top dog’ in a way he could never be otherwise.
If you have any doubts, listen to the Fox interview with ‘President’ Trump and what most call the ‘rant’, but which actually sounds as though it is something coming from someone who can’t control the power he thinks will soon be in his hands.
Second: Putin’s Americanized Playbook!
Now that Trump has done his best to cause as much disruption in the American Government as possible, especially by putting into government people who are diametrically opposed to the cabinet position to which they have been appointed to wreck all of those areas with upheaval causing distractions as a bonus, the next step – so thinks Putin, Trump and company – should be a breeze.
All of the upheaval Trump has put down – after having given himself a mental out, if things take a turn in the wrong direction – now makes it easier to establish American Oligarch’s in the Putin/Russian style.
When the Soviet Union became Russia there was a lot of publicly owned utilities, monopolies and more such huge structures hanging out waiting for the next step. That next step was to ‘privatize’ – Russian style – all or most of those structures making a handful of Russians unimaginably wealthy. They then built a human shield around Putin so his taking over would be complete – the creation of the ‘super wealthy’ class – the Russian Oligarchs.
That Russian playbook, we think, has been translated American style and that is what Trump is following. How? Privatize as much of America as possible and put the largest structures, now publicly owned into the hands of the select few who would be the American counterparts to the Russian Oligarchs by having them form the human shield around Trump. We’ve seen the attempt and plan to privatize the armed forces, – the VA, eliminate the Education Dept, kill the Energy Dept. and on and on it goes.
That is being played out with the Veterans Affairs structure. The number 7, 8 or 9, if it were on the largest 100 corporations in America, being privatized would be a very large step on the way to achieving that goal.
Trump, having fired the head of the VA when he took office was an early step. It has been complicated by the American spirit which tends to be generationally republic on its way to a democracy. That is a very different mind set than was in Russia when Putin took it over. A mindset we don’t believe Putin or Trump could begin to understand.
Having fired McDonald – who had been head of Proctor and Gamble – probably, we think, because he was not into privatization of the VA of which Obama set him up to head, finding someone else who would be open to do the Russian Oligarch thing in America has not been an easy task. That could not be someone with experience. It would ideally be someone with not even the beginnings of experience on that level. Someone who could be manipulated without knowing it; who was willing to go ahead with the privatization plan or at the very least who would not know the privatization plan was in play, moving ahead under his inability to watch over such a large organization. Someone whose ego would carry him away as head of such prestige who wouldn’t really care what was happening on his watch as long as it didn’t affect him. Someone like Pruitt at the EPA – so busy lining his own pockets he could care less what was happening and the best way to distract from what he is doing is to cause upheavals and take resources to deal with his mess.
Now what! How does the playbook continue in play with Trump losing it because he is actually, experience wise, in the position Ronnie Jackson was in when he was elected president. That is quite a parallel. Trump had about an equivalent amount of experience when he took over the American government as president and Putin was clearly aware of that fact.
What was really wrong with Hillary Clinton, as far as this Russian plan was concerned? She was totally experienced and ready to be a totally functioning president. It would not be possible to put over on her the kinds of things Putin and Company have put over on Trump. Some say Putin favored Trump because of his dislike of Hillary. We think that is ridiculous given what is at stake. Likes and dislikes don’t come into play when one is shooting for the high stakes in this game.
Trump has probably worn out his welcome with Russia and Putin, so now what! Clearly, his usefulness has come to an end. So have his dreams of Trump Tower Moscow. The “privatization” of huge public companies is going no place so the creation of the equivalent in America to Russian Oligarchs has come to an end. Do they have an alternative game plan to bring in in case of failure of this one?
The part of the playbook we were most amazed at was the willingness of Putin and Trump to throw as many “mafia” types into top positions in the United States as needed hoping enough would stick to get the game way down the road to success. Failures would just be dropped into the sewer. The penalty the failures would receive would be their name, reputation and future smashed.
Trumps’ problem and what slowed him down to a stop even though he tried very hard was not being able to get rid of the media with his calls of “Fake News” and other such tactics so what was happening would not be noticed. The United States media is roughly akin to the Putin concept of how to take down America – throw as many “news hounds” as possible against the wall. Some will stick and climb to the top, others will fall by the way side, but there will be no end to those begging to be thrown against the wall even if it means serious injury to health, life, wealth and family. And so the U. S. media, in the end, will help the U. S. citizenry win the game they don’t even know they are playing and don’t have a clue it is being played against them.
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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. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
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A Current Example of Bullying – Trump and Macron!
Thursday, April 26th, 2018Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron are back in France and have left the American public with lots to talk about and even more to think through.
President Trump has a way of bullying those who arrive as “important guests” both domestic and foreign from the moment he holds out his hand to shake theirs. The only person on whom he did not use this bullying handshake was Vladimir Putin. Trump has a bullying handshake where he makes the person on the other side wince as he pulls their arm and then the rest of their body towards him with one of the most bullying handshakes I have ever seen.
Emmanuel Macron was no exception. Macron, however, has made it his mission not be bullied by this handshake nor to be passive in an attitude of acceptance with a “this too shall pass” sub-text. He has taken on Trump’s handshake and given back which, during this visit, resulted in an amazing display.
The media and many others took it as a “bromance”. To say they missed the point is to say they exist in a society which accepts and does its best to ignore and deny sexual abuse in its many forms. That is exactly what we saw Emmanuel Macron put through during his trip to these United States.
President Macron, however, gave the country an exquisite example of how to handle such a bullying. Bullying of all kind will be with us forever if we don’t start calling it what it is when we see someone being bullied instead of finding other ways to describe what we know is an act of unashamed bullying. That could have been an example of a woman being abused and I think the media would have talked about a budding romance instead of stepping in to stop the atrocity – which is what we saw acted out before the world.
Trump’s initial handshake was returned in kind and Trump’s bullying was on high display as he responded to the need to push Macron down to puff himself up – in front of the world. I hope others have the guts and insight to come forward to condemn the display President Trump put on as his ego kept pushing him to uglier heights. Not even children would have participated in that dandruff act.
Not to be deterred by how ugly he was appearing to all, Mr. Trump continued trying to oppress and subjugate President Macron and Macron’s response should be in a book on bullying as one person’s way of brilliantly handling an extremely distressful and continuous almost non-stop display of oppression and bullying. Instead of seeing and commenting on what was actually happening, the media continued to claim – “they must like each other.”
Beginning with the handshake, Trump practically bowled Macron over as he tried to pull him towards himself. Macron responded by maintaining and giving back to Trump what he got from the handshake and responding and making it about the ‘French Kiss” by putting his arm around Trump and kissing him on both cheeks. Since it seems possible that Trump goes both ways, President Macron’s attempts didn’t land the way he intended.
and on and on it went.
Clearly, Macron’s response – his coup de grace – was put forward during his speech to the American Congress during which Macron laid out his policies and ideas including almost all of Trump’s policy stances and the beliefs Trump has made a part of his ‘reign’ as president. President Emmanuel Macron’s stances were totally opposite to Donald Trump’s. In giving that speech, President Macron did not wince, pull back, chance his beliefs, etc. He was forthright, forthcoming and clear and he had the American Congress with him – showing where they really stood when any possible attempts at blackmail, bullying, pushing were removed and one could respond as one felt.
Clearly, Melanie Trump showed she was truly the wife and soul mate of Donald Trump when she appeared in the white suit with hat which at one point moved Brigitte Macron out of the picture. When she appeared with “the Don” it was clear the arrogance and posturing of one was totally acceptable and generated pride in the other. They appeared in a strong statement which looked totally out of place for the company, the situation, the reflection of herself as hostess. She was clearly uncaring about Brigitte Macron and was only out to outshine and put forth her worth – which she apparently holds as her body and what she puts on it. The sexist male – the misogynist male has a female counterpart whose chief value is invested in how she looks. It was an outsized look and had a very hard edge which did not show as the hostess, but as the guest attempting to outshine all the other guests.
In his speech to Congress, President Macron came across as human, compassionate and seriously working to make this a better world for the least of these. His wife, Brigitte, looked like a caring, compassionate and serious person who was working with her husband and while her dress was quite elegant, it was also very human. She was not trying to outshine, outdo, send out an image to puff herself up or any of that. She was dressed in a lovely “human’ way. The contrast was astounding.
As I looked at all of that my mind brought me back to Barbara Bush’s funeral and life. Her funeral, for me, was a brief moment of public respite. At the end, she gave us a time to reflect, to think, to move away from the upheaval – panic – intensity of nothingness – the passionate hiding of something unsavory. There was no name calling; no trying to upstage and outshine; no arrogance; no posturing; just people coming to witness to the life of someone they knew either as a close friend or in her capacity as mother, wife, First Lady, volunteer, helper to those in need, etc. Somehow, I could not see Melanie Trump ever being such a lovely, humble person who knew who she was and presented herself not as an artificial model using her body to sell whatever it was she was selling. The hat ruined the suit and showed a person with a very hard edge who was anything but a warm, caring human being. I have yet to see any of those qualities in either Melanie or Donald Trump and that white hat and suit emphasized the arrogance, artificiality and lying image of the couple. What is a ‘lying image”? Presenting oneself as an image projecting not who you are but projecting that which one needs to show to make public one’s concept of power and control and that ‘better than’ attitude so constantly projected by the Kushner/Trump family.
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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. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
Tags: Barbara Bush, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, breakfast table talk, Brigitte Macron, Donald Trump, Emmanuel Macron, Melania Trump, politics
Posted in Barbara Bush, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Brigitte Macron, Clothes, Donald Trump, Emmanuel Macron, Guest comments, Melania Trump, politics, Vladimir Putin | Comments Off on A Current Example of Bullying – Trump and Macron!