May your day be full of love, God, and so much more. May it overflow with goodness, wisdom and God’s love.
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ed. note: It is always great to receive your responses. If you have anything to which you want to respond from Bettina Network’s blog or if you just have something to say, please send your comments to us via email – bettina-network@comcast.net.
Person 1. I read your Omarosa blog and it was fantastic. I would like to point out the racism I saw in the news reports as people respond to what is happening. Many, many people start with what has almost become a tag line – “they are so much alike, after all, Trump created Omarosa.” Or some version of that ie “after all Omarosa is a Trump creation, Trump created her.” Variations on that comment have been on several news shows. The bigotry of that is palpable, but the persons making the comment seem so free and sure of themselves in those kind of comments without realizing they are simply satisfying their need to put a black woman in her place and remind others that to them she is really not human – really no different from the way the Trump people disregard the humanity of those they consider not as good as.
Omarosa is not a puppet and Trump is not a puppeteer. She was quite intelligent before she met Trump and will continue to be – from what I’ve seen. Her growth over the years, as I followed her career, has been phenomenal. When she moved out of her early beginnings she moved into a different society, class, culture and must have gone through culture shock. She entered a world where values were very different from those with which she was raised. From a people oriented group where interpersonal relationships were primary and the back and forth was about relationships and values were around all of that into a society where interpersonal relationships are practically non-existent and everyone is ‘striving’ for whatever power, money and control they can accumulate. The values in such a group are very different and probably seemed immoral to Omerosa when she entered. At best, they were very different from those values with which she was raised. She seems to have started out adopting and adapting those ‘new’ values and ‘striving’ for the kind of success she saw around her and in the middle of it something clicked and her values changed to those with which she was raised. My guess would be that she started taping people when that “click” happened. The precipitating factor for that “click” was probably the very ugly and dehumanizing way she was being treated. That is extemely painful to the black woman experiencing it and totally unrecognizable by the people doing the mistreating. When she realized she was “invisible” to most people. That she could move around fairly freely because she wasn’t seen or if she was seen by some her presence was completely ignored.
What shows most strongly in what she is doing, she is out there truth telling and clear eyed about it and very good showing an extremely intelligent human being. That is almost unknown in the circles in which she was travelling and must have been painful. From what I am seeing she has much more integrity than those who surrounded her – those knocking her and claiming her lack of integrity. In the system in which she was trying to be a part and ‘fit in’ she did lack integrity by their standards and their definition of the word. In the system in which she was raised they are probably repeating your comment “You go girl.”
I am happy you mentioned how impressed you were with the way she carried herself and responded to the media. It was self-composed, in control, with no problems correcting people, backing them off, standing strongly in an independent place and her responses were always right on target. I join the chorus – you go girl.
Person 2. I am encouraged by what I am seeing in this United States society. The headlines and the current president are very discouraging, but I have to applaud Trump. The bottom line of what he has done is to create a more open, questioning, more mature society then that which existed before his election. We are not as much dependent upon the “system” because we are seeing the system only works if we are very much engaged and taking responsibility.
Before Trump, it was anathema to talk about people being racist and what that means. In fact, if you brought up the subject of racism or commented on some action of someone which was racist you were jumped on by everybody with the traditional denial that maintains a bigoted system – “that’s not racist, everyone experiences it”. Talk about racism and bigotry was not nice and needed to be kept under wraps. It was something one didn’t talk about anyplace. Now, it is all out in the open and the media talks about racist and racism in practically every news show. News anchors have become quite skilled at talking about and identifying racism and bigotry. There is nothing which creates change and takes out ugly like taking off the blanket and airing it out letting everyone see the windows are open and fresh air is flowing through.
What is especially encouraging for me, in spite of seeing the neo-Nazi’s trying to recreate Crystal Nacht and the KKK, White Nationalists and all the others out there parading – many of those who took part with their tiki torches in that Charlottesville parade lost their jobs because their companies did not want the taint of such clear racists working for them who were also out advocating for the kind of society we don’t want in these United States. That is what didn’t happen as Nazi Germany was getting started. Maybe there is hope for us after all.
Person 3. It is amazing to see the contrast in this country between the present administration and what is happening where elections are being held. I can’t wait for November. We have Donald Trump as president and a White House full of bigots, Nazi’s and such assorted folks. At the same time, as you look around at who is being elected in these contests happening around the country – it is the most diverse group of people I have ever seen. Our politicians going forward will have problems and cause us problems, but they will be doing so representing all of us. All we have to do now is undo the Gerrymandering that happened under the very bigoted Republican Party.
I knew when Ronald Regan went to Mississippi to announce his run for the presidency and even before that when Strom Thurmond left the Democratic Party and took his friends and followers into the Republican Party that the day would come when we would have to face this conflagration. Which way it would go was something I could not see because we could become another very racist society. The move towards Russia that Trump is making is clearly a move towards trying to start a race war to subjugate all of us and to maintain a White Supremacy country aligned with other White Supremacy countries – all led by fascist dictators. That is certainly not the profile of our traditional allies so he had to begin the process of dumping our traditional allies and moving towards others more amenable and trying to maintain their countries as all white, fascist and controlled by their Oligarch’s.
Person 4. You are doing something new and I want to help support you in what you are doing so it is successful and continues and others follow your example. We have a country where corporations are supposed to be “neutral”. They never are because most companies support groups and people moving in the direction of Trump and his people while claiming to be neutral. Billions of dollars go to manipulate all of us. It is always difficult for me to know what is real and what is corporate-hype. However, I feel very much involved with Bettina Network. I use your services when I can and want to know what else I can do to make sure you survive? You don’t claim to be neutral, you just stand up for truth and allow whoever to participate and air their comments. Facebook, among others, claims to give you a grouping of friends of your choosing with whom you create your ‘community’. That is one of the big lies on the internet today. In reality the people you see on your “Facebook Wall” and who you hear from are strangers and people you’ve never heard of before. Your “friends” mostly don’t see your posts if they don’t fit the algorithm – so choosing your friends and your community on Facebook is a myth set up to allow them to market your information not encircle you with your chosen friends. Neutral is not something human beings can be without hurting everyone. Truth telling is stronger, better and beneficial for everyone.
I do not know many places where truth-telling is happening. How are you surviving and paying the costs of Bettina’s Blog? I know from experience it costs money to do the research showing up in this blog – and I know the kind of flak that comes from truth telling. Don’t stop – more companies need to keep watch and put out what they know as truth. Sometimes I think marketing and advertising are great, but most times I realize they have turned us into liars and manipulators and hypocrits for the sake of making a dollar. We need to clear the air so our children will know truth and not be taken in by stories put out to sell products and services or manipulative slants on events to guarantee the corporation will get what it wants and the rest of us suffer. Sometimes I wonder if living breathing human mortals head up these corporations or if they are headed by robots immune to things like the environment, the quality of the food they eat, etc. etc. When cigarettes were such a threat I wondered how those who kept the research which said cigarettes were bad for your health and could cause cancer realized they were also negatively affected by such. They smoked a lot and some died of lung cancer, but nevertheless they kept on going with the mythology which gave them their positions, money, etc.
Keep going – some of us are very strongly behind you.
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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
“Don’t diss me until you have walked in my shoes.”
It should be amazing to hear, see and read all of the press coverage about Omarosa and her firing by the White House, but it isn’t. What should be amazing about it? The fact that she lasted as long as she did even though she was over the area set aside for minorities. To remain for any length of time in such a position in the Trump White House must have taken a lot of will, political skill and knowledge of self-preservation.
We are seeing the racism of those doing the anti-Omarosa reporting come through like spotlights. It is historical.
For example:
– Omarosa was held in the “Situation Room” for some two hours and was taken into that room, one black female, by four white men. I’ve seen that before and it is meant to scare the same way white sheets and pointy hats and burning crosses are meant to scare. However, the only thing we hear the media addressing is the fact that Omarosa recorded the ordeal and what an awful person she is for having done so. Some have even gone to the lengths of claiming that she should be prosecuted for having jeopardized the security of the United States through this act. Does that sound similar to “lock her up”? Is that a clear blame the victim?
It seems to us the only way the national security of the U. S. was jeopardized was by General Kelly using a secure room which should be used for national security meetings, etc. and used it as a setting to intimidate and restrain a black woman in a room against her will. There is no other way to describe what happened to Omarosa during her time in the Situation Room except as a time of instilling fear and intimidation. How come holding an employee of the White House against her will is not worthy of coverage? Unless, of course, this is seen as normal because it is a black woman and because we want to make sure the victim is blamed where race is concerned. No or very little blame has been incurred by General Kelly and his three co-intimidators. Holding someone against their will is generally called kidnapping – “lock him up.”
– And – One needs to go back into the history of the relationship between Trump and Omarosa before reporting how they are the same! That is the most ridiculous claim of all. Let’s paint both with the same brush! Even making the claim that Omarosa, while like Trump, is much worse. Those are flabbergasting charges.
When you look back at the history of their friendship the extent of Trump’s racism didn’t become clear until he was into his run for president. Whenever a black – especially a black woman, works with whites you have to and are raised to turn a deaf eye and ear to a lot of the racism of your friends, co-workers, acquaintances. That is just survival in these United States. Some people handle that better than others. That appears to be what happened to Omarosa, especially looking at the blacks who surrounded her and seeing the blacks who knew the way to attempt to make claims on Trump’s pocket book and power – ie Kanya West.
Looking at the Apprentice TV show, it had a fairly large number of blacks on the show and it was not easy to pick up racism. Not many of the blacks on the Apprentice picked that up – if they did they certainly kept that discovery to themselves. One assumes also that as the star of the show the people picked were chosen by Donald Trump. However, in this ‘dust-up’ we learn and we learn it from Omarosa that Donald Trump did not choose the people who appeared, there was a production company which did that which accounts for the diversity.
– We have yet to hear anyone talk about Omarosa’s composure, her ability to handle the press when they try to demean her in the middle of an interview, how put together she looks always and the way she carries herself.
Maybe we just don’t remember that during the transition period Omarosa was a part of what was happening in Trump Tower and seemed to be the one sitting in the back of the room closely observing the comings and goings. So – when she makes the comment that as president, people will bow down to Trump and be obsequious as they try to share his power (not her exact words, but the sentiment of the famous taping that is playing over and over on news reports) it is more a statement of truth then one of Omarosa bowing down to Trump. She is in the middle and sees people coming and going who once criticized Trump now bowing down to be included somehow – let us remind you of Mitt Romney, Al Gore, etc. etc. people who would not be expected to show up at Trump Tower because of their strong and accurate criticism of Trump. Omarosa’s character and ethics are criticized using that film clip to do the criticizing, but she is simply telling the truth. We don’t want to be faced with the hypocrisy of our leaders – we want that to slide as they become a part of this Trump Administration. That is how the game is played until along comes this black women who stands in front of the camera and articulates exactly what is happening and points out our hypocrisy in that process. She wasn’t puffing up Trump’s ego – she was truth telling.
– What is also clear is the way the press refused to interview Omarosa during her tenure on the White House staff and the fact that no one said she formerly worked at the White House so was the only staff member with any experience on such a staff. That part of her background was enclosed in silence while other parts – which reflect the stereotype of black women – is pulled out and paraded around.
– To look at the entire picture of Omarosa’s life it was clear that we were headed for such a moment as this. A doubly oppressed minority with Omarosa’s family history and her beginnings in fairly poor surroundings, it is no surprise that having been taken up by Trump as she was moving upward on her own steam, aggressiveness, life-history she would praise Trump. Who gave her such an incredible opportunity? To have moved from Omarosa’s beginnings to Senior aid in the White House is an awesome achievement. She was grateful as many are who experience a life beginning of serious and severe oppression.
To her credit, however, Omarosa was not tone deaf. How she conducted herself in what had to be horrendous surroundings in the middle of people who showed themselves to be totally racist and sexist is nothing short of brilliant. That she woke up from those surroundings to take such a clear, strong, stance and came out of it with what she needed to prove what her life was like during her time in the Trump bubble shows who she really is and the strength of her character.
When you compare that to others who came out and felt they had to sign the NDA AND ACCEPT the $15,000 or other figure per month to keep silent speaks volumes about Omarosa, who was offered the same deal and refused it instead, opened the door to the White House for the rest of us to see what her life had been like and what life in the White House is like. Omarosa gave us another pathway to understand what is happening in these United States.
Do you know what it is like to be in a situation and treated in the horrendously negative way she was treated? What do you do? Some would move out, resign and be grateful for the $15,000/month offer.
“Until you walk a mile in my shoes don’t let your self-righteousness cloud your eyes and ears and keep you from learning from my experience. Is your life so pure you can so negatively judge me?”
When you come from Omarosa’s background to double down and try to make a success of where you are because you know those opportunities are not overwhelming determines your daily life and decisions. She was alone in a White House that was very hostile to her yet she stayed and still worked to attempt to open doors for blacks and that in spite of the fact that neither blacks nor whites reached out to her, but instead negatively characterized her, judged her and treated her like a piece of disposable dirt. It is pretty bad and it is a trap from which it is hard to extricate yourself.
Omarosa had to have a sense of justice to tape, write and go out in the front of a storm to confront and expose. She also has to have a strong sense of who she is to go up against all the negative comments about her “lack of credibility.” What lack of credibility. She was rarely covered by the press for anyone to know who she was – lots of assumptions because she was a friend of Donald Trump and backed him even when his extreme racism began to show. That is not lack of credibility.
At one time I would have said that is lack of good judgment. However, seeing what she was doing with her time in the Trump White House and how she documented what they were doing for a future release time I have changed my mind about that. It seems to me Omarosa was taping people and situations during her time with Trump because her way out was going to be to document everything she saw and experienced. To let all of that out in a book which she probably saw as an alternative to the abyss which awaited her whenever she did decide to leave or would be removed from the White House. She certainly has eliminated the prospect of being called a “go for coffee girl.”
Omarosa is a touch stone for a whole lot of blacks. Those still in the Republican Party and feel they are contributing to moving blacks ahead – staying to be able to document history correctly; feeling that they are keeping really horrendous things from happening to blacks inside and outside the Republican Party; being present to document their experience which could be skewered by others if she didn’t. That is just a few – there are many more.
Omarosa is no better nor worse than the black attorney who is called on to represent clients accused of racism – that happens so much it is automatic and to be expected, We see the black attorneys complimented for their work not dissed for allowing themselves to be so negatively abused; women called to diss other women because coming from a woman it is a stronger dissing; blacks called on to make negative claims against other minorities and so much more.
Omarosa is and has been a black woman whites don’t understand; don’t like; don’t want around because she violates everything about blacks and the black experience that they think they know and understand – she can’t be trusted therefore her character and ethics are in question; but mostly she is the foil against whom we see sharply the failings of other blacks, male and female, those who parrot and are promoted by whites to do their bidding in exchange for 20 pieces of silver and a brief time appearing to be considered equal. She uncovers those blacks as they try to put her down and uncovers those whites who desperately want to protect and continue to cultivate “their” black who helps them hold the line against the onslaught of equality.
Put all of the above against what you will hear over the next few days about Omarosa. You can agree or disagree, but this is what we see.
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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
Thank you for the blog in which a member of the Bettina Community wrote about his experiences trying to get a visa to attend a conference.
I have had the same experience of late and many times. Twice this year I applied for visa’s to attend conferences in the United States. The visa’s were not denied, they just didn’t arrive until two days after the conference started. Unfortunately I already had my airline tickets and accommodation reservations so I lost a bit of money. Rather, my institution lost a bit of money.
Last week Trump talked about all Chinese students in the United States were spies for the Chinese Government. I wondered at the time if that is how he is going to try to justify his visa policy keeping scholars out of the United States when they attempt to apply for visa’s to attend conferences.
I would like to add a look into the future at what is beginning to happen which will take care of that kind of meanness of spirit and bigotry the Trump administration is displaying. A change that will be negative for the United States on many levels. Conferences that are normally held in the United States are being put together to be held in other countries. It will take a couple years for that to be felt but it will negatively impact researchers in the United States as well as the United States economy. Not a large part of the economy, but conference attendees from the U. S. will spend money on airline tickets, but everything else will be spent in another country – accommodations – food – entertainment – touristy things, etc. Conference attendees from other countries will not even spend airline ticket money in the United States. All of their expenditures will go to other countries. So, in the long run, while this is really hurtful today, by 2020 that should be turned around and the United States will be on its way to becoming a lesser light in many important research areas through Donald Trump’s use of visa’s to be really mean against those who are not immigrants, nor trying to settle in the United States, but simply would like to attend a conference being held in the United States over a few days or a week or a couple weeks.
That is probably what will happen in several areas where Trump is trying to exert power over other countries. In this case, there are alternatives which will be good for research and collaboration because it will put those from other countries on a more equal footing and gradually they will surpass the United States. In other non-science areas the same thing will happen and you owe it all to your current president and his friends and allies.
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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
ed.note: We are beginning to notice that this Trump/Sessions keeping black/brown people out of the U. S. is not simply an immigrant thing. It is not just about keeping America White by keeping out non-white immigrants, nor is it only about throwing out resident and/or non-white immigrants with green cards who have become U. S. tax payers under as many pretexts as possible. Others are being kept out or their attempt to visit for a brief time, especially for research and collaboration, is made unnecessarily difficult and that difficulty is new – it is not a carry over from past administrations. One person – a member of Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community has shared his experience with us and it follows.
“I was raised and educated in China till college. I came to the US to obtain my PhD at Princeton and continued as a postdoc at Harvard. In total I stayed in the US for 10 years before returning to China to accept a faculty position in Beijing in 2017. I have maintained collaborations with both institutions.
This year, I planned a 2-week visit to Princeton in June, but my visa application was denied during the interview. No specific reason was given other than “the purpose of the visit is not consistent with the visa type for which you have applied”, which is a standard business/tourist visa. I realized later that what caused the denial was my honest statement that this trip was for research collaboration. In fact, this is never allowed under this visa type. The J-type visa serves this purpose, though it is much more complicated and is usually for long-term visit (e.g., I was under the J-visa during my 5-year post doc).
This is really upset, besides the fact that the visa interview process itself is very uncomfortable and time-consuing: no bags or cell phone is allowed in the embassy, and one has to wait in long queues multiple times throughout the process which sometimes can be quite chaotic. One generally wastes half a day just for the interview without anything else done.
With this application denied (and trip cancelled), I will have to do another visa application for a workshop in mid-July to early-August. It is a special workshop running for 3-weeks, and the purpose is to bring people in the field together in a relaxed setting to promote interactions/discussions and inspire new ideas. Participants are asked to stay for at least two weeks, and I planned to join for the later two weeks. This time, the visa officer questioned why my previous application was denied, and also why a conference takes such a long time. Despite my explanation, he asked me to provide more materials to demonstrate the purpose of the visit, in particular a “conference schedule”. Well, this is not a standard conference no such schedule exists before the workshop actually begins when people start to figure out an agenda. I had to write to my conference organizer for an additional letter (he already wrote an invitation letter for me) to explain the situation.
Upon collecting everything, I resent my application, which is then sent for “administrative processing”. This is not uncommon for Chinese scholars, which usually takes 4-6 weeks. My application was sent in early June so I thought there should be enough time. However, I waited and waited and waited. There was no news before my originally planned travel date (I was wise not to purchase an air ticket). The week after, I realize I can check the status of my visa application online, and found that it is finally issued. By the time I actually received the visa, the workshop was already more than half-way done, and even if I purchase ticket to join it, most participants would already have left (in the 3rd week). As a result, I simply cancelled the trip.
On the visa, it is indicated that the “administrative processing” completed in 4 weeks where my case was cleared, but the visa was not issued until some 3 more weeks later. They clearly didn’t want me to attend the conference. Moreover, the visa could have been valid for 10 years, but mine is only valid for 1 year.
Nevertheless, with the visa finally at hand, I temporarily planned a trip to visit Princeton the week after, though the original 2-week plan becomes 3 days. This is followed by a 2-day visit to Cambridge to attend another conference. The visit is brief due to my other time constraints, but is fruitful. I stayed at a Bettina Network Hedge School in Cambridge, the same place I stayed back in 2011 when I came to visit Harvard for a job talk. Everything is very enjoyable with illuminating conversations at breakfast as well as meetings and gatherings with many of my colleagues and friends.
I am at the airport now to return to China soon. Thank you for the warm and welcoming experience that you offer and I will come back again despite the disgusting experience with the embassy.”
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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.
Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle Community can contribute to the Bettina Network Blog whenever they have anything they want to say and be heard by this fantastic group of people. Send your blog to bettinanetwork@comcast.net or mail it to us at P. O. Box 380585 Cambridge, MA. 02238 or call us on the telephone at 617-497-9166 to tell us what you want to say and we will write it for you. Please also tell us if you want your name as your byline or if you want your article to appear without your name.
Volunteer with Bettina Network Foundation, inc. to work estate sales; to help move items from one home to another; to contribute your ideas on how we can better use our resources in this effort to relieve and eliminate homelessness and poverty. We also need photographers; designers; and more. However much or little time you have, we are grateful.
Send your event information to be included in Bettina Network’s Menu of Events to: bettina-network@comcast.net
by: Marceline Donaldson
Looking at the election in Ohio in a district which has been badly gerrymandered over the decades we need to seriously define what it means – especially in politics – to steal, lie, attempt to destroy an old republic trying to become a democracy using gerrymandering as one of many tools. If you want a quick end to this United States Government with all it has meant over the decades and few hundred years it has been trying to move to a place of freedom for its citizens – try lending your hand to those working hard to bring about gerrymandering in many districts so they can have power, control and more in their attempt to satisfy their greed.
I lived in Ohio for several years around the late 1970’s into 1980. It was a place I loved and would move back to in a heartbeat. I called Cincinnati home, but visited and worked all around the state.
What I remember are events which probably were the genesis for what is going on in Ohio today = the Gerrymandering part and where and how the Republicans took hold.
I was Republican in those days – and Ohio was pretty much in the Democratic Party.
Driving around the country side there was an amazing phenomena. When you came close to what was a lovely body of water – a pond, a small lake, etc. – there was a loud and ugly smell of feces. Looking into what could have caused such a smell I discovered a corporation from Germany which was financing Germans who were dairy farmers and leaving Germany in fairly large numbers to do their dairy farming in the United States.
What was driving them out of Germany were laws being promulgated which would have made them control their cows and more properly dispose of cow manure in ways that were beneficial to the rest of society and did not cause the kind of blight and nose rebellion I was experiencing driving through some farm lands in Ohio.
Those dairy farmers from Germany used the ponds as cow toilets. They put their cow’s feces in those ponds and in a short period of time – well, you know what happened.
As I looked at the map, those areas which became very Republican Conservative and today Trump supporters are the areas back in the 1970’s and 80’s which were being taken over by German dairy farmers putting their cows feces in places to wreck the beautiful pastoral quality of the land. These were not the good Germans who stayed home and obeyed laws meant to protect everyone. These were the Germans who had the mind set of some Americans who expected to be able to pollute, etc. as their god given right. So they combined.
When I last checked it out – there was no stopping them. The corporation, with lots of money, which was financing them, made it possible for many to “immigrate” to the United States so they would not have to depend upon American banks to finance their land purchases nor to upfront them the money they needed to get their dairy farms operational.
When you talk about unwanted immigrants against whom the United States should erect barriers and walls – they were the group. Trump, however, with his German ancestors who, it is alleged, had these mafia connections and gained wealth through what is also alleged to be illegal means – with Trump himself gaining his wealth through casinos,and many schemes which bilked lots of people as he filed serial bankruptcies impresses me as one immigrant family which should have been blocked at the border. I doubt that he sees anything wrong with that kind of immigration or those immigrants. They are simply taking advantage of the ‘freedom’ offered in the United States and being very industrious in the process. I think of them when I have to drink pasteurized instead of raw milk because of the way so many such people fouled up the milk supply.
It is a straight line from those events to the control Republicans were able to wrest for their own re-elections by incorporating those “immigrants” into their scheme of gerrymandering – who I am sure as time passed have became U. S. Citizens. They did not seem at all inclined to clean up their ways or their dairy farms or to stop polluting the lakes, ponds and streams of the United States with their cows feces – which means they would not be able to go back to Germany and meet its understandable requirements that Dairy Farmers respect the land and others in the areas surrounding their dairy farms.
Haven’t seen any of that in the analysis of what happened in those areas of Ohio and how what happened affected todays election and the previous elections where gerrymandering became the standard way to power and political control. People with that kind of mindset would be very open to schemes like Gerrymandering.
Anything except – be a good citizen and respect others. Sometimes you win and sometimes others win, but at all times mutual respect is the order of the day not artificially creating situations and circumstances in which you control all the time to your detriment, the detriment of others and most especially the detriment of the United States of America. We stand for something. A republic demands mutual respect. Freedom does also. Get with it and stop all of this nonsense or you will wind up with a politician in charge who makes Trump look like an angel and a do gooder instead of the corrupt power hungry, greedy, grifter, alleged sexual abuser and assaulter and pathological liar he has shown himself to be.
by the way – have you noticed the one thing all of these folks have in common? Their need to engage in sexual abuse, sexual assault and misogyny against women with its concurrent disgraceful behavior towards children.
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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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It becomes harder each day for those who support Donald Trump to continue in that space without having to take that step into a treasonous space.
This morning, we watched the Hitler history on cable television and it was amazing. Our host family brought us breakfast on a tray because we couldn’t move away from the television. A real wake up call. There was no way to watch that without realizing the similarities.
I remember years ago all the publicity surrounding Donald Trump’s divorce from Ivana Trump. Big in all of that were things which seeped into the media from the divorce proceeding. Things like the claim that Trump kept a copy of Mein Kampf next to his bed on his nightstand and read a part of it every night. When you see how he is walking through his presidency, the lessons of those days comes through. He learned them well.
The first part of this many part documentary talks about how Hitler started out – before he got to first base – requiring loyalty from his friends and those around him. Personal and complete loyalty and requires them to make public statements of that loyalty. What struck me as I watched that was the cabinet meetings and other times when Trump required each member of his cabinet to pledge their loyalty to him in those two to three minute public speeches and to say wonderful things about him personally. They were not pledging their loyalty to the U. S. Constitution, they were pledging their loyalty to Trump personally.
In the middle of all this personal loyalty, Hitler in return had his best friend -Rohm – killed along with others. Just like Trump, who requires loyalty of others, but gives none to anyone in return.
What also struck me was Trump’s speeches being very much like Hitlers’ after 1934 when Hitler made a power grab like Trump is contemplating for 2018.
Striking too was the way Hitler folded his arms in front of himself when seriously speaking – exactly the way Trump does, especially around the table (among other times) when he threatened North Korea and Kim Jong Un with fire and fury like nothing the world has ever seen.
I’ve heard many talk about the Trump narcissism. In this documentary outlining Hitler’s “reign” what is talked about and what fits for Trump is not Hitler’s narcissism but his messiah complex. His need for absolute rule. Everything Trump has done since taking office and before seems to have come out of such a Messiah complex. Which says Putin and all those others who see Trump as a buddy and member of the club are, one day soon, in for a very rude awakening. If Trump continues in office they will rue the day they hooked up with him and it will probably be a sharp and complete surprise.
Trump’s messiah complex paralleling Hitler’s comes out when he talks in his campaign speeches and other places about only Trump being able to solve the people’s grievances. Only Trump can solve the problem aobut which he is talking. In this documentary comes Hitler talking about how only Hitler can solve the people’s grievances.
What was off for me in Trump’s campaign was his slogan to “Make America Great Again”. Since America was and is already at the top of its game his slogan seemed a stolen slogan from Reagan with Trump not wanting to do the work of coming up with one of his own. Many have tried to put that into some kind of context and explain what Trump and his supporters mean. With this documentary, Hitler’s slogan – Hitler-type nationalism will make Germany a great power and restore Germans to greatness. Deutschland UBER Alles.
Given the economy and the condition Germany was in after the war that kind of promise had a context which could be put into some kind of real space. For Trump to have taken that part of Hitler’s history and made it a part of his campaign when America was not in the lowered economic position that Germany was in at the time, shows just how much Trump copied from Hitler and his history without any thought to the actuality of the situation of America and Germany. Barack Obama brought America from the brink of a serious recession into a slow, upward moving economy – which is the kind you most want, since it will last over the long term and not suffer a blazing blow out.
If you are stealing – ‘whole hog’ – from another those things won’t register until years later when your mind clears of the fog created by such devotion to and copying of another man’s life.
Hitler’s history with women so totally parallels Trump’s that it is amazing – except there is, so far, nothing in Trump’s history to parallel the murder of one of his women, although lets just give that a bit of time.
Hitler constantly had a parade of increasingly younger women until Eva Braun, who was 17 at the time their relationship started and Hitler was well into his 40’s. Each one of Hitler’s paramours was much younger than the last. I don’t think I need to go into any detail to make that comparison with Trump – who is now with Melania, someone the age of Donald and Ivana Trump’s children.
Another very striking parallel is Hitler’s dependence upon unrest as a means to gain power. That is clearly what Trump is trying to do and maintain as president. He has constant unrest on every level. When the press and people see him as having something positive going there is much discussion and attempts to explain why he upheavals his own work. Looking at what happened in Hitler’s Germany – unrest for the sake of taking total power totally parallels Trump.
And the biggy – using minorities to galvanize his power – distract the populace – and give them something to do while he moves ahead consolidating his position in the country without their interference is very familiar. Trump has used the immigration issue unbelievably close to how Hitler used the Jews. A distraction which gives his base something to do to feel better than and to keep them busy constructing hell while he makes sure other large parts of his agenda get accomplished with very little blow back.
If the Republicans remain in power after 2018 I am sure we will see violence against every kind of minority such as the world has never seen before as Trump prepares to take over complete power in 2020.
The institutional structures which most helped Trump achieve his goal are the global billion dollar companies which are pulling together immense power through money, control, ability to respond in seconds, ability to manipulate very large numbers of people through propaganda and how to most effectively abuse technology is a done deal.
Relatively new global corporations are destroying others, blocking minorities and taking away whatever economic steps forward they have been able to make. They are what is being used to the corporate world at the top all white, all male, all norther European ancestral roots. That has become increasingly clear as we’ve seen Russian ‘infiltrators’ and others pointing out constantly to Americans in their circle how much alike they are and how much they have in common. The clear script running at the bottom of the television screen as they do this is the White Racism, White Nationalism, White Supremacy they are pointing to with moving.
When you come right down to it what would that commonality be that the Russian want Americans to see, believe and adopt? Not governmental structures; Not democracry; Not republican forms of government; ……but the need to be and include only white and ‘better than’.
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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
We have had a long experience with Facebook, particularly with harrassment.
Bettina Network suspended managing estate sales because of the harrassment we received which became quite threatening and will keep that suspension until we can figure out how to deal with the kind of things that happened.
Our harrassment came in the form of Alan Davidson with Chestnut Hill Estate Sales in the Greater Boston area. They claim to be related to Chestnut Hill Realty – which manages many buildings around the Greater Boston area so Mr. Davidson and Chestnut Hill Estate Sales have a kind of protective cloud around them allowing him – as a member of their family (which is his claim) – to engage in foul business practices making it difficult for others to survive. Or at best to survive in the midst of his incredibly foul business practices, especially against those he considers his competition.
We knew Mr. Davidson, having been to several of his estate sales and had conversations with him as a friend of a friend.
When we had an estate sale we would find people arriving to attempt to destroy what we were doing and just cause a general mess. We began to recognize the people, who actually identified themselves as being connected with Mr. Davidson.
At one point we went to a sale managed by a very new (at the time) estate sale company – Consignworks. That same weekend we went to another sale managed by an estate sale company – which seemed new since we had not heard the name before – which called itself “Consign….” and discovered it was Mr. Davidson trying to muddy the waters and cause problems for Consignworks. Consignworks survived and has grown into a substantial part of the estate sale community.
We thought Mr. Davidson was a friend – more acquaintance – but he was related to people in the business we had known for a couple decades – the Shermans. Mr. Davidson identified himself as the son of Mr. Sherman’s then girl friend and subsequently his wife – so we considered him a friend.
On our Facebook page we embraced Mr. Davidson as a “friend”. Whereupon Mr. Davidson started putting some of the foulest posts on our Facebook Wall which were extremely racist – the language was foul – and the things he said were unbelievable.
Upon talking about this with others, we discovered he was doing the same thing, even to some of those who worked closely with him. It was shocking.
We contacted Facebook, referred them to the posts which were so foul they should not have been published anyplace, and asked them to please eliminate Mr. Davidson’s account. We also gave Facebook the names of others who were experiencing the same thing.
Facebook’s response was they could do nothing. The only recourse we had was to block Mr. Davidson from our account. We asked about the others who were at their wits end about the same thing. Facebook acknowledged there had been other complaints, but their policy was such the only thing they could do was to advise whoever complained to block Mr. Davidson’s from their accounts. When I pointed out to them that when someone threatens you their right to free speech stops, which gave Facebook the right to act – they were clearly more interested in keeping eveeryone than keeping everyone safe and the harrassment eliminated.
The posts in question were complete with some of the foulest language I had ever seen published by any kind of substantial public publication.
That happened several years ago.
Having tried to fend off Mr. Davidson’s attacks, we could not so instead of jeopardizing those who came to us to manage their estate sales, we decided to suspend that part of our business until we could find a way to address it.
It was clearly a very successful way for Mr. Davidson to eliminate an African American business. His friends must have been proud. What happened is something that used to happen in Mississippi or Alabama or any of the other states which specialize in bigotry at its worse and need to keep blacks out of the corporate business world.
It is way past the time for Facebook to take on its responsibility to make sure those who use its services are not open to being trashed and their lives being drastically changed while Facebook continues on down the road to incredible amounts of money earned at other people’s expense because they do not conduct their business with good business ethics, a good character and accepting the responsibility of making sure they are not invaded by such people. Russia may be what caused this discussion to become so public, but there are also homegrown people who make the lives of many on Facebook miserable. They can either not use the service or suffer from Facebook’s abdication of its basic responsibility.
Our experiences as a minority owned business have been legion and unbelievable. When one talks about the very limited number of minority-owned businesses in existence one needs to talk about and realize the forces that constantly do everything they can to limit and destroy such businesses. They are usually quite successful.
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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
If you have comments, questions, suggestions, etc. please send them to bettinanetwork@comcast.net.
LOVE and SEX! – The Bettina Oracle Speaks!
Wednesday, August 22nd, 2018Humans have substantial ways to obfuscate what they don’t want to face. They build institutional structures to hide, deflect, and keep them in rose colored glasses. Truth is not something easily acknowledged even though someplace inside truth stirs.
You are now into a messy presidential situation in the United States trying to do everything except face the truth of who you have become and how you have structured your society, your families, your lives. This has been generations in the making, but todays generation gets to clean up what you, your parents, your grandparents, etc. have soiled.
You preach God is Love, but you act out and create your life around sex. You look at the animals and feel so much better than, but in reality you have created a society which emphasizes and reflects your animal nature and your animal characteristics.
Why do you have so many wars; why do you kill so many people trying to destroy life itself – for nothing; why is there so much jealousy, hatred, rage, greed, and all the rest – for nothing except as a way to pass the time from birth all the while denying death.
You talk a lot about values, character, ethics, truth, love, grace, kindness, generosity and more – all myths in your lives to set aside the Godlike character. Those who have such values are seen as weak to all but a very few and those few pay a high price if they articulate, in a positive way, what they see. What is real and is seen by everyone as great – ‘now there is a real man’ – is the life you are leading based on your animal instincts – catering to sex, power, control, greed – all called sin, and practiced by nearly everyone.
It has been amazing to watch a group of humans build a society – structure a government – set up rules and laws – all based on their animal instincts. Not their higher instincts, not what comes from their claimed belief in a God who holds up love above all – but their lowest common denominator instincts, shared with the animals with whom you also share the planet earth. In humans those lower instincts are so much more intense and destructive than anything the animal world has ever produced – you make historians gasp even though they can’t see nor report on the very same things occurring during their lifetime.
In the society you have and are creating, Love is much lauded. It is raised to the level of a god. God is love – the shorthand way you describe God, your beautiful mythological creation for which many have given their lives and for which you have demanded the life of others claiming you are just and right and good and full of love and those others are evil, greedy, mean-spirited, and need to be destroyed and/or severely controlled. You have taken the lives of many in the name of love but the fact of sex. You have taken and destroyed the children, the property, the everything of those others. You have done all of that to continue and move ahead the system you have set up on this earth not based on God’s love, but based on sex. You refuse to see, acknowledge and change that. You will, however, change one institutional structure for another if it is also based on sex, as long as it has a better mythological structure which will camouflage the reality of who you have chosen to be.
I can hear the protests already. Take a look around at all that you survey. Can you drink the water in the streams; Is the food grown making many ill; are terminal diseases rampant with everyone denying that they know the ultimate cause; are you one of those who claims the illnesses we face in such high numbers really starting in these last two generations were always there only we didn’t have the ability to diagnose them? Do you really believe that or does that myth make you feel better? That list, the result of this sex based system, could go on for pages and still not be complete.
Love is the beautiful part of your humanity. Your animal instincts deal with your physical selves. You describe love, but before you get too far into the description you veer off into a description of sex. The people you hold up, who get you into much trouble and evil are sexual deviants. Your new president in the United States is a hard to ignore example. He has let his out of control sex drive do awful things to himself and to the society. Driven by out of control sex he has so far surpassed the animals in how he exercises his urges and the depths to which he has gone – and will go in the future, if left unchecked. It is fast becoming mind boggling and mind numbing. How many women have brought charges of sexual abuse and assault against him? And have you raised that up and fought for the women? Or have you let that rest because you recognize and understand that part of this new president? He personifies what is evil in all of you and so he is untouchable. To call him in – to rein him in – you have to rein in your own sex drives and your own base instincts of greed, lying, filth of every kind and so far, in history, that is something you have neither done nor attempted to do – except on a mythological level. What the United States president has done and is doing brings shame on all of those who helped put him where he is. If you voted for him – if you encouraged others to vote for him – if you saw in him a way to manipulate others and used him in that way – any small thing you did to help him rise will have its day of retribution.
The way animals live, their baser instincts occasionally break out and cause very brief moments of trouble, but when translated to human life and structured into human organizations those instincts while essentially harmless in animals and are there for the animal kingdom’s survival, become corrupt, evil, ugly and at times impossible to control until everyone is exhausted from the letting loose of such extreme evil.
Greed is something you have structured into your government, society, friendships. How else do you achieve and maintain a “better than” society? The beginnings of the United States used slavery to structure that “better than” need and requirement into its governmental structures and it has survived to cause trouble even into today.
Some people have obscene amounts of money. They do not look around and share their excess with anyone. They hoard it to overstuff themselves with houses, clothes, wealth, all kinds of wealth – and when they see the homeless, those in need, those who can’t feed or clothe themselves they turn a blind eye and talk to friends blaming the victims for the excesses of those with averted eyes. Please -don’t try to justify and claim they share by citing their ‘tax free’ contributions which in the end benefit only themselves.
There is enough on this planet for all to live well. However, it is divided in such a way that only a small percentage thrive. In creating that kind of distribution of wealth you act as though you are going to live forever and take all of your wealth with you when you die. Nothing is further from the truth.
You have made yourselves miserable with this society which you have created and claimed it was from God and that the God you worship is a God who is Love! But you made this god male and although his beginnings was in a story set in poverty, in many of your religions his continued existence is in gold, silver, marble statues, incredible structures and edifices which could feed the world’s population many times over. And the claim you make is that your god instructed you to do this to show your worship of him and your humility before him. Aaaggghhh!
You point to the theology you created around this god, but in the reality of your lives greed, jealousy, sexual assault and abuse amongst the humans is becoming worse as time goes by. You have created systems of government under which you live and systems of economics which gives power to a few and which makes the rest of you constantly strive, miss your life, and continue the super hypocrisy for very little, thinking one day you will be amongst those chosen for that rarefied air of what used to be the millionaires club, but many were weeded out so the new and rarer billionaires club could be formed.
O ye of no faith do you not know – do you not see where you are headed? You now fight depression, addiction, and so much more. Your created systems are destroying you, the planet and everything in your grasp. You are working hard to leave the planet and reach outer space. Are you going to bring all of your baser instincts with you and re-create out there another hell reflective of what you have done on earth?
We see you afraid to love – your solution is turning love into sex – and obfuscating the difference. Writing love stories which are really sex stories to pass along to future generations. Your leaders are almost all sexual deviants. They blackmail each other to get their way by threatening to “out” another persons mistakes – usually always in the sexual area. Why have you done this? We can’t make any sense of what you have created. You create wars to maintain power. You destroy, humiliate, torture, kill and so much more to maintain a way of life which never should have been created in the first place.
So much hope was placed in you and you have defiled and shown that hope to have been a wasted emotion. Why must you translate your animal instincts into your institutions? What is it about you that you can’t function on any other level. Why can’t you see what you have done and are doing? Why do you only regret after you have destroyed everything around you and don’t know how to get it back?
Sex is about procreation. You are attracted to those with whom you can join and multiply. You have changed all of that and created marriage and ‘morality’ laws not about procreation, but to protect property. You have written your probate laws – your wishes acknowledging death and your mortality – to protect property and these probate laws need the marriage laws to work and to keep the lines of inheritance for your property clear.
You have created a society in which it has been and still is difficult for a woman and a man to be friends without sex in the picture. If they find their way to a friendship without sex those around will keep the sexual thing going by assuming they are hiding something. I could go on, but I think you get the picture. The easiest way to ruin someone in your society is to claim they had sex with a person who would cloud the inheritance picture and jeopardize the line of succession for the power, money and property accumulated.
You have spelled out in your laws who can have sex with whom because your inheritance laws can’t be violated. Not just the inheritance of money and property, but you had laws defining who could have sex with whom because the line of “I am better than you” must be kept and that would fail if you crossed color lines – ethnicity lines – religious lines. Those are fringy definitions because those are not real categories, but you have created the category of race and have religions which make it a sin to marry and/or have sex with someone who would dilute the power of a particular race, religion or someone from a particular country which is not seen as one of the power center countries where it is imperative for those “bloodlines” to remain pure.
Some of that is changing – but other such structures are being put in place which are more stringently keeping to your “better than” needs than what you have already established as “law and custom”. These are the only ones you recognize as having power in your way of life.
You all have the possibility of being so much more than you have allowed yourself to be; you can create institutions based on God’s love instead of man’s sex and other animal instincts and the instincts of what are called the “lower animals”. It is not understandable as to why that is what you have chosen when you could have been so much more. It is the hardest way to live; the most miserable and painful and difficult way. What is it in you that makes you choose that path? Why do you so raise up and honor those basest of instincts?
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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: breakfast table talk, Guest Comments
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