January, 2020 - Bettina Network's Blog

Archive for January, 2020

The Most Corrupt Country is the U. S.?

Thursday, January 30th, 2020

by: Marceline Donaldson

It is amazing to watch and listen to the impeachment trial of Donald Trump.

I was a Republican from the time I first voted. Coming from the deep south and with a relative a few generations removed who was head of the Louisiana Republican Party and who was African American; and coming from a part of the country where African Americans were harassed and sometimes lost their lives if they registered and voted; and knowing that the back-up you had to even partially participate in the political life of the United States was the Republican Party; and having experienced the ugliness of the Democratic Party at that time and its close relationship with the KKK and other White Nationalist Groups, I didn’t see any other choice.

I stuck with the Republican Party for decades after it was clear the direction the Party was taking, I kept trying to say – honor your history – look at where you are going – see the Democratic Party refusing to seat Blacks at their Convention – but look at the overwhelming numbers of racists joining the Republican Party – be loyal to the Republicans – forget that, look at where the Democratic Party is going and doesn’t that look as though the two Parties are going to exchange places! Clearly, I overstayed my welcome in the Republican Party by decades. And as I tried to be some kind of mitigating force I should have given up years ago as the handwriting was clearly on the wall.

My Waterloo came when Donald Trump became the Party nominee for president. It was unbelievable. I followed Trump for years; knew his extreme racism; saw his talent for taking every corrupt advantage that presented itself and who very carefully walked past the high road as though he had a terminal allergy to such; saw the sexual abuse and assault charges against him which constantly reached newspaper headlines and saw the extreme corruption accompanied by a set of morals which hit the gutter and kept going down.

Even with all of that, I could not imagine him nor anyone else reaching the presidency of the United States and being so unbelievably, publicly, corrupt. He was and is clearly what Corporate America could become and is becoming as Trump leads the way. All of my civil rights and other fights surfaced extreme evil in these United States, but there was always these clouds of good which seemed to gain the advantage and take us in a different better direction. That has almost come to a halt with Trump and the evil forces have become unbelievably strong.

I have been trying to look into who are his followers. We don’t want to believe the racism in these United States, however, there can be no dispute that whatever Trump does is acceptable to his followers because he has given out the clear signal that he will do his thing and make himself rich and powerful at the expense of the rest of us and his followers will accept and glorify him in spite of that, because he will keep back the hordes of minorities who will soon be the majority and in keeping them constantly submerged, oppressed, fighting for their economic and actual lives so he has the space to keep the United States Government, Corporate America and every other crack and crevice in this country where power resides White, Northern European and male. He is keeping his pledge to his supporters and they are keeping their pledge to him. In other words, he has made a pact with his followers that he will preserve their identity as being a part of a country where the overwhelming money, power and everything else resides in the White, Male, Northern European with the rest of us picking up the pieces they cast aside and being used as the scapegoats to justify their claimed greatness that they hold up as who they are.

Trump seems to have been taking lessons and receiving support from Putin in Russia, Erdogan in Turkey, the prince in Saudi Arabia and a few other smaller actors and putting those lessons to great service to his cause – which is the aggrandizement of himself, the accumulation of limitless wealth, the power to do whatever he wants with some of the most corrupt people who have made it to a substantial place in this society supporting and coming around him to add to the evil he is spreading all over the world. It is clear his supporters on this high level supporting and covering up his evil have been on a questionable moral level as they moved through their professional lives, but they did not show themselves as corrupt as they could be and have become in their push to support Trump and cover-up his sins that he is spewing over all of us. The problems Putin, Erdogan and the Prince are going to have will surface – big time – if Trump clears these hurdles. His needs are limitless and with the United States swamping their countries in wealth, power and much else, he will be quick to put them in their places and they will not begin to be Trump’s equal.

We have a president of these United States who is a sexual abuser and assaulter of almost two dozen women who have come forth and made their charges against him. Who knows how many others there are who have not had the courage or moral fortitude to come out with what happened to them. He sees his sexual abuse as his right and nothing wrong with his assaulting women – he has earned the right.

We have a president of these United States who has “stolen” the hard work of those ordinary citizens who worked hard to build a business and had him come along to destroy – in some cases – their life’s work. Again, he sees that as his right and normal for him. He is doing that to these United States and to as many people in it or trying to cross over to become a part of these United States as he needs to destroy to push himself and keep himself at the top of power and wealth.

As I interact with many of his supporters, I feel the need to go home and take a long, hot shower. You know this kind of evil exists, but you don’t normally encounter it on such a prolonged basis. What is horrible about the encounters I have had is the attitude of his supporters that they are right, good and Trump is doing nothing but supporting their current identity as better than and their right to continue to be better than.

When Nixon resigned it was said he did so because he did not want to put this country through the trauma that would come if he stayed to fight. That wasn’t so real to me when it happened, I was enmeshed in the horror of what he did and his attitude towards it. As I see what Trump is putting this country through so he can stay in power and do all of the other evils that he has to do to stay in power, I understand the gift to this country that Nixon gave us as a partial atonement for his sins.

There are questions in all of this that I have not heard asked or answered. The most crucial is the one I have been asking for months and at times on this blog – We all acknowledge that Mitch McConnell kept Barack Obama from being able to appoint a Supreme Court Justice during the end of his time in office. I don’t hear anyone talking about, asking about, being amazed and disgusted about the conclusion one has to come to about Mitch McConnell when the answer to that questions begins to dawn. – “What did Mitch McConnell know about the intervention of foreign governments and their heads intervening and manipulating our presidential election. What does he know and what does he see as his involvement in this world when that success happens.”

My conclusions about Mitch McConnell is that he is beholden to and working with foreign influencers who want control over these United States. When McConnell started withholding the Supreme Court nomination from Obama it looked as though Hillary Clinton was going to be the next president of these United States. Clearly, McConnell was not keeping the Supreme Court nominee from Obama to give Hillary the ability to make such an appointment. It seems to me he had to have knowledge that the results of that election would be Donald Trump being elected president and that would be the beginning of his and his groups’ appointing judges who would do their bidding and change this country for decades if not generations – as a beginning of what they would do. If he did indeed have such knowledge, what were and are his involvements in what would be treason. We haven’t heard much of anything about that.

And then there is the role of Pence………………

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

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale!*

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

Project 2 – #WellsFargoBoycott*

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

Project 3 – Growing Bettina Network’s Blog

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

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

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

_________________________________________________________

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

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

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

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

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




A Beauty Treatment for the Ages

Wednesday, January 29th, 2020

I have been so tired of spending obscene amounts of money on beauty products which don’t work. I decided to work with a friend and explore what alternative food/real things would do without the boost from chemicals and other additives which I think do more harm to your skin and health than good.

Alicia Keyes gave us a boost when she announced she was finished with makeup/lipstick, etc. If she can do it where her livelihood is partially determined by her looks then we can experiment where our looks are totally irrelevant to our lives.

We’ve seen and read other articles on this Bettina Network’s Blog about how others stay fresh looking for a lifetime. We took that advice to heart, but decided we wanted to explore something in addition.

First – we gave up lipstick. That didn’t work too well because we wound up with seriously chapped lips.

We cleaned our faces of all makeup and we were ready to start with notebook in hand.

Second – we tried liquid vitamin C. The kind you buy in what looks like an orange milk container. After rinsing our faces by splashing warm water 10 times (picked up from this blog), we poured a bit of liquid vitamin C into our cupped hands and gave our faces the once over by rubbing the liquid C into our skin. This might also make a great overall massage medium, but we weren’t ready to go there yet.

We let the vitamin C stay on our skin as we went about our morning chores.

About noon, when we had to go on errands outside of the house, we rinsed off the vitamin C, looked in the mirror and were delighted with the results.

But – being encouraged with that success, we were only egged on to try more. Maybe we could drop some 30 years off our face. It is worth a try.

Third – while the vitamin C was great, we needed something in addition like an oil to give our faces a finish. We turned to the blog written by Marceline who gave out her deepest secrets and thought we would try the vitamin A – E thing. We weren’t yet ready to try adding her dry milk thing.

The next morning when we met for our next step beauty treatment we rinsed our faces again with very warm water splashing it on from cupped hands for what is now a requisite 10 times. We decided not to wipe our faces dry with a towel, but to let the water evaporate.

Once dry we re-did the liquid vitamin C pouring it into our cupped hands and massaging it into our skin and we included around our eyes – although we were kind of scared about doing that, but what the —-.

After about half an hour we rinsed off the liquid vitamin C and clipped a vitamin A capsule (actually it took two capsules to cover our faces and each was 10,000) gave ourselves a careful facial massage, especially paying attention to our eye lids and under the eye because we decided that just might help our eyesight, having discovered the possibility of an eye stroke as you grow older.

After rubbing in the vitamin A we clipped a vitamin E capsule and rubbed that into our facial skin over the vitamin A and off we went for the day.

Needless to say we looked rather “oily” because we did nothing to mitigate the oily look that created.

We decided we really needed to do something about that oily look because it was not the best so I rinsed by face with the cupped hands and at least 10 times splashing warm water on my skin while my co-experimenter put dry milk in her cupped hands and wiped that all over her face. To say she looked ridiculous and would not let me take a picture is an understatement.

She continued to rub the dry milk into her skin and finally wiped most of it off with a towel finally reaching the point of having beautiful looking skin. My look had also become really beautiful. Don’t know how to describe the look. It was not oily, but it had a healthy, lots of outside walking and exercise look. My friends look was different. Her skin looked very matte, non-oily, really fantastic. My look was more casual and sporty, hers more formal and elegant.

We have a couple more ideas, but will write more as we try them. So far, we are batting 1,000 and for very little bits of money.

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

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

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

Project 1 – Estate Sales after the Sale!*

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

Project 2 – #WellsFargoBoycott*

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

Project 3 – Growing Bettina Network’s Blog

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

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

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

_________________________________________________________

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

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

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

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

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




Hard to Write This Trump Conspiracy Theory!!

Tuesday, January 28th, 2020

Ed. Note: Progressives can engage in conspiracy theories as well as right wing conservatives. We thought long and hard before publishing this, however, we give our members the right to send us articles to include in Bettina Network’s Blog and so we will hold to our promise to publish!!

Member 6 – I was appalled, sickened and heartbroken to see and read about the death of Kobe Bryant, his 13 year old daughter and others involved in their incredible work to make this a better world.

At the same time I was wondering what Trump was going to come up with to cover, mitigate and distract from his defense teams presentation. So far, he was always on time and on the money with horrendous events which have been full of lies, misrepresentations and more which we all have been able to see through quickly.

While I was watching television with these thoughts going through my head, the program I was watching was interrupted and the announcement of Kobe Bryants’ death came across the news.

Maybe that is how I conflated the two, but it looked unbelievable that at the very moment all of Trump’s defense started to fall apart as John Bolton’s book excerpts became public, Bryants helicopter crashed – an event that would engage the world because of who Kobe Bryant was and how beautifully he lived his life and he was an African American man, which traditionally has meant he was a threat to Trump’s identity and ego.

What caught me was the 15 minutes Kobe Bryants’ helicopter circled while being held from landing in crucial circumstances.

I know next to nothing about aviation, but that stuck with me and I could see all kinds of things causing that delay which, in my mind could have caused the crash. And probably there would come out all kind of explanations as to why that 15 minute circulation in the sky under circumstances which could clearly cause catastrophe would be justified.

At first I decided to keep these thoughts to myself – given how horribly I reacted to Trump and his group’s conspiracy theories. But after watching non-stop reporting on both Trump’s defense people and the helicopter crash almost seeing them side by side, Trump’s murder of the Iranian came into view and the Khashoggi’s murder came to mind with Trump’s support of those who were claimed to be responsible and a whole lot more. I was looking at people who have no respect for human life and act out that there seems to be no boundaries those folks will not cross.

I don’t want to intrude on the grief of Kobe Bryant’s family, friends and supporters. It is a horrible loss for all of them and all of us to have been deprived of Kobe’s next act and the things he and his family have to contribute and would have contributed to all of us with great generosity. What an example Kobe Bryant has been to this upcoming generation and how few such examples do w have today for Kobe’s life to have been cut so short by some kind of “accident”.

But power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Trump has declared that he has complete power over all and he is acting out the part.

I don’t know what, if anything, all of this means, but I felt totally compelled to put it out in case it is more than a conspiracy theory – and if not – then to give you some idea as to the direction thoughts are going as events happen around us. I have not in life thought of things like one man in Iran being murdered to cover the ugliness of another. Nor had I thought the head of a large country would kill a newspaper commentator because he said uncomplimentary things about him and where his leadership was heading. Maybe it is the times corrupting my thinking and thoughts and then again——— the timing of Kobe Bryants death, killing, accident…………

“Better Than” – The Power that built the United States!

Friday, January 24th, 2020

We have held off on our postings because we could not believe what we were seeing from those sending their comments to be published in Bettina Network’s Blog. It is time for us to put all of that together and lay out for you what many in our community are thinking.

This is an opportunity presented in these United States to citizens, immigrants, illegals, temporary residents, permanent residents, students and others to put your professional lives on the line. We haven’t done much, but have paid a high price for some of the things we have written about in this blog. We knew that was a possibility when we started this blog, but took an oath that we would write without letting the possibility of negative consequences mitigate our voice. It is the collective voice of those who use Bettina Network, inc. And yes, sometimes we can publish diametrically opposed ideas in the same week. That is who we are – not “better than” because we are “politically correct”, but “every person” expressing themselves for all to see and hear.

Member #1: Until this Trump conflagration came along I struggled to understand why my life was so oppressed; why many around me felt so free to step all over me without holding back; denying what they were doing; and blaming me for their sins so blatantly committed against me and those like me. I also could not understand why even many of those like me felt the need to commit the same sins against me. None of it made sense.

Along comes Donald Trump and his followers and promoters and his attempt at a movement. In the process, we have not joined his “movement” but he and his totally and completely answered the questions that have haunted my life. The downside of it all is that it comes at the end of my life. Hopefully, there are others on whom these messages and this morality play, being acted out in front of us daily, will have meaning and who will recoil from everything it lays bare. Take its message to heart – it is the difference between life and death for all of you. For some of us to deny, turn away, claim otherwise really does separate the sheep from the goats – the good from the bad – those wallowing in sin and those pulling themselves out of the muck and cleaning themselves of all that has gone before.

Member 2: When I take in the entire spread of history in these United States it doesn’t bode well for human beings. It casts us as evil;, as harboring a gene we pass on from one generation to the next to destroy others because we hold ourselves to be “better than” all life on earth even at times including our own families. Where does that come from? How did we get here? Why are we constantly moving in and out of times which can make Hitler’s Germany look like a relief from what we are living? Or is this that final wake-up cal!, which if not answered correctly moves into another period of human degradation of us killing each other and declaring those we kill as less than. Or is this the time during which we can repent all of the evil we and our ancestors have done and/or caused to have done!

Member #3: How could people who came to these shores looking for a better life – a freer life – a life full of goodness and not the “better than” we were struggling under and being oppressed by in another country – experiences which made us take the risk of crossing an unknown ocean seeking Nirvana. How have wound up with the history we read about even in the redacted history books we use to teach our children of our past?

We came and survived with the help of those who were already here and had been for generations. We were immediately grateful until that gratitude was blown away by the storm clouds gathering from the “better than” universe. As our beginnings in this country moved from struggling to just survive; learning from those already here how to plant what grew in these climates; build houses; have a life which began to grow to see us enjoy freedoms denied from whence we came – we moved to being “at home”. Just as that began to happen we didn’t thank those who were there for us when we were in need. We turned to fight them because we began to consider ourselves, once again, as better than. We let our “better than” genes come out and they won the day culminating in Andrew Jackson’s Trail of Tears.

Member #4: Andrew Jackson, who we claim to have been the founder of the Democratic Party, has seen his political group move from racist developers of the Ku Klux Klan to people doing their best to free us from the likes of Donald Trump and move us into a more equal place. As years later Abraham Lincoln, who we claim was the founder of the Republican Party has seen his political group move from defenders of liberty; as the group Africans looked to as we voted in a country which hung you if you tried such; which worked to defeat segregation has now moved to become the group which works to make sure segregation is maintained and never changes. The GOP today shows itself in its current administration of 99% white, northern European ancestry people with a president who is showing his potential to make even Adolph Hitler, who he studied during his young adult years, look good.

How could we come to these shores running away from persecution and set in place a government with leaders who clearly persecute others and claim our right to do such because we and our governmental structures and business structures are so much better than those others.

How could we not acknowledge our greed and laziness which moved us to traffic in human beings who we called slaves and set in place to do the work of making us great in this country and certainly “better than” the slaves who actually did the work of such while we strutted around like peacocks taking the credit.

How could we set our women up to look like peacocks and buy into a lifestyle which oppressed them from birth to death, to get the women in this society to be the pattern we used to enslave Africans and maintain ignorance as to their real position in this society? One of oppression and maintained in slavery of a different kind only with a different mythology keeping them in place? How did we convince women to continue in that space when we used the marriage laws, which enslaved women to be the basis upon which we passed laws to enslave Africans.

How could we massacre and slaughter in this country those who tried to move into a more equal place? And deny what we were doing even unto today?

How can we see the economic inequalities which cause some to be homeless, on the street with scraps to eat from the throw aways of those in control; with clothes thrown away by others as what they wear; as make shift tents or simply beds on the cement benches around the parks and other places or even worse on the sidewalk and in the doorways until our police force comes along to force them to move along.

How can we see the storms gathering as those with enormous greed develop businesses which take away from others to put largess into their own pockets and consider themselves “better than” because they have figured out how to move ahead at the cost of tens of thousands of peoples lives?

Member #5: As we look at what is happening with the Trump Administration; within the Trump family; with their friends and others we can see ourselves over the centuries. Different clothes, a different political system, different words to describe the same thing, and using denial, greed, murder, oppression, theft and more to maintain themselves to satisfy their need to be “better than” – in and among those people we see ourselves. Not clearly, because we have our own denial, greed, murder, oppression, theft and more having constructed a curtain we cannot see through which reflects us and our lives in the mirror behind that curtain we designed to be able to have complete denial of who we are and what we are about.

Today, we have the advantage of seeing this morality play over television and our other technology that we use to “keep up” with what is happening. Amazingly, in spite of watching this reality play in front of our eyes we can see “them”, but we can’t see how “they” are a reflection of “us” and are a part of “us”. We cannot see what we have done and are doing to others just as egregious as what they are doing that we are watching daily.

Instead, that morality play is making some of us even much “better than” they are and shoring up our next chapter in this life so that it continues and we do not have to deal with who we are in this life and the part we have and are playing.

Trump and his group are making it possible for us to continue as “better than” and to usher in another chapter with the next generation of those who are much, much better than in a society which has all white business owners, all white in polite society, all white and male in government, with those who are not taking secondary places and feeling blessed to be able to do so because that means they are “better than” those in their own group who didn’t make the cut. The fact that they are the ones in their group parroting and allowing “better than” to continue and those cut out have called out truth just can’t get through into the discussion to attempt to make total, real change.


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