March, 2021 - Bettina Network's Blog

Archive for March, 2021

QANON, Donald Trump, KKK – have what in common?

Monday, March 15th, 2021

Our research is pointing to the fact that QANON is the reincarnation of the Ku Klux Klan.

It makes sense as we look under every rock we can find. Donald Trump has an early acquaintance with the KKK through his father who was, apparently, a member of the KKK and took part in their march down Pennsylvania Avenue when tens of thousands of people in klan robes and pointy white hats took over Washington, D. C.

There are pictures which claim to be of Trump’s father being questioned in a police station with his KKK robes over his arm on the same day as that KKK march in D. C. Some deny the pictures, but most who knew the event don’t.

Clearly, if the KKK returned as a part of the White Supremacy groups, the White Nationalists, the neo-Nazi’s and more, their credibility would be lacking and people would move away. Trump would be soundly rebuked if he tried to be Imperial leader of the KKK and take over its national body. As Q, he has lots of followers who are willing to do his bidding because QANON has the same goals at the KKK, but gives some protection and Trump has lots of practice with alter egos – other personalities behind which he has hidden to do things he could not do as Donald Trump.

It can invade other groups – political and otherwise and while QANON members would be fringe to those groups, eventually the conversion gives them control. Even the White Nationalists groups and others fall in line to work together to achieve what Q is calling for. They already have elected a few Senators, which would never happen if they were still organizing and acting as the KKK.

Coming back as QANON with Trump as Q means it is Trump and others bringing back the Klan in a more “acceptable” form.

Take a look at history. We can take a straight line from Hitler’s Germany – through Joseph McCarthy and his supposed fight against Communists and Socialists – directly to Donald Trump through Roy Cohn. We could go back in the opposite direction and look at what led to the world having such a strong turn into bigotry that resulted in Hitler and his Concentration Camps and killing of so many for no reason other than their religious or cultural identification or color of their skin.

Trump drops the curtain and we see they have been building back the same kind of people who supported them in their hey day with this ‘new’ group which tries to camouflage its history with this reincarnation attempt.

It begins to make sense as you look at what we refuse to acknowledge because so many of us are still engaged in the bigot’s denial. Analyze the statements that come when someone charges a program, person, idea as being “communist” or “socialist” – what they are actually saying is what was being said and done through Joe McCarthy’s Senate hearings during which he destroyed the lives and livelihoods of thousands. They were not responding to people who were actually communists or whose belief system was communist or socialist, they were responding to people who were one of the minorities who were being fought against and held back so they could form and be ready to act as the underbelly of an economic system which can not function without such.

Today there is great fear as minorities are becoming the majority in these United States. How do we denigrate them. How to make sure they hav e no power in this system and a swift retaliation if they try to gain and exercise such. They are the “less than” peoples. How to be racist with an off ramp providing denial is to distract. Turn attention away from what you are really saying and/or doing into why you are pointing the finger and calling out communists and socialists. You are really calling out minorities to turn people against every thing they are about and everything they do, say, feel and more.

To turn a group of people into the workers, builders, creators of a society in which they neither participate nor benefit, but are there at no charge so others can benefit has been a goal of white America for generations. They were successful turning Africans into slaves. When that was no longer possible, making sure African Americans gave to the society and received crude, bare, vicious survival in return. White Americans have done this in numerous ways, but all have had a common theme.

After Hitler there had to be something which covered where one was coming from because of the carnage Hitler and his ilk created which turned off the world. The way to do today is to raise the accusation of “communist”, “socialist” against those you want to keep your foot on while being socially correct. Russians are communists and we hate their system of government. So McCarthyism took up the call of what was popular to hate during his time and called out – if you check, many Jews – claiming they were communists. He was one of the supporters and protectors of both Joe McCarthy and then Donald Trump as McCarthy left the scene. And now Roy Cohn has left the scene and Donald Trump has stepped into their shoes – most notably today as Q after having sowed many seeds to help this new conspiracy group gain ground before he shows himself.

Since then there have been concentration camps established and firing squads, but done in a way that would be marginally accepted by the rest of society. The killing of African Americans by the police is one way. The police in this country have been put on notice that they were being infiltrated by Nazi’s, KKK, White Nationalists and more. They have engaged in denial until many are now calling for them to be “defunded.” They have been very effective with many blacks being killed in the crudest of ways and the people doing the killing – “pardoned” – or not charged at all for anything.

It is not difficult to purge the police of such influences. It is not difficult for the police to stop the profiling, and more of minorities which they are perfectly free to do and have been free to do for generations.

We use a particular court – probate court – established during slavery to protect and preserve the rights of slave owners to have sway over their “property.” The police were established during slavery to hunt, return and/or kill slaves who ran away or did other things that needed response to dissuade other slaves from following suit.

Those institutional structures are still functioning with very little change from the time of their being instituted as structures to maintain and prolong slavery. When are we going to stop denying and begin to bring these institutions into a world of diversity – of equality – of moving against those who need to be “better than” at the expense of so many others.

All of those structures had hangers-on from the minority groups they were attempting to control and maintain in a much reduced place maintaining the “better than” position of the Northern European-ancestry groups. Those hangers-on being used to attempt to justify and deny what they were actually about.

It is time to face, deal with, correct and walk out into the beautiful sunshine of a world where everyone is free and equal. Power, control, jealousy, the need to have much more than any human should ever want – these things need to be outlawed. They are in God’s law. They also need to be in humanity’s inner and outer world.

Will it ever be so? Or will we make baby steps to maintain this kind of world while we give the outward appearance of making change into a better world! Two steps forward before we turn in fear running back a half mile because while we talk change we really don’t want change. Just enough to give the appearance of working for change.

Aren’t we better off today then we were back then?

No! We have a billionaire class of only a very few people with most of the worlds assets fighting with each other to prove whose penis is larger and using space, space ships, conquering space as the symbols to show the world they really are the bigger man with the largest penis. At the same time they have blinded themselves to the homeless who their money and effort could benefit. The homeless who they have stripped of everything including their dignity and humanness.

We should have a world free from such, but instead homelessness developed and has grown exponentially because of such fights and jealousies and competitions.

Will that change? If Trump and QANON are removed will that create great change? No! We need to change the need in us that created Trump and all of those who went before.

Diversity In Food – A Child from the marriage of Chicken Soup and Chicken Stew!

Friday, March 5th, 2021

This dish was an accident, but one I am delighted happened because it improves on both chicken soup and chicken stew.

The first time I made this I didn’t know what happened. I was trying for chicken soup, but the result was definitely not what I thought it would be nor was it the chicken soup to which I was accustomed..

When I repeated the process, it became clear that I had discovered something rare and absolutely delicious.

A whole chicken is needed – preferably one of good size rather than the small young chickens that are good for frying. Decades ago these were called “stewing hens”. Today they seem to have disappeared in favor of the young chickens usually much under three pounds. The life span of, chickens has seriously diminished, they no longer have a long life.

If you can’t find a large one, then whatever you find will still make a good dish. ONLY make sure the chicken is organically grown. That is what really makes the difference. And everything else you use for this dish must be organic – otherwise, why bother cooking. It would only limit your life span.

First – take as much of the skin off the chicken as possible. This makes a better dish and the skin must be saved because it makes an absolutely scrumptious snack. – Recipe for this to follow in another article.

Second – put three or more tablespoons of organic butter into a very large pot and add chopped onions, celery, carrots and garlic. Add the garlic after the onions, and other vegetables have had a few minutes in the pot alone.

Use very generous amounts of the vegetables. – all of which have been organically grown.

Add the chicken and let these ingredients fry together for several minutes turning the chicken so it doesn’t burn or get too brown.

Add a can of organic coconut milk to the pot – please don’t use the “light” kind. Regular organic coconut milk is what makes the best dish. The other shouldn’t even be on the grocery store shelves.

Add several spices. The ones we like for this dish are salt, tabasco sauce, thyme, turmeric and rosemary. One person who tested this recipe added honey – YUK!! But he waxed eloquent about the results. That is what happens when you let men into the kitchen. The dish is adulterated, although he brought a pot for us to sample and it was quite good. Not excellent, but very good.

Let the dish cook a bit until everything in the pot looks comfortable combined together..

Add regular milk to cover everything to about two inches above.

Add noodles – uncooked. We prefer the large very thick noodles for this dish. They are what takes the dish from ordinary to great. If you lose your confidence in our recipes and add cooked noodles you will have a very disappointing dish. Something is added to this dish when the noodles so added are uncooked and allowed to cook to perfection in this dish rather than being put into the dish after boiling everything decent out of the noodles in a separate pot full of water and salt.

Let simmer until the chicken is done – at least 45 minutes – stirring every ten to fifteen minutes to keep all of the flavors moving around one another.

Add the zest from one lemon – obtained by using a rasp which takes only the yellow part off the uncut lemon, then squeeze the lemon juice into the pot. If a couple seeds get into the pot also, no problem, they add to the taste and nutrition of the dish.

The mixture will thicken without adding either corn starch or flour. Just give it time. And enjoy!!!

Serve in soup bowls – however, take care that the consistency is not as liquid as a soup and not as lacking in liquid as a stew.

AND feel free to send us your feedback on this dish. NOT on what you think about it, but what your experience having made it has told you.

#Vernon Jordan – Rest in Peace surrounded by God’s love!

Thursday, March 4th, 2021

by: Marceline Donaldson

It is a harsh experience to have so many friends leaving this earth and so quickly one behind the other.

Vernon Jordan is someone I have not seen nor spoken to for years. Although I have thought about him often as the memories of working together on a civil rights action comes back to mind.

Somehow, we think life goes on forever and we will all be close on earth to meet again tomorrow, or the day after.

I knew Vernon Jordan from sometimes in the 1960’s in just a passing kind of way to smile and say hello.

In the early 1970’s I got to know him much better because NOW (National Organization for Woman) and the National Urban League came together to sponsor a boycott against General Mills.

I was on the NOW National Board at the time and wound up chairing the boycott.

Esther Kaw, from Minneapolis developed a beautiful booklet which described the life of a young black girl from birth through college in terms of the General Mills products she would have used and/or her parents would have used for her. She and Roberta Petit developed that booklet and more so those who agreed with what we were doing had postcards to send to the company expressing their feelings and additional materials with which they could pledge to not use General Mills products.

NOW decided, along with the National Urban League, to bring forward this boycott given the many people who called us and told us their story interacting with General Mills in the process of trying to get a job and more.

In the early to mid-1970’s there were almost no African Americans working at General Mills, especially in management and marketing, and very few in the hourly wage areas. We won’t even talk about the make-up of their board of directors.

The women who worked there were in the General Mills kitchens or in the secretarial pool.

The material on the boycott can be seen through contacting Amistad in New Orleans, LA. where all of the papers we could collect on that history are stored and available to researchers, et al. If you have papers relevant to that action, we would appreciate your sending them to Amistad in care of Christopher Harter.

Vernon Jordan was head of the National Urban League at the time and we talked and met several times trying to put together and keep all of us moving along following a mutually agreed upon plan.

The last time I saw Vernon to talk for any length of time was at a meeting at General Mills which their president and CEO called to see if we couldn’t meet to resolve and end the boycott. The boycott was very successful and caused much stress with General Mills as well as with another company whose name was similar and who was getting some flack from those calling and writing to them to express themselves thinking they were contacting General Mills to express their grievances. The company ‘accidentally’ involved was beginning to lose business and they were super concerned that the loss didn’t continue and become exponentially larger.

That meeting, with Urban League people and NOW people who worked together on the boycott as the guiding committee was held at General Mills in their board room. It was an example of how I saw Vernon Jordan through the years and how, I think, he saw himself.

We were all assembled, waiting for Vernon to arrive – his plane was late. The Urban League people involved on this planning level along with the NOW people were sitting at a very large table all on one side. On the other side of the table sat the top General Mills Executives. I don’t remember all of them, but I do remember the CEO and President since I interacted with them at meetings of the Minneapolis Urban Coalition.

After a bit, Vernon arrived and literally took a seat. Vernon reached for a chair alongside the wall, drew it up to the table in the middle on the side with the General Mills Executives. Vernon in the middle with two or three executives on either side. As Vernon drew his chair up to the table the General Mills executives seeing where he was going very graciously moved their chairs so there would be room for Vernon’s chair in the middle.

Having been incorrigible since birth I couldn’t stifle a laugh and then couldn’t stop laughing. A frown from Mr. Jordan helped me gather myself back together.

After the meeting, taking Vernon to the airport, we talked about that meeting and, of course, he wanted to know what was so funny. I had to tell him what came to mind when he entered and took ‘his’ seat. The picture, very commonplace which we all know – no matter our religion – was the picture of Jesus and his disciples at the last supper.

I don’t know why that image came to mind, but when it did the laughter started again.

From that time on I watched Vernon Jordan move from one step on the ladder to the next higher and he did it with such aplomb. There were missteps along the way, but he was always able to dust off that misstep on the ladder and keep moving on up.

I’ve told that story many times. Didn’t ever think in that process I would be writing it as a memory on the occasion of Vernon Jordans death to remember his life, the work he did and the example he set for African American achievement .

Vernon, may you find joy, happiness and so much more as you wander around heaven getting used to your new surroundings. Hope you also have a brief time with the General Mills executives with whom you met that day and helped to bring about more opportunity for women and minorities.

amen and amen!

NEERA TANDEN

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2021

Everything has been brought up as to why Neera Tanden was not confirmed as a member of President Joe Biden’s cabinet.

Having watched many of the panels, discussions, guesses and more we were amazed to find the one reason we see as Senator Manchin’s dumping on Ms. Tanden not included or even hinted at in any of these hashing and rehashing of opinions.

This United States is a country in which we witnessed Hillary Clinton, the most qualified person to run for President of these United States – if not ever – in decades, lose to the most unqualified person who was purported to be a mafia don, if not in fact, then in the way he conducted himself and his business. He was also someone who had a sordid record in most areas including sexual abuse of women; lying outrageously to the people he supposedly represented; and on and on and on.

What was wrong with Hillary Clinton? She was a woman.

What is wrong with Neera Tanden? She is a woman whose family, both culturally and otherwise comes from East India. And not only that, but she breaks the cultural norms for women in that society and in this one with the way she assumes she is equal to everyone she meets and all of those she does not meet. Neera Tanden speaks her mind and does not suffer fools gladly. All things a woman should not be and should not do. She would not be a cabinet member who would be obsequious when necessary to save her skin and her job. That kind of independence for a woman, especially a minority woman is totally and completely unacceptable in these United States. In fact, that way of acting is unacceptable for men in these United States.

The white male ethic, which is the ruling and most prevalent ethic governing these United States, has its clearest proponent and example in Senator Mitch McConnell. Take a look at the way he reacted to ex-President Trump’s second impeachment. McConnell voted to say Trump was not guilty. After the vote he made public statements in the Senate Chamber to make sure everyone understood where he was coming from personally. From the way he approached the podium and his demeanor he clearly was putting out to all the way he actually felt and believed about Donald Trump.

Following that presentation, most people expected him to join the other side and vote, etc. in a way that was true to the statement he just put out. McConnell, however, went on to say to a reporter in answer to his question if he would support Donald Trump for president in the 2024 election if Trump was the GOP Party’s nominee. Senator McConnell’s answer was – of course, he would support the GOP nominee for president.

Everyone went up in arms at Senator McConnel for saying he would support Donald Trump after he laid out the reasons he thought Trump was really a piece of crud. They missed the point in Senator McConnell response to the reporter. He did not say he would support Trump, but that he would most definitely support the Republican nominee for President in 2024. This outlines the ethics on which this country has been developed and run for all of these years from its very beginning. “No, I don’t believe in slavery. It is against everything in which I believe and in Church on Sundays I have to leave my outside life at the door before I enter. Yes, I own slaves. My family and I would suffer greatly, especially economically if we did not have the free labor that slaves provide.” And on and on and on.

Over the decades, we have had to make sure only white males of a certain ethnic background moved into any position of authority, wealth, etc. to insure those ethics would be maintained, because most thought they were what made this country great. Only recently has that begun to break down with those who resign rather than violate the ethics by which they live and make decisions in this life.

When one looks at Neera Tanden, it is bad enough we have one woman who is half East Indian with some of those cultural characteristics and ethnic look, , but two would not be acceptable – and that one half-East Indian woman Vice President sometimes lets her tongue loose to speak her truth, but she does curb it more than half the time.

What would happen to this country if those two pooled their actions, thoughts, etc. and we have that kind of power going against the ethical standards of white males? It would be disastrous for people like me. I would shortly be broke, destroyed, out of power and “they” would be going wild taking over the country. Me and mine would lose all control and we would not be able to mold that one-half East Indian Vice President into the person she should be to be a replica of me and mine.

That would not be eliminating in itself, but Neera Tanden is a woman and the Vice President of these United States is a woman who is half-East Indian. To have the two serve in the same space is not something this society can allow. Until now we have had that under control. There has and is always a Senator Manchin type – the pre-programmed white male racist who is the one to carry out making sure the “hit” to the white male ego is not too hard and to do what he can where he can to mitigate this diversity movement which is becoming so strong.

Denial of what I am writing is so loud I can hear it before I finish writing this article.

Neera Tanden, in addition, is not married to a white male or any other male who would make sure she does not overstep the boundaries of the established racism and sexism to which this country adheres. We have had and still have minorities in power positions all throughout this country’s history, but they have always known their place and only a few have overstepped – and we have known how to silence them.

It will be 20 to 40 years before political writers and historians are able to look back and with credibility analyze what happened here and be able to credibly write about the existing bigotry that so pervades this nation that the most qualified people – who are not white and male – are rejected for reasons that just don’t ‘hunt’.

“May our words reach God’s heart and come back wrapped in the forgiveness we don’t deserve, but sorely need.”


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