politics - Bettina Network's Blog

Posts Tagged ‘politics’

It Is Time To Line Up and Kiss the Ring!

Thursday, May 5th, 2016

by Marceline Donaldson May 5, 2016

Lots of people will be lining up today and in the days to come to kneel before the presumptive Republican Candidate for President of the United States – Donald Trump. They will be lining up and kneeling to kiss his ring. A traditional, historical, act that has been around and practiced for eons of time.

As for me, this Republican will be at the Voter Registration office changing her political designation from Republican to Independent.

It is going to be an emotionally difficult day, because I will also be at the passport office making sure my papers are in order, in case we have to leave the country quickly and abruptly. Remembering what it was like in Hitlers’ Germany, only the Jews who left early got out. I suspect it will be the same in the United States for minorities. We probably will have to be out – if Trump is elected president – before the borders are closed. And according to Mr. Trump that would be within his first 100 days as president.

As a young person, in the deep south, I registered to vote as a Republican. The bad, racist, violent KKK folks were Democrats and were supported by the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is a Party which supports and goes after ‘movements’ for members. The ‘movement’ that the Democratic Party chased in those days was the White Supremacist Movement with its many parts. Blacks, trying to vote became “Strange Fruit”.

As the years passed, there began to be fewer “Strange Fruit” – hanging from the trees, but to be a part of the Democratic Party and to participate in the Democratic Conventions anyplace in the country, you could not be Black. If elected to any position in the Democratic Party you were not allowed to be seated or to serve – so why would anyone register to vote as a Democrat.

As many, especially Black Women, started the fight to open the Democratic Party it was brutal and violent. And on my side, one of my relatives had been head of the Republican Party in Louisiana – an African American. There was no contest as to which Party I would choose.

But like everything else in my family, we were split. There were Democrats and Republicans just as there were Blacks, English, Irish, Italian, Scottish, Chocktaw, Black Foot, Swedes, Swiss, French and on and on. My grandfather was an honorary Senator from Louisiana. Honorary because Blacks could not serve in the Louisiana Senate, even if elected and needless to say Mixed folks especially could not serve. He could be a part of the meetings, etc., but he could not vote (Sort of the precursor for what is true in D. C. of its Senators and Representatives today – who knew that bit of political structure came directly out of the racist playbook).

As the decades passed, it became harder and harder to be Republican. The two parties were in the process of changing sides. The Democrats were moving into the territory of where the Republicans had been and the Republicans were moving into the territory of the Democrats. Today that switch is complete with the election of Donald Trump as the presumptive Republican nominee to run for President of these United States. The KKK and other sundry and assorted White Supremacist groups are now Republicans and the others are now in the Democratic Party.

Mr. Trump – a former Democrat, with all of his minions and followers – are mostly formerly Democrats. Strom Thurmond was one of the first to lead his followers out of the Democratic Party into the Republican Party. It was an easy takeover. Why? Because of the way we did business. As precinct chair in Wayzata, Minnesota so many years ago, one talked to many people before the caucus to feel out where everyone was and when the caucus happened only a few people needed to show up. You knew what the majority wanted and it was all very quiet, circumspect and quick – that is until the advent of Reagan. Somehow, money was available to those from the deep south – Texas particularly – who showed up in the caucus supporting Reagan. And there was a regime change. I was booted out as precinct chair and the four pillars of what became the enduring issues of the Republican Party were put in place. The first time around Reagan’s people lost because they started too late. But the next caucus round. four years later, he won the nomination and then the presidency. It was all done in such a ‘civilized’ way. Palms greased; people helped to move and get jobs; people supported even though they had no jobs – all to buy the Presidency. And it was a success. Most of the ‘Republicans’ I’ ve talked to since were Democrats and switched for reasons that boiled down to racism, sexism, etc. Classism was strangely missing in those isms because the Republican Party was moving down the class ladder.

Maybe if we had a third party this would not have happened, but it does not look as though a strong Third Party will emerge ever.

And people like Bernie – keep me totally away from the Democratic Party. Still running in spite of the fact that he clearly could not win – either the nomination nor the Presidency, but he has become too drunk with the power he sees just across the horizon that he can’t and won’t stop even if it means strengthening Trump’s campaign. His only thought is weakening Hillary’s because of what he might get therefrom.

How have we survived our own human nature all of these thousands of years. It certainly doesn’t seem to be getting better.

No one should be surprised at Trump’s win. It is what we deserve. All one has to do is look at the pictures from meetings of those at the top in many places and they are all White and Male. Maybe an occasional woman makes it into some of the high powered circles, but when you read their stories years later it is heart breaking to read about how they were treated and the stress they were under just being present. They couldn’t talk in meetings because others talked over them; were ridiculed, etc. etc., had to expend enormous energy and live under incredible stress just to keep a female presence and more important and even more stressful they had to smile and say positive things about the position they were in. And that would be White, Black, Yellow, Orange, Pink, Purple women – doesn’t matter. If Trump is elected you won’t have to worry about that anymore. As he has been quoted as saying “political correctness” will be out the window. To be anyplace one will have to be White, male, with Northern European ancestors to function on any level even in the middle to lower part of his world. If Trump is not elected, I suspect the influence his ‘movement’ has had on the U. S. will have moved us into a racist, sexist place that was on its way out in today’s world.

But enough of this. I have to get dressed and get out of here to get all of this done today. It is going to take eons of time to do it because making these kind of major changes slows time and drags one down.

Wish me Godspeed! And may God bless the United States of America. We certainly are at a time when we need those blessings to reign down to keep us from a conflagration that will swamp all of us before we take seriously the fact that the tsunami is on its way and will arrive before many of us even realize it is coming.

Hmmmm! Now lets see, before I go is there a lottery number I can play today reflecting all of this?

_________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

________________________________________________________

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.

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

Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Donald Trump, politics
Posted in Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Donald Trump, politics | Comments Off on It Is Time To Line Up and Kiss the Ring!

The ‘Sharing’ Community????

Friday, April 29th, 2016

The first thing we note in that name – which has become attached to several kinds of businesses – is the fact that it is an extreme misnomer. There is nothing “sharing” about that group of businesses. Unless you call the lower to middle classes sharing their small assets and ideas in ways to make the upper entrepreneurial class extremely wealthy, a “Sharing Community.”

The business titans of the next generation will all come from this extremely wealthy group. They take into their rather exclusive club those they have identified as ‘like them’. And we all know our own.

A more accurate name would be the Greedy/ Grasping/ Exclusive and Excluding/ Racist and Sexist Community!

Wow! That sounds angry! – It is most definitely not a happy frame of mind.

Let’s take a look. Is it angry or is it accurate.

The ‘Sharing’ Community is the group of entrepreneurs who have taken a funnel; poured into the top all the assets they could not touch and do not own; taken the lions share of those assets – without buying them or putting upfront any kind of money in exchange for those assets; and have come out with multi-billions of dollars while the people who own the assets being used are given a dream that turns into a nightmare as they look at the fact that only a very few realize that dream. Those that realize the dream are the few used to disprove the rule.

The ‘Sharing Community’ is bringing in racism and classism like no other corporate structure has been able to create, maintain or enforce. They do it by painting pictures of this wonderful society – the beloved society – which will bring us all together in a very loving and sharing way.

Most of the folks, who have had this imitation stardust thrown into their eyes and who cannot see what is in front of them, but subscribe to the mythology, are the ones who will be hurt the most.

Take a look at the companies who have been most exposed by the media. The others won’t be far behind. Not totally exposed, however, because the media realize that while they must tell – at least part of the truth – their owners have to survive and they do that surviving through the advertising dollars of those new “Sharing Community” groups. It would be so easy if we all took on the responsibility of thinking – carefully thinking of what is presented to us so beautifully gift wrapped.

Take Amazon. There have been articles written, exposing the warehouse slavery which happens at Amazon – exposing how they treat their employees – not the ones at the top who are now multi-billionaires; nor the ones in the middle who are multi-millionaires; but the ones at the bottom making all of that possible for those top executives and investors.

Amazon has been talked and written about describing its racism and sexism, but we were too busy dreaming to listen. They have just recently shown clearly, not only their extreme racism but the very arrogant way they assume it is their right to act it out and expect the larger society to not notice and/or to approve. They don’t notice their own racism because it is totally ingrained in their structure and their corporate culture.

In Boston, they announced one day delivery to all except those who live in Roxbury. How is that racist? Roxbury is where most of the African Americans and other minorities live.

They were preceded almost a generation ago by the first company giving you access to the internet with your own personal account. If you were African American and/or other minorities deemed less than by this society you could not get such an internet account. It was set up so that you had to have a credit card to have an internet account and your credit card had to be rated above a certain level. We worked with many minorities who were denied access to the internet. Not until everything was running smoothly and the majority society was very skilled at the internet; saw its possibilities; started building companies to take advantage of the internet were those barriers relaxed – and other internet companies started to join in the picture. And at that point groups took on the job of trying to bring the ‘disadvantaged’ into the fold. Not as equals, but as those less than who didn’t know enough to join this revolution. Now, the rest of us would have to do our ‘nobles oblige’ and work to bring them up to speed, because they couldn’t do it themselves. Not totally up to speed, but just enough to maintain our superiority and show what looks like our compassion.

The story given out was that you had to have this kind of credit card because your monthly fee – which at the time was around $12/month – had to be taken out of your credit card each month. They had to know the money would be there when they automatically withdrew their fee – and other minor embroideries to attempt to justify this racist exclusion. One of the exclusions was – if you were divorced – and female – you had to be one year out of your divorce before you could get an internet account. How quickly we forget.

As we worked with people trying to get an internet account – they offered to pay their fees one year in advance to avoid the ‘guideline’ set up which excluded them – they had no credit card, couldn’t get a credit card, and the few that had credit cards did not have a high enough rating in their cards to qualify – our ‘forgetfulness’ also extends to the role of the credit cards in the continuing oppression structured into this society. That offer of cash or check in advance for one years fees was immediately declined by the company. So much for what the internet provider considered a necessary policy.

If you look closely at the policies and practices of Amazon you will find them riddled with racism and sexism. We are too far away from the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s to think and parallel and see how grossly minorities are treated – and – we are too busy scrambling for something that we feel is important, to stop and take a serious look at what these companies are doing and how they are structuring into our present a more rigid racism and sexism for our children’s generation than that which we have had to face and fight.

Their control will be complete by the time what they are doing is recognized and addressed. Didn’t Amazon feel free enough to eliminate Roxbury from their one day delivery without expecting any blow back from such a policy and without even realizing the racism of the policy? Or did they put the policy in place knowing it would negatively affect African Americans and other minorities in the neighborhood and that was the reason for the policy in the first place, but it went into place anyway because their goal is to benefit their “own” and to eliminate anything they feel might be a ‘danger’ to the development of their business? And, is that ‘danger’ minorities and women?

A corporate structure reflects the times in which it was created and the people who did the creating of the structure. The racism and sexism of the original founders would be intricately incorporated into the structure they put into place. Their fears, their identity, their needs would be very much woven into the structure of what they found. I meant “found” because most of the ideas about which we are discussing were stolen from others without any need to do otherwise. That spirit would be all through their creation. They would take someone else’s idea and add their own racism, sexism, insecurities into what they created and continue to create.

And then there is Airbnb! Found to have racist policies by Harvard Business School Harvard Gazette Article they are still free to exercise them. HBS Article . By the time the rest of us catch up and understand what they have structured, they will have taken us back to the days when African Americans had their own b and b listing of places they could stay because they were closed out completely from the accommodations others could use. This time, the close-out will be complete because it will be hidden and not many will take on the deconstruction necessary to lay that bare.

Once upon a time during the Civil Rights Movement, colleges and universities used a discrete kind of racism and sexism. A way to discriminate without saying we have rejected your application because you are too dark; too non-American; too, etc.

One huge way they put in place to enforce that discrimination was to require a picture with your application.

Those minorities who did not have the tell-tale entries in their application – their name; their address; the schools they went to before applying; etc. would be caught in the net of the picture requirement and the schools could then – and they did – reject the applications based on the recognized basis of racism and sexism rather than allowing the application to go ahead and be considered on its merits. Some colleges and universities didn’t totally reject all minorities, but they had a quota. Once that quota was reached, all others were rejected and the picture requirement made that possible.

Airbnb started without a picture requirement unless you had an African American sounding name or your application to use their services was picked up with something being not quite right. What was that? A possible minority, you say?

To correct that, they have apparently started to require a picture from almost everyone. Does that sound familiar? A policy which does the same thing and allows the same kind of discrimination practiced by colleges and universities a generation ago.

Take a look at other companies which are a part of this ‘sharing community’. Basically, you are allowed to use assets you struggled to acquire for your family, etc. to ‘share’ with others. You use them sometimes and you rent them out to others at other times. What happens through this process? You generally rent them out at a lower rate than an established business offering the same services. The fact that the people in these other businesses have struggled for more than one generation to get their reimbursement up to a fairly decent amount and are still struggling for things like health insurance, etc. means nothing to those renting out their similar assets for less. They are thinking of how rich they are going to become and maybe even be able to buy more than one of the same kind of asset or something similar to expand the services offered and they and their friends are going to walk into the very rich sunset together.

Instead, they find they are increasingly pushed against the wall and deprived of much because the reason the other services cost more begins to push into their lives. The assets experiences wear and tear; they have expenses which were not included in their initial calculation of how much they were going to profit; they gradually start down that slippery slope and lose even that with which they started. What is also enmeshed into this corporate revolution is the all out hunt for and stealing of the ideas and businesses of others, who do not have access to the investors in this Sharing Community. I have met more people whose corporations are viable and struggling who have been swamped and destroyed by the greedy grabbing and stealing of their ideas and their decades of work developing a business which is then stolen and put in place as though it came full blown out of the minds and experiences of those claiming it as a part of the “Sharing Community.” That kind of theft is no less criminal than the kind against which this society has definite criminal laws.

Who is profiting from the use of their assets – the investors in the overarching business which has set itself up to allow this asset use. They are multi-billionaires in record time – like a few years, if that long. Where did all of that money come from? The backs and lives of those who see what is being offered as some pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and the marketing and advertising of the overarching businesses who are very good at painting that picture.

It is time to take a good look at what this society is becoming and how the masses are moving into an indentured servant class while their lives are being taken to make a greedy group wealthy beyond their wildest imaginings. And they are ‘sharing’ this wealth with who? Certainly not the people who made it possible. They are still struggling to just get back to where they were before they took their assets into this conglomeration.

It is time to tell the truth and give correct names to what is around us. “The Community Indulging in Massive Greed”: “The Community using the assets of the masses in the process of using the Masses to Acquire Billions of dollars without Sharing”. “The Community of the Greed which has discovered the way to maintain and grow its outsized Male Ego by insuring the survival of racism and sexism in a virulent form, masked from the society until that society is enmeshed and unable to extricate itself from the tentacles which enslave them and benefit the investors who created what they call “A Sharing Community.”

_______________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

_______________________________________

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.

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.

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: bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, breakfast table talk, Guest Comments, Making Connections, politics, Racism, Spiritual Reflection
Posted in Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina's Box of Shame, Bettina's Hall of Shame, Breakfast Table Talk, Class in America and the World, Guest comments, Kitchen Table Talk, Making Connections, racism, sexism, Uncategorized, Wealth Creation | Comments Off on The ‘Sharing’ Community????

Conspiracy Theories?

Wednesday, February 24th, 2016

Breakfast at a Bettina Network Hedge School can be awesome as you talk to so many different people who come from amazing places with experiences that span the globe and includes ideas, history, remembrances and thought processes that sharpen your own.

I would not trade being a part of Bettina Network Hedge Schools for anything. My intellect is stimulated on a daily basis, let alone my knowledge base.

We had an incredible conversation at breakfast about the Supreme Court nomination and all of the push back for and against Barack Obama making that appointment. Basically, I wanted to know what does all of this mess mean?????

What came back to me was awesome!!!!!

First was a question – why would Mitch McConnell and all of those pushing to keep Obama from making this appointment be fighting so hard against that possibility, especially if Hillary is going to be our next president? I thought, as did others, that Hillary would more than likely make a more liberal appointment than would Obama. He is and has been a great president, but he is, in many ways, tied to the establishment in ways that Hillary is not.

And, if Hillary is not elected president would Bernie be any more conservative? He has shown by his Civil Rights involvements early on and his backing away from that commitment as he became more involved in his life’s work that he knows the establishment and he would not have been able to get as far as he has if he had kept his Civil Rights work active and if he had been actively involved bringing about those kind of changes in his environment. Vermont can handle liberal, progressive, socialist changes, but it is still a very White state. So, while his appointment to the Supreme Court would be quite liberal, his establishment ties said to some of us that he would be willing to accommodate his friends – especially those he needed to help push his presidency in the direction he wanted it to go. But that accommodation would not be nearly close to what Mitch McConnell and those fighting with him would be fighting to achieve. So why would Mitch McConnel and friends, not known for their liberal leanings, be working so hard to stop Obama’s appointment to give Bernie the go ahead to make this appointment?

It seems to me they know something we don’t and what they are working so hard for at the moment is for the appointment to be put on hold until someone more conservative becomes president and they can continue on with business as usual. And who would that be? Donald Trump or someone who will soon come out of hiding in the wings onto front stage?

There have been many conspiracy theories floating around this country connected to past presidents and presidential elections.

The one that sticks out in this discussion are the conspiracy theories around how Jack Kennedy was elected president. Rumor had it that his father made a deal with the mafia to produce the votes needed for his son’s election – especially around the Chicago area – and they did. Rumor continues that it was Marcello, the southern head of the Mafia in this country at the time, who put in the demand for Kennedy’s assassination because while the Mafia did its job for Jack Kennedy and his family, the Kennedy’s turned on the Mafia. The father – with his Mafia connections – made the deal, but Bobby and Jack went ahead when elected, to move against the Mafia and it does not tolerate those kinds of actions without a particular kind of payback.

Looking at the candidates, it seemed to us that Donald Trump’s business interests are casinos, construction, and gambling with heavy involvements in Las Vegas and New Jersey. That could be conspiratorialized to produce a Mafia connection linking Donald Trump’s success with the successful backing of his businesses by Mafia interests. He may even be one of those at the top himself, as this conspiracy theory unrolled itself.

Connect that to the conspiracy theories around Jack Kennedy and you have the new President of the United States elected the way the conspiracy theorists claim Jack Kennedy was elected. Although, according to those theories, someone intervened on Jack Kennedy’s behalf – he did not have the clout with the Mafia to do those negotiations on his own. All those trying to understand the Donald Trump phenomenon have apparently either not made this connection or are too young to know this ‘history’.

Is that something Mitch McConnel and his group of friends would know about? Would this be what they are structuring with this recalcitrance to allow Obama to even nominate a Supreme Court justice? Do they know something the rest of us don’t and are acting on that knowledge to keep a clear path open for what they know is in our future?

Since we are not a part of that inner circle we can only look on and attempt to interpret what is happening from their public actions and their current public actions say they are expecting a President of these United States to be elected who would push their political and other interests and one of the biggest is who is appointed to the United States Supreme Court. Who would be that swing vote that would bring the Court either one way or the other.

Given that Obama would probably appoint a more acceptable person to the Court in their eyes than would Hillary Clinton, we are seeing their hand tipped as to the fix that is in and the rest of us are supposed to sit back and be so involved in the fight, in the agenda they have set out for us to engage, that our minds are engaged in a way that we cannot see and do not realize what the McConnell boys’ actions are telling us as clearly as if they had taken an airplane and done sky writing about what they know is coming down the pike.

For all of those yelling ‘racism’ that is keeping you from seeing what is actually happening here. Clear your minds and think much more broadly.

All of the above is simply the result of a few people having breakfast together conjecturing, adding bits and pieces of history and bits and pieces of conspiracy theories which have been floating around for decades. Nothing serious and any similarities to the American Political scene at the moment are strictly coincidental.

______________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________

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.

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: Barack Obama, bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, breakfast table talk, Donald Trump, Guest Comments, Hillary Clinton, Making Connections, politics, Sexism
Posted in Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Bettina's Box of Shame, Bettina's Hall of Shame, Breakfast Table Talk, Donald Trump, Guest comments, Hedge Schools, Hillary Clinton, Historical Support, Kitchen Table Talk, Making Connections, Media Control, politics, President Obama | No Comments »

Trump, Thurmond, Duke

Saturday, July 11th, 2015

Thank you for the blog on Donald Trump. I am amazed at how edited the press reporting is on this man and his political machinations.

Too many people are calling this a “Republican” phenomenon. I want to remind them that Strom Thurmond, in whose shoes Trump is walking politically and otherwise, was a Democrat – remember the famous Dixiecrates? They found a weak spot in the Republican Party and have been trying to take it over every since only this time with a new name. Don’t they remind you of the Tea Party? When groups disguise themselves, good investigative reporting would put the story out for all of us to read – an accurate version.

Trump’s politics are the politics of the old South which demanded the raising of the confederate flag and kept it flying for some 50 years under a false guise. It is also the politics of the early rise of Hitler. Too stringent for you? Check out your history and see the parallels.

His is the politics of race and it is becoming race that even Thurmond and Duke didn’t promote. His racism is taking an issue with emotional appeal and laced with much bigotry and is using that to promote himself. He may have lost some 500 million, but what is that to a billionaire who is probably going to turn this campaign into lots of money down the road for himself that will make the $500 million look like peanuts.

Hope you title this – Race Politics revisited by Donald Trump.

_____________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

_____________________________________________________

Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Blog Response, Donald Trump, Guest Comments, politics, Racism, Reader Feedback, Sexism
Posted in Bettina Homes, Blog Response, Donald Trump, Guest comments, politics, racism, Reader Feedback, sexism, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Rachel Dolezal – over Breakfast!

Tuesday, June 16th, 2015

I am sure you knew we would weigh in on this one. It is too good not to talk about over breakfast – and it was a great conversation. What was best about the conversation – it was honest. We did not talk platitudes; conversation society would expect or accept; we just talked.

The first question was of honesty; the roles of physicality, culture and identity; is there anything about physicality/biology that informs identity in an essential way. That is certainly what this public discussion has put forth. Somehow, according to the media, Ms. Dolezal’s biology has determined that she is not Black.

It gets really tiring the way color is discussed. One person is really Black – wow that brother is something else! Another is Black, but not Black enough. Another is ‘high yellow’ trying to be what she is not ‘Black’. She has AFrican American parents, but her Blackness is what is questioned. He doesn’t talk as though he is Black. She doesn’t dress as though she is Black. Who do they think they are – they know that’s not how Black folk act. and on and on. Who are they pretending to be – look at her, trying to be like Miss Ann. We’ve heard these conversations and more for decades.

And then we got into it. Is Rachel Dolezal Black? And who determines Blackness? Where are the determiners of who is Black and who is not. No one heard anything like that being discussed in this media onslaught. The discussions on television, in the print media, on the internet, etc. all were fraught with assumptions. The first – to be Black one had to be African Americans and apparently come from African American parents. That then allowed the charges of ‘dishonesty’ to come into play. Ms. Dolezal was ‘dishonest’ so she had to give up her Presidency, which she wouldn’t have if she hadn’t work for it. There are too many “Blacks” in the NAACP for someone to be elected President simply because they are Black. It was very disheartening to see the NAACP move Ms. Dolezal out of a position for which she put in hard work to achieve. Because they didn’t want to have this ‘distraction’? If this isn’t an issue of race and a primary issue of race which the NAACP needs to be addressing I don’t know what is.

That brought up – why, after all this time, did Ms. Dolezals mother decide to come out and take her daughter down. She did it in as wide spread and mean spirited way that she could – so the dysfunction in that family is out in the media for all to see. It is one thing to adopt and raise African American children – or any other minority child. It is quite another to be identified as the race of the child you are raising. Not many people could handle that and I have seen such adoptive parents bristle when someone saw the children and assumed they were also African American.

Many people, who have done such adopting, have not been able to get out of the ‘doing good for those poor minority folks’ syndrome. And I know many folks are going up in smoke when they read this – but take a look around. That doesn’t mean they have not loved, or cared for their adopted children. That just means it takes a lot to move out of your White Privilege into the Black Ghetto in which your adopted children live all of their lives. The White parents of such children have moments here and there where they can ‘escape’. The minority children don’t and won’t for their entire lifetime. What happens if those White parents gave up their White Privilege and lived with their children as minorities one and all? What a difference that would make in this society. What a statement that would make.

In mixed marriages in the 1940’s and 1950’s in the deep south the White partner generally left their White Privilege behind and lived as Black. Some knew they were Black, some thought they were simply light skinned African Americans.

With Rachel Dolezal’s family’s Native American ancestry, how does that fit into this conversation? Can one who is part Native American consider themselves Black? Some Native American tribes are trying to get all those with some African American ‘blood’ out of their tribes and deny them any advantages the tribe, with which they have identified for generations, could offer. Did the casino’s change the definition of who is Native American? What has changed the definition of who is Black? From everything I’ve seen and heard – Black is a culture – a way of talking, eating, playing, socializing, being. Lots of discussion has gone on around what it means to be Black and now with Rachel Dolezal all of that discussion has gone down the toilet. We are now in a mode of “protect the identity of White Privilege” – if the White Privileged person doesn’t have the smarts to protect their own identity then the rest of society must do it for them and is that what is happening with Rachel Dolezal? Hey kid, get back into your White tribe. In this case, the media has been charged with that duty. Drag her through everything so those other young people watching won’t try to do this. What a society this would be if hundreds, thousands of White children – wallowing in White Privilege would give it up and identify as Black. Would racism crack and break into pieces to be washed away in the next thunderstorm?

Rachel Dolezal did what Black Civil Rights groups have been ragging on Whites to do for decades. Don’t try to address the issues, problems, attempts at a solution for Blacks unless you give up your White Privilege and live the way racism forces ‘us’ to live. I’ve heard that so many times it got to be a bit disgusting – especially in the 1970’s. Generally brought up by a Black Male whose ego was wounded and felt White Women were taking his place and putting him down – out would come, “when you give up your White Privilege” then come and …………….. One reason to keep African American women out of the women’s movement was because they were ‘up against’ a group of White women who could run home to their White husbands or family and wash the pain and suffering of the people they were working with off their clothes and skin. They could run home and relax in their Whiteness and their White Privilege.

Who better to head the NAACP than a WOMAN who has given up the advantages and ability to oppress Blacks; than someone who has given up that White Privilege and whose life shows who she is, where she is comfortable, with whom she has decided to live her life and not for a week or a month or a year, but this has been for decades. AND, the only person who can determine if she is Black or not is Ms. Dolezal. It is her identity to put out there and our role is to respect how she defines herself. How many times have we heard – ‘who do you think you are defining me. Don’t you dare define me, you respect how I define myself.’

Everything but that has happened.

Honesty doesn’t even belong in this conversation. And neither do all the trappings – I know several women in my social circle who would not think of going out with having first used a spray tan. I know others who pay lots of money to have themselves “sprayed” before major events. If Ms. Dolezal uses spray tan – what’s the difference? One group uses it for frivolous cosmetic reasons – to make their skin darker. Ms. Dolezal uses it to be able to better fit in where she finds herself comfortable and is able to work on the issues and societal problems for which she has a passion. She is not working on them as a White Person – with all the privileges that screams. She is not patronizing anyone – in fact, to give up her Whiteness to work on these issues takes all of the inequality away from the groups she is working with and for.

The media has set the conversation and has determined which questions need to be asked and what the answers should be for Ms. Dolezal to pass their ‘examination’. Their questions are racist and sexist and the tone they set for this conversation is one to maintain the status quo. For heavens sake lets get out in front of this before more of ‘our’ children start using spray tan and working in the civil rights movements after having given up their White Privilege. WELL – here is someone who has chosen not to be able to wash off all of that and to live a Black life. And here we are taking her down from the NAACP and goodness knows what else.

All of us – in theory – are against prejudice based on race. Most of us can not sustain that when it comes to one on one interactions. We substitute ‘personality disorder’, ‘crazy’, ‘not the right kind of person to take this issue forward’, and I could go on and on and on with these excuses.

Now – someone who was effective in dealing with a part of racism and sexism in her part of the world has been “outed” and made to resign the posts for which she has moved the conversation and the society forward. There are no qualifications within the NAACP that one be Black or White or African American or Chinese or whatever to work within that organization or as one of its officers. In many organizations there have been people who were gay who masqueraded as straight. There have been people who were Black who passed for White. I have Chinese friends who have had their eyes widened and who then look European. Is this dishonest?

This is not a big deal in a racist society. This is not a question of honesty or dishonesty, because this is not a society which is color blind. It is a racist, sexist society and honesty has a value which does not belong nor fit into this issue. We are throwing it around and using it in ways to maintain our status quo. How ‘hones’t is a person who felt called to the ordained ministry and masquerades as a straight man to become ordained – then masquerades as a straight man to be elected bishop. He was not “outed” for his “dishonesty”. That was never an issue. Why not – given this Rachel incident. We have held up and honored such a person – looking at their achievements in the area of their choice rather than the “dishonesty” of what they had to do to be able to do the work we raise up and cherish. But then, he was a White man.

What is dishonest is using biology to define race where that is a ridiculous argument. What is dishonest is to claim physicality to define race and use it to distinguish and defines one person as better than another because of their race – no matter how veiled the argument may be. It is only a question of time before someone decides she is mentally unstable and should see a psychiatrist. That is usually said by the people who are in actual need of serious therapy.

What is needed to bring about major change is to require that anyone working on the issues of race give up their White Privilege and become Black. Then, you can know the issues on which you are working a lot better; you can focus knowing you are not going home to that White Suburban existence from which you came to do this ‘nobles oblige’ work. Then Blacks can know you are serious about what you claim to believe about racism and how to address this problem.

Ms. Dolezal needs to be a role model – a requirement for those in society who want to see race/skin color/and more eliminated from society.

There is no biological separation of someone who is Black from the rest of society – this conversation is putting all of those requirements in place without actually taking on such an overt discussion. Bo Derek broke the White/Black hair thing decades ago when she was declared a “10” with all of her Rostifarian hair braids. Blacks declared the hair line broken when Madam Walker developed the cosmetic that straightened African Americans hair – and the hair of Whites with curly hair who wanted it to look less curly and more straight. But now we have this uproar also over Ms. Dolezals hair. Is it acceptable in some contexts to have an Afro or African American hair style, but in other contexts it is ‘not honest’. Interesting is how we held up a woman with a “Black” hair style when it was a decorative thing, frivolous, girlish thing to do and it didn’t mean anything except women were experimenting with their bodies again and their value is in their bodies in this society. So Bo Derek was experimenting with her “image” on a very superficial level so the furor over that was very low level and very short lived – in fact, many White women took up her style after she came out with those braids. The same thing with ‘spray tan’. It is fine when used as a cosmetic, frivolous thing to enhance the physical beauty of a woman, but not when it is used to allow someone to follow their passion to work to change the society in which we all live. A woman’s value, after all is in her physical beauty, her physical appearance.

What is not honest is the racism running rife through this discussion without anyone calling the media-people who have introduced their racism into this discussion and having them answer for the direction in which this discussion is going and the damage they are trying to do to Rachel Dolezal so others won’t follow her example. Something slightly akin to a witch hunt and what happens to the witch when she has been exposed. Delicious here is the fact that this witch was exposed by her mother. That must warm the cockles of some New Englanders’ hearts.

_______________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

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.

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

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

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, breakfast table talk, politics, Rachel Dolezal, Racism, Sexism
Posted in African American history, Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Breakfast Table Talk, Hedge Schools, Historical Homes, Media Control, Rachel Dolezal | No Comments »

A New World Order

Tuesday, April 21st, 2015

We first heard of a “New World Order” when George Bush was president and let those words slip. We want to pick up those words and expand and change what that means – just a little.

We live and see others prosper as we recapture the past and move into the future world order. Some of us see the past as that place full of light and goodness. Others see this new technology creating that place full of light and goodness. We think they are both wrong and totally destroying what they are trying to achieve and capture. How does that happen? How did and do they get it so wrong?

We have to go back to the old world understanding that we don’t own anything on this earth. We contribute those ways of thinking to the ‘primitives’. Those groups of people who didn’t understand and were very ‘unintelligent’ in their ways of thinking. Their basic belief was that we don’t and can’t own anything in this world. All of that changed. But did it really or only in new constructs we chose to use to define who we are and how we live!

When we enter this world we do so with nothing except the body we take on at conception. When we leave it, we leave with nothing – not even the body with which we have identified for as long as we have lived on this earth. So how have we gotten everything so messed up, mixed up, confused and just downright wrong?

We need to go back to accept the fact of who we are instead of who our leaders have created us to be through their mythology – which we have accepted – and look at and accept who we really are and what we really own, if anything. Once we do that, the Bettina Lifestyle is simple – it is a “New World Order” based on our shared humanity – and a joy to live.

Whatever we receive in this life is a gift and something we own only temporarily. It really belongs to the earth – whatever that means. So we should take care of every pin, every dot, every tittle and iota that comes into our possession because it is not permanent and it is not ours. We keep all of these things for a second and then pass them on to someone else, unless we have ruined all of what we have possessed in the meantime and then we throw our things into the landfills. Those things we claim to own came from someplace else and are going someplace else when we no longer have use of whatever we have acquired.

Enter the Estate Sale – the Yard Sale – the Garage Sale. All ways we use to get rid of our ‘old’ stuff’ that we no longer want nor think we can use. The thought of taking care of our things because we are passing them along in the future very seldom enters our minds. We are the throw away society. We use it and throw it away. And what happens to those waiting to receive those throw away items? Sorry, but they were trashed, discarded, uncared for because the person using them interrupted the cycle by their inability to recognize their humanity and the need to share everything with those waiting to receive. We have dehumanized those waiting to receive to justify the way we have dehumanized ourselves. We have re-created ourselves in the image of the god we created who would put up with our sins, and wastefulness and uglinesses to ourselves and to others.

If we had taken good care of what we ‘owned’ temporarily, and understood that what we have must be used by someone else, those things would continue their lives and would continue to be useful someplace else and to someone else.

Some people can only buy and use “new” stuff. Some of us delight and cherish the ‘old stuff’ that we find at Estate Sales. It is like winning the lottery to find something wonderful for a fraction of what we would have to pay for the same item “new”. It is living on society’s throw aways, but what a luxury life.

Clothes are the best example. If you wear your clothes carefully, you can pass them on to continue to be used by someone else. So Bettina provides for that. Bettina Network, inc. has estate sales. Bettina Network Foundation, inc. gives away that which is given to us to those who need the give-aways to be able to participate in this society. How wonderful to find those give-aways in good condition.

There is no understanding of the ugliness and selfishness of the society in which we live until one becomes homeless. You can understand it on a very small basis as you interact and see the political fights, the petty jealousies, the coveting thy neighbors belongings. You can understand it only so far, if you also have a position which pays you money to work; friends in the same or better position of whom you can be jealous; belongings which don’t quite measure up to those of your neighbors. Homeless, you are cut off from all of that and are standing outside alone or with children or with other family or with friends- all of you alone -it is a stark emptiness, fear and feeling of what was it all about and what is it all about now that I am on the street! But oddly enough, that tendency to create negative structures in which to live is so strong that the homeless recreate the same scenarios only on a different level from that which we find in the society at large. What stops that? What intervenes to get rid of all the myths which we have created to continue this insanity?

To be homeless raises the question as to what got me in this place? Did I do something or not do something that I wound up homeless and cut off from everyone and everything except those in my condition? There are a few people who reach out to help, but they are not my friends. They are making themselves feel good as a part of their “belonging,”‘ enhancing their position in society; reaching out to ‘do good’, but going back into the lifestyle and the society which created the underbelly of people that are not doing so good.

Why do we throw away our children onto the streets? Why do we cast our elderly into buildings which harbor and collect all of the germs and diseases one gets as one gets older and keeps them from being seen and interacted with by others – the normal younger ones? Why do we eliminate youth and family from these buildings and put those who are only one step above the elderly in such places to ‘care’ for them? Is there something about youth who don’t tow the line and the elderly who shouldn’t be seen with the rest of us that makes us segregate?

As racism subsides are we so quickly replacing it with this form of elder-ism and creating more isms – so we don’t run out and might have to acknowledge our equality? Separate and unequal now true for the elderly and for our children?

It is interesting that one sees, on the streets, people active until about age 70 and then it is rare to see those much older unless we see them amongst the homeless. We have to go out of our way to these elder-buildings to see anyone older than 70. Why do we so desperately need to be better than, that we will destroy other human beings to fill our need to be better than?

Marketing and advertising create the image of being stunned by those over 40 who look good (translate young) – who are not ill – who are active in society. We just gasp at a 50 year old who looks younger and is still very active. Corporations almost totally refuse to hire anyone over 45 and we go along with that. Somehow, wisdom does not count. And we can see that in how our society operates. If wisdom were allowed in, and we commonly shared the experiences we have acquired from having lived many years through much, that might change the structures of our world and those who are busy creating this horror might have to give way to others who understand, acknowledge and act out of our common humanity.

If we treated our possessions as being with us only temporarily would that change all of this? If we consciously understood that when we leave this earth we would not even be able to do so taking our own bodies? Would that make a change? If we passed on what we now own and use when we either no longer want or need it and we passed that on in good shape to others would all of this change?

As of now, wearing clothes someone else bought and wore and now throws away is not considered great. Many of us won’t wear other peoples’ clothes. We expect to immediately get sick and die from some terminal disease we catch in that process. This need for new stuff and only new stuff has been created by a marketing and advertising campaign which has made us deathly afraid of each other and sometimes of ourselves. We must feed the “growth through throw away” societal structure. The faster we can get others to discard and throw away the faster new industries and companies can grow.

Look at this, – we can’t stand to be around someone who has an odor. That has created a whole industry, which is thriving. Try it sometimes and see how repulsed your friends and even your family can be if you smell. And we all smell. The exception is those who temporarily get rid of their smell by using chemicals which in the long run are harmful to one’s health. Maybe those products need the addition in their television commercials to list all the bad things they do to the body, if you use them, as soothing music plays in the background. Your smell is as unique as everything else. Get used to it. Can you walk into a room and know any of the people who just exited by the odors left or do you know the odors left by the brand of the chemicals used by the individuals?

We prefer to be around those who have more than we do and we will do some strange things to each other reaching ‘up’. We cater to those who seem to have more, hoping they will acknowledge us and pull us ‘up’ with them. And those already ‘up’ are doing their best to distance themselves from those who have less because they don’t want their ‘position’ compromised, especially by the unwashed.

Take a look at what keeps us without an odor – full of chemicals. Take a look at what keeps us clothed – chemicals, oil, especially in the middle classes and you will find these chemicals and processed oils giving off gases into our bodies. The food the chefs, who now make millions of dollars for the prattle produce, – can be really fowl, only we claim it to be exquisite because we repeat what we are expected to repeat to stay a member of the group. Once upon a time these Chefs touted Olive Oil as the only Oil to cook with if you wanted to be healthy. Slowly, too slowly, word got out that one can’t really cook with Olive Oil because it goes rancid as the temperature in the pot goes up and it doesn’t have to go up very far for the rancidity to appear killing all of the B vitamins in our system.

Try life in this New World Order. Take good care of what you currently own, with the thought that it will be owned by someone else in the not too d Bettina Trademark istant future and you want to preserve it so it can continue to be used and enjoyed. Pass your belongings on to those who either won’t or can’t pay the top dollars required of the people buying new stuff. What is this new stuff they are buying? Shoes full of chemicals way into four figures; New pocketbooks which show off a certain status costing into five figures. Instead of landfill, make sure those items with which you currently live are in such good condition they can be passed on to others to enjoy.

Find someone homeless and bring them into your social circle. Include them in your parties, your dinners, your outings, your vacations. You don’t have to provide them with permanent housing. When dinner is over they go back to their homeless state. When you return from vacation, they go back to their homeless state. When you pass someone homeless on the street – smile and speak. When you pass anyone on the street – smile and acknowledge your common humanity. What will that do? Possibly cure this society’s penchant for creating homelessness and then not taking responsibility for what we have created. How? By acknowledging our common humanity. If I have a lot in common with that person on the street how can I do otherwise than to at least speak. Maybe one day……………..

As the homeless are more included in your life and the lives of your friends and family maybe they will see another way to move out of the state they are in. Maybe doors have been opened for them and within them to help move them off the street.

Try this beginning of a truly New World Order and see how far it takes you and us.

============================================

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

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.

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

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

TO LEARN MORE try www.bettina-network.com

Tags: ageism, bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Foundation, Bettina Network Information, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Bettina Scattering Sale, estate sale, Moving Sale, politics, Racism, Scattering Sale, Sexism
Posted in Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Foundation, Bettina Network Info, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Class in America and the World, Empathy, Estate Sale Analysis and Info, Growing Old, Hedge Schools, Moving Sale, politics, Press Release, Press Release from Bettina Network, Spiritual Reflection, Ubuntu | No Comments »

UBUNTU – I Am Because You Are

Tuesday, December 10th, 2013

“I am not a saint – unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.” – Mandela.

…………………………………….If only that described all of us!

The world is pouring out its grief, celebration, joy, gratitude, love for the life of Nelson Mandela.

………………………………………………………..Which has to make you think and ask – why?

What makes a human being rise to such a level that we are all grateful for his life on earth and come out to celebrate such an exceptional human being. Is it because so few such people have lived on this earth, especially when put in the context of the totality of those who have lived?

While most are celebrating such a great man – in Bettina homes we are asking why so few have risen to this height? Why so many human beings have been so absorbed with the mundanities of life that keep us busy and distracted so we can keep ourselves unaware of our irrevocable march towards death? Is it the self-absorption which some of our huge egos demand for their self-gratification? Is it the inconsistencies in values which we carry that keep us from living out our beliefs because we might get hurt – might miss a meal – might not accumulate as much wealth as possible? Or is it our contradictory ways of thinking and acting which we develop in our striving to create the structures which we think protect us and keep us secure, but which really oppress us?

How long, O Lord, do we have to wait for the many to live life the way Mandela lived his? Why does he have to be special? Why in our own small parts of the world we insist on living anti-ubuntu lives? Haven’t we experienced enough of the misery, poverty, pain, horrors that this causes? How long will we surround ourselves with “our own kind”? How long will we live blinded by the fact that we are all included in “our own kind.”

Whatever hurts me hurts thee! Whatever joys I experience grow exponentially when I share them with thee! My freedom totally depends upon your freedom.

One can hear why Mandela was great by just listening to the speeches honoring him. Some were clear, unobstructed by play acting, playing to the audience, playing to their own egos, unable to give a great speech honestly honoring Mandela’s life because they have allowed their minds to be clouded by their refusal to accept and act on their own values and take responsibility for their lives. Some were almost unintelligible and said more negatives about the person giving the speech than positives about the man the speech was supposed to be honoring. True Freedom eliminates that and you could tell whose lives were on track and whose were confused and muddled from listening to those speeches!

Mandela’s memorial services today gave us a stark opportunity to see and hear the differences as men and women gave their speeches of remembrance and the crowd reacted. Some people don’t have images, reflections, pretenses, – they have a rock solid faith, clear and authentic lives they are living and it is reflected in their very being, the words they use, their demeanor around others – especially their ability to be themselves when greeting strangers. Some people first promote their image and then everything else – lets not even begin to be who we really are, that must not show until we know the person better.

Why do so many of us want, protect and pass on to our children, as great gifts, the bondage in which we live? Why do we give up a beautiful life well lived for an existence that others have told us we must sacrifice ourselves to maintain? Why are we enslaved to sexual stereotypes – racial stereotypes – national stereotypes – religious stereotypes? We live out of them. We live for them and to promote them hoping that in exchange we will be able to live physically comfortable although seriously compromised lives.

FREEDOM will come to this earth when we celebrate lives like Mandela’s many times each day instead of once in a lifetime.

We set up ‘sins’ that we must stay away from and/or avoid the perception of our being involved with because that might handicap our future. We don’t set up, teach, preach, live authentic lives. The sins we set up and announce from our own mountain seem meant to deflect us and allow a few to claim perfection in their life’s story. Those are very far from the real sins of our lives – the inability to live authentically, the refusal to feel empathy for those on the street with no shelter from the cold, hunger, dangers of the street. Our refusal to stand on our own professed faith and most especially to give no room to others to stand on theirs – this seems to be the biggest sin of our creation. These are the commandments by which we live and demand that others of “our kind” also live. Our need to act to keep from feeling threatened by those we don’t understand; those in whom we see what we don’t like in ourselves – those we scape goat, and see reflected in our own mirror – we act against and break our own mirror.

As we look around at others it hurts the soul to see in them the rejection, mean spirit, and refusal to live truly free lives. After all, what does it matter in the end? We all die – and what a horrible death to leave this earth with unrequited dreams, longing, loves because you were trying for things that die with you for which there is no resurrection or redemption and which did nothing to make your life great. Worse, to die without ever having had dreams, great loves and without having left behind a legacy which helped change this earth for the better.

Isn’t it sad that we choose the fleeting fame and what we call ‘security’ instead of choosing to be about the business of living fully and making sure we are there to help others do the same?

There is no such thing in life as ‘security’, but we are willing to sacrifice much to attain the mirage.

Ecclesiastes comes to mind often – ‘vanity of vanities………’

Oh for a world full of people like Nelson Mandel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Not only was Nelson Mandela clear as to who he was and whose he was, but he was a man who never met a stranger. He could reduce you to your real self in front of him in seconds or make it extremely difficult for you to maintain the pretense and image built up over years of living someone else’s imaginary life projected onto your own.

We pray that we all can move away from and cast out the garbage that collects as we live our lives striving for security; putting forth an image of someone we would like to be and who we would like those meeting us to think we are; cast out the values we collect to cover our insecurities and fears; cast out the mean spirit we take on because we need to feel better than other human beings who we describe and see clearly as those less than us helping us to be better than they are.

We pray that we have no more such outpourings as are happening this week for Nelson Mandela. Not because we don’t appreciate and value his life and work, but because we will be living in a world where there are so many like him that his life and how he lived it becomes normal and is common all around us. What a world that would be and what a wonderful place to live, love, work, and just be!

UBUNTU! A future and a word taken into the world’s vocabulary as one of its own no matter what the language. A word that describes – how we live – who we are!

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

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.

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

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

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Tags: African American history, Barack Obama, bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Making Connections, Nelson Mandela, politics, Ubuntu
Posted in African American history, Bettina's Hall of Fame, Breakfast Table Talk, Historical Support, Making Connections, Memorials, Nelson Mandela, politics, Ubuntu | Comments Off on UBUNTU – I Am Because You Are

Republicanism BC and AD – oops, AT*

Wednesday, October 16th, 2013

*BC = Boehner Cruz; AT = After Tea Party

The singing reported in the Tea Party’s caucus reminded me of the Titanic – remember? As they went down, those who could not or did not leave the ship went down singing Amazing Grace. Isn’t that what happened last night? It was a suicidal atmosphere with everyone being made to drink the Kool Aid with the pseudo religious environment to encourage those who were losing faith. I guess from the songs being sung there must have been only Conservative Evengelical Christians in the room. Somehow, we couldn’t see Jews, Muslims, Atheists or Episcopalians grooving and responding to what was described.

Many things about this have caused some really great breakfast conversations. If you can call anything in the immediate time before your own financial demise ‘great.’

So much is so hokey: (Kind of the theme of one of our breakfast conversations)

1) The Speaker of the House – Boehner – could have avoided all of this by putting the issue on the floor of the House and it would have passed – but it would have passed with bipartisan support and they refused to even consider that possibility. Is all of this really about keeping Republicans Republican and refusing to allow any kind of bipartisan action, discussion, votes, etc.?

They seem to be looking in the mirror and calling Obama out on what they see there. And someone accused them of racism. How can that be when the reflection they see in the mirror is that of a Black man?

Some sub-topics “My grandfather told me to look away when people start talking the way the Tea Party folks are talking” – such as the comments about their trying to ‘save’ the United States from fiscal ruin because we soon won’t be able to pay our debts. And what do they do about this? Put the United States in a position of a credit default which would raise interest rates on everything and make the cost of carrying the debt we have unbelievably heavy – and a burden shared by every citizen of these United States. How exactly does their stance help?

They bash Obama for not being “bipartisan’, but not being bipartisan is not allowing a vote to come to the floor of the House because it might be passed with a bipartisan vote and that can’t be allowed.

2) Cruz – the now leading contender from the Tea Party for President of these United States in the next election. Talk about disasters and a man either on an unusually high dose of testosterone or whose body produces way too much testosterone for him to be allowed to do anything except knit, crochet, sew, sit quietly listening to lovely soothing music, etc.. If he gets elected, the folks around the breakfast table – including one Republican – decided they would pack their bags, update their Visas and leave until the U. S. comes to its senses.

3) What was ominous was the comparison of what the U. S. is going through with parallels to what Germany went through with the rise of the Nazi Party. It sent chills down your spine to even know there was someone who saw this as a parallel.

4) What was really upsetting was the comment that one person made about his interpretation of what he was seeing being played out. He didn’t agree with the woman who saw the beginnings of Nazi American in all of this, he assumed that Boehner has a huge problem with alcohol and Cruz looks as though he was using that knowledge and pushing Boehner to the wall – go along with us or your alcoholism is exposed to the world. And the media was only talking about how Boehner was acting the way he was because he was concerned about losing his Speakership- have they missed something big or is this like JFK’s womanizing – lets not talk about the obvious it isn’t nice.

And here in our corner of the world was one small group wrestling with the fact that our Congress is acting like Alcoholics, their enablers or have we missed something important!

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

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.

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

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

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Tags: Barack Obama, bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, economic downturn, Economics, Financial Disaster, Government Shutdown, John Boehner, politics, Senator Cruz
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Guest comments, Historical Support, Making Connections, politics | Comments Off on Republicanism BC and AD – oops, AT*

The Next Republican Presidential Campaign has started and it ain’t pretty!

Tuesday, October 1st, 2013

What is this government shut-down about?

Don’t even mention Obamacare because that has nothing to do with all of this hullabaloo. Obamacare is really only a distraction and something on which to hang the proverbial hat of those who have done this. They are really into red herring when they throw in Obamacare and how big business will be reduced and controlled by this shut down and how members of Congress should be treated like everyone else. That will never happen and that is clearly not their goal. They are not interested in any of the above, they are moving themselves into the public eye to be in a position – they hope – to be elected for higher office.

This is the new way to get your MAN into the presidential office if he is a Republican. After all, didn’t such a shutdown and impeachment of a president result in the election of a Republican – one George Bush?

The way to fight for power and control is to close down the government of the Democratic President and then impeach him. It was new with Clinton, but today it is clearly the way the Republicans are running their campaigns. Any issue around which they could drape emotional appeals connected to this new political campaign would do. And a secondary result – scare away all the good candidates, who are not Republican candidates. To become President of these United States you have to be ready and willing to give up a hard-earned reputation; be ready to accept crap thrown at you without cause; and have mud slung at you on a daily basis. Who would want to risk that?

Will an attempt to impeach Obama follow?

“Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me”

The government was shut down in the Clinton era by Republicans. It is now shut down in the Obama era by Republicans. You can quote Obamacare as the reason or any other reason you want to pull up. That is totally irrelevant. Obamacare has nothing to do with this government shut-down. It is just convenient. What is really going on is the Republican swarm of those who want to be president or important to who they think will be the next Republican president.

If you believed in conspiracies you could see the meetings during which this strategy was discussed and the decision taken for all to act in concert to bring down the government, the economy and middle-class America. Any discussion in those meetings about the possible harm this would do to the American people? Don’t be foolish – those vying for power never consider such. They consider only what they think they have to do to satisfy their hungering after power.

The guy who read from “Green Eggs and Ham” was showing the American public how competent he would be as president. He could read to them each evening so they could go to bed hearing his voice reading one of the childrens’ classics. A child reading to children while trying to manipulate the American Public into thinking he would be the next really great president. Look at what he has accomplished – hours in front of a microphone during which time he either had on a diaper or he paraded his bladder for all to see how long he could hold his need to go to the bathroom. Truly a requirement of a good potential presidential candidate. He clearly cares – not at all – about the people being hurt through this process. His care is about setting himself up to run for President and using this opportunity to do so. Sort of an application process during which he put forth his credentials.

The woman talking head in Congress is probably setting herself up for a ministerial position or the head of a major non-profit when she leaves Congress, if she can’t be a part of what she believes will be the new Republican Administration. I had to give her a really good look because the way she was dragging out her responses were right up there with the best African American preachers. She diverged from the ringing tones and singing quality of the Black preacher with her message.

Joe – from MSNBC is just being Joe – obnoxious, opinionated, totally biased and an anointed follower of Trump. He just wants to be who he is with the show he now has. I don’t think he realizes how horrible he comes across to thinking people- those trying to understand the news of the day and the market of the day in ways other than through such a bigoted and intransigent lens.

If all of you let this happen – shame on you!

In an elected government you get who you deserve as a leader. In this case, several areas of the country have gotten what they deserve in their representatives. The rest of the country – the majority – have shown they want something different. Is this going to continue to be a case where the minority destroys the majority for very mean spirited reasons and because their imagination and ability to run a winning political campaign is limited?

I am a Republican. I have been a Republican since I registered to vote. I have cousins – long dead – and other relatives who lived in Louisiana and who were head of the Louisiana Republican party and/or were pretty high up in the firmament – African Americans all. If you were African American and you wanted to vote back then you had to be Republican because the Democrats were off chasing and trying to keep the Ku Klux Klan in their fold, doing whatever they had to do to let them know the Democrats were just one of the KKK guys.

Times have changed and the Democrats, seeing the handwriting on the wall, started chasing after the NAACP, NOW, etc. The Republicans – who have shown their new constituents don’t get it – have been chasing the KKK guys and their successors. It was clear in the 1970’s when Reagan was nominated and the four years prior to his nomination when he lost the Republican nomination that a movement had started which was very well funded to do exactly what is happening today. Make a home for the Neo-cons in the Republican Party and change its image and what it is about. It is amazing what lots of money and very few people can accomplish in these United Sates.

Well today, things have changed mightily. I understand why so many have left the Republican party. If you are active, just about any place in the country, and you are not one of those Germany would classify as one of the Neo-cons, but who we call the Tea Partry, you are treated pretty shoddily by all of these recent converts from the Democratic Party claiming to be Republicans. Is the racism in this country so great that you will allow such to happen to bring down the country because you want Honorary Oppressors to deal with and maintain the racism that has been so traditionally practiced in the United States? Are you, White America, so hard up to be ‘better than’ by virtue of your Whiteness that you will let such a small group shut down the entire government and threaten the economic recovery which the Obama administration has worked so hard to bring about? Why aren’t you in the streets in protest? Why are you so quiet? Quiet acknowledges acquiescence and that is the message I am receiving. This closing down of the government is not just a Tea Party action – it is being led by the Tea Party and tacitly agreed to by the majority. What is there to lead me to believe otherwise?

If you folks don’t take hold of your party and bring it back from this incredible precipice we will read about Republicans in the history books and no one will be able to say we know or knew one. And me? Everytime I venture out to any Republican event I am so beat up and wounded it takes a while of staying away and licking my wounds before I have the courage to venture out again. Maybe if I were not so aware of history it might be different. After all, even the Klan had its favorite Blacks – included in their activities. If I could just smile and acquiesce in what I don’t believe maybe I too could be financially substantial with a brighter economic future because I allowed myself to be used.

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

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.

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

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

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Tags: Barack Obama, bed & breakfast, bed & breakfast table talk, Democrats, Government Shut Down, Making Connections, Political Campaigns, politics, Racism, Republican Presidential Campaign, Republicans, Sexism
Posted in Bettina's Hall of Shame, Breakfast Table Talk, Historical Support, Making Connections, politics | Comments Off on The Next Republican Presidential Campaign has started and it ain’t pretty!

Live by the Rule of Law – OR –

Wednesday, July 31st, 2013

Live by the Rule of Love!

As a host family in the Bettina Network I’ve met all kinds of people, had thousands of conversations around the breakfast table and sometimes have great evenings with complete strangers in front of my wood burning fireplace. Conversations which changed my life and have often made me reflect on the condition of my soul. That is one of the hazards of having a Bettina Lifestyle House – or whatever we are called these days.

None of these breakfast conversations have made me reflect so much as the conversation about the “Rule of Law” to which we hold as a country.

What is amazing about that is we also claim to be a “Christian” country. – not to ignore my non-Christrian brothers and sisters, but it is who we claim to be and the reason today for the great political divide in this country. We have almost become the country of the ‘saved’ and the ‘damned’.

The Rule of Law has never struck me as hard as it did listening to all the comments on the various cases which have caught the media’s attention of late – Zimmerman, Martin, Bradley Manning, and on and on.

In this country where the Rule of Law is supreme – Martin was killed, Zimmerman was exonerated and freed, Bradley Manning was tortured, tried and convicted and on and on we go, closer and closer to the depths of hell.

When the decision goes against the just and is clearly not justice, we revert to much talk about how we are a nation under the “Rule of Law” . We tell ourselves to remember that and continue to live under this Rule of Law- even though it is not always perfect – and we must accept that or our entire system will be destroyed and undermined. We threaten those who weaken with talk about the unwashed many who will run amuck and rob, kill, rape, and commit general mayhem if we don’t respect our Rule of Law. Without it, we claim, we will all be at risk of being harmed. We are told it is not perfect, but it has created a great nation – the greatest nation on earth and without this Rule of Law, we are told, we will be overrun with mad people running around doing all kinds of unspeakable things with no controls and nothing to stop them.

But Martin was killed and his killer was exonerated under our Rule of Law —— wasn’t that mayhem out of control? Maybe we deserve to be a nation under the “Rule of Law’ because we can abdicate responsibility, reason, sanity, but mostly we can abdicate love – that which demands the most of us.

Christianity claims to be ruled by a God of Love. Christianity claims that the God we worship is Love, but Christians don’t want that concept to enter into their considerations when making and changing the institutional structures under which they will live. As a country, we refuse to live under the “Rule of Love”. It is a great mythical and theoretical concept to talk about, but not to live under. It has nothing to do with our reality. But still Christianity claims that Jesus came to bring in a regime which eliminates the “Rule of Law” and takes it to its next step. As a nation and as Christians, we hold up the “New” Testament which is all about moving away from the law into the gospel and the gospel is about love not law. In fact, one could almost say Christianity denigrates the Rule of Law. It is not an eye for an eye…………….it is better than that! By your fruit………….

I called a friend of mine, also a host family in the Bettina Network, who has these breakfast conversations with strangers about the most intimate things – to try to talk through what has been and is troubling me. She talked about how the Zimmerman/Martin case exposed the hypocrisy of the “Rule of Law”, but that just didn’t do it for me. It didn’t go far enough.

Since religion is at the core of all politics I would like to ask our editor to throw open the blog to writings about religion. Why are you who you are spiritually? Why do you need to convert others? Why do you refuse to convert others because you are one of the chosen few and don’t want those others to join? Why do you live under a rule of law when your religion dictates that you live under a rule of love? How can you claim to believe one thing and live another? How can you define God to be who you need God to be and ignore the reality of God and God’s kingdom breaking in all over this world of ours? Why are you running around trying to patch up those holes where God’s kingdom is breaking in so the structure you, your friends and your family helped create won’t fall apart and will remain in tact in this process?

I heard a young person constantly bragging about her family. They had a Radcliff degree – she had a degree from a college just as prestigious – and went to a private grammar schools considered to be one of the New England Establishment’s schools that the ‘elite’ attend – and her mother supposedly came from a prestigious, wealthy community in New York. It was very painful to listen to her put up this smoke screen because she and they have done nothing with all that background except live in pain and want and tragedy. This young person has the God-given talent of a beautiful voice, which she trashes on a regular basis and when given the opportunity to use and develop that talent trashes the opportunity as well as the voice. What is that about? Raise those issues to her and she will trash you! How does that happen?

Sin, in Christianity, is defined as the absence of God. God is defined as Love! Sin is the absence of Love! Isn’t that how all of this happens? It is such a huge responsibility and such a huge burden to live under the rule of law. Yet not only do we live under this rule, but we raise our children to do just that.

It is such a treasure and joy to live under the rule of love. What a place this country would be if we could move on – out of the shadow of the laws which have enslaved us for so many years into the light of love which has freed us. That kind of freedom seems to be what we are most afraid to embrace – and so we live our lives in such a small, carefully defined place with those better than we are and those less than we are carefully defined and kept in their places by this Rule of Law. We give up everything we have, including our lives to maintain those carefully crafted laws of oppression.

We set forth a body of laws which maintained Jim Crow as legal and the law of the land and we forced our citizens to live under that law – preserved and reinforced by the Supreme Court of these United States and today we glorify that same Court without calling it into question and demanding acknowledgment for its wrongs.

We maintain that Rule of Law because it maintains the status quo – the oppression, the poverty, the homelessness, the suffering of all the people who live under those laws. That Rule of Law maintains the status quo of the wealthy, the powerful, the dictators of high-brow culture, whether right or wrong – and we consider ourselves the greatest nation on earth because we live under this Rule of Law. We call it the greatest ever created.

The loneliest place to be in this society – all over the world – is in that place of a child without a group; a half-breed who does not belong to one group or the other. We ostracize such a person – trash them – try to hide them – scapegoat them for the sins of the rest of society. We elected one as President of these United States and the anger, hostility, horribleness thrown at him is beyond and beneath all of us, yet some of the seemingly nicest people do it and hide behind their political designation as their claimed reason. This half-breed president strikes terror in the hearts of those who most cherish the rule of law. Is that what is wrong with that young person with the beautiful voice? She lives with a mother who holds up her “Yankee” history as great, while her children look on as half-breeds and incorporate into their souls their brokenness and inadequacy because they are not such a great and glorious part of this New England Establishment?

If you live, even partially under the Law of Love it shows – in how you look; in how you take care of yourself; in how you relate to others; in how you take on the responsibilities of being a part of a whole, in how you are not afraid to speak truth. Every minute of every day it shows and those around you see it. God is Love – not Law. Law cannot be fair and just. It was created by all of us and it embodies all of our sins, our flaws, our weaknesses, our biases and then those who most benefit from this Rule of Law throw in the demand that we all live by it or be negatively judged by it.

We expect and demand that Rule of Law to maintain a society in which we are judged and agree to be judged by a Rule of Law set in place to maintain the privileges of those in control and maintain the oppression of those who are under the heavy foot of the privileged.

God forgive us!

I nominate this Rule of Law for Bettina’s Hall of Shame!

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

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.

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

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

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, politics
Posted in Bettina's Hall of Shame, Breakfast Table Talk, Historical Support, Making Connections, Thought for the Day | Comments Off on Live by the Rule of Law – OR –

Martin-Zimmerman and they Followed Historical Patterns

Sunday, July 14th, 2013

Don’t you know, just about every table talk conversation today is about the Zimmerman/Martin case and practically every sermon in many different denominations and religions includes some reference to it.

This is our contribution to the conversation:

1) George Zimmerman was not tried by a jury of his peers. Wasn’t it in the 1960’s and 1970’s that lawsuits abounded because Blacks were tried by all-White juries and those law suits proved that the results of such cases had nothing to do with justice and more to do with allowing the racism of the society penetrate and skewer Court decisions?

Lawsuit after Lawsuit proved that and change happened – until now!

How is it then, that a jury of five white women with white children and one minority woman who the press has never identified as to race – sometimes she was Black, sometimes she was Hispanic – is a jury of Zimmermans’ peers. This decision had nothing to do with justice and this jury did nothing except let the racism and sexism of this society enter the Court system through the front door with a special escort to make sure those twin isms knew where to go.

When one reflects on the fact that the children were White and the women were going to consider this case from the biased perspective not of – what if your child was Black and went to the local grocery store wearing a hoodie or just went to the grocery store in his neighborhood where there was an overzealous, out-of-control neighborhood watch person out there on the street; but what if your child was the White kid named some form of Zimmerman who had to go through a trial because he was doing what he claimed was his job and felt perfectly justified in shooting Trayvon Martin to death after the neighborhood watch person provoked the incident which allowed him to do this huge violence against another human being?

Zimmerman was not charged for 45 days after the fact. Who said “justice delayed……………” What happened in those 45 days? When someone confesses to shooting someone to death, there is an immediate arrest in this system because the evidence is subject to be skewered, disappear, witnesses tampered with and on and on and on.

2) George Zimmernan was a neighborhood watch person. There were many comments that he was a wannabe policeman, but those comments from the media seemed put out there only to cover the ugly facts of what happened. Why is a neighborhood watch person in the street in his car watching for ‘trouble’ with a gun? Was he trained in the use of a gun? Did he have to make regular trips to the shooting range to make sure he knew how to shoot a gun and his skills were up to where they should be? Was he ‘fit’ in the way police and other law enforcement officers have to be, in addition to keeping up their skills with their weapons? Had he been vetted psychologically to know he was able to be responsible with a gun in this neighborhood watch job? Was he encouraged to carry a gun by law enforcement? Why was he not immediately removed from this neighborhood watch duty when it was clear he was not sure of his own ability to fight off any possible attack on himself without the use of a gun? I didn’t hear any of these questions raised.

Zimmermans’ personality – character – ethics – kept him from following orders from those who knew better and advised him as to what to do. To ignore those orders, get out of his car to stalk a Black man in a ‘hoodie’ after telling the police who this Black man was using very negative racist and demeaning terms is a personality, character and ethics exposure. This could not have been the first time this side of Zimmerman was exposed to those who elected him or allowed him to be the neighborhood watch person. What was their motive to ignore these warning signs and allow him out with his gun.

Zimmerman is a man whose own defense witnesses said could not fight – he was too fat to defend himself in a fist fight on the street. He couldn’t punch, etc. He must have been very insecure being a neighborhood watch person – why else was carrying a gun? He knew his limits and he knew his temper – is that what made him so quick to pull the trigger? That is a very insecure person who is looking for trouble when he goes out on a job where he is supposed to be simply a neighborhood watch person observing the neighborhood for signs of trouble and if he saw possible problems, his ‘job’ was to alert the police.

With a gun, Zimmerman was not an ‘observer’ who would quickly alert the real police to trouble. He was someone who was armed and ready and willing to use his weapon at the least provocation. He has shown that is true by his actions against Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman was ready to use his weapon and to provoke an incident during which he could use his weapon – which he did. In the Mafia he would be a made man. In the gang world, he would be welcomed as a member, in the Florida police force ………………?

Has Zimmerman now overcome his half-breedness and is now welcomed into the arms of the majority group? Is this what it takes for a half-breed to become a full-fledged accepted White Person? Zimmerman didn’t make it by birth, but he has absolutely shown he is ready to take his place in a racist, sexist, classist system which is prone to violence against its minorities and is against giving its minorities justice in its court system. Review cases over the past years and see what you come up with! When the jury has spoken, justice has been served. No one commentating on this case has been willing to say other than the jury system has delivered justice. A jury system has delivered that kind of justice to a whole lot of Black folks over the generations – are we dissembling to take attention away from that fact? Are we throwing out a red herring to get folks to look in every place except at the truth?

3) We are all being told the jury has spoken and justice has been served because we are the best nation in the world and our justice system is the best there is!!!!!!! Tell that to the generations of African Americans who have been through our justice system and have seen results come through like Plessy vs Ferguson and a whole lot more. I could go on here and take time to list pages of such cases in which the same kind of justice we have just seen is traditional in this country when African Americans are involved.

When has this country’s justice system ever convicted a White man for the murder of a Black man? And clearly Zimmerman was White. His mother may have been hispanic or some other kind of minority, but his father was White and that is the determination in this country. He stands up as a White man and is respected as such.

4) This great system of justice will now reward Zimmerman and he is the man of the hour – he will shortly be the multi-millionaire of the hour as the offers pour in. I heard talk that his brother may even benefit since the media is talking up how ‘professional’, how ‘well spoken’ is his brother. All we could say is – how self-serving was his brother and how unbelievably horrible in the way he mocked what happened and put himself and his family on that top line where we are the best, most caring people in the world. A family that has produced a George Zimmerman has lots of problems the brother has not let slip out.

All on the back of Trayvon Martin. Trayvon Martin’s life was taken so this man can succeed. Zimmerman followed the book, written over the generations – the racist, ugly names; the provoked violence for which the Black is blamed, the holier than thou attitude at the end, that the Zimmerman family seems schooled in………………. This name calling and showing the spite and vicious racist attitude the Zimmermans have towards African Americans has been slathered over and will soon be buried deep under everything else. Just the fact that the arguments in court were around who was the aggressor says the red herring had already been thrown and Zimmerman was a free man. After Zimmerman started the fight – the court argument takes up at the point where they could picture Martin as the aggressor and all is well – the jury acquits and justice is served. For who? Certainly not for the African Americans in this country. This was a case about racial profiling which resulted in the death of an African American and the courts’ have said ‘ justice was served because the African American was the ‘aggressor’ – and now let the real aggressor go free.

5) The aggressor was clearly George Zimmerman. Trayvon Martin was going home from the store – he was not breaking into a neighborhood where he did not belong, he was going back to his father’s house. This 17 year old child, who had never been in trouble of any kind, had an exemplary record, was going home and was followed and threatened by one George Zimmerman who then shot and killed him and there was a question in the trial as to who was the aggressor! Well – who was the African-American! In this society, in its criminal justice system, there is no question that in that circumstance the Black man was the aggressor – let the facts be selectively chosen to prove this case – AND THEY WERE.

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

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.

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

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

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Tags: African American history, bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, George Zimmerman, Making Connections, politics, Racism, Sexism, Trayvon Martin
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Guest comments, Making Connections | Comments Off on Martin-Zimmerman and they Followed Historical Patterns

Happy New Year! 2013

Tuesday, January 1st, 2013

All of us at Bettina Network, inc. wish all of you a very Happy New Year!

Our wish for you in 2013 is for much joy – the company of caring people – problems which are immediately solvable – new friends and experiences you would not have dreamed about – the discovery of great books, an increasing knowledge of the past to understand and learn from our ancestors mistakes – and the very best food with dishes from other cultures infiltrating the list of what you consider ‘comfort food’. All organic – of course.

We have dealt with myth vs truth all year. This has been a counterpoint in the business, at breakfast, meeting friends, from the media. Wherever we have gone we have had to counter the over-romanticized sayings, misinterpretation of feelings, bad advice from our store of mythology that we give to others and more.

Each time we encountered such, it required us to have a bit of a conversation to work through the why of such passings along and what it achieves for us as a society.

Not having great wisdom to pass along to you we will just wish that in 2013 you will be able to instantly see myth for what it is ; to understand the function it is serving at the moment and can keep it separate from reality – both the established myth and myth in the making.

For Example: the ‘myth’ or ‘wish’ that we heard frequently this year was “I hope God gives you roots and wings. Roots so you are firmly anchored and Wings so you can take flight.

That always struck us as strange. We now use it as a joke. When we want to wish someone ill – we wish them roots and wings. Why? Because if you receive that gift you will be torn apart the way the soul is torn apart after death in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Roots anchor you and the deeper and stronger the roots the more excruciating is the tearing apart of the body and the soul when you sprout those beautiful wings. Is that what keeps us away from one another?

So, we have roots, then we grow wings – huge, beautiful, elegant wings. When you use those wings and you are fully anchored with your roots deep in the soil where they have been nurtured by generations of ancestors, comes the incredible tearing apart. We see it all over society. Those who have tried to soar, but were held back by their ‘roots’. They become dysfunctional, confused, a caricature of who they could be. They have sprouted wings, but their ‘roots’ have them totally anchored to the earth. As human beings it is only a short jump from our own cultural ways to our own cultural ways which are better than anybody else’s and therefore we are better than those who are different, who hold different values, look different, relate differently.

We wish for you a year of understanding the intent of those who pass along these kind of myths – and the reality of what they are saying.

The media has contributed greatly to our being totally ‘rooted’ in these sayings which become mythology – their cute headlines, like ‘we are about to fall off the cliff’ – really? If I hear that one more time when I turn on the television or read the paper or magazine I will probably throw up. There is no cliff to fall off – the financial matters which they have created into this ‘cliff’ image will be resolved in time for the disaster they are predicting to be averted and the media can then to go back to reporting on real news. Well, sort of real news. The media has begun to repay its debt to the politician for bringing their publication into a more profitable position by the money the politicians spend on ads, etc. during campaigns. They have had good exposure and have had time to posture in front of the cameras for quite a long period of time.

This is not the politician and their funders total pay back – you will see more of this media-covered and promoted grandstanding as the year progresses.

We have heard this ‘falling off the cliff’ image before – especially as it relates to something Congress is or is not doing and the dreaded disaster never happens. When the whole story comes out and we realize what they have turned into this ‘cliff’ never was a threat and we have been “taken to the cleaners” – this is never a great and glorious moment.

Have you noticed that this kind of constant non-stop reporting on one topic for days and sometimes weeks always seems to come when there are traditionally no headlines to grab your attention as the media fights to be the first with the flawed story? Remember Y2K? That was reported on endlessly with talking heads going on ad nauseum and then the story died because the time came and went and the disaster they were predicting didn’t happen AND if you listened closely you knew it was not going to happen. It was a flight into nothingness that would occupy lots of air time, thousands of pages of paper and endless photographs which didn’t match the story. The ‘talking heads’ make out quite well because they are always in demand to keep the story going around the round table – or horseshoe shaped table – or rectangular table, depending upon which show you watch.

We wish for you the ability to see truth every day of your life. We wish for you the ability and the need to strip away all of the maudlings, the overly romanticized, the propaganda, the flights of fancy meant to take your mind off what is happening, so power and control is not diluted by John and Jane Q. Public.

We wish for you the ability to be able to stand on your own two feet where you see truth even if you are the only one speaking it – in a crowd going along with the program.

We wish for you the inner strength to endure all of the pain and agony of this life and the ability to use the lessons and turn that pain and agony and those hard times into something beautiful which you can share with us all.

We wish for you such joy that when you enter a room it lights up and fairly glows because you are there.

We wish for you total involvement in LIFE – in which you are a very integral part of what is happening and not a bystander watching the lives of others march past, totally missing your own.

We wish for you the wisdom to know that you are human and what that means with its strengths and weaknesses, its joys and sorrows, its ups and downs, its truths and lies.

We wish for you a turning away from seeing yourselves as greater than the homeless on the street with the need to turn towards them and not away from them because they and you are the same – only on a different journey.

We wish for you the ability to see others, who may look and act differently from you, as one with you.

We wish for you the ability to create businesses, families, communities, political structures which are inclusive and which unite rather than divide.

We wish for you the knowledge and love of a great God who has created all of us even though we call God by different names and give God different attributes, and sometimes even try to create God in our own image.

We hope 2013 brings you closer to yourself -able to see and live with your flaws, your greatness, your talents and to see them as gifts – given to you by a great God, who gives gifts to others, different from but just as important as the gifts given to you.

We hope 2013 will bring you closer to being able to accept yourself without needing a scapegoat to project onto and to blame when things don’t go the way you think they should. Such a need for escape through the use of a human scapegoat created the Holocaust – we hope you will be one of those who does everything they possibly can to bring this universe to a different place. We can’t all be God, we can’t all be gods, but we can all be warm, loving, caring, giving human beings – all equal, all different, and all accepting of the good, the bad and the indifference of others.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

From All of Us At Bettina’s

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

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.

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

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

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, equality, Fiscal Cliff, Homeless, Joy, Life, Making Connections, Media, New Years Greeting 2013, Political, politics, Truth
Posted in Holiday Greeting, Making Connections | Comments Off on Happy New Year! 2013

Benghazi Tells the Future?

Thursday, December 20th, 2012

Ed Note: Yes, we had a breakfast conversation – several, in fact, – about the Sandy Hook massacre. It is too early and people are too tender to join the media massacre of our collective psyche as they posture and jump on this with both feet for days and days and days. So we will keep the notes we were sent and write about Sandy Hook after a few weeks.

Benghazi, however, is a different story. There was conversation about John Kerry and Hillary Clinton and none positive nor complimentary.

I am still smarting at the way Susan Rice was treated so to hear others talk about John Kerry’s lack of ethics in chairing this committee hearing on Benghazi while he is looking to be the next Secretary of State warmed my heart. I had always liked and respected John Kerry – always voted and campaigned for him, in fact. I don’t think I would again.

After watching and listening to his Republican friends diss Susan Rice so the path would be clearer for their long-time friend and colleague John Kerry made me more than a little sick to my stomach.

Given my horror at what happened with Kerry/Rice I thought my horror at John Kerry chairing the committee on Benghazi may have reflected my left over feelings about that conflict, however, the breakfast conversations about Benghzi and Kerry backed up my feelings. How can the truth come out when the chair of the hearing is trying to be nice to the State Department employees and others on that side of the fence because he doesn’t want to go into the State Department as Secretary of State with anyone miffed at him about how they were treated, questioned, etc. at the hearing.

Whether those were his feelings or not, the ethics are clear and are like the elephant in the room. I was amazed at the intensity of the feelings around this. Americans are really angry about the quality and lack of ethics among its politicians. One hears such comments in passing, but to see and hear the feelings that this Benghazi hearing can engender confirms that we want something different from what has happened in the past. At one time, such a breach of ethics would go unnoticed. Today, the media will probably ignore the ethical implications and push John Kerry for Secretary of State, but the rumblings in the general public will not. They will go along with the program, but its going to cost and surprise someone down the road when those resentments pop out.

The funniest comment was the one about Hillary’s ‘Benghazi flu and subsequent concussion’, which no doctor can cure. These were not Republicans these were Democrats who were looking at Hillary as a possible candidate for President in 2016. This, however, had them angry moving away from Hillary. If this keeps up and spreads, her top numbers today are going to slowly slide as more surfaces about Benghazi and people start to wonder out loud what is she afraid of or hiding. If these breakfast were any indication, it looks as though she may be headed into a small storm of having her management abilities questioned – at the very least.

John Kerry should have either renounced any interest in being Secretary of State if he was going to chair this hearing or declined to chair the hearing in favor of someone who could be impartial in trying to get out what actually happened and if there was blame where did it lie. None of that will surface during this hearing with its obvious political interferences which question the objectivity and impartiality of the chair and/or the committee’s ablility to do its job because of its chair waiting to be nominated Secretary of State. John Kerry should be sitting where? – with the questioners or with those being questioned?

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

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.

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

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

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Tags: bed & breakfast, Benghazi, breakfast table talk, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Making Connections, politics, Secretary of State
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Making Connections | Comments Off on Benghazi Tells the Future?

Was Susan Rice Used?

Friday, December 14th, 2012

RICE = ROGERS = GUINIER. What do they have in common besides all being African Americans!

Was yet another woman used? – misused? – abused? in this political process?

Looks to us as though Ms. Rice’s name was thrown out and then reeled in to get the deal President Obama wanted from Congress – and it looks as though not only was it a successful ploy, but he knows the political process very well and is not above playing the game. After all, he is now one of the big boys. I just hope he has not become one of the ‘good ole boys.’

Looks like something Bill Clinton did years ago when he was president and the woman used – abused – misused – was Lani Guinier . In 1993 Ms. Guinier was nominated by President Bill Clinton to be Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. Just like Ms. Rice, Ms. Guinier was eminently qualified – Radcliffe College, Yale Law School, Assistant to the then Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights – a really brilliant and accomplished Black Woman. One of the Clintons’ Yale Law School classmates.

Congress jumped all over Bill Clinton demanding her nomination be withdrawn and who was one of those who counseled him to withdraw the nomination? – none other than Ted Kennedy (genuflecting – of sainted memory), among others, including the Black Female who we will only identify with the nom de plume “turn coat” – “sell out without knowing how much you were selling out for”. So, of course, Ms. Guinier’s nomination was withdrawn. The Wall Street Journal called her one of “Clinton’s Quota Queens” (remember the title of Welfare Queen)?. The racism and sexism of that was overlooked and instead of articulating what this was about and going ahead to back-up and support his nominee, Clinton succumbed to the pressure, even though it looked as though Ms. Guinier would be confirmed. The loud, racist and sexist voices won the day.

The claim made to derail Ms. Guinier’s nomination – at the end of the day – turned out to be false, but the media proclaimed it loudly and kept the drum beat going so Ms. Guinier would be taken down – doesn’t that sound familiar? In small print after the fact, it was acknowledged that the loud drums beat out the wrong message. Now, isn’t that what they are doing to Ms. Rice? Even louder, because they have had more experience beating drums to drum out Black women!

And then there was Desiré Rogers. Another tremendous African American woman from New Orleans. I knew her parents and her grandparents. They were very substantial people and Ms. Rogers had a very solid and ethical upbringing.

Partially because of that New Orleans upbringing, -after what she went through in Washington, D. C. – Ms. Rogers was able to continue her life almost without missing a beat and moved right on up! And Condoleeza Rice – the horrible Republican who many can’t stand to even see or speak about – gets a standing ovation from any Republican group she appears in front of. Is that some kind of contrast? Takes me back to the days of Walter L. Cohen, African American who was head of the Louisiana Republican Party!

All three Black women were charged with things which were blown out of all proportion and all those charges and innuendos were kept going by the media who turned crap, half-truths and more into something which sounded real, substantial and reason for them to be not considered, re-considered, removed. Two were exonerated in the end when things quieted down and the racist sexist goals had been achieved. Ms. Rice will also be so exonerated. That will take awhile since we saw the news people this morning showing signs of relief that Ms. Rice would not be considered for Secretary of State. One news reporter woman let out an audible sound of relief. Although in Ms. Rice’s case it looks more like racism and sexism were used to reach a political goal and not a very big one, considering the price being paid by Susan Rice.

With Susan Rice,

Should be next Secretary of State

the forces of Congress came out once again to attempt to destroy an African American woman.- the Republican forces came out against her because the Democratic forces could not. They would have been accused of pushing for the appointment of a friend – which was, in fact what the Republicans were doing. What we have just witnessed on the political stage could be called “A Time of Surrogacy” with John McCain being the star of the play.

The good ole boys coming out to make sure one of their own got what he wanted. The price someone else paid for that is really irrelevant and not to be considered. That will just go down in the books as a debt to be repaid and they will look to John Kerry, at some point down the road, to repay the debt – and he will.

This time, it looks as though President Obama threw Ms. Rice to the Congressional Wolves so he could negotiate and get what he wanted from them if he withdrew her name from the short list and went back to John Kerry instead. The games boys will play.

Don’t you think it is time we elect men – or – a woman?

Was this the same John Kerry who was President Obama’s coach for that first memorable debate – which came close to blowing Obama’s chances for re-election and at the very least promoted Mitt Romney’s campaign to a higher level?

It seems to me Mitt Romney should be the one promoting John Kerry to higher responsibilities not President Obama – but then, we don’t know what goes on behind those closed political doors. And then I could be wrong – but have you read the Bettina Network’s Blog on “Rice and Kerry”?

And – in an aside, which probably had nothing to do with deals being made – Scot Brown, solely because of his ESP – and having nothing to do with games being played, started his campaign as early as December 4th. What did he know that the rest of us didn’t? He is getting ready to run for John Kerry’s seat. We think that seat should go to Martha Coakley – or – preferably to an African American woman as an appointment. If games are going to be played – set better ground rules fellows, this is a society full of diversity with a diversity mind set. To replace a White Man whose hands are unclean with another White Male whose … tsk tsk tsk!

Our breakfast table guests are seldom wrong. They seem to have that inside track which comes out over those really scrumptious breakfasts served in the bed & breakfast homes in the Bettina Network. Maybe its the coffee which brings out such great conversations. Check them out, especially if you have conversation to share!

If John Kerry has any sense of decency he will withdraw his name from consideration. It is the only decent and ethical thing he can do and it is the only way such games will begin to cease. But then, he has moved far away from the days in which his actions and youthful ideology first got him elected to Congress. How the mighty have fallen! Or – is it that power corrupts?

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

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.

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

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

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Tags: African American history, Barack Obama, bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Desiré Rogers, John Kerry, Making Connections, Mitt Romney, New Orleans Creole, politics, Racism, Secretary of State, Sexism, Susan Rice
Posted in Bettina's Hall of Shame, Breakfast Table Talk, Guest comments, Historical Support, Making Connections | Comments Off on Was Susan Rice Used?

A Guest Responds to Rice and Kerry

Thursday, November 29th, 2012

I read your blog on the Secretary of State fiasco and I am so glad someone has put out there what is actually happening. I am especially distressed about what I am seeing in the media and hearing about this Susan Rice thing. Imagine putting such a lovely young woman through such trials because they need to clear a path for a WUCM member to become Secretary of State. It is criminal! Almost reaches the level of Depraved Indifference to who she is – how hard she worked to gain her credentials – how even harder she worked to serve the United States for a lot of years – to serve all of us – and now the reward for her hard work is this treatment which brings to my mind ‘Depraved Indifference. ‘ A legal terms, but fully adequate in this context. And that legal terms brings Philippa Schuyler – another African American woman – to mind.

If we had a media which published the truth over the decades and generations our ruling White Upper Class Males would not have been able to buy the election for Ronald Reagan – which all of us saw, but none reported. Now, Republicans are coming to the fore to attempt to insure that their group is not left out of power – not their Republican group, but their WUCM group. Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Tea Party etc. all belong to this group.

The media in Massachusetts is becoming confident and putting its toe in the water and beginning to talk (3:45am Channel 6) about how to persuade Governor Patrick to appoint Scot Brown to the seat that will be vacated by John Kerry when he is appointed Secretary of State. If that doesn’t confirm your breakfast blog, nothing will.

The media is clearly complicit in all of this and their tom-toms ring out around the world heralding what they are all in agreement with and see as their vested interest to the continued sharing of power.

There was or is a group researching Philippa Schuyler, to keep her memory alive and her accomplishments in front of the public. I think that is a laudable effort, especially at times like this when one can see similarities. To put what is happening to Susan Rice in a historical context brings a total different picture to the forefront.

Philippa Schuyler was a young African American woman, killed by what some of us believe was first degree murder i.e. Depraved Indifference. I’ve heard more than one person lately agreeing with me and I believe some information from the Philippa Schuyler committee also said the same thing.

The parallel to the way Susan Rice’s reputation is being ‘killed’ by a group trying to maintain the WUCM’s control is startling.

With Philippa Schuyler, there was a total ignoring of what happened to her by some and an attempt at public justification by the WUCM. There was a Congressional Hearing. No charges were brought even though clearly there should have been charges of Depraved Indifference and the culprits should have been brought to trial, but Congress held a hearing which they thought and apparently accurately so, would defuse any problems from the African American community following her death. Not a peep since. Not a peep from the minority and women groups about what is happening to Susan Rice, either. Does that show how far outside African American women are? Who are your defenders?

Ms. Rice, apparently, must be sacrificed so John Kerry can have his day in the sun as Secretary of State? Where is the African American, Latino American, Women’s groups on what is happening in front of your faces. The quiet from you is deafening. Have you not heard – ‘if they come for me in the morning, they will return for you in the afternoon?” Certainly, an outcry behind what happened to Philippa Schuyler might have changed the world for minorities and especially women – but there was none.

What is interesting about the Philippa Schuyler parallel – Philippa and her father were very conservative in their thinking and writing, except where it came to reporting on events and issues where their main criteria was the truth. They were conservative to the point of being involved with the then John Birch Society. That didn’t, however, save Philippa’s life. Liberal or Conservative doesn’t really matter does it! Isn’t that what this bit of theatre is saying? The WUCM Republicans ignore party lines when it comes to some things – and maintaining and increasing the power of two of their own is paramount. The WUCM Democrats have and will in the future, return the favor.

Philippa drowned and her parents suffered the extreme loss and grief that happens under those circumstances.

Philippa was a great child prodigy and pianist who was outstanding and traveled the world playing concerts on many world stages. She composed symphonies by the age of six. If she had lived, I think her journalistic talent would have dwarfed her music. Some of us believe it was her journalism which caused her death. But she was both and it took both sides of her to produce the articles she wrote.

She was the only one to stand tall and write the real story of what happened in Africa decades ago in the death of – oh my, was it Lumumba! Every other journalist got the story wrong, but they were consistent in what they reported. So their story came from where? to be so consistently wrong? “Intel?” Did all of the journalists who engaged in that bit of conspiracy lose their jobs? Miss promotions? etc. etc. Maybe they need to step back and take another look at this Susan Rice scenario.

Philippa, who kept her contacts with those low on the economic totem pole, had ways to find the truth and she wrote about what she found and it was accurate and truth and her parents then had to deal with her death from, what some of us believe was purposefully negligent, – depraved indifference.

How does that relate to Susan Rice? Yet another African American woman is being slaughtered for things which are minor especially when compared to things the WUCM group has done and suffered no career set-back from. Yet Ms. Rice is being set-up to lose a possible appointment as Secretary of State because the WUCM group has a member – John Kerry – who wants to be Secretary of State. And here we also have some Congressional involvement. Not the Democrats, that would be too clear, but we don’t need to be led to see through a mirror darkly, we need to see face to face.

Through the mirror darkly we see the Republicans fighting Ms. Rice – White Males all, except for the involvement of the White Woman who looks like a parallel to the African Americans who worked with the KKK. All helping their brother WUCM members by attempting to take care of two of them – Scot Brown and John Kerry. I can’t believe how this stuff happens over and over and over again and a story is spun by the media which has nothing to do with reality, but is throwing smoke in your face so your eyes sting and you can’t see what is in front of you – and throwing the work over to the other side so the WUCM can say – see, its not us – bring us that bowl of water so we can wash our hands clean and prove to you we were not involved! Whose hands are being washed here? The Republicans? No – its the good ole Democrat boys looking out for their own.

Thanks again for the breakfast article. I wish others had the guts to write the truth. Sitting around Bettina Network breakfast tables I have heard some incredible talk and hope to continue. It certainly cleared my head and got my thinking straightened out.

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

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.

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

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

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Governor Patrick, John Kerry, Making Connections, politics, Scot Brown, Secretary of State, Susan Rice
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Guest comments, Historical Support, Making Connections, Reader Feedback | Comments Off on A Guest Responds to Rice and Kerry

Secretary of State???

Sunday, November 18th, 2012

Lordy – what did that guy say? ‘Much ado about nothing’? Well, this is NOT much ado about nothing. This is as much ado as possible to drown Susan Rice and make sure John Kerry is the next Secretary of State.

Nothing personal Susan. And it has nothing to do with what you said or didn’t say, your qualifications, your color, your sex…….It is simply the old boys rushing to protect the next step up of one of their own.

See, we can cross the aisle to attempt to accomplish something. Now if you guys would make this crossing party lines to work for real issues wouldn’t that be nice!

Sorry Susan – if you have to lose your reputation as they all strive to stomp all over you. It isn’t personal – just politics as usual.

What a hilarious route mimicing the ‘good old boys’ as they try to hide their real agenda! We should have many more such breakfasts.

And who said one should never talk about politics or religion. What else creates such a fun and interesting time. I won’t go into detail – you wouldn’t believe it anyway.

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

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.

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

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

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, John Kerry, Making Connections, politics, Racism, Secretary of State, Sexism, Susan Rice
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Making Connections | Comments Off on Secretary of State???

Petraeus over Breakfast

Tuesday, November 13th, 2012

Just when you think things are calmer, up comes a topic of conversation over breakfast which could have fried the organic, free of the cage eggs.

The conversation was basically – don’t you think this was a last stand to unseat Obama and turn the election victory over to Romney?

Not having listened to the news, we were floored to learn that the woman who started this Petraeus mess – a Ms. Kelly – has a good friend at the top in the CIA, or was it the FBI, or was it both? We love gossip, but don’t always get it straight, especially when sitting with mouth open listening to the latest. Apparently, that friendship is what started this investigation, not any concern from either the FBI or the CIA about ‘security leaks’ or other possibilities which fit within their commission to do such an investigation, but they carried on anyway and we will now be regaled more with the infractions of those who tried to manipulate than with the core event which started it all. Sound familiar – AGAIN!

Watch closely which Congressional people and other talking heads come forth quickly to turn this into an anti-Obama thing instead of bringing out the truth. When, O Lord, will truth prevail in our society instead of the push for power?

The push for power is an ugly thing and we have experienced it big time throughout this election cycle – and – if we don’t all, as a large United States of America community, push for something better, this is what we will continue to get. Folks are getting rich on these schemes. Don’t we have many ‘nouveau’ multi-millionaires running around stuffing their bank accounts with much dirty money from coming up with such schemes?

Kelly got an FBI investigation into Petraeus and his ‘friend’ Broadwell through her friendship connections with the CIA and FBI and according to our breakfast conversations, this whole thing was to break open just before the election to help end any hopes the Obama Campaign may have had of winning. Amazing! Wish we had such connections – we could put them to much better use. The only FBI connections we have are the spam emails we get supposedly from the FBI and CIA – oh well, such is life.

According to our breakfast conversations, thanks to the bungling and messiness of bureaucracies, that attempted influence into the presidential election didn’t happen, but it came close. Did folks really use the FBI and CIA to attempt to influence a United States Presidential Election? Don’t you think its time for us to demand that our elections be better than what they’ve been? We’ve had Florida, Arizona and now Petraeus?

Now – do we – as a Bettina Network community have such connections? Okay folks, cough them up!!! We can then bring them all together and use them for good! Well, for good maybe after we all become billionaires and are happily roaming the world in our own planes. We can then justify what we did to get there with talk amongst ourselves about our good ‘intentions’ to save the world and make this a better place for ‘our kind.’

But for the Grace of a forgiving God…………

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

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.

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

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

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Tags: Barack Obama, bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Making Connections, Mitt Romney, politics
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Making Connections | Comments Off on Petraeus over Breakfast

Vote Today – My Opinion, et tu?

Tuesday, November 6th, 2012

By: Marceline Donaldson, 2012

Hope everyone gets out to vote. I still can’t believe the race is so close. When you think of people supporting and giving money to elect an Archbishop of the Mormon Church for president of these United States is unbelievable in a country which believes in and has a constitutional amendment against bringing together Church and State and there is no question Mitt Romney will not and has not separated Church and State. He is one of the two to three top people in his Church – the equivalent of an Archbishop in the Catholic Church – he has not resigned nor has he said he would resign if elected president and we have never asked the question.

The theology of the Mormon Church, to which he has pledged to be totally committed and to believe everything it teaches clearly does not believe and does not allow its members to see women and African Americans as equal. What’s wrong with all of you folks!Romney is not a member of the Church – in the pew – maybe taking in everything the Church teaches and maybe not – do all of you understand he is and has been a pastor in the Church – a Stake President (which means he is over several Mormon Churches) and to be in the position he is and has been in for over 10 years is one in which he must pledge that he believes everything the Church teaches and will work to bring in and proselytize the world bringing them around to becoming members of the Mormon Church because if he doesn’t these folks out there – these non-Mormons will be damned for an eternity. Romney believes that! That is what he thinks of you and me. And you are putting up your money, time and effort to help elect him President?

I can’t see Americans voting for the equivalent of an Archbishop of any religion – Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, etc. Take a look at what happened in Massachusetts. The large number of people converting after Romney became Governor and the huge growth in Mormon Community Centers in Massachusetts coming directly from Romneys time as Governor. He wasn’t standing back and keeping his religion to himself before during and after his time as governor, he was proselytizing and Americans are now backing him for president. I heard Ray Flynn – a big time Democrat go on television in an ad to back Romney. That was scary.

Does the Catholic Church really think they can partner with the Mormons to bring about their beliefs and then what? Watch their members convert? Or will they hear themselves be talked about as among the damned and the lost? Get real folks.

A man who goes to Church – and when he enters his Mormon Church takes off his street clothes and puts on the white robes that Mormons put on in their churches to set themselves apart from the rest of the dirty bedraggled sinful world is running for President of these United States.

I’ve talked to too many Mormons who were told what to do and who knew they had to do it and there was no room for ‘back talk’. Do you really think with that way of dealing that Mormons have not been told to vote for Romney? I’ve talked to several people who were told how to vote. If I found them – without looking for any such person – why hasn’t the media done an investigation into that kind of vote tampering?

Other kind of voter tampering? Where else would you find one person running for office and his son owning and controlling the voting machines used to count the votes for his father and his fathers’ adveersary in the race?

I’ve talked to too many African Americans who were disinvited from some Mormon Community Centers and asked to go to others. They were told they were not being asked out of the Church, but they would be more ‘comfortable’ in a Church with others like them rather than the White Church they were attending.

I look at Romney and hear the lies he has been telling. Even the media and others have had to call him out on lying – and we are looking at a close vote? It is unbelievable! However, we get who we deserve.

Looking at Massachusetts, Romney was governor of Massachusetts and he is further behind in Massachusetts than in any other state. What does that say about his governorship? He got out of it what he wanted – lots of converts in Massachusetts to Mormonism.

Who has he run against while in politics? A woman and an African American. That says a lot about a man who clearly shows he thinks very little of women and minorities. These are the people he sees as not having a chance against a White Male, so he has taken them on. Would he have run for Governor of Massachusetts or President of the United States if his opponents were other than a woman or African American?

He is in a religions – to which he is devoted – which has been very clear that they think women are inferior and it is against their theology for women to come close to equality and African Americans were not allowed into the Mormon Church until the civil rights movement showed its strength. The Mormon Church claimed African Americans carried the mark of Cain and therefore were unredeemable and not proper people to join their Mormon Church.

I remember Mormon women coming forward in the 1970’s when the women’s movement was very strong and very vocal and when they did join the Women’s Movement they were excommunicated from their Mormon Church. And we are today looking at the possibility of a Mormon Bishop for President of the United States? Absurdities abound here. Is this who you Tea Party folks are going to make a deal with to keep your race pure? And White? Now that’s funny!

I could go on for pages, but that wouldn’t produce anything. I just can’t understand why this campaign is so close given the facts of who Romney is – given the horrible state of the United States at the end of the Bush administration – listening to Romney talk about and drop the blame for the slowed economy on Obama and expecting people to believe him. Is our memory so short? Do we not remember when this country almost tanked? Do we not remember when Obama was inaugurated President of these United States the economy and the country was in far worse shape than any of us thought possible and he had to bring us all back from the edge of that cliff?

Romney talks about his ‘experience’ and how he can turn this country around quickly because he is so good at doing such. But I also remember Romney saying he didn’t do any of that – he was simply an investor in the businesses to which he attached his name. What is it – the one or the other? It is the one most expedient to argue at the moment.

I understand how Germany could have been taken in by Hitler in his early days. Human beings are very gullible. We somehow don’t see the monster standing in front of us until he has ripped us to pieces. And then we don’t understand what happened.

This was written by a lifelong, but today disaffected, disappointed, disbelieving Republican. I was a Republican when Strom Thurmond was a Democrat. Wow how life changes! Do you think Abraham Lincoln would be able to vote for Mitt Romney? I don’t think so.

Marceline Donaldson

______________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

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.

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

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

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Tags: Barack Obama, bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Making Connections, Mitt Romney, politics
Posted in An editorial just because, Making Connections | Comments Off on Vote Today – My Opinion, et tu?

Thanks for your Presidential Post!

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012

I would like to add just a couple things, which I think need to be highlighted:

We read lots about minorities playing the “race card.” No one has said one word about the races taking place today – presidential and otherwise where one person running is blatantly using the ‘race card’ against their opponent. For example, in Massachusetts Scott Brown is heavily using race in all of his campaign ads and rallies. So much so that his staff has taken to making tomaawk chops and the supposed Indian war cry at his rallies. They have picked up what is really being said and they are letting the rest of us know what’s really going on by their actions.

Romney’s campaign is doing the same thing. It was much discussed after Obama won the presidency that racism would intensify in this country because of his win. But, no one said why or how and this election cycle we are seeing why and how. When your opponent is minority or part minority, use the race card to highlight their minority status or do other things to incite the racism which is either active or latent in these United States. It is how many politicians in the deep south in the 1940’s stayed in office and won office. They kept their voting populace stirred up over race.

Your breakfasts sound fantastic. Keep up the good work. When I retire I am going to put my house in the Bettina Network. I have to keep active and ageism has made me much aware of racism and sexism. I must confess I ignored it before I started to realize my age would keep me from credit, jobs and more. Amazing when things come home to where you live how sensitive you become to others suffering that you hadn’t even noticed before. Forgive me my transgressions! I am sure I was one of those letting my racism out against others without realizing it and without taking responsibility for it to make the effort to change. Well, now I get to fight ageism because I didn’t help lessen the ‘isms in this society.

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

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.

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

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

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Tags: ageism, Barack Obama, bed & breakfast, Elizabeth Warren, growing old, Making Connections, Mitt Romney, politics, Racism, Scot Brown, Sexism
Posted in Breakfast Table Talk, Growing Old, Guest comments, Making Connections, Reader Feedback | Comments Off on Thanks for your Presidential Post!

Senator Brown and his American Indian Dilemma

Wednesday, May 9th, 2012

There has been a lot of reporting because Senator Brown accused Elizabeth Warren of taking ‘advantage’ of her American Indian (Cherokee) background.

What the reporters have missed is the fact that being American Indian – even a small part American Indian has never been an advantage in this country. Most folks would spend time and resources covering their minority heritage! Elizabeth Warren has not done that – so she won’t have to be ‘surprised’ when a genealogist turns up her minority heritage.

The time-frame about which Senator Brown speaks was a time during which it was especially hard to claim to be any percent of any minority if you wanted a decent job, or a place to live at a reasonable price, or to be treated fairly. If you were a minority and female you could just forget it.

How long did Derek Bell fight and how much did he sacrifice just to get Harvard to look at the possibility of hiring an African American woman to the faculty of the Harvard Law School? Is that the time during which Senator Brown is claiming that to be part or full American Indian would give one an advantage at Harvard Law? It was called Beirut on the Charles because of the fighting going on in that time frame to try to open the faculty to qualified minority women. It didn’t happen. One was let in – an African American woman – and then the door slammed shut.

We live in a racist, sexist society where women and minorities are discriminated against and have to fight just to maintain second and third class citizenship. Equal opportunities don’t even come into the picture.

This country had Affirmative Action laws because there was no equal opportunity. To claim that someone who is American Indian, African American, Hispanic American, Female has an advantage over Whites Males in this society is simply untrue. It is a racist and sexist statement and I am appalled that the media has not labeled it as such, but covers it as though it is a legitimate statement to which Elizabeth Warren should respond.

To extend Senator Brown’s statement to its logical conclusion, he is claiming that minorities and females make less than their White Male counterparts because they aren’t as qualified, as intelligent, as aggressive, as etc. to be equal – they must be given these unearned ‘advantages’ which Ms. Warren was trying to take from them and claim as her own. Its further extension says that minorities and women are in lesser positions because they deserve them and are – what – genetically unable to be equal to White Males, thus the need to be vigilant about who uses these “advantages”?

To make the further claim that a Minority Female would experience such a large ‘advantage’ over White females that a White Female would have to claim to be a Minority Female to gain these ‘advantages’ she couldn’t achieve on her own as a White Female because clearly White Females don’t have these ‘advantages’ which accrue to Indian American females in this society is a statement so profoundly irresponsible and racist and sexist that I am appalled not only at the statement, but at the way it has been handled by the press. Is it because this is one of your own that you will not go after him with the truth, but must cushion what he says and does because his wife is one of you?

This is a United States Senator making such a claim, not simply John Q. Public who might not know better and Senator Brown clearly knows better.

What is apparent to me is the fact that he is changing the dialogue to make sure minorities and women are kept where they ‘belong’ and are kept disadvantaged because he is going on the attack with claims that to be a minority/minority female/female is to have what Senator Brown calls an ‘advantage’ over White Males such that one must be exposed for making what he calls ‘false claims’ to gain these superior ‘advantages’.

Does the following sound familiar?

1) These were the claims made by the KKK when Affirmative Action was passed.

2) The White Citizens Councils in the South made this argument. It is the argument against Affirmative Action. Their claim was – we don’t need Affirmative Action because it brings in Reverse Discrimination.

This is now slipped into the Senatorial race as an argument against doing the work of bringing about Equaity because we already have Reverse Discrimination. Senator Brown is claiming that when a Minority Female or someone who is just part Minority Female has more ‘advantages’ in this society than White Males and White Females – so many, according to Senator Brown, that a White Female with a small percentage of American Indian ancestry would loudly claim that ancestry at a time when it would definitely go against her in education, jobs, housing and more. What were those ‘advantages’ Senator Brown?

How unbelievably racist and sexist is this? Where are the other voices against this? Are you so accepting that you would allow such an important conversation be changed by a man who has been a centerfold, put his daughter on the block with his acceptance speech and now is turning the tables and trampling on all of the Civil Rights heroes who had to sacrifice – in some cases their lives – for the rest of us to gain just one more rung up the ladder – the bottom third of the ladder? He is telling all of us that to be a minority – even part minority – is to have an ‘advantage’ in this society which we exploit and allow others to exploit against White Males. How insulting is that when racism and sexism is a part of your daily life and you encounter it every time you walk out your front door.

During the years, about which Senator Brown is speaking, we tried to buy a house in Massachusetts. A White Couple went out to present themselves as the buyers – we were told that without that happening we would not be able to buy the house. When I decided that wasn’t necessary because after all we were living in different times and we appeared – the African American couple really the potential buyers of the house – the house was taken off the market. Is that the ‘advantage’ about which Senator Brown speaks? We now have the ‘advantage’ of not living on the North Shore – it would probably have been too much for an African American couple so we were ‘advantaged’ by being denied? Or was it my American Indian background which accrued that ‘advantage’ to us? If they knew about my English great-great-grandfather we probably would have been denied the ‘advantage’ of not living on the North Shore and we would have been ‘disadvantaged’ by being allowed to buy the house! This is what Senator Brown is telling us that Elizabeth Warren was trying to do – become that kind of ‘advantaged’ person to further her career and her life in this ‘advantaged’ direction!

Senator Brown’s accusations against Ms. Warren says more about Senator Brown’s racism and sexism than it says about anything Elizabeth Warren has done or been accused of doing. Add that to the blatant sexism he has shown and the “good old boy” attitude he exudes from every pore and this is my Senator? Senator Strom Thurmond would probably pat him on the back for what he has done for the cause (of the continued superiority of the White Male).

Back in the day – and not that far back – if you had ‘one drop’ of minority ‘blood’ in these United States you were that minority. If you claimed anything else you were accused of ‘passing’. I’ve never heard of a White person “passing” for a minority because of the ‘advantages’ that would accrue to them. The ‘advantages’ are so enticing, – of being turned down for housing; turned down for a job; and watching someone less qualified get that same job that you were denied in spite of Affirmative Action laws! For women it is the ‘advantage’ to be ridiculed; to be demeaned; to see the attempt to destroy their reputation using sex as a weapon; to be characterized as not serious and very frivolous; to be told you were born to be good secretaries but have no genes to allow you to be scientists, etc. – sounds like the ‘advantages’ Senator Brown claims Ms. Warren was seeking by owning up to her minority female ancestors.

To come up front and admit to your American Indian heritage or even to claim publicly whatever percentage of that American Indian heritage you have is a huge step forward for all of us. As someone who is part Choctaw and Black Foot American Indian to someone who is part Cherokee American Indian – welcome to the tribes Ms. Warren and thank you for not being ashamed of and of not hiding your minority heritage – no matter how small and no matter the negative repercussions on your life and your future.

Thank you Senator Brown for bringing that forward so we can thank Ms. Warren for her courage at a time when being one part any kind of minority female was something you hid and kept from others not something you admitted to publicly, especially if you didn’t look the part and it was easy to deny.

Even with Affirmative Action – which no longer exists and didn’t work very well anyway – you didn’t gain any ‘advantage’. Companies, Universities, other institutions or groups simply used the Affirmative Action laws to limit the number of minorities they had to hire instead of increasing that number by hiring the most qualified person for the job regardless of their race, sex, etc. I know about those so called ‘advantages, Senator Brown. I worked in Affirmative Action when it was active. I applied for a job in international marketing. I was hired for the job and then immediately moved to Affirmative Action because I was uniquely qualified. I didn’t even know what Affirmative Action was – so what were my qualifications? I was a minority female, who was ignorant about Affirmative Action. That was one way I was “advantaged”. Who was hired for the job in International Marketing? An Englishman with a high school education who had been in the English Army and played the clarinet in its band. I was so “advantaged” because I had only been to Harvard Graduate School of Business.

What are some of the other ‘advantages’ that minorities experienced? 10% Jews in some Universities – and any more were turned down as being not qualified. 2% African Americans – and even that was considered too much for most places. Let’s not even let in one American Indian – and that was acceptable to all. During the time of which Senator Brown speaks there was no advantage to being or admitting to being American Indian.

Who claimed there were ‘advantages”? – racists and sexists who were fighting Affirmative Action because the tomatoes were taken off their plate leaving only steak, vegies, potatoes and dessert for them to eat – and who were angry that those tomatoes were put on the plates of minority Americans whose plates were totally empty. They were angry that they were being ‘deprived so others might live in a less oppressive and freer environment. Those ‘advantages’ were especially strong against an American Indian – especially a female American Indian.

We aren’t that far from the Trail of Tears Senator Brown and who was that about – let’s see now – wasn’t that the Cherokee Nation herded west from the eastern South? If even a small percentage of your genes come from that Cherokee Nation you hold within yourself the pain of that event. To hold the pain of that event along with the anger in your genes from those who caused that pain – and to still be able to come forward to hold out that you are a part of that pain and a part of those who caused the pain accepting all of your ancestors is a substantial act.

Now, is this conversation that Senator Brown started really about some claimed ‘advantage’ or is he holding up a light for all to see that Ms. Warren is part American Indian in the hopes that the racists amongst us will not vote for her, but will vote for him instead?

Talk about a red herring with a racist agenda – that is what this looks like to many, many, many minorities who have had to struggle and still struggle and in spite of that are turned down for jobs, housing, other opportunities. To hear someone, especially a United States Senator claim that to be an American Indian or even part American Indian gains one some kind of advantage in this system is not only nonsense; it is not only extremely painful for minorities to hear because it once again raises the denial which has and continues to prolong the practice of racism and sexism in this society, but it changes the dialogue and gives the racists and sexists a place to hang their hats as they march forward to make sure Affirmative Action – Equal Opportunity – never again gains a foothold in this society and that minorities continue to be discriminated against .

Congratulations Senator Brown! You have earned a higher place within your political group. All of the ‘hail fellow well met’ folks are crowing about your ‘guts’ and jumping on your band wagon in their delight that one of their own is pushing back the unwashed minorities and women trying to be free and equal. The rest of us are wearing sack cloth and ashes because you are our Senator.

To claim that to be a Minority is to have more advantage than Whites have in this society and to claim that to be part minority opens one up to take advantage of non-existent advantages is to be irresponsible to the point of evil. To have set yourself up as the one who “outs” such claims is evil to the core.

Senator Brown has shown clearly in these past few days that he is not only racist and sexist, but believes he has a right to be and is very loud and wrong in his claims, but he doesn’t seem to realize how arrogant and ugly he now looks because his inner beliefs are on parade for all to see.

________________________________________________________________

Learn More About How We Use Your Donation!

[give_form id=”3763″]

______________________________________________________________

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.

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

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

TO LEARN MORE about Bettina Network, inc. try www.bettina-network.com

IF YOU ENJOY OUR BLOG, USE OUR SERVICES TO BOOK ACCOMODATIONS WHEN YOU TRAVEL!

1-800-347-9166 inside the U. S. or 617 497 9166 outside or inside the U. S.

Tags: Affirmative Action, bed & breakfast, Elizabeth Warren, politics, Racism, Senator Scott Brown, Sexism
Posted in Historical Support, Making Connections | Comments Off on Senator Brown and his American Indian Dilemma

Posts Tagged ‘politics’

It Is Time To Line Up and Kiss the Ring!

The ‘Sharing’ Community????

Conspiracy Theories?

Trump, Thurmond, Duke

Rachel Dolezal – over Breakfast!

A New World Order

UBUNTU – I Am Because You Are

Republicanism BC and AD – oops, AT*

The Next Republican Presidential Campaign has started and it ain’t pretty!

Live by the Rule of Law – OR –

Martin-Zimmerman and they Followed Historical Patterns

Happy New Year! 2013

Benghazi Tells the Future?

Was Susan Rice Used?

A Guest Responds to Rice and Kerry

Secretary of State???

Petraeus over Breakfast

Vote Today – My Opinion, et tu?

Thanks for your Presidential Post!

Senator Brown and his American Indian Dilemma

Blog Search

We are the Bettina Network

Categories

Archives

Bettina’s Lifestyle Community