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Posts Tagged ‘Sexism’

We Heard Your Call to Investigate and Write!

Sunday, January 8th, 2017

To the editor:

Thank you for that blog. We – me and a small group of friends – heard your call to investigate and put together the pieces we have and write about what is happening. We are going to do exactly that and hope others will follow suit.

We have a little information, but need to expand on it so we are going to contact who we need to contact and you will soon hear from us. I am writing this because I hope others do the same.

Some of us can put our names out there. Others, who are still dependent upon their jobs, can’t. Can we still send you a blog and you will publish it anonymously?

Answer:

Yes! We will publish it anonymously, as long as we know who you are and we know you are a real person. You have to identify yourself to us, but we will keep your identity close. It does not have to be sent with your blog, but you will have to then call, write, or somehow contact us to let us know who you are and your identity has to check out.

Thank you for caring. If we all come together on this, maybe we can save a little bit of the country we know and love from what is about to happen here.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

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

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Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Donald Trump, Guest Comments, politics, Racism, Scattering Sale, Sexism
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The American Manchurian President-elect

Friday, January 6th, 2017

Marceline Donaldson – January 2017

I think it is too late in the day to continue the denials of what has happened and is happening in these United States. We are attempting to put lipstick on a pig and for the sake of decency – truth – justice – our own democracy continuing and not being usurped the way it is currently being usurped – continued prosperity – we need to be truthful and own up to what has been a massive failure for the United States and an ugly exposure of its underbelly.

The platitudes and overused sentiment needs to stop. The voting citizens of the United States elected Hillary Clinton as president. Over 2.9 million more than her rival, Donald Trump. The Electoral College – an institution which was put in place with the Founding Fathers to maintain slavery – turned their backs on what the substantial majority of the United States voting citizens declared and wanted and that Electoral College elected a man who has shown himself to be a traitor, a bigot, crude, vile, womanizer, adulterer, participant in and poser for soft-porn pictures, sexual abuser, very arrogant and entitled about that fact of his life, and so much more.

There are indications that Donald Trump is a part of the mafia and has been so for some time. It is difficult in the United States to own casinos; to be involved in the Construction Industry; to own hotels – all at the same time and not be a part of the mafia. Those investigating and writing about their findings have found that Mr. Trump has bought concrete from the Genovese Crime Family for his hotels and much more. It is time for every decent person in these United States to take up their pen and begin to investigate and print their findings. Clearly, the media is not going to do that. If they printed what they knew before the election, it is possible we would not be facing this situation today.

Donald Trump’s deceit, hypocrisy and lies slaps everyone in these United States and elsewhere with its flagrancy. If he is caught, he simply denies his actions and takes the other side. It does not matter to him that he is in print clearly making the statements he then denies having made. There is no hesitation. That alone shows his lack of a good and substantial ethical base from which to make decisions; a lack of respect for those to whom he is speaking (all of us), and he has shown an incredible vicious side and total lack of any component of what constitutes a good character. In large corporations, looking for a chief executive, I don’t see any that would hire such a person and yet he is about to become President of these United States. His lack of honesty is beyond overwhelming – it is something I have never seen before. To stand in front of a group of people and deny that you said what they know and can prove you said without blinking an eye or showing any shame or regret or taking back of the one statement as when you believed then, but now have had a change of heart – nothing. He simply stands in front of a group of people and denies what was his own truth.

When Roger Ailes was outed as a sexual abuser of many of the women who worked for Fox News and he was forced to resign, Donald Trump embraced him as a friend and gave him support. The men Donald Trump embraces and calls “friend” are men who have similar backgrounds. They may not yet have been outed, but we clearly know and have seen their womanizing habits. This is your newly “elected” president of these United States. Not only has Donald Trump embraced prominent sexual abusers, whose deeds were publicly known and verified, but he has bragged on tape about his own sexual abuse. In the bragging he clearly saw what he was saying and doing as good and his right – at the expense of the women having been and who will be exposed to such a man as the leader of these United States. He is the one who will be serving as a role model for our children. He is the one who will be contributing to their character and to the choices they will make over the years. That will not leave this country – that will be entwined and a part of the fabric of this country’s ethical base and decision making for generations to come.

When is it going to be enough – all of you United States citizens? When are you going to call an end to this charade and made for television moment in our history?

It is clear to me that Donald Trump started his candidacy in cahoots with Valdimir Putin or some other high ranking government official in Russia. Donald Trump’s conspiracy theory against Barack Obama, which plagued Obama’s presidency for eight years and plagued his presidential campaign before he became president clearly played right into Vladimir Putin’s negative relationship with Barack Obama. The boy doing the bidding of the man. The “boy” in these United States is clearly Donald Trump. The “man” is clearly Vladimir Putin.

Most of us looked at that conspiracy theory and let it go as the rantings of someone vicious and evil and far removed from our world. However, he was right in the middle of this world and preparing to help those the United States has fought against for generations to take it over.

It is clear that this is a takeover of the United States Government and we will never be the same.

Evil walks the land and we are cooperating with it as we try to be “nice”.

President and Mrs. Bush have announced that they will be at the inauguration of Donald Trump as president because it is important to show the world how a democracy works and the peaceful transition of power.

President Clinton and Secretary of State Clinton have made the same announcement.

What they are actually showing the world is that they have been co-opted for the optics of the moment and are not going to take an ethical and moral stand which puts them on the side of the good and the just and the righteous and those who see through this charade. They have been in a position and have been exposed to the people and information which tells them – in more detail than the rest of us will ever have – just how corrupt Donald Trump actually is. To then stand up next to him and for him and allow those pictures to circulate through the generations – that when called on for the tough decisions, they were among the missing – is kind of hard for this voting citizen of the United States to take.

It is time for everyone to pick up their pen and document what they know about all of this and how they feel about this takeover of their government.

It is time to stand tall and stop this turning Muslims into the victims of the moment so the treasuries of countries can be raided while its citizens are distracted and so all kind of other injustices and lies can be promulgated while the majority of the people are ranting against Muslims as though they are the people who created this evil.

Turn back in time and listen to what Donald Trump said about Mexicans. Listen to how he was going to build a wall and Mexico was going to pay for this wall – to keep out thieves and rapists and on and on he went denigrating Mexicans.

As you listen – tune into what is being said today. The United States taxpayers are going to be called on to pay for this wall which is going to become a reality in this country as one of its current and ongoing projects.

To make that palatable, what is added is that – after the wall is built, Mexico will reimburse the United States for the cost of building the wall. Mexico has not said this nor agreed to this. In fact, Mexico has said the opposite, they will neither pay for nor have anything to do with such a creation. In spite of that many people are now taking up that new mantra and passing it around as though it is truth.

That is symbolic of the kind of ethical base being created in this country. Ethics which are designed to make some very ugly things palatable and positive and looking as though they are for the good of all. What are those ugly things? It is overused at this point as an example – but if you do not know history you are doomed to repeat it and we are repeating the history of Nazi Germany, except the way we are going and the very accelerated time table we are on – Nazi Germany will look like the training ground and the learning wheels on the bicycle. The incredibly powerful vehicles the United States will soon be producing, riding, navigating and trying to sell to the rest of the world through its own re-creation of a sordid time in history will be horrendous.

The United States will not be standing alone – we will be a part of a combination of countries with whom we are growing compatible and who have a head start on wrecking this kind of evil on others. If this madness is not stopped we are going to wreck evil on this world such as it has never seen before.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, breakfast table talk, Donald Trump, politics, Racism, Sexism
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TRUMP – An Even Newer Post

Saturday, December 17th, 2016

by: Marceline Donaldson, December, 2016

There are some things that people are afraid to say about Trump. Because of the way Trump is moving fast towards his goal of heading a racist, sexist, totally compliant society, we need to be aware of what is in his environment:

It is clear that some people believe Trump is a part of the mafia. If you look around, that is beginning to leak out. The tweets which talk about his purchases from the Genovese family for his businesses and more say to me – who buys from a crime family? Do they have to belong? Are the prices cheaper? The quality better? Or is this patronizing family? Trump tweets with regularity, but have you seen Kurt Eichenwald’s tweets?

“Kurt Eichenwald ✔@kurteichenwald
67. Trump opted out of using steel on many buildings, instead purchasing concrete from businesses controlled by Genovese crime family.
4:27 PM – 7 Nov 2016”

There have been conjectures about Trump being “the Don” Trump, but the media has totally ignored that. There have also been conjectures that Trump’s real mission is to organize a world-wide mafia into a loose organization with all groups represented – the Italian Mafia, the Russian Mafia, the Eastern European Mafia, etc. That could have been researched by some enterprising media person, but it was left totally alone. The question about the possible Mafia background of someone running for President of these United States is an important question which needs to be answered soonest.

Eichenwalds tweets are from his research into Trump’s businesses. He has been tweeting for quite some time, have we been listening? To see this story unfold is amazing. This is who we elected President?

In addiiton, only now is it coming to the fore in ways that America is beginning to see and take seriously, Trump’s involvement with Russia and Russian involvement with the American Presidential election trying to get Trump elected and Hillary pushed to the side. It is clear that was a very important and effective dynamic in this past election and will have repercussions into the future.

In addition, we have not only elected someone who appealed to Putin to hack his opponents emails and other requests, we have also elected someone commonly called a bully.

To see the bullying side of Trump – look at his “Thank You” rallies. I’ve seen threats before, but this is a huge threat to the Electoral College. If you don’t vote Trump in – he is ready to send his people on a rampage and his rallies are making sure he is in a position, at the time of the vote, to do just that. And let us not blame Trump. Standing next to him and participating as an equal in all of this is his Vice President-elect Pence.

In addition, we have elected a man who is sexually abusive and has several women accusing him of serious sexual abuse. Our response? Disbelief. Our sexism does not allow us to take that seriously as being any kind of character flaw which will negatively affect these United States for generations to come.

The people Donald Trump has called to Trump Tower – people who were against him and said horrible things about him and called on others to not support him – Trump is now parading in front of the press so the American people can see the two faces of their politicians and their leaders. He has humiliated Mitt Romney – Silicon Valley supporters of Hillary Clinton using Peter Thiel to organize that “show and eat-humble-pie meeting”. Thiel is and has been a Trump supporter almost from the beginning. What is also amazing about that is the rumor that Peter Thiel is gay – isn’t one of Trump’s planks one against such people and against the LGBT Community as being less than? So is this how Peter Thiel works out his own self-hatred? It is an American Tragedy.

We have an American President-elect who is skilled at bringing out the worst in people as he moves along with his divide and conquer way of life. Satan is strolling across America having one incredible party after another and look who is being invited.

One recent rally called on people in attendance to applaud for the African Americans who didn’t vote. That was a show and tell lesson on how he is going to turn America against its own and increase the level of racism without being upfront about it. He led that group of people into a not so subtle hate rally without their even realizing they were participants in such a time. After that rally he was able to call for that bowl of water and wash his hands claiming innocence – he wasn’t being racist, he was being supportive of Blacks. He didn’t do it, they did it to themselves.

Divide and Conquer is still serving Trump very well. When he finishes, the world and practically everyone in it will be at odds with each other and in the chaos, Trump will win and walk calmly into a huge increase of wealth and power.

His greatest achievement has been to have some 37% of the Republican Party preferring Putin to Obama. They see him as a benevolent ruler who they admire. They are blinded to the extreme racism of that preference. The one the world calls a “butcher” – and who shares the blame for what is happening in Aleppo, 37% of the Republican Party calls a great ruler.

Having recently left the Republican Party to stand with the Independents, it has been quite a time for me to see this. Some things do come together. When I left, projected out of the Party, finally, by Donald Trump’s nomination, there was no one left in the Republican Party who I knew as a young person just beginning to vote – to get involved – following a family tradition. A racial tradition also because years ago most Blacks were Republicans. Lincoln freed the slave and Blacks are nothing if not loyal. That has changed and all of those who were very much a part of that Grand Ole Party have run screaming out of the Republican Party as they witnessed more and more of its current members putting on their white sheets and looking in the mirror to make sure their tall white pointy hats were sitting at just the right angle.

I couldn’t believe the Party I knew – through the Rockefeller Republican years and more – was not going to move back to its roots. But it has moved so far. those roots have been killed off and can’t even be used to fertilize the ground around it anymore. How time changes all of us.

At the end, everyone I met in this new Republican Party had come, fairly recently, from the Democratic Party, which has been throwing out and alienating its more conservative members for at least a generation.

When I signed up as a Republican, the Democrats were the racists. If you were a Democrat and Black and tried to vote you were in serious trouble. When the Democratic Conventions were held it was – no Blacks allowed – especially none with a seat at the Conventions. Fannie Lou Hamer and others changed that and the Democratic Party has been changing ever since. It was the Party of Movements moved from recruiting its members from the KKK movement and the White Nationalist Movement to recruiting its members from the Black Civil Rights Movement and the Feminist Groups and now those convened about the environment and more.

What an amazing life I have lived. What spectacular events God has allowed me to witness. With that comes a wisdom I had no idea would accrue.

In all of this I feel most pain and sympathy for the many friends and acquaintances I have met, worked and played with over the years who lived a very circumspect life. They made decisions taking care that they carefully preserved themselves from getting out there – from taking stands for that which they believed, if that was not sanctioned by their peers and society – from supporting the less fortunate if they were not those currently on the “in” list – from ever being there for those oppressed, because that kept them and theirs in power. They would get involved if society showed how to do that in an ‘acceptable’ way. That ‘acceptable way’ was always one which would give one a chance to ‘show boat’, but preserve one from making basic change. I didn’t and still don’t understand why.

I used to wonder what was wrong with me that I didn’t do the same? Why did I jeopardize a career to take a stand for minorities and women who were being discriminated against at the Pillsbury Company when the only women in management were White and were either over the kitchen or secretarial pool? Why did I take on the role of organizing – as a member of NOW and with the National Urban League – a boycott against General Mills because of the way they advertised and sold all of their products to women and minorities but had none above a management level in their company – as a member of the NOW National Board, why did I run for President on a platform which was incredibly unpopular holding up a mirror and asking why the organization was so determined to be so White relegating Black Women to support roles and claim to be fighting for equality.

Even as a young child – 9 years old, why did I go from door to door in my New Orleans neighborhood asking my neighbors to call the telephone company and disconnect their telephones because young Black Women could not be hired as telephone operators. Why did I cause my grandfather grief when I demanded that he lead a charge opening membership in his beloved Prince Hall Masons to everyone and get rid of the women’s group, which was clearly an appendage to the main male group making that membership equal to all, especially when membership in that group gave a positive push to one’s vocational movements? I could go on, but it gets worse.

Today, as I look at Donald Trump and what he is about – I see someone who is the personification of a human being who has spent his life chasing the economic/ financial/power in a society. He seems to think achieving all of that is the ultimate and he has spent his life engaged in that kind of struggle. His ethics, character, – his life has been formed out of that struggle for all things temporal. All things that die horrible deaths.

He has reached the ultimate spot in this country. The honey-pot of power from which he can extract money, power, position beyond his wildest dreams. But he is such a pathetic figure. He has learned to manipulate, to twist, to humiliate his detractors, to squeeze everything he can squeeze from those struggling around and beneath him. He has used women and other minorities to puff himself up and get whatever good feelings he could get from creating an identity as the ultimate White Male Power Hungry Potentate. And he is the most humiliated, despised, friendless person I have ever seen. You look at him and it is painful to see the emotions he is experiencing in the middle of what could have been his finest hour.

His ancestors – those who have brought him to this place and this time – are all gathered around him to bask in his glory – hoping and praying to share a bit of warmth from his life. They, who helped to create him, are surrounded by storm clouds, and hurricanes, and freezing ice falling all around – and they have no warmth anyplace. They have no protection from the horribleness of their environment – from where they live for an eternity, yet they are doing their best to support Donald Trump because their need and hope is that his life will bring some warmth to their afterlives. Given the frigid cold in which Trump lives and has chosen, I don’t think I have ever seen anything so sorrowful.

You can manipulate, humiliate, destroy, and all the rest for a lifetime. But if you have not lived life to accumulate love, wisdom, friends, ancestors in warm wonderful places, what has your life been about? You pay for your sins and you receive for your goodness – there is no way for us to change that.

Given all that I have seen in life, for some of us the best is yet to come. For the Donald Trump’s of the world, the excruciating future and eternity is also yet to come and from the way it looks, I am content.

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Tags: Barack Obama, bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, breakfast table talk, Donald Trump, Hedge Schools, politics, Racism, Sexism
Posted in Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Breakfast Table Talk, Donald Trump, Hedge Schools, Hillary Clinton, Kitchen Table Talk, politics, President Obama, racism, sexism, U. S. Presidential Campaign | Comments Off on TRUMP – An Even Newer Post

TRUMP – A NEW POST

Thursday, December 15th, 2016

One could say God’s justice to America for setting up the Electoral College and ruining what could have been a beautiful democratic country has arrived in the form of a caricature of the person they wanted to insure that “White” Males – most like America’s founding fathers – would always be in control of the government.

I was astounded to see the photo-opportunity of the tech group around the table with Trump and his children. What a ridiculous scene. If ever I lost respect for a group of people, that photograph did it.

They are the embodiment of the Trump campaign, even though they claimed to support Hillary Clinton – and some of them did with their money and time.

Billionaires all! White Americans all! A very small percentage women – something like one percent! And organized by Trump’s resident Gay – Thiel. Now Trump has a Black – Omarosa; a Jew – Jared Kushner; a Gay – Paul Thiel. He will have one of every minority group showing up in the media shortly – to prove his unbiased self!

Problem is – this is how many outside of America view your country! Do you wonder why so many have been so easily “turned” to become terrorists against you? Worry no longer. Take a look at what is unveiling on a daily basis.

I had hopes your Electoral College would turn this around. Make up for the mistake created when it was created, but that is not going to happen. Trump threatened to sue to force the Electoral College to make him president. That is not necessary. He and Paul Thiel came up with something better.

That event was clearly for the purpose of “crowning” Trump – and it did the job. No issues were raised. No conversation about anything of substance. No reason for such a gathering except to show the group their future. Toe the line or you will be on the outside looking in – i.e. the head of Twitter. In spite of the fact that Trump uses Twitter amazingly often and in spite of the fact that he probably restored and plucked Twitter from the down trend it was on – its head was not invited to this gathering. So folks, either get in step or step outside where you will be throughout a Trump presidency.

It was a time to gather a very strong group together to show they respect Trump’s election and will abide by it – so the inauguration can proceed and the Electoral College’s vote will be just a formality.

Since when does an incoming president put on such a show before his inauguration? This show certainly eliminated any chance that the Electoral College would vote – either for Hillary or to abstain – to avoid the oncoming catastrophe for America. It showed that Trump would ignore any conflict of interest and move ahead strongly with building the Trump Businesses – and this group will acquiesce. How did he do that? With his children at the table – no objections – no issues raised about any conflict – nothing except an acceptance of what happened.

This is your 1% America. Take a good look. One thing they all clearly lack is – moral courage. Another – they will do nothing to jeopardize what they see as their business future. Another – they will participate, even if that means just being there and saying nothing – their presence indicates their acquiescence and acceptance.

Whatever happens in the future America it is clear that the 99% of you are alone – unorganized – easily led – and can’t see your own good. You will follow whoever promises to keep you White – Male – and true to the definition of “White American”. Your hypocrisy is overwhelming to any thinking person.

Next step? Trump – the new Messiah. After that? Re-read the history of Nazi Germany, you are going to make that look minuscule by comparison to what you can do. It won’t be the ovens nor the concentration camps, it will be your own brand of extreme oppression. No or very little regulation – a Department of Justice which supports the White Nationalists Groups against the real oppressed minorities in your country – a raped Public Education sector – an eliminated Department of Energy – a Secretary of State, the strongest person in the Trump Cabinet, who delivers you to the wishes and desires of Putin – a press that elected your president and is now gearing up to anoint him the new Jack Kennedy – need I go on?

God help you!

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Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, breakfast table talk, Guest Comments, politics, Racism, Sexism
Posted in Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Breakfast Table Talk, Class in America and the World, Donald Trump, Guest comments, racism, sexism, Twitter, U. S. Presidential Campaign | Comments Off on TRUMP – A NEW POST

A Promoter of Conspiracy Theories – President?

Tuesday, December 6th, 2016

America – really? You elected a man who was the spokesperson and promoter of conspiracy theories as your president? Really? Come on – that can’t be real. Are you really that racist, America?

The last president spent eight years in office – an African American. He was elected – and re-elected. He was respected around the world. He wasn’t perfect, but he did a pretty good job. He had no scandals during his time in office. He had no affairs. He spent his time with his family. He raised two daughters and now into their teen years – some say, the most difficult time for parents. And still, after seeing all of that you elected who? A man who was the spokesperson in Chief for the Birther Movement? Who was on television and in countless videos speaking far and wide about Barack Obama not being an American. Who called your duly elected president a liar. A man who claimed that your American president was living a lie to his fellow Americans by claiming to be an American when he was actually born in Africa.

America, you laughed at this Donald Trump, the Conspiracy theorist in Chief – and then you elected him your next president? You made him the butt of many jokes and the late night comics had a field day.

America, is your need to identify as White that strong. You are, after all, the ones who set up “White” as a race. So I guess we should not be that surprised when you feel the need to protect this “White American” race. You didn’t realize when you set up this White race identity that it would not only be about slavery and identifying the other as “Colored”, “Black” and now “African American”, but would become your ingrained identity and keep you forever needing to be seen as “better than”. You went so far as setting up White Privilege to go along with that White American identity. Jealous of the English Colonialism with which they tried to rule the world?

Problem with that is colors always seemed to me to be more interesting, have more depth, be about something. “White” seemed so lacking in ….. something. And now I see what “White” lacks – Character? Ethics? Truth? And has a little “Evil” ingrained. We thought, at some point, that you would just become “American”.

Who is this man? Who is this conspiracy theorist who so portrayed your president for eight years – and longer – as an African who was fooling the American public by claiming to be an American when in fact he was not. And you – citizens of the United States – elected this man, this conspiracy theorist, your president. Donald Trump – president elect of the United States. Chief Conspiracy Theorist.

Your founding fathers must be proud because they slipped into the Constitution this Electoral College, which they hoped would insure that White Males (hopefully) Northern Europeans would always be president of these United States of America. You kept that Electoral College in your Constitution for hundreds of years as a bulwark against any serious kind of desegregation. Wow! What foresight you all had. But what a price you have paid. Isn’t that what stopped Al Gore? But then maybe you were right to do that because wasn’t that – no, couldn’t have been, must have been someone else – a look alike. His character wouldn’t let him. But then he claimed to have invented the internet, which dropped his character a rung or two, so maybe that was him running into that Tower.

And so the founders have reached into the 21st century with that desire to maintain slavery and have caused you Americans to elect a man who is:

A conspiracy theorist. His biggest conspiracy and most successful one was spreading the lie that Barack Obama was born in Africa and he and his family were lying about who he really is. Will he have the support of and appoint other Conspiracy Theorists to his cabinet and other places in his government so his way of being “in charge” will continue on?
A Casino Operator – a man who built and operated several casino’s. Even one in Las Vegas. Now, I was always told that Casino Operators could only exist if they were a part of the mafia or could only exist with the blessing and support of the mafia. Las Vegas – New Jersey – big mafia strongholds in the United States (so I have been told). So what does that make your new president and who will really be in control of your government. And you looked down on Cuba when it was overrun with mafioso from the United States. Now that Cuba has cleaned itself up, will the United States of America be the place where that happens?
The owner of a Construction Company – which built hotels, apartment houses, etc. AND would not allow Blacks to rent or live in any of his buildings. I have seen the newspaper clippings and the cases against Mr. Donald Trump. Not only against him, but he comes by this legitimately because he inherited this racism from his father, who also built buildings in which he did not allow Blacks to live. Isn’t that a violation of your laws America? And yet you elected this man, who with his family, violated your laws blatantly and is still violating your laws and you now call him your president-elect?
A man, who reportedly only values a woman for her body – isn’t that sexism? Doesn’t that also violate your laws, America. And still you elected him your president?
A man, who it rumored, has violated all of the 10 Commandments. Maybe that is a slight exaggeration, but he has violated enough of them that those loud outspoken Evangelicals praising who we thought was God were really only singing their praises to god. So we really can’t dump on them since they are worshipping their idols and we do believe in freedom of religion. We were only fooled a little while by the names they called him. We were fighting them because we knew our God wasn’t HIM. We knew our Jesus was born male, not to glorify maleness, but to glorify God. It was offending God for us to be taking on such a fight to try to keep their god primary in front of everyone. This election has cleared our eyes. Idol worship is not for us and never has been. We wouldn’t be surprised if one day soon they don’t start calling their god, Donald Trump. They have already started to talk about their god sending Donald Trump to them. And how this is all their gods plan. But they don’t seem to understand retribution – payment for past sins – God’s wrath – evil. They seem to think that is a good thing sent by their god for their betterment. Well, actually, it probably is being sent by their god in the hopes it will produce their betterment, but the way their leaders are running into the Tower offering their congratulations, their services, their excitement about the “Don’s” coming success it is seriously doubtful that God’s message is getting through.

HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN!

Abraham Lincoln didn’t bring you down! – he raised you up.

Martin Luther King, Jr. didn’t bring you down! – he raised you even higher.

but Donald Trump is bringing you wayyyyyyyy down.

And look at how your BIG MEN are falling all over themselves running in to kiss the ring. Their character – their ethics – their very souls are on display for all to see.

Wasn’t that Mitt Romney we saw running into Trump Tower and having dinner with the Almighty One?

And we though Mitt Romney was one of the good guys. When he saw what was happening with the election in his beloved country, he stood up and was counted as someone who said he was not going along with this travesty. He didn’t say “evil” but he might as well have because what he did say came down to the same thing. But what was he really doing? Did he read the tea leaves and saw that Hillary Clinton was going to win so he was not downing Donald Trump and taking an ethical stand, but positioning himself to be in line for some kind of substantial position in Hillary’s government?

Oh, Oh, Nooooooooo! Not him too! Oh my goodness – there goes Al Gore – into the Tower! Well, we always had our suspicions about him. He tried, but he just couldn’t pull off being such a good guy. And now, we see him totally uncovered.

Oh, help me to my seat and cover my eyes and ear, I don’t know how much more of this I can stand.

Oh – and when your new president goes traveling around the world with his ‘wife” – which one? The one who allowed all those pictures to be taken of herself in the various kinds of poses that a prostitute takes to advertise her wares. Now, be careful here, I am not calling her a prostitute, but I said clearly, the kind of pictures a prostitute takes – naked on a bear rug with high heels up in the air and handcuffed to the bed and etc. Some are calling her a soft porn model. We will just look at the pictures circling the world and shake our heads. Trump better get the Muslims and soon because when those pictures of his wife start circulating in religious Muslim circles – oh my!

And how does your president-elect handle his anti-semitism. Well, his daughter has put him in a trap because she went off and married an Orthodox Jew. Well, not only did she do that, but she became one herself. Now you know in Judaism, the children take on the identity of the mother, so if she hadn’t converted, her children would not be in danger of being Jews. But she went off and did the thing so now her husband and her children are Jews. So how did your President-elect handle that? Is that his anger at this marriage, all of you Americans, that turned him so viciously against Muslims? So badly so that he wants to eliminate all of them! Is this going to be another purge by the Norther Europeans. The last time they tried to get rid of the Jews. This time there is a Jew sitting in the halls of power so they are going to try to get rid of all the Muslims. Well, just as well. Eventually, somehow, they will rid the world of all those they various and sundry people they consider “minorities”.

Oh, America, my heart aches for you. Don’t you know you have to pay for your sins? Haven’t you seen enough of God’s retribution to know that your day is coming? Maybe this is it! Maybe this is the beginning of your having to pay for the slavery you brought on Africans. Or maybe this is the beginning of your retribution for what you have done to those who lived in the land before the Northern Europeans arrived. What are they called today? Indians? No, that is politically incorrect – Native Americans. What a name. Call them Native Americans and then invade and destroy the little bits and pieces of land they have left and make sure it will soon be covered with the results of the many oil spills that will happen,as those Northern Europeans make loads of money in the companies that are going to dig up their privately owned land drilling for what? Covering up what? Taking back what? Is this a new form of genocide – against those you have given the honorific title of Native American and made them think that this title was their idea?

Oh, America, I pray for you every day. There are so many good people in your country. What is going to happen to them. They seem to be allowing these few others to take over and destroy every dream they have ever had. Or maybe that is the problem – have they been so treated they don’t have anymore dreams?

My goodness, some of those good people are Northern Europeans. Then who are these who have so wrecked the land and continue to wreck the land? Who are those who let them? I understand Donald Trump owns stock in the company about to destroy the land of the native Americans to cause oil to pollute the water so they will have nothing to drink. And what about the rest of us – we won’t either.

You have allowed whoever these people are to destroy your country. To invade and change the dreams of your people. You started out in such a beautiful way. We really hoped you would succeed. But you have now been derailed and who knows if your country will ever be the same again.

Germany certainly didn’t expect to descend into a Nazi state. And today, it seems as though it is only the Germans who really recognize the danger you are in America. Have they learned from their mistakes?

So what now? As your country began to become diverse – that beautiful diverse place where all were supposed to be welcome – what is the quote “bring me your tired,….” That poem written by Emma Lazarus and cut into the stone with that gift from France to be a beacon to Exiles from all over the world

“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Oh, No! Is the writer of this poem – Emma – a woman? Is that why they turned against immigrants? Will that open the door to taking her poem off the Statue of Liberty? And a better, more American under Donald Trump type poem in its place?

Well, that is certainly no longer America. Will it ever be again? With Donald Trump and his friends – not likely. The United States of America used to travel the world telling others how they should change to be more like America. Walk hand in hand into the sunset with the Casino Operator and his Soft Porn Model wife – naahh, that doesn’t sound quite right.

And here you are America – flirting with becoming another Russia; another fascistic state with its super wealthy governing people and underlings in line for bread – you can ignore this if you dare, but stay on this road and that day is coming and sooner than you think.

I used to think America was the greatest nation on earth. Today, I realize you are the most foolish.

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Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Al Gore, bed & breakfast, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, breakfast table talk, Donald Trump, Emma Lazarus, Guest Comments, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, Racism, Sexism, Spiritual Reflection
Posted in Al Gore, Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Donald Trump, Emma Lazarus, Guest comments, Hillary Clinton, Martin Luther King, Melania Trump, Mitt Romney, Pope Francis, racism, sexism | Comments Off on A Promoter of Conspiracy Theories – President?

TRUMP: An Analysis – Another One

Friday, November 18th, 2016

by: Marceline Donaldson 2016

No more calls, please. I will give you my final say. You probably won’t like it, but here goes:

What do I think about this election? It told me much about myself in relation to the United States of America’s citizens and structures.

I am a minority and the laws of these United States have that written into them. What is that? Me – and those like me – are less than.

Laws have been challenged, changed, made, amended, but there are always more because slavery was a part of the founding of these United States and that structural inconsistency is a part of what we have inherited. And before slavery, the laws that enslaved Africans were based on the marriage laws – so sexism also plays a part. That is why the Constitution must be a living, breathing, changing thing – and – that is why the bigots in this country want it to be set in stone. To tell the truth is powerful. To be able to hear the truth and respond is even stronger.

White Supremacy Ideology was developed during slavery to justify one group over another -better than another – which allowed that slave holding group to go to Church on Sundays and participate in life as though they were good people. Before that, WHITE did not exist and it was clearly not a race. These newly named WHITES demonized, demeaned, destroyed the lives of many to be able to be slaveholders and mistreaters of women and other minorities and still sit in the pew they paid for with what felt to them like a clear and clean conscience and to exercise their prerogative to be lazy. Lazy how? To import “immigrants,” who then were called “slaves” for the sole purpose of doing their work to achieve their goals of building this country.

That White Supremacist Ideology has maintained even into today and even though some slavery has been abolished. Slavery involving Africans – stealing African citizens from their country and “importing” them into the United States. That slavery is now illegal. We have moved on because as technology develops and all of what has come from the Industrial Revolution morphs and changes, this society does not need that kind of physical labor anymore. We now resort to “emotional slavery” – using women, dogs, other animals, etc. – but that is for another time.

Jews were “Blacks” and “N*****S until the Black Civil Rights Movement came along and then gradually they became “WHITE”.

East Indians – the same.

Today Latina’s are “Blacks”, but some are gradually taking on new racial identities as “WHITE”. And so it goes.

We won’t even begin to include American Indians – foreigners on their own land.

This election has said clearly that I may be an American citizen because my family has been here from the beginning and my family has been added to with “immigrants” who have been here for several generations, but that does not make me free and equal.

My vote, for example, is only worth a percentage of what other peoples votes are worth. If I lived in the “countryside” instead of in the city, my vote would count as one plus – the plus coming from what was taken from other United States Citizens to make sure that my unequalness would remain wrapped into the institutional structure of this country. Those not as equal cannot vote as equals and those ‘better than’ have their better-than-nes institutionalized in the structure of the country in which they live, contribute, and more.

The one vote lie that we tell United States citizens and others is just that – a lie. Since I live in the city, I do not have “one person one vote”. That lie has been told to me and mine for generations. And since most minorities – with very few exceptions – live in the cities – another way to discriminate, that has been around for generations, has now come full circle and created a tyranny to maintain the bigotry which is still in our structures. Its maintenance has shown up when Whites most needed it – when they are about to become the “Minority”, but the structure is doing its best to maintain them as a “Majority” which dictates how everyone else shall live and how they shall maintain their White Supremacy.

That is what brought Donald Trump into office. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by over one million votes – 1,000,000. If you are still saying 200,000 then check your figures, they are wrong.

Having won the popular vote, Hillary should be president of these United States. What happened! Why did she “lose”.

She is a woman.
She is a woman who identifies as a feminist.
She is a woman who is well known in the African American and other minority communities because she has been there for all of us. From the beginning of her career in law when she stood with Marian Wright Edelman working to bring about positive change for many children – who, but for, would have had a very different and much more difficult life.
Many in the media were bribed by Trump with weekends in MaraLargo and other amenities and they then talked Trump 24/7. Apparently there are no checks and balances to make sure that kind of bribery does not happen and it was given free range in this Presidential Campaign. It doesn’t matter what you say as long as you keep saying it about me 24/7 with hardly a comment about my competition and that comment, when made, is negative – and I will win any election in which I take part.
Donald Trump viciously called out those who said anything, even slightly negative about him or his and so people became more reticent and more careful with what they were saying.
Our own FBI through its head – Comey – interfered with the election of President of these United States to make the election come out in favor of their candidate Donald Trump. A vicious turn and a total sell-out of what that Director of the FBI took an oath as to what he would and would not do.
Wiki Leaks did all it could – went way above and beyond to elect Donald Trump over a woman. When this happened and I saw how viciously they were going after Hillary, I began to believe the charges of rape against Assange. This was certainly sexual abuse by an organization – Wiki Leaks. It was rumored that he did these deeds hoping Donald Trump would give him asylum. An immigrant from Sweden, after all, would be much more acceptable than those from Muslim countries, from Mexico and more. (It will be interesting to see if he is prosecuted for hacking into computers without the permission of the owners of those computers.)
Since Hillary Clinton supporters came mostly from the cities, clearly the percentage of one vote that each one had determined that this election would go against her. Handicapping her voters and lying to them in the lead up to this election. “Your vote counts.” One person one vote”. etc.
MAJORLY, Donald Trump “won” because he is the first candidate to come right out front to say he was a racist and sexist and made no bones about it. In fact, he emphasized that fact by having racists and sexists – well known – along with their organizations up front in his campaign for the presidency of the United States. We are a racist/sexist/homophobic/anti-semetic/anti-immigrant and more country. We are a country in which bigotry reigns and has reigned throughout our entire existence. We have covered over that fact with denial, blaming the victim, pointing the finger at other countries to deflect from our own misconduct, using code words to cover what we actually are saying and mean and more. To achieve the small gains we have achieved, over the generations, has taken many people giving their lives for this to happen. It has taken multi-millions more to have given up their futures to take less financially and otherwise to fight for the rights of everyone. It has taken enormous courage to stand in the face of bigotry and fight for its elimination.
When faced with the possibility of electing a woman who was anti-racism/anti-sexism/anti-all of the other isms, there is no way we would do anything other than elect the racist who was running against her. Why? Because this country was set up to make sure that would happen. The people in the country side who are, generally – with some exceptions, determined to live in a racist/sexist country cast votes worth more than those in the areas where minorities live. They had more than one person one vote and it is not the only time that has happened in this country. When it happened a few years ago – please notice we did not change the system. We did not have a movement of any depth and breath to attempt to change the system to give one person one vote. If that had happened Hillary Clinton would be president.
To maintain the Electoral College and all that it brings in its wake is a racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitc things to do and our Civil Rights laws need to come into play as we move to eliminate this Electoral College and bring into this country a truer democracy with an actual one person one vote ethic.
the way this is set up today, it violates the intention of my rights under the Constitution of these United States, which was and is that all people are created equal. To make some more equal by conferring upon them a larger vote just because of their geography – the place where they live – is not understandable under what the United States of America claims to be to itself and to the rest of the world.
Donald Trump did not appeal to the “working classes” he appealed to the bigots – the racists and the sexists. That was made clear through the button Donald Trump supporters proudly wear – the NO to Political Correctness button – which is simply another way of saying “Yes, I am a bigot and proud of it.”
Donald Trump spent a few years setting the stage for this Presidential Campaign so he would not be misunderstood. Years during which he called Barack Obama many ugly names, encouraging his followers to go even further. Donald Trump insisted Barack Obama was an illegitimate president because he was not born in the United States and more. Donald Trump was the “Mouth piece” for the birther movement and gave it breadth and depth. Given those years of campaigning before the campaign, it was not possible for anyone to misunderstand who he was and from where he was coming.

Many in the media are looking for the code words to use that will satisfy those of us who are angry – very angry. The interviews and panels and other forms of media forensic dissecting of this election has been about everything but the truth and the truth needs to be told. At best, it has only been hinted at, except for a very few of these propaganda shows.

Listen to what people are saying and how they are twisting themselves into all kinds of contorted figures to say they are relived that a racist white man who sees women as sex objects has won and they voted for him because the demographic in these United States is on that precipice of change where it is going to roll over in this country from the majority being “White” to majority being “Minority”. Their hope and their vote went to Trump because they think he will be able to stop and change that process or put something in place that mitigates and keeps “White” on top in spite of the fact that their numbers will be in the minority.

Need I go on? I think that says it all. The looking for ways to recast this so the United States of America can continue in its place where it is supported by hypocrisy – lies – and more needs to stop. Truth needs to be told or America will never be great again. Especially never great in God’s eyes.

The slogan – “Make America Great Again” is one everyone understands. It comes from Ronald Reagans campaign where it meant then what it means now “Make America White Again” and that needs to stop.

TELL THE TRUTH AMERICA AND STOP THE BS. IT IS TIME – UNLESS YOU WANT A COUNTRY RAVAGED THE WAY GERMANY WAS RAVAGED UNDER THE NAZI’s. THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN WHEN JEWS WERE IN THE GHETTOES. THAT HAPPENED WHEN JEWS STARTED TO BECOME SUCCESSFUL IN GERMANY AND STARTED MOVING OUT OF THE JEWISH GHETTOES INTO THE WIDER SOCIETY. THE SHOCK AND ANGER OF THAT SET GERMANY ABLAZE.

We either learn from history or we are condemned to repeat it. As it sets up today – the first government to come out to meet Donald Trump is Japan.

TODAY, You are looking at the first people being nominated by your new so called “President Elect” Chris Christie is out because it is rumored that he put Donald Trump’s son-in-laws father in jail and their disagreement finally erupted and ended in Christie’s ouster. True or not that could be symbolic for the rapists, thieves, thugs and assorted others now taking their place at the top of American Governmental circles.

You are looking at others who have compromised their values and ethics and are now running into Trump Tower because they are power hungry and are explaining away why they took the stands that they did when Donald Trump was running for President. They clearly took those stands, not out of their beliefs, values, great moral character, but they took those stands because they thought Donald Trump would lose and they wanted to clear the deck so they could be appointed to a big position by who they thought was the new incoming President, Hillary Clinton. That was all cast, by them, as decisions coming out of their “character”, ethics, etc. Was that really the case? Because they are now showing their real character, ethics, etc. as they seek power, money and position and are backtracking to get in line in front of Donald Trump to kiss the ring.

God acts in mysterious ways and this is one. We can now clearly see our so called “leaders” and we know exactly where they are coming from. This time does not come around often. More often than not our “leaders” are covered in their hypocrisy. Today, the cover has been stripped off everyone and they are standing before you naked. Take a good look and learn the lessons being taught.

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Tags: Barack Obama, bed & breakfast, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, politics, Racism, Sexism
Posted in Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, politics, President Obama, racism, sexism, U. S. Presidential Campaign | Comments Off on TRUMP: An Analysis – Another One

JACK GREENBERG – NAACP Legal Defense Fund

Saturday, October 15th, 2016

by: Marceline Donaldson

I read this morning of the death of Jack Greenberg and it hit me much harder than I would have expected.

Jack Greenberg, Percy Julian, Dolores Orey and so many others are among the people who surrounded me at a very dire time of my life. I am so grateful for the fact that they lived and loved and shared and were there. I am grateful for the way they lived their lives. I am grateful for the way they gave to society to stand between the oppressed and the oppressors with the law as their weapon.

Reading about Jack Greenberg’s death feels to me as though an era has passed.

As a very young girl, who lived in a middle-class Black community surrounded by people who made her feel that she was really incredible and could do anything she set her mind to – it was a recipe for constant conflict with a racist, sexist society and its institutions throughout the rest of my life.

Living in a society which did all it could to teach me that I was inferior; my hair wasn’t good enough; my skin wasn’t white enough; my brain wasn’t intelligent was defective and inferior; my birth and life’s goal should be to walk steps behind, to serve Whites, to not be pushy and absolutely to not rock the boat. Given the lessons this society tried to teach me, the way of this country should be the way it was then and my job and life should be lived not challenging, not noticing the differences in treatment, accepting whatever this society forced on me and doing it without complaint. The same lessons – but in a different era – which were given to the slaves were also given to Blacks not in slavery, but fighting for their civil rights. Those that fought back and tried to escape were crazy and somehow emotionally off base, while those who accepted and did everything they could to glorify and serve their masters and mistresses were sane, substantial and who slaves and years later, more contemporary Blacks, should be.

If I did that, it was clear I would be able to live a very nice, quiet life as the wife of a very nice quiet man and have very nice quiet children. Not very well off economically, but comfortable enough for a Black family. If I rocked the boat; challenged the racism and sexism in this society; brought those challenges outside of the community in which I was raised there would be hell to pay.

I used to wonder why the reality of Black history was only taught in Black schools. In White schools, not even the handful of Black children who attended those schools knew much about the oppression; the hell; the violence; the protests, revolutions, mass deaths that Blacks had gone through over the years. As I grew older and moved out of that Black community, I realized why that was so. If Whites are kept ignorant of Black history – especially the racial oppression and violence perpetrated on Black communities – the denials could be kept, continued and the racism could thrive.

My grandfather, O.C.W. Taylor, was principal of a school in New Orleans, but his love and passion was journalism. He co-founded the Louisiana Weekly with C. C. Dejoie, Jr. and had a television and radio show on WNOE in New Orleans. He was also involved in rocking boats and causing huge waves. When he did all of this, I was right there – at four or five years old, probably younger and very definitely as I grew older.

He brought people to New Orleans through his work – like Thurgood Marshall,- to be a part of panels discussing civil rights. He was also a part of severing the organizational ties between the NAACP and what became the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. I think, but for the efforts of those who were behind that separation, Brown vs the Board of Education would either not have happened or something like it would have happened years later and much diluted in its affects.

My most fun memories of those days was of sitting at the table at Dooky Chase’s Restaurant in New Orleans with all of those men listening to their conversations. I don’t know if I understood it all, but those times certainly formed who I am today and how I have lived my life. Today, I see this little girl at this table with all these men and it is amazing that it is me. Today, as an adult, looking at those pictures on paper and in my minds eye, I see someone very small, looking totally out of place. Then, at the time it happened, my feelings were that I was totally equal to any of them and joined the conversation whenever I had anything to say.

Jack Greenberg was a very young man, at the time, and just becoming involved with this group. It was not an all Black group and that felt very right.

It was normal and good, at the time, the way Blacks and Jews worked together on fighting for the civil rights of everybody. Later – as society began to notice the giant steps taken with this melded group, there began to be efforts and some very successful, to propagandize the Black community to reject its Jewish brothers and sisters and to have only Blacks involved. Everyone had a theory as to why this was necessary. None of those theories acknowledged the strength of that group which wound up at Dooky Chase’s Restaurant and made so many forays into the thick of racism and eventually sexism moving those barriers back a little at a time.

Years later – working for the Pillsbury Company and finding myself in the middle of racism and sexism in Corporate America, all of that came flooding back and I called the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Highly indignant that I was experiencing racism and sexism in a job, especially when I was just out of Harvard Graduate School of Business, I was outraged. Somehow, that was supposed to inoculate me from such experiences. Instead, it showed me the reality of life in these United States for a Black woman. I saw the structures which supported the racism and sexism I was experiencing – their history – where they came from – how they were established and maintained. It was an incredible awakening.

I wasn’t able to reform and remake this society, but before it crushed me, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund took the case of Donaldson v Pillsbury, knowing it would be difficult because it was the first management case filed by a Black woman.

There I met Jack and Deborah Greenberg. Two very committed people. I had met Jack before, but didn’t realize that until my grandfather told me the stories of my youth and identified some of those who peopled my growing up years. Jack and Deborah’s lives were wound up in the LDF and they were very good at what they did. I was not simply a “Plaintiff”. The rest of my life was important to them. They invited me to LDF Yearly Conferences; I attempted to raise money in Minneapolis through a Black and White Ball for LDF and they tolerated that; I spent a lot of time in New York because my life elsewhere was falling apart. The helplessness of what I was experiencing was mitigated by Jack and Deborah and Percy Julian and Dolores Orey having me sit in on the discussions of my case and contributing; listening when my anger went over the top; allowing me to be equal and acknowledging my humanity while it was being destroyed everyplace else. When my car was set afire I called LDF; when people circled my house in a very threatening way and I was alone in the wilds of Wayzata, Minnesota with three small children, I called LDF and Percy came to visit; when all kinds of other things happened during that time frame – I called LDF – and they responded. As I looked at how they operated over the years, what I saw was the person who headed the organization, Jack Greenberg, had a humanity which permeated the entire group.

My grandfather filled in the blanks for me on why Thurgood Marshall looked to Jack Greenberg as his successor at LDF. And from my experience with the group, it made a lot of sense. I didn’t know about Jack Greenberg’s family history with anti-semitism until years later. It was not something he paraded out to justify his work or his involvement in civil rights. And, not everyone with that family background feels called to attempt to address the evils they experienced, but thank God Jack Greenberg did.

Towards the end of my active association with Jack and Deborah Greenberg, Percy Julian, Dolores Orey and others, I was caught up in a group of people who were lobbying to replace Jack Greenberg with an African American because they claimed the organization should have a Black head. It was amazing to me because of the work Jack had done and was doing. What was this about?

As I talked to more people, it became clear that it was about propaganda being inserted to undermine the LDF. There were White propagandist in the midst doing everything they could to convince me and others that our efforts should be placed in achieving this separatist goal. It was very sad. Especially since many of the Blacks involved with this separatist time had done nothing to begin to contribute to the Civil Rights Movement. They talked loud and long, but they were contributing and working in the movement to re-establish Jim Crow in the country and this was just one of many places they wanted to see that total separation happen. It was tragic. It was also clear that if they succeeded all the work of Jack Greenberg, Thurgood Marshall and others would be reversed.

I was back and forth to New York about that time and none of those machinations seemed to bother Jack. He just continued with business as usual.

And now, Jack Greenberg, Percy Julian and Dolores Orey have all died. Memories of them and their lives are still very much alive and will always be as long as we value the present by looking to the past and making that a total picture as we move into the future. There isn’t much greater than to know your history as you live your present. Deborah Greenberg moved on to work with others to found the Women’s Legal Defense Fund.

It was a rare time – a painful time – a truly beautiful time – which showed the human spirit in all of its grandeur. When pressed and there are attempts to enslave, oppress, make others less than – there are those who take the other side and spend their lives doing everything they can to remove those pressures and make life better for us all. At the top of that list was Jack Greenberg.

My prayer for Jack is one of giving thanks that he lived and made the decisions he made on how to live his life. Without him and all the others we would all be a little less than we are; a little more oppressed; lacking an incredible example of a life well lived and a life given to very effective service to others.

Rest on your laurels Jack and the knowledge that many remember you and your achievements and your spirit. As you now find Thurgood Marshall again and all of those with whom you worked who have gone before, it will be an awesome reunion and the reward for a job well done.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/jack-greenberg-civil-rights-lawyer-who-helped-argue-brown-v-board-dies-at-91/2016/10/12/066a55a6-90c0-11e6-a6a3-d50061aa9fae_story.html

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

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Tags: African American history, Apple cider vinegar, bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Deborah Greenberg, Dolores Orey, Jack Greenberg, Memorial, Percy Julian, Racism, Sexism
Posted in African American history, Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Deborah Greenberg, Dolores Orey, Jack Greenberg, Memorials, Percy Julian, racism, sexism, Ubuntu | Comments Off on JACK GREENBERG – NAACP Legal Defense Fund

The TRUMP TICKET Exposed!

Wednesday, October 5th, 2016

The Vice Presidential debates for the 2016 campaign for the Presidency of the United States happened last night.

They laid bare the American soul.

The candidate for president – Donald Trump – has shown himself to be unstable, irresponsible, saying one thing today and another tomorrow and basically someone who looks as though he is on a cocaine high. He has also shown himself to be a liar. One who lies to manipulate and win.

The candidate for vice president – Mike Pence – has shown himself to be the sociopath on the ticket. A cool, calm, collected, elegant liar who is totally unaffected by his lies because a sociopath is who he is at his core. He can lie and justify the lies of those around him without batting an eye – without his eyelids twitching – without any other physical sign showing that his body can’t stand the lying. So you know that Mike Pence, the sociopath is an accurate comment.

This election has ‘outed’ all of the problem areas in the American populace; American history; American economics, etc.

Up until now, all of these things were pretty much hidden, with code words used, when it was necessary to talk about some of our problems without really being upfront and truthful. And so, the problems have continued and grown worse. We, however, have gotten better at our denials and embroidery and all the others ways we have developed to make a lie look like the truth and to make the denial of a citizens rights look as though that person is hyper-sensitive, complaining unnecessarily, and it is all their fault. That is certainly some of what we have used to get into and continue slavery for a few hundred years; to maintain Jim Crow for a hundred or more years after that; and to force some of the citizens of the United States to use all of their resources, missed opportunities; and more to fight the racism which is constantly tearing them, their families, their friends apart. That is how sociopath as a disease runs all through this American society. That is certainly why we now have a Donald Trump candidacy with a Mike Pence Vice Presidial candidate and almost half the country backing their candidacy. This election is making a major statement about the American character and it is not pretty.

To listen to the media comment on the debate, one is struck that as Americans we all have different degrees of sociopath.

Mike Pence responded to questions about what Donald Trump has said in the past by denying everything negative. He could do that because the media agreed to not fact check this debate. That was a plus for and promotion of the Donald Trump candidacy. Excuse it however you want to, that is a fact. It was clear when the announcement was made that this debate would not be fact checked the media was opening the door for lies, distortions, and more. And the candidate did not disappoint.

Mostly the talk has been about the cool, composed style of Mike Pence and how Tim Paine lost so many points because he was too aggressive, emotional and more. Tim Paine lost points with the media and many of its followers because he responded to a pack of lies the way most people respond to such. Certainly not with denial and more lies on top of the lies with which one is confronted.

I am not sure I could have kept my cool if I were debating someone who was lying consistently and nothing was stopping him. To respond in the cool composed manner the media expected of Tim Kaine would have said Kaine was bordering on the sociopath. His upset, emotional and sometimes overly aggressive way of responding is normally how someone responds to being faced with a barrage of lies at an important moment with millions of people listening. That must be an incredibly frustrating time. To act any other way would be to project an emotional lie.

And why do we have folks complimenting Mike Pence for his “style” and demeanor and to give him excuses for the lies he told such as – he must not listen to the coverage given his running mate; or, he probably has immune himself to Trump’s lies and can deny all that he denied because he hasn’t heard Trump say these things – and on and on and on.

But Mike Pence prepared for this debate and one way of preparing is to go over the issues and your tickets response to the issues. Given that, his responses to say Trump didn’t say that or to attempt to turn something Trump did say into something else in that cool way he had, these are the actions of a long terms strong sociopath.

If you didn’t recognize that – check yourself.

If you did, then you also recognized that the society in which we live is so wrapped up in its own form of sociopath that it didn’t see anything wrong with Mike Pence’s performance.

To deny the racism in this society is to lie about what you know and what your ancestors knew was true.

To deny the sexism in this society is to lie about what you know and what your ancestors knew was true.

To allow homelessness with human beings sleeping on the streets; having no jobs; no care of any kind; and being treated by many in the most rejecting, demeaning and ugly way and to deny that you know this about yourself and others and that you know this is what your society is about is a form of sociopath.

To work in a corporation and to see how it is destroying human life – the environment – plus other kinds of ugly and evil things and not address this while denying the existence of what you see on a day to day basis is a form of sociopath.

I could go through the entire list, but you get the message.

So, when a Mike Pence comes on television and lies the way he lied on Tuesday evening and to have the media saying he “won” the debate for various reasons says we have a long ways to go to reach some kind of caring humanity. We are stuck in a lying, self-justifying, sinful place which we then justify, substitute a great style to accept the lying – its ok to lie if you do it elegantly and in an acceptable way, and more.

All corners of this society are being exposed by Donald Trump’s campaign and Tuesday evening showed us the worst.

I want to be around people who are distressed, disturbed, distraught when they are faced with lies and liars – the way Tim Paine was when he was faced with Mike Pence and his lies and denials.

I want to be around people working to make this world a better place for all of us. Not perfect people because we only seem to reach perfection. In actual fact we are all flawed, but working on those flaws. To be around those with the perfect persona projected by Mike Pence on Tuesday hardens us back to the actors and others who have presented perfect images to us during their political campaigns and we bought them hook, line and sinker. But even in the buying we knew it was a lie, we just engaged in denial to accept and promote the liars and elect them to the important posts in the land.

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Melania Trump’s Convention Speech

Tuesday, July 19th, 2016

An amazing speech! It had nothing to do with anything except a hollywood script writer planning a movie of pure fiction.

We watched her come on stage and the greeting by her husband was anything but warm. It looked like – don’t touch me, I am made up and dressed and don’t want you to mess me up. The rest of the evening and speech followed that pattern.

What most amazed us were some of the things she said with a somewhat straight face. For example: She emphasized the need to “pass those lessons on to the many generations to follow, because we want our children in this nation to know that the only limit to your achievements is the strength of your dreams and the willingness to work for them.”

We wondered if her life after she left Communist Slovenia and an upbringing which had nothing to do with a democratic election where you supposedly run on your achievements, ability to accomplish, and more, was an example of what we want to pass down to our children as ‘our’ morals and values. Certainly, the way she ‘achieved’ her goals says more about her and the man she married than anything else. It sets their moral values right up front and center for all to see.

She talked about her mother’s elegance instilling in her a love for fashion, etc. During the time she was on her own and had to make her own way, this is how she did it – acting out her morals and values and love for ‘fashion’. That is not how the fashion models we know live their lives and make their money. She was Donald Trump’s ‘hostess’ on his plane before they married. We hear it took her all of two years, after leaving Slovenia to become a billionaire’s mistress, girl friend, fiancé. We don’t know what to call that relationship before their marriage. It was certainly a time of Donald Trump exploiting a woman’s body and the woman allowing him to do that because her value of herself is on her body. An example for our daughters’ to follow?

Half naked with a box full of jewels on a plane represents what kind of moral value? Selling one’s body and showing the results of that sale?

Supporting your husband and his need to get support from the NRA? Passing these values on to our children? Whatever values her parents gave her – when she had to make it on her own she apparently made it by using her body. – and was it for sale to the highest bidder? And once that happened she could become the volunteer, the person giving to others, working for the needy because that supported her husbands goals and put the family in a better light? Seems to us that those values of her husband have been passed on to his children – especially with a son who, rumor has it, only dated models and in the end married one? Is that teaching your children to value people because of their work, accomplishments, because they are human? Or is that valuing women for what their bodies can do for you? Doesn’t bode well for women’s issues. If her husband is elected president, she would be the first First Lady who earned her kept so blatantly using her body.

Supporting her husbands’ support for the NRA? Showing how women can give their support to the NRA for their husbands benefit?

When a campaign has stolen the theme of a previous campaign and was not able to come up with its own campaign theme – is that how he will be President of the United States? Nothing will be sacred. Whatever Trump needs, he will take from whoever, wherever, for whatever reason he needs to take from others? Like the way his campaign has taken the lives of Blacks by stirring up old prejudices and giving strength to groups who are extreme racists? And extreme religious bigots? Did his daughter marrying an Orthodox Jew account for his spreading such hatred around the country in his campaign speeches and in other ways for Muslims? Is he using divide and conquer to become president? Use the old animosities and pit one group against another. So far he has been able to widen the gap between White and Black; Jew and Muslim; and who knows what groups are next as fodder for his power grab?

These are the values to pass on to your children? Use your body to get what you want? Melania talked about her interest in fashion. We know several models, none of whom earned their money using their bodies in this way! It did help her get a rich husband, however, who puts no value on women except to satisfy his ego and prurient needs.

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The traditional photo of a nude woman on a bear rug is acted out here and destroys everything woman – trying to reach equality in this system based on their brains, accomplishments, etc. instead of the old standard of their body and how they are willing to use their bodies to succeed. These are the lessons Melania Trump brings to young women and young men. This was certainly her way to success and even today, dressed in more clothes which cost a small fortune, her message is – you are an appendage to “your man” and you live your life through him and his life, never on your own standing on your own two feet. Independence is not in the cards.

I can’t believe the Republican Party has stooped so low. It certainly gives a different meaning to their fight against abortion and all their other fights against the equality for women. This will bring the country back pre-1950’s. This is how women advertise who are looking to earn a living in prostitution. If they make it big and find that wealthy male to support them – fine. If not, they will be prostitutes for life.

These photos came from GQ magazine. We put their entire article on Facebook if you are interested in their narrative which went along with the pictures they published. We found more, but these, we felt, gets the message across. Know who you are voting for. You can excuse anything if you want power badly enough. But don’t you think a little honesty, morals, looking at the choices a person makes when they are on their own tells more than anything else about their morals? It certainly says a lot about Donald Trump and what he is interested in from a woman.

I am sure there were none of the Religious Right in the audience at the Republican Convention. Having seen years of what they are about this would be the ultimate hypocrisy. An act equivalent to Pontius Pilate’s washing his hands in that bowl. If there were members of the Religious Right on the floor and out in the country supporting this Trump campaign, they have gone further than Pontius Pilate did because they have not only agreed to turn Hillary Clinton (a devout Christian all of her life – working for justice, equality and for all of us) over to the most scurrilous comments and ugliest campaign in United States history, because they have agreed to help in that effort and are giving their time and money to achieve that goal. At least Pontius Pilate only washed his hands in that bowl and and then he walked away.

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Juneteenth

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2016

We celebrated Juneteenth in several ways this weekend and wanted to share some of that with you. It was a fun time over breakfast and dinner. How could such a sharing be called “fun”? When you share something this serious with friends around a table with food you can talk about much that you might not broach otherwise. Try a Juneteenth dinner! Or a Juneteenth breakfast.

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For all the freedom we now enjoy. Keep us safe and keep our freedoms inviolable.

What is Juneteenth? See a portion of the article that follows written by Zeba Blay for the Huntington Post to find out.

Zeba Blay
Voices Culture Writer, The Huffington Post

It took two whole years after President Abraham Lincoln declared the abolition of slavery on January 1, 1863, for the end of one of the darkest chapters in American history to take hold.

The Emancipation Proclamation marked the end of the legalized institution of slavery in America, but in the small town of Galveston Island, Texas, black slaves had been carrying on their lives of bondage and subjugation, oblivious to the fact that they were actually free.

On June 19th, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger and his band of Union soldiers (who had been traveling throughout the South for two years spreading the word) arrived at Galveston Island to tell the last remaining slaves in the United States that they were finally free.

The day became known as “Juneteenth,” a kind of Independence Day for African-Americans, a day of celebration and remembrance. Juneteenth is a state holiday in Texas, and is officially celebrated in 43 states in America, usually with parades, barbecues and memorial ceremonies.

But Juneteenth isn’t recognized as a federal holiday (though attempts have been made), and for that reason few people get to publicly celebrate it or are even aware of its existence and legacy. And that’s a shame, because Juneteenth is an opportunity for black people to truly celebrate all that they’ve overcome through the power of community.

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The History Behind Loving Day

One aspect of Emancipation, which we included in the Nuneteenth Celebration was the law suit which made intermarriage – marriage between Black and White in the United States – legal. The Loving Case. Click on the above and you can read about it from Time.com

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https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1211439892199949&set=a.200817423262206.56928.100000018504263&type=3&theater

250 to 700 Blacks murdered in East St. Louis by an angry White mob. Angry about what? This happened in 1917 – does this look similar to some of what is happening today? Only today it is not so egregious – only 50 or so being killed by those who feel their identities as “better than’ threatened, but it happens far more frequently.

Like drugs, which were considered a “ghetto” problem during the last and previous generations, that problem was ignored and wrapped up into the negative Black stereotype. Not until the drug traffic expanded into the upper-class White ghettoes did it come onto the front pages and get far more attention. I have yet to hear these killings being called “White on White” shootings, bombings or massacres. Starting with Oklahoma they most certainly could have.

As long as these shootings and massacres happened in the Black ghetto, they were ignored. And called “Black on Black” crimes. They are now front page because they are now happening all over. Nothing will eliminate them until we stop trying to blame one group for what obviously is a false claim against them and work together to bring about a society which does not have as its first need – proving its superiority over another group and parading out its anger, today against its own, when that artificially created superiority is threatened. Is it an accident that most of the people doing these killings are Young White Males – mostly from the far right? Not the ISIS far right, but the American far right. When our response is to obfuscate and cast blame on others, these killings will continue. What do those Young White Males have in common? They perceived themselves as being outside the “White Privileged” class and were treated as such by the small group in which they functioned – their school, etc.

Do we want to stop these killings or do we prefer them to continue and escalate because we can use them to increase and hold in sanctity “White Privilege.” We are now trying to claim these killings are being done by “the other” and are trying to use that to turn this country into another Nazi Germany – and we are beginning to succeed. When a Donald Trump becomes a presidential candidate – whether he wins or not – clearly the forces of evil are succeeding. We either step back and let it happen or we take part in promoting the mythology that they are being done by the unwashed masses. Currently, that group is defined as Muslims. If that continues the definition of that group will expand to encompass other minorities – one group at a time.

Was it Martin Luther King, Jr. who said – if they come for you in the morning, they will be back for me in the afternoon?

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Pochahontas and Warren

Wednesday, June 15th, 2016

What a morning!

We must share with you a breakfast during which Elizabeth Warren was discussed – because it had to do with a sighting of Pochahontas.

Pochahontas danced all around the breakfast room. She was so excited that we could see her. Most people can’t because she died ages ago.

Her excitement was because she heard the ghost gossip about her name being connected to Elizabeth Warren’s and she wanted us to know how exciting that was for her, because Elizabeth Warren is one of the people she holds in high regard. To have her name so connected was an event she was celebrating all across these United States.

If you listen you will hear her because she is dancing around whispering into everybody’s ear how wonderful and her thanks for giving her such a great time and increasing her reputation along with increasing the reputation of Elizabeth Warren since they have a lot to give one another.

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Women, Get Back into those Constraints!!!

Tuesday, May 17th, 2016

Women, girls, ladies, transgenders, your life is about to change. The fashionistas amongst you are going to really suffer for the next decade. For those of you old enough who were fashionable in the 1950’s and 1960’s this will be a historical return to a very unhappy and uncomfortable time. For those of you young enough to look at this as an adventure, you are in for a rude awakening.

The young Hadid followers are looking at getting you back into those horrible girdles. There are comments and rumors that the girdles and corsets and other things that push your innards together making them scream for air and relief are making a return. All during the time you were so constrained and constricted and felt this breath of fresh air when that all went away, that relief is going away and those straight jackets, stomach pinchers, breast-shape changers are returning. Some of the neglige’s and other night wear is also coming with constraints so look at this as a possible 24/7 phenomena.

It was nice being able to go out and about without all of those underpinnings. Look at the work women have been able to do without waistlines pinched in and stomach almost touching one’s back. Well, that scared a lot of menfolk and after a little conference – the higher up machismos decided it was time to bring back one of the little mores that led to inequality and men performing their jobs better than women – men didn’t have those corseted constraints.

There have been periods in history of constraint and freedom. Look at the flowing robes of the Greeks and the tightly laced up underclothes of the Victorians. The freedom side of fashion only lasted a fraction of the time the constraints were in place. Freedom had to come or all women would have the diseases and struggles and depressions and staying home all the time attitudes that used to exist when they had to stay in those body reshaping undergarments for such long periods of time.

I was one of those and know how painful and full of stress it was to walk around smiling with your kidneys, lungs, stomach and other assorted organs in the body being pushed into one another. How I survived is nothing short of a miracle. I think it was the feminist revolution that was my salvation and is the reason for any achievements I have been able to make since then. Burning the bra – with some of us burning the girdles at the same time was no cutesy thing, it was crucial to the success of the movement. I remember being at work wondering how I was going to get to the end of the day without keeling over and feeling a great sympathy and simpatico with Japanese women who had heavy constraints and the Chinese women who had their feet bound. My feet weren’t bound, but they were as constricted as they were when I used to dance in toe shoes. Toe shoes are those dance shoes that make a ballerina, when she walks around with no shoes on, look great from her ankles up and like a candidate for surgery from her ankles to the tips of her toes.

Panti-hose were a god send. But even those began to be made as girdle tops and stocking legs. I even complained about those because my freedom made those feel like a constraining garment. Some women – but not me – ran around with a beautifully made shift and nothing else. They were free of bras, girdles, pantyhose and it was an enslaved persons dream. Well, women made great strides under those circumstances. You looked great – and men drooled – but now, those who regulate such things have been constantly appalled that the strides women made were too great and it is time to move you back into the dark age of girdleship.

I remember feeling so sorry for those Victorian women who needed help to get dressed because first they had to be laced up in that girdle to give them an owl glass shape. I don’t know what these new girdles will produce because the fashionistas don’t have any meat on their bones to push in and their organs are crying out for food. Maybe constraining them through these new girdles will make them so pushed together their organs will start yelling for more space; for some freedom; and will forget about food. That will help those of us who couldn’t pull off the starvation diets to wear those size o clothes. Girdles certainly do control weight, but they demand a heavy price.

Maybe its time for women to demand constant ongoing freedom. Don’t spend your money on your own oppression. Opt for freedom of body, mind and spirit. It is the only way to go and those underpinnings coming down the road deliver slavery, not freedom.

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Everything talked about in this blog and in any other blog in the Bettina Network, inc. is the opinion of the person who wrote the blog and does not necessarily represent the opinions of Bettina Network, inc. It is the property of Bettina Network, inc. and/or the person who wrote the original blog.

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One more Trump Answer to your blog!

Wednesday, May 11th, 2016

I know you don’t like to print lots of blogs about the same thing. I am surprised you put as many blogs about “The Don” as you have. (I love that name.) The media calls him “The Donald”. Wonder if they have disguised the same thing you are highlighting?

Once more about “The Don” – you absolutely have to put this in the Blog. I use Bettina Network a lot, so I am pushing my weight around here. Please!

I was flabbergasted to see ‘The Don’s” comments about Hillary. He has had many affairs – not his spouse, but him. Those affairs have been while he was married and from the gossip I’ve heard he treated the women abominably. I could list what I’ve heard, but I think this one example suffices. I will save the rest to publish as I see what ‘The Don’ continues to say:

When “the Don” was married to his first wife and they were on vacation skiing, his girl friend was in the same place. Some folks say he brought her and installed her close by. She confronted ‘the Don’s’ wife on the ski slopes in a very embarrassing confrontation with ‘the Don’ standing with them and, so I heard, he did nothing to lessen the embarrassment for his wife and just seemed to enjoy the entire scene as his girl friend let his wife know of her relationship with ‘the Don’ and apparently wanted to know why she hadn’t left him yet. As time passed it became clear that this girl friend was pregnant so “the Don’s” marriage broke up – he had a child out of wedlock – etc. etc.

Wonder if he is having affairs now married to Melania. A leopard does not change his spots. I will certainly let you know what I hear.

I mention the child born substantially before they married because many of ‘the Don’s backers are evangelical Christians to whom that kind of behavior is considered amoral, Yet none have said anything about all of this and they are still supporting him. That says to me they may claim the title “Evangelical Christian”, but they do not claim the moral nor are they trying to walk on the path which goes with that appellation. It is all for show with them – and it is all for show with ‘the Don’.

But we should stop calling him ‘the Don’. From the little I know about the mafia, it is said they have a code of ethics which would not allow their “Don’s” to carry on and disrespect their families the way Donald Trump has disrespected his. A lesson from the Mafia rule book which the Evangelical Christians should take to heart.

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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.

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Christmas – A Joyous Occasion?

Tuesday, December 29th, 2015

We are so accustomed to celebrating holidays with a certain emotion which seems intrinsic to that holiday that we generally don’t think about why or if that emotion is appropriate to the holiday.

Good Friday is clearly a somber occasion and our emotions are quite turned down on that day. The Churches drape themselves in black and people come to Church to mourn.

Christmas, however, is joyous. Much gift giving and party attending and celebration. But is that the appropriate emotion for the ‘celebration’ of the birth of Jesus?

The bible clearly talks about and acknowledges Jesus as God. Although maybe not God again until the resurrection – because before that Jesus is human and experiencing all of the good and bad of life in human form.

Why did God have to come to earth to subject God’s self to our infirmities, sadnesses, pain, sin and more? To save us from our sins – so says the bible. Once the virgin birth happens we celebrate the arrival of God on earth because our sins are forgiven – penance has been paid once and for all times with the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus.

What a horrible thought and what an awful commentary on all of us. We celebrate that God has had to take human form because we would not stop sinning. Jesus the Christ brought forgiveness of all of our sins. We seem to have brought jealousy, anger, resentment, and much more as we go downhill with the ugly side of human nature.

To me, it seems we should sit with sack cloth in ashes beating our breasts because we brought God down to such a low level. To celebrate the necessity of such an act and gift because we could or would not act solely out of our better nature is but a small part of Christmas. The larger part is the tearing apart of our garments because of what we caused the God we supposedly worship to experience. Caring plus Empathy equals Love, some say. We care about God, but we have no empathy so how do we get from Caring about God to Loving God? The way we celebrate Christmas shows our complete lack of empathy. The way we live shows how strongly we care about what God can give us, which is where we calculate God’s worth. Which is why we pray. And, if God doesn’t answer our prayers we question God’s existence.

Our self-absorption and self-centeredness overwhelms every other emotion. We act as though we are God and God is really our concierge. Suggest prayer is about something other than the adult version of a child’s prayer for a bicycle will bring down the wrath of the world on your head and not just the Christian world.

We act out the necessity of such a sacrifice, the birth of Jesus, everyday many times a day, even some two thousand plus years after that original sacrifice. Parenting gives one a little look into the love God had to have for us to do such a thing. Sacrifice your adult life to raise your children and give them what they need to get through life to its end and what do you receive in return? From what we have seen – mostly entitlement from your children. The moments of genuine love and giving are few and far between. Sounds like a re-enactment of why God felt it necessary to become human for our sake. God gave us Jesus and we responded by replacing Jesus with Santa Claus.

Buying all kind of presents from retail shops; getting together with friends and too much alcohol; dreading Christmas dinner with the family because it will end in horribleness; and I could go on and on. We are doing all of this while there are so many people in pain; at the end of their lives and alone not able to pass along their immortality, which to most of us is our life story. Why can’t we pass along our life story? Because no one is listening. Only celebrities and the rich and famous get to do that.

And it does seem to be getting worse, this ‘celebration’ of Christmas. It starts right after Halloween and continues through January. Some of us ease our consciences by making an effort to give a small part of our ‘celebration’ to those in need – and generally that is a very small part, usually limited to this one time Christmas gift giving.

We turn our Churches into concert halls for the holiday and pat ourselves on the back as to how wonderful we are because of it. We don’t do that by bringing those in need, to whom we dedicate those concerts, into the Church/Concert Hall for an evening joining with others to meet and greet and celebrate and form longer lasting relationships, but by using that Concert Hall atmosphere to indulge our need to lift ourselves above the pact with the nobless oblige feelings that creates in us.

The holiday in Christianity to celebrate would be Easter. However, Easter passes with barely a note, a present, a celebration. Not many family dinners because we go off to warmer climes or to celebrate other than at home and the less fortunate we give a small bit of our resources to over Christmas does not repeat over Easter.

We don’t stop to think of what a sacrifice it was for God to take on human form and all of the pains and vicissitudes of being human. If we let those thoughts into our consciousnesses for even a moment our lives would change. We give lip service to that and move on with our celebration.

Having given us 30 plus years – the way we count time – it was enough. We rewarded Jesus the Christ, for this gift we celebrate at Christmas of God becoming equal to us all for our sake, with a crucifixion.

One interpretation of the resurrection after the crucifixion is that it could be that God was disgusted with the scene he was a part of and after the horrible experience of the crucifixion, took back this gift of equality and of giving an example to all of humanity of how life could be lived with a different set of values, a different character, a different morality and so got out of here to a better place, leaving us with the mess, corruption, ugliness that we created and continue to wallow in because that seems far better to us than to clean ourselves up and act in a way that would not need such a sacrifice from God.

Not the least of our sins is the one which led us to using the story of Jesus on this earth as a way to strengthen sexism – by declaring Jesus’ birth as a male child the justification for the extreme Paternalism and Male Superiority which pervades our Churches.

Next to that is the fact that we took Jesus’ birth and life as a reason to reinforce racism by portraying ‘him’ with White skin and softly flowing blondish-brown hair. Would that be shoring up the racism we practice?

This is all such a pattern of how we live. Didn’t we take God-given food grown with sunlight, air, rain and turned it into something horrible with the introduction of chemicals, machinery to change its texture, color and nutritional value because man could make more money when its sold – bought cheap from the farmer, ‘ processed’ and sold for a fortune to everyone else?

Don’t we continually destroy the beautiful universe around us? It is so beautiful to look up at the sky; to see the flowers; to enjoy the life giving oxygen of the trees – until we cut them up, cut them down to make money? And guns? and so many artificial things we don’t need, but work ourselves to death to obtain, neglecting that which is real and of God?

How long, O God, must we suffer the pangs and vicissitudes of our humanity. It doesn’t look at all changed over these two thousand plus years. We are still a sinful humanity. What did your birth change – really?

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Ed Note: This is a very Christian message. We thought long and hard before putting it in the blog, but our need to be open to the world far overtook our concerns about printing it.

We welcome other religions to send us blogs on their thoughts, prayers and lifestyles. We will print them either with your name or without and if you request, we will put a copyright on your work.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Foundation, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Christmas, Racism, Sexism, Spiritual Reflection
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Dogs = Emotional Slavery

Wednesday, October 28th, 2015

We are and have been for hundreds of years a society/world of slaves. Either you are a slave or a slave master. Many have tried to break free, but in some part or parts of life, that historical connection gets us and changes us from a free people to a people enslaved to each other and to the things which bind us. What is that new word that has entered our vocabulary in a terrifying way, and growing fast, intruding on life in many cities, suburban areas, country towns – human trafficking?

We enslaved Africans. However, long before the enslavement of Africans we enslaved the Hebrews and we can go back to many other peoples and animals who we enslaved. Is there something wrong with the human spirit, that we cannot be whole and a people functioning on their own two feet and even reaching out to help others?

Our history seems to say that we have to destroy and desecrate others so that our needs can be met without our putting forth too much energy and effort in the process. We must make sure those who serve are categorized and marked so that their role in our society is clear and definitely defined as subservient and never even close to being equal! Do our security needs demand such?

Enslavement is a necessity because we need to make sure our needs are never left unfulfilled even for a little while. We need to make sure that whatever – whoever – we have designated and oppressed and labeled to make their purpose and use only the fulfillment of our needs is close by and unable to function except at our bidding. The slave’s food, shelter and even their ability to take another breath depends upon our continuous need for them and our willingness to fulfill their basic needs because their enslavement becomes a part of our identity!

For some time now, it has become more and more noticeable that we have emotionally enslaved dogs. They are a group, which in the wild run in pacts with a pact leader. We have taken advantage of that and become the pact leader to our dogs – even if that is only one dog.

What we demand in return is total unadulterated worship.

We are becoming more and more isolated from one another – almost a reflection of what is happening in space as the planets and all the otherworldly objects are moving further and further away from one another. So to are we as humans doing the same thing.

Because we need to feel a closeness to something or to someone, we have chosen to make that the dog. We don’t have to return to the dog what the dog gives to us. When we make an attempt to respond to what we are given, it doesn’t have to be fully and when we have other things to do, we can go our way and ignore that animal which has been so faithful to us. We have even justified killing the dog when it has outlived its usefulness.

Of course, not everyone reacts in this way, some are the exception. The role of the exception – which is meant to disprove the rule – only proves, to those watching closely enough – that the rule is rigid. Kind of like what is happening at this tail end of racism.

We are moving to formalize this emotional slavery of dogs by naming an increasing number of them “therapy dogs”. Dogs, whose mission it is, in this society, to be to others what normal human beings no longer are capable of being. Our own lives have become so “busy” that we don’t have time anymore to reach out to those in need. We no longer get any satisfaction out of giving to others in need. We are delegating those jobs more and more either to society’s underclass or – even better – we have discovered the “therapy dog.” Society’s underclass were the people to whom we entrusted the care of our elderly, sick, mentally challenged, seriously handicapped. They also served to be there and help the dysfunctional. But, they are getting to be a nuisance, expecting equality, beginning to be unhappy with their lot, being ‘undocumented’ but needing and beginning to demand more; no longer being able to quietly serve the rest of society making do with less than humans need to survive.

That elderly person whose family has left them to be cared for by others will buy them a dog. Or that person, in serious emotional need will find their own dog to replace their human family and friends. Or, someone else buys that “therapy dog” so that deserted person has love and affection and does not have to depend upon another human being and does not have to be beholden or give to another human being in return for any affection given to them. What a new form of “freedom”.

What kind of society is that creating?

Dogs have been trained to pee and shit wherever they feel like taking care of their bodily functions. They can do this with impunity as long it is away from the area where their owners live. On someone else’s property? Around the trees in the city – which can then get sick and infect all of the other trees? Dogs have been trained to leave their bowel movement wherever it falls, which means, wherever they decided to drop it, and if it affects the health of children who come along and come into contact with the dogs feces, the dogs owner walks away doing nothing and with very little to no responsibility for what their dogs have done. The more upscale the area, the more infected with dog feces it becomes. The more upscale the area the more enslaved dogs one finds.

At the end of winter and the snow melts, one sees enormous amounts of dog feces on the ground, where the dog owners have allowed their dogs to drop their “business” and walk away leaving it. The snow covers everything so why not? The small gardens all over a lovely area with flowers and others kinds of growth where the dog is encouraged to hop in, do their ‘business’ and hop out with the owners walking away leaving the dog feces to infect whoever and whatever comes along – including other dogs when the feces is diarrhea feces and another dog sniffs, eats or otherwise interacts with that diarrhea laden feces. Many dogs are infected with disease in this way. One dropping of diarrhea feces – given a couple days – generates many more droppings of diarrhea feces from other dogs who inhabit the area. When the leaves fall, the same phenomena happens and just before the snow falls to continue the process.

Parks, which once belonged to children, who could run, jump, fall down, now belong to dogs who run, jump, drop their feces and play with their owners since this is their one time of ‘freedom’ during the day. The other part of the day they are locked in a room; kept in a basement; confined to a dog cage; or etc. The more privileged dogs are kept behind a fence in a small yard.

Slavery of any kind breaks down a society in the most desperate ways and this emotional slavery of dogs is no exception. The most dangerous part of this slavery is our refusal to see and/or name it for what it is. We call them “pets”. Animals were not made to be the “pets” of humans. They have their own lives and go their own ways except when they are kept enslaved and begin to understand their well being – their food supply – their shelter are all dependent upon that human slave owner who demands that they wag their tails vigorously when that human owner approaches, who demands that they jump for ‘joy’ all over the human to show excitement that they have not been abandoned to a cruel and unresponsive world that treats dogs without owners viciously. Need I describe more…………………?

And here come the denials!

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Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Racism, Sexism, Spiritual Reflection
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Sexism 101 – Father Figure Problems

Monday, September 28th, 2015

One guest brought a problem to the breakfast table.

She was late arriving and most people were ready to leave.

Her agitated state made all of us stay and the resulting conversation, we felt, belonged on your blog.

We deal with sexism in all ways and places. Mostly, we talk and write about it in the workplace because that is where your income and vocation come into play. This breakfast table talk was about sexism in the family. Particularly with daughters who have father issues they don’t think about, recognize, work on or see as anything having to do with them.

Many women – especially those above 30 – have father figure issues and work them out in their lives. Most particularly in their romantic lives and in relationship to their mothers. Have a problematic relationship with your father and your mother gets trashed.

Sexual abuse has come into play now more than ever. In those above 30 it was not the issue it has become today. Men with ego problems work out their issues by using women, usually their wives and their daughters are the ones who suffer.

This woman was trying to talk with her daughters about their choice of male companion – husband, boy friend, fiancé, etc. She noticed that the male companion they chose was always one who was sexually abusive – and – we were not talking about beating or being physically abusive. We were talking about the male who pursued them being their teacher, boss, someone who was over them in a father-like position. The young women were protesting to their mother that she was being “hyper” and didn’t understand, paranoid with a chip on her shoulder, etc.. We thought she understood only too well because her own history reflected the same abuse, only at a time when to marry a male above you was looked upon as your having made quite a “catch”. The woman making that “catch” was looked up to, but in real time, on a day-to-day basis paid a heavy price in her personal life. As she talked we realized she basically hid this side of her life from everyone and presented a great looking marriage to the world. She couldn’t hide it from her children, but they saw her life through a child’s eyes and interpreted it through their own veils – through which she didn’t come out very well.

A woman in that position, so the table conversation went, would probably be very angry most or all of her married life. Basically, because she would not have recognized the sexual abuse she experienced during the courtship process, the marriage and the rearing of family.

Such a spouse needed the ego boost of having made a ‘conquest’ and would expect that ‘conquest’ to be in an inferior place to him. When that didn’t line up with the reality of the relationship, the woman suffered as the man tried constantly to pull the rug out from under anything she did to fulfill her life. She thought he did that even if the cost was to him, her, the marriage and the children. The things she did and contributions she made, if they were not according to her ‘stereotype’ he did not want them to succeed and did what he could to kill all of her initiatives and hard work.

He was her fulfillment and that is what she was limited to. He was her fulfillment according to his judgment and expectations. Whenever she tried to live her life on her own path she would find herself mired in mess. If she hadn’t dealt with what was happening and could or would not look at the reality of her life with this spouse then anger, frustration, explosions would follow. The children, witnessing this anger and those explosions put the blame exactly where it did not belong – on their mother, who then shouldered the negativity of her children and the abuse of her spouse. The abuse was never – in the family being discussed – physical, it was always on a very different, totally accepted level.

With her children now grown and having walked away from her to their father, what does she do!

Her agitation and unhappiness at breakfast, we thought, was coming from the fact that she either hadn’t seen her life as it was and how she had lived it during this marriage or the truth of that marriage was trying to come out and she wasn’t ready to deal with it. She was concentrating on her children and the pain of their rejection.

I reflected on how many older women with children I knew, whose children were now alienated from their mother and all in the bosom of their father. Most of the fathers I knew were divorced and in ‘new’ marriages where their ‘new’ wives were mightily puffing up that male ego.

We did a lot of talking, but didn’t know where to go with this or how to help. We skipped our morning appointments because this topic drew all of us – wonder why it had such a strong draw. I suspect it is something we all have inside and have not allowed to come out because it is not such an accepted, commonly discussed topic. I don’t even know how to write about it for this blog, but feel it is important enough to at least make the attempt.

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Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, breakfast table talk, Sexism
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Thanks for the Sandra Bland blog

Monday, July 27th, 2015

It is amazing how little there is about Sandra Bland in the major media outlets. What is there that I have heard talks about her committing suicide and whatever else negative could be found.

I am sending this list, which I got from the FMF (Feminist Movement Foundation) newsletter. I think Sandra Bland needs to be put into context. She is not alone there are others. That gives a very different picture.

“Less than 24 hours after Bland’s death, 18-year old Kindra Chapman was found dead in a Homewood City, Alabama jail cell one hour after being arrested for allegedly stealing a cell phone. Chapman’s death, also called a suicide by authorities, has spurred the hashtag #IfIDieInPoliceCustody. Two months ago, activists gathered in California to demand justice for Tanisha Anderson, Rekia Boyd, Miriam Carey, Michelle Cusseux, Shelly Frey, Kayla Moore, and Alberta Spruill, all Black women killed at the hands of police violence. Just weeks after this protest, 15-year-old Dajerria Becton was violently attacked by a police officer in McKinney, Texas at a neighborhood pool party.”

Now what do you think of this Sandra Bland incident. Can you really go back to business as usual with all of this going on?

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Ed. Note: Members of the Bettina Network Lifestyle CommunityB 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.

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Tags: Blog Response, Racism, Reader Response, Sandra Bland, Sexism
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Sandra Bland – Strange Fruit

Friday, July 24th, 2015

Once upon a time, the “Strange Fruit, hanging from the trees” used to be from trees with green leaves, a trunk and branches growing up from the ground splattered with red.

Today, the “Strange Fruit, hanging from the trees” is hanging from man-made trees with blue reflected all around.

But look! Isn’t that the old white cloth under the blue?

And aren’t those tall pointy white hats pushing out from under the official issued uniform?

Really strange and awful fruit, rapidly spreading the disease of racism all across the country.

Being covered up by fear – that fear keeping those who could act from doing so.

Why! Oh God, Why!

This strange fruit is is Black and female –

the fear is that riots will invade those lovely, green, middle-class communities.

Rather let the strange fruit multiply and just hang there in silence. Much better than to act. The sacrifice of the few for the many.

But doesn’t that spread? isn’t it happening more rapidly?

Terrorism?

Not from the Middle East!

White – Male – Conservative – with strings into the groups of old

The Klan, the Citizens Council, the neoNazi …………………….why bother with a list, you know the names

This isn’t simply racism – this is Racism and Sexism.

Life is becoming ever more strange and silent.

The silent majority is back and in control!

Let the media slip in little bits and pieces to make it sound less awful; less threatening; let us not place blame where it belongs, but obfuscate.

Won’t that protect those of us who count?

Homicide, murder, reduced to a paid vacation, sometimes called Administrative leave – which happens before exoneration.

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Tags: African American history, bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, breakfast table talk, Making Connections, Racism, Sandra Bland, Sexism
Posted in African American history, Bed & Breakfast, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Bettina's Box of Shame, Breakfast Table Talk, Making Connections, politics, racism, Sandra Bland, sexism, Uncategorized | 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.

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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 »

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