Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History

This post will be updated later let’s hope.

This week several states, stupidly, are having “Parental Alienation Awareness Day.”

So I pause from tracking the funding of the “Fatherhood Initiative” and violations of due process in order to attain a government mandate to stop singlehood, I suppose (or is it motherhood?), to address this “Parental Alienation Awareness Day,” and question the thinking behind assigning single days, or months, of awareness  to this and then to that, nationally (or, internationally).  No wonder medicating for ADD & ADHD is big business:  The innocent observer trying nobly to make sense of it all will find his – OR her — brain darting too and fro, or asked to throw dollars at one problem/passion, ignoring the rest, then wonders where all those dollars went.

For a(nother) great example of bureaucratic dollar-throwing, see:

“Sexual predator settles locally”

State pays $30K per month to support twice-convicted child molester released from Atascadero State Hospital 

No, that is NOT a joke, unfortunately.  Meanwhile, at one local charity:  “Demand up, Donations Down, 5 items only.”

The purpose of having an “awareness” of something is not a fleeting glance, but an incorporation of that awareness into one’s values, principles, and purposes.  Or, dismissing it.   

“PAA” Day:  I am utterly opposed to this terminology — because of its origins, and how “PAS” is used to divert the public conversation from much, much, more hard topics to face — and these have ugly names, but not nearly as ugly as ignoring them is to the people suffering them.   These topics are as ugly as (but not unrelated to) “Domestic Violence Awareness Month,” which (good planning on the part of PAS folk?) was about six months apart from this new “day.”    As this term is primarily (though  not only) directed against custodial Mothers (in order to help switch custody, or gain more access to children), how silly that one month later, we have “Mother’s Day.”  Yet, nationally the problem supposedly is “fatherlessness” — referring to a state of children, rather than actions taken previously by their parents (Huh?).    So, are you giddy yet?  No wonder the year starts out with the month of January, after the god “Janus,” looking two ways.  

Today I choose to post links to these ugly-content, hard-to-stomach topics, and to (again) talk about them.  The $30K/month link above I found from “lostinlimaohio” which blog somehow came up when I was tracking down why a judge placed a gag order on the Huckaby/Cantu case.  In that case, also a judge has (inexplicably) recused himself, and I heard that the DA had issued charges before he had either the coroner’s report OR reports or recordings from the 5-hour long interrogation leading to Ms. Huckaby’s arrest, without bail.  8-year-old Young Miss Cantu is physically GONE, she herself no longer has a future, but 28-year-old Ms. Huckaby is on trial for her life, without bail, and after sensational, high-profile, nationwide (at least) media coverage because of the horror of the accusation & crime (especially for a Sunday school teacher, female).  Anomalies caught my eye that I started (reluctantly — I’m busy!) following this.  Because it’s about confidence in the prosecutorial process, and due process, and more.  If  you want my input on that so far (and I may be wrong), post and I’ll reply.  Then they gagged it!

One upside of pursuing these topics is you run across other information and insights; and if life is not about insight so that we can live reasonably upright and effective lives, what is it about?

Anyhow,  I had no major persistent troubles with the seamy side of life (even after being mugged twice, without physical harm, and despite living in some dangerous urban areas), this side of life arose through and as a direct consequence of who I married, and who have had to deal with since attempting to separate.  Since the seamy side of life bit me pretty hard in the butt (and people associated with me, and related to), it bears addressing.  One of the most valuable lessons I learned is that some of the less seamy “characters” don’t look it on the outside.  If anything, they are in positions of policymaking, and good at dominating conversations, and people.

Meanwhile Mr. or Ms. lostinlimaohio appears to think like me.  And (I believe) posted under the title “Wouldn’t Prison Be Cheaper?” an article on the $30,000 state support of this middle-aged man:

Rasmuson’s first conviction for child molestation came in 1981 when a Santa Barbara [CA] court found him guilty of raping an 11-year-old boy. He was sentenced to state prison and conditionally released in 1985.  [Four years only?? see: 

25 yrs for a cat, 8 for a little girlIn 1987, Rasmuson was arrested again, this time for the kidnapping and sexual assault of a 3-year-old child, who was reportedly later found naked and abandoned in the Los Angeles foothills.

In other words, I think a little screw-up happened judicially, somewhere, or were the prisons just too crowded?  As usual, when government screws up, everyone pays, not just emotionally, and family-wide, but also through the nose, which is why the NEXT quote, I put in red, which this state (and nation) currently is, deeply.  

According to his neighbors, Rasmuson is living in a mobile home on the fenced acreage while repairs are being made to the house he’s renting on the land. Though the 47-year-old is employed, Rasmuson is still paying the state back for previous care and financial support, meaning taxpayers are also footing the $4,500 monthly rent on the $1.5 million property. In addition, according to the state’s Department of Mental Health, there’s an $800 daily expense for the court-ordered security detail assigned to protect him—for his safety and that of his neighbors. The current set-up is costing taxpayers close 
to $30,000 a month from the state’s general funds. 

Rasmuson won his freedom in 2007 on an appeal, after the courts initially denied his release from Atascadero State Hospital. Under the terms of release set forth in “Jessica’s Law,” Rasmuson is required be monitored by Global Positioning Satellite at all times and must live more than 2,000 feet away from a school or park where children congregate.

Do you know how abundantly I could (have) provided on that salary for my children, and me, and with $ to spare, had not local entities (who will be repeatedly named, on this blog — at least by function) not chosen, outside of my hearing or input, or even awareness, chosen to interfere with my livelihood with their (communal) It takes a Village to Remove [excuse me, ‘Raise’] a Child “help”? The last time I was in range of this salary, my kids disappeared,  overnight, despite my attempts to avert that virtually predictable event.  

Anyhow, many times, other people have said the thing better already.

I too, have my limits on what I can stomach in a day.  I am already missing my daughters (as every day) and simultaneously grieving the lost time, opportunities for all of us (professional, academic personal), but I think perhaps most of all, that when I went for help to the justice, law enforcement, and nonprofits of my geographic area, and the situation became worse.  ACTUALLY, in seeking to renew a restraining order, a relative? or? a spinoff employee/patron of the Promoting Responsible Fatherhood movement? helped my ex bounce it into family court, a more friendly venue to batterers, where he could better convince a judge of how much he “loved” his children, now (let’s not talk about the prior violence, OK?).  Not only analyzing this past (done, long ago), but doing so looking for how to (THIS time round) handle the present is a full-time occupation, just about.  One balances purpose, energy available, emotional health, statistical probabilities of succeeding in changing status qui (that’s plural, probably not in the correct cast, for you non-Latin folk), etc.  

There are also other issues I follow and things I do in life, many of them.  Like many of the people sponsoring blogs on these issues, in our own lives, the issues are not in “closed” mode, but the problems are ongoing and on-traumatizing also.  This can affect quality of blogging — I know in particular that my copyediting is sub-par, and that the appearance of this blog is less than professional (nevertheless, it is getting some international traffic, I note).  Some days, it’s better to defer to others who have already written, well, on the topic. 

Today, also, another group, Legal Momentum, discusses 15th Anniv. of VAWA…

I am delighted to announce that Legal Momentum, the nation’s oldest legal defense and education fund dedicated to advancing the rights of women and girls, will honor United States Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on April 22 with its Legal Momentum Hero Award at a symposium marking the fifteenth anniversary of the 1994 Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), initiated and championed by then-Senator Joseph Biden. The historic Act was the first comprehensive federal legislative package designed to end violence against women and put the issue on the national agenda….

The event will take place at Georgetown Law Center in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, April 22, 9:15 a.m. until 3:00 p.m.  The complete list of speakers is posted on our Web site at: http://www.legalmomentum.org/news-room/press-releases/legal-momentum-to-honor-vice.html

LIVE WEBCAST WILL BE AVAILABLE

Although seats are not available at this sold-out event, it will be broadcast live via the Web by Georgetown Law Center at this url:  https://www.law.georgetown.edu/webcast/

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http://www.randijames.com/2009/04/pas-is-real-targeting-noncustodial.html

Randi James responds to a comment on her site called “PAS is real” and suggesting that we (mothers groups, fathers groups) on stopping this.  This is a teaser, the link above has more URLS than the post here I put this exchange in GREEN, for Go Take a Look!, but have not indented.  Therefore, all the (contiguous) green below is all quote:

Robert Gartner has left a new comment on your post “Mothers’ Movements“:

Your blog does an injustice to the non custodial women you mention. Everyone knows that family courts do not get it right all the time. Even those on death row, some of them, are innocent.

PAS is real. If your groups could get past that we might have a way to work together.

Posted by Robert Gartner to Randi James at Apr 22, 2009 12:33:00 PM 

Unfortunately for you and your ilk, I know that “PAS is Real” is a catch phrase you use to target unsuspecting noncustodial mothers and men who have been primary caretakers. I also personally know that you lurk around women’s boards, especial single mothers and abused women, in order to recruit them into your camp. It is an unfair, divisive tactic that fathers supremacists have been using increasingly.

It’s not that they really believe you…they need something to hold on to…something that seems to make sense. Mothers and innocent fathers do not understand the depth of the origination of the term parental alienation syndrome, a history that should not be forgotten or obscured.

Mothers are often the target of abusive husbands/fathers in relationships where the children have been taught to hate the mother, often taking the abuser’s side because of the perception of power that he has. This is trauma bonding through the use of maternal deprivation:

Maternal Deprivation, or Motherlessness, is occurring with alarming frequency due to the unethical treatment of women and children in family court. Maternal Deprivation is inflicting abuse by severing the mother-child bond. It is a form of abuse that men inflict on both the mother and children, especially men who claim they are “parentally alienated” from their children when there are complaints of abusive treatment by the father.

 Maternal Deprivation occurs when men seek to keep their children from being raised by their mothers who are the children’s natural caretakers. Some men murder the mothers of their own children. Others seek to sever the maternal bonds by making false allegations of fictitious psychological syndromes in a deliberate effort to change custody and/or keep the child from having contact with their mother when there are legal proceedings. 

Anyone reading old enough to remember the experiment carried out on young monkeys, who were forced to choose between a warm fuzzy (fake) mother and a wire metal, milk-dispensing mother.  Guess which one they chose?  In the earliest years, kids need to be held and hugged (and later on, too!).  I wonder what kind of personnel the new Zero to Five is going to attract to the expanded preschool industry, and who is going to monitor them (and at whose expense)….  

“PAS” doesn’t want to talk about cases like this:

http://batteredmomslosecustody.wordpress.com/2009/04/19/california-incest-father-sentenced-to-109-years-in-prison/

Egregious case, but I provide it because a response to the post links to quotes from Richard Gardner, PAS-front-man (until he committed suicide, now adherents continue to carry the NAMBLA etc. torch in many venues):
 

”I hope he suffers,” said the woman, who has not been identified because she is a sexual abuse victim. “I want him to die in there in jail because that’s what he did to me. He confined me,” the 29-year old daughter said whose assault started when she was just 6 years old.

She said her 48-year-old father, a martial arts instructor, threatened to kill her if she told anyone and kept her a prisoner at home, monitoring her movements using surveillance cameras and delivering fierce beatings during paranoid rages.

As her father was led away in handcuffs, the woman wept quietly and embraced her younger brother, who she said was also a victim of beatings by their father, the Los Angeles Times reported on Saturday.

DNA tests confirmed the daughter’s account, proving that Thibes was both the father and grandfather of her three children. All girls, they are 4, 7 and 11.

. . .

Her father, she said, grew fearful that her brother had told police about abuse at the home and fled to Las Vegas in 2003, taking her and her children. They lived in a motel, where, she said, Thibes told others that she was his girlfriend.

In April 2005, he stabbed her twice in the chest with a 10-inch kitchen knife, police records show. In interviews with police, he described her at various times as his wife, girlfriend or daughter.

The woman said she told hospital workers about the abuse once her father had been arrested and she knew her children were safe in custody.

A comment to THAT post links to a history on Richard Gardner, some of his less “choice” quotes.

CAUTION: some readers, especially survivors of sexual abuse, may find Gardner’s remarks deeply disturbing.  Indeed, we all should.  {{I chose not to post them.  Even the subtitles are offensive. However, they remain as the background and underpinning of “Parental Alienation Awareness Day” and in its tawdry history.  Now, when children (PAS in reverse?) are returned to the abuser, and then no longer bond with the protective parent (generally, not always, the mother), the feeling sure feels like “alienated” from this (case in point) perspective. However, there exist other terms already to address these actions and symptoms of such actions:  kidnapping, brainwashing, Stockholm syndrome, others.   

I think a difficulty arises in labeling something with which one has no personal acquaintance, or accepting this label (insert applicable epithet from other generations or ethnic, religious groups) wholesale.  We cannot farm out our THINKING to the experts for long!  

http://batteredmomslosecustody.wordpress.com/2009/04/20/quotes-by-richard-gardner-the-father-of-parental-alienation-syndrome/

Quotes By Richard Gardner, the Father of “Parental Alienation Syndrome”

Battered Moms Lose Children To Abusers Blog does not agree with the pervertedly twisted philosophies ofRichard Gardner. The following information was posted at Stop Family Violence and is posted here to demonstrate that the philosophies of this man, such as “Parental Alienation Syndrome” (PAS) are all integrally related to his pro-pedophilia beliefs and misogyny. The whole idea of the theory is to recast disclosures of abuse as “hysterics” by women and children. But even worse, this sick man’s ideas on punishing children by forcing them to remain with their abusers while depriving them of their protectors needs to be denounced by everyone in the world who cares about the safety and well-being of children. For more info on Richard Gardner, see Cincinatti PAS.

So if you support Parental Alienation Syndrome theories, you agree with the theories of a pedophile supporter. 

April 20, 2009 — batteredmomslosecustody

Richard A. Gardner, M.D., is the creator of the creator and main proponent for the bogus Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) theory. Prior to his suicide, Gardner was an unpaid part-time clinical professor of child psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University . He made his money mainly as a forensic expert. PAS was developed by Dr Richard Gardner in 1985 based on his personal observation, not on scientific study, and on his work as an expert witness often on behalf of fathers accused of molesting their children. Gardner ’s theory of PAS has had a profoundly detrimental effect on how the court systems in our country handle allegations of child sexual abuse, especially during divorce.  Because Gardner ’s PAS theory is based on his clinical observations–not scientific data–it must be understood in the context of his extreme views concerning women, pedophilia and child sexual abuse. We provide Gardner’s views so that people can understand the radical, perverse thinking of the so-called “expert” who invented the bogus theory of PAS that has done so much damage.

NOTE: Stop Family Violence does not agree with the views espoused by Gardner – we find them disgusting, offensive,  and most importantly, they are not correct.  Gardner’s views are based in his own perverse thinking, not in anything scientists know, not in anything our laws condone, and not in anything our culture believes. To be clear – pedophilia is not natural, children do not enjoy, ask for or consent to sexual abuse, and mothers are not to blame if fathers commit such heinous acts against their children.

CAUTION: some readers, especially survivors of sexual abuse, may find Gardner’s remarks deeply disturbing.  Indeed, we all should. 

Read, and Think About This before you sign another PAS petition.  

THEN go to AFCC.net and look at the conference brochures, notice the similarity of terms, and consider:

Would you want your family’s future in the hands of these people?  

If not, then stay married, take more abuse, do something . because on the way out, with children, they are going to be.  Also, do a serious criminal background check before partnering up, and talk to former partners. Consider, they MIGHT be telling the truth. 

. . . And by the way, domestic violence is a clear precursor, sometimes to homelessness (if not death) (or, if not, extended undermployment, and documented health problems.  

Finally, the “lostinlimaohio” blog I discovered today, as I was so disturbed by a recent “gag order” on the Cantu / Huckaby case recently, where an 8 year old was discovered in a suitcase at the bottom of an irrigation pond, and a 28-year-old woman/mother is facing the death penalty or life in prison because of special circumstances.  Several details in this case flagged my attention as not passing muster.  Either my mind can’t conceive of the situation, or my instincts were right.  Either way, the case is now gagged.

I don’t know anything more about this blog than that I think the writing is good, it covers many aspects.

It appears to have more of a criminal focus than some of these others, but as the issues that routinely pass through family court halls many times ARE criminal in nature, but handled as psychological and relationship problems (and shunted off for mind-therapy on how to get along with that violent person you just threw out of your house, legally, because, long ago, or not so long about, one of you impregnated the other, and the female partner did not abort).  

I may need to separate the funding aspects of this blog into another one, but ALL these issues are related, of course.

Have a happy day…  Be “aware” of what you are asked to become aware of.  Pay attention to vocabulary, and who invented some of the jargon.