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

Post Title:  Troubled by Trauma Today, while Debating FR Rhetoric (Published Oct. 31, 2012) Post short-link ends “-1cQ”  Wordcount, including a few tables (each word in the table counts) is just under 9,000 words.

(Adding the post title to the body of post itself, with reference to its shortlink, and a date published to the title itself are 2020 Updates.  The topic of Fathers, Inc. came up on Twitter, and I wanted to reference the posts which had already looked at this and its relationship to “Fatherhood.gov” (via drill-downs)while the address was still in NY.  It has since (see for yourself under “Contact” at Fatherhood.gov) moved to Georgia).

I also quickly added margin limits (700px) and a border and switched it to smaller (condensed) font more typical of how I’ve been blogging since blog restructuring (Jan. 2018)….  ALSO, this post (not that common) has long comment (and my response to it) by a mother (“stillhere”) who had contacted me (telephone, email); we networked over, as I recall, at least a year or more, comparing notes as she was out of state (compared to where I was).  Access or add comments at the bottom of any post…//LGH 2020May31

The conversational model of this blog has (I believe) run its course, although the relevance of the subject matter has not.

The subject matter is the constant round-tables, collaborations and strategizing (and all the involved professionals, most of them on the public payroll) on matters immediately affecting the family courts — and the family courts are full of people attempting to resolve criminal issues, in a model which frames these as relational issues.

A look at some of the largest corporations on the planet shows that these are often pharmaceutical corporations.  No wonder mental health is increasingly the paradigm, and governments are more than willing to use this framework to warehouse and silence people who shouldn’t be warehoused and silenced, while failing to incarcerate people who common sense might say, should be.  In this climate, the concept of “justice” as a fair process with checks and balances, and the courts as where this happens, is becoming obsolete.

While the conferences, institutes, initiatives, clearinghouses, “resources,” webinars and web-based toolkits; media campaigns to raise awareness of fatherlessness as a social scourge or (alternately) domestic violence as a social scourge or (alternately) child abuse as a social scourge or (alternately) too much religious influence (or, alternately not enough religious influence) in government as being a threat to individual rights or, alternately …. (get the point? if it’s ALL of the above, then there is an underlying, and larger in scope issue not identified yet).

While all this is going on — and pretty much in every single state — often in the states speaking out loudest about these issues through organizational mouthpieces — and vying for the limelight as being the most loving, the most protective, the most benefical, the most philanthropic groups around — SOMEHOW . . . . .

Women are still getting murdered by their exes, namely, by men, orphaning children into the foster care system, shortly after (or, sometimes, BEFORE) these same women seek help in the form of getting  a protection from abuse, or domestic violence (it varies in names by state)  restraining order.  While they sometimes get them through the criminal system, other times it’s through the civil system, which has increasingly become a joke.

In ADDITION, increasingly (seems to me) women who are not involved with these men — at all — but simply happen to work alongside or patronize businesses where such women work, pending or after divorce. In other words, they got up, they went out, they entered a hair salon or spa alive, and they left it in body bags, with bullet holes. Or on a guerney, to die shortly afterwards. The man was after his wife, but took out a few more females en route, sometimes a male, too.

Meanwhile, somehow, the fatherhood/marriage promotion rhetoric goes on- faithbased or unfaithbased (because of private and federal funding) unabated and as if this were NOT happening and NOT public knowledge.

In such a group I blogged yesterday, “men of faith” were called out (in another media campaign, badly distorting the context of its own theme verse) to take charge of their families as responsible fathers. But their faith institutions (presumably composed of both genders), on the other hand (in this same campaign) were exhorted to treat men better, nurture them, help their depression, participate in healing their wounds, deterring them from committing suicide, and in short be a healing balm — or forget adequate church attendance.  There is nothing more dangerous than an un-nurtured or sad male whose authority in his home has been challenged, I guess, or who doesn’t have a supportive woman in that home.

The person who started this campaign runs an unregistered (or barely registered) nonprofit at NRFC, which is not reporting ANY of its income, that I can see, and yet broadcasts the site anyhow.

Such person apparently has been a responsible fatherhood program manager within NYState ODTA (that distributes welfare funding, I gather), and cites himself as on the board of “Fathers and Families coalition of America” (another organization whose nonprofit filing I can’t find), and an ICF consultant (ICF International being an HHS grantee) and — the sky’s the limit on names one can claim and grants that flow towards the public web presence, how often supported by tax filings??? Not often enough! !!!

From the NYState Charitable Registry Search (Note:  National Fatherhood Initiative is registered in Germantown, MD but operating or collecting in NYState and registered there, as it should) we can see that SOME FR groups do post data — but Fathers, Inc. — which claims to be the contractor for the public-funded NRFC (national responsible fatherhood clearinghouse, see yesterday’s post) — does not.  Moreover, the corporate name of this group in NYS is “FATHERS” and the web-name is “Fathers Incorporated” (no comma), so good luck keeping it straight!).  After one factors out for the religious (which means, also “exempt”) organizations (not 501(c)3s in other words), still the other organizations seem to be doing a little better at giving the public a LITTLE information about their own operations here!

a few more, from NYS:

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