Archive for May 15th, 2013
CDRC and Friends: Ever Wonder How All that MANDATORY Mediation, Alternate Dispute Resolution, etc. got passed? [May 15, 2013]
Fall, 2014 update: This 12,000-word post is “sticky” (stuck to the top of the blog) because it illustrates how any special interest group already involving certain sectors of civil servants or other positions of influence (for example, at law schools) can lobby state legislatures and US Congress year after year through nonprofit associations. I have written an update and expect to publish it as a separate post, soon. In this post also see:
This gets “more than” interesting when I looked up the incorporator — just one person, Joel A. Shawn, Esq. of “Friedman, Shawn, Sloan & Ross.” (1981) filing. Because the California OAG site doesn’t display previous to 2000 or so (and nothing previous to about 2004 is even showing on this nonprofit), I see no mention of Dr. [Joan B.] Kelly – although I’m sure the paperwork is on file.
the NORTHERN CALIFORNIA MEDIATION CENTER
(in San Rafael, just north of San Francisco) was registered as a corporation by ONE lawyer, Joel A. Shawn, of FRIEDMAN, SLOAN, SHAWN & ROSS
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Flipping Cause and Effect: AFCC Rhetoric in Action: Got Custody Killings? Blame it on the Bad Language.
This post is for a brief (ha, ha, ha, right?) teaching point. I’ve never met, heard speak, or spoken to this particular woman (mediator, custody & divorce lawyer, AFCC member) and could’ve picked another individual for an example based on their website. However, it’s not every day one sees something so “AFCC” openly suggesting that because mayhem (murder) correlates to custody battles, the real problem is the word “custody,” which should be abolished, and then goes immediately into quoting AFCC (The California Chapter)’s public declaration that the treatment of children IN the courts is a public health crisis — and therefore, the overloaded judges and courts need more resources…
I have been advising parents (in particular) to figure out WHO in the lobbying, rules-of-court-changing, profession-inventing, task-force-chairing State by State Supreme Court (or thereabouts) legal/judicial powerhouses — has AFCC affiliations, or at least has drunk that Kool-aid. As a handle, it’s definitely an indicator. Many symptoms accompany membership. When a certain panorama of symptoms show up (this particular post has most of them, like idiocy) then the diagnosis “AFCC” is probably pretty accurate, whether or not it’s on the website already as a nametag.
The same Association (loosely speaking, given how inconsistent are the incorporation records) appears to unilaterally taken credit for the basic formation of family and conciliation courts to start with, which in other places (on other website), they call positive, innovative, problem-solving, and all things healthy. Talk about flipping cause and effect, and dodging accountability!!! We’re in it deep. Taken at face value, these people (at least the rank and file) are insane, illogical, and evasive, and have a casual disregard for the truth, or even attempting (for the public at large) to connect what they say to it.
Possibly some have been hypnotized or entranced by the hypnotic allure of power, or by some of the leadership with known connections to practicing the art of confusion and hypnosis itself i.e., the Milton H. Erickson crowd. (read at least first three paragraphs of this “Cliff notes” to the topic. Here’s just one paragraph:
For hypnotic rapport to become established you must appear rational and sensible most of the time. Then when you do become confusing they will work harder at focusing because they will logically assume it’s them missing some meaning that ought to be clear, and if they focus hard enough they will get it. Confusion as a technique should be used wisely and sparingly. You wouldn’t want to become known as ’that person who just talks gibberish!’
Same idea behind “Moses and the burning bush.” First, you get their attention. It’s not a new concept…Also, like Moses, once he turned and started listening, his life went through what looks like some rapid? and radical changes. From JHOM:
Theophany at the Burning Bush (by Nahum Sarna)
While tending his flocks in the desolate wilderness, Moses arrived at Horeb, the “mountain of God.” Here he suddenly beheld an awesome spectacle that defied nature’s laws and all human experience. A bush was all aflame yet remained intact, unaffected by the fire. Given its non-material, formless, mysterious and luminous characteristics, it is understandable that fire is frequently used in descriptions of the manifestation of the Divine Presence. [1]
. . .
Overcome with irresistible fascination at the astonishing scene, yet now profoundly sensible of the divine potency with which the place is charged, Moses’ attention shifts from the visual to the aural. The sight of the Burning Bush fades away and is not mentioned again. Its place is taken by the Divine Voice. Here, too, a transformation takes place. The imperious Voice, commanding and admonishing, gives way to softer tones of pathos, concern, and tidings of liberation.
The parallel here is quite loose. What Moses saw (according to the story), and what I saw are quite different — but definitely gripping: HOW can this (level of illogic) exist?? WHY is our society putting up with so much of this influence, unnoticed, but powerful, throughout our own court system, which we pay for? Who charmed whom into insensibility? I mean, sometimes, you gotta just ask WHY.
What I’m going to show, posted (presumably written?) by an “Orange County Mediator, Divorce and Custody Lawyer” today IS gibberish if language has meaning, and if history (of the development of our conciliation and family court system) exists. However, in a cause-less and irresponsible world of the eternal “now” (except when gloriously relating a mythological past of heroic exploits) — I guess ANYthing goes. And as such, an ethereal (rarely consistently “incorporated”) Association (that calls itself “AFCC” for the most part) has a set of followers who have never seen it in the flesh, most likely, and are spreading fabulous stories of what it can do — if only more tributes would come in, and competition (such as other languages symbolizing “OLD” belief systems, like the kind that actually have a right and wrong encoded into the criminal law, with consequences attached — not just therapy, plus more therapy, plus more problem-solving courts…..)…
And it got my attention — yes, I was “caught” by the sheer audacity of the irrationality of it. Note: Abusers can do the same thing. They talk out of both sides of their mouth immediately after an incident, or when confronted on an incident, and cannot or will not be pinned down to the truth.
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Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History 