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

I submitted today to:
Carver County (MN) Corruption // AFCC chart page

COMMENTARY ON THE COMMENT:

Conceptual Thinking (understanding systems) is Essential to Freedom.
Networking for mutual self-support groups is wonderful, but failure by support groups to scout why one needed them to start with, is suicidal, in the long run. Support groups simply go form their silos of information and shun information which doesn’t fit with the status quo.

This is a great way to overspecialize and become an extinct species. We HAVE to be able to speak a language that incorporates understanding of the systems that structure our lives. We aren’t. There are crackups, domestic violence, gang violence, and various kinds of “roadkill,” to which people have conveniently (for those who DO understand systems, and own them) self-separated into their groups by label: Protective Mothers, Battered Mothers, Fathers’ Rights, Family Values vs. Pro Choice, etc.

Have you ever seen skilled sheepdogs in action? Consider what they do — they face off with the sheep; one dog can control a sizeable clump. Now — who does the sheepdog answer to and who feeds and trains him?

Now, who pays the man (or woman, I suppose) who trains, feeds, and runs the sheepdogs?

The real question is, who owns the ranch. And that’s what family court reform groups (male or female) simply forget to specialize in, and train each other to respond to signals from, that is, to respond as the owner of the ranch might — not as the sheep might.

I don’t know if you can get a visual on this — but picture sheepdog trials, and a batch is let out at time, and the canine “middle mangement” of this operation called a ranch, who do a lot of the running around, but appear to be innately designed for this — they LOVE running the sheep — are running one clumped together focused on the sheepdog (not the farm owners) and facing it, either face-off and freeze, or running. Eventually they ARE going to be run into the pen, where after a long (Or short) and domesticated life, during which they will be sheared and produce more lambs — eventually they will be possibly eaten. Such a life!

Divide, shepherd, shear, and eventually eat. Control reproduction. Sort for desired qualities.
That’s for sheep, but it’s been applied on people. And the sheepdogs bark and posture. The sheep don’t even have a language to talk back with that means anything other than what sounds they are making on the way back into the fold (pen).

As human beings, if we want freedom, we need to speak more than one language, and understand which language one is hearing at a given point of time. We also had better get a lid on understanding systems, AND becoming a better judge of character.

I read tax returns and look up corporations not because it’s profitable, or inherently more interesting than other things I could do with an immediate (though very transient, in my situation) profit. I read tax returns and look up corporations (and ask others to) because it tells me about who is doing what in the commercial landscape. I think the basics are clear, and a lot of the continued lookups I may (and am) still doing, are part for personal insight — but moreso for demonstrating to others.

This kind of data (even as poorly sourced as the free databases are, and as unwieldy as they are to produce any kind of report from) — givesi us a headsup on which way the economy has been going, is going and on WHY certain groups and talk like they do. It is one way of standing a little aprt from the clump of sheep to consider the patterns of frantic running around.

As a domestic violence survivor, I have also believed that the middle of pack of sheep frozen in certain language patterns and dashing around the internet to bond with their own kind, producing more of the same kind of (outdated though still valid in parts) information is producing inbreeding –and doesn’t increase the defensive or safety position one iota.

Now, the US Congress is still primarily male, primarily white male (no offense guys, but that’s how it is) and I read recently, 98% has a religious affiliation (or their religious populations probably wouldn’t help them get elected anyhow) which is mostly Christian (major Protestant group is Baptist, largest single “denomination” is Roman Catholic. None of which is good for women and mothers).

So OF those silos which run primarily to women, or primarily to men, I still say, that the men have a field advantage and a historic advantage. On the other hand, such men have built up their enterprises (including churches) which STILl depend on women not just for having babies but for also a LOT of the work they, personally, don’t want to be associated with. In other words, these hierarchical organizations still require laborers and volunteers in exchange for a sense of belonging or some sort of social identity, in addition to wages IF and WHEN they exist.

Said another way — women are still the majority gender in the country (not by much, but by some) AND I believe we are equally (at least) intelligent at figuring things out. Therefore if enough of us get free from being dominated and controlled by individual men, or systems run by the same — and this message gets through to some women still content to be in the serve your husband, serve your children, serve the church and pay the government model — and this “service” includes sacrificing physical AND psychological integrity to the god of “marriage and family” — there’s still and outside chance of a mass boycott. Even very, very, very conservative women can still say “enough is enough” and quit. I know this because Dawn Ceol, the daughter of Paul Weyrich, quit the Washington Times over their ill treatment (revision of her article to be more critical) of Anita Hill (who stood up to Congress and a Supreme Court Judge nominee who’d been sexually harassing her. He still was confirmed — but it had an impact).

In fact, looks like Vanity Fair killed an article “Moonstruck: The Reverend and his Paper” which author published it somewhere else. The opening paragraphs mention Dawn Ceol also; the article also concludes that the bottom line for Vanity Fair was, the Moonies are pretty good a litigation and it just wasn’t worth the risk! ….. <a title="Preface

I became  interested in the Reverend Moon and The Washington Times while reporting on  the Clarence Thomas Senate hearings for Vanity Fair in 1991. The Washington Times aggressively covered the Thomas hearings both on the front page and in its editorial pages–with multiple stories about the identity of the suspected leaker of Anita Hill’s explosive testimony. During this period, I learned that Times’ reporter Dawn Weyrich Ceol, daughter of the conservative icon, Paul Weyrich, had resigned from the paper claiming that her coverage  of the Hill/Thomas hearings had been  re-written and politicized by her by editors.
 
            I was further interested when I learned that the paper’s deputy editor at the time, Josette Shriner, hailed from the same town in New Jersey that I had. I remembered well her father,  James Sheeran, a former WWII paratrooper and FBI agent and the Republican mayor of our town, West Orange. Few could forget his public anguish  during his campaign with the Unification Church to win back his three daughters who had become converts. Indeed, it was Mayor Sheeran’s tenacity that triggered  investigations into Moon–with Senate hearings in 1977 and later tax evasion and perjury charges that eventually sent the Reverend to prison. The fact that the fiercely proud Irish Catholic patriarch had won his battle against Moon- but lost his daughters  [though Josette reportedly left the Church a few years ago]- was the stuff of Greek tragedy.. . . .

[[After the reporter spent about three months on the story, and had the tapes (with former Moonies), the story was still killed, leading her to conclude . . . .]]

            Because of the tapes, I thought I was home free. But alas, as I would learn in ten years on staff at Vanity Fair, there is no guarantee of publication until the magazine hits the stands. Stories were sometimes killed even after they went to “blues” – an advanced and expensive stage of print production.
          I was never given a specific reason why this story was killed. However, reservations were expressed about litigious Moonies. I think it is fair to say that taking on a billionaire mogul, especially one who happens to believe he’s the Messiah, with powerful pals in the White House, and more money (and lawyers) than God, was the primary, and perhaps, only factor.” href=”http://www.bardachreports.com/articles/k_moonstruck.htm”>Moonstruck: The Reverend and his Newspaper By Ann Louise Bardach, Killed by Vanity Fair, 1992 (hover cursor or read, for why I included it here).

Women are a significant market force, nontheless, and for now, we are still the ones that carry babies to term, or close enough to it to live. We are not dispensable, and we also talk; including at times with each other. Should enough of us begin to talk (articulate and accurate, and with focus) in terms of the system, and fix our mutual blind spots, this is a force to be reckoned with which might change commercial interests. I think this is a good other reason so many systems of extreme controla re needed — and I DO believe that, for example, supervised visitation was from the BEGINNING conceived of (but just not openly sold as) being intended to dominate the non-battering mothers, and not the violent men… It was first established, propagated, legislative and funded, THEN it began as a tool for which to torture parents of kids experiencing serious abuse.

To summarize — we need to understand systems, and commerce, with a view to shifting the balance of power, and changing its direction. And this requires personal effort and self-education/reflection — not simply swallowing someone else’s mass-produced themes.

Most people can’t endlessly read blogs and try to extract information some useful information to act on. Why not use language to an advantage — like AFCC has (“high-conflict // parental alienation // supervised visitation // parent coordination (now outlawed in Pennsylvania by a Supreme Court change to the rule of court setting it up?) //Unified Family Courts // etc.) and talk MORE concepts (after proving or disproving them) and teach more SKILS at how to check things out — and less local gossip about the local judges pro or con?

The ability to reason includes the ability to think in some detail in concepts. These concepts then fit into the larger whole in a system of understandings which beceom “meaning” and make sense of the landscape. They have layers of priority and layers of inter-relationship. LANGUAGE really matters. THis is why AFCC originally (I’m working on that post) set out to change the language of criminal law (around the same time Alfred Kinsey was setting about to decriminalize sexual perversions of various sorts; they are related, and I can prove this….) (i.e., decriminalizing sexual abuse of children)… See also “Metaphors We Live By.”

My proposal is that the essential most basic metaphor we have to live by in this century IS one of commerce and it’s about the most universal one around. Yes gender matters, yes religion matters (although when it comes to commerce, sacred and secular act the same). Hence, if we want to operate across the divide — it makes sense to better understand commerce — which also entails, better understanding Corporations (the meaning and significance of them in re: raising and re/distributing wealth). But what probably matters most is the “Oldest Profession in the World” — the sale, which is to say, systems of commerce and the trade routes and technology (including the internet) which facilitate them.

I would say the arts: dance, music, theatre, etc. — also can bridge this divide between human beings for better understanding — at least for a while. But then I have to also look at — who is funding these, overall? So it also gets down to commerce at many levels. And in the COMMERCE level, we ought to understand what part of the system we are in; because this system profits from the “Great Divide” — it requires people to NOT understand commerce and make a continual series of bad deals for themselves (and/or a willingness to sell off others) for wealth to accumulate.

Mathematically compared, it is in INVERSE PROPORTIONS — as the graph of “good for humanity” goes up, the graphic of “creates wealth” goes down for someone else who has it now. Right now, it’s not too hard to document that there is a direct connection to making it worse fro more people, and making HUGE wealth for some, and substantial wealth for stockholders’ whose conscience is all relative (or, on hold).

This characterizes our entire society, and is its operating platform The real profits are in selling off debt (what do we think a “Security” is, or the Stock Market anyhow??) with debt, distress, and destruction. While selling and saying that this is all for balancing the budget, healthy families, and saving people (i.e., CPS, OVW, DOJ, and so forth).

The Supervised Visitation Network operates in the governmental/commercial level and sells this as protecting children by providing access to perp parents.

When combined with “Batterers Intervention Programming” it’s a complete cycle of the culture of the experts “treating” violence. As to its funding — it’s public and private both; with a heavy emphasis on federal grants (i.e. — where’d the collective federal wealth come from to start with? Think about it….) to set up the systems, and then once they* are in place (*i.e., these plumbing systems through which grants flow to provide “services” to children and parents locally — AND training services for those who want to make a living doing this) — hitting the conference and grants-writing circuit for one’s nonprofit, as well as distributing (trademarked, often) curriculum and ideas throughout them. It’s a BUSINESS taking public funding….

Comment Submitted to an ongoing blog by about very distressed parents in Carver County, Minnesota (I have been previously active in commenting/dialogues on). The one most useful page, probably, on the whole blog, has zero comments. Now, it has one (mine). This information has been posted, but is apparently not understood to the point of acting on to do something about — the people, however much they understand — have organized the blog on reporting the case history of a few different families in a single county or two in the area. They are People-Oriented Thinkers (although at lesat one of the commenters on there isn’t, and apparently came to (her) sense about reality.

That individual left the country and says she (and daughter) are about to renounce their U.S. Citizenship. Based on how it treats women, not to mention most of its population (but SPECIFICALLY women & mothers), I can definitely understand. It’s offensive and dangerous; this domineering dominate mentality is the foundation and has been part of the DNA of my country since, probably the start (see what happened to people who lived here first….)….

The Equality and Independence, turns out, are for specific populations in specific contexts, and are for “everyone” so long as there remains a sufficient population of “except THESE people” from which to extract wealth, or labor. Were it based on true equality, or even true justice and respect for freedom, liberty, etc. (and all that) — it would developed differently, and not as a giant colony of (England) which is intent on colonizing (with England, and should I say, the Vatican?) the world.

Some people know this up front, but aren’t positioned to change it. Others find out about it gradually, affecting how much time is left (or personal life energies) to change it. TIME counts in these matters. Once we start to understand that whoever holds the wealth the longest for investment purposes (and knows how to invest) “wins” the better we should understand to quit sponsoring things that take our funds (which is our life energies) up front, and deliver services, at their collective whim or mood, later. Funds held can be invested, earn interest, and multiply. Funds WITH-held cannot be. As it turns out, these funds (commonly called taxes) are being invested to further refine, expand, and multiply more systems of control and indoctrination about submitting and not causing conflict with the system. Such a deal ….

Why. Wanted to inform readers of local (MN) provider’s allegiances to other organizations and how they are obtaining funding to influence custody cases. Teaching point. (This particular blog is more about personalities, judges and individual cases, but they tolerate my continuing to talk about nonprofits, funding, and grants). Minnesota has one of the largest (as to federal grantee) and most influential providers of Technical Assistance and Training (the “technical assistance” means, not actually providing the services or putting one’s employees at physical risk by direct interface with dangerous men or women. Essentially it means, if the group shows up in a desperate parent’s SEO on words pertaining to domestic violence or child abuse — it will look like a helpful source.

But if you call them up, they will say, “we don’t provide direct services.” They are the interface between the $$ and the grantees. Originally, many of the founders of these organizations may have gotten their start in a grassroots field (i.e., working with emergency shelters for battered mothers); meanwhile, the family law system continued developing to reframe DV as pathological (not criminal) and seek to treat the entire family — while that fact is NOT incorporated into the Technical Assistance and Trainings. Hence, it’s also nearly impossible to get a word in edgewise with the experts from the street level.

I had a long introduction (in the process of moving the comment to my home blog) which is the next published post.

Submitted Today To:
Carver County (MN) Corruption // AFCC chart page

Hey —

Obviously this is a very low-traffic page on CarverCountyCorruption.com and has drawn (no?) comments — however it may be one of the most important ones.

If it’s not your cup of tea, please refer someone for who might might be to the page. I’m explaining again and an example of interlocking directorate of organizations which are affecting how almost any case involving domestic violence might go, esp. any case where the father AND mother are not both already poor or on welfare.

I see that CT Judicial Employees Questioned post up here (5/20/2013). This relates to AFCC. Other articles on the Washington Times speak of Max Liberti case, which heavily involved Supervised Visitation provider (not a very good one) and thousands of dollars. That’s the face of SVN and AFCC in general — more billings, and less proper incorporation.

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The chart above is IMPORTANT. It’s not pretending to be complete, but is showing patterns.

Thank you for link to my blog (although that wasn’t my chart, nor was this post. The chart was by a friend, who also investigates these matters and has been published in re: them. — prior material up, now removed, was from my post. However I do have on the (familycourtmatters)blog a “Look Up a Nonprofit” page with links on how to look them up. https://familycourtmatters.wordpress.com/look-up-a-nonprofit-impromptu-how-to-checkpoints/

I have a post something like “Supervised Visitation Sucks” showing that the NONPROFIT “SVN” (Supervised Visitation Network) has been switching states, and not staying very well incorporated for example, in TN. This ALSO shows that federal grants from both the DOJ (safe havens) and the HHS (access/visitation) fund promotion and “training and technical assistance” efforts to perpetuate these centers and coach professionals how to handle the MEN and WOMEN how to submit and send their children to them.

Sometimes these grants funding such “training and technical assistance” get caught in fraud, which I found by looking one up, and wrote about it:
https://familycourtmatters.wordpress.com/2013/06/06/why-supervised-visitation-per-se-sucks-federal-millions-that-is-doj-grant-2004-wx-at-k046/

This network has people with a background in BOTH fathers’ rights AND domestic violence groups, which is why we (some of us) now correctly call “domestic violence” an industry.
This SVN had or has David Levy (of the original CRC, above) on it and should not be underestimate. Click on my logo, and read the heading for the article which questions whether supervised visitation for abusive fathers should even exist (jack straton Ph.D.), and whether or not you read the article (recommended), notice the heading. You can notice a group out of — guess where — MINNESOTA. This influential group (and well-funded) seems to have also played a key role in the compromise between DV and FR groups in the form of — instead of safety and separation, giving us the twin industries (which they of course also participate in//on the conference and training circuits, and getting MORE grants….) — of:
Supervised Visitation & Batterers Intervention Programs. ALL is therapy, LITTLE is justice, and LESS relates to reducing criminal behavior by criminalizing it and instituting consequence for those who choose to continue committing crimes against spouses (partic. women) or children.

SVN has a http://www.svnetwork.net/board.asp

However, they have a member from Alexandria, MN now – and I wanted to show just how many organizations a single director of a single nonprofit could be associated with, or influential in — and that influence is not above getting the grants and running a grantee organization. Always, to think in terms of the flow of income (from federal out through whom to where) is helpful.

This is just an example. More on their site, which anyone could look up. I’m going to quit this type of writing pretty soon (hopefully), so I do hope others figure out the priorities and how the opposing side on court cases that are going “funky” might be supported. It’s not always (in fact I believe rarely is) just the ex. If we had a justice system, it wouldn’t matter so much if an ex was wealthy. However, we have the ILLUSION of a justice (in the normal sense of the word) system, which actually prevents us from getting a better reform of it.

The funding of these operations is serving to break down local law and influence; the power and control doesn’t come FROM the nonprofits (not the biggest kids on the block, although they’re almost always bigger than an individual litigant, esp. if it’s a biological/birth mother) — but it definitely flows through them — in the form of grants AND policy and membership on boards and commission (or other, related nonprofits) that make decisions:

———————
http://www.svnetwork.net/board.asp
Dorie Twist, Treasurer

Alexandria, MN
As Executive Director of Wings Family Supportive Services, her many accomplishments have included:

“Created and implemented the agency’s first advanced statistical database for collecting victim services. Database has been in place since 1999. Worked with other crisis centers in Minnesota helping them incorporate our statistical tracking and database system for their own use.

“Developed and coordinated Hope Connection Safety Center in 2000. Instrumental in writing the United Way, Initiative Foundation, and Blanden Foundation start up grants. Managed the center through very limited funding and developed it into a very well known, full to capacity, visitation center program in center rural Minnesota.

“Prepared budget proposal and assist with writing of the federal grant,** “Arrest Program, How to Hold Offenders Accountable.” Hands of Hope Resource Center was one of two grant recipients in Minnesota to receive this OVW (Office of Violence against Women) federal grant. Attended and Certified at the Office of Justice Financial Management Training in Washington D.C.

“Active participant in perusing legislative funding changes### for Visitation Centers across Minnesota. Recently testified on behalf of Hope Connection Safety Center at the House of Representatives hearing on the importance of visitation centers being funded.”
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There is no longer even a pretense at being conflict-of-interest free, is there! Being probably a grantee to start with, she developed a program (good for her) and apparently convinced other grantees (crisis centers) to use. Wrote up a grant to form another grantee (Hope Connection). **(above) unclear whether this woman helped write the grant APPLICATION or the grant itself.
### Sounds like she was either just reviewing, or on some official? commission (or maybe we are supposed to assume that) legislation about “funding changes” (like cutting the budget for them) and testified, probably to amke sure the funding keeps going.

This passes for advocacy for children, when in fact, Supervised Visitation Centers are not about the children, they are about the providers and the funding. Some kies are being terrorized during them BY the providers. Not to mention the non-offending parent, who is usually the one ending up paying for it.

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In http://taggs.hhs.gov you can now almost not find any marriage/fatherhood grants before 2006 (a banner year for the industry); it used to go back to 1995 on a basic search. The CFDA 93.086 appliues. For access/visitation funding, the cfda 93597 applies, but it’s not the largest category. Then there are the DOJ grants. etc. This entire program should be shut down. I can see visiting a parent in prison (partic. as a lot of people in prison probably shouldn’t be there — but not this other.