The rest of the title:

Models for Change, Juvenile Law Center (see Luzerne County Kids4Cash)

This gets real interesting. The post would be a page — if my Pages section weren’t so far down on the right sidebar, and if I had the time (or motivation) to keep cleaning up text widgets, and this blog. Not before that “Donate” button gets a few more hits, for sure…that would be quite the project.

Here, I wanted to point out how a major foundation acquired its wealth, which was through of course diligence, business creativity and forethought — and as to MacArthur Foundation, having chosen insurance. Two other factors which surfaced during this — being VERY wealthy (among the top ten in the US, I think) — the founders, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur — didn’t leave much instruction for how to run their own foundation, and second, that they are leaning left and associated with other major left-leaning groups, like Human Rights Watch and apparently the George Soros “Open Society” network.

Of course the groups calling them “left-lurching” are themselves right-ward. I found some good (i felt) essays from an unknown to me, “Paul Treanor” on the significance of what enforcing “Human Rights” (globally) really translates into, namely, US (British) expansionist intervention anywhere in the world it’s not (US or British) enough in values system, and committing human rights violations to get the desired outcome.

As our own justice system is now reduced to problem-solving courts and “out-come based juvenile justice’ (which MacArthur Foundation’s Models for Change talks about, plenty) — I thought it worth posting.

This isn’t the world’s most interactive blog (it’s more like a disorganized encyclopedia of what I wish I’d known and could’ve taught my kids, as my own efforts to “stop the violence” and get the violent people out of my life (and out of my face and business transactions, too) — it is always going to get back down to the blend of ingredients comprising business, and governmenet. The religion part almost ALWAYS lines up (is joined at the hip) with government, whatever else their posturing is. We can see this by looking at the financing and the perks and permissions.

WIKIPEDIA:

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is one of the largest private foundations in the United States. Based in Chicago but supporting non-profit organizations that work in 60 countries, MacArthur has awarded more than US$4 billion since its inception in 1978. With an endowment over $5.6 billion, the foundation provides approximately $230 million annually in grants and low-interest loans.

In addition to selecting the MacArthur Fellows, also known as “genius grants”, topics of interest to the foundation include international peace and security, conservation and sustainable development, population and reproductive health, human rights, international migration, community development, affordable housing, digital media and learning, juvenile justice, and public interest media, including public radio and independent documentary film. The Foundation also gives grants to more than 200 arts and cultural institutions in the Chicago area.[1]

Just for the record, Catherine T. wasn’t the first wife. Whatever Wife# 1 was, or wasn’t, John D. went down to Mexico to get a divorce, it says. Son J. Roderick MacArthur was son of Wife #1, and there were definitely some fireworks within the family, both regarding Bankers Life and regarding the Foundation.

Here’s the Wiki — short read, please do! (Its few details say so much, I’m exercising a lot of self-restraint not just to paste it in here…. These details speak louder than a narrative of them would — for example, how many private foundations have a former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury on them? This one did.

You really don’t have the full picture of the foundation if you don’t understand their family “squabbles” which are just more public, because they take place with millions of dollars and affect the larger landscape.

These people are playing an ENTIRELY different game that the institutions they seek to run are coaching the average American to. That’s hardly coincidence and one reason the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, even when they have family rifts. There’s enough wealth to fight over, and to spare. then there’s the matter of how they got rich to start with, which is the insurance field itself; and other matters such as buying out distressed companies or stocks.

That’s pretty much how this world works, and seeking justice in it is going to definitely know which side the money is on, and who’s connected with whom. One way to be less than daily concerned with the “family justice” factor is to, it would seem, have something on the table with the business factor. At least then you can still eat while you’re stressed out about losing some fortunes, and might have just a few associates left if times get hard.

I do wonder what happened to the first Mrs. MacArthur (what she’s doing now), how J. Rodericks’ sister “Virginia” lived out her life — what would’ve happened if the old guy hadn’t cut down to Mexico for a divorce in the pre-no-fault divorce era? This was before women got the vote, although they were about to (1920) … It was also before the Great Depression, which John as I recall profited some from.

REGARDING:

INSURING AMERICA: BANKERS LIFE AND CASUALTY COMPANY CELEBRATES 125 YEARS

Rich History Shaped by John D. MacArthur and a Commitment to the Senior Market (this link repeated twice more below).

[The MacArthurs also were into some real estate in Florida — see Wikipedia for some basics).

As is my manner, what originally inspired the post is near the bottom. I kept adding onto the front end, and am leaving it at about 8,000 words, as Cliff notes on the broader situation. I may (or may not) delete 2/3 of it later to get the post to more closely resemble its title. WHen reading or studying, I very much get absorbed in the subject matter. As this is a blog (and it’s not a business blog selling things), it’s got that informal quality still of just one side of ongoing study notes, with some common themes. If broken up into segments, each segment does indeed relate to the blog topic — but you won’t see it without understanding a few basics, which may SEEM unrelated (such as foundations and the biographries and backgrounds of some people running the main ones, plus in which industries) – but ARE related.

It belongs filed under the concept of Private Foundations influence on public policy. Where these foundations originally got their money from interests me, and sheds light on why they believe they “need” to also control government, which helped them and vice versa. There is going to be a constant tension (throughout history) between people ruled and their rulers; but what’s offensive to me is the pretense of justice, representative government, and caring. At some levels, it takes a bit of the sociopath to acquire the wealth, or to believe that it’s ethical to use that to steer government. They are related qualities. Ethics and morality may or may not factor in– but either way, it’s done through the wealth.

This HAS to be compared to the insistence on the part of those controlling the wealth and with greater access to government, that their OWN competition is reduced, and that at the lower and middle classes, competition is INcreased so wages don’t get too high. It’s all just basic math, plus some physics of time, space, distance, expenses — all that.

It’s interesting history as well, and adds to anyone’s understanding of where we are now, in America. I am more and more convinced that the famous ‘Social Security Act” was in fact an act of aggression against United States citizens, with a long-term, planned takeover of their assets. Given the timing, who was involved in what around the 1930s, and the prior passage of the federal income tax, these things are truly flowing together.

The key is investment and who hands over money to whom, up front and earlier, for someone else to handle (i.e., profit from — invest) and those who work first and get it later, minus taxes (more of them) as an employee. Also wealth attracts wealth; but poverty repels it — UNLESS the poor person is willing to become social science subject matter in exchange for eating, or having a roof over their heads. that’s the manner in which the wealthy (indirectly, through their hired hands) understand the poor — through many layers of translation, and never on an equal basis.

Never will the wealthy, collectively, admit just how much of the poverty they are allegedly wanting so passionately to relieve (through changing government policy, bypassing normal legislative processes) — is due to prior, or current, traditions of extortion, stealing, conspiracy to deprive of rights, and in general multi-lateral FORCE.

Those who play by those rules, can acquire and retain wealth (given also fortune, connections, determination, ability to think in certain ways, and motivation).

Most of the middle class are also not going to admit that they have been used as trained sheepdogs to preserve the status quo, in exchange for not being on the bottom rung. However, what’s the purpose of all the “rungs” — to build a ladder to Elysium? or Jacob’s ladder which came as a dream without reference to who built it? How many people have died or been killed so far building monuments to which gods, including, if I can be so crude, the gods of commerce?

REGARDING:

INSURING AMERICA: BANKERS LIFE AND CASUALTY COMPANY CELEBRATES 125 YEARS

Rich History Shaped by John D. MacArthur and a Commitment to the Senior Market

A rightwing Left-watching website Discover the Networks has some information on the MacArthur Foundation as well, including who it’s funding. There are essays on the left sidebar, although I can’t find the one I read the other day by “Paul Treanor,” which had put is finger on the pulse of arrogance in the “change the system” models run from afar according to personal (not communal, and not well-counseled interactive) visionaries.

The remarkable thing about this foundation is that its founder left no real instructions on its use; he’d focused on building the wealth, then died of cancer. A number of the men in the family line are not living very long…

However, see points 11 & 12 here, which address that the “liberalism” has a built-in elite control. He also writes “I renounce my human rights. (Human rights =/= sovereignty) and Why human rights are wrong.

(Actually the Paul Treanor essay was about the organization HRW (“Who is Behind Human Rights Watch,” not MacArthur. It is good writing and thinking. However, a Board (and later, Chair) of the HRW was also head of the MacArthur Foundation (see link), Jonathan Fanton, who also was significant as an educator. I think Treanor is European, not USA citizen…

Opening:

No US citizen, and no US organisation, has any right to impose US values on Europe. No concentration camps or mass graves can justify that imposition. But Human Rights Watch finds it self-evident, that the United States may legitimately restructure any society, where a mass grave is found. That is a dangerous belief for a superpower: European colonialism shows how easily a “civilising mission” produces its own atrocities. Sooner or later, more people will die in crusades to prevent a new Holocaust, than died in the Holocaust itself.

In the last 10 years attitudes have hardened: human-rights interventionism is becoming a consensus among the “foreign policy elite.” Human Rights Watch itself is part of that elite, which includes government departments, foundations, NGO’s and academics. It is certainly not an association of “concerned private citizens.” HRW board members include present and past government employees, and overlapping directorates link it to the major foreign policy lobbies in the US. Cynically summarised, Human Rights Watch is a joint venture of George Soros and the State Department.

{GEORGE SOROS AND HUMAN RIGHTS DISCUSSION HAS JUST BEEN “OUTSOURCED” (TO ANOTHER POST)…)

ANYHOW, “George Soros” only came up after some writings about the MacArthur Foundation showed its leftist leanings., and as another indicator of how wealth is made (in investments; buy low sell high, get the economic savvy) versus how to hope to stay in the middle class — and that in any given political situation, those at the top are likely to be giving those in the middle, bad advice. Always look who’s on who’s payroll; it only makes sense. Ron Haskins is not a self-made man; he’s an aggressive administrator whose background is in the art of persuasion, and who like anyone else in government, is not above exploiting his situation to try to run other people’s lives, while concealing bad behavior and harm to others among

So, MacArthur Foundation leans left; Soros is also left; they overlap some. That’s the only context it comes up in here. I move the material on Soros to yet another post.

[THIS MAN OVERLAPS “HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH” AND THE MACARTHUR FOUNDATION)

Jonathan Fanton

No longer Chair of the Committee – promoted to Chair of the HRW Board. An academic and foundation man. Former Vice President of the University of Chicago, in 1982 appointed as President of the New School for Social Research, now the New School University. He is active in building US academic contacts with eastern Europe, directed at the new pro-western elites, see the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies (TCDS) page.

Who also was head of MacArthur… after being college President:

Posted on June 26, 2008 (Philanthropy News Digest, “PND”)       
MacArthur Foundation President Jonathan Fanton to Retire in 2009
Jonathan Fanton, president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, will step down from that position in September 2009, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Fanton, 65, said he is abiding by the foundation’s term limits, which restrict his tenure as president and board trustee to two five-year terms. He joined the foundation in 1999 after leaving the presidency of New School University in New York City. Fanton’s immediate predecessors at the foundation, John Corbally and Adele Simmons, each served ten years after working as college presidents.

Since Fanton’s arrival, the foundation’s assets have climbed from $4.6 billion to more than $7 billion, while its grant and program-related investment disbursements have risen from $172.6 million to $266.8 million and are projected to reach about $300 million in 2008. During his tenure, the foundation has become more focused in its grantmaking, said Fanton, and he doesn’t expect a major shift in policies or emphasis after he steps down. On the international front, MacArthur is launching a program to address security, politics, trade, and energy issues in Asia and is considering strengthening its regional justice programs in Africa.

And last but not least, Fanton was Yale, Yale, and Yale (degrees) with University of Chicago Connections; I believe this blurb — from the “ICCC” (COALITION FOR the INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT, started in 1995) — gives the flavor:

Dr. Jonathan Fanton is the inaugural Franklin Delano Roosevelt Visiting Fellow at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College in New York. He previously served as President of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (1999-2009). During his tenure at MacArthur, he worked closely with civil society organizations and other partners around the globe in advancing major support for the International Criminal Court/Rome Statute system and for the cause of international justice. Prior to the MacArthur Foundation, he was President of the New School for Social Research from 1982-1999. Dr. Fanton is an emeritus board member of Human Rights Watch, where he served as Board Chair for six years. He is also an advisory Trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the founding Board Chair of Security Council Report, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Dr. Fanton earned his B.A. (1965), a M.A. in Philosophy (1977), and a PhD in American History (1978) from Yale University. He taught American history at Yale and served as Special Assistant to President Kingman Brewster (1970-1973) and Associate Provost (1976-1978). From 1978-1982, he was Vice President for Planning at the University of Chicago, where he also taught American history. Dr. Fanton is the author of Foundations and Civil Society, Volumes I and II and The University and Civil Society, Volumes I and II. He is also co-editor of John Brown: Great Lives Observed and The Manhattan Project: A Documentary Introduction to the Atomic Age.

Regarding this court, it’s been in the working for a very long time, but now exists. The History page says that seven nations (in 1998) voted against ratifying it, and 21 abstained. The United States, Israel, China, Iraq and Qatar. Nevertheless the Secretariat? is in two places — The Hague (netherlands) and New York. Nevertheless I see a William R. Pace (who sits over some nonprofit coalitions of United States Legislators, and a related “Center for Excellence) seems active on it.

I just looked into this (more); am not willing to post on it, but here’s just one blurb on William Pace. I continue to notice that the people most “into” one world governments often come from, and very much associate with, elitist places and upbringings, they are visionary, and governments must move aside for their vision, whether or not the rest of us share it. Right now, the plan is to stop World War III — but I see little discussion on economic crimes or economic causes of war. What’s troubling is that while the USA (and China, Israel, Iraq, Qatar and two other nations, plus 21 abstained) voted AGAINST this coalition, or international criminal court (including for war crimes of genocides), Mr. Pace is deliberately using the nonprofit and NGO (as “Citizens” voices, although I didn’t recall a referendum around here — been busy fighting for local justice) — to bypass national (and state) borders, and to set these groups up as advisors to legislatures, until the legislatures and governments (and there’ sno question that this includes the United States) come to heel according to this doctrine. Here’s a brief blurb, of a person who convened the coalition that former MacArthur Foundation leader, Jonathan Fanton, also believes in and supports:

Executive Director, International Secretariat (Ex-Officio)

Mr. Pace is the Executive Director of the World Federalist Movement-Institute for Global Policy. He has served as the Convenor of the Coalition for an International Criminal Court since its founding in 1995 and is a co-founder and steering committee member of the International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect. He has been engaged in international justice, rule of law, environmental law, and human rights for the past 30 years. He previously served as the Secretary-General of the Hague Appeal for Peace, the Director of the Center for the Development of International Law, and the Director of Section Relations of the Concerts for Human Rights Foundation at Amnesty International, among other positions. He is the President of the Board of the Center for United Nations Reform Education and an Advisory Board member of the One Earth Foundation, as well as the co-founder of the NGO Steering Committee for the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development and the NGO Working Group on the United Nations Security Council. He is the recipient of the William J. Butler Human Rights Medal from the Urban Morgan Institute for Human Rights and currently serves as an Ashoka Foundation Fellow. Mr. Pace has authored numerous articles and reports on international justice, international affairs and UN issues, multilateral treaty processes, and civil society participation in international decision-making.

Mr. Pace has a 1968 BA in History/BS in Education from Denver Univ, and some post-grad. education in running nonprofits at Univ. of Colorado Metropolitan College. That’s it. He then went into politics, and is a writer; one source also said a Viet Nam War conscientious objector. Resume.

MACARTHUR FOUNDATION AND ‘MODELS FOR CHANGE’ + THE JUVENILE LAW CENTER

The whole ‘MODELS FOR CHANGE” concept was a MacArthur Foundation purpose. Please read the summary page (it’s short — all of it) and notice links to the right, including one what shows Robert Schwartz (of the Juvenile Law Center in PA?) speaking at a “Models for Change Luncheon” at yet another influential group, the National Conference of State Legislators.” Just take a look. I hate the faint gray print — it sort of says, “don’t REALLY read my contents, when the contents always matter! Dec. 2013 is, I learned, the 8th Annual such conference. In that link we learn that their ideal is of justice as a pipeline and that at the heart of this Models for Change (in the 2000s) was research developed under a single vision of one person (Laurie Garduque) (at the MacArthur Foundation) in the 1990s called “Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice.” The concept was using adolescent development theory, social science, and neuroscience, to determine whether juvniles could be held accountable as adults; with an emphasis on saying NO.

{{I Just found the same Laurie R. Garduque now (and apparently then, ALSO) sitting atop a very influential FEDERAL “Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention” which I’ve posted on before. These guys dispense grants:

White House Press Release — she is an Obama appointee (9/21/2011)

Laurie R. Garduque

Laurie R. Garduque is the Director, Juvenile Justice, in the MacArthur Foundation’s US Programs. Her primary responsibilities focus on activities in juvenile justice and mental health.

Dr. Garduque joined the Foundation in 1991 after serving as Director of the National Forum on the Future of Children and Families, a joint project of the National Research Council**[[CHECK IT OUT..]] and the Institute of Medicine. From 1984 to 1987, she was Director in charge of governmental and professional liaison for the American Educational Research Association in Washington, D.C. This position followed the year she spent, from 1983 to 1984, as a Congressional Science Fellow in the U.S. Senate.

[[Latest project, June, 2013, is a “National Children’s Study” under HHS Behavioral health, etc. A related & underlying board shows a diagram of the intention to monitor and statistically generalize what’s best for ALL children by tracking SOME children birth to age 21…]]

From 1980 to 1985, Dr. Garduque held a faculty position as an Assistant Professor in human development at Pennsylvania State University. She received her bachelor’s degree in psychology and her M.A. and Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of California at Los Angeles.

***

This woman is a career psychologist from ONE place, UCLA, and she then heads for the wealth and control of people to practice and study psychology UPON, government and private foundations influencing government. Psychologists and educational psychologists (like Ron Haskins sorts) are good for governmental institutions, and for dispensing cognitive behavioral modification (i.e. the art of persuasion) upon people the same institutions, or things started by them (such as wars) traumatizes.

I have been saying this for years — throw the psychologists OUT of government (from top to bottom), put a lid on the lawyers, and we’ll have a better place. They’re not useful for productive or creative work, and are always demanding undue influence upon others through institutions. Seriously! The heart of ‘AFCC’ also was “bring on the psychologists — we don’t want plain old criminal law defining what is and is not a crime, and being restricted to facts and evidence decision-making processes. We want our colleagues to have more access to the court population.

It’s the ATTITUDE (as well as the outcomes) which is off-base!!!

***(just found, and it’s offensive!

An ad hoc panel will conduct a congressionally mandated review of the design of the National Children’s Study (NCS) Main Study.

The NCS is intended to follow a large cohort of children identified at or before birth through age 21 years. The study consists of a pilot or Vanguard Study, currently under way, focused on the feasibility, acceptability, and cost of study implementation and logistics to run in advance of, and parallel to, a Main Study, which is not to begin until after the expert panel has delivered its report. 

Based on Vanguard Study experience and input from experts to date, as of the meeting of the NCS Federal Advisory Committee on February 26, 2013, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) is proposing a multi-stage probability design for the Main Study. The Main Study would use a national probability sample (probability proportional to number of births) of hospitals and birthing centers from a national listing of hospitals and birthing centers. 

A second stage would involve a listing of prenatal care providers that “feed” patients for delivery at the selected hospital or birthing center.  From these “feeder” providers, the study would attempt to recruit women during their prenatal period.  Some women may not be enrolled prenatally either because they did not seek prenatal care, or because they sought care from a provider not listed by the steps above.  These women would be enrolled at the hospital at delivery.###  This design reflects about 90 percent of the expected sample size.  The remaining 10 percent is set aside for targeted populations for addressing addition questions of scientific interest, including subsequent births to women selected into the probability sample. 

They will find, and probably continue to cover up (as happened to me in the 1990s) that many pregnant women are being battered (violently assaulted by the fathers of their children), which is it seems when some of the physical violence might begin, as future Dad realizes his wife might not be as 100% available for exploitation and focus on HIM as she previously was (it should go without saying, that people willing to repeateldy batter pregnant women already had some abuse going on previously; it’s not some “virus” they inhaled suddenly; it’s going to be an escalation).

I hope the midwives are still up and running. Women should head for the hills at some point in time; they are literally being treated like cattle, as test material for future better manipulation of “outcomes.” Womb to tomb, as it’s said.

In my opinion, ANOTHER GOOD REASON TO CURTAIL HHS ACCESS TO EXTRA FUNDS. Link for feedback to this project (which the average human being would never run across)..My recommdnation is to basically “just say no” or head for the hills.

READER NOTICE (although it should be obvious by this stage in the post!) I can’t afford to perfect posts, or even manipulate this blog into shape — but want this page up as a relevant history of one of the major players in the family and juvenile justice system — the MacArthur Foundation. There are other parts to this conversation, not just published. But at any part of any of my posts, I’m encouraging people to have their own “conservsation” with the material, and go HUH? That’s how it is — could it have gone another way? Is there another way NOW?

This post is a learning curve, and has been for me. If it is for others also, so much the better.

I really want a different system of justice — this one is terroristic, unfair, and it basically kills the spirit, and will, of the individual. We are more than creeping towards complete fascism; and when the public is completely eliminated from the governmental process, and disarmed — and not needed (at least not all of them) for economic production of the basics, (AND the luxuries) of life, those who haven’t been decimated already by disease, war, (or each other, when it comes to divorce and custody issues), the foster care system, or other means — and which are not already in the slave labor (prison) population — will eventually be shipped out and sorted by whether they are “useful” or just “eaters.” That IS the direction this is going.

Tremendous culture, philanthropy, promises of services, promises to improve the justice system, to create “Futures Without Violence” or Stop Violence Against Women en route (OR create Healthy Marriages and Responsible Fathers, etc.) — will be made all along this road to hell.

Begging for life’s necessities, pleading for justice, or requesting to see one’s stolen children knowing who one is dealing with, is hell. Hunger is a great humbler, and I have definitely not known too much of it — but the fact remains that post-separation, I accepted help offered through this system because it was, literally, safer for me than confronting a man who’d just been served a restraining order and kicked out of his home, for sufficient child support (OR spousal support) to support me (and his children) through the transition from my part-time to fully self-supporting household status. I took THREE MONTHS of aid, and the County filed a child support order; and (Unawares to me) “the game was on” for who controls the kids…

This is a handshake with a county-based system was made unawares, and the handshake has already been made by millions of Americans for failing to keep a sharp eye on what’s up in government, and where it’s going.

BANKERS CASUALTY & LIFE, MACARTHUR FOUNDATION INFLUENCE (IF NOTHER ELSE THAN DISTRACTION) ON ENABLING AND ALLOWING THE LUZERNE COUNTY “KIDS FOR CASH” SCENARIO TO DEVELOP IN THE STATE, 2002FF…

How there are (indeed) connected (I have also a blog in draft in more detail; with a goal to, how can the public (in any state) plug the kickback holes. I’ll tell you who’s NOT going to do it independently — someone besides the public. We are the true stakeholders, and need to inform those who keep calling themselves “stakeholders” what this mean. (that term “stakeholders” has a history, and refers to literal investment; look it up. We the public HAVE invested in justice systems because they are financed at our expense; government itself is financed at our expense — and we have a “stake” in how it’s run. If we thought of this more like a business investment — including knowing what’s going ON with the business, or having trusted accountants and experts to crunch numbers, but we get “the big picture” — we’d probably have more justice.

To put it plainly, not understanding how money, and government, works, is not optional, as did these men (who accumulated the wealth which is now poured into their philanthropies, and used to model systems change according to THEIR, not OUR personal visions….)

To understand government, one has to understand these foundations (and what they do) and it might be also well to understand where the wealth came from, of those foundations.

No one can grasp it all of course (allegedly Jesus was shown this, in his time of temptation in the wilderness, and literally OFFEREd it, and said “No thanks.”) (actually, he was quoted to have said, “it is written…” a common phrase our of his mouth)…but we can grasp the essence and understand the patterns. Or at least recognize them in operation.

ULTIMATELY, IT’S LOCAL CITIZENS OF ANY STATE RESPONSIBLE TO GET A HANDLE ON WHAT’S UP IN THEIR STATE -AND STOP THE GAPING HOLES WHICH ENABLE KICKBACKS, STARTING WITH ACKNOWLEDGING THEY EXIST, AND SOME DON’T WANT MOST PEOPLE TO REALIZE JUST WHERE, AND HOW MANY.

RE: LUZERNE COUNTY AND THE JUVENILE LAW CENTER

**NOTE– after all this time and exposure to the word “juvenile” I just remembered that this word is used of many other species, even as the word “females” (rather than the noun “women” when actually referring to human beings, is also used). We u se it so often regarding the justice system (that was another example), sometimes this is forgotten — there are other usages, for example in referring to the behavior of wild or domesticated animals. Here’s a reference to Cooperative Territoriality in Juvenile Lions. I seem to recall also in studies of baboons. Here’s one, “How promiscuous baboon fathers help young to succeed.” below that and the graphic is “juvenile relations.” The term used to be “youth” or “children” == its application to PEOPLE isn’t that old, and comes from the study of behavior of humans, parallel to the study of animals. A chilling concept…. “Juve” the root, I think, simply means “young.”

If you have heard of “Luzerne County Kids for Cash” scandal, not too long ago, where two judges were convicted (and got stiff sentences) for taking kickbacks to fill up juvenile correctional facilities they’d helped invest in, to the distress of many – -and the tossing of about 4,000 cases affected by this (a BIG deal) — in the same geography, Pennsylvania, a certain nonprofit, ‘Juvenile Law Center” was the Pennsylvania coordinating agency for the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s “MODELS FOR CHANGE” — a major undertaking which, nevertheless, exemplifies a private foundation seeking direct access to influence and set policy for an ENTIRE STATE’s Juvenile Justice system. This setup picks a state at a time for system change, targeting a few counties within the state, according to a set agenda. Pennsylvania was not the only state chosen, although it appears to have been the first one.

I have a sense, or it seems to me,* that the Juvenile Law Center, which eventually [after parents alerted them to it] DID get involved, could’ve headed this situation off at the pass if they were about the right business, other than figuring out how the MacArthur Foundation & the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD, check acronym) could help get Pennsylvania to conform to a predesigned juvenile justice policy from a billionaire foundation.

**(and I say this after having spent at least a year of intensive on-line time looking at the Lackawanna, and some of the Luzerne county situation over at Scranton Political Times, including conversations with many parents involved, going through court docket, real estate and tax records, how the legal aid group was set up in the area (PLAN — Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network); and I was doing this (and more) to look at how things worked in the state. For a learning curve, self-education also.)

2001 Lawsuit, A.M. vs. Luzerne County Juvenile Detention Center:

Juvenile Law Center filed a federal civil rights suit in 2001 against the Luzerne County Juvenile Detention Center and several of its administrators and staff, alleging they violated the substantive due process rights of a 13-year-old boy with serious mental health problems by failing to protect him from harm while he was detained at the detention center.*** The suit alleged that the defendants failed to protect him from assaults by other residents in the facility and failed to provide him with proper medical and mental health care. The District Court in the Middle District of Pennsylvania ruled in favor of the defendants’ motion for summary judgment and dismissed the suit.

Juvenile Law Center appealed, and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, finding that there is potential liability for a county juvenile detention center. The Court found that the plaintiff raised serious issues and that a county can be liable for deficient hiring and staffing policies and practices; lack of an adequate training program for the detention center’s staff in critical areas such as de-escalating conflicts between youth and managing youth behavior generally; lack of established protocols to ensure youth safety; and lack of established policies to address the mental and physical health needs of its residents.

**Some interesting points it was a FEDERAl case. Violation had happened at the county level. Also, because the youth (boy) was actually in their custody, that’s where the rights seem to have existed. Castle Rock v. Gonzales (three children murdered by their father, while mother pleaded with police to get them back after a violation of an existing restraining order — the mother and the children had NO right, it was determined, arising from even a mandatory arrest law in Colorado. This Castle Rock v. Gonzales case was then cited in denying damages again for a mother dealing with years of insane violence, stalking, and eventually a bullet hole in her chest when her husband, a police officer, was raising hell, and his comrades weren’t properly arresting him, restraining hime, etc. Jill Burella in Pennsylvania sued, and lost — which I blogged, finally realizing the significance of the Eleventh Amendment and casting a question on the entire issuance of restraining orders to start with — if there’s no corresponding RIGHT to have them enforced!

**SO, this case was in 2001 against the COUNTY juvenile detention center. A published timeline of the Kids for Cash scandal seems to say that the next year (2002) a county judge (later convicted) arranged with others to set up a private (not “county”) institution for the same purpose, and to fill it with customers.

This becomes very interesting, because here is the county detention center getting sued in 2001, and surviving a dismissal at the APpeals level.

I know my long sentences aren’t helping too much, but I’ll continue to say this — participation in self-government isn’t going to be given back to the public, it has to be taken back. It cannot be taken back from a position of ignorance of the fields operating within the country to exert more and more remote-access control of the daily details of our own lives, including parent-child, parent-school (pre-school), parent-parent, child-state, parent-state, neighbor-to-neighbor, and so many other relationshipos — actually work. The groups that have the word “justice” or “child protection” or “child welfare” (or even “child support”) on them — are NEVER going to have our own best interests in mind, and it’s up to us to know what those best interests are, and to pursue them with a reasonable consideration for others.

Abolishing state boundaries, and strategizing to take representative government from the local to the larger and larger units, and doing so at public expense (via tax perks) — is not in anyone’s best interests, LOCALLY, which is where we live. Most people are not globe-travellers; they do not have that option. Perhaps it’s time to quit “giving it up, up front” and becoming more global travellers ourselve, and take a look at whether we believe that our system (USA) should really be blended into systems with an existing monarchy and national religion, or socialist systems.

This is NOT a good situation for the average American (is there an “Average American” or just the heard and the unheard when it comes to government?) The intention of this foundation, just like any other, is to intentionally bypass the normal legislative channels WITHIN a local state and instead continue with the increased regionalization and standardization of laws FOR the State (New York, Florida, California, Utah, Alabama, Maine — obviously these states are going to have different geographies, interests, and cultures — what’s the need for standardization if not to wrest control of government further away from the local population and into the hands of people with ‘a better plan.”

INSURANCE AS AN INDUSTRY COLLECTS UP FRONT AND DISBURSES LATER

INSURANCE, AND WISE HANDLING OF THE BUSINESS (PLUS CONTROLLING IT), MADE THE MacARTHUR WEALTH

Insurance collects money from all upfront, from which point of course it can be invested and produce income, and pays out when there’s occasion. Bankers Life and Casualty — the primary source of the MacArthur Foundation Wealth — turned 125 years old on 2004 and published a summary of the company. John D. MacArthur lived 1897 – 1978 (died of cancer); and his wife and partner Catherine T. MacArthur, 1909-1981. One of the first presidents of the foundation, who influenced it considerably, John Conally, died only in 2004.

I reflect on some of the hardest challenges of my own life, during an abusive marriage which includes economically, and afterwards — when large chunks of time were eliminated from my work life (to this day and for similar reasons) — causing my INCOME to decline, or forced to diversify (including at times back onto Food Stamps, or help from friends, unfortunately) — as child support went away as a factor overnight with an overnight custody-switch in the context of thousands of dollars already withheld from child support, in the context of increased disruption of my single-mother worklife (during the weeks AND weekends) by an un- and under-employed male without motivation to maintain a work ethic (see “compromise of arrears and fatherhood program”) but highly motivated to get even for outing the abuse and leaving him.

When I think about it, some of the hardest services to maintain include an insured car, and some of the highest penalties around, if you’ve been there, is when either car insurance OR registration expires. This money one is highly motivated to pay off when possible, because people need transportation! I have had a car totaled (not my fault, per declaration) when the insurance had expired, meaning I lost the entire value of a used, but highly functional car, which then seriously compromised my ability to get to work — it’s a real spiral (and sometimes a repeated spiral for some) …..

IMAGINE if it were the reverse — IMAGINE if we managed our OWN upfront needs by paying, instead of a multitude of agencies (DMV, auto insurance, health insurance, social security, which is essentially old age and disability-style insurance) and WE the PEOPLE were wise enough, coordinated enough, and developed the knowhow to do like privately controlled wealth does — hold on to AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE of our own money, invest it, sell off as needed, merge and acquire as needed — and set aside for when there might be an accident, or a medical situation (basic stuff) — or just deal with it when it comes up — and NOT release all this money to all these groups to acquires such substantial wealth that they feel it’s their duty and privilege to run the REST of our lives (not just the insured vehicle, body, home, etc.)??? To reduce the privately controlled monopoly factor?

With that knowledge or wealth, we could then tell all the federally funded designer family coaches (both conservative and progressivfe) and figure it out ourselves; we’d have a much more financially literate public, and we’d — most important — probably have a lot more free time, and less need of “distraction” from monotonous work for someone else (as employees) and hoping that we retain that job through mergers & acquisitions, through outsourcing or major work shifts, or through other things that do come up in life.

I don’t know about my readers, but I’m determined to make this shift (even late in the game), in part because this late in the game (i.e., I’m not in my 30s) it’s even more important not to depend on hourly wages. Plus, it’s simply a better way to operate, in my opinion.

INSURANCE

I am blogging Centers for Policy Change — how the Foundation + Government supported hybrid (sometimes a nonprofit, sometimes not) works to alter government (laws, practices, priorities) to resonate to the tune of those directing these places. To understand this is to better understand why seeking representative government to operate, especially within the courts, is like spitting into the wind unless one either plays this game, or has a much better strategy to organize, resist where necessary, or create a dialogue leading to a non-dictatorial form of goverment, in which these forces, with their superior clout and of course wealth, literally practice their “models” on a county at a time, a state at a time, and eventually a continent at a time.

it is cl ear to me that in this scenario, the intention is that SOME People participate in government (running it, creating more “forms” of government, literally agencies, commissions, task forc e s and other what I call “Critters”) and others continue to obey the basic rules: Keep consuming government services (by force, if necessary) AND keep paying for the privilege of being forced to consume some of these services.

Because this model is so outrageous, and so close to the feudal model, major forms of control and persuasion must be employed to distract and/or threaten the public which sooner or later (but what it looks like, to me, too late in the game) may, or will wake up to the purpose of the game, including population reduction, incrementally and/or by wars, genocides, extinguishment by slavery, etc.

Sorry to put it that way, but I’m looking at “what happened” in the past twenty years of my own life, and it’s clear that living a moderate balanced lifestyle (work, home, children & family) is a very, very risky proposition.

THIS IS ALMOST THE ENTIRE ARTICLE:
[BEGINQUOTE FROM: INSURING AMERICA: BANKERS LIFE AND CASUALTY COMPANY CELEBRATES 125 YEARS

Rich History Shaped by John D. MacArthur and a Commitment to the Senior Market

CHICAGO (January 15, 2004) – Bankers Life and Casualty Company commemorates its 125-year anniversary this Saturday, Jan. 17, marking an impressive milestone in a rich history shaped by legendary leadership and a strong commitment to the financial health of senior Americans.

. . . .

The Chicago-based insurance company’s roots extend back to 1879, when its predecessor, Hotel Men’s Mutual Benefit Association, was founded to offer hotel workers insurance. While the business would undergo significant changes in the following decades through mergers, acquisitions and shifting missions, the figure looming largest in the company’s heritage remains the legendary John D. MacArthur, a Chicago insurance man, who in 1935 purchased Bankers Life and Casualty Company from the Illinois Insurance Department for $2,500.

MacArthur subsequently grew Bankers into a billion dollar company, partly through acquisition but mostly through new ways of selling insurance. He offered policies for $1 a month to the common man, rather than just the wealthy, and pioneered the concept of mass marketing low-cost health insurance through the mail.

MacArthur was a relentless leader and expected his employees to work hard and represent his company well. His methods reflected both progressive and long-vanished U.S. business and social mores of the times. He was an industry pioneer who envisioned the importance of the senior market decades before most other insurers. At the same time, life at Bankers included an internal charm school and beauty pageant for women employees and a company nurse who would ‘check-in’ on sick employees at home. Mail boys were outfitted with shopping carts to deliver mail faster and more efficiently between buildings of the company’s former complex on Chicago’s North Side.

One of the more significant relationships MacArthur built was when he retained news commentator Paul Harvey as the company spokesman in 1955. Harvey represented Bankers for 30 consecutive years, making it the longest running sponsorship relationship in history. Because of Harvey’s success in relating to the senior market, Bankers recently re-signed him as company spokesperson beginning January 3, 2004. [[note: John MacArthur died in 1978]].

Under MacArthur’s direction, Bankers became one of the first insurers to enter the senior market with its Medicare supplement insurance offering once privatized legislation passed in the 1960’s. The company also pioneered the development and marketing of nursing home insurance and entered the fixed annuity business, expanding its portfolio of senior market health insurance products to include retirement savings.

Aside from his professional career, MacArthur also played a part in some thrilling stories, one being the 1964 robbery of the 100 karat ‘DeLong Star Ruby’ from a New York museum. The culprit was notorious jewel thief, Jack Roland Murphy, alias ‘Murf the Surf’. A Miami gangster acquired the jewel from Murphy and offered to sell it to the very wealthy MacArthur. Working with authorities, MacArthur agreed to ‘ransom’ the jewel back for $25,000. In a plan that involved a suitcase full of cash and a daring rendezvous in a phone booth, the ruby was recovered. The gem, more notorious than ever, was returned to a museum where visitors lined up to view it in record numbers.

Upon his death in 1978, MacArthur transferred control of the company and gave $900 million to fund the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, an Illinois not-for-profit charitable trust that still thrives today. The foundation has supported many endeavors throughout the years: the famed ‘genius grants’, community initiatives, health projects and environmental preservation. The foundation has awarded more than $3 billion in grants since it began operations in 1978 and is one of the nation’s ten largest private philanthropic foundations.

In 1984, the foundation sold Bankers for $382 million to ICH Corporation, an insurance holding company that sold it for $600 million in 1992 to Conseco Capital Partners. Despite the changes of ownership, MacArthur’s influence remains a large part of the Bankers culture today.

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