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

The “All-Gender World” reference is at the bottom; “All-Gender” bathrooms are showing up in California, which is by grammar declaration there are more than two genders.  Oregon went one step further and became the first state to allow this option on drivers’ licenses.  It does make one wonder about the logic of continuing the gender wars and their funding, if the USA is about to go “All-Gender.”  Just a little humor and call to reason there. The rest of my two-part title reflects the main post content.

1. The War Against Women(‘s Rights) in an All-Gender World? 2. Organization Names and Name Changes Distract from their Coordinated Agenda, but Operations and Strategy Reveal Agenda (So, LOOK at the Books, and KEEP Looking). (case-sensitive shortlink ending “-73P”) <==Title.

Fathers’ Day (now, last Sunday).  Bit of a tough time to write a post without going sarcastic about fathers’ rights organizations, possibly offending those who had positive relationships with their own fathers.

I did, basically, other than he didn’t live long enough which I must admit was possibly a factor in why the man I married felt it was OK to slap and throw around, in other words threaten, injure his own pregnant wife, and his own wife raising their two small children, for years until I stopped at least THAT behavior by having him physically separated from where we lived (legal intervention). it did not stop the stalking, and as it turned out, a similar battle had to be fought again, over wider territory, with the same man and his now widened sphere of support, and dramatically lessened financial obligations i.e., demands upon his personal time, and backed by initially two, later FOUR (if you include in-laws) of my own relatives who’d picked a battle to distract from the one I’d just won some ground in — stopping the domestic violence.  

So, during those married (in-home abuse) and post-separation times (family court litigation which continued long after the protective order was removed, reproducing many — not all — of the problem / work interference situations of the marriage, and adding legal costs, ongoing intimidation, and parenting drain on time and resources),  I got a first-hand lesson of how married men (both relatives and some friends), religious men including pastors who knew about the battering at the time it was occurring and others or people who attended gatherings led by pastors, with rare exception/s most single men in my acquaintance through work, and in general MEN often just do not intervene with one of their “kind,” (gender) known to be assaulting his own wife in front of the kids and apart from them, and/or while maintaining economic control making it nearly impossible to flee.  And/or causing major life and work difficulties for single mothers afterwards. I can see why they might not (having their own work and personal/social lives to lead), or why they might, being aware that domestic violence or family violence prevention organizations exist (if they are aware), wrongfully assume some of these are effective once the divorce process begins.

The other factor is, stepping in between a person targeting a woman for abuse and the abuser, puts himself repeatedly at risk for collateral damages, as do some officers stepping in between incidents in process.  This condition, facilitated in large part through the family court process itself and its tendency to strip off restraining orders and focus on “co-parenting” once the process begins, starts to isolate the single mothers from other sources of support they may have already established — including (I found) through their work lives.

Many of the above men might support battered women or such women post-separation, morally, or in some ways during those times socially (or more accurately, permit their wives to where there were wives), but there is a problem with the situation.  It becomes a personal war! Men willing to assault and batter their wives then confronted in this legally don’t automatically change their heads, hearts, or intents, and (I’m speaking from experience here, 21st century), the act of supporting a woman who the other is intent on “getting even with” or destroying, is met with boundary violations of supporters, or enough increased pressure on the woman that more support is required, tending to isolate and drive would-be helpers away. Just as acts of independence, initiative, or self-improvement are met with escalations to counter this.

I’m indebted to one unnamed (and not otherwise described in this post) individual who helped for years post-separation, and took some personal heat from my family for doing so, not to mention significant inconvenience, with nothing to show for it than, I gather, a sense of having adhered to his own moral, social, and charitable values.

I later got a hard lesson in how my own country, at least those in power, still primarily men (see Congress, for example) still seem to view women, in general, as well as how women in power — including in feminist or DV circles as lawyers, professors at major universities (incl. at some of their law schools) — or those running major violence “prevention” organizations — may preach and establish network after network “until the day goes down,” and run public media campaigns against domestic violence, and, case in point locally, “Coaching Boys into Men,” but
at the end of the day” make sure to let the family law situation run its course, not outing HHS fatherhood, access visitation grants, or nonprofits like themselves, very profitably as 501©3s, fill a niche in the fathers’ rights armor — the need to be seen as respecting domestic violence issues and having some women “on board,”  (a niche in the conflict zone), while not actually revealing the “supply lines” of the continuing conflicts (<==This sentence revised post-publication to clarify meaning).

The more nonprofit websites and Forms 990 (or audited financial statements, where available) I looked at, the clearer the situation becomes. I doubt one post could explain it, but this one has some of the evidence.

ALSO, in this post, the excerpts and quotes I show regarding welfare reform and pushing marriage/fatherhood programming prove that it was not, as we’ve been led to believe or as some imply, really a political issue. Marriage/fatherhood and promoting it through social services seems to be the one area both progressive and conservative foundations could and did agree on, and did not radically protest at the time.  Major foundations from sides are also engaged in it, as we speak.  Nothing like a politically incorrect, but instinctively and historically gut-level felt common enemy [independent women with equal access to power, nationwide, single mothers not made financially dependent on either men, or the state [controlled by men], bottom-line, women] that while you can’t get away with it by direct name-calling, but can by indirect name-calling ([female-headed households, “fatherlessness,” out-of-wedlock childbearing].

This gut-level fear/hate to the point of being willing to wage a war over it sentiment is unacceptable (at least to mainstream liberals) on “in-your-face” on mainstream media, but in private conferences, and networks until the funding is in place, and letting the public think it’s a political (Left/Right, Democrat/Republican) issue to keep the public debates off-track, constantly — no problem!  (<==Another post-publication rewrite to clarify some double-negatives and conditional sentences.  If that didn’t clarify, just move on to the exhibits!]

Wait til you see the exhibits, and my annotations before you mentally dismiss the above statement.  I was surprised, too, and have been (for years), but I believe when I see the evidence, time and again….

Instead of calling WOMEN and MOTHERS [not under control of or in relationships with “their” men] bad, although it basically communicates this anyhow, it coined a term, “fatherlessness” (a sort of paper tiger) and threw programming and millions of dollars against it, and, unilaterally, just about, marriage good; having children outside marriage, bad.  Then went after “fatherlessness” in both married, and unmarried households where the children lived with their mothers.     I have many exhibits today, so let’s get right down to it.

The attempt to distinguish itself from right-wing extremists was under way.  Let the public fight them, and not notice the other networks being set in place…..

Tough not to be mis-taken as going after the entire male gender as a whole, or all fathers.

1. The War Against Women(‘s Rights) in an All-Gender World? 2. Organization Names and Name Changes Distract from their Coordinated Agenda, but Operations and Strategy Reveal Agenda (So, LOOK at the Books, and KEEP Looking). (case-sensitive, shortlink ending “-73P”) <==Title.

This confusion of usage discourages anyone taking the appropriately tough stand against the legitimacy and honesty of the premises allegedly underlying the practice, research, and profession of “fatherhood” created post- and pre-welfare reform of 1996, and spread rapidly (helped in part by certain groups NOT reporting on it consistently) through the modern electronic marvel called the Internet and with it, websites providing downloadable (fatherhood) curricula, resource centers (sometimes called “Clearinghouses”) and holding webinars for certification, etc., etc.

Another source muddying understanding of government vs. “not-government” (and so, private business or enterprise) arises when not just one, but whole series of private organizations with public officials’ names in their legal business names is said, and portrays itself as actually representing U.S. citizens’ best interests while networking, as they do, together in conferences to determine policy which are then fed (having avoided the normal means for citizen input to legislators, or such public officials) in the policy formation process.   (See recent post.  Link repeated below): Why Bother To Unravel the Proliferation of Private Associations Representing Public Offices? …. (with case-sensitive short-link ending “-6ZS”) (published June 16, 2017 and lists several of them, details a few of them…, like these two, in fact a “two-for-one” combo):

Notice top concept on banner is organization by REGION. Below that are ten topic areas. Mimics, in some ways, HHS Regional Centers, and OpDivs (only HHS is restricted to “Health and Human Services” whereas CSG as you can see, isn’t.)

At the same street address as CSG, but a legally separate entity whose tax returns you basically can’t (unlike CSG’s) read — because it’s been filing Form 990-N postcards instead, is a still influential “CSG Justice Center, Inc.” with a different logo:

Our Supporters

The work of the CSG Justice Center is made possible through the generous support of a diverse collection of sources. Over the past three decades, we have received significant federal funding from the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That support has spanned four administrations and reflects deep bipartisan support in Congress for the issue areas on which we focus. Dozens of private foundations—local, regional, and national in focus—have also awarded grants to the CSG Justice Center. In addition, the private sector, such as companies working in health, telecommunications, and banking, have contributed financial support to our organization. A growing number of state governments (such as Texas, Pennsylvania, and Georgia) and local governments (such as Seattle, Harris County, TX, and Baltimore County, MD) contract with the CSG Justice Center for an array of services. Click here to see a full list of our past and present funders.Follow the CSG Justice Center on Twitter at @CSGJC or on Facebook at @CSGJusticeCenter.

(Where I found CSG Justice Center, Inc’s EIN# off-site)

Providing a list of funding agencies, foundations, and private companies is nice, but that’s not what readers, and citizens who fund those AGENCIES through tax receipts deserve — which is accounting statements for money received, with (a) EIN# (b) Donor dates © donor amounts, (d) grant OR contract purposes, (e) audited financial statements FOR the CSG Justice Center, Inc., if appropriate — and judging by what its telling IRS (which minimizes its revenues received) ALL of that above must be giving it just tiny bits at a time over four decades — or it’s hiding how much it actually is receiving. The failure to offer up financial information (even an EIN#!) by a nonprofit entity, especially one like this associated with CSG (above), is a red flag.

The CSG Justice Center has a well-developed website reporting yet more collaborative and interagency councils at the federal level, like this one. https://csgjusticecenter.org/nrrc/projects/firc/snapshots/

Federal Interagency Reentry Council

The Reentry Council, established in January 2011, represents a significant executive branch commitment to coordinating reentry efforts and advancing effective reentry policies. It is premised on the recognition that many federal agencies have a major stake in prisoner reentry. The reentry population is one we are already working with — not only in our prisons, jails, and juvenile facilities, but in our emergency rooms, homeless shelters, unemployment lines, child support offices, veterans’ hospitals, and elsewhere. When we extend out to the children and families of returning prisoners, the intersection is even greater.

A chief focus of the Reentry Council is to remove federal barriers to successful reentry, so that motivated individuals – who have served their time and paid their debts – are able to compete for a job, attain stable housing, support their children and their families, and contribute to their communities. Reentry Council agencies are taking concrete steps towards these ends, to not only reduce recidivism and high correctional costs but also to improve public health, child welfare, employment, education, housing and other key reintegration outcomes.

The federal agency (not private nonprofit named after “state governments”) HHS, under HMRF.ACF.HHS.Gov also had a natural focus on Prisoner Re-entry underneath its marriage/fatherhood programming (next few images. Notice that the top of the page says HMRF, but the links and content includes Re-Entry programming.  Some pages I’ve excerpted read “last reviewed June 16, 2017.”  Notice the funding is $150M/Year for 5-year period, and it at least lists how many organizations got the grants.  It doesn’t, however (also notice) suggest to the reader where they might go look up some more — like at TAGGS.hhs.gov!

1 of 4 (see also pdf listing that year’s grantees by type and state). Note left sidebar and reference to ReFORM (re-entry programming)

2 of 4 from HMRF.ACF.HHS.gov

3 of 4 from HMRF.ACF.HHS.GOV (and “see more” links at bottom of each successive page)

Click to read the whole list (about 2pp) from in pdf formta. Shown is just the Re-entry portion.

[And more like them where these entities showed up…]

That 6/16/17 post tells why it is important to unravel by doing so for two or three big (widely networked, and long-standing) ones, such as the “Council of State Governments” and American Public Human Services Association” and its “affiliate” entities, one focused on TANF, and the at-large member of that particular network (from Oklahoma DHS) was also found Sept. 2015 (therefore I found… again…) participating in a PEERTA network where well-known fathers’ rights group (reframed now as “families” not just fathers, while still pushing the same basic idea and initiative, and boasting about its networking with others who also do), CFUF.org.  See that post for details; several images involved.

I first started noticing these (as I recall) promoting fatherhood initiatives directly to the governors in conference (National Governors’ Association), but this wasn’t put on-line and once on-line, pointed out, that I’m aware of,  by ANY protective parents, family violence prevention, domestic violence prevention, feminist anti-domestic violence lawyer famous in the field or, from what I can tell, any of the nonprofit entities formed by the same….

…(for example, DVLEAP, or National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women, or at the time, Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence, or even (Florida) family lawyer Elizabeth Kates (advertising with Lisa Marie Macci, family law appeals statewide), whose “LizLibrary” arguing against parental alienation and many interesting, and still relevant issues, is or at least I know was when I was more involved on-line networking, before focusing primarily on this blog, well-known in “protective mothers'” circles (those who were blogging the issues) ranks.

Before I show, the NGA’s work promoting fatherhood and fathers’ rights nationwide via the state’s governors (which I doubt shows up on lizlibrary), I went back to look at LizLibrary.org.

I should probably address the situation in a new post, one of these days.

It is an issue (a problem) to create volumes of studies, and an ongoing, links-filled blog addressing the concerns of people, especially women, likely to be struggling with family law cases, including domestic violence and/or child abuse (including but not limited to issues of incest or incest allegations!) with cause-based rhetoric, personalities in the FR movement WITHOUT providing the means to take an overall “scope of the situation” through anything measurable — like federal funding. I cannot address this effectively as just part of another post, so the images here are simply for reference.  I noticed (most annotated image) a new page of an investigative, published journalist Anne Stevenson, who has followed this money trail (more than average in her timeframe — there were predecessors in the early 2000s and some even in the 1990s), so included an annotated image, but it’s still a real sideline to the LizLibrary.org extensive content, and its tendency.

That’s why I had to blog this information once I discovered it, and I do not believe ANY practicing attorney (especially a family law one) will ever address it, thoroughly.  It’s up to others — commoners, and people who have the motivation to put in the time. I’ve come to this conclusion over the years watching and talking to both lawyers and ex-lawyers (i.e., they got disbarred somehow) dealing with this field.  I’ve also watched the local lawyer-run DV advocacy groups in my area, and in my state.  No, they do not want to blog the trade associations, the grants, the money trail or really, the consequences of PRWORA on women other than if it’s a progressive complaining about conservative viewpoints.  

It’s also why I believe such attorneys should be included for legal information, they should NOT be driving major movements to protect women or children, or reform the family courts.  It’s a pack mentality, and it’s often the type of thinking which cannot incorporate the larger reality.  Or at least, from what I have seen over a decade now, hasn’t.  

For example, Liz Library has protested “therapeutic jurisprudence” for years now on the site and even has an index to it, but says nothing, that I can see, on the existence — since about 2000!! — of the UCBaltimore Center for Children and Families in the Courts (now, thanks to donors, the Neil and Sayra Meyerhoff such CFCC) run by a known AFCC loyalist (Barbara A. Babb), which is featuring promotion of exactly this as part of its main  philosophy. Why wouldn’t an authority on the legitimacy or illegitimacy of therapeutic jurisprudence (a) know and (b) if it’s such a problem, want others to know, who’s been pushing the philosophy, and through which law schools? Is Liz possibly also an AFCC member, and mentioning the Baltimore center might just connect too many dots? (incidentally, AFCC has had a chapter in Florida too, since about 2004.  While talking parenting coordination (and/or protesting it), does LizLibrary reference who was helping get it passed in her own state?  

LizLibrary.org list of famous fatherless children.

2017 Screenshot of LizLibrary.org home page.  Click image to see how many topics (esp. left sidebar).

Page discovered 6-24-2017, contains info from 2012 and 2013 by Anne Stevenson. Annotations don’t do justice to the situation, but point it out. I have noticed before how LizLibrary quotes organizations without really calling attention to them, does not provide the tools to follow funding, but engages (as you might expect an attorney to) with the arguments, known FR personalities and themes along the gender, and to a degree, political divides. Click image (contains page url) to enlarge.

example I’ve cited before involving the NGA:  This is a “Stateline” communication (undated) but says it reflects information compiled and intended for distribution at an August 1998 gathering  of the NGA, with special thanks to the National Fatherhood Initiative (a nonprofit) and Wade Horn. (Next 3 annotated images and a pdf to the whole document — about 21pp). In general in this (and most) posts, click any image to enlarge it, or (if I’ve included it) to go to the source url.

NGA/NFI “Stateline” 1998 Summary Image #1 of 3

NGA/NFI “Stateline” 1998 Summary #2 of 3 (bottom half pg1)

NGA/NFI “Stateline” 1998 Summary Excerpt (Image #3 of 3_. Total pp about 21, format is nonacademic, informal (no header, footer, page#s, or sources given)

https://www.nga.org/files/live/sites/NGA/files/pdf/980222FATHERHOOD.pdf

NEXT: A (2013) reminder who Wade Horn was, and some of his role in this whole campaign for marriage/fatherhood funding (to be set up at public expenses, and as in fact, came to pass with welfare reform under TANF) thereafter, working 2001-2007 (i.e., G.W. Bush / Republican-Administration White House) holding public office administering the same TANF funds.  Six years later (2013) Congress is declaring a budget crisis again, talking “sequestration,” and the Washington Post contacts Wade Horn (now at “Deloitte Consulting, LLP”) for an interview on what he’d do about it:

Wade Horn ran welfare for George W. Bush. Here’s how he’d handle the sequester.

By Dylan Matthews, February 26, 2013 (under “wonkblog”), below first large photo):

Wade Horn served from 2001 to 2007 as Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for Children and Families. In that role, he ran the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), which administers Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF, or welfare), Head Start, Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), and the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG). He is currently a consultant with Deloitte Consulting LLP. We talked last Friday; a lightly edited transcript follows.

Horn also administrated Temporary Assistance for Needy Family, the new welfare program created from the ashes of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) in Bill Clinton’s welfare reform law (which he is signing in the above photo). TANF is exempt from the sequester. (Clinton presidential library). [Click title link for 2/26/2013 “WaPo” article by Dylan Matthews, “Wade Horn ran welfare for George W. Bush. Here’s how he’d handle the sequester“.]

Wade Horn: We did things like this several times for a government shutdown. It’s not exactly the same thing, but we did have to have plans. Let me walk you through it — and I’m including that within the across-the-board cuts there’s some flexibility.The first thing I would do, I wouldn’t do anything without consulting with the OMB and the secretary [of health and human services]. I am assuming that all the heads at HHS are coordinating. But the first thing I would look at are items that are truly discretionary, where the funds have not yet been allocated. There’s a certain amount of that. Every year ACF will issue an request for papers for research grants or demonstration programs, things to test new ideas, generate new knowledge, and a lot of those discretionary announcements are done at ACF in spring or summer, and I’d take a look at them and ask how much are pledged. Anything that’s truly discretionary I’d cut. I’d take a look at my dollars and discretionary projects and I’d start to reduce spending there on discretionary activities.

Look at the 10 men standing in the background of the photo.  Who they are, it doesn’t say, but I see not one man of color.  Notice only people of color shown are women, and closest to Clinton.

This is who “Welfare Reform” is supposed to be helping?  I went looking for the photo, and found out they were former welfare recipients, one from Arkansas. I also found out I’m not the only person who recognized that when it came to Democrat vs. Republican, or right v. wrong, the intent to keep or get the Democrats back in power prevailed over concern for the poor in. 1996 when it came time to vote on the bill.  Yet at the same time, these webinars (family impact) and NGA conferences were taking place about the importance of helping fathers.  Where were the photos ops for poor men of color at the Clinton signing?

https://socialistworker.org/2016/08/22/how-clinton-and-the-democrats-killed-welfare

Twenty years later, same photo shown, and you’re notified by the URL that this was in “SocialistWorker.org” (I’m not a socialist.  Or a Senator Bernie Sanders fan):

Image 1 of 3 (2016 Socialist Worker on how Democrats & Clinton destroyed welfare)

Clinton and others argued that giving block grants to state governments would encourage them to “innovate,” so long as they attempted to meet four telling goals defined in the bill: “(1) provide assistance to needy families so that children may be cared for in their own homes or in the homes of relatives; (2) end the dependence of needy parents on government benefits by promoting job preparation, work, and marriage; (3) prevent and reduce the incidence of out of wedlock pregnancies and establish annual numerical goals for preventing and reducing the incidence of these pregnancies; and (4) encourage the formation and maintenance of two parent families.”

Clinton had promised that welfare reform would be accompanied by an increase in funds for child care, education, transportation, and job training for recipients. But many states quickly realized they could use TANF money to cover holes in other portions of their budgets as long as they could loosely link spending to goals laid out in PRWORA.

Abstinence-only education, fake crisis pregnancy centers, drug court operations, child protective services, adoption services and many other programs got money from the block grants. Former Reagan administration official Peter Germanis rightly characterized welfare reform’s block grants as a “giant slush fund” for states.***

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported that 19 percent of TANF money now goes to the “non-assistance” category. By contrast, job training consumes 8 percent of TANF spending, child care makes up 16 percent, and refundable tax credits make up 8 percent. Only 26 percent actually goes toward basic cash aid for welfare recipients.

***Interesting how as late as 2016, not one mention of promoting responsible fatherhood and healthy marriage funding, which are searchable terms that might lead to even accidentally identifying a grant stream or individual grant, but abstinence education IS mentioned.  Also, did you know that what’s not spent one year out of that $150M/year allocation, is retained for further research and administrative purposes? I learned that digging into one of the websites. (Submit comment if you want me to dig it out again; believe it was “nationalhealthymarriage.org” or similar).  How is continuing to keep already diverted TANF funds for supporting an infrastructure of a created profession, and justifying more research in it, helping the poor? It’s definitely (read this blog, especially earlier posts!) helping those who felt “inspired” to work in the created professions to be supported by public money and also attracting private money, too.

Next three images are either from the above website, or a site linked from it.  Again, I was looking for the photo to identify those three women standing among the apparently ten suited (white) men in power around Clinton.  Keep this in mind while reading the next section of more 1995 deliberations, including one below citing the 1991 National Commission on Children  whose 1991 report, under Sen. Jay Rockefeller, should be placed next to the excerpt providing more details from him. NOTE:  Some of the excerpts may refer to August, 1996 articles, not 2016, and all are about the passage of Welfare Reform.

1996 article linked from 2016 one, “Many Subtleties Shaped Members’ Welfare Votes

(“Many Subtleties” article: 6 of 7 Dem. Senators up for election voted FOR Welfare Reform. Only Paul Wellstone of MN voted against. (HOWEVER, the Wellstones participated in pushing supervised visitation in their state, per 2000 AFCC conference. Sen. Wellstone did not survive the decade, or his wife Sheila or daughter? due to a plane crash. The sons continue (last I heard) running progressive 501©3/501©4 activity out of DC and/or Berkeley.

So, back to the Wade Horn Feb., 2013, interview and  his suggestions:

Hypocrite! Now that the HMRF funding was set in law, not as “discretionary” $150M/year, and Access Visitation Grants (administered through OCSE to help the states “increase noncustodial (translation, and as it seems to work in practice, noncustodial fathers’ parenting time/involvement, with corresponding help compromising child support arrears, or even with filing for custody to turn the tables and get mothers to pay THEM child support, and/or if there’s too much resistance, perhaps to also pay hourly or other fees (supervised visitation) to see their own children just switched from Mom to Dad, as has been documented and making the news also by 2013), those are no longer “discretionary.” Touch THAT money, or audit its use and clean up the fraud, throw out the “take the money and run” nonprofits set up to PROFIT from it?

So in Feb. 2013, when Wade Horn was interviewed at the Washington Post, again, it was:

“Heck no!”  Go after someone else’s discretionary funding,” says Wade Horn, after having gotten that ball rolling in the National Fatherhood Initiative, then presided over administering it while working near the top of HHS/ACF in the early 2000s.  See next photo from the WaPo 2013 article, and caption (Clinton signing PRWORA, it must be in 1996 because that’s when it was signed).

NEXT:  DISCONNECTED DADS: (who else was) STRATEGIES TO PROMOTE RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD // REFERENCES TO involved foundations, and to David Blankenhorn’s “Fatherless America.”

Another one I’ve cited, probably frequently, and posted a link on the sidebar (Vital Links) as I recall: https://www.purdue.edu/hhs/hdfs/fii/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/pf_fis36report.pdf (next six (6) images, some annotated, on “Disconnected Dads/Strategies” The pdf is all 54 pages.  I left URL showing that its upload date at Purdue.edu appears to be 2015.

Take a look and tell me, how were women, single mothers, battered mothers also, supposed to, really, know about this network of entities determined to dismiss and discredit them, and characterize ALMOST ALL single mothers’ children whether mothers were NOT married (or, re-married after divorce/separation) as endangering children “per se,” declaring (in this private setting intended to set a NATIONAL policy right before passage of welfare reform 1996)?  In hindsight, the language is insulting, and specifically reframes the issue of violence against women, mostly by ignoring, or giving oblique reference to it, for example, as “continuous conflict between the parents” as justifying the exception where children would be better off with a “single parent” (doesn’t say of which gender!), and so forth.

1 of 6 Disc Dads/Family Impact Seminars 1995

2 of 6 Disc Dads/Family Impact Seminars 1995

3 of 6 Disc Dads/Family Impact Seminars 1995

And that this was (as this instance proves) backed by major progressive foundations doing conservative out-reach on the ONE thing they could agree on — that single mothers = “bad news” socially, and someone oughter’ do something about it.

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4 of 6 Disc Dads/Family Impact Seminars 1995, Click to read my 2017 (irritated) annotations!

5 of 6 Disc Dads/Family Impact Seminars 1995, (references show PSI involvement – see also CPR) Click to read my 2017 (irritated) annotations!

6 of 6 Disc Dads/Family Impact Seminars 1995, (SEMINAR HIGHLIGHTS REVEAL TWO MAJOR (Progressiive) FOUNDAT’N’s BACKING but CONCEAL Blankenhorn’s (“Fatherless America, 1995) “IAV” involvemt.) Click to read my 2017 (irritated) annotations!

Notice (image 6, Highlights) how many organizations, foundations (Ford, Annie E. Casey), people, publications, seminars (“Policy Impact Seminars”) and the presence of this at Indiana’s Purdue University. (It may have moved since).  Yet the upload seems to have been only about 10 years later, June, 2015.

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In writing/annotating this up, this time, I noticed (Image 6/6)the avoidance of referencing “IAV” (Institute for American Values, founded by David Blankenhorn ca. 1988) in “seminar highlights” while quoting his book. Blankenhorn has been the main employee (@ca. $210K/year — for years) of this SMALL, PRIVATELY SPONSORED (by who, not really shown) “think tank), which I see now is being gradually drained. As usual, earlier tax returns also show a lot about an organization, including sometimes the affiliations of the (unpaid) boards of directors and what fields they came from. I also noticed that despite his nice salary, “David Blankenhorn III” took out also a 5-year, $20K loan from his own nonprofit, at 4.95% interest, and that typically, expenditures exceed revenues, every year. Such a great model of “practice what you preach..” One year, Maggie Gallagher was also granted $45,000 (Gallagher was also paid by George W. Bush, Sr., administration as I recall, to promote marriage/fatherhood nationally, and caught having been so sponsored). I notice from their current website, that a book by Bradley Wilcox (known to be Opus Dei-connected), and so forth. It’s all about the networking!!

#1 of 5, IAV (EIN#133400377 DBlankenhorn) last 3 Form 990s show it may be winding down?

#2 of 4, IAV (EIN#133400377 DBlankenhorn) Early (02,03) Form990 (FYE Feb) excerpts, Pres’ B’horn’s salary

#3 of 5, IAV (EIN#133400377 DBlankenhorn) Early (02,03) Form990 excerpts. Grant to Maggie Gallagher + Dartmouth, and Other Expenses (see “Research”) and his $20K 5-year 5% loan from his own 501©3 (despite $210K salary).

#4 of 5 IAV (EIN#133400377 DBlankenhorn) Early (02,03) Form990 (FYE Feb) excerpts Sched A (showing prior years contribs and next to no program service revenues

#5 of 5, IAV (EIN#133400377 DBlankenhorn) Early (02,03) Form990, excerpts, showing Grants and Other Expenses, incl. $5K to UMN for “Marriage Movement” (this might be in re: MarriageSavers or a specific professor there known in the field, and in a conservative NCFR (National Council on Family Relations, as I recall the name). I DNK, but maybe.

Which leads me to ask, “what’s feminist about not warning battered women, including mothers, about the existence and rapid expansion of an entire field of practice dedicated to minimizing the criminal prosecution of violence in the family court system, while simultaneously (and to this day) “dissing” single mothers in social service sector dealing with welfare funding, child support, and so forth?

AGAIN, not to mention the also time-honored but also in my opinion, not made public enough, national networks of collaborating private membership associations named after public positions such as Governors, Mayors, Courts, State Legislatures, City/ County Managers, and so forth, as I posted (not for the first time) June 16, 2017. And this is only about half the title; the other half references a specific one dealing with the schools — not today’s topic, so close to Fathers’ Day just recently passed.

PRIOR POSTINGS ON THAT THEME:

Here’s one I posted about a year ago:  “Do You Know Your Social Science Policyspeak…?”  I went looking for the post with a similar title, which (it turns out), I’d written, in 2014, but either not posted yet, or had posted, and returned to draft status for more work (“Do You Know Your NGA, NCSC, NCSL ….”).  I’ll correct that “draft” status ASAP, it’s an important concept.

I’ve been talking about this setup, this scenario, “a proliferation of private associations representing public offices,” and these types of organizations for about half the timeline of this blog, but have YET to see other bloggers who are upset about some of the programming resulting from these entities discuss the networks and the 501©3 or 501©6 entities as a systemic factor in promoting them what they are protesting.    

[Post Navigation Info: The thought in the above paragraph continued below the large inset table in different color, below.  

The next paragraph and the ones between the two teal-colored boxes, the first one small but containing a link, explain that there is an inset, where I moved it, and why I felt it necessary.]

Regarding the next, teal-colored, teal-bordered inset box and its text: I am explaining concepts for which others have not yet developed a language to discuss, and so do not seem able to discuss. I don’t believe the near-universal lack of references to the “shadow government” nonprofits, and, when it comes to waging either a gender or a political war (dividing) is accidental.  To overcome it, I often use analogies until or to assist in developing some language, points of references, and the ability to see the pattern in the mixture of events.

Understanding takes time, and practice, and the ability to contrast different approaches to speaking about the same causes.  Below (section in similar font style, I wrote it, then moved it to a separate post, leaving this “footprint” summary here).

Most of the discussion (with other analogies — such the overused “A House Divided,” for which classic quotes provided more opportunities to make the point — IDENTIFY THE CONTEXT, and (as Abraham Lincoln did in 1858), when many pieces of a machinery with a specific goal are visibly being assembled, use judgment (observation, reason) to figure out why. Is at the other location. Parts of it only are left here.

Right now, the public is being “played” as described below.  People can avoid this at least individually and personally by making sure to look up the key organizations involved, and, to an extent, detox themselves from thinking like journalists who need to sell stories, and instead like people who have already invested millions in a business enterprise (i.e., as taxpayers, citizens, and residents paying so many other taxes and “fees-for-services” just to live here, at all levels).

I really do believe over time, this will make a difference, however, the effort is so delayed and the tendency seems so rare, I’m pretty jaundiced about whether it’s going to happen.  Do you understand there is a major war on — and it’s NOT the one in the news daily?

Whatever the wars are (gender, political, religious, racial, or class), at what point does it make sense, being in the middle of any or all of the above, to continue maintaining basic ignorance except from what is reported in on-line or print media (whose advertising base, not subscriptions, typically support it, and who are being bought and sold off regularly, as I’ve also blogged and called attention to, i.e., Triangle Publications (Annenberg Wealth), CMP Media (theJobin-Leeds family), and probably Thomson, West, Lexis-Nexis, and others who license their material) of how basic public institutions operate and have been organizing themselves with respect to the private sector?

When it comes to Welfare Reform, PRWORA and regarding “the gender divide” or wars, among the LEAST reliable sources are those already aligned Democrat or Republican, or Fathers’ rights v. Feminist.  In this area, it’s important to get an outside perspective on what the debates are NOT referencing — including, but not limited to, tools for others to look more directly other than as a passing reference — at government financials, nonprofit financials, or federal agency grants streams, and (over time), the entities getting those grants.

(…. re: “a proliferation of private associations representing public offices,” and the programming that comes from them…)

…bypassing the public awareness before “the deals have been sealed.”  In fact, little if anything about the entities themselves shows up in the media, other than quoting them or one of their personnel as expert in the context of some other advocacy or headline material.  Yet overall, it’s been engineered like a campaign* and  among participants has been described as one.

Yes, “campaign” a term borrowed, from warfare, not just politics, with an overall purpose of strengthening some sectors while weakening others. Yet like sales, politics, and warfare, often the real purpose is not shown in the propaganda and advertising, and observed over time, other more consistently achieved purposes have surfaced, some of my prior posts named below (a few, with excerpts) discuss in more detail.

(*See “looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, just might be a duck” (UK.phrases.org) (The Mirror.uk relating it to a lifelike mechanical duck invented in 1783..  I see my usage wasn’t appropriate, except I’m appealing to people to start to look and apply appropriate labels when they observe details over time.

When it comes to “strengthening fragile families” — that’s not who’s really getting strengthened in the process (again, in my opinion).  Anyhow, here’s another detailed listing of some key, influential organizations, and a reference to (quote from) The Moynihan Report:

Here’s another one title in part, “Do You Know Your?” and posted November 18, 216, but my notes at top of the post indicate it was probably also written earlier.

My commentary here on that post here is long, another section, but included because it deals extensively with “The Greenbook Initiative” and how domestic violence organizations refer with pride to their own, particularly their own collaborations with the social science, and social work sectors.

Motto under the logo reads “SAFETY – STABILITY- WELL-BEING.” “Well-Being” is also a specific phrase (sound-byte) which has been incorporated into titles of a trade-marked type of model court (Miami Child Well-Being Court(™)), of Centers within University (Princeton: Center for Child Well-Being; Columbia: Center for Research on Father and Child Well-Being)… In other words, the noun-phrase “Well-Being” usually combined with the word “Child” or “Family”) has a general, common English use, and positive understanding, but among social work, court, and certain other types of  professionals, more application-specific meanings which may miss the public understanding UNLESS they study how these things are organized, set up for pilot programming– evaluation — replication — and promulgation. [end caption by blogger “LGH”]]

In a willingness to look at these things, you are showing a willingness to look at the history of the domestic violence movement in its own words, at least from these entities and authors, AND my feedback as a mother who was dealing with domestic violence (i.e., in an abusive marriage, incl. physical assault & battery, repeated) in the 1990s and (not for long, but some) early 2000s with organizations working under this philosophy.

In this discussion here, I am also providing three screenprints from the post and the following summary, for a reminder, when it comes to “Voices of Battered Women” — we can only speak of that which we know.

These entities have collaborated to withhold significant portions of the whole truth from battered women in general, while using SOME of us as poster-child, token representatives –including on the boards of directors — to legitimize the ONGOING agenda of, in my opinion, sequestration of the mutual professional fields (fatherhood promotion, domestic violence advocacy + child maltreatment; centralization of power brokers).

If you catch my drift — having a battered women on the board who behaves exactly like the other career-DV professionals who were not, themselves, dealing with it personally , that is, who like them will fail to report on the substantial HMRF funding, call attention to nonprofits as nonprofits, reference AFCC as a promoter (as it has been) of certain policies and professions which tend to produce “custody of children going to batterers” and so forth — or referencing the PRWORA money as a factor, serves a purpose — but what purpose?  Lending an air of credibility without letting the vital funding OR networking secrets out?

RE: Susan Schecter, without retracting the above, no disrespect is meant of a life’s work. I read a Susan Schechter book, “When Love is Not Enough,” while in my own abusive marriage, and it did awaken me to question why I should be tolerating physical abuse in the name of marriage and family.  In those times, it was  surprisingly rare echo of what was “in-your-face-obvious” — that behavior had NOTHING to do with love, marriage, or (as applied in our situation), God, Jesus Christ, or anything righteous.  Hauling your own pregnant wife to the ground in front of a toddler, slapping her in the face and shouting at her, repeatedly throwing her up against the wall (sometimes hand on throat), coercive economic control, unjustified — yet still wanting her to go “bring home the bacon,” and {I won’t say more.  There was a lot more…}Still, that book didn’t persuade me to take action to separate.  The availability of action to take when the situation had deteriorated beyond harmful to (as it would be called in some circles) high-lethality risk, and things we (mothers, women, people being battered) know in our guts already it’s time to go NOW. We all have our turning points, and I’m sure it differs from woman to woman.  I remember mine clearly, still.

So, while I’m thankful for Susan Schechter’s work (she’s now deceased), I’m not in awe of it, and I believe the direction taken at the time was more than wrong — it was unethical and immoral.

Here are those three screenprints (full-sized, unlike most of my images, and which include quotes from a book review or tribute to Susan Schecter & some of my commentary from the Nov. 2016 post, link just above) followed by a block quote (also from it) but shown here as a plain quote, not an image.  The 3 images have captions highlit in yellow.

#1 of 3 FROM ” Who Produced The Greenbook Initiative? And, About NGA, NCJFCJ, AFCC, Council on State Govts (Trade Associations You Should Know). (Moved from “My Posts-Just the List,” on 10-5-2016, Expanded by 2/3rds and Posted 11/8/2016)
(short-link ends “-4AK”)” for 6-24-2017 post (“1. War Against Women(‘s Rights) in an All-Gender World? 2. …Keep Looking at the Books) …

#2 of 3 from, “Who Produced The Greenbook Initiative? And, About NGA, NCJFCJ, AFCC, Council on State Govts (Trade Associations You Should Know). Posted 11/8/2016)”
(short-link ends “-4AK”)

#3 of 3 from, “Who Produced The Greenbook Initiative? And, About NGA, NCJFCJ, AFCC, Council on State Govts (Trade Associations You Should Know). Posted 11/8/2016)”
(short-link ends “-4AK”)

How is it that as far down the road as 2004, a 57-year old woman among the leaders of the shelter movement was not aware of the involvement of fathers’ rights groups in the movement, or of the centralization of it by virtue of the giant-sized grants being focused on “Special Issue Resource Centers” as early as the 1990s?  I figured that out on my own by looking at the HHS grants database which goes back to 1995 and, so far as I know, may have been up and available that far back as well.  However, if it was not, PRWORA was discussed PLENTY among leading feminist organizations at the time of passage and right after (typically those with a more progressive stance seeking more money for welfare-dependent families, including women and children).  How hard, really, would it have been “to put two and two together” and recognize that the access and visitation grants, as promoted heavily by CRC and friends (not to mention Pearson & Thoennes via “Center for Policy Research” in Denver), would be supporting the very “community coordinated response” (CCR) practices being pushed via Ellen Pence et al. up in Duluth, MN (not that plenty of conference circuits were not also taking place also throughout)? As far back as 1992, 1993, Jack Straton PhD was presenting up at Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs (DAIP) questioning the practice of Supervised Visitation; NOMAS (National Organization of Men Against Sexism) was also involved, and this material was very well-circulated, from what I can tell, by the time I separated (not that long after PRWORA passed).  Straton said next to nothing about the funding, however, as I recall.

For what just may have happened to tie Ms. Schechter’s tongue on some of the above might have been who were her publishers, and how early on Mr. Edleson, obviously in a powerful position of influence (presumably back then, from Minnesota) became a major collaborator – take a look at the references from this 2006 Tribute which STILL says nothing about the issues I just raised.  [[End of excerpt from 2016 post on my 2017 one…]]

I’ve felt for some time, and continue to uncover admissions from government sources, that it’s also been known for some time, that the logic behind the social science, human behavioral modification, and economic justification for the created field “fatherhood practitioner” and the created field “fatherhood researcher,” as eventually combined into a center for “Fatherhood Research and Practitioner Network” even, not to mention: curricula, facilitators, recruiters (yes, that’s still necessary), funders, QIC (Quality Improvement Centers on NRF (Non-Residential Father involvement) when it comes to children in welfare; trainers, and, let’s not forget the project evaluators.

See more details from the dark-green background excerpts (recent postings) below:

So again, let me clarify that there’s a big difference between usages of the word referring to actual men, and referring to social policy as well as referring to a profession named after it, or organizations named after it either.

I recognize in advance the sarcastic tone in this summary of the situation as probably highly disrespectful for Fathers’ Day.  I mean no disrespect to fathers as a whole, or men as a whole.

More background on my concerns found on this PAGE.  Read the part on PRWORA and Legal Momentum’s history of the VAWA law, which you may notice, says nothing about the contemporaneous existence of the PRWORA-related activities during similar years.

AboutMy Blog Motto (formerly on Vital Info/Sticky Links post, moved here  May 26, 2017). (case-sensitive shortlink ending “-6TM”)

…I worked through — with the usual “show-and-tell” exhibits, annotated images, and connecting narrative — how to explain the continuing purpose of this blog but raising my most recent concerns on a specific subject matter which is close, but not a 1:1 match, to the subject matter of “Family Courts” or “domestic violence.”

Yes, for years I blogged on the family courts, domestic violence, fatherhood/marriage programming etc.  On this page, I’m stating (obvious on the blog) why I’m expanding the subject matter focus but not the basic principles, of the blog.

But, for purpose of Fathers’ Day post, it is a 1:1 match to that subject matter, and below, I still included a reminder from the two-pronged (at least) scissor-like action between PRWORA and VAWA representing supposedly, two opposing rights (fathers’, which is a close parallel and more politically correct/palatable then just saying “mens’ rights” as opposed to “women’s rights” in the terms of the 1970s feminism following the 1960s civil rights acts, marches, and continuation of the movement to stop repressing population based on race.

This more recent subject matter [[EDUCATION REFORM, SCHOOL FACILITIES PLANNING, etc.]], however, still speaks to the abuse of power, how it has continued to expand, and what people concerned about such massive exploitation on the national level in the U.S.A., while their (so to speak) many public institutions (universities, justice systems, K-12 schools, etc.) are restructured for globalization, might do to rebalance the power back to representative government with the INFORMED consent of the people.

… In other words, how to withdraw consent when INFORMED consent has been deliberately side-stepped, bypassed, over-ridden, or structurally set up so as to be irrelevant, AS ALREADY WAS ACCOMPLISHED re: the handling [of] criminal matters being diverted into the family court systems, while the two parallel and unequal systems continue the contradictory paradigms (“we’re against abuse — but you should learn to deal with it by improving communication skills,” and “We by this act declare a national protest and intent to stop Violence Against Women  {<=Legal Momentum history of the Act}}— but only to the extent it doesn’t interfere with the federal designer-family status quo, as expressed in 1996 PRWORA-forward (Welfare Reform) strategic purposes I, II, III and IV, for which interference with said status quo (on family composition) we blame poverty, dependency, not to mention, juvenile delinquency and other criminal behaviors. (Nov. 1996 summary ”

(Screenprint from this doc’t. notes the two major block grants;a paragraph from its opening pages again talks about its intent to reduce nonmarital births, and a second paragraph from it, stating why):  [[Condensing this, I posted the other image within the topic, please read both.//LGH June 21, 2017]]

“SUMMARY OF WELFARE REFORMS MADE BY PUBLIC LAW 104–193 THE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY AND WORK OPPORTUNITY RECONCILIATION ACT AND ASSOCIATED LEGISLATION“— 11/6/1996, prepared by staff of and for House Committee on Ways & Means; read disclaimers in front matter).

Annotated to highlight the two block grants referenced (Click to see better, or better yet, visit main link provided on image)

Another admission that they know — “Empirical support is more suggestive than conclusive” (for the “ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL THEORIES” BEHIND WELFARE POLICIES & INITIATIVES!

 

Hating men?  How is it hating men to protest abuse of power and point out that on the one hand, VAWA setting up its rational and grant stream since 1994, fails, along with most of the DV advocacy groups I’m aware of (both as participant, earlier, and based on their websites, over time) to even let out a whiff of an awareness to people who MIGHT be reading them or in groups facilitated by them — like battered women, or women fighting for custody in the family courts — that this level of social paradigm shift had already been underway since the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s — ALL of it aimed at laying the blame for society’s problems upon single mothers, or fatherless children, or as it was put bluntly in 1965, but I doubt any would dare to admit to this openly now, and specifically in reference to “The Negro Family,” that “matriarchy” is a “pathology” because it’s out of step with how we do things in the U.S., and that’s virtually a quote from the Moynihan report.  Look it up (Chapter IV).

That report isn’t being quoted these days, but joint winner of “The Moynihan Prize” Ron Haskins certainly is, and he is being quoted by fatherhood organizations recently (2007) renamed to represent “family” (while continuing to promote “fatherhood as the key”), and even being appointed to chair a commission on “Evidence-based policy” when it’s basically known where he’s coming from too, as a professional — straight down the HHS-funded HMRF speedway, only (now that his time in or around HHS is over with) instead through either the Urban INstitute, the Brookings, or (less heavily advertised, but he’s been on the board), “MDRC” in place since the 1970s to evaluate social policies.

PERSONAL IN RE: DO I HATE MEN WHEN I PROTEST FATHERHOOD FUNDING?  NO.

I HATE INJUSTICE, LYING, AND PUBLIC FUNDING OF SOCIAL SCIENCE R&D BASED ON SHAKY THEORY SPRINKLED WITH A HEAVY DOSAGE OF WOMAN-HATING AND BAKED INTO THE INFRASTRUCTURE UNTIL HARDENED INTO ONGOING SPONSORSHIP.  AND I WISH MORE JUSTICE- AND TRUTH-LOVING PEOPLE ALREADY IN POWER (SUCH AS IN THE LEGAL PROFESSION, OR ELECTED OFFICIALS) HAD HAD THE GUTS AND HONESTY TO TELL THEIR LOCAL “CONSTITUENTS” WHAT THEY WERE DOING IN THEIR PRIVATE NETWORKS.

BUT THAT, I SUPPOSE, WOULD DEFEAT THE BUSINESS AND POPULATION CONTROL PURPOSES OF KEEPING THOSE NETWORKS PRIVATE IN THE FIRST PLACE….

PERSONALLY, SOCIALLY….(what’s left of it at this point…)

I know and periodically communicate by phone with at least one woman who, she tells me often enough hates men, believes women are innately superior, and says so freely, but I don’t.  I hear the hate talk, but I saw when it comes to events in my own life, and see from personal acquaintance where, this time, it legitimately seems to have come from and I also see a love of justice, and of fairness. I have also seen within an organization that there has been fair treatment of both genders, from what I could tell while a participant. This person is my senior by several years.

I know and periodically communicate by phone with another older woman (not local) I’d consider a friend, who would never (I think) say anything like this; she is not a hater, but over the (decades), from what I can tell, is hospitable and gets along well with others, even hard-to-handled bosses, or co-workers over time. This person is also a mother of grown children and in touch with all of them, which says something.

Both are articulate, college-educated, and have in some ways been distant (some more than others) of what’s been happening to my household in the 21st century.  Our point of connection originally was my profession (pre- and post-marriage).

I have another woman friend, about my age, because we were in high school together, and like the above two, our lives have been quite different in the traditional classifications, in fact the differences when we do communicate is often a point of amusement between us.  I’ve had more street addresses, married later, had fewer children, didn’t stay married, and gravitated towards living in metropolitan areas, both single and married.  To my awareness, this one has moved once in her post-college life.

Neither of the other two are religious, but my friend from high school has remained active in church for many years, as has her husband, and both of them, again around the common profession of music.  Yet the church they attend has no real resemblance to the one I was involved in, and as a consequence of the wife-battering and aftermath, despite the natural human inclination to show up for socialization, or music, or even (as a person of faith) maybe some Bible, I am at this point t.h.r.o.u.g.h. with showing up in something called a church, even a so-called “church without walls” and proud of it.

I might not still “be here” mentally and as a person without people (including some of their support systems also) like this in my life with whom to communicate from time to time about the inane, insane, and wrong things taking place through the enablement of the family court system (initially) in the digital, post-PRWORA age.

Also, over time, sometimes for a year or more at a time, I have been in regular phone and/or email contact with women who may have their own custody cases and in addition, chosen to blog, or stay active in the “blogosphere” regarding these tough topics.  Then they or I move on (some actually, have disappeared; I hope they’re OK!).  These people too have helped carry the emotional burdens down the road apiece and vice versa, but I’m not going to describe in detail, usually because those people may or do already have their own legal cases ongoing (as do, at this point, I too, but mine isn’t in family court anymore). From about 2012-2016 fall I was focused intensely, among other states, on Minnesota (see table of contents or posts starting January 2016) and continued posting hoping to make a dent in at least the basic understanding for some in the state, and emphasize looking up those nonprofits BEFORE engaging.  All the time.

And to get a grasp on what’s been going on in that particular state in the DV field which has been a major part of it, for decades, and start talking about it.  I found, for the most part, people just won’t. I’m getting too old to keep hoping where there isn’t hope, and old enough to start conserving mental and psychic (psychological) energy for where it’ll do the most good better, and so as of last Fall, ceased off-blog and, in general, communications with the MN folk re: the Grazzini-Rucki case.  There were two primary reasons, and there was a turning point at which I just stopped calling, emailing (and vice versa).  In general, that probably made both lives more peaceful and mine over here, more productive at least on the blog.

I still consider the primary responsibility to my own offspring (and myself, long-term survival prospects), and preserving a witness and record of some of these things seen on the blog, and off-line, in their and my lives over time.  They were, after all, cut off overnight from having a mother, and then not too long after (as I heard it) ALSO from having an in-home father, and at that point, if there was any other legal guardian (i didn’t here that there was), it was one based on fraud; once father abandons (which is itself another felony, as was (unprosecuted) the stealing of them, the next person to be contacted is the other natural parent.  That was me; I wasn’t contacted or even informed, and when was informed attempted to do something about it; meanwhile a child turned 18, a parent died, and and more complications intervened.

Around all this, there really isn’t time (or reason) to become a “man-hater” as we who don’t submit properly are supposed to be, but often aren’t.  It’s just not on the agenda. I do believe if there were better equality overall, there might be less woman-on-woman fighting and scrapping, and more productive use of our respective times, whether we decided to be Moms only, working Moms, or working, no Moms and focused on other things.

That said, I still believe there are things to be learned from becoming a mother (biological; pregnancy, labor, birth, ideally nursing, and taking care of that baby until he/she learns to eat, poop outside a diaper, sleep, talk, walk and (let’s hope) READ, etc., understand he/she is loved and wanted) and raising your own children that absolutely cannot be learned vicariously, including adopting, surrogacy, or fostering.  Adopted and foster children at some time or point lost or were abandoned by –or stolen, including trafficked through child welfare systems — from their own biological mothers.  As in the animal kingdom, we WILL fight for them, and to not do so, is an unnatural act.   Forcing us to conciliate, compromise, reconcile, and focus on placating someone else beyond what’s reasonable in a partnership or marriage (or divorce) — is also an unnatural act, and inhumane.

What I’m also saying is that replacing mothers “at-will” as interchangeable parts, which was tried on my children, especially without legitimate or even legal cause, doesn’t work out well for them, society, or others involved.

OTHERWISE (than the above women friends I described), FYI I also main some regular in-person contact (deliberately) with what appear to be life-long bachelor, intelligent men my age in which there will be and is no romantic or dating interest, creating a safe place in which to speak.  At a minimum, this reduces harassment in public, which previously did occur, for being who I actually am, something of an eccentric, regularly-writing woman not showing up with either boyfriend, husband, children, significant other, or obviously, an active social life outside the writing. I work hard and steadily while at it, then go home. I take breaks to  walk or talk (technical assistance with the electronics, or to bounce ideas off others, or hear about their days, news, etc.).

This context is incidental to my writing in public, and not a consequence of joining some group in order to meet others of the opposite gender for social or romantic purposes, which (at this point) I’m neither doing, nor really in a position to do. (Which however, doesn’t rule it out at some other time).

I’d go so far as to consider these men friends, but no one, that I’m aware of, would think of himself as a protector or someone to call upon in an emergency, nor would I.  They just make the current scenario more tolerable and are other human beings with whom to have a halfway intelligent, human conversation. I also talk (considerably) about what I’m writing about, which is a form of feedback, although hardly “market research.”

Conversations of about the level of “who’s the boss and how many ways can we, ourselves, and our colleagues, or [tribe] communicate, it’s not you!” i.e., juvenile exchanges for the purpose of one-upmanship gets old after a while, and aren’t genuine in the first place.  This type of bullying goes along with the territory of ongoing litigation for the purpose of obtaining permission (in my experience) or some form of rationalization for illegal activity, such as theft, fraud, defamation, slander, stalking, and/or extortion. Those actions get old too, if one is on the receiving end….

Conversation about many things, with mutual respect, and without unreasonable expectations, is valuable to me as a human being.  I do not join groups for this purpose.  I’ve had it with formal, membership (including on group-email lists to for purpose of contributing anything) “groups” for a very long time. That includes attendance at so-called worship services of certain religions, like the Christian ones.

So, no I do not hate men, and no, I do not believe the role of fathers is optional, to be take for granted, or are fathers as a whole not an important part of life.  Look at the military in this country — it’s fair to say, it’s still mostly men, and many of those men are fathers.  They have become expendable in a way most of us just won’t understand, and their lives are put at risk for it.  This is now true also for the women in the branches of the military and they not only had to right for that option, but also are dealing within the ranks of also of sexual assaults and the responses to it (a.k.a. rape).  What kind of guts does it take to show up for that, and not run for cover?

We all know this, but somehow when it comes to “family” women aren’t supposed to fight when theirs are under attack, or they as targeted individuals personally are?

Why NOT fight back, and fight in such a way as to win and not have to keep fighting, year after year, with change of venue (“turf”), and at all points seeking to do this unlike the opponents when their behavior is criminal?  What’s socially responsible about submitting to abuse, or only pressing to get just a “few” of the stolen rights or some of the stolen independence back?  What kind of role model is that?  What kind of LIFE is that?

Fighting is also costly, can be lethal (immediately suddenly, or through attrition over time) in this arena of the family courts, and aftermath, too. So is not fighting, over time. My recommendation is, weigh the costs, but if you’re going to, then fight strategically and hit where it’s going to be most effective.

That’s what those seeking to represent battered women, over time, have made sure NOT to do — by compromising:  Protection IF there is therapy for all; funding for shelters IF there’s also for supervised visitation, batterers’ intervention, parenting education, parental counseling, parent-coordinators (in many states) and simultaneous funding for pushing co-parenting on everyone at the federal level, and setting up more networks of nonprofits than any human being is ever likely to track, monitor, or report if failing to obey the basic rules of corporate status and tax returns, or tell the truth on the promotional websites.

That’s ridiculous. It’s illogical.  It’s craziness. It doesn’t fly under the “stop violence against women” banner AND it doesn’t fly under the “Reduce dependency on welfare” banner either.

You can’t protect much in life without discipline, training, and the ability to fight if you have to.  When those times come, if there are no weapons, no strategy, no ability to function as part of a campaign or team, and communicate as part of that team, who’s likely to win?  Those with less commitment, ability, technology (which requires the financial support for it), communications, supply lines, the whole deal – or those with at least some preparation.

But, at some point, if you can’t hate what’s wrong and hurting others en masse, you can’t legitimately say you “love.”  People express it in different ways, but at no time is chronic wife abuse (battering included), and chronic, pathological lying, stealing from others, committing felony offenses against them confident (somehow) of never being caught and prosecuted, “love.”

But I will talk about about networked organizations collaborating with the existing power structure (both government and tax-exempt foundations representing the corporate sector with its billions, sometimes in a single organization) which, in the name of fathers, families, children, racial equity (health, housing, education) and diversity, who continue to wage war on women, but with covert tactics, especially tactics playing the political left against the political right.

Religion as part of the justification is fair game too for determining around what to align the various collaborations and campaigns. People bond with their religious identity, which is often (and who doesn’t yet know this?) tightly bound up with their gender-preferences, i.e., male dominant, men on top.  In this world view, women side by side with men is sacrilege.

Side-by-side in appearance in some instances (like running nonprofits which are part of the scheme) may be OK, but decision-making independent of the male-dominant paradigm?
The progressives and left-oriented work hard to have people pointing fingers somewhere else when it comes to their own religious persuasions.  Collaborations with organizations, often (not always) founded or even led by now-prominent women, which are, themselves, saying — kinda sorta — that they are leading the charge to protect women from violence.

I’ve just spent a full generation plus some, in one of the most progressive areas of the country, and been accused by both political parties of being “out of step” with their paradigms, which affects the willingness to support, or to take on the major power structures throughout.

In other words, when I stood up to domestic violence, I (not the father committing the violence) “broke  up the family.”  I didn’t even file for divorce — I filed for protection and, with minor children in the household I was supposed to be supporting financially, was dragged into the family court system (ex parte, without warning) as part of maintaining protection, and was like many people TRAPPED there for years.

Although if you look more closely even at some of the names, do the names even say “women” anywhere, or, these days many of the more powerful organizations (judging by funding and the networks they coordinate or sponsored)?  Take a look. I’ll take a sample from ones I’ve known from the HHS grants and from certain conferences they coordinated, as well as the connections to both the USDOJ and the US DHHS.

Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (National Resource Centers): (does that say “violence against women” or “domestic violence” on its surface?  No.)

People must recognize that what I’m fighting is not “fathers” per say, but entities which exploit the emotion-laden terminology for their own ends, and, unable to achieve it without diverting the full attention of some very smart women dealing with their own experiences, and without still maintaining majority control of not just most legal and religious institutions (Congress, both houses, and the majority of historically patriarchal Judaeo-Christian-Muslim religions; I can’t and am not speaking here, although in this blog I have at times taken on the “new-age” spirituality.  When it comes to the families, both head are heading fast and furious for the marriage/therapy, fatherhood practice, and dispute resolution fields).  I’ve shown several in this blog, too.*

*As expressed in their evangelists (Arianna Huffington and the “M’SIA” movement based on “J.R.”, others), and as found in some of the leaders of the schools of professional psychology. I also believe that in part many women run towards this field while running FROM the ones where their option is to either become second-class citizens, or turn complicit on their own gender by cooperating in the promotion of the disgraceful abuse of public funds called HMRF funding, which seeks behavioral modification of (initially, low-income) families to restore patriarchal models as the norm, while calling it something else, and strategically avoiding the use in their reports, programming and in high-profile places, of the word “mother” or “mothers” in association with the pronoun “their” anywhere near the word “family.”

Considering how, after all the college, accomplishments, and hard work, at the end of the day, what matters in some families and in it seems in most family courts, statewide “high-conflict” or otherwise, and obviously in social services circle feeding off the pre- and post-PRWORA momentum “flexibility” for social-science R&D on fatherlessness and barriers to men’s involvement with their (sic) families, in combination with feeding an entire infrastructure of the created profession of marriage/education curricula proprietary owners who got in on this earlier in the game, with the simplified decision-making, is still “what gender are you?” in deciding how to alter any parenting, custody, child support, or protective order situation, one wonders what they are there for in the first place.

Never fear, your time MAY come, men, if you’ve been caught in criminal activity and/or even incarcerated for it.  This automatically puts you in a targeted class for programming, empathy, sympathy from both men and women in power.

Men subject to domestic violence restraining order with kickouts, criminal (apparently) or civil only, can perhaps be patient, bide their time, and sooner later — say many organizations — help WILL come to reduce child support payments, arrears, start lawsuits to modify custody arrangements for more parenting time (whether or not this was even at that point wanted), and/or forcibly simply switch custody, and a classic reversal of “who’s on top” force the mother to pay the father child support, AND, also a classic reversal of the original intent, supposedly, of making “supervised visitation” and “batterers’ intervention” (in that order) innate parts of any protection of women, another classic reversal of the purpose of the profession, extort the non-violent parent to visit her children.

But this is not yet ALL men everywhere — so the funding and the running of  people through as many kinds of classes and trainings as possible at public (and private) expense, “must” continue, regardless of whether it’s based on sound evidence or simply the preponderance of the power on the side of those who determine what should be studied, and who’s paid to evaluate it.

This feeding frenzy continues to be funded by tax-exempt foundations with expressed concern about “Black Men and Boys” as well as children trafficked into dependency courts and/or foster care, and spearheaded by personnel whose direct professional “genealogy” leads directly back to the 1960s, an era of civil rights marches, passage of civil rights laws, and the patronizing, pathologizing of the single mother household by way of Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s 1965 report, who (like our recent President Obama, and examples throughout society and history, including people in the fatherhood field) who somehow “made it” to places of top influence and power in possibly, at least for now, the most powerful country in the world (USA).  Positions like Senator, President, PhD Harvard, MIT.

1. The War Against Women(‘s Rights) in an All-Gender World? 2. Organization Names and Name Changes Distract from their Coordinated Agenda, but Operations and Strategy Reveal Agenda (So, LOOK at the Books, and KEEP Looking). ((case-sensitive short-link ends “-73P”)

I am just wondering how fathers’ rights will continue in full force once more states, if they do, start adding a gender to their bathrooms (i.e., recently — in compliance with a California law on bathrooms in public places — it’s no more Men’s and Women’s rooms for single-stalls (with people, in practice deciding which ones to use) to the label, under a Triangle symbol, “All Gender.”

Can’t have those fatherless children, right?  Men with more contact with their children are more prone to paying child support, which is better for the public by lessing the burden of welfare dependency, right?  Besides having fathers in the home reduces all kind of social scourges like excess sexual activity outside marriage, having children outside wedlock, using more drugs, juvenile delinquency and all that, right?

That’s about the usual rhetoric, but it falls short of the truth, and many have known it all along.(See article on my About Blog Motto page which quotes a 1998 study at NIH on how effective have been welfare reform-based behavioral modification (as to marriage and divorce, and childbearing) have been those programs!

Well, the nine-county, progressive (or so it seems to believe about itself) metropolitan, area I live in is also home to a major domestic violence organization which I have watched grow, expand, and rebrand over my own “family court gauntlet years.”

I took another retrospective on its charitable details information and rapid acquisition of assets this century, and looked at its audited financial statements which confirmed my sensibility that they had decided just not to, really, deal with the criminal aspects of domestic violence, but instead the health impacts.  This was already known from their participation with NCJFCJ in the “Greenbook Initiative,” (roughly 2000-2008), in association with any number of tax-exempt foundations.

NCJFCJ itself representing the Juvenile and Family Court Justice judges and system at least by its name and boards of directors, being a partner in this Greenbook initiative based on a well-known professor working out of University of Minnesota (school of social work) and then back to University of California (school of social work — he’s the dean…), this is hardly surprising.

The implication in “Domestic Violence, Custody and Child Maltreatment” is thus that these entities will self-correct, and want to, when it comes to protecting women, children, and families.

Just like expecting the leadership of institutions set up in part by private membership associations of judges, lawyers and psychologists working in combination with each other, are likely to voluntarily admit that their creations are controlling, abusive, coercive, and possibly not in the public interest when it comes to juvenile AND family courts both.  They DO, however, like a large tree with deep roots (in the public pocket) and wide branches (in the referral and treatment professions) support a large infrastructure in the private sector, which I guess is good, if you’re working in that population control and manipulation sector.

Oregon to begin offering non-gender option on driver’s license (June 16, 2017, Associated Press):

(AP article 6/16/2017, graphic from the DVM)

Speaking of the gender wars, perhaps people who commit hate crimes against women whether committed by men OR women, should be sentenced to a year in Oregon, no access to private bathrooms, forced consumption of the maximum legally allowable amount of marijuana daily at their own cost, and perhaps (with couples willing to have this) for community service, assist county clerks in issuing same-sex marriage licenses, until they have a change of attitude.  Especially if they’re right-wing and religious both.

(Oh– I “forgot.”  The FBI doesn’t consider that a category.  Instead, it’s “Violence Against Women Act” to stop hate crimes against women based on their being women, with discretionary grantmaking to multi-million-dollar nonprofits (like Futures Without Violence) for prevention and/or services, while hate crimes based on non-heterosexual orientation or changing one’s given gender (LGBTQ), or religious or based on race, can be designated “hate crimes.”  What does that say about the nation’s ambivalence towards women?)

I don’t have much to say about it now, as most of my time and energy was spent on the other about 13,000 words in this post!  Remember to check out the “inset/footnote/call-out page”:

Good Cop, Bad Cop (not to mention Camouflage) in the Federally-Funded Gender War, Classic Examples (Inset, Callout or Footnote to my other 6/24/2017 post) (case-sensitive short-link ends “-74c”). This one is being published a few minutes earlier so the larger one will remain on top in blog order.  Patience!

Several well-written tags were input directly to the post, then lost during a browser disconnect when I hit “Publish.”  I will add them back in later, which will also help emphasize the main point of this post.