Archive for August 29th, 2019
Reform, Solutions, Enhancements, Adjudication Improvements Built on WHAT? (Unproven Because Unspoken Assumptions about the Deliberate Design = the Deliberate Purposes of the Family Courts in the USA?) [Started May 2, 2019, Publ. Aug. 29].
ANY post may be further edited (as in, condensed, or expanded, or both) after publishing. Blogger’s privilege!
Today’s post is:
TITLE COMMENTS: “Why I changed “The Dangers of Derailment” to a rhetorical question: “Reforms …. built on WHAT?..“
As originally summarized in early May, 2019:** for context, see April/May posts…
WHO BUILT THE FAMILY (and “CONCILIATION”) COURTS?** WHEN, WHERE, AND ON WHAT MODELS — WHAT WAS THE DESIGN? WHO HIRED THE BUILDERS? WAS THIS DONE OPENLY, OR PRIVATELY AWAY FROM PEOPLE WHO MIGHT OTHERWISE HAVE PROTESTED, OR VOTED AGAINST IT IN PLACES WHERE VOTES MATTER?
**In the USA, in the UK…in Canada, in Australia and New Zealand… in Europe. But my main perspective is the USA because I live here.
The WHEN is an important part to understand and, if possible, prove beyond reasonable doubt.
Family Court Reform conversations from what I can see in public somehow never get around to the admitting that just perhaps, their actual current form is intentional, by design, and that this design ideally suits the purposes of those who set them up in the first place, whether or not it suits the purposes of the public at large, or people outside that apparently powerfully inter-connected inner circle.
IF an open discussion and genuinely seeking answers* with a sense of urgency existed in the first place, why rule out, eliminate by silence, consideration of any realistically potential or even probable causes or conditions?
*Answers to the problems typically cited/characterized as failure to protect/inflicting harm on children, custody of children going to batterers, children getting murdered, and (to a lesser degree but also reported), murder/suicide events of varying scope, long-term traumatic distress..
~ ~ NOW, for THIS post….~ ~
Today’s post is called:
It originally had three section titles (my spinoff post above may mention this):
1. “Preliminary Chat (Health System Flush with Cash),” 2. “Intro,” and 3. “If it was built, there was a plan.”
After trying again to wrangle (condense) the discussion, I’ve booted “2. Intro” off the list. So now we only have two sections, BOTH of which were written, primarily, in early May, 2019:
1. “Preliminary Chat (Health System Flush with Cash)” and
2. “If it was built, there was a plan.”
It was written starting with what became — it’s my writing style — the third (now second) and final section. In that section, I take the common-sense admission (“if built, there was a plan”) to prod readers, using basic logic, to look at the self-declared** family court builders for some clues as to the blueprints, (<~brief Wiki explanation) rather than the interior decor (furniture, fixtures, etc.) ignoring the architecture itself. **(The “we built it, we’re leading it” declarations seem accurate, and I haven’t found others disputing the claims. If you know of others, please contact me here or on Twitter, and publish a link to that information in a comment ASAP!).
Over the nearly four-month delay publishing this post, besides working (hard!) on the blog appearance (sidebar, top posts, table of contents, etc.) and publishing three spin-off posts directly related to the first section above I also:
<>noticed more current events in “family court reform” including legislation proposed to better protect children in the courts (task forces, commissions, study work groups, etc. in different states (USA) and countries, and a debate at the level of “WHO ICD”), and as I could, explored (extensively) included in my posts and publicized them on Twitter. (I am not a lawyer and did not delve so much into the legislation as the types of responses to them and people involved, which had people in common across several jurisdictions).##
<>continued to develop understanding and I become more acutely aware** how the AFCC has now established a firm connection to the UK’s “CAFCASS” which was established by government — but independent from the main branches — by law in 2001. This connection was predictable and seen coming, however it’s still a significant turning point. Some of this has been expressed in the top two sticky posts on the blog, the second one in more detail; the first, in a footnote: **(i.e., I continued researching and doing targeted look-ups and drill-downs…)
FYI, a CAFCASS member is now on the AFCC Board of Directors, while throughout 2018 it’s become more clear how professional perspectives — moreso than individual parents’ or families’ experiences and perspectives (on either side of the “Pond”) — are being unified in a network which extends obviously beyond the reach of the average citizen or working parent with minor children (or, domestic violence or child abuse survivors) in either country… unless they form and obtain sponsorship, somehow, for their own advocacy groups which might be heard over the already entrenched ones… I’ve been Tweeting on this since at least Sept. 2018, and again on August 9 in more detail, as well as studying it, and talking it up, generally.
## [Paragraph copyedited after posting to clarify that I didn’t propose legislation or respond officially on legislative websites, task forces, etc. I am considering how to draft and deliver/publicize a universal, formal response incorporating key things I’ve noticed which, it seems, those involved did not, or ignored..]
Trying to tweak any system designed to produce a predictable outcome, to instead produce the exact opposite: i.e., justice, and with it, protection from (for example) abuse, or keeping little children — or older ones — or in fact, anyone safe — to me is a form of insanity.
Re-reading this post before publishing it occurred what I mean by “predictable outcome” might still be unclear there. Here’s a short-list (impromptu, four short paragraphs inside maroon & teal borders) of procedures and specialized terms, professions I’m referring to, generally:
Among what seems to be the “designed to produce” structure is diverting people from the criminal justice system when dealing with potentially criminal issues into “dispute resolution” and referrals to further treatments, evaluations, and other handling by a combination of private (but court-connected or pay-to-play certified to get on the referral list) or directly court-funded professions, some of which have been created to accommodate the deluge of repeat visitors when the first sets of referrals intended to “resolve” conflict instead enabled further abuse.
Another intended outcome, it seems to me, is minimizing violence against women and children while insisting on restoring and preserving relationships — at any cost — including supervised visitation, batterers intervention, psychological assessments, custody evaluations (I forgot — start with “mediation), and after the courts allow or facilitate total separation of one parent, then putting it back together through “reunification” camps, programs and services. Parenting Coordination has been set up and tried as a profession; almost as soon as it was started, parents(USA) began suing the courts over violation of their rights.
In the process of adding in as many behavioral scientists and mental health specialists as possible and setting up professions (and making fortunes for some when these can be marketed electronically: Our Family Wizard™, Online Parenting Education programs, etc., specialized jargon increases (“differentiated domestic violence” “parental alienation” being one of them also, and my favorite now engrained one, “high-conflict,” applicable to almost anything — and with specialty courts (see Middletown, Connecticut for a good example).
Overall, increased privatization of the (civil) courts and sharing/spreading around the immunity and quasi-immunity of professions just helping, advising, supporting and encouraging the judiciary in its decision-making seems an intended outcome.
(This text added pre-publication Aug. 28, 2019//LGH)
Whether those engaged in this are themselves as “insane” or illogical as it seems — or perhaps NOT insane or illogical, but instead simply unethical (dishonest, i.e., playing assigned roles in staged battles whose goal isn’t to defeat the opponents on stage, but win over the audience, the spectators), is a good question. These are tactics many of us already know from having lived with controlling, abusive, and violent individuals with whom many of us also had children.
I have my own opinion this, which doesn’t make me welcome in many support circles. Over time, I’ve learned that weakness among protective mothers, including weak focus, follow-through and inability to make wise choices in support groups in the long run, isn’t “supportive.”
Nor is joining, essentially, court-reform cults, and turning on or harassing (passive/aggressive) those who choose not to join.
1. “Preliminary Chat (Health System Flush with Cash),” 2. “If it was built, there was a plan.”**
(**Part 2’s premise: once you admit that, generally, builders have plans and (specifically) the family courts were indeed built, by definition raises the next basic question: By Whom? Who planned it, built it, and holds the blueprints? Answering that question FIRST seems far more sensible than trying FIRST to apply solutions to make the family courts and everyone working in them (judges, and all the others) or taking business from them function to produce, perhaps, the exact opposite outcomes that their design illustrates they, most likely, were built/designed and thus intended to produce.
Section 2 delivers the content most directly related to the title. Sections 1 should provoke more thought and reflection on the much larger framework in which the family courts sit before my call to common sense and attention to specific facts countering said unspoken assumptions which have become built-into the typical solutions demanded.
I might have placed the Section 2 title up a little higher. However, right now it’s pretty far down on the post. I am also exhausted trying to complete this one, and as of Aug. 29, have opted to “punt” and publish it as-is (at this point of development). The second section is actually less complete (other than its plentiful exhortation parts) but I think towards the bottom you’ll see exactly where I’m going. Remember that originally (May/April 2019) the context was questioning the assumption about the “Safe Child” premise in association with “HouseConRes.72.” MUCH has transpired since then, nationally and internationally, so I am just going to publish now — and will update post-publication as I sometimes (often) do… Comments remain open…
1. Preliminary Chat: A health system flush with cash## through anti-tobacco litigation (MSA and the STMSA, two master settlement agreements with “big tobacco” after class action lawsuits instigated by attorneys general of the USA) and ongoing add-on taxation.
## while claiming efficiencies through increased centralization and complaining about any reduction in ongoing funds, …even when that results from successful efforts to change the public’s unhealthy habits (like smoking…) through financial penalties, deterrents and massive media campaigns …
I developed and further detailed this theme on a new post August 7, but some of my exhibits and narrative still remain on this post below. Look for the ones labeled “father-friendly”
A Health System Flush With Cash — because ‘Smoking Causes Cancer’ (1998 Tobacco Class Action Litigation MSA Payments, and Tobacco-Related Taxes Impact ‘in perpetuity’ on Systems Affecting Family Courts) (Begun Early June; Publ. Aug. 7, 2019) post short-link ends “-a6m.” Currently 5,200 words, having just been shortened (split), but this one is still a bit complex. Following the funds has been made complex. Last update, Sunday, August 11, 2019.
That post and two others posted August 14 and 16 (basically one exhibit and an update, the latter providing a link to and sample of the financial statements originally missing) develop and further detail the “health system flush with cash” theme I drafted (early May) as you see here…
This system has by legislation poured even more revenues at state and local (county) level into fields and programming which closely overlaps with those already run through the family court systems: early childhood development, parent education and coaching, consciousness-raising, behavioral modification, and building bodies of evidence that whatever each field proclaimed originally to justify the programming (and build-up of infrastructure within that field) was, of course, right all along, etc., but more research and resources are still needed…
I am certainly not the only person to have written or summarized this information, but I’ll bet I am the only one who has (correctly) connected it to its predictable and probably intentional impact on contested family court proceedings (outcomes) in the 21st century — often contested over the issues child abuse, domestic violence or other criminal behaviors by one, not necessarily both, parents.
I also wonder if anyone else has put both this extra financing together with welfare reform as heading in similar directions administratively and as to intended “designer-family” outcomes, based on gender and marital status of the ideal environments for “human development,” i.e., compliant and correct-ideologically-infused [future] corporate and government workers of [the United States of] America.
Drenching the landscape with fatherhood collectives, councils, and collaboratives, including county-based councils and collectives operating with the label “domestic violence intervention” and of course (as always) “child and family strengthening” policies, increases the likelihood that any man (including a father) or woman (including a mother) in the course of protecting a child, or seeking to retain custody of a child in the family courts, is likely to interface with someone (male or female) who has already been trained — if not brainwashed — into prioritizing “father-friendly agenda” at all levels. Keep reading, please!
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- The compound adjective “Father-Friendly” is used 35 times in 9 pages or here to see more). Same link provided in nearby text (Post, short-link ending “-a2y” in draft still 5/31/2019.
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- (There are 9 pages. My original page-count was somehow just 8; I didn’t correct the “8 pages” annotation on page 1. Whether 8 or 9 pages long it’s still language saturation).or here to see more). Same link provided in nearby text (Post, short-link ending “-a2y” in draft still 5/31/2019.
Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History 