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

Identify the Entities, Find the Funding, Talk Sense!

Archive for September 2019

‘We Must Have a Stomach for the Details and Willingness to Look at the Numbers…’ (Orig. Jan. 2018 on LGH Front Page | Updated, Supplemented & Published Sept. 30, 2019).

leave a comment »

POST TITLE: ‘We Must Have a Stomach for the Details and Willingness to Look at the Numbers…’ (Orig. Jan. 2018 on LGH Front Page | Updated, Supplemented & Published Sept. 30, 2019). (shortlink ending “-aYW”, length:  about 7,500 words)

“…As These Situations** Continue to ‘Morph,’ ‘Evolve’ (and Expand)  Our Collective Stomach for Noticing the Details WILL Impact Our Collective Level of Freedom (LGH Front Page, Sept. 5, 2019).”


THIS POST is an OFF-RAMP with INTRO, REVIEW and INTERNAL CONNECTIONS TO EARLIER WRITINGS.  I moved a short section with details on a specific parent education/anti-parental alienation curriculum targeting parents, a section written probably in January 2018, from my Front Page to this new post.  That starts several paragraphs below, under:

“**These Situations” as referenced in post title:”

This post is also exhortation and some paragraphs are in second person: direct address, not third-person, descriptions.  The direct address tends to draw of my experience on-line (admittedly limited, but I have been blogging a long time, and Tweeting, at times more intensely, several years, commenting on others blogs, on-line journals, formerly more active in forums, etc.  So there is a basis for that subjective “grow up!” commentary).  As usual, it’s subject to further revision and I’ll likely move the “Read More” link up higher after a few days or a week. //LGH.

It shows a drill-down, related posts previously posted on the topic (and the main organization featured) and some tactics used in concealing the money trail originators were and still are so eager to access, that is, forced-consumption of behavioral modification classes as a market niche feeding off public institutions — often through judicial order to start, followed by attempts to then legislate it into practice, and involving the family courts.

Those who came up with these concepts were “insiders” obviously aware which federal funding streams were most likely to support it before it hit the public conscience, as they have continued to this day.  Family courts and anything dealing with young children (and young children’s parents) were always a target population.

Talk about reforming family courts because of their corrupt, flawed, broken, or unsafe status decision-making is beside the point until the infrastructure — basic financial details, gatekeepers, and To/From sources of revenue — is exposed.  There’s a movement and attempts to get parents (especially mothers) to self-identify as “dumb” by re-tweeting, posting, circulating references to numbers without any surrounding context on social media.  Circulating such things without fact-checking, or demanding more specifics from the source IS dumb; it shows gullibility and puts a “for-sale” sign on the promoters.


How hard it is to respond with a “Sez Who” or “When?” instead of mindlessly RT-ing or re-Posting? As a group, are “we” really so co-dependent on others’ approval that asking that is a new group dynamic? That’s cult-like behavior, and encourages more of the same.  If you’re going to engage in such behavior, then quit complaining when your kids are taken by others of similar behavior intent to program them unfairly against you, for profit or just for fun and spite.  It’s time to grow up and expect others around you, for continued associations, to start doing the same.  Adulthood can be contagious, but it’s not time-free or a free ride mentally.  If it’s not put together FOR YOU as an engaging story, then your attention wanders?  …. 


(Moving on,…): The goal of centralized control of not just the system, but also reform of the system mimicks specific business models becoming popular around the same time, but developed earlier (i.e., I call it the Harvard/Bain/Bridgespan model:  University Center (for credibility and citations), Bain (a consulting company with strong political — and Harvard/Boston connections) and “Bridgespan” representing the philanthropic (i.e., nonprofit niche) consulting. I don’t care if people call it something else, just that they get a glimpse of it by sticking their OWN heads into some of the documents which aren’t 100% spin, advertising, and vague, and quit making excuses for not doing so.  Learn to chew on the information and spit out what’s roughage, not real substance.

Look if an abuser continues to tell you you’re stupid, can’t do anything, incompetent, as an excuse for hiding his (or her) financials within a household, while engaging in theft, threats, bullying, and other forms of violence, would you know that’s wrong?  So what’s the big difference when the same behaviors occur on macro-economic and micro-economic sectors too?

Develop a stomach for the details now; it’s already late in this game, and understanding it really does help.


HERE, I wrote and inserted three inset (boxed sections with bulleted lists and hyperlinks) listing connecting to other posts to This post introduction and off-ramped section:  In order, these insets are:

  • KIDS’ TURN POSTS (in Introduction), and
  • HEALTH SYSTEMS FLUSH WITH CASH prior posts
  • PARENTAL KIDNAPPING posts, because they overlaps with KIDS’ TURN creators,..

…KIDS’ TURN Creators who just so happen to have strong connections to the AFCC (Association of Family and Conciliation Courts) which also has maintained throughout high interested in convening, conferencing, and coordinating internationally, at least in Commonwealth (and some European) countries how to run their own programming through what increasingly looks like a privatized court system run internationally also, parallel to the public ones, but with different standards (and more conflicts of interest built in).  While this is now more out in the open (see my Twitter threads on CAFCASS, AFCC, and NCJFCJ and the involvement of private UK famous foundations such as Nuffield, Leverhulme, etc.) it’s always been there as I was reminded in revisiting some of the earliest posts.

If you’re unfamiliar with “KIDS’ TURN” specifically as started in California, by looking at this understand that it stands in for “Parent Education Psych-Educational Re- (or De-)Programming,” was sold as an antidote or vaccination against “parental alienation” (which sold well in certain quarter obviously), it was a FRANCHISE operating through Nonprofits, and its founders being highly positioned within the state-level court systems (i.e., AFCC had staff members at the California Judicial Council AOC/CFCC as well as consulting retired judges, other judges etc. working throughout the system for many years), PARENT EDUCATION was in California one of only three limited purposes for those Access/Visitation Grants, and it in general represents a developed field, specialized, and intentionally “vertical” monopoly, self-sustaining once up and running.

Whether or not the classes successfully turned kids’ heads or immunized them against “parental alienation” isn’t the issue.  Setting up the business operations was, and still is.  Getting on the “community referrals” list at local courts, organizing it over larger geography for referrals (particularly to AFCC membership) and setting up the direct ability for donors to the private nonprofits to, potentially, bribe a judge with an open case before them also on the board (or staff) of said nonprofits. 

It has crossed my mind more than once that my coming out of nowhere as an unknown blogger in 2011 to showing some of the “Kids’ Turn” board members, court contracts, and set-up may have had something to do with its eventually going underground (as shown below on this post, which I’ve had up almost two years now in part).  I certainly don’t know for sure, but I do know my posting at the time was intentional, and that imitation operations under slightly different names can be seen in other states.


At the post bottom (short) section (tan background) comments briefly on how databases I’ve used since starting this blog at times change, or change hands.  This complicates tracking programming over time.  Generally, I find it really hard (without a letter-writing campaign or multiple subscriptions to databases which may or may not have this information) to get information pre-dating this century.  That’s a problem when so many key organizations running program started in the 1970s (some) 1980s (many more) and even 1990s (still more, especially the kind dependent on massive public grants to exist):

  • PUBLIC (GOVT-OWNED) AND PRIVATE DATABASES ALSO CHANGE, EVOLVE, ARE BOUGHT & SOLD.

While that’s obvious, it’s also significant, but I don’t have much to say other than point it out, this time.


The post is exhortation and show and tell, and also that I’ve been saying this for years now, under MY banner:  “Let’s Get HONEST.” That’s a group effort, not a solo effort.  Getting honest I find more than getting “even” (unlikely), or even some form of imaginary revenge without consideration about who might already be counting on that motive to move ALL system even further away from accountability.

The stomach for details and willingness to look at the numbers are basic survival skills and essential to safeguard against, essentially, crooks who know how to play both the words and the numbers to access public resources and sell policy.  There is no substitute for the conceptual understanding of whether or not, and if not, how, books can be cooked, tales spun, and how a legitimate cause, so stated, so often masks fake advocacy by simply withholding and failing to operate “above-board” when the operations involve public funds.

Some private organizations don’t need, except enough to justify tax-exempt status and don’t directly take public funds; they are privately funded but target the public institutions we still support.  Read enough tax returns and you’ll see many of these also pay cities, counties, school districts, and/or universities (both public and private) to run pilots of their coordinated (or, proprietary) causes which eventually, most people will be subjected to and pay for through taxation.


More can always be done as there is always more to research and because organizations tend to “evolve” constantly in this sector, but my main concern is how few people seem to be even starting to look such things up, admit they exist, and after admitting they exist, speak of them in terms of what they are as much as what they’re doing.

“What they are” individually, if it’s an “entity” is going to be either public or private; if private, it may be a whether a nonprofit taking mostly government funding, mostly or only private funding, or some of both, or a part of government itself.  It is where the two sectors connect, start mimicking each other in project and purpose names that the support for them — which comes from the public “purse” in many ways, and should be taken personally if squandered, lost, or misappropriated.

When you start reading tax returns (which should happen soon if it hasn’t, including — try it on for size — some really big ones: just look at the categories, browse for general understanding) it should not take too long to run across private foundations which are, systematically, directly grantsing funds to government  entities across jurisdiction lines (i.e., in-state, out-of-state from wherever the foundation is registered) to promote or test private-purpose programming.

It’s rarely a one-way or interest-free street, the “commerce” (information, capacity-building, Social Science R&D, etc.) between private and government functions.

Read the rest of this entry »

“If Parental Kidnapping (Domestic or International) is ALWAYS Child Abuse, Where do the UN CRC and the Hague Convention fit in? (D. Huntington then ℅ AFCC-related* The (Judith Wallerstein) Center for the Family In Transition, M.W. Agopian, N. Faulkner (1999), Merle H. Weiner (2000, Fordham)” [Published** Sept. 21, 2019] 

leave a comment »

ANY post may be further edited (as in, condensed, or expanded, or both) after publishing. Blogger’s privilege!

**This Post publicizes (a link to and) a Jan. 23, 2018 backgrounder Page I just discovered languishing in “Pending” status until now, corrected at once, and am calling to your attention, especially given ~the times we are in and ~as related to the one I just published last Friday.  Both links are now also added to my Front Page, labeled (for now): (“[LGH Frontpage Subsection #3)) as the related post’s title also reflects.

This Post “If Parental Kidnapping (Domestic or International) is ALWAYS Child Abuse, Where do the UN CRC and the Hague Convention fit in? (D. Huntington then ℅ AFCC-related* The (Judith Wallerstein) Center for the Family In Transition, M.W. Agopian, N. Faulkner (1999), Merle H. Weiner (2000, Fordham)” [Published** Sept. 21, 2019] (short-link ends: “psBXH-b8j” (exactly 777 words because it exists only to publish and link to two related subjects, some historic, some more “current events” both in system changes and in media coverage of the family court system).

…exists to publicize this PAGE, recently re-published with updates:

If Parental Kidnapping (Domestic or International) is ALWAYS Child Abuse, Where do the UN CRC and the Hague Convention fit in? (D. Huntington then ℅ AFCC-related* The (Judith Wallerstein) Center for the Family In Transition, M.W. Agopian, N. Faulkner (1999), Merle H. Weiner (2000, Fordham), published as a page Sept. 19, 2019, this PAGE’s short-link ends “PsBXH-8q5″)

Yes, the title closely resembles the one you’re now reading, intentionally.  If in doubt which is which, pick one of these two and read them, then read the other one also!

That page lays out again, extensively, several topics I’ve been discussing recently in both 2018 and 2019, particularly how international connections around the family court themes are happening. Some of this will show in other parts, but this page is about 10,000 words long and I believe the handling (display, explanations) is more thorough.  It’s good to know regardless of which side of any “Pond” (Ocean) or the USA’s Great Lakes (northern border) you might be on, including the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean.  Geography is not my long suit.  Organizations across several countries are trying to internationally align family court practices, principles, standards, legislation, and who gets to re-structure them and their infrastructures in what manner.  Familiarity helps.

That Page which I’d written around the same time, that is, January 23, 2018, but has much more background information on its topic. The top half to two-thirds of it is very timely and current, and the “backgrounder” information at the bottom relates to current players in the family court (circuses) and shows some of their behaviors.  That background information is closer to the bottom of the page.

I believe that a good drill-down (once understood) any day of the year trumps (sorry!) several years of sound-bytes + boilerplate, so-called “investigative reporting” on the Crisis in the Family Courts, including dead-kid counts citing professionals whose basic few theme attempts to get inside the head of family court decision-makers and decide what side of a deceased man’s psychological beliefs one is on — and calls that science. That it’s not even cause-and-effect reason clear enough, no matter how many times the words “empirical” “analysis” and “data” are emphasized throughout (who’s tracking that?) after a decade or so of “58,000 children a year” (year in, year out) — and no reference to nonprofits, federal funding of fatherhood, federal funding of fatherhood programming that now permeates the USA’s violence prevention powerhouses anyhow, and managing not to say “AFCC” in public while it’s not exactly deep-sea-diving to realize the entity exists, publishes a journal and what affiliations to many of that journal’s boards of directors hold.

That’s tough to do if one is on the same food chain (whether big fish or little fish hanging with some REALLY big fish) and — this is my theory — assigned a role to play such that no honest discussion of that food chain will take place.


RE: the above two links: If you’re going to pick an example, I believe being among the earlier ones around (and AFCC-connected of course), we might as  well understand who and what we’re dealing with, or the policies and operational practices they’ve mentored new professionals into. You’ll see!

Follow the funding.  Make it a habit. Then contact me, thanks! (That DONATE button ln the sidebar still works, last I checked, too! If/when I ever go non-profit, “you’ll be the first to know” (i.e., on the sidebar).


“And while I’m here,” the RELATED, SIMILAR BUT NOT IDENTICAL and ALREADY POSTED (thus showing up in the usual places, which pages don’t do automatically) post which actually has less background detail — but  a  short “MSM Current Events”  update.

Just recently posted, as an Off-ramped Section from the Front Page: Families In Transition due to Parental Kidnapping |An archaeological dig on who quotes whom (Canadian CRC, Nancy Faulkner, Dorothy Huntington, ‘Parental Alienation’): [LGH Frontpage Subsection #3 Sept. 4, 2019, Published Sept. 19](short-link ends “PsBXH-aWh”) moved here from my home page…  Originally written about Jan. 2018, but with the move includes a quick segment linking to a recent (9/17/2019) DeseretNews.com story featuring my favorite broken-record-initiative family court reformists, give or take (typically) a new name from time to time and a slight tweak in sound-bytes.  Which accounts for some of my particular sarcasm just above.

And which sound-byte approach offends me deeply, as it has from the start of this blog, knowing as an domestic violence survivor and mother what I discovered without being “on-salary” or under contract for doing so (except a personal contract with my conscience and my concern for future generations.  //LGH

Families In Transition due to Parental Kidnapping | An archaeological dig on who quotes whom (Canadian CRC, Nancy Faulkner, Dorothy Huntington, ‘Parental Alienation’): [LGH Frontpage Subsection #3 Sept. 4, 2019, Publ. Sept. 19].

leave a comment »

This post holds a section from my Front Page* September, 2019, I’ve called:

Families In Transition due to Parental Kidnapping |An archaeological dig on who quotes whom (Canadian CRC, Nancy Faulkner, Dorothy Huntington, ‘Parental Alienation’): [LGH Frontpage Subsection #3 Sept. 4, 2019, Published Sept. 19]. (short-link ends “-aWh,” as off-ramped, under 4,000 words written, probably between January and December 2018; with lead-in, about twice that). Some of my lead-in comments were made earlier, some are made just before (I expect) publishing September 19, 2019.

*That section is far down on the front page (see nearby image):

After publishing this, I found the related page which may have more substantial drill-down on the topic.  Both should be read together (or in sequence!).  I now have added that link to the front page also.  The Page (which I posted to alert readers to also, making now three different links on the overlapping topics) is called:

Title: If Parental Kidnapping (Domestic or International) is ALWAYS Child Abuse, Where do the UN CRC and the Hague Convention fit in? (D. Huntington then ℅ AFCC-related* The (Judith Wallerstein) Center for the Family In Transition, M.W. Agopian, N. Faulkner (1999), Merle H. Weiner (2000, Fordham) (moved here Jan. 18, 2018, from my then-new home page…, published as a page Sept. 19, 2019, and a new post, Sept. 20) PAGE short-link (now published) ends “PsBXH-8q5″)

Subtitle:  Do these international agreements effectively help OBSTRUCT attempted international escape from DV, while domestically in the USA, both AFCC-driven family court policy and post-PRWORA (1996), in fact, at least since “Moynihan” (1965)  federal social policy also obstruct such escape?

“LGH|FCM Jan 2018 One Post, One Page (Section3 offramp Sept. 2019)…| D Huntington, N Faulkner, AFCC 54th, Canadian CRC etc ~~Screen Shot 2019-Sept. “

Besides the “archeological dig” I’ve added to the top half reference to yet another “family court crisis” media posting; it came up in the context of information I did not have, timely, at the time this happened to my family line.

It comes up year after year while others are not writing about the: operations, practices, and particularly not (accurately) about the history of the family courts themselves (or, their blueprints and builders)….It’s extremely frustrating over time to see the level of comprehension and reporting has barely edged forward.   But otherwise it’s basically on-topic with the post title.

This post shows drill-downs, but was written in more than one installment, is informal, and some paragraphs repeat content.  Until it gets to the text originally off-ramped, it may not flow smoothly. It’s not designed as any “heavyweight” post, but I think some of the links are worth considering.

This time, that’s OK (for purposes here). It’s not my best writing, but it’s information I decided to re-post as a re-minder to do drill-downs, ‘question authority,’ question standard explanations, and just ask more questions: to pay more attention to seemingly minor details, presentation formats, and from this perspective, re-consider the overall landscape. We should exercise every right and opportunity to ask “on what basis”? and then critically examine any stated basis.  It’s especially important to ask this to oneself when reading, as well as aloud and (with discretion) to others.

I’m just making a few points in hindsight, in case it may help others, and to say, I can relate to how it felt to be reading that laws exist to protect against child abduction, essays have been written about how harmful it is, and then the courts ignore it, ignore domestic violence, risk and more; and you’re there in the state of “what-the-_____??!!”  and “why?”

And in this re-traumatized // indignant or outraged state, and in the fight of your life, others looking collected, organized, and with websites to match the come-on, offer suggestions why the family court professionals just don’t “get” this and why you should, with them, push for more oversight, trainings, and to hire specially qualified consultants about domestic violence IN the family courts (etc.) to make ’em better….

And tell your story (anonymously or with actual name attached) to the local investigative news reporter wanting to make a name for him or herself and/or the related media.  Or send them in to the advocacy group who will then present the case on your behalf to Congress or state legislatures for better laws (when the existing ones aren’t even enforced), etc. — and pitch it to media also, making sure they are building brand awareness and personal name recognition as if genuinely concerned about the murdered and abducted children.

Read the rest of this entry »

Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up

September 19, 2019 at 4:19 pm

Health Systems Still Flushing Cash into — WHERE is it going again? (About 20 Years AFTER Tobacco Master Settlement Agreements, Other Tobacco Tax Revenues like Prop 10 in California Propping Up Public/Private “First 5” Circuitry) [May-June, 2019, Publ. Sept. 18].

leave a comment »

Another post held in draft now being released… From its contents below:

This post punctuates the overall message with the vastness of systems change 1999-2019 IN ADDITION TO major changes mid-1990s due to Welfare Reform + VAWA (also especially advancing public relations consultants and media owners), both …set up two decades ago.

Sure, it takes some concentration to follow, but no apologies offered!  Concentration is a helpful quality in life, as well as judgment on what to focus on and for how long!

Another choice quote from this post:

This fills in some of the billion-dollar-background context which sheds light on what the intense focus on “Zero to Three” “First 5” and “Early Childhood Education” special interest group coalition leaders know well that probably has escaped substantial notice of the paying public.

The coalitions happen at university and state leadership area backed by philanthropies (tax-exempt foundations) that often just do not even post their own financials, let alone post them in both legible and functional formats.

I wouldn’t dare make that last sentence if I hadn’t found it, repeatedly.  Really, the situation is shocking.

One foundation associated with a center listed below, at some point during recent drill-downs, I found claiming to have donated over a four-year period a total of one million dollars to an organization which actual organization (by its name) was at the time IRS-revoked status in Florida, while the foundation tax return recorded a Massachusetts address, as I recall, directly associated with this center, i.e., with Harvard. (Foundation: Alliance for Early Success, which is listed as an investor in the center).  Not posted here; that’s just my comment. If you want to see this, start looking for and looking up tax returns, then looking up among their larger grantees! I do not recall offhand whether I actually published any post containing that drill down, but probably have provided some links to it within the last three months)



Why posting this now, a bit out of sequence from recent themes?  Take a look at it below!  Would YOU go to all that trouble and detail and not publish? It also contains summary (first) and many valuable points of reference, I feel, below that.

It helps provide an overview of a system which the originators of the system so far have not and do not seem inclined to offer the public, from the perspective of expecting systems for fiscal accountability to exist within the United States, even in the tax-exempt sector, which we all know is interacting significantly with the public sector, which we fund every time we work and receive a paycheck, and in countless other ways when receiving or seeking services or accessing ANY of the vast infrastructure privately owned by the federal and state governments (as to USA) which frame our lives continually.

I see on reviewing this one just before publishing that in addition to the topic referenced, I’d also just recently run across “Harvard Center on the Developing Child” which intersects with subject matter of the family courts because of the psychology/education/early-childhood subject matter and professions organized, generally, into private societies by geography or special interests, so often accessing U.S. Health and Human Services grants and contracts.

THIS POST’s TITLE:  Health Systems Still Flushing Cash into — WHERE is it going again? (About 20 Years AFTER Tobacco Master Settlement Agreements + Other Tobacco Tax Revenues like Prop 10 in California Propping Up Public/Private “First 5” Circuitry) [May-June, 2019, Published Sept. 18].  (Shortlink ending “-aaH,” and (unbelievably) under 5,000 words)

SUBJECT MATTER CONTEXT: The most closely related post was published August 7, 2019 (which no longer shows on the “Last Ten Posts” widgets shown below as images or on the blog sidebar): 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.

I’ve been trying to get out a “By Now We Should Know” post for almost two months now, while trying to deftly knit together some complex information as a backdrop to that basically simple post.


LGH|FCM post (pre-publict’n) Admin, ‘Health Systems Still Flushing w Cash’ Last Revs 3 months ~|~ 3 wks ago (June vs Aug 2019) (see June22 published post) ~~SShot 2019-09-18

LGH|FCM Sidebar ‘Last Ten Posts’ viewed in 2 images ~~>Screen Shot 2019-09-18 (Image #1 of 2)

[Sept. 19, 2019 Pre-Publication UPDATE: “By Now We Should Know” was published June 22, 2019.]

Meanwhile, I’ve also been working on blog front-page and trying to stay current with developing (family court legislative reform and government restructuring) events. (See small image, below-right)

I could just show here an image of the top of “By Now We Should Know” but feel it’s more helpful to provide it in-post, with active links.  So this post (otherwise complete at under 5,000 words) starts below with an updated section, added Sept. 18, 2019, after which I have published it basically “as-is” meaning, as it was, as written (last previous edit) August 28, 2019).

LGH|FCM Sidebar ‘Last Ten Posts’ viewed in 2 images ~~>Screen Shot 2019-09-18 (Image #2 of 2)

I’m also posting FYI here from the blog sidebar (as of today) annotated images to show the last ten posts reflecting some of the current content and (back through Aug. 15, 2019) the one most recently dealing with this Health System Flush With Cash” (see nearby, one on the left, the other on the right)…

This information is of course easy to see now (without annotation) under that sidebar widget; I’m including here only for future reference,  for anyone including myself who may be reading this post possibly months or a year or more from now). That situation comes up from time to time, as you’ll see below where I reference the “Harvard/Bain/Bridgespan topic” I posted on earlier, and how large an impact it had on the US economy (for starters) in the 1980s and 1990s.  Basic concepts to keep in mind and timeframes to remember (i.e., those LBO leveraged buyout years, major players, and more)…//LGH Sept. 19, 2019.

TOP SECTION, “BY NOW WE SHOULD KNOW” (encased in red borders, cream-colored background, with “Two Helpful Links” configuration also shown (as on that post)), published June 22, 2019:

“By Now We Should Know!” (Impromptu Re-cap of Key Players addressing [how to handle] Domestic Violence especially as it impacts Family Courts) (Apr 28 ~> June 22, 2019).  (short-link ending “-9NU,” post drafted as insert to “More Perspectives” in late April, under 4,000 words, for starters…). (now exactly 6,000 words; latest revisions for clarity and extra links, 6/23/2019).
Read the rest of this entry »

Caught! Chronically Usurping Communication btw. Government and the Governed, Pushing Back Legal Boundaries Set by Subject Matter and Geopolitical (State and National Borders), Undermining, basically, The USA [Published Sept. 16, 2019].

leave a comment »

Caught! Chronically Usurping Communication btw. Government and the Governed, Pushing Back Legal Boundaries Set by Subject Matter and Geopolitical (State and National Borders), Undermining, basically, The USA [Published Sept. 16, 2019] (“-b4j”, about 8,600 words with footnotes).  [Over one dozen tags, only added Oct. 2.  This post covers key important basics influencing family courts’ purposes & principles]

(Top part — discussion.  Mostly prose, my writing.  If you want the individual professors’ organizations’ or advocates’ names, more pictures, and links, scroll down!  Based on the original word count above, I added about 2,200 words, including those long titles to connecting posts, so that’s not too far.  Tags for this post are shown on the previous (“Builders”) one.  Publishing as-is, without extensive copyediting and without apology. . //LGH Sept. 16.)

This post continues from the bottom of:

Builders and their Blueprints: Who, Really, Designed the Family Courts, How, and Since When? (“The Evidence Speaks”) [Started Aug. 17, 2019, Published Sept. 15].(short-link ends “-aI6” and the middle character is a capital “I” as in the pronoun,  or as in “Idaho.)

For the immediate context of that discussion, go to the very bottom of that post, which has a link to here. Handling the Blueprints/Builders topic above brought up the topics, and specific university centers, psychologists, and nonprofit government-advising institutions (i.e., Brookings Institution, in the USA) engaged in facilitating the usurpation.  I’d also brought up (quoted) an article on the “Transnational Ruling Class, … or Anglo-American Establishment” referring to the historic close, friendly, relations between the RIIA (London) and the CFR (USA). I searched those two terms as symbolic of the ongoing, functional undermining/ bypassing of local (i.e., within national boundaries) representative government in “developed” countries.  There’s a direct connection to the family law practices through, Tavistock Relationships (<~~that Wiki, while flagged, is still informative in this context), formerly Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships, but also through historic development of the “psych” fields in Europe, what’s now the UK, Canada, the USA and globally. Particularly psychoanalysis (Freud & following) traditions are troubling when entrenched in government practices.

There, I had referenced and quoted:

This undermining of jurisdiction and the effectiveness of geopolitical (national, and within the USA, state, borders) process through perpetually-created crises has been taking place for at least a century, (For example, on the RIIA-CFR topic: Think Tanks and Power in Foreign Policy pp 189-214,CFR-RIIA Interconnections: A Transnational Ruling Class, Liberal Atlantic Community or Anglo-American Establishment? by Inderjeet Parmar, (“Chatham House” referring to the RIIA factor).

My post title here is generic but the original, specific details on this post cover common recent themes and situations in my blogging.  If I were to list them, I’d say:  “Psychologists and other Patriarchs, and their habitat: university centers” and then simply name specific ones, calling attention to in which countries they  were, the specific (i.e., Michael Lamb, Nicholas J. Cummings, Milton H. Erikson) professionals’ spheres of current and recent operation (also relevant here) and who mentored them, and how (Byron R. McCandless, Frieda Fromm Reichman) — which was the “new to me” part of this post, meaning, it’s not just a re-hash of material I’ve already said, posted, or otherwise covered.  There is much review, but it’s not just review!


Also, who mentored those mentors, for example, such as Kurt Lewin, at the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station (1933-1945) he ran after emigration from Nazi Germany, and how it influenced funding and directions in American psychology.  I’ve also included reminders about what scope of studies are involved in the Princeton-Brookings-Columbia (and now University of Cambridge) connections, as well as the patriarchy behind “Fragile Families” research, ongoing…  Just look for the more colorful parts of this post….


FYI: To think you can handle the women’s rights or “domestic (or family) violence (or abuse) prevention” field as somehow separate from all that is mistaken.  They are two arms off the same tree trunk. and tap root. The important thing (in my opinion) is locating the root system, its nutrients, and in which direction its growing. Both arms off the same trunk want to treat  and train as many people as possible, coordinate and saturate government with their knowledge, and, to the extent possible depending on just how gullible or vulnerable the public is, pretend the other arm doesn’t exist.   In addition, they want to get to ALL children as they are being born for proper rearing, and are using “violence prevention” or, alternately, “fatherhood promotion” or “evidence-based child development” (etc.) rationale for doing this.

(Example:  Harvard Center on the Developing Child and its extended reach/special sponsors, involvement of “The Frameworks Institute” and so forth).  The tangled mixture of participants, if laid out side by side and sorted into their respective categories, including “unidentified” then laid onto a chronology (identified date of origin) would be, I suppose, like a combination of the finds from an archeological/anthropological dig.  Except that it’s recent, and the artifacts  are being created at the speed of: collaboration, electronic transmission of data, and travel expenses for personal conferences, website expenses for webinars, most of it written off as exercised in some nonprofit format.


I’ve DONE some digs like that on this blog (check out a few posts from April, 2017 on a center at Brown University involving the Annenberg Foundation: yegads!), with the results being characterized — properly — as “dense walls of text.”  One recurring challenge — I’m intent to use vocabulary which categorizes according to public or private sector, entity or non-entity (which most centers within universities are), whether tax-exempt or not, and who is in which legal domicile — while the power-players and their hired/sponsored professionals in same sectors (both public AND private!) seek to do, and successfully do the exact opposite — blurred, meldedpersona… and they hire consultants to coach them how to do this!  The public, thus the more confused it is (we are) the less able they are to resist sales tactics or manipulations into, if nothing else, ongoing passive consent.  This is so much! like the tactics abusers also use on their targets.

I am also Tweeting on this, as it comes up (i.e., most days) along similar lines though of course mostly focused on this subject matter.

IF neither the UK and Canada has, as the USA does (however effective is another question, but we do have) any requirement to disclose their respective charities’ (tax-exempt entities’) tax returns — NOT the same as financial statements, audited or otherwise — that the public, theoretically, anyone with [un-censored by their own government] access to the internet regardless of national origin (it’s on the internet, in other words) could look up and look at, and learn from over time (and specifically as to individual tax-exempt entities which are required to file) then it’s quite possible this might only be dismantled and comprehended from the USA point of view.

Some organizations post “available upon request” or “available for inspection at our offices” but that’s impractical for any overview and financially burdensome to the person seeking it.  Some organizations do seem “open and transparent” by posting theirs, but on closer look many are partial, many are not even close to the most recent tax year’s (or the year’s before) and many when it comes to tax returns, may have related entities — with money moving between them — but only post one of the entities’ 990s.  There seem to be dozens, if not hundreds, of ways to put off the interested member of the public from getting to the truth of their fiscal operations or even status.

Unless there is some parallel in other countries for developing an understanding and perspective of how their own government revenues are collected, disbursed, and most important — accounted for (invested).  (See “Walter Burien” (currently out of Arizona) for more and concise summaries of this type of information on CAFRs, he says, reporting on it since 1989. He has a mailing list and while emails are rare (i.e., your inbox won’t be cluttered with solicitations), when they come they are very effective communication).


Read the rest of this entry »

Builders and their Blueprints: Who, Really, Designed the Family Courts, How, and Since When? (“The Evidence Speaks”) [Started Aug. 17, 2019, Published Sept. 15].

leave a comment »

This post is:

Builders and their Blueprints: Who, Really, Designed the Family Courts, How, and Since When? (“The Evidence Speaks”) [Started Aug. 17, 2019, Published Sept. 15].(short-link ends “-aI6” — the middle character is capital “I” as in the personal pronoun or “Idaho; with post-publication addition, 8,800 words.

One of my recent posts,

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)., (short-link ending “-9PC” started May 2, 2019, revisited and expanded June 6-8, “sure hope to publish soon” status, Aug. 6-7,  and finally (!) published August 29 ,

as you can see was in process since May 2, but only published nearly four months later.  Why:  for whatever reasons, some perhaps relating to my strong emotions dealing with the longstanding topic, it was just not coming together:  Adding on wasn’t working.  Off-ramping wasn’t working either.  Finally I figured I should stick with the original idea, resist the temptation to elucidate so much, and let most of those extras go.

Sometimes obstructions to a smooth-flowing post may also relate to personal challenges which can impact the overall fluency of this type of writing, which requires undistracted focus.  (See “Footnoted Feelings 9/13,”  “Footnote: Anecdotal Narrative” and “ANECDOTAL INDIGNATION: also FOOTNOTED!” both of which came up earlier in the composition of this post).  You will be able to see those footnotes better when I publish them. They are now officially evicted from THIS discussion (post)! to: ‘Anecdotal Narrative | Indignation (Aug. 2019) and Feelings (Sep. 2019) Footnoted (from Builders and Their Blueprints post) [started Sept. 14, 2019] (short-link ends “-b41” and the last character is a number). 

As part of that “let it go” effort, I now have this post, which better explains a key theme of that one — common sense says, before choosing Reforms, Solutions, Enhancements** or Adjudication Improvements, ask, and find out who were the builders and show the blueprints which show purpose/design, intent.

**FAMILY COURT PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENTS?

(** a snide reference to — but also reminder of — “FCEP,” Family Court Enhancement Project, USA, started about 2008; I’ve posted on it (search the acronym); pilot programs stacked with AFCC professionals). (On looking for prior posts, (Search “FCEP on the blog here) I see my original intent to post more on the FCEP dates to June 29, 2014, (with a Feb. 2016 update) — the LAST post I was able to make for about 1.5 yrs while handling a personal situation which had heated up — even through both (our) children are now adults.  Stemming from, originally, family court (mis)handling of an existing, known domestic violence/wife-battering-involved marriage with children.

For a general idea and some search strings on existing family court reform movements (mostly but not all in the USA), see these tags from the first post in search results for “FCEP” on this blog  That sticky post, near the top, deals with the topic of “Censorship” (although it begins “Welcome To My Blog… Let’s Talk!”).

FCEP seems to have followed up on (but not changed course much from) “The Greenbook Initiative” which was run about 2001-2008. Meanwhile, another joint Wingspread Conference was held on related topics around 2007/2008 (<=nearly a dozen years ago!). Given who was running this, what unspoken, unproven assumptions drive the last dozen years of reforms being promoted by those involved in for example, the “Collective Memo of Concern re: parental alienation” to WHO?” and similar task forces, legislative propositions in individual states in the USA?

LGH tags for post in top position on search results (on the blog only) for FCEP:

,

Current Family Court Reform Practice doesn’t even acknowledge blueprints or builders exist:

Why not?  I can’t say for sure, but I can see why this might be a real problem to some:

  • To acknowledge that builders exist would be to identify them, correctly, as nonprofits, a form many of the “family court reformists” also assume for handy references when quoting themselves and/or each other.
  • To understand that builders exist and, correctly, identify them as nonprofits is to understand MUCH more about who each of them is, how (honestly or not) they fill out tax returns, where (by category at least) their revenues, if anything much, come from.  Looking at organizations as nonprofits and business operations (micro, inactive, medium, or “mongo” — huge) speaks often louder than the graphics, logos, pictures, and repetitive mutual-back-slapping and footnoting (in academic publications on-line) ever does.
  • To understand the above is en route to also better understanding our own government, which continues to deal with and heed the counsel of  NON-representative NON-elected PRIVATE, purposes of the few who are so intent for application of their programs (developed through and run through, often tax-exempt organizations) on the many at the cost of, mostly, the many for the long-term profit of, mostly, the few. These “few” prefer to utilize tax-exempt format for organization — a format governments also operate within. Governments pay payroll taxes for their own employees BUT their profits aren’t taxed.

There’s a natural affinity between the two sectors and it’s natural to switch employment after terms of office may finish from one sector to the other sector.  Former government employees with their developed contacts can be grrrreat for nonprofits who seek contracts and grants from the same.

The US government and from what I can tell the various state governments already operate, despite constant talks of BUDGET deficit, at profit, and holding those investment assets (Topic: CAFR, searchable on and off this blog).  The ongoing taxation merely seems to front the long-term-debt on the front end by projecting it forward endlessly. That this goes places it can’t be tracked, ℅ chameleon, MIA, and merging/sub-merging in and out of existence nonprofit I’ve brought up repeatedly throughout this blog, and identified repeatedly in the “marriage/fatherhood” grants, but not only that funding stream.

Similar behaviors found within massive system change in public education (backing of major private tax-exempt foundations and involvement of university “center”  or “Institute” for [A,B,C,or D…]” often involved: (AISR/CES** at Brown University<~on this blog, see esp. my April 11, 2017 (<~~Read!!)(shocked/indignant post) and not too long ago, an example in the “early childhood education” field involving a Warren Buffett (i.e., Berkshire Hathaway shares-backed) foundation (Alliance for Early Success)  [**Annenberg Institute for School Reform/Coalition for Essential Schools].

Yes, story-telling with bright colors may distract from the fiscal outlines and behaviors of the foundations involved (see next image).

I noticed “Alliance for Early Success” through “Harvard Center on the Developing Child, which again has a lot of graphics, websites, personal profiles of involved people and lists of “investors” but when you go for the “Drill-down” by EIN# of what is registered, what isn’t, that’s an entirely different perspective: I’ve gone for this info., repeatedly, researching specific subject matter as it comes up).

Earlier in 2019 I have some posts on this topic, just referencing it again here, 9/15/2019. Look at the foundation names at “earlysuccess.org” (home page slide-show (with left sidebar stable) continues the story-telling and advertising. Notice “Buffett” is near the top, but Pritzker (Current Gov. of Illinois is a Pritzker), Gates, Casey (big in Foster care and responsible fatherhood also), Heising-Simons (I looked up, you can too); Packard obviously computer-related. etc.

This  behavior is more than ‘normal,’ it’s become seemingly standard practice. USA schools (by recall, offhand) where I’ve noticed (in course of writing this blog) include: Harvard, MIT, Yale, Brown, Princeton, Columbia University (NYC), Cornell, SUNY, University of Pennsylvania (<~private) and Duke (<~EastCoast sampler),  UC-Berkeley, Stanford, UCSF (public), USF (private, Jesuit), and so forth, West Coast, and plenty more in between.

See next image: screenprint from my 2017April 11 post after looking up/for financials in the school-reform centers backed by the Annenberg Foundation and involving Brown University in Rhode Island (admitted women first time, ca. 1969; immediately diluted the curriculum).  My opening statement (not to mention, the title) mentions system parts.  This post might be a good review and wake-up:  Under this way of doing business (public, private, mass population going through basic government-funded institutions, whether as privatized or as kept under obvious government control), no person could possibly keep track of it all in their “spare time,” and it’s questionable whether people even paid full-time to do so would.

Top portion of my April 11, 2017 post (http://wp.me/psBXH-5gG), search result for “Brown University” looking for the AISR information for a Sept. 15, 2019 post insert..

Getting to this type of information, should doing so somehow cross someone’s mind in the first place between the story-telling, great causes, and brightly colored graphics and slideshows  (i.e movement) requires overcoming some obstacles which seem less than accidentally strewn in the paths to that information, which situation increases personal time (which = expense) involved while decreasing prospects of even accuracy of such searches, i.e., discouraging the investment of that time and expense to start with.

Who knows whether existing databases that the public cannot access (due to power required) MIGHT, but I do know experientially that the basic public-access databases (whether state-level or via existing private nonprofits such as FoundationCenter aren’t accurate or functional enough to do so.

(Foundation Center (based in NY) again, just bought out Guidestar and rebranded as “Candid” but — I checked again last night, looking up several nonprofits related to this post via cell-phone), despite brighter colors (Black, white, BRIGHT yellow), more high-contrast user interface, what survived the merger includes the corrupted data practice of getting organizations’ names WRONG, whether by adding or subtracting a “the,” losing an “‘s”” or eliminating spaces between the words, or opting for different and unpredictable shortened versions of organization name in subsequent years.

Searchers won’t even know what they missed until they somehow repeat the search by EIN#, at which point it coughs up the tax returns pinned to mis-spelled organization names, not from the data source (which we’re told is the IRS), but by the database provider, “Candid.” (which is, the privately owned business, Foundation Center, Inc.)

Meanwhile, the one searchable field which is harder to get wrong — it’s only 9 digits and that’s “EIN#” — remains submerged in “other search options” not displayed on the top level of “990-finder” search page. To anyone simply aware that EIN#s are searchable, this is a not-very-subtle message:  “GO ahead!  But its’s an extra click each time” and those who, perhaps, may not think to or know to find an EIN# and use that only as the search condition, will not be alerted that even if THEIR data entry (search requests) has no typos in organization name, changes are, some are built into the database itself and may not know what they even missed.  All this erects artificial barriers to getting what is really, very basic information on organizations.

Perhaps I should start a petition called “OVERCOMING BARRIERS” and show public support to demand tax-exempt organizations claiming tax-exempt status for promoting philanthropy (the tax-exempt field overall) adhere to common decency and minimal copyediting style sheets (how to abbreviate, proof-reading for spelling or spacing errors) in human data entry, or whatever automated software function produces those search result names in all FREE (non-subscription) data searches. I have done data entry, copyediting, and text-processing in professional fields and continue to be amazed by how bad the data results are here, and in some federal and other state government search sites.  

If NASA, hospitals, the military, oil exploration and drilling, artificial intelligence, GENE therapy, or any large, hard infrastructure process dependent on accurate software information were that bad, there’d be even more massive failures, levee and dam failures, etc. PG&E was sued in California for failures relating to  the wildfires. But somehow when it comes to tracking where government funds go — and they go to and through nonprofits, obviously — NOT even close enough for jazz it seems is just fine… 


The contrast between entrancing, colorful graphics and the lack of financial details on the same websites (or, elsewhere  where they should be) is often astounding. It’s clear they are learning from each other, and as of the appearance of “The Frameworks Institute” which I mentioned on this blog, receiving coaching in how to translate science into policy-making, user-friendly terms, focusing on conflating project or nonprofit names with parts of government (i.e., name-synchronization) to, probably, catch the public off-guard which sector in fact they are dealing with — and to provide a “unified front” under similar names:   “Surrounded!!”  Program saturation by sound byte, etc.  Public relations/Advertising techniques….

[I’d show this, but I haven’t got laptop to talk to iCloud Photo properly yet.  The images aren’t transferred here yet…][End, Sept. 16, 2019 post-publication insert commentary.//LGH]

More, regarding why, perhaps, current Family Court Reform Practice doesn’t even acknowledge blueprints or builders exist:

Business names (association with a university or medical/health system also seems to add to the credibility) of any reformers and alleged** paradigm-changers. Referencing them as nonprofits which have tax-filings (and showing them) might reveal just how many are filing Form 990-Ns or Form 990-EZs to camouflage just how small, really and historically, they have been and still are.

**The overarching paradigm remains public-private-partnerships, no matter what marketed in its various parts, here, as  enhancements, solutions, or fixing flawed/unenlightened by the latest “science” (trauma, child development, domestic violence-related, father-engagement, etc.) practices. These PP partnerships can then, incrementally, steer change in the predetermined directions, once connected to “the grid” of decisionmaking on where public resources are spent. Personal associations, connections, and group loyalty are also developed through conferencing, publishing, etc. on each new field, or tweak to established fields…

Drawing attention to the builders organized as nonprofits and issuing “blueprints” reveals that the builders exist and organized (coordinate) as nonprofits; it also put names, dates, places, and potentially funding amount specifics, and how sources of that funding (where federal (the US) or lower-level (state, county, etc.) governments just might be part of the problem.
Read the rest of this entry »

‘From The Beginning, March 2009, FCM Has Been More About This Organization Than Me’ (FrontPage Sept. 2019 Subsection #1, Published/Expanded Sept. 9).

leave a comment »

This Post Is: ‘From The Beginning, March 2009, FCM Has Been More About This Organization Than Me’ (FrontPage Sept. 2019 Subsection #1, Published/Expanded Sept. 9). (Short-link ends “-aUu,” as off-ramped, only about 1,500 words, with a mini-preview, about 2,500 words only and at the end of the day [9/9/2019] just over 6,000).

(“FCM” meaning, this blog. FrontPage on this blog meaning “FamilyCourtMatters.org).

ANY post may be further edited (as in, condensed, or expanded, or both) after publishing. Blogger’s privilege!  

(This one was edited so much before, it’s unlike to have major changes soon after, though).


The writing and images posted below (where clearly marked) were previously published on the long front page to the blog and probably written in December 2018.  Originally, just meant to show a few images from my existing media library for a few key points of reference.

It’s not intended to be a full drill-down with a developed argument and many kinds of connecting points of reference to support it, but just a call-out —  an alert, not an expose.

However it still exposes many things.  The images are either annotated or captioned or both, providing along with the few quotes plenty of details.  The organization referenced in post title here to me symbolizes a key part of the larger system, even though it also is literally (not just symbolically) a major part of my blogging and I believe source of the ongoing problems “in” the family courts in more than one country.

However, those family courts exists within systems, not vacuums.  Bottom line, they employe judges, the judges are paid by governments:  a major part of those systems IS government itself (yours, mine, others’…).  To understand government includes understanding its financing and who it hires (contracts with and grants to, employs etc.) to do its various businesses.  That’d be a great place to start.  BUT if one wants to focus, first, solely on the family courts, each one, and collectively (by jurisdiction) they still exist within an immediate level of government, and surrounding components, and encompassing (higher levels of government).

Those systems must be seen and discussed in public.  Complaints about system outputs should be tied to documentation of system blueprints (original design intended). (See my next, “impassioned” inset):

Complaints about system outputs should be tied to and premised (BUILT logically) upon

documentation of system blueprints (original design purposes).”

(//LGH 9/9/2019, NOT my first time saying this)

Some premises, if true, would preclude ANY consideration of certain corrections. These ones should be disproved (if UNtrue) first, before designing a solution to the problems occurring “in” the courts and claiming a cause-effect relationship between those courts and the problems.

If they were designed, for example, to resolve conflict through ongoing compromise of basic boundaries as exemplified in the criminal codes because ongoing conflict is psychologically worse for all (especially kids, RIGHT?) than criminal behaviorthen criticism that they are failing to protect from criminal behavior is ridiculous.

This seems to be one premise behind “no-fault divorce” [First in the USA:  California, 1970]. No one is “at fault” — grounds for divorce can now be just “irreconcilable differences.”  The other spouse person wasn’t the problem, only the relationship: forget the past, move forward, crimes or no crimes.  Funny how this mentality should have, it now seems, facilitated even more ways to punish and attempt to shame (or just plain old extort) people divorcing as though divorce, (or failure to marry) WERE a crime and inspired (?) or enabled the establishment of “conciliation” courts.  Whether or not they’ve engaged in anything criminal towards the other person, society, or their own children (or anyone else’s) … 

If on the other hand family courts originally were designed to divert too many argumentative, annoying, obstreperous or otherwise “recalcitrant” (searchable on this blog) parents (and their kids) into behavioral modification and education/therapy-based or attitude-adjustment court-connected (local community or on-line) psycho-educational classes and treatments — to the benefit and profiting those so involved, and for the overall social good of society — then saying they’ve failed or are broken is likewise ridiculous.

OR, if they were designed not with a view to (despite all the talk) what’s best for the children, but what’s best for those in quasi-judicial, immunity-prone fields involving the social-science and psycho-based (particularly psychologists) fields (and those who compile and annotate data on effects — as in, consultants and those with database and data analysis services), as a career path looking good because courts can order it, governments MIGHT help support it, and parents will HAVE to pay it if they want to see their kids again (or, get out of jail sooner) — then I’d have to say the family court systems seem to be a resounding success.  Just not for everyone run through them.

There are no doubt several other “if they were designed for, …. then ….” possibilities.  I think they should be listed, together, and the most illogical ones rejected, and reasons why, noted.  

However what to me is equally ridiculous is failure to look into WHEN they were designed, BY WHOM they were designed, READ what those who designed said at the time, and HOW they persuaded (on what basis of public benefit) those in power to make it happen. (Administrative ruling of a chief judge (Maryland, 1990s) it took years to effect; in another (by popular vote to re-organize the courts, Kentucky, 1990s), and I recently ran across a (1998) feasibility study for Ohio mentioning who commissioned it, who provided the study, and whose ideas they were referencing. I will be posting on this, I HOPE, soon.  (Partially written draft as I write).

Failing to even reference or admit this when complaining about the family court output and demanding change to alter that output — whether the complained about output (‘outcome’) is framed as” xx children murdered, or xx children ordered into “unsupervised” custody or visitation with batterers, or convicted child-molesters/rapists, etc. — AND whether complaint is publicized (typically, on-line) by way of:

one’s nonprofit organization’s website,

or mainstream media (independent journalists),

or independent journalists to whom nonprofits are pitching a story line working mainstream, free-lance, or freelance for other nonprofit investigative media (<~~you know who you are…), all of who stand to personally gain from the branding, name recognition, and further consultancies, reputation, and access to power.

or online petitions (Change.org, etc.).  Or even lobbying legislators — successfully — to get resolutions passed which fail the above “common sense — not ridiculous” test above.


The original intent of my Dec. 2018 section from the Front Page being just a call-out makes this post a shorter and easier read, unless your mind works like mine, looking constantly for supporting arguments and proof when some assertion or assumption seems questionable but is unsupported.

Being so short, it doesn’t really need much of an introduction or guide to its layout (!), but as I had to make some introduction, I chose to re-emphasize those points and add a very short (informal, not in-depth) update referring to a different, participant in the larger system, illustrating the “Across-the-Pond”flavor of the family courts.*

Which family courts (or at least their preceding and their judges’ decisions) have upset so much of America, and which from time to time, many say and I have to agree, end up getting people killed in the context of divorce and/or in the context of separating from abuses in order to NOT, with their children get killed, or allow the children to be abused. Sometimes we know there’s collateral damage (bystanders, extended family, responding officers, too).  Hard to disagree that there are such problems, while assigning blame for them is still under debate**

*While doing this (summary/intro/lead-in) I as always had to deal with my tendency towards sarcasm and mouthing off.  Sometimes sarcasm makes the point quicker, whether or not it proves a point…

** Family courts + professionalizing all the ancillary services they exist to order (whether by a mass-mandate or as individually, but often, court-ordered — relationship education for all… education for parents that divorce impacts kids … behavioral modification for dangerous or alleged dangerous parents…) + then professionalizing, certifying or licensing anyone hoping to become a “new-kid-on-the-block” provider apparently is expected or desirable to lessen the governmental burden of too many people seeking justice (or protection from dangerous people) in the criminal courts, so the sacrifice of life must be worth it…

(“Why can’t you all just get along??“)(with our dangerous exes, the other parents to our children). 

The next footnote has a long title, but  not footnoting it would make the post top-heavy. (it also pushes the total word-count just over 5,000 words).

See FOOTNOTE “FAMILY COURTS OFF-RAMPED FROM THE CRIMINAL TO RELIEVE DEMAND ON RESOURCES.  IT’S NOT WORKING.  SO NOW WE SHOULD ON-RAMP CRIMINAL STANDARDS INTO THE VEHICLE/VENUE/”NEW VESSELS” INTENDED TO EXCLUDE THAT “OLD” (I.e., not “behavioral science”) LANGUAGE IN  THE FIRST PLACE?


Originally, the December 2018 section had only two basic topics. On it you’ll see large annotated images, some related quotes and these two headings:

  • From the Beginning, More about This Organization Than Me (i.e., “thanks for all the stories, but Let’s talk about these systems!)** “Who am I and Why Does This Blog Look and Talk So Different Than Others on “Family Court” matters?), and
  • Who am I and Why Does This Blog Look and Talk So Different Than Others on “Family Court” matters?

** See  Footnote “Why Talk Systems more than Our Experiential Stories“?


Having now moved it here, September, 2019, there are more additions than changes:

~~>I added this summary above (and you’re still reading it), part of which I footnoted below, necessary because of my sarcastic commentary and opportunistic tendency to emphasize main points..(so, I ran my mouth and wouldn’t just delete the content..). This summary came after

~~>I added a Mini-Preview to include two short articles about a British parallel organization (so to speak) which has now become “BFF“[Best Friends oFFicially] with “this organization,” both of them in 2018/2019 are more open about it than ever, although some of us detected this basic cross-Atlantic dyad of public policy romance, perhaps based in beliefs about how family court systems — and families — should be run (and, by whom)…

Read the rest of this entry »

‘Cyanocitta Cristata’* | Blue Jays and Other Resourceful, Smart, Related Species and Their Habitats: (About my Gravatar Image) [ ‘exported’ from LGH Front Page, published Sept. 8, 2019].

leave a comment »

New Post, Previously Assembled material, except part of the lead-in.  As it says, shortening and taken from my January 2018 Front Page, which is undergoing a massive edit Labor Day Weekend (USA) and shortly thereafter (Sept. 2-4, so far, 2019).  Other than a quick read-through for any incomplete sentences and adjusting a phrase (or paragraph break) or too, it’s basically as-written.

It used to be at the very bottom of my Front Page.  I figure many people never got that far.  It’s an easy read..No math challenges or fine print involved….

//LGH Sept. 8, 2019


THIS POST IS:

“Blue jays will attack humans if they get too close to their nesting area.”

‘Cyanocitta Cristata’ | Blue Jays and Other Resourceful, Smart, Related Species and Their Habitats: (About my Gravatar Image) [ ‘exported’ from LGH Front Page, published Sept. 8, 2019]. (short-link ends “–aXL” and as exported and published under 2,500 words). * Originally published missing a syllable (“Cy-an-o”), the letter “o.”  Corrected Oct. 11, 2019 in all occurrences, I think, on blog, incl. the tag.  “mea culpa.” //LGH.


About the Gravatar Image of a Flying Blue Jay.  

Its basic image to me is “flight” but I also consider the blue jay, crow and raven (below) for some other admirable qualities which I feel people, especially women and mothers, already have, continue to need and often demonstrate in dealing with the many systems intended to continue ensnaring us in forms of abusive control AFTER we declared “No Excuse!” by filing for protection, and temporarily obtaining SOME….

Nothing too deep — it just helps me to consider the survival qualities of species common to North America.

For example, attempts to wipe out crows were made (and attempts to wipe out independent-minded mothers raising children without a resident controlling man — or “the state” instead of him — calling the shots, making major decisions, and substituting for our own good judgment and common sense, the “state” official policy towards our kind).  Meaning, mothers who don’t get or stay married to the fathers of their children and aren’t apologetic about it, either.  Moms who still believe they have a right to fight for what’s best for themselves and their children and no innate duty to submit to further degradation, abuse, or domination by people who  don’t see what we see, haven’t experienced what we have, and may not comprehend when “NO!” means “NO!”


Businesses like birds also flourish in certain habitats and adapt to others.  Sometimes they are invasive, marauding species too.

The professions, as an “economic habitat” attract certain fauna and flora.  The problem isn’t just the critters, it’s also the habitat.

And as to these, where the public contributes is through public institutions that  WE FUND UP FRONT and ONGOING.

IN GENERAL, THIS GETS DOWN TO…

HOW WELL DO YOU UNDERSTAND AT LEAST STATE (but ALSO COUNTY and ALSO FEDERAL) GOVERNMENT ENTITY FINANCING AND ORGANIZATION?

HOW WELL DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW TO GAIN AN UNDERSTANDING APART FROM THE PROPAGANDA MACHINES, OR THE EXCLUSIVE PORTRAYAL FOCUSED ON POLITICAL PARTIES?

Those are aspects I had to address in my own life, and make up for the information gap.  While learning myself, I also posted.

IF I HAD KNOWN about the federal incentives, dating back a few decades, to set up and follow through with the “family court fiasco” post-domestic violence, and the aggressive, consistent attempts to saturate professional journals with minimization of it (when not running media campaigns ABOUT it omitting the same government agencies funding fathers’ rights movements specifically mandated — it’s in their original documents — to counter a perceived “maternal” bias in social services and in the family courts — I would have made even fewer compromises.  NOT KNOWING THIS prevents women from bonding around it.

That is also why I felt it necessary to post on the “Broken Courts, Flawed Practices” nonprofits, some from Northern California, (since 1999, 2006, respectively) on the “Battered Mothers’ Custody Conference” (since 2003) (and its adherents and regular presenters) and in the methods used to continually find new “poster child” cases to “throw under the bus” for more publicity to further the “technical consulting and training” conferences, webinars, and speaker resumes of the field.

This is, again, theater — it’s there for a reason, and that reason is NOT the ones stated on the front pages.  The theater is there to derail viewers from the bedrock realities of the system, lest they mutually organize to do something effective about it.  It is there to perpetuate the abuse systems, while “tweaking” and adjusting them slightly back towards “fair” — for which of course, SOMEONE has to train and sell publications.



IN CASE readers are wondering why I am adamant about certain things, and ready not to just “survive through compromise” but dismantling any system which tolerates ram-rodding decent parents into as deep a hole as possible, and which doesn’t abide by its own definitions of the legal process, or justice, or anything approaching — to put it crudely and personified, “tear ’em a new one…”

It’s because I know experientially that compromise on the basic principles of life and relationships does NOT have a good ending.  

The result is further compromise, followed by yet more, and yet more, and degradation of the neighborhood, while clearing the overall habit for increasing levels of built-in criminality. This doesn’t mean all are criminal, but those who are find great places to roost, and those who aren’t, don’t have, apparently, the integrity or ability to flush them out — which would also destroy their own habitats and incomes. I am talking about the penchant to refer-out to “community services” things that deserve a track record, and protection of due process.  In order to get rid of that, a whole different set of “courts” were created.

Read the rest of this entry »

Coercive Control and Co-Opted Conversations in Connecticut (Rutgers Professor Evan Stark, his wife Yale MD, Ann Flitcraft, Serial Global BIP Entrepreneur(?), Safe&Together’s David Mandel) = LGH’s FrontPage Sept. 2, 2019 Subsection #2

leave a comment »

Published “WYSIWYG.”  The “ReadMore” link will be much closer to the top in a day or so. Revisions for basic copyediting and for better flow likely to continue over the next few days. The theme is important and timely; thank you for tolerance of the initial version in my voicing my concerns. //LGH.

 

THIS POST IS: Coercive Control and Co-Opted Conversations in Connecticut (Rutgers Professor Evan Stark, his wife Yale MD, Ann Flitcraft, Serial Global BIP Entrepreneur(?), Safe&Together’s David Mandel) = LGH’s FrontPage Sept. 2, 2019 Subsection #2 (Short-link ends “-aUL,” published Sept. 7, ca. 7,500 words):

“BIP” – Batterers Intervention Program”


I’d said and I still feel that:

…Many of us who’ve lived with in-home violence (rarely restricted to the home environment only) could “write the book,” on coercive control, probably without that label.   Some have written their own personal accounts, but the moment this goes into “the conference circuit” that’s not really in good company — and without the travel budget (etc.) impossible to keep up with AND manage one’s own life AND continuing research.

I say, why MUST we support all these professions which then have networked nonprofits, publications, policies and of course RoundTables with people basically in agreement with SOME of the basics — like the health paradigm, coordinated community response, and in general sticking the public with if not the costs of domestic violence, the costs of treating and “preventing” it…?  And why must “father-engagement” be central to all forms of abuse prevention, whether in child welfare services, or in the family courts, in child support agencies, in prison/re-entry situations — at all points?

 

While the term “Coercive Control” now has specific meanings, including a legal one in the UK (since it  became an official crime in 2015), I’m also using it to describe a type of coercion in those co-opted conversations (around the field of domestic violence and protection from abuse, stopping violence against women, etc.).  Hopefully by the end of this post, readers will understand that co-opting conversations in these fields exists; that there are “on the table” and “off the table” topics, with certain career academics in certain fields (particularly sociology and psychology) and their backers making the call. And that this is an effective form of coercion, to cut-off other plausible explanations of why it seems just SO hard to stop violence against women, and to explain the behaviors of the family court systems, here and abroad.

Doing so is morally and ethically wrong, although probably not legally wrong, that it’s been chronic in this field since “domestic violence” became a word, that is, just about from the start.

Note:  laws against battering women and protests of it is not synonymous with the usage of the term “domestic violence” and development of a major state-funded industry around it, a key part of which includes NOT talking about the state-funded marriage/fatherhood/family values” industry.

One analogy for the word “table” above would be “roundtable.”  There have been major round-table conferences and/or consultations on this topic (some even called that); defining features of any RoundTable are who convenes it, who is or is not invited to present, and where they occur.  Also who sponsors them.

Publications catering to fields and professions (i.e., research, publication, practice etc.) which rely so heavily on state (i.e., government) funding also impact what ideas are and are NOT in significant circulation.

PREVIEW

(Up front: more text, my voice.  Below: more pictures, links, and quotes)

Most of this post was previously published on my main (Front) page for at least a year.  I removed it on Labor Day, (Monday, Sept. 2, 2019) to condense that page.

On finding new information since adding this segment to the Front Page (in January or as late as December, 2018), i.e. especially since obtaining my copy of Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life book, (<~~that link is to a title search so you can see where it’s being promoted (notice url domain names..including “global.OUP.com”) New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2007, hereafter “the Coercive Control Book”), ….

Note:  This is the second book in an “Interpersonal Violence” series.  Series editors are Jeffrey L. Edleson, Ph.D. and Claire M. Renzetti, Ph.D.  Number one in the same series is significant of a shift in (geographic) emphasis, though probably not strategies, within the domestic violence movement:  Parenting by Men Who Batter: New Directions for Assessment and Intervention by Jeffrey L. Edleson &  Oliver J. Williams.

Please see my Footnote “Oxford University Press, Inc.: Interpersonal Violence Series.”  It’s relevant to this post. I’m footnoting because it only came up when I realized I’d referenced the Coercive Control book without posting the link.  On going to post the link, I felt it appropriate to show the series. Including that information up here would interrupt the flow of this post.

…based on this new information and on general principles (reviewing some of my existing links,** and my ongoing awareness of the expansion of this field internationally, and from all of the above, my perspective about a year and a half later), I decided to develop this post further before publishing and to prioritize publishing it first among the many (about six or seven) other Front Page extracts which became separate posts now in draft.

In other words, it’s not going to be just a “block-copy, paste, re-publish as a separate post” project!

To completely distinguish previously published (2018) and my progressive updates since (Sept. 2 – 7, 2019) is probably impossible, but I’ll leave several indicators throughout the post below.

**(Especially from a long post, of Stark’s testimony January 2016 on a Connecticut Task force on Children Exposed to Violence).

I posted some of the new (to me) information on the Front page (pending publication of this post first among all the (about six) off-ramped sections during a “massive edit”) because I believe people deserve to have it brought to their attention promptly. Coercive Control conferences continue.  People have been arrested for violating the new (2015ff) law against it in the UK, there is  plenty of social media “buzz” around the theme.

IF there is major co-opted conversation, any censorship, or significant reporting gaps in those from the USA running (personally or professionally and in publications as only the internet and certain types of academic journals can do…) to the UK and elsewhere pushing programming, the “left-behind” sector in THIS country more acutely aware of how this field was set up and run — and what elements are historically omitted from its history — that information should be publicized, however imperfectly, as fast as possible.

Such reporting is, I’d say, right now about THIRTY YEARS behind in awareness.  Mathematically speaking, given the distribution and publication networks and proliferation of DV organizations and university centers (or “Centres” as it applies),  for every professional who claims “30 years experience” there are probably many more individuals who have 10, 20, or 30 years “in your face” experience off exactly what “coercive control” looks and acts like. Many of (us) HAVE been speaking out all along– but we cannot keep pace with Oxford University Press, Sage Publications, Wiley On-line (Taylor & Francis) AND government-sponsored “Centers” at various universities, or simply on their own specialized websites ending “*.org” in the USA, or “*.org.UK” or *.co.UK” etc. …

Unlike the academic professionals, many of us continue to get killed off over time (“roadkill,” or some of the children do). I’ve read of various professionals dying of old age or cancer (Schechter, Pence, others) but not so many being murdered, jailed, extorted or being full-time occupied in economic survival from onslaughts (so to speak) via the family court systems. That is a genuine hindrance. This doesn’t seem to slow down others publication and conferencing while we are so occupied, speaking for myself and others I have known over the years.

So, built-in “institutional” issues include access to funding and of course, access to media (which requires generally, access to funding).  How many ideas are being squeezed out of consideration simply because those with better financial incentives and job stabilities for the respective authors (pardon me for making this reference again, but with  existing PhDs, JDs, and so forth) to NOT talk about what I’ve been blogging about for ten years now?  And what I am a witness was basically unearthed (at least the basics of it) a minimum of twenty years earlier (that is, 1999)? And if you include Liz Richards (NAFCJ.net) claim of having started in 1993, make that about twenty-seven years.


Having done that, now I’m working to get this post out so I can in good conscience shorten the footprint (some quotes, links, and discussion of the “new information”) left behind) making sure nothing is lost in the move.
Read the rest of this entry »

%d bloggers like this: