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

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.

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

Today’s post is:

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:

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:

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:

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”

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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First published August 24, 2019. For the full title with link, short-link, word-count, keep reading…

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

UPDATE : Aug. 25 — expanded. Contractions (extraction of contents) is tricky and may require consultation within (sic) Blog Admin…

re: ‘TWO HELPFUL LINKS’ — Image from TopRightSidebar, ‘GO TO POSTS’ widget, shows TOC 2019 & 2018 + ‘Key Posts 2012-2017’ (LGH, @ Sept. 1, 2019)

Today’s post was extracted, like a Caesarean section, from

<~~that is, a post I’m still trying to get out…

And I’m calling it, all (for now, with footnotes) 10,000+ words, 

The international family law reform aspects addressed here were also raised in my (second to top) Sticky post, published just last month: July 31 — mentioned near the top and footnoted at the bottom.  See its title (for the link) and a single image excerpt from it (text-only/summarizes):

[2nd from the Top Sticky Post on Blog** is:] Acknowledgements, Executive Summary (Current Projects | Rolling Blackouts) and What Makes This Blog “What You Need to Know” (July 31, 2019). (Shortlink ends “-auh”, marked sticky, this is currently 9,900 words.  That includes two lengthy footnotes, one of which I expect to remove to its own post.)  (**as of August, 2019.  Sticky post order and contents of course changes periodically — but not that often…)

Intro (Pls. Click image (or link here) Read) to my recent post, Acknowledgements, Executive Summary (Current Projects | Rolling Blackouts) and What Makes This Blog “What You Need to Know” (July 31, 2019). (Shortlink ends “-auh”, marked sticky)

Some of the length here comes from me detailing a certain document full of its own lengthy footnotes.

Footnotes in public documents seeking major legislative change at the state, national, or here it happened to be, global (or at least UN-related) level illuminate many things which might otherwise escape attention.  Often I’ll focus more on them than on the (usually predictable and repetitive in the field) main body text.

CREVAWC = A centre which began (‘was founded’) as a collaborative venture spurred in response to a federal study on (VAW) triggered by the 1989 murder of 14 women at a specific school (“Ecole”) in Montreal. As described in the website which doesn’t contain the letters CREVAWC, but references another collaborator (the third link, next paragraph) whose website does reflect its actual name (“LCCEWA”).

The third website shows clearly this is a previously coordinated network arising out of a situation dating back to the late 1970s, early 1980s.  Yet somehow, a decade later, women are still getting murdered violently, generating yet more studies and centers (or “centres”) on the same, overall, topics:  WHY? and “HOW STOP IT?”

The Centre for Research & Education on Violence Against Women & Children (CREVAWC) was founded in 1992 as a collaborative venture between The University of Western Ontario, Fanshawe College and the London Coordinating Committee to End Women Abuse. The Centre was established in response to a federal study on the problem of violence against women, triggered by the 1989 murder of 14 women at École Polytechnique in Montreal.

CREVAWC joined the Faculty of Education at the University of Western Ontario in 2001.

Where was it before, and how does a “collaborative venture” join anything?  Does this refer to website hosting, faculty salaries, or what?  I do know that once I looked at the London Coordinating Committee (and the networking) I instantly (sic) understood the Ellen Pence (USA, “The Duluth Model,” etc.) concept of “Coordinated Community Response” meaning — NETWORKED.  She has studied institutional ethnography, it’s said, in Toronto (Ontario, Canada). [Bears elaborating, “explicating” separately. What’s taken place here is a window to the types of “fixes” being circulated through (existing) networks which I’ll bet the public at large (in either country — US or Canada: we share a long border!) still doesn’t comprehend, even after experiencing it with their/our own families personally or witnessing/hearing about others who have. In SYSTEM terms (public vs. private, national (federal) vs. local (here, provincial – Ontario — or more local “London” | US this’d be (mostly) State — or within states, “Counties” with inclusion, separately, of Indian tribes as their own governments within state borders, or if any cross some state borders)….

See the 2016 Politico article by Mike Ross quoted (imaged) here. It was written before the most recent US Presidential election, features a U.S. woman (Susan Murray) who can barely see her own children due to the rabbinical courts in Israel. The article also mentions AIPAC, a sea-change politically rolling back concessions or movement towards equality (i.e., for women). Not my area of personal expertise (or experience).

Catholics make it hard.  Conservative evangelical Protestants in the US (whose nonprofit networks are identifiable, often predictable in board leadership, and most definitely well-connected to “go forth and multiply”) want restoration of “covenant” marriage and have pastors signing up for it; Mormons, well, have another unique perspective on the eternity of marriage (Reminder:  we’ve had a Mormon contender for U.S. President not too many years back); there’s the issue of attempts to blend in ‘sharia’, while honor killings are still happening, and there’s the ongoing difficulty of getting a “get” (permission to divorce) with the Jewish traditions, in the USA and Israel both.

In this post, I have intervening comments before  the explanatory *, **, and *** points which are their own section, not just a sentence or two each.  I’ll enclose the intervening comments in a thick, ORANGE box and repeat the above paragraph when I move on to discussing those points.  Then the *, **, and *** became its own major section.  At the bottom I have the part which was extracted, like a Caesarean section,” from my other post. Look for this color scheme (and that’s the first part of it):

(Internal reference from my own post due out, I hope, Aug. 23, 2019)

Below that I have some footnotes originated in this post, different color schemes. Why?  It’s complicated, if I explained it here, I’d have to footnote it, again…

Intervening comments before the *,**, and *** references: