Archive for the ‘My Takes, and Favorite Takes’ Category
“Now Abideth These Three: Faith, Hope & Charity” — but not marriages….
This started out as a comic post from a court case. Alas, it’s become a morning ramble, with side-references to government faith- and marriage-policies, teacher’s unions, campaign financing, and (finally), the first Chicago mayoral race since 1989. Amazingly, these are actually related in a world hooked up to Internet, a global economic system that increasingly consolidates wealth in key decisionmakers, and these technologies dividing people into “haves” and “don’ts & won’ts” and blurring (linking..) government and religion, and the branches of government that in the U.S. were intentionally separated specifically so this would NOT happen.
Take it as a chat from a noncustodial mother who knows (another) Thanksgiving is upcoming with no anticipated contact with her children (now adults, or almost) and be Thankful I didn’t try empty the full contents of my heart about “how could these things be?” and “who has this society become?” onto the pages today.
Being female (?) or, being me, I noticed one-topic posts just don’t satisfy. This could’ve been a one-topic post, but the fun part of thinking is weaving at least 2 to 3 ideas together in unique ways. I tend to “braid.”
If you don’t, and want the main point, go to the bottom strand. The front two are usually added later as I think about the topic and try to add some layers of thought/relevance into the mix.
(1) Longwinded intro:
(early 1990s)…
Wife, becoming fundamentalist Christian, forgets I Corinthians 7:10ff,** awakens to the reality that her Jewish husband is going to hell. Husband, perhaps responding in kind converts to orthodox Judaism.
**This links to an entire chapter, with hyperlinks to every word to show a Greek link. Atheists and secular humanists should read to appreciate the dilemma of any “true believers,” in marrying — or for that matter — separating. The context in which it was set, to my understanding, was a culture not that different from ours in any fairly international, port city. The same group had already been confronted on incest (a man with his father’s wife), schisms, and apparently this was the big chapter on sex (with non-relatives….) which culturally was intrinsic to the worship service. Ain’t much new under the sun.
Put it together with the stipulation in another book, same author, that relegates forbidding to marry as a doctrine of the devil [but “Catholicism” is the universal church] , but celibacy is only if a man gets it from God as a gift, and marriage is not for the welfare of society, but so one doesn’t “burn.” Whether this is in hell, or from simple lust, isn’t unclear, but either way, it sounds like a “using” relationship as to the woman. All in all, for anyone who takes this all literally, and not with a grain of salt or metaphorically, it presents some mental challenges. Hence, the weak of heart, mind, or understanding might want to convert, take the beginner’s easy way out, and say your spouse is going to hell because s/he believes differently, thus at least temporarily solving YOUR existential/mental dilemma, if not your kids’ or your society’s…
Those who haven’t hung around Bible folks much (obviously, I’m not in this category) may sometime appreciate the suspension-of-reality factor is a real thing. Imagination and re-naming of reality is absolutely to humanity.
In a religious system which labels the world as F–‘ed up because of fallen human nature (i.e., not only maybe BEGAn with a big bang, but also will end in one, likely man or God-made, same difference essentially) ongoing, and while it’s NO excuse for abuse, it MAY explain why when individuals approach true believers with conflicting legal standards — such as, women do NOT exist to be used by men, in OUR culture, marriage, and child-birth, are to happen later, and no, it is not right to kill or threaten to kill your wife for committing adultery, or even if you think she did — or, if she gets too uppity.
One theory I have is that to function in two worlds simultaneously creates a constant tension between perceived and believed reality. Artists I know understand this, and have found ways to express it. This tension cannot and SHOULD not be eradicated, or creativity and the urge to invent, persist, or sometimes even WORK, leaves. The same total discrepancy exists between laws, in our country, and practice.
In the short case below (about which I know nothing more than is posted), it’s likely that the summary exaggerates the wife’s view (though not impossible) and the guardian ad litem asserts, with the court, that conflict hurts kids — they cannot handle religious diversity in the family, and will have a psychiatric breakdown if it continues. Therefore, they get only ONE majjor religion to be raised in, and with this, accept intolerance.
And like I’m saying — by “religion” and promising heaven while delivering (or delegating others to) hell, can be done by marriage, religion, or government operatives with equal facility and ease. It’s really a language/labeling thing.
Over the years, of exposure to both marriage, religions, and government agencies, initiatives, and operatives in all three categories, I think it’s reasonable to extrapolate that all men, and women, are innately liars. Therefore, it’s better to limit authority of one over the other; including of any single group over any other single group, by any profile whatsoever. Balance is better.
Generally speaking, thus, no matter what is systematically said, the opposite is going to be practiced. For example, “Social Services” means “Systematic Exploitation.” “I do” has a statistically about 50% chance of being followed through with, however sincere initially. As survival in our society becomes less and less natural behavior, we have less and less ability to actually know our own communities, neighbors, friends, and lovers in an environment NOT pronounced upon or defined by, well, someone else.
When this comes to religion, therefore, the general rule is that, while bringing in recruits by promising them heaven — the general reality is delivering hell to others. (I’m allowed to say this — I believe in
God, and can testify as to some of the hell delivered in name of Him, and because of my gender, personally).
I also believe that true atheism is a theory — rarely practiced. You gotta serve SOMETHING, or dedicate yourself to SOMETHING in life. If that something doesn’t match the pre-set religions, the quality of worship and focus is and seeking meaning in life is part of the human condition once basic survival needs are met, and helps in the seeking to meet them for those struggling with it.
The Jewish/Catholic situation sounds like a great match to me. But they had kids, and having kids does face people to actually make some decisions they can slide out of themselves, when beady-eyed dependent crying and pooping (regularly!) intelligent-question-askers move in, full-time, permanent (almost), nonincome-producing roomates that they are…These questions get asked often enough before speech sets in…Policies of some sort generally have to get set in order to get things done.
(I happen to know what looks like a good pair where Dad is a stay-at-home Jewish father, and mother, as I recall obviously not a stay-at home mother, and a Catholic, and kids go to a cooperative). I had many reasonable conversations with him indicating he had a good sense of himself, and of the communities we lived in.
One day in particular, this conversation was followed by a woman coming in from the local, nondenominational Protestant church (prominent in the community). She was about my age, heavily made up, svelte, and in a panic to get arts & crafts materials for a daughter’s project, attempted to engage me in a conversation about who alienated teenagers are (no, I didn’t identify…) and shared that her church was running classes on “how to be a woman.” She was obviously female as much as the pony-tailed stay at home Dad I’d just conversed with was obviously male. She had children, had a degree and a technical profession — and was submitting to church indoctrination as to how (not) be herself. Such is religion, folks! You WILL be defined, and whatever you are, must change into something else — like us — otherwise, you will be spat out, and labeled. Go find another group you more closely resemble.
But the days of tolerance are going away at least in this country, and people must take a stand either for or against religion, abortion, same-sex marriages, food-additives, welfare state or back to the plantation state, for or against national sovereignty, and under all this, we have a Democrat U.S. President raised Muslim, converted to Christianity, who seems to have taken Bush’s Initiatives to a whole new level, at least as deduced by $$ invested and rhetoric heard. I have a personal sense that for all this wonderful variety within our President and First lady, the institutions they run are becoming more and more authoritarian, intolerant, and dogmatic. Perhaps this is just an emotional pendulum our country is in labor (contractions) with.
Anyhow,
(2) Speaking of religion and marriage and government theory:
Prior to the dual conversions, they had three children, this 1990s case naturally provides business for a guardian ad litem and comic relief for me in this field.
How do you know when it’s time to stop using federal $$ (lots of them!) to push marriage because it’s good for them?
Answer: When the law of reverse efforts begins to set in:
-
Maybe file this case under: “The Three Faith Factors”
2002 Article by John J. DiIullio, Jr.: “John J. DiIulio Jr. is the Frederic Fox Leadership Professor of Politics, Religion and Civil Society and Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Previously, he was the first director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives under President George W. Bush from early 2001 to August 2001.”
Wow — apparently that didn’t work out too well. However, like what appears to be many in (and out) of government posts, they simply move over to a related institute, for example, Brookings, where the next year he wrote “The Three Faith Factors.” Hmm — what could they be?
Judaism, Christianity, Islam — no, despite certain longstanding wars among the three.
Catholicism, mainline Protestants, Mega-evangelical churches? — no. No, it says “factors.” Someone is breaking down a “product” into the factors that comprised it. a X b X c = DESIRED STATE OF HUMANITY.
More to the point, the Three Faith Factors are about:
But what types of religious influences are most beneficial to the individual and society? At least three separate but related faith factors can be identified-what I will call “organic religion,” “programmatic religion,” and “ecological religion.”
“Organic, Programmatic, and Ecological.” I knew that …..
Yep, the never-ending quest for the perfect equation to make the perfect society. Or, a former Faith-based Initiative appointee to continue in an advisory capacity to maintain a marketable niche & voice.
That was published one year after he was fired or quit (are there other options?) the (in)famous White House Office on Faith-Based Initiatives. The topic of this particular article was — like so much of what the White House Offices, now headed by Czars (a comforting concept, eh?) do — is how to research — and reform — and restructure– populations the researchers now (at least) have absolutely nothing in common with, whether or not they at one time did. In this case — religion is examined for its impact on the general health — especially urban youth in high-crime areas. (Do I need to add “black” or is this already implicit?):
Under what, if any, conditions does religion help to improve the lives of disadvantaged urban children and families, and how, if at all, can we [we WHO?] foster those conditions? Is there any significant body of evidence to suggest that religion reduces crime and delinquency among low-income, inner-city youth?
Photo of author at link above.
(see, I told you, there is no emphasis in these circles on white-collar, high-income, suburban or gated community crimes, or in examining what type of religious or areligious influences helped create inner cities and low-income areas which the idle? rich seem ever interested in analyzing…)
What religion is this smart guy from? Well, I’m going to hazard a guess, “Catholicism” based on his writing 7 years later for America, a Catholic magazine, and having written “Slowing the Exodus” (funny phrase for a religion famous for persecuting the Jews):
A national survey in 2008 by the Pew Forum got America’s Catholic clergy and lay leaders talking. It found that a third of Americans who were raised Catholic had left the church. One in 10 Americans was an ex-Catholic. Ex-Catholics outnumbered converts to Catholicism four to one.
In March 2009 the national American Religious Identification Survey found that between 1990 and 2008* the church’s flock fell from 26.2 percent to 25.1 percent of the total U.S. population, even though roughly half of all immigrants to the United States were Catholic.
*including the couple that inspired this post, below…
The March 2008 Pew survey also found that only 41 percent of all Catholics attend Mass weekly; only 57 percent consider religion important in their lives; only 44 percent believe that abortion should be prohibited in most or all cases; and only 35 percent oppose the death penalty.
Ex-Catholics and lapsed Catholics are a twin reality that cannot be attributed simply to changes in American culture. Many Americans now favor self-styled “spirituality” over “religion.” Old, religion-rooted moral codes are often mocked or worse by the nation’s secular elites.
Still, from sea to shining sea, over the last few decades many Protestant evangelical and Pentecostal churches have boomed with new members, new ministries, new megachurches and new multimedia outlets that reach millions here and abroad.
Yes, the power of the Internet and forcible, or implictly forcible electronic transfer of wealth is amazing, isn’t it? Possibly these churches learned something from the IRS.
Cathedral-building American Catholics used to know how to do all that, and more. Despite anti-Catholic laws and a hostile culture featuring Know Nothings, 19th- and early 20th-century Catholic leaders created America’s parish-anchored religious communities.
Well, no longer being in his Bush-appointed White House Office, he can come out. But, per a 2007 book (on author credit to this May 2009 article), he is centrist: ”
John J. DiIulio Jr. is the author of Godly Republic: A Centrist Blueprint for America’s Faith-Based Future (University of California Press, 2007).
Wife, becoming fundamentalist Christian, forgets I Corinthians 7:10ff, realizes her husband is going to hell. Husband, responding? converts to Orthodox Judaism.
How do you know when it’s time to stop using faith-based initiatives to push marriage?
Answer: When the law of reverse efforts begins to set in:
(3) Go figure….
Don’t ask how I found the case — just enjoy the comic relief. Well, not for the husband, wife, or kids……
Rarely do we get such straightforward commentary:
Kendall v. Kendall, 426 Mass. 238, 687 N.E.2d 1228 (Mass. 1997).
NATURE OF THE CASE: This family law case involved an appeal from a judgment of divorce nisi.
FACTS: Jeffrey Kendall (H) was Jewish and Barbara Kendall
was Catholic. They married in 1988 and had three children and agreed that their children would be brought up in the Jewish faith. In 1991 W joined a fundamentalist Christian church that taught that anyone who did not accept its views would be damned to hell. H adopted Orthodox Judaism in 1994.
Having children (one per year? Twins? Triplets?) can tend to produce a religious conversion.
To summarize: two adults, by my count 3-4 religions and three children in six years…
W filed for divorce based on an irretrievable breakdown of the marriage. A guardian ad litem was appointed to assess the religious conflicts between H and W and their effect upon the children. The resulting divorce decree contained restrictions upon religious exposure ordering that neither parent could use their religious beliefs to alienate the children from the other parent. W was granted custody and H appealed the terms of the divorce order.
Such a hard choice — having a genuine religious belief (if an odd one) or, forsaking it lest it alienate the children and so probably cause loss of custody for violating a divorce decree, so damning not just one husband, but also one’s kids, to hell. To settle this, call in a guardian ad litem, hopefully an atheist who will not understand the dilemma of being excommunicated from mass (by divorce), from a new-found faith community (by failing to condemn one’s spouse to hell) or from the guardian ad litem (by doing so).
This is why I’m thinking of converting to Catholicism, maybe. At least they have rituals, pretty stained glass windows, gothic and ornate architecture, and a CEO with his own post office, and if that fails, there’s always SNAP.
ISSUE: What must a court find in order to restrict religious indoctrination by parents of different persuasions?
Well, for one, that while Congress (at least at one time) can’t make a law establishing a religion, since when are family court judges bound by the Bill of Rights anyhow? Basically, it must find (from what I can tell) that it feels like doing so.
RULE OF LAW: There must be a finding of substantial harm to a child by clear and convincing evidence before a court may restrict religious indoctrination by parents of different persuasions.
“Harm” can be defined in any terms whatsoever (however “alienation” is a good start), just nothing remotely related to the Penal Code — that’d set difficult precedent for all the former custody decisions prioritizing parenthood a.k.a. father-access over character.
HOLDING AND DECISION: Under these facts the report by the Guardian ad litem more than justified the court’s finding of substantial harm and supports the order that the court issued regarding the religious indoctrination of the children. A court need not wait for a formal psychiatric breakdown of a child to determine that the burden of proof in a finding of substantial harm has been met.
The burden of proof has been met if the evidence paints a strong picture of the reasonably projected course if the children continue to be caught in the cross fire of their parents’ religious differences. The guardian ad litem’s report clearly demonstrates the course that H and W had put their children on. We reject the claim that this decree burdens H’s right to practice religion under the free exercise clause. There was clearly substantial demonstrable evidence of the development of serious conflicts for these children.
DISPOSITION: Affirmed.
Related postsMoss v. Superior Court – Failure to Pay Child Support – Contempt
deCastro v. deCastro – Divorce – Division of Marital Property
Wolfe v. Wolfe – Annulment of Marriage Based on FraudWritten by Nymatlaw
July 7th, 2009
Copyright Nymatlaw All Rights Reserved
Thank you, Nymatlaw, whoever you are!
Where there are children, there are GOING to be language — and real — wars over (1) whose they are and (2) who gets to raise them and (3) what is hate (bullying) and (4) what is love. If two parents stayed together and had a religious conflict with the school system, or government, with a religious basis, they would be forced to choose — particularly if their lifestyles depended upon children’s enrollment in so-called “public” schools. While I won’t provide all links for this (one can look it up easily — but I can’t because my laptop is so slow) it’s commonly known that the Teachers’ Unions in any state are a financial and political force to be reckoned with. One cannot go far without doing so:
Life in this world involves serious cross-fire, almost anywhere, between conflicting ideologies about who owns whom, especially if one is a child. Moreover, even adults are now being regularly groped at airports — in THEIR best interests — if they object to full-body scans. This is occurring in the same country where, about a year go, a teenaged girl at a homecoming dance somehow got plied with alcohol, not only groped, but also gangraped (Richmond, CA). The dance was supervised and she had a father. She was found, half-naked, UNDER a picnic table, her back covered with scratches and her face with vomit, says a police officer, testifying of how her attackers scattered when he was finally called to the scene. Think about this as you continue reading below about asking for MORE money for these schools that sort families by wealth & race.
(4) How we PAY our public educators to buy a market share / maintain their status quo, and national workforce structure also:
From “OpenEye” — only 1 out of 2 prime organizations, 2008 election, Illinois Only:
National Education Assn: All Recipients
Among Federal Candidates, 2008 Cycle
Total: $2,212,532 Source of Funds: Individuals
PACs
Party Split: Dems
Repubs
Name Office Total Contributions Obama, Barack (D-IL) Senate $86,862 Kirk, Mark (R-IL) House $14,000 Durbin, Dick (D-IL) Senate $13,050 Bean, Melissa (D-IL) House $10,000 Biggert, Judy (R-IL) House $10,000 Davis, Danny K (D-IL) House $10,000 Hare, Phil (D-IL) House $10,000 Jackson, Jesse Jr (D-IL) House $10,000 Schock, Aaron (R-IL) House $10,000 Morgenthaler, Jill (D-IL) House $5,600 Emanuel, Rahm (D-IL) House $5,000 Foster, Bill (D-IL) House $5,000 Halvorson, Deborah (D-IL) House $5,000 Schakowsky, Jan (D-IL) House $4,000 Johnson, Timothy V (R-IL) House $3,000 Shimkus, John M (R-IL) House $3,000 Rush, Bobby L (D-IL) House $2,500 Costello, Jerry F (D-IL) House $1,500 Gutierrez, Luis V (D-IL) House $1,500 Lipinski, Daniel (D-IL) House $1,500 METHODOLOGY: The numbers on this page are based on contributions from PACs and individuals giving $200 or more. All donations were made during the 2008 election cycle and were released by the Federal Election Commission.
Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics.
NEA is listed under “Heavy Hitters.” Another is American Federation of Teachers, Described thus, same site:
American Federation of Teachers
The American Federation of Teachers represents 1 million teachers, school staff, higher education faculty and other public employees. The federation also has a health care division, which represents health professionals and nurses. As one of the leading education groups on Capitol Hill, the federation lobbied heavily on President Bush’s education plan, beating back attempts to attach pro-voucher amendments.
I colored the comment “blue,” predominant in the organization — see these charts, on Summary page, of a 20-year trend (1990-2010):
These charts speak VOLUMES — perhaps even more than the TAGGS.hhs.gov (database) sites, which taught me so much about why courts won’t do their legally assigned jobs, as per state laws and organized (as to superior courts in California at least) by counties. The reasons appear to reside with Federal Faith-based Welfare Policies, backed up by the bribe (OK, OK, I’ll downgrade the term to “bait”) of federal aid. Magnificent benificence in our best interests, of course to supprot all this conflict of interests). Then, when the whole operation is centralized, whoever can buy the top leadership gets the whole spoils –sorry, I mean, country.
Given how much of this talk has a hidden “Jesus” basis, I have to say it’s a real leap of faith to think it’s the same one as in the Bible. THAT Messiah, right after receiving his initial anointing, to qualify, first had the 40-days wilderness test, and to TURN DOWN the offer of the kingdoms of the world in exchange for worship of his Lord’s arch-enemy. He did indeed turn it down, whereupon he was asked to go commit suicide off a tall tower — and declined. (cf. ousted fathers with religious belief in their divine calling to rule their families who, when challenged by the U.S. — or local law enforcement — to “restrain” how they do so, actually DO commit suicide, sometimes taking a few with them. Unlike Jesus, who some of these men profess to be serving, they prefer killing innocents, to — even if innocent themselves — suffer public demotion in this family-worshipping society. Think about it …) Search “temptation” in any gospel at any on-line bible site if you’re unfamiliar with the account. Matthew 4, Luke 4, relate this one.
While on the topic of dealing with NEA and AFT expenditures on Democrat candidates to preserve the status quo on raising the nation’s young, I am reminded of rhetoric such as “No Child Left Behind” — a phrase vague enough to be noncommittal about where these kids are going — and “Race to the Top” (WHO is going to be on that particular escalator?) — let me add that the FIRST temptation the earlier Jesus resisted was to do magic tricks to prove his
identity as the Son of God:
Turn these stones into bread.
Just remember, in social contracts endorsing any centralized empire or high, high, religious tower, no matter what religion it DOES represent, it does NOT represent the one of the Jewish Messiah born into a nation under Roman rule and worshipping at a magnificent temple, with influence of Herod, which was going to be razed and burned — possibly under disgust with religious zealots, and their refusal to worship, well, the “empire” — within a generation (70 A.D. about 40 years) of his crucifixion for, most likely, being perceived as a threat to it AND to religion of his time which had accommodated too much to being in an occupied mode. Another zealot, Paul — as multicultural and multi-lingual for his time as many — ended (per the account) his life in a Roman prison, sometime within that 40-year time span.
Now — 2000 years or so later — her comes a multi-faith couple with three kids, and the current philosphy that children cannot tolerate conflict well, and will have a psychiatric breakdown if it continues — when applied to the education marketplace, also attempting (I can only presume, seeing these OPENEYE.org charts as to the NEA and AFT contributions to politicians — I could educate BOTH my children better, single or married, on the size of the average AFT (alone) contribution to a (Democrat) candidate in the year 2008 — IF I were not trapped in the family law system cycle of ongoing conflict, for profit. My own background is not intolerant of other religions, just of stupidity and poverty forced onto my family in the name of either “fatherhood” or “conflict is bad.” That’s ridiculous: Murder is bad. Theft is bad. Conflict with gravity is encountered with the act of standing up — it’s part of life and strengthens muscles and mind, up to and just beyond breaking points of what one thought one could handle.
Look at AFT Top Contributions (nationwide) in the 2008 elections. As you look, remember, these are largely (all?) themselves public servant and employees paid by taxes from parents and nonparents alike. Although the largest agency expenditures are now, I believe, HHS, the Dept. of Education is indeed a significant budget item and has been changing the work landscape for over a century in the US, resulting in us trailing the world in “developed” (?) countries, and leading it in imprisoning mostly men, mostly black. Then — from the same source, or budget — millions per year go to promote marriage, fatherhood, and help incarcerated fathers, again, disproportionately black, get back to their children while producing the next generation of rapists, murderers, and angry young men, not counting those sent off to war by middle aged men who need more money for something or more.
The entire social contract can really, only be sustained by collective force and dumbed-down indoctrination. And the natural instinct of MOTHERS to protect their young has to be dismantled to buy into it. See http://www.psychohistory.com (a recent find, I’m still reading it) in case this viewpoint sounds too eccentric to tolerate.
OK, here is AFT, 2008 election, main candidates: #1, It takes a Village Hillary, #2, Change agent Obama:
Top Recipients
| Senate | Clinton, Hillary (D-NY) | $37,725 |
| Senate | Obama, Barack (D-IL) | $30,638 |
| House | Cazayoux, Donald J (D-LA) | $25,000 |
| Senate | Martin, James Francis (D-GA) | $20,000 |
| House | Richardson, Laura (D-CA) | $20,000 |
| House | Foster, Bill (D-IL) | $15,250 |
| House | Carmouche, Paul J (D-LA) | $15,000 |
| House | Carson, Andre (D-IN) | $15,000 |
| House | Childers, Travis W (D-MS) | $15,000 |
| Senate | Franken, Al (D-MN) | $13,500 |
| Senate | Shaheen, Jeanne (D-NH) | $13,500 |
| House | Udall, Mark (D-CO) | $13,500 |
| House | Udall, Tom (D-NM) | $13,500 |
| Senate | Warner, Mark (D-VA) | $13,500 |
| Senate | Durbin, Dick (D-IL) | $12,400 |
| Senate | Merkley, Jeff (D-OR) | $11,500 |
| Senate | Dodd, Chris (D-CT) | $11,000 |
| House | Gillibrand, Kirsten (D-NY) | $11,000 |
| House | Tsongas, Niki (D-MA) | $11,000 |
| House | Arcuri, Michael (D-NY) | $10,250 |
| See all recipients | ||
| Name | Office | Total Contributions |
|---|---|---|
| Obama, Barack (D-IL) | Senate | $30,638 |
| Foster, Bill (D-IL) | House | $15,250 |
| Durbin, Dick (D-IL) | Senate | $12,400 |
| Bean, Melissa (D-IL) | House | $10,000 |
| Costello, Jerry F (D-IL) | House | $10,000 |
| Halvorson, Deborah (D-IL) | House | $10,000 |
| Hare, Phil (D-IL) | House | $10,000 |
| Morgenthaler, Jill (D-IL) | House | $7,500 |
| Jackson, Jesse Jr (D-IL) | House | $6,000 |
| Callahan, Colleen (D-IL) | House | $5,000 |
| Davis, Danny K (D-IL) | House | $5,000 |
| Footlik, Jay K (D-IL) | House | $5,000 |
| Seals, Dan (D-IL) | House | $5,000 |
| Schakowsky, Jan (D-IL) | House | $4,750 |
| Emanuel, Rahm (D-IL) | House | $3,500 |
| McMenamin, Joseph E (D-IL) | House | $2,500 |
Notice Illinois Candidates above: I have quite a bit about Congressman Davis on this blog, by way of Fatherhood and “Moonification” connections (Unification church — Marriage promotion, etc.
Chicago Mayoral Candidates (some of them) bolded above. This city is far more important to national issues than many of us (families in the court system) realize. Its mayor since 1989 is about to be replaced in 2011. The NEA and AFT have spoken … in 2008, at least — Davis first, Rahm, second. The article below cites that an Election Commissioner is possibly going to challenge Emmanuel Rahm voting; the ssame article states he has a James Meek connection, who one may file under “Obama.” If the name “James Meek” means nothing to you, remember, that the meek shall inherit the earth — not this one, though: Can “the meek” assemble this many in one place?
“A significant number of registered voters from the city of Chicago are serving both in the White House and several Cabinet agencies,” Lance Gough, executive director of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, wrote in the Nov. 17, 2009, letter, which contained absentee ballot applications for Emanuel to share. “All Illinois voters now have the right to cast absentee ballots, whether or not they may be in their home counties on Election Day.”
In January, Emanuel signed and returned an application for an absentee ballot, according to a copy provided Thursday by his mayoral campaign. It was presented as evidence that the former Obama aide and North Side congressman should be considered a legal resident of Chicago.
e is expected to face a challenge over whether he can legally be on the ballot to replace retiring Mayor Richard Daley due to laws that require candidates to be residents for a year before the Feb. 22 election.
“It shows that the board considered him to be a Chicago voter,” Emanuel spokesman Ben LaBolt said.
Election attorney Burt Odelson said he intends next week to file a challenge to Emanuel’s residency aimed at keeping him off the ballot. Odelson is advising a rival candidate, state Sen. James T. Meeks, but said he is not representing Meeks in the ballot challenge.
Rahm — North Side
Meeks — South Side
Chicago elections are a “to-watch” for all concerned citizens, Red or Blue or inbetween/other, Black or White or inbetween/other, as witnessed by the meteoric rise to power of this Administration, and plans for more meteoric transformations of the landscape likely to produce fear-based backlash similar to the backlash to feminism has. Either way, while promising less welfare state, it’s likely to produce more of it.
HERE is a report on Emanuel Rahm’s Mayoral kickoff, also mentioning megachurch Baptist pastor James Meek’s candidacy: and I hope to soon kickoff this post, which appears to have grabbed my attention as the screen dribbles out letters about one per second...
November 6, 2010
COALITION SELECTS CONGRESSMAN DANNY K. DAVIS AS CONSENSUS CANDIDATE
November 6, 2010. Chicago, IL. The day after Mayor Daley announced his decision to not seek another term, Chicago’s Black aldermanic caucus met and created a process by which they would select one consensus candidate who would best represent all of Chicago. The caucus expanded into a group called the Chicago Coalition for Mayor – comprised of elected officials, diverse religious groups, several youth organizations, labor union representatives, community organizations, business owners and professionals.
After two months of organizing, implementing strategies, research, and interviews, the Coalition voted to select Congressman Danny K. Davis as the consensus candidate for the Mayor of the City of Chicago.
And now here’s evidence that indoctrination IS OK when neither wife, nor husband, nor mother, nor father is doing it — but Big Brother: to Opt-out or NOT to opt out? A search shows that this debate involves more than parents, students, and the school board: <a href=”http://www.bilerico.com/2010/08/focus_on_the_family_focuses_on_schools_will_we.php”>”Focus on the Family Focuses on Schools — will we?”</a>
Courtesy, a group called “BILIRUCO – Daily Experiments in LGBT Living”
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The Bible’s I Corinthians 13, the “love” chapter, concludes that, in the context of eternal life, three things will last forever — Faith, Hope, and Charity. Prophecies, magic tricks, and marrying (and divorcing, and electing which religion rules the land, til no habitable land remains…) will not.
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“Parental Alienation” is Sign Language….Like “Domestic Violence”
Don’t ask me why I decided to post this draft, revealing my thoughts the other day. I don’t feel like telling. Hope never dies that exposing verbal idiocy might result in a net reduction of it.
At least on the part of the consumers — the marketers, well, this language use is wise.
PART 1:
PARENTAL ALIENATION
The words “Parental Alienation” signify that somewhere on this earth, a certain business sector, playing on human emotions, is prospering. As does “domestic violence” “child abuse” “Children and Families” and “Fatherhood” (enough syllables, seems to roll well off the tongue), and “false allegations,” “resource center” and “batterers’ intervention,” “supervised visitation,” and the like. These noun phrases are now just part of the landscape, and have developed their own specialized biosphere, with flora and fauna.
If you were a fine-feathered, raptor, and could soar with piercing vision, specialized hearing (and feathers) and incredible adaptations for dive-bombing your prey from on high in spirals, like the peregrin falcon, or hearing it underneath the snow, like certain owls (obviously I’ve been watching PBS here), and your prey were compromised populations, you JUST might be an initiative, a conference, a collaboration, a task force, a commission, or a nonprofit organization part of one of the above.
RAPTOR FORCE: Eagles, Falcons, Hawks, and Owls
NATURE takes flight on an exhilarating ride with elite winged predators in Raptor Force.
Humans have had a unique relationship with raptors, nature’s aerial killing machines, for more than four thousand years, first through the ancient sport of falconry, and, more recently, as scientists and engineers have turned to these mighty birds — from golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, and turkey vultures, to great gray owls and the peregrine falcon — as the inspiration for the latest in aircraft design. Using the tricks and tactics of raptors as their model, engineers have devised fighter jets with unprecedented maneuverability and stealth.
In Raptor Force, you’ll learn the secrets of these astonishing aerialists, and how they’ve mastered, more than any other type of bird, the art of soaring. And with the help of engineer and falconer Rob MacIntyre’s ingenious miniature television station — a camera, transmitter, and battery small enough to be harnessed onto the backs of raptors — you’ll see for yourself what it’s like to fly with these deadly aces
I already brought up the concept of the Family Law System as a Giant Squid, fearsome tentacles lurking in the dar, able to tear apart ships, the stuff of mythology. Now it’s time to get the view from on high, the “Task Force” viewpoint, the elite, all-seeing, dive-bombing, never-see-it-coming social policy collaboratives (etc.).
Well, like raptors, they come in different flavors, and target different prey. But they’re all aerial artists. Some are solo, some fly in woods, some even work in teams, I learned through this show.
The owl uses sound — its ears are uneven. Its specialized facial feathers help with that.
The peregrin falcon is a dive-bomber. Specialized eye covering deflects flying sand particles, which at high speed, could sure hurt.
With birds, you can see this by their shapes, although closer look gets a finer appreciation. With humans, one has to be more sensitive to language and behaviors to figure out whether they are distressed prey, congregants meeting to figure out what to do about distressed prey, or raptors coming in for those lower on the food chain.
Some go for distressed Dads. Some go for distressed Moms. So long as the conciliation code (at least in my state) rules that ANY couple having a squabble about custody, that squabble per se gives jurisdiction of their young to the raptors. Excuse me, Conciliation Courts, a.k.a., later, Family Courts. Now, what typically distresses said Dads, or Moms, is generally the other Parent. Which brings us to “Parental Alienation.”
(1)
“Parental:”
Define “Parental.” Go ahead — I dare you.
For that matter, define “Parent.” Go ahead. I dare you, find an all-purpose word that fits all definitions, starting with the noun, before it became verbified (to parent) and adjectified (“Parental”), specified as to who has the kids (Custodial/noncustodial — a term also associated with prison, i.e., “taken into custody” as well as with winning a court debate, i.e., “custody granted.”), and finally market-niched (“Parenting classes”).
The word is already de-gendered, as if the world were not, or any of its 3 Abrahamic world religions were not.
(meaning includes “obeying.” This can get complicated in practice, as in:
ABC NewsProsecutor proposes jail time for parents who miss teacher conferences – 4 hours ago Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy introduced a proposal Tuesday at a Detroit City Council meeting that would require a parent to attend at least one .
In this case, the parent is childified…. and the prosecutor, in behalf of the education establishment, is parentified. Ironically, the word “educare” has a root meaning of Lead Out, not Box In (or, Stuff in, as in knowledge into people’s heads).
PARENT:
Now, like they say Eskimos have different words for snow, we have diversified words for “parent” — step-, bio-, surrogate- foster- adoptive- in addition to the older “grand-” (indicating biological). Whoever the kids in custody are living with at the time, they had better obey the Residential Parent, or the court may just switch them to the other one, or to another type of breeding ground called Juvenile Hall.
Such a diversity of language indicates a thriving business, and that obviously some parents are absent, or incompetent, or need supervision, etc. Which just goes to show who the “real” parent is as to assigning custody, but the real “parents” are as to assigning responsibility for any screwups.
Occasionally the word “father” or “mother” will show up in a new sarticle, or in a grants application, but generally, to say it’s neutral, it’s about custody rights, which means “PARENTAL.” Glad I established that. This word does NOT stand on its own when challenged — by anyone, almost — but it does mean, someone is open for business.
(2)
Alien-ation
Alien-Nation, etc.
Let’s keep this one short. I keep thinking about Arizona, where “aliens” are bad and you can be arrested for being alien improperly. So, I’d have to say that “alien” is bad in connotation, even though much business is done by resident “illegal aliens,” and in fact, some business would close were it not. Now, apart from UFO space-ship variety (promoting a different set of businesses, much of it digital, but also involving conferences…)
“Parental Alienation” is bad if a parent does it, but good if you’re in the business of protesting it, or running seminars for judges about it. The call “Parental Alienation” indicates a resonance to the AFCCNET.org philosophy that the goal is to reconcile marriages for the good of the nation. So the net value is neutral (one group of parents and affiliated associations use this term, an opposing group opposes the use of this term. This extends up into the stratosphere, where raptors flying around the Federal Aeyrie (?) can snag some grants to handle the problem, and plummet to street level with demonstration projects and initiatives. So, it’s good for them. Bad for taxpayers, I’d have to say.
============
WHO SETS THE DEBATE? The debate is not “PARENTAL ALIENATION” v . “CHILD ABUSE” any more than it is, categorically, Fathers v. Mothers, or Conservatives v. Liberals.
I see it as “teachers” vs. “taught.” My point in that last post is that I am no longer interested in the verbiage (pro/con) surrounding “alienation.” I am more interested in dishonest usage of the word “Parent” to obscure gender bias, but beyond that, I think it’s time to figure out the profit motive, and think seriously about the role of wealth (as opposed to jobs) in the larger picture. Then the networks become a little more plain to understand, beyond the rhetoric. ALthough I may not communicate it too well, an attempt is at the bottom of today’s post.
Meanwhile . . . .
Words are understood in their usage and in context, including who is speaking.
Parental Alienation is essentially a term coined to get certain things done, including therapists into the legal process, and conferences training judges (etc.) about it, into certain people’s resumes. Perfectly reasonable and pre-existing terms to describe the same thing aren’t as good a market niche. For one, “Stockholm Syndrome” or “traumatic bonding” or “custodial interference” in context might do as well. Or “brainwashing” or “child abuse.”
The debate about “Parental Alienation” is at a stalemate, but the field is full-throttle ahead, regardless of what any organization pronounces about it. It’s derailing the more important questions, and the distraction is intentional, I”m sure of it.
PART 2:
“Domestic Violence”
Domestic Violence Industry Awareness Month – My Comments on this site, responding to another Press Article, by DV Nonprofit responding to a family (he killed his kids) fatality surrounding Battered Shelter & “Unsupervised Visitation” and judge “just not understanding.”
After writing that comment (post-length, actually), I went back to TAGGS.hhs.gov and looked at how many (millions$) were going to Family Violence Prevention and Marriage/Fatherhood Promotion — in the same state. What a shocker. The real question is who is tracking BOTH sets of funding, and why not shut BOTH of them off, leaving some more funds at the local level, and perhaps some marriages might be less economically stressed, which might save lives (though poverty is no excuse for murder, nor is family “honor” !)
This blogger “gets” the grants racket. Needless to say, this POV is not circulated prominently by the DV experts.
Suggest just read the page. In case anyone wonders, I have never spoken to that blog author, I just happen to share many of the Points of View she reports (not all — for example, I’m not in favor of GPS ankle bracelets…). I suspect this will make sense to someone who has experienced some of the types of events she reports on.
It’s a long page, worth scrolling all the way through (and reading).
“Www.FamilyLawCourts.com/Domestic.”
Media rarely reports why these murders keep continuing. However, the reality is they’re profitable for the domestic violence businesses and police agencies seeking Grants.
And so, rather than divorce or break up; we are treated to headlines, like Postal worker charged with murdering pregnant girlfriend but never a real, substantive investigation.
So stories of failed mediation, follow. Murder – Suicide. Again.
As opposed to just killing the “disgrunted” wife. A more common solution. Hans Reiser finally confesses he murdered Nina Reiser after proclaiming his innocence for so long; because of a remark she made.
Kids willing and do, testify, but still these cases are kept in Family Court.
Not only do Family Court judges continually protect the economically superior, the Executive Branch of government rather than enforce existing laws, under the guise of helping women through the Office of Violence Against Women, fund police departments, who are not legally required to respond to calls for enforcement of restraining orders, instead. {{in which we see another blogger utilizes incomplete sentences...the “But also” is missing. Actually, it’s in the next sentence. Perhaps this writer’s sentence ligaments got torn in the process of a custody battle, like mine.pieces drop off in the execution of a thought. Pun not intended...}}
Worse, rather than use funds from their own budget, police departments request funds From DOJ for bullet-proof vests;so officers will be safer when answering calls; which may or may not include responding to calls from desperate women.
See: “LAW ENFORCEMENT” or “ARREST.” Recent news:
…and when might reporters out “Anger Management Classes” run by non-profits serve to buy a paycheck for the top management running them?
San Francisco Anger Management Programs Don’t Work. However, there is no shortage of these “non-profits” meaning the individual doesn’t profit from their services, in any city and backed by any politician.
Man on the way to Anger Management Class Attacks Woman
Wouldn’t it be nice if women could get This kind of security?
So domestic violence programs continue for the funding source they are, mostly without family court litigants being aware, how vested state and city officials are in micro-managing lives, . . . . .
or
To Discipline an Unethical Judge, Just Establish a Commission to Consider Whether To..
Since 1960, with complaints about judges now totaling nearly a thousand per year, but only Sixteen judges have been removed from the State of California.
Because the Commission on Judicial Performance, seldom performs, LA County, by necessity, instituted a separate body, to investigate,
Unfortunately, it was the non performance of the Commission on Judicial Performance, specifically the Commission’s private “reprimand” of two San Diego judges, now both, convicted felons to highlight public awareness to a body that will not act to protect the public from felons posing as judges.
What began as a voter referendum forty years ago, has outlived its usefulness.
Lack of judicial accountability in California is its own scandal, separate from the child abuse and gender bias perpetuated by judges running amok within the system.
The budget for the Commission on Judicial Performance, is $3,704,000, distributed as follows.
16 attorneys or counsel, and 10 support staff
Total salaries & wages plus benefits paid $2,629,000
Total support/operating costs $1,075,000
Total Budget $3,704,000The major task of the Commission of Judicial Performance is to investigate complaints about judges.
[From Sidebar:]
Thirty-five percent of its roughly the four million dollar a year budget, is devoted to not opening an investigation after receiving complaints.
This explains why, after receiving Nine Hundred complaints one year, the total number of judges who were “admonished” numbered, six.
Six.
Four million dollars, almost a thousand complaints, and six,
“Don’t do that.” from the CJP
As the numbers confirm, absolutely the Safest occupation in all California is being a bad judge.
“Parental Alienation” & “Domestic Violence”
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Street Level — this shows which infantry you are in.
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Strategic Level – either way, it’s profit, but this is how task forces are delegate to one area or the other.
Another blogger gets this — same as above, on the business of DV — now she weighs in on “Parental Alienation” (although, the Lauren & Ted case, last 2 posts, she took the opposite side I did), it just might be worth a read.
A Nation of Stockholm Children (Aug. 2009, on Open Salon):
In the continued coverage of the Jaycee Lee Dugard case, not likely to be reported is the larger issue of a nation roiling in an epidemic of Stockholm Syndrome kids.
Media’s near total black-out of our nation’s busiest court, dooms our children while ensuring the decades long epidemic of Stockholm children will continue for generations.The most extreme form of parental alienation I’ve seen recently involved a custody dispute in Lawrence, Kansas with the children of Arthur Davis seemingly part of a plan to beat their mother to death with a baseball bat. During a 9-1-1 call, Arthur can be heard screaming in the background to his son, “Hit her harder.”
From failing to educate the public to the profits of those who work in the divorce industry, or family court judges inappropriately adjudicating cases which should rightly be in criminal court;lack of media exposure ensures a nation of damaged children will become damaged adults.
Who profits? Therapists.
. . .(KEEP READING . .. . )
I’m not sure media blackout is the issue, but media spin, and a public so overwhelmed with info, they cannot process it. We do not know how the critical “operating systems” of the country actually work, including courts, law enforcement, government, and the role of religion in all this, child support systems, and the increasingly tightening of networks through the Internet.
Note: I cannot continue “teaching” (publicizing) through posts until my Internet access is up to speed (i.e., MHz very slow!). Just continue to keep in mind: The U.S.A. is the world’s largest per capita jailor, and captive audiences are captive for demonstrations of the latest theories, behavioral management techniques, or justification for (yet more) grants.
I saw a poster on a blog that says what to do, well enough:
It’s time to remember what this man did, and how he did it.
Also, to understand the INNATE characteristics of money — which is to congregate at centers of wealth, and drain from the extremities. That’s the kind of money the U.S. (at least) has, i.e., that which we BUY at interest, which will never be paid off, from the Federal Reserve. There are reasons we “have” to become a nation of consumers, and that failing to consume enough of what we really don’t need (and makes us sick, in some cases) has become an indication of “treason.” In examining the courts from the roots up, it does go to Washington, D.C., and to understand the monetary setting of policy by super-wealthy foundations and families (through government, through universities, etc.), it’s also necessary to grasp, even if dimly, that the North/South (?) division of the globe into countries forced to become export economies, rather than self-sufficient, to pay off THEIR debt — means that those products have to come back to the more industrialized countries. Yeah, I”m an armchair economist, but search “Susan George” on this blog (or just get the book) for a clue.
The Internet flattens, but access (or restricted access) to it also further segments society. The section in Maroon in yesterday’s post bears follow-up (if you can).
Here, is a description of what centrally based (and non-bona fide) money does to communities:
THE PROBLEM WITH CONVENTIONAL MONEY:
- It is partisan
Money as we know it is not a neutral service provided by the government. Our money supply is created by private financial institutions on a for-profit basis. This money system is designed to benefit those who provide it, not those who use it.- It is based on debt
Money is created when banks grant loans. Thus for every unit created there is one unit of debt.- We are encouraged to think of it as a ‘thing’
Money is essentially information and has no physical existence yet banks encourage us to think of it as a ‘thing’ so that they can ‘lend’ it to us and thereby make a profit by charging interest. ‘Thing’ money also has to be created, distributed and controlled so that there is not too much of it. It can also be stolen, lost, bought, sold and counterfeited, with serious consequences for everyone.- It is permanently scarce
The money to pay the interest on debt-money is never created. There is therefore a permanent shortfall of money to pay back both the principal and the interest.- It causes cancerous growth
Banks continuously need to create more money than is required to pay back their loans so that borrowers can pay back the interest on those loans. This is the source of the growth imperative of our economies. There must be a continual expansion of bank credit or else the economy goes into recession. Systemic growth leads to the environmental problems we now all face.- Its value is based on its shortage
The shortfall of money keeps it valuable. There only needs to be enough of it to buy back the goods and services available. This has nothing to do with the monetary requirements of people. Those who have none are not seen by the market and so are marginalised.- It is expensive
Every unit of conventional money is based on a unit of debt. This debt has to be paid back with interest, and the interest on the interest is compounding. Interest is built into the prices of everything we buy, resulting in higher consumer prices.- It redistributes wealth from the poor to the wealthy
Usury is the tool used by the wealthy to suck wealth from the poor and middle classes to the moneyed class. Parasitism and class antagonisms are the result of this.- It promotes dishonesty and corruption
You can get it without delivering anything of value (e.g. speculation, interest, gambling etc.) so people concentrate on ‘making money’ rather than producing/delivering anything of real value. It is usually far easier to get money through dishonest means than by honest work. When you have no money you have no choice but to try and get it dishonestly- It leaks away from where it is created
Conventional money knows no bounds and loyalty. It always leaks away to the ‘money centres’ (financial centres, big businesses, etc.)- It destroys local economies
Goods produced cheaper elsewhere replace locally produced goods. This creates a local shortage of money and reduces the market for local sellers. This also results in the irrational transportation of goods all over the world, consuming precious fossil fuels and creating pollution.- It destroys community
Dependence on money means we no longer need our neighbours. We can get everything from anonymous strangers in return for money. We have no obligation to anyone when the bills are paid. Every trade is a complete and closed action: you provide me with something and I give you money. End of story. No one does us any favours and we need do no favours for anyone.- It fosters competitiveness
The shortage of money means we all have to fight for a share of an amount that is too small to go around. The need to repay interest means that we have to eat others to prevent ourselves from going under.- It creates poverty
While it makes some super rich, it makes most people poor. Poverty is caused by a lack of money (not by a lack of jobs). Usury and the need to keep money scarce ensure that money constantly moves to those who already have money.- It causes social and cultural degradation
The elimination of local opportunities to exchange and relate to one another focuses attention on ways of getting money outside the community. Communities fall apart as they become indebted to entities outside their communities.- And so many more …!
Now let’s think a little bit about TIME. If a person is earning an hourly wage, then TIME in court is wages lost, to say the least. What about their “psychic” emotional and other energy. including creative and thought energies, which would otherwise be put into taking care of their own basic needs, and their family’s (such as it may be, if in a divorce or custody situation). It’s GONE from the mix. In waltzes in (federally, state, then “local” meaning, a child support agency at the county level) – and says we are going to transfer income from A to B. Consider the bureaurcarcy in that, and the antagonism it creates. Families have died over this. Let me repeat. I have yet to hear of a mother murdering over child support, but their is no lack of newsprint on fathers, in this context. His basic authority and social credibility — income producing — has been challenged by the government. Meanwhile, this same Child Support agency waltzes into the newly single mother’s life, perhaps (and if abuse was involved, likely newly poor single) and says, we will interface for you. And yet, this entire system, it later develops, has been co-opted as a custody-switching agency. A federalization of basic life processes. So I say, boycott it. It’s got the power to incarcerate — or not. At will, if a mother has signed over her rights as a result off initially going on welfare. (A fact not typically made much of — but in years to come, will figure highly in any contested case…).
So, here are all these taxes going to socially engineer the country, and causing a lot of strife, and competition for working in the fields supported by this social engineering. How many of the services provided are the most basic ones that we couldn’t do without, and how many of the infrastructures and institutions created are transparent enough for the average participant to actually comprehend
I am certainly not a go-back-to-the-farm proponent, but the codependency here is too much, upon JOBS. The key difference between “job” and “business” is who keeps the profits, and who gets to deduct expenses before taxes.
People who were raised to just love what they do, and specialize in it, are called “professionals,” often, which brings up — who is going to pay for them to do what they love doing, and market it, contract it, do administration, etc. (unless people wish to “do it all” and “keep it small”?) One of the safest places to be a professional in a field that will rarely go away, is to do it for the US Government (I think). And in the courts, too.
Well, there’s a lot more to all this, but the key in the courts is where is the money moving around to, whether through professional referrals, trainings, or simply directly from litigants to fees. Multiply that to all contested custody cases involving children, per state, be aware there are 50 states (and US territories), and think about it.
There is, FYI, a two-tier court track:
1. Can afford fees. They will be “soaked;” one party may be bankrupted later, or up front, to inspire more fights.
1a. Then the therapists can come in and counsel how to reduce conflicts.
2. Can’t afford fees. These will be the revolving door cases, but because there’s such an easy way to get INTO court again, any old OSC almost will do it, and most litigant’s aren’t smart enough to move to dismiss up front (on any of a variety of grounds), these will repeatedly be brought back to court — and possibly produce a candidate for food stamps, SSI, or some other part of the welfare system to continue justifying its existence. Their data will be mined for further studies by social scientists (etc.) in remote locations.
2a. Occasionally a 1a or a 2a may result in someone going off the deep end, with a weapon. However, as this eventually causes social and economic deterioration, over a period of decades, no lack of new, fresh faces for the family law system (and associated professions).
Just a little more on “interest”:
The first source of plunder upon your wealth is the concept of compound interest. Have you heard that the best thing you can do with your money is to let it compound? Such statements are everywhere. “Compound interest is the next best thing since sliced bread.” Do not let these statements fool you. Compound interest is a wealth erosion strategy that has cost the American people billions of dollars.
Why is compounding interest one of the most devastating wealth-eroding techniques? How could having your money grow and compound be bad for anyone? Those who plunder your wealth want you to believe that earning a high rate of interest, and leaving it to compound over a long period is to your financial advantage. Billions of advertiser dollars are spent on promoting this technique to many unwary consumers.
We will present the facts about compound interest. Make sure that you read this material slowly. Use a calculator or computer as you read to verify the accuracy of our numbers and findings. This lesson could save you millions of dollars over your lifetime.
Basically this site is reminding us that, compounding interest or not, what about taxes?
(co. 2004-2008, Evans Financial Group)
My point being, OK, OK,
be aware of the rhetoric,
but pay attention to common “cents” on where the “dollars” are going.
In some respects, could any ex be worse than this system long-term? The answer in many cases is, yes. But, maybe a civic duty is to get the field reports out, for posterity.
What are ALL the relevant elements of any situation — as best you can ascertain them.
Which of those are actionable — now, and in the long run.
What can you do not to overwhelm your personal comprehension system into “Paralysis”?
The human psyche can absorb a LOT of information (varies with individuals), but to act on it is natural. I think that overload jsut builds up tension and frustration, and a sense of powerlessness. To know what to act on, with purpose towards a certain goal, is critical to humanity. Being in systems of such chaos (and corruption) as these family law systems, is dangerous to the health. It tests character to handle it.
To give this post a semblance of structure, I’d like to conclude the way I started:
“Don’t ask me why I decided to post this draft, revealing my thoughts the other day. I don’t feel like telling. “
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Gulag Archipelago, Bahrain Archipelago — Systems to Silence Dissent
LET’s TALK “ARCHIPELAGO”
I often call the Family Law system an “Archipelago,” referring to the networked system that ensnares families.
My other, kind of ridiculous analogy, includes the Giant Squid, lurking in the depths, but with many tentacles, and the nightmare of a ship at sea and sailors’ dreams. When you experience multiple tentacles through this system, the only way to mentally/emotionally grasp the whole is by flexible imagery, it’s a SENSING.
Just in case, someone missed the reference:
June 16, 1974
By STEPHEN F. COHEN
THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO. 1918-1956. An Experiment in Literary Investigation, 1-11.
By Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn.
Translated by Thomas P. Whitney. LETTER TO THE SOVIET LEADERS
By Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn.
Translated by Hilary Sternberg.
ost books about the experience of holocaust, especially those written by survivors, have two purposes. One is to chronicle the full horror of the holocaust, to sear it into the collective consciousness, so that it may never recur. The other is to explain the historical origins and causes of that experience.
The Gulag Archipelago” is a non-fictional account from and about the other great holocaust of our century–the imprisonment, brutalization and very often murder of tens of millions of innocent Soviet citizens by their own Government, mostly during Stalin’s rule from 1929 to 1953.
. . .
Solzhenitsyn has recreated the history between 1918 and 1956 of “that amazing country of Gulag which, though scattered in an archipelago geographically, was, in the psychological sense, fused into a continent–an almost invisible, almost imperceptible, country inhabited by the zek people [prisoners]”. . .Archipelago refers to the far-flung system of forced labor camps run and augmented by the secret police and its institutions, whose prisoner population grew from small numbers after the revolution of 1917 to 12 to 15 million (about half “politicals”) at any one time by the 1940’s. Gulag is the acronym of the central office that administered the penal camps
AND
June 18, 1978
By HILTON KRAMER
THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO:1918-1956. An Experiment in Literary Investigation. Volume III.
By Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn.
Translated from the Russian by Harry Willetts. KOLYMA: The Arctic Death Camps.
By Robert Conquest.
e have known about the Russian purges,” Edmund Wilson wrote in 1971, “but we have not really been able to imagine them.” The writer who, more than any of his contemporaries, decisively changed this situation, giving the world an epic account of the suffering and destruction Russia has endured under its Communist leaders and giving it in the most concrete, most moving, most classical human terms is Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn.Solzhenitsyn who has restored a human face, a recognizable human substance and spirit, to the swollen, faceless statistics of the Soviet holocaust. If, after “The Gulag Archipelago,” we are still unable to imagine what the Soviet reign of terror and death signifies, both for its millions of victims and for us, too, in the precarious comfort of our freedom, it is because we do not want to–because we cannot bring ourselves to face the worst about the politics of our century and the murderous morals of our species.
Solzhenitsyn was one of the many millions in Russia forced by political circumstance into facing the worst as a daily experience. Altogether he has spent 11 yeas of his life in prisons, concentration camps and in exile in the Soviet Union, and now lives in Vermont, in permanent and involuntary exile from his native land. In 1945, at the age of 26 and while serving as a decorated artillery officer in the Red Army, he was arrested for having made some unflattering remarks about Stalin in letters to a friend. It was thus as a zek–a convict in the vast “archipelago” of Russia’s concentration camp system–that Solzhenitsyn was confirmed in his literary vocation. “Prison released in me the ability to write,” he tells us in this new volume, and even after his release–for Solzhenitsyn was among the lucky ones–the moral fire that ignited his literary endeavors in the first place, giving purpose to a condemned existence, continues to rage in every word he writes.
Under the most extreme and intolerable conditions, Solzhenitsyn made himself into the great rememberer of Russia’s terrible ordeal–made of memory itself both a literary medium and an instrument of survival.
You see that “instrument of survival…” — you see this blog, the some of the links on my blogroll, others in this system? This current system doesn’t compare — I THINK — but it sure is headed that way, and becoming an ACCEPTED practice in the USA and overseas, Thought Police is no joke, really.
Combining history and anecdote, analysis and polemic, with searing vignettes of so many doomed lives made all the more eloquent by the author’s intense empathy, his fiery sarcasm and moral fury, Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag” is the kind of book that permanently alters the way we perceive the world in which we live. No one who reads through its many blood-stained pages can ever be quite the same again–can ever again read a newspaper, listen to a political speech or look upon then political and human circumstances of his own life with quite the same complacency and comfort. It is a book that leaves a permanent scar on the reader’s soul.
. . . requires a strong stomach–and something else, too: a moral commitment of the sort that few writers nowadays require of their readers-
You cannot help a situation you can’t stomach even being aware of, naming, or seeing. This is how much abuse gets ignored. There’s an innate alienation to emotionally protect onesself from the (truth) that the world just ain’t fair, AND that “time and chance happen to us all.” No, it must have been something about the victim’s fault, and the “But that’s THEM, and not US” scenarios kicks in, even when it’s someone close to the person. I understand this. It’s a daily balance from being paralyzed by awareness of what DOES and CAN happen, right here, now (not referring to this historical piece) and from realizing that one’s conscience canNOT accept a “back to business as normal,” again.
WIKIPEDIA contributes — and would I miss a chance to mention this? Of course not.
He was raised without a father. Must’ve been at risk of a horrible life because of that (and not wars, political changes, or purges. No, healthy families have two parents. WELL then, with this formula, how does one explain such an author? Or is there ANOTHER reason for this policy in the US, and the Family Court Archipelago here, and overseas?
The Gulag Archipelago has sold over thirty million copies in thirty-five languages. It was based upon Solzhenitsyn’s own experience as well as the testimony of 256[29] former prisoners and Solzhenitsyn’s own research into the history of the penal system. It discussed the system’s origins from the founding of the Communist regime, with Lenin himself having responsibility, detailing interrogation procedures, prisoner transports, prison camp culture, prisoner uprisings and revolts, and the practice of internal exile. T
“In 1918, Taisia became pregnant with Aleksandr. Shortly after her pregnancy was confirmed, Isaakiy was killed in a hunting accident. Aleksandr was then raised by his widowed mother and aunt in lowly circumstances. His earliest years coincided with the Russian Civil War. By 1930 the family property had been turned into a collective farm.
Later, Solzhenitsyn recalled that his mother had fought for survival and that they had to keep his father’s background in the old Imperial Army a secret. His educated mother (who never remarried) encouraged his literary and scientific leanings and raised him in the Russian Orthodox faith;[5] she died in 1944.[6]“
In the BAHRAIN ARCHIPELAGO (physical island chain)
Human Rights Issues in a small island nation:
Yesterday’s post blogged a custody case of a woman and child from Arizona trapped in Bahrain in a custody dispute. Bahrain is an “archipelago.” I showed the NASA photo, and found multiple Human Rights Watch articles on Woman and Child Abuse there. Portugal and Great Britain had their time in its history, divisions between Shi’ite majority and Sunni minority reverse (from what I can tell) the rest of the world’s status, and women only got the vote in 2002. It’s considered more liberal than some of it’s neighbors, and is home to what will be (is?) the WORLD’s longest bridge, from Qatar peninsula to the tiny Bahrain main island. Not the best place for a foreign-born woman to be trapped in a custody dispute!
HERE is an article “Women Don’t Need to Accept Polygamy” (currently that doesn’t seem true, but it presents issues)
And Amnesty International Documented in 1994-1996, increasing abuse of women and children in suppressing civil unrest:
- http://www.amnesty.org
- Description:
- Since 1994, the Government of Bahrain has responded to civil unrest with widespread arbitrary arrests, apparent extrajudicial killings, imprisonment of prisoners of conscience, torture and the death sentence, the first to be carried out in almost 20 years. The government has also continued a policy of forcible exile of its own nationals, sending whole families out of Bahrain, or banning their return if suspected of opposition political activity abroad.
- AND
- “December 1994, there was an alarming, unprecedented increase in human rights violations in Bahrain following widespread pro-democracy demonstrations. For the first time, women and children as young as nine or ten years old were targeted for arrest and many were reportedly ill-treated in custody. For many women, this was the first time they had engaged in an active and vocal participation in public protests, a shift from their traditional role away from the public arena.
- {{Protest – Retaliation. Women and children participating, speaking out, took a real hit: the goal being to quell and suppress, ESPECIALLY if this population was going to mobilize. Even more so if this belies religious traditions. U.S. has its religious influences also, in human rights violations against omwne and children in the courts, and in abuse of children in the penal / juvenile system. We ARE the world’s largest jailor, but do things a little differently undert the form of government…}}
- Groups of women also wrote petitions to the Amir urging the restoration of democracy, and led demonstrations calling for the release of their menfolk and of all political prisoners. Children also joined the protest movement, staging sit-in strikes in schools and participating in street demonstrations which sometimes developed into clashes with security forces. The government dealt with both these groups by arresting them arbitrarily, holding them for extended periods in incommunicado detention and often ill-treating or torturing them during investigation. International standards addressing the particular vulnerabilities of women and children and rules regarding their detention and trial were consistently violated.
- Amnesty International recorded the Bahraini Governments violations of human rights in a report entitled Bahrain: A Human Rights Crisis (AI Index MDE 11/16/95), issued in September 1995. The report detailed a number of cases in which women were held in incommunicado detention for months at a time before their release without charge or trial. As with most other detainees, the women were deprived of their right to contact their relatives or a lawyer during their detention period.
{{they were in islands of their own}}
A number of them were subjected to beatings and threats for allegedly [1] having participated in demonstrations or [2] for attempting to prevent the arrest of their male relatives. Some women were arrested and held as hostages in order [3] to coerce male relatives to hand themselves over to the authorities, while others were detained [4] apparently as a punishment for the opposition activities of their male relatives, who were either detained or had evaded arrest. It would appear that some women were also detained [5] in order to deter other women from joining public protests.”
{{Pause to reread the above paragraph — the various PURPOSES for beating and threatening these women. It didn’t always even related to anything they personally had done.}
National Identity. Bahrainis self-identify as part of the Arab world. There are tensions between the Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims, and religious affiliation is of primary importance in defining one’s identity.
Ethnic Relations. Expatriates constitute 20 percent of the population. They come mainly from other Arab nations but also from India, Pakistan, Southeast Asia, Europe, and America. While relations are not unfriendly, foreigners generally are not integrated into Bahraini society. The vast majority are temporary workers and thus constitute a transient population.
Leadership and Political Officials. Political parties are prohibited, but there are several small underground leftist and Islamic fundamentalist groups. The main opposition consists of Shi’a Muslim groups that have been active since 1994, protesting unemployment and the dissolution in 1975 of the National Assembly, an elected legislative body.
Social Problems and Control. The legal system is based on a combination of Islamic law and English common law. Most potential laws are discussed by the Shura council before being put into in effect.
G ENDER R OLES AND S TATUSES
Division of Labor by Gender. Women are responsible for all domestic work, and few are employed outside the home (only 15 percent of the workforce is female). This is beginning to change as more girls gain access to an education, and foreign influence has modified traditional views of women’s roles. There are no women represented in the government.
Relative Status of Women and Men. In the Islamic tradition, women have a lower status than men and are considered weaker and in need of protection. Bahrain has been more progressive than other Arab nations in its treatment of women. The first school for girls was opened in 1928, nine years after the first boys’ school.
What about Here? What about, now, today, the U.S.A. — are we an island in the world, with our Bill of Rights and Constitution, and legislative, judicial, executive branches of government, and just a bit of distance between the states and the feds? (less and less so each administration….). Do we have ROYALTY? Do we have RIGHTS?
Define “we.”
TheLoop21.com
Incarcerated Teens testify about abuse in private prisons
Mon, 08/30/2010 – 10:24Incarcerated youth give testimony of abuse: Private Prisons Part 3
Two teens share their harrowing experiences of sexual assault in juvenile detention facilities
By: Brandale Randolph | TheLoop21 (Add to your loop)
Mon, 08/30/2010 – 10:24After my last piece on Private Prisons, I got several nerve shattering responses. Inmates from prisons all over the country were sending me direct messages and tweets about the piece but what jarred me the most is that I received several messages from kids who had been housed in juvenile detention centers. Still, nothing could prepare me for the conversations I had with several teens who are currently in juvenile detentions centers. Of those, three were housed in privately owned and operated facilities.
For the purpose of this post, I selected one male and one female juvenile inmate. The third juvenile did not say much, we got to a point in the conversation when I heard her cry. Out of respect for the things that she told me, I erased the recording.
Two teens share their harrowing experiences of sexual assault in juvenile detention facilities
Male and Female, they are getting raped, and know better than to protest to the guards, some of who participate
Corrections Corporation of America is making millions, some from prison labor
By: Brandale Randolph | TheLoop21 (Add to your loop)
Mon, 08/16/2010 – 00:00African Americans comprise more than 40 percent of all of the inmates in American. Many of the crimes that have lead to our incarceration are non violent. Crimes such as grand theft, drug possession, prostitution etc., that many see as norms in our community are feeding the worst beast of the prison industrial complex, the private prison.
Private prison companies are literally making billions off the incarceration [of] African Americans. L
Let’s look at, the Corrections Corporation of America, or CCA for short. CCA is the largest private prison corporation in America. With 60 facilities and more than 85,000 beds, they are the fourth largest corrections system in the nation, only the federal government and three states are larger.
Last week, on Aug 5th, CCA announced its quarterly earnings, for the three-month period between April and July it earned a reported $419.4 million. In other words over last three months. That’s along with $414 million reported in the 1st quarter, or $833 million in the first six months of 2010.
Yes, despite the poor economy and reports of dozens of inmate dying because of poor health care and inmate abuse, CCA continues to generate billions of dollars.
However, the revenues generated by CCA do not include just the tax revenue paid by states and the federal government to house inmates. Like other private prisons, CCA generates money from prison labor. Under the guise of vocational training, CCA hires inmates to perform construction duties, law enforcement dog training, and even software testing for Microsoft. All at a fraction of the cost of using labor outside the walls.
In 2008, there was a phenomenal article in Mother Jones by Caroline Winter, “From Starbucks to Microsoft: a sampling of what US inmates make and for whom.” According to the article findings, inmates process food including beef and chicken, packing for Starbucks and even lingerie for Victoria’s Secret.
The larger threat is that CCA spends money on political campaigns as a lobbying organization. For example, let’s look at its involvement in Arizona’s SB 1070.
According to a Phoenix news report a few days ago, CCA donated money directly to the gubernatorial campaign of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer. Moreover, the company receives more than $11 million dollars per month from the state of Arizona. Also according to this report, two of Gov. Brewer’s top advisors have ties to CCA. Paul Senseman, her deputy chief of staff is a former lobbyist for CCA and his wife is now a current lobbyist for the company. Chuck Coughlin one of her policy advisors and campaign chairman, owns the company that currently lobbies for CCA.
I decided to look up this CCA, and found a 2000 “CORPWATCH” article that calls the Private Prison Complex a “Gulag.”
Note: My laptop is slow, and frequently loses text before it’s saved. This is exceptionally frustrating — yesterday, I lost probably 2 hours of work, background on Bahrain — which is why it’s on today’s post. The other part of the word “wait” is some days, simply watching a little “processing” symbol spin around and load a page. Graphics rich pages, such as from TheLoop21.com, are painful to load; guilt tends to kick in at this point for even blogging.
While on this topic: NONE of this blog was done from a regular, home PC. I had a laptop, which was stolen, briefly. Then probably a half year of (back to the libraries) (being car-less), and recently laptopped again — only a older, slower one. So be thankful for whatever comes out cohesive and coherent. Most times, I am looking at a single screen maximum 2 paragraphs visible at a time. Printing is another project. So all in all, perhaps it symbolizes the trouble also being stuck in the courts — basic infrastructure is hard to maintain, and forget it for a current generation of electronic equipment, whether computer, phone, or mechanical, such as transportation.
How could any system which so systematically removes work time from adults be in the interest of children? And the instability of it over time is reflected in parents’ ability to retain jobs and social connections.
We are heading towards world-wide slavery, it seems.
Many (noncustodial) mothers I know, active in protesting and seeking reform, speak eloquently on the human face of the suffering. Others also speak of the legal abuse, and psychological devastation of ongoing threat of losing one’s children, or hope of seeing them again, or being caught (liek the author, above) speaking “in appropriately” and thrown in jail, or being gagged, with the threat of jail, if they don’t comply. As I, too, have become alienated from a normal work life, not through economy, but through the courts, after dysfunctional/violent (which came first?) marriage, and similarly dysfunctional institutions willing to do anything about the violence, I have become more aware of, and personally know mothers who’ve become shadows of their former severals, women who have gone to jail attempting to protect a child, and women who have been threatened with jail if they don’t shut up (“Gag order”). I don’t want to think about how many homeless women I know who got that way after a custody switch, or women who are not homeless, but paying their former batterer.
In addressing this, people protest the indignity and the travesty of human rights, legal rights, and common sense.
WELL, some attitudes are NOT common to all, and better acknowledge it sooner.
FAR FEWER are willing to analyze the common CENTS (more like $$) economically that are behind the system. Some do, but how many people do you know that are willing to become the next Irving Fine ? Or will take their chances, and start to subpoena major organizations’ bank accounts, tax records, and insist that answers be given?
If it’s gut-wrenching and and too much to stomach, hearing about the outrage of children and juveniles being raped, without anyone stopping it, of a complete dual system of enforcement of court orders, and no recourse when failure to arrest still results in unnecessary deaths, LOTS of them, then why not look at some “dry” figures, some analyses, and get really outraged?
The bottom line is the bottom line. We all have our personal, legal ones, but the systems in this country (and extending globally) are political/economic. THEIR bottom line looks a lot different.
Remember, in any relationship, there are two points of view, and two “bottom lines.” When the government power to incarcerate is involved, and combined with this same government’s IRS agency (similar powers) to take and reallocate income — not just people — we have to take a look at their books, and who cooked up the business plan.
Now: PRIVATE PRISON ARCHIPELAGO — CORPORATE / GOVERNMENT PERSPECTIVE
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What is the most profitable industry in America? Weapons, oil and computer technology all offer high rates of return, but there is probably no sector of the economy so abloom with money as the privately run prison industry. |
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US: America’s Private Gulag , |
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What is the most profitable industry in America? Weapons, oil and computer technology all offer high rates of return, but there is probably no sector of the economy so abloom with money as the privately run prison industry. Consider the growth of the Corrections Corporation of America, the industry leader whose stock price has climbed from $8 a share in 1992 to about $30 today and whose revenue rose by 81 per cent in 1995 alone. Investors in Wackenhut Corrections Corp. have enjoyed an average return of 18 per cent during the past five years and the company is rated by Forbes as one of the top 200 small businesses in the country. At Esmor, another big private prison contractor, revenues have soared from $4.6 million in 1990 to more than $25 million in 1995. Ten years ago there were just five privately-run prisons in the country, housing a population of 2,000. Today nearly a score of private firms run more than 100 prisons with about 62,000 beds. That’s still less than five per cent of the total market but the industry is expanding fast, with the number of private prison beds expected to grow to 360,000 during the next decade. The exhilaration among leaders and observers of the private prison sector was cheerfully summed up by a headline in USA Today: “Everybody’s doin’ the jailhouse stock”. An equally upbeat mood imbued a conference on private prisons held last December at the Four Seasons Resort in Dallas. The brochure for the conference, organized by the World Research Group, a New York-based investment firm, called the corporate takeover of correctional facilities the “newest trend in the area of privatizing previously government-run programs… While arrests and convictions are steadily on the rise, profits are to be made — profits from crime. Get in on the ground floor of this booming industry now!” A hundred years ago private prisons were a familiar feature of American life, with disastrous consequences. Prisoners were farmed out as slave labor. They were routinely beaten and abused, fed slop and kept in horribly overcrowded cells. Conditions were so wretched that by the end of the nineteenth century private prisons were outlawed in most states. During the past decade, private prisons have made a comeback. Already 28 states have passed legislation making it legal for private contractors to run correctional facilities and many more states are expected to follow suit. The reasons for the rapid expansion include the 1990’s free-market ideological fervor, large budget deficits for the federal and state governments and the discovery and creation of vast new reserves of “raw materials” — prisoners. The rate for most serious crimes has been dropping or stagnant for the past 15 years, but during the same period severe repeat offender provisions and a racist “get-tough” policy on drugs have helped push the US prison population up from 300,000 to around 1.5 million during the same period. This has produced a corresponding boom in prison construction and costs, with the federal government’s annual expenditures in the area, now $17 billion. In California, passage of the infamous “three strikes” bill will result in the construction of an additional 20 prisons during the next few years. {{GOT THAT? SERIOUS CRIME RATES HAVE BEEN DROPPING FOR 15 YEARS (@2000). GOTTA KEEP THE PLACES FILLED FOR BUSINESS TO TURN A PROFIT, THOUGH. HOW? DRUGS WAR, 3 STRIKES YOU’RE OUT}} The private prison business is most entrenched at the state level but is expanding into the federal prison system as well. Last year Attorney General Janet Reno announced that five of seven new federal prisons being built will be run by the private sector. Almost all of the prisons run by private firms are low or medium security, but the companies are trying to break into the high-security field. They have also begun taking charge of management at INS detention centers, boot camps for juvenile offenders and substance abuse programs. The PlayersRoughly half of the industry is controlled by the Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America, (CCA) which runs 46 penal institutions in 11 states. It took ten years for the company to reach 10,000 beds; it is now growing by that same number every year. {There’s a TN connection…} CCA’s chief competitor is Wackenhut, which was founded in 1954 by George Wackenhut, a former FBI official. Over the years its board and staff have included such veterans of the US national security state as Frank Carlucci, Bobby Ray Inman and William Casey, as well as Jorge Mas Canosa, leader of the fanatic Cuban American National Foundation. The company also provides security services to private corporations. It has provided strikebreakers at the Pittston mine strike in Kentucky, hired unlicensed investigators to ferret out whistle blowers at Alyeska, the company that controls the Alaskan Oil pipeline, and beaten anti-nuclear demonstrators at facilities it guards for the Department of Energy. Esmor, the number three firm in the field, was founded only a few years ago and already operates ten corrections or detention facilities. The company’s board includes William Barrett, a director of Frederick’s of Hollywood, and company CEO James Slattery, whose previous experience was investing in and managing hotels. US companies also have been expanding abroad. The big three have facilities in Australia, England and Puerto Rico and are now looking at opportunities in Europe, Canada, Brazil, Mexico and China. Greasing the Wheels of Power to Keep Jails FullTo be profitable, private prison firms must ensure that prisons are not only built but also filled. Industry experts say a 90-95 per cent capacity rate is needed to guarantee the hefty rates of return needed to lure investors. Prudential Securities issued a wildly bullish report on CCA a few years ago but cautioned, “It takes time to bring inmate population levels up to where they cover costs. Low occupancy is a drag on profits.” Still, said the report, company earnings would be strong if CCA succeeded in ramp(ing) up population levels in its new facilities at an acceptable rate”. “(There is a) basic philosophical problem when you begin turning over administration of prisons to people who have an interest in keeping people locked up” notes Jenni Gainsborough of the ACLU’s National Prison Project. {{Now we are going to talk about LOBBYING….}}
Private prison companies have also begun to push, even if discreetly, for the type of get-tough policies needed to ensure their continued growth. All the major firms in the field have hired big-time lobbyists. When it was seeking a contract to run a halfway house in New York City, Esmor hired a onetime aide to State Representative Edolphus Towns to lobby on its behalf. The aide succeeded in winning the contract and also the vote of his former boss, who had been an opponent of the project. In 1995, Wackenhut Chairman Tim Cole testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee to urge support for amendments to the Violent Crime Control Act — which subsequently passed — that authorized the expenditure of $10 billion to construct and repair state prisons. CCA has been especially adept at expansion via political payoffs. The first prison the company managed was the Silverdale Workhouse in Hamilton County, Tennessee. After commissioner Bob Long voted to accept CCA’s bid for the project, the company awarded Long’s pest control firm a lucrative contract. When Long decided the time was right to quit public life, CCA hired him to lobby on its behalf. CCA has been a major financial supporter of Lamar Alexander, the former Tennessee governor and failed presidential candidate. In one of a number of sweetheart deals, Lamar’s wife, Honey Alexander, made more than $130,000 on a $5,000 investment in CCA. Tennessee Governor Ned McWherter is another CCA stockholder and is quoted in the company’s 1995 annual report as saying that “the federal government would be well served to privatize all of their corrections.” In another ominous development, the revolving door between the public and private sector has led to the type of company boards that are typical of those found in the military-industrial complex. CCA co-founders were T. Don Hutto, an ex-corrections commissioner in Virginia, and Tom Beasley, a former chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party. A top company official is Michael Quinlan, once director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The board of Wackenhut is graced by a former Marine Corps commander, two retired Air Force generals and a former under secretary of the Air Force, as well as James Thompson, ex-governer of Illinois, Stuart Gerson, a former assistant US attorney general and Richard Staley, who previously worked with the INS. Leaner and Meaner?The companies that dominate the private prison business claim that they offer the taxpayers a bargain because they operate far more cheaply than do state firms. As one industry report put it, “CEOs of privatized companies… are leaner and more motivated than their public-sector counterparts.” Because they are private firms that answer to shareholders, prison companies have been predictably vigorous in seeking ways to cut costs. In 1985, a private firm tried to site a prison on a toxic waste dump in Pennsylvania, which it had bought at the bargain rate of $1. Fortunately, that plan was rejected. Many states pay private contractors a per diem rate, as low as $31 a prisoner in Texas. A federal investigation traced a 1994 riot at an Esmor immigration detention center to the company’s having skimped on food, building repairs and guard salaries. At an Esmor-run halfway house in Manhattan, inspectors turned up leaky plumbing, exposed electrical wires, vermin and inadequate food. To rachet up profit margins, companies have cut corners on drug rehabilitation, counseling and literacy programs. In 1995, Wackenhut was investigated for diverting $700,000 intended for drug treatment programs at a Texas prison. In Florida the US Corrections Corporation was found to be in violation of a provision in its state contract that requires prisoners to be placed in meaningful work or educational assignments. The company had assigned 235 prisoners as dorm orderlies when no more than 48 were needed and enrollment in education programs was well below what the contract called for. Such incidents led a prisoner at a CCA facility in Tennessee to conclude, “There is something inherently sinister about making money from the incarceration of prisoners, and in putting CCA’s bottom line (money) before society’s bottom line (rehabilitation).” {{Couldn’t have said it better myself: 2 bottom lines. MONEY? or REHABILITATION? (or whatever line someone is pushing at the public, currently}}
The companies try to cut costs by offering less training and pay to staff. Almost all workers at state prisons get union-scale pay but salaries for private prison guards range from about $7 to $10 per hour. Of course the companies are anti-union. When workers attempted to organize at Tennessee’s South Central prison, CCA sent officials down from Nashville to quash the effort. Poor pay and work conditions have led to huge turnover rates at private prisons. A report by the Florida auditor’s office found that turnover at the Gadsden Correctional Facility for women, run by the US Corrections Corporation, was ten times the rate at state prisons. Minutes from an administrative meeting at a CCA prison in Tennessee have the “chief” recorded as saying, “We all know that we have lots of new staff and are constantly in the training mode… Many employees (are) totally lost and have never worked in corrections.” Private companies also try to nickel and dime prisoners in the effort to boost revenue. “Canteen prices are outrageous,” wrote a prisoner at the Gadsden facility in Florida. “(We) pay more for a pack of cigarettes than in the free world.” Neither do private firms provide prisoners with soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes or writing paper. One female prisoner at a CCA prison in New Mexico said: “The state gives five free postage paid envelopes per month to prisoners, nothing at CCA. State provides new coats, jeans, shirts, and underwear and replaces them as needed. CCA rarely buys new clothing and inmates are often issued tattered and stained clothing. Same goes of linens. Also ration toilet paper and paper towels. If you run out, too bad — 3 rolls every two weeks.” Cashing in on CrimeIn addition to the companies that directly manage America’s prisons, many other firms are getting a piece of the private prison action. American Express has invested millions of dollars in private prison construction in Oklahoma and General Electric has helped finance construction in Tennessee. Goldman Sachs & Co., Merrill Lynch, Smith Barney, among other Wall Street firms, have made huge sums by underwriting prison construction with the sale of tax exempt bonds, this now a thriving $2.3 billion industry. Weapons manufacturers see both public and private prisons as a new outlet for “defense” technology, such as electronic bracelets and stun guns. Private transport companies have lucrative contracts to move prisoners within and across state lines; health care companies supply jails with doctors and nurses; food service firms provide prisoners with meals. High-tech firms are also moving into the field; the Que-Tel Corp. hopes for vigorous sales of its new system whereby prisoners are bar coded and guards carry scanners to monitor their movements. Phone companies such as AT&T chase after the enormously lucrative prison business. {{And you thought the concept was just science fiction, or some religious doomsayer, predicting…. NOPE! Shades of Holocauset, much?}} About three-quarters of new admissions to American jails and prisons are now African-American and Hispanic men. This trend, combined with an increasingly privatized and profitable prison system run largely by whites, makes for what Jerome Miller, a former youth corrections officer in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, calls the emerging Gulag State. Miller predicts that the Gulag State will be in place within 15 years. He expects three to five million people to be behind bars, including an absolute majority of African-American men. It’s comparable, he says, to the post-Civil War period, when authorities came to view the prison system as a cheaper, more efficient substitute for slavery. Of the state’s current approach to crime and law enforcement, Miller says, “The race card has changed the whole playing field. Because the prison system doesn’t affect a significant percentage of young white men we’ll increasingly see prisoners treated as commodities. For now the situation is a bit more benign than it was back in the nineteenth century but I’m not sure it will stay that way for long.” This article originally appeared in CounterPunch, a Washington DC-based political newsletter. |
WELL, someone had to say this, and I’m not the first. As to women, a term that continues to come to mind as to this court system was a “Jim Crow” period following some feminist gains in the 70s. The backlash can be severe.
I remind this world that a lot of people became fatherless during WARS.
Now, we are ready to read the next post from the UK area. This post was just an introduction which got out of hand…
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Read my page “READ THIS FIRST” — Really!
I just published a page to look at ROOTS and FRUIT
of a large, and widely spreading tree, the Family Law system, not to mention some of the birds that come to roost there, and how it eliminates other native vegetation,crowding out sunlight and choking other growth near it, permanently altering previous eco-(nomic) systems and the balance of relationships that once were possible, but now no longer are.
How could this be, and who planted it? All destructive ~ or creative ~ ideas originate somewhere. (I heard) “There’s nothing [qualitatively] new under the sun,” so what is this tree’s genealogy?
SO . . . .
To understand why this blog, read the page “READ THIS FIRST” — first.
Do not pass Go, start there, scroll down and scroll down and reflect on, “how’s come it’s a madhouse in the family law system, and more and more criminal behavior seems to surround it?”
That’s an important question, and not a hard one to answer. It’s just hard to get people to accept it, and act accordingly. It gets more press to complain, report, comment, and in the process
develop another market niche. PR Professionals are great at this. I’m not a PR professional,
but a “family law vet” — that means, have taken the hits — and have developed some survival skills. The FIRST survival skill is understanding the landscape and how the natives act, and have been acting. I even have a post somewhere on here relating to S.U.R.V.I.V.A.L. training.
WELL, READ THAT PAGE FIRST, even if you’re a family law attorney or social worker, or any other AFCC member.
My PAGES, currently, can be found with a little scrolling.
A look at “Feedjit” to the right shows that, formatting and failure to proofread apart, this blog may have some information worth looking at. It’s wide-ranging, but I analyze from a less traditional angle. I try to combine my academic ~ OK, and natural temperament ~ longsuits crossing different genres to make sense of research. And I do this with varying degrees of PTSD generated by over a decade of dealing with abuse and legal abuse afterwards. {{By the way, there’s a body of literature on comparing the battering relationship to stalking through the courts. I will say, it feels the same, and the same principles are at work. It also is akin to P.O.W., although a different war. You can hear BOTH men and women talk about this feeling; it’s a matter of perspective. My personal “take” on the issue is that these courts were designed (upfront) as a place for batterers [or, spouses, specifically men, who fear abandonment, to get even. They are, of themselves, in many was, a cult. Biderman’s chart of coercion describes tactics.“Dependency, Debility & Dread.”}}
I sort through themes, and follow the hot leads, and try to avoid the dead ends. The sarcastic commentary on the ridiculous propositions & assumptions found are incidental, and don’t cost extra. Like many (mothers who became noncustodial mothers through family law after leaving violent relationships) by blogging, I in general find some redemption in what has been the longest nightmare (and fastest learning curve) I’ve known to date.
BUT, I also know, certain themes are unique and underreported, and my angle, which began when I reviewed http://nacfj.net after losing it “all” (there’s always more which can be lost, I’ve learned, but I refer to expectation of justice in this system, and any hope to restore what was formerly a reasonable life or any innocence attached to it. This system “slimes” you — you come out different. Yeech!)
The people attracted to family law are, variously:
- naively hoping to fix families, reconcile people who don’t want to be reconciled, and shouldn’t (that, my READ THIS FIRST page talks about),
- distressed (and so, vulnerable),
- ambulance-chasers, particularly where money and [power over] distressed CHILDREn are potentially available,
- too impatient for the accident to happen and so setting the brakes on off, the steering wheel crooked, or hiring (or schmoozing with) others to jump in front of the speeding (away from dangerous relationships) cars, then blame the cars for running into the lampposts or other pedestrians, and stick taxpayers, and the car’s driver that couldn’t avoid the “accident,” with the bill, both in the form of lost income, actual fees, and — which is what I most object to — lost freedoms…..[I warned you I was rather jaundiced, or at least sarcastic. But this IS narrative characterizations, the parallels I believe apply!]
- mercenary soldiers in search of a cause….
- and there are also megalomaniacs, whose behavior (not always PUBLIC behavior) indicates they believe in an archaic religion and the divine right of kings — and NOT the U.S. Constitution or Bill of Rights, separation of powers, anything implicit or explicit in the Declaration of Independence, or other things involving, say, humility.
Speaking of which, the divine right of kings, . . . . .
Here’s a picture of a world-renowned “monarch.” Surely this must be a joke, right?
Look closely at the banner in the photo, bottom line . . . . This was in a U.S. Senate Building, in 2004
Are we a monarchy? Well, that depends on how you look at it, and how many more years of this goes on.
Arizona legislator/Unification Church member’s peculiar mix of religion/politics
06/26/2008
Arizona State Representitive Mark Anderson, a Republican from Mesa, has a long history of loyal and devoted service to Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the self-proclaimed “messiah” (photo below right) and leader of the Unification Church.
Rev. Moon teaches his disciples that singles should not expect a happy hereafter and that marriage is a requirement for salvation and entering heaven.
Matrimony also plays a pivotal role in Moon’s theology. He calls himself the “Lord of the Second Advent” who provides a “physical salvation,” which Jesus was unable to accomplish, because he was executed and didn’t marry.
It is largely because of these beliefs that Moon has presided over mass weddings, often marrying thousands of his followers simultaneously.
Mark Anderson appears to be dutifully following Moon’s dogma as a state legislator.
In the Spring of 2000 he sponsored a bill that successfully passed and created a “Marriage and Communication Skills Commission.”
Funded by Arizona’s taxpayers, the purpose of the Commission is to recognize “the importance of marriage.”
Beyond this the Commission also doles out funding for “workshops” and “programs,” which are provided through contractors.
And guess who is co-chairman of the Arizona marriage commission?
(etc.) . . . .
Enter Pastor Leo Godzich, President of the “National Association of Marriage Enhancement” (NAME), a close associate and long-time friend of Mark Anderson.
NAME has been and continues to be the recipient of hundreds of thousands of dollars in state contracts.
Actually, make that a million, so far (to 2009). Enter another tool from this site: “http://Taggs.hhs.gov”
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| Fiscal Year | OPDIV | Grantee Name | Award Title | Sum of Actions |
| 2009 | ACF | NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MARRIAGE ENHANCEMENT | HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 5 | $ 250,000 |
| 2008 | ACF | NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MARRIAGE ENHANCEMENT | HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 5 | $ 250,000 |
| 2007 | ACF | NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MARRIAGE ENHANCEMENT | HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 5 | $ 250,000 |
| 2006 | ACF | NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MARRIAGE ENHANCEMENT | HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 5 | $ 250,000 |
Actually, for those who stay up late, unable to sleep over some of these serious issues, the term “marriage enhancement” might convey a late-night TV ad to help “inspire” some overworked couples to have better, er, relations. Where some see simple problems, others see a GREAT market niche, whether the above version, or the late-night TV ad version.
To grasp the scope of this movement — in just one program code alone – 93086, Healthy Marriage, Responsible Fatherhood — I picked Colorado. I notice the database has changed, and only shows back to 2006 (it actually goes back to mid-1990s). This is just a tip of the iceberg (that’s about to sink the Titanic ship of state, if we don’t divert, stop, or reverse engines)(and don’t count on any Unification church legislators to do this!):
TAGGS Advanced Search Results
| Fiscal Year | Grantee Name | State | County | Award Title | CFDA Number | Award Class | Award Activity Type | Award Action Type | Principal Investigator | Sum of Actions |
| 2009 | Archuleta County Department of Human Services | CO | ARCHULETA | PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | ERLINDA B GONZALEZ | $ 200,000 |
| 2009 | CO DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES | CO | DENVER | PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD COMMUNITY ACCESS PROGRAM | 93086 | COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | RICHARD BATTEN | $ 2,000,000 |
| 2009 | COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY | CO | LARIMER | HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORTY AREA 8 | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | JANET O BENAVENTE | $ 422,972 |
| 2009 | Denver Indian Family Resource Center | CO | JEFFERSON | PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | OTHER | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | ISABELLE MEDCHILL | $ 203,603 |
| 2009 | Montrose County Health and Human Services | CO | MONTROSE | PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | JON MERRITT | $ 249,552 |
| 2009 | PEER ASSISTANCE SERVICES, INC | CO | DENVER | HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 8 | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | ELIZABETH M PACE | $ 525,000 |
| 2009 | THERAPY HELP, INC | CO | DENVER | HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 8 | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | ABIGAIL HIRSCH,PH.D | $ 550,000 |
| 2009 | WAIT Training | CO | DENVER | HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION GRANT: PRIORITY AREA 2 | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | DOUG WITTENBERG | $ 889,201 |
| 2009 | WELD COUNTY RESOURCES DEPARTMENT | CO | WELD | HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 2 | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | ANN BRUCE | $ 974,358 |
| 2008 | Archuleta County Department of Human Services | CO | ARCHULETA | PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | ERLINDA B GONZALEZ | $ 200,000 |
| 2008 | CO DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES | CO | DENVER | PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD COMMUNITY ACCESS PROGRAM | 93086 | COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | RICHARD BATTEN | $ 2,000,000 |
| 2008 | COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY | CO | LARIMER | HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORTY AREA 8 | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | JANET O BENAVENTE | $ 482,687 |
| 2008 | Denver Indian Family Resource Center | CO | JEFFERSON | PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | ISABELLE MEDCHILL | $ 198,280 |
| 2008 | Montrose County Health and Human Services | CO | MONTROSE | PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | JON MERRITT | $ 249,552 |
| 2008 | PEER ASSISTANCE SERVICES, INC | CO | DENVER | HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 8 | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | ELIZABETH M PACE | $ 525,000 |
| 2008 | THERAPY HELP, INC | CO | DENVER | HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 8 | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | ABIGAIL HIRSCH,PH.D | $ 550,000 |
| 2008 | WAIT Training | CO | DENVER | HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION GRANT: PRIORITY AREA 2 | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | DOUG WITTENBERG | $ 1,010,330 |
| 2008 | WELD COUNTY RESOURCES DEPARTMENT | CO | WELD | HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 2 | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | PAULE S BROWN | $ 974,358 |
| 2007 | Archuleta County Department of Human Services | CO | ARCHULETA | PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | ERLINDA B GONZALEZ | $ 200,000 |
| 2007 | CO DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES | CO | DENVER | PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD COMMUNITY ACCESS PROGRAM | 93086 | COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | MARY E ROBERTO | $ 2,000,000 |
| 2007 | COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY | CO | LARIMER | HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORTY AREA 8 | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | JANET O BENAVENTE | $ 383,090 |
| 2007 | Denver Indian Family Resource Center | CO | JEFFERSON | PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | ISABELLE MEDCHILL | $ 209,308 |
| 2007 | Montrose County Health and Human Services | CO | MONTROSE | PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | PEG MEWES | $ 249,552 |
| 2007 | PEER ASSISTANCE SERVICES, INC | CO | DENVER | HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 8 | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | ELIZABETH M PACE | $ 345,000 |
| 2007 | THERAPY HELP, INC | CO | DENVER | HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 8 | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | ABIGAIL HIRSCH,PH.D | $ 550,000 |
| 2007 | WAIT Training | CO | DENVER | HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION GRANT: PRIORITY AREA 2 | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | DOUG WITTENBERG | $ 935,330 |
| 2007 | WELD COUNTY RESOURCES DEPARTMENT | CO | WELD | HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 2 | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | PAULE S BROWN | $ 974,358 |
| 2006 | Archuleta County Department of Human Services | CO | ARCHULETA | PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NEW | ERLINDA B GONZALEZ | $ 200,000 |
| 2006 | CO ST COMMISSION ON HIGHER EDUCATION | CO | DENVER | PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD COMMUNITY ACCESS PROGRAM | 93086 | COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT | DEMONSTRATION | NEW | MARY RIOTTE | $ 2,000,000 |
| 2006 | COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY | CO | LARIMER | HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORTY AREA 8 | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NEW | JANET O BENAVENTE | $ 488,067 |
| 2006 | Denver Indian Family Resource Center | CO | JEFFERSON | PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | OTHER | NEW | ISABELLE MEDCHILL | $ 209,308 |
| 2006 | Montrose County Health and Human Services | CO | MONTROSE | PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NEW | PEG MEWES | $ 249,552 |
| 2006 | PEER ASSISTANCE SERVICES, INC | CO | DENVER | HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 8 | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NEW | BERT E SINGLETON | $ 525,000 |
| 2006 | THERAPY HELP, INC | CO | DENVER | HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 8 | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NEW | ABIGAIL HIRSCH,PH.D | $ 550,000 |
| 2006 | WAIT Training | CO | DENVER | HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION GRANT: PRIORITY AREA 2 | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NEW | JONEEN KRAUTH-MACKENZIE | $ 1,010,330 |
| 2006 | WELD COUNTY RESOURCES DEPARTMENT | CO | WELD | HEALTHY MARRIAGE DEMONSTRATION, PRIORITY AREA 2 | 93086 | DISCRETIONARY | DEMONSTRATION | NEW | PAULE S BROWN | $ 907,655 |
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Of note are the words “Demonstration” (DEMONSTRATIONS ON PEOPLE?) Discretionary, New, and (not shown), kind of grant application often reads “Non-Competing.” What about “informed consent”? Is this information posted, in the self-help section of the local courthouse, or the child support agencies, or any welfare office? Not exactly. Nor will one find there, say, information about who is “AFCC” (see my READ THIS FIRST page for more on them), although they do publish most of the pamphlets on display in the local counties I have access to. AFCC is very closely linked to “who IS this family law system, anyhow?”
Also, who is getting the highest funding? Hmm . . . .
Dept. of Human Services, Commission on Higher Education (it takes academics to run some kinds of human demonstration projects nationwide. Specialized language is involved, and some of it I’ve read, and wouldn’t be acceptable in circles not trained (yet) to take words like “fatherhood practitioner” (does that mean, a Dad? ??) seriously. This has to be inculcated. Also, as million$$ are involved, a university setting does lend more credibility, as well as other resources, like graduate student assistants and institutes of various sorts). And WAIT Training.
What’s that — like muscle-building, kick-boxing, or aerobics?
No, not per who its executive director is (see chart):
>
Joneen Krauth-Mackenzie is a graduate of the University of Texas School of Nursing, a former Air Force ICU nurse and is currently applying to be reactivated in the United States Air Force Reserves. She is the Executive Director of the Abstinence and Relationship Training Center and is the author of the national and international curriculum, WAIT Training, Teaching Teens How to Have the BEST sex…by waiting until marriage. Joneen is a national speaker speaking to thousands of teens over the past 10 years. She is also contracted as a teacher trainer, training over 6000 teachers and youth serving professionals nationally and internationally. Mrs. Mackenzie serves on the Title V Abstinence Education Steering Committee at the Colorado State Health Department. She is currently the president of the Colorado Coalition for Abstinence and Relationship Education.
“WAIT” stands for “Why Am I Tempted” – i.e., some nice abstinence education training. (how NOT to have sex, yet…) and besides the $1,000,000+ in 2006 (for starters) it sells for only $299.
Joneen McKenzie
Learning to have the BEST sex by waiting until, and in preparation for, marriage.
Not sex education, it’s love education and includes: Character and Relationship Education,
Positive Youth Developments and Assets, Marriage Preparation Education; Life Skills,
Refusal Skills and Conflict Resolution (Teen PREP) Skills. It’s positive, fun and interactive
and gives teen reasons, skills and support to delay sex and learn about the value of marriage.
Available in Spanish. Target audience: middle and high school students. Two-day training
and certification with materials: $299.
Schedule
Presenting at the annual Smart Marriages Conference.
Abstinence Education, at least as it affects the practice of increasing Abstinence (i.e., reducing sex outside marriage) is probably a lost cause. If it WERE to be directed somewhere, I believe a more appropriate target might be several of the U.S. Presidents, Governors, or Senators. Starting with Former President Bill Clinton, who actually signed the infamous (to me!) Executive Order of 1995 regarding Fatherhood. He should know about it, and/or preventing it outside marriage:
Washington Post / Paula Jones Bill’s Escapes will sink Hillary (2007)
On the other hand, even the Gores finally separated:
Throughout the 1990s, as Bill and Hillary Clinton became the most dysfunctional couple in American politics, Al and Tipper Gore served as the counterbalance. The Gores played the ever-wholesome Mike and Carol Brady of the “Brady Bunch” to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s Homer and Marge Simpson—a battling, mismatched duo who nevertheless stayed together. During the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal, the Gores appeared ever more self-righteous and stable as the Clintons appeared ever more estranged. Al Gore even chose to telegraph to the American people that he was a passionate politician by giving Tipper a famously long smooch after his nomination.
The Gores’ obvious distaste for Bill Clinton’s extramarital escapades strained relations among the four. During the 2000 campaign, Vice President Gore distanced himself so much from President Clinton that many observers believed he sacrificed his shot at the White House on the altar of his marital morality.
How about Ted Kennedy, other Kennedys?
Reckless Sex and Power III: The Top Seven Kennedy Sex Scandals …
May 21, 2008 … Serving in the Senate since 1962, Ted Kennedy has been one of our most … Both President Jack Kennedy – whose sexual escapades were …Governors, Assemblymen, Presidents, can’t keep it Zipped (except for their wives) AFTER marriage, why are they taxing US, especially teens, to lecture US, especially teens, on keeping it zipped ?:Former Orange County Assemblyman Michael Duvall, who resigned after inadvertently broadcasting explicit remarks about his sexual conquests over an open microphone, this morning said that his resignation was not an admission that he had an affair.
As described, in some detail, in RIPOFF REPORT,
Besides the misappropriation of funds by Why Am I Tempted training coordinator (above), it also appears that her own marriage wasn’t successful. Many people’s aren’t. WHen it comes to this issue, I find that people who have NOT divorced or been through breakups, find some things hard to understand, and those who have, generally lack partiality. If you toss a coin, chances are, someone who is a stepfather, stepmother, father having wages garnished for child support, MOTHER having wages garnished for child support, domestic violence survivor or in jail and having issues contacting offspring, which is where the fatherhood programs go get them out and back with their kids.
While going through the LEGAL aspects of courts, and custody, it’s good to remember that many of the major influences don’t go near a courtroom; they are in conference rooms and in Senate Buildings. While not all participate in crowning a “Moonie” leader, some of the behaviors have an uncomfortable resemblance to the same behaviors.
FYI, PTSD or not (some days are better than others), I try to get some information out. I felt that the grants connection is consistently overlooked, and the Unification Church one is recently very disturbing, but definite.
The overall picture is of a more and more managed economy and society. My advice regarding family law is, stay away from it. However, if one must enter, attempt to avoid the child support system, which promises more than it can deliver, and becomes a third party that could turn the case, easily.
It’s challenging to experience, narrate, analyze, network , and simply survive this system while still in it. I add a research background, a scent like a bloodhound on the money trail, which is driving this system (not “law” in case you were interested), and gets its funding from Joe Bloe and Jane Doe taxpayers who thought someone else should be handling these problems — hence, taxes, right?
Oh yes, and major foundations, many of them conservative. And latest trail shows a VERY uncomfortable connection with the Unification Church (can you spell Rev. Sun Myun Moon — avowed
2nd Messiah and major contributor to the ultra-conservative right-wingers. The political / legislative/religious/economic ramifications are truly frightening, almost more so than any “lethality assessment” from a domestic violence situation might indicate, or than the breakup of the nuclear family — or (conversely) “same-sex marriage.”
Suppose we all DID survive, and then this is to what world?
Kind gives another flavor to the word “Healthy Marriage” when one considers a coronation of this billionaire in a U.S. Senate building, of a man who claims to have heard from deceased Presidents and the news is, theocracy is in, republic is out. And/or, he and his wife are the true parents to the world.
I’m not kidding, I was just looking at Phoenix, Arizona, National Association of Marriage Enhancement, the Godzich family, and the GOP/Unification Church/Assembly of God churches/ Christian Dominionism/Anti-gay political contributions, and the Uganda connection.
One thing you won’t be on this blog (I hope) is
(a) bored or
(b) less informed than when you began looking or, most importantly
(c) noncommital on this institution as a sinkhole of money and corruption, that isn’t getting to those who need it much more than some food aid consistently gets to the hungry people in the Southern hemisphere, or
(d) underestimating the contribution of your local faith-based institution not to solving, but rather, helping create, the major social problems we are experiencing. (FYI, I identify as Christian, but not possible to go through this system and come out the same kind of one!). (Did I mention domestic violence, and women as inferior, at least after saying “I do,” yet?)
For PARENTS, the timeframe is VERY short — about a generation.
For professionals, it’s the curve of the career, after which they can easily publish and conference on their prior experience.
The litigants in the family law system usually include one side more powerful than the others, and, to be frank, often one side with possibly some criminal behavior, if not a record. The metaphor here that applies is the myth of Procrustes — the innkeeper whose bed fit “everyone.” However, Secretly, Procrustes had two beds. If a short person came in, out came the long bed, and the customer was stretched to fit. If a tall person came in, out came the short bed, and I won’t describe that process.
Finally some hero came and applied some of this medicine to the innkeeper. I think it’s about time to do that, however, firmly, and without violence. The only way I know to do that is to cut off the supply line:
Families — warn each other to stay away.
General public — research where your money is going, and demand an accounting of what good it’s doing. Since thats a lot harder than actually giving the government less to waste, both of which will require creativity, insight, information, and possibly make us better people.
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It Looks Different From Here — Advocates versus Litigants
Note: My internet time is very limited, and I rarely spellcheck or proofread posts. Style is often consistent. I simply get the ideas OUT, and trust (hope?) that some of them will take root on a thinking, activist populace. Judging by the Feedjit counter, that’s a wide range of geographic and institutional viewers, especially for such a fly-by-night blog….
The second function this blog fills is something of a track record. Although I’m anonymous, people who know me could probably figure out who’s who. As a woman who left an abusive relationship years ago, and has not been able to exit the system (the parties involved simply run out of steam, or money, periodically, until someone makes a move to get free, which can bring an escalation or counter-move. IN fact, experientially, it’s not much different than the fabled “cycle of abuse” at all. Little did I know! But I would STILL have left, even if I’d known, and I still assert that it’s been better to have had this experience now, than to have remained in a household where we were likely to become a statistic, faster, and have virtually none of the record public, or the story told. I did experience some brief independence, exhilarating, while a restraining order was on, and partially (at least) respected. I thank God for that.
Put straight out, I am living day by day, and by faith, instinct, creative networking, continual adapation to situations, guts, and (let me say) the grace of God (not churches) and bunches of friends, nearly none of them dating from the years of in-home assault and battery spouse abuse. I wanted a fresh start, and made one.
I also pick my family where I find it, and sad to say, none of the biologically related ones, OR in-laws qualify for what family is supposed to be about. This is not uncommon (see Lundy Bancroft books for more on the topic).
POST INTRO:
I read a post yesterday, and decided to address what I consider the inappropriate approach and tone of this post, although it’s calling for greater transparency in the courts and independent audits. I have some familiarity with the organization and author of the article, and prior interactions with them.
With hopes I don’t now alienate some other women I am networked with, I feel it necessary to say, THAT NONPROFIT DOES NOT SPEAK FOR ME, and my particular case crosses most of the major factors in family court abuse — it’s entailed domestic violence restraining orders, child-stealing (unreported and), stalking (current), and continuous involvement in this court venue (though both parties are broke! and no issues have been resolved) for just over ten years. I know many women in similar situations.
Posted at RightsforMothers.com, a site I stay in touch with in general, particularly as it has been reporting on the recent Linda Marie Sacks travesty in Florida. This is a nice example of how it “works.”
(more than one link to this story, above, and below):
Linda Marie and Children
Gina Kaysen Fernandes: To an outsider, Linda Marie Sacks had the perfect life. Her husband was rich, and they lived in a huge home in Daytona Beach, FL, where she spent her days shuttling her girls to school and various activities. Linda Marie describes herself as a “squeaky clean soccer mom” who “lived my life for my children.” Behind that façade, Linda Marie says she married a monster — a man who verbally and emotionally attacked her for years and sexually abused their two young daughters.
When she finally left him and tried to take her girls with her, she encountered a new monster — family court. Rather than protecting Linda Marie and her two young daughters from a sexual predator, a family court judge denied Linda Marie custody and put her daughters into the hands of their sexually abusive father.
Talk to mothers, divorce lawyers, and child advocates and you’ll hear tales of a family court system that’s badly broken. It’s one that routinely punishes women for coming forward with allegations of abuse by denying them custody of their children. Instead of protecting children from abusers and predators, the court often gives sole custody to the abusive parent, say child advocates. Mothers who tell judges their children are being molested or beaten are accused of lying and are punished for trying to intervene. Some are thrown in jail for trying to keep their kids from seeing an abusive parent. Women, many of whom have few financial resources at their disposal, are often at the mercy of a court system that is not designed to handle domestic violence.
{{ In short, about 3 years, and $140,000 later, a woman who was thrown out of her own home for reporting child abuse (like we’re supposed to, and being a mother) is badly mistreated (what else is new) during a motion to UNsupervise her OWN visitation of her OWN daughters. Rules of court are broken (what else is new). She sticks up for her rights, and a number of groups are publicizing this one. It seems (to me) to be a prime example of how pushing “supervised visitation” as if to enable kids to safely interact with both parents were actually for that purpose. No, it’s been used to spawn a new profession (wealth transfer, in other words, from litigants and/or government) AND punish and extort mothers for expecting due process in the courts, and — as they’ve been coached by society to do — report that abuse and expect someone else to make it stop..
{{Do the math on $140,000 divided by 3 years, divided among the court professionals that, so far, have NOT gotten these kids back to their mother, where they belong!
{{If there’d been no money there, it’d have been funneled even faster (lightening-quick) through mediation only, providing demonstration grant material for other nonprofits to report (to each other) on, like mine was. I’ve not seen my own kids that much in the past 3 years, probably, the only difference being, as money is gone from THIS family, no supervised visitation center is making a profit off us.}}
Now for today’s Main Feature:
Point Of View-1: The Voice of Professional Advocates
Typical Characteristics:
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Tone — Moderate.
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Recommendations — Moderate.
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Apparent Process.
Gradually establish a reputation as speaking to the crisis, and through collaboration and compromise, get SOME reforms STARTED and repeatedly, prominently, call for more, while remaining employed…
UPSIDES to this approach —
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Speech and recommendations are not actually so offensive or radical as to actually cause (or even jeopardize) present professional direction or job loss, let alone personal whistleblower physical retaliation through assault by an “ex” or legal kidnapping of one’s own children through the courts.
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As such (though I can’t say for sure), less likely to deal with PTSD in speaking out. This moderte tone is certainly easier for other professionals in the systems being confronted to “take.”
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Client referrals through getting one’s name in print, a quality shared with the family court professionals all trying to “help” the litigants. There’s a great –or at least reasonable — living at fixing things, if it’s done right, and without actually completing the fix…
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Reduced potential for becoming homeless, or extinct. I.e., longevity. This approach is not likely to turn a professional into a Nancy Schaefer or a Richard Fine or a Barry Goldstein, Esq.
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DOWNSIDES to this approach —
(Note: This is my personal “take,” and I don’t expect even all of the bloggers (see blogroll) might agree with me on it. However, after some analysis and prior interactions, it’s the conclusion I came to, and why I am not otherwise associating or promoting this particular nonprofit’s attempt to address the family court crisis.)
- The moderate voice is entirely inappropriate to the scope and extent of the crisis. People are dying over this, and society is picking up the tab. To me, such a situation would require the fastest and strategically MOST accurate and effective solution.
- Timeframe/urgency for System reform and Timeframe/urgency for raising one’s children/stopping their abusers (or one’s own) are entirely different. The second one is shorter. A parent wants ONE thing FIRST (any good one): To STOP his or her child’s abuse NOW. (Or her own abuse), NOW. It’s LIFE, then LIBERTY, then PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. LIFE is first. Part of life is sustaining a livelihood…Getting closure, and getting on with life after divorce.
Point Of View 2 — Of Litigants Whose Children’s Lives or their own are still at risk.
(note: this is my take on this point of view, those who disagree, feel free to comment).
POV of Noncustodial Mothers struggling to stay alive, employed & housed, analyze “what happened and WHY?,” speaking out appropriately about these outrages, and keep see her children again, safely, yet knowing that justice is not likely to take place in the courts before the children age out. Of Noncustodial mothers who are also kept traumatized by the continuous NONresolution of issues in the family court system, and forced contact with their ex-batterers — AND agents of their exbatterers, both in and outside the courtroom — through it. Women who have been forced to take on repeated restructuring of their own lives when custody switch happens, and whose sense of betrayal includes not only (at times) the enablers of the former abuse, but the institutions which promised yet didn’t deliver help, and lied to them about the prognosis of the help delivered. Who failed to distinguish in a timely fashion between civil and criminal protective orders and concealed conflicts of interest in the system. Mothers who trusted family court attorneys, being led to (falsely) believe that they couldn’t adequately represent themselves, but then were sold down the river and deserted by attorneys when money ran out.
TONE — STRONGER, and often less polished.
Tends to rants at times. Sarcastic, Stringent, and NON-compromising. We have already been compromised to the ground. Tendency to use figures of speech and more vivid vocabulary. Don’t like to mince words. Haven’t got time to attend all the conferences, and proper priority is (#1) Their children, and (#2) System reform. It is NEVER in reverse order… Our timeline is shorter and of indefinite duration until we are OUT of that system.
APPARENT PROCESS —
Once help is found NOT to be up a certain tree, ceases barking up it, and associating with others (generally) who continue to. Researchs and networks to find where shortest and most probable route to success is. Continues Lethality and other risk assessments. Willing to sacrifice just short of death and homelessness for this cause. Willing to change perspectives when perspective has serious flaws (and mine did, in the first few years) and wishes to pass this knowledge on to the uninitiated.
Less interested in nationwide collaboration than in where individual help for the case lives. When a hot lead is found, blogs it. Wishes to maintain more personal independence and personal voice because there is less time to screw around.
Analyzes systems almost as widely as the policy-makers do, because this trail leads back to those policy makers to start with. We take the system apart from the personal, experiential level upwards, not from the theoretical and “demonstration grant” (upon the public) downwards. As such, it has some more legitimacy — at least on a per-family basis.
UPSIDES to this approach —
- Well, I think it preserves personal integrity and power base, rather than handing it over (yet again) to others who lose our story in translation and over interpretations.
- One Mom who succeeds in a court case by exposing the fraud helps the next Mom by blazing that trail. Moms who lose their fortunes, but eventually regain their children, still lost their fortunes. This is no help to mothers who had none to lose.
- Develops transferable skills in life, and by empowerment helps reverse the process that may have gotten them trapped in abuse to start with, or in ignorance that their kids were being molested.
- Contributes to society by helping clean it up, one batterer or molester at a time, or one crooked judge, mediator, or other abuse-enabler.
- The ability to analyze systems accurately and quickly is an entrepreneurial skill.
- Approach isn’t built on the fantasy that the courts and attorneys in general consist of basically honest folk with a few bad apples.
DOWNSIDES —
- Fewer friends. On the other hand, fewer fair-weather friends, too! May lose family too, when family has become comfortable with abuse, or worn out with supporting the prolonged exit from it via the courts.
- Sometimes one acts like a fool (case in point).
- Gains a better understanding of how the world acts, and what place one wishes to occupy within it.
- Learning by personal trial and error is one of the more effective.
The voice of a Staff Consultant to a prominent California Nonprofit
Reinstate Accountability To Our Courts: Pass Assembly Bill 2521
Daily Journal
Reinstate Accountability To Our Courts: Pass Assembly Bill 2521
By Kathleen Russell
No part of our government is more integral to fairness and justice than our court system. That’s why the people who must abide by the laws of our state deserve to see the courts administered with model efficiency, accountability and transparency. It is especially important that as taxpayers and businesses suffer the lingering effects of a deep recession, they see their tax dollars being spent prudently.
Everyone from business owners, to abused and neglected children, to victims of domestic violence count on our courts to be accessible and reliable.
Just a reminder, some victims of domestic violence are, and/or were, business owners, and some are children, too. And, quite frankly, though we’d LIKE our courts to be accessible and reliable, I don’t think many of us any more COUNT on them to be this. I believe the word is out that they’re screwing people over and causing trouble. Nor are they truly “our” courts. They have been co-opted by special interests. I find this tone too moderate here. It’s a conciliatory tone. I don’t share it.
Funding shortfalls from the state budget have resulted in courts being closed due to the public and massive layoffs of hard-working courts staff who serve critical functions like court reporting and collecting payments and fines.
In an earlier interview on KFOG (SF Bay Area) in which Supervisor Gayle Steele participated or hosted, one caller was a court employee, who told of how some court staff followed a teenage child and convinced the child to change her decision and request, resulting in later violence (as I recall it). Courts staff DO serve critical functions. I wonder how ‘collecting payments and fines” came into play in this article.
That makes wait times longer for simple transactions and means crime victims wait longer to see justice.
CJE has been dealing, to my understanding, prominently with the family court venue, not law enforcement and police/criminal agencies. This is a bit of loose wording, as family courts and criminal courts differ. Nor is the wait time the issue in “waiting to see justice.”
Yet at the same time, the Administrative Office of the Courts, the state agency that oversees court operations, has pursued a $2 billion computer system and given double-digit pay increases to its top staff, calling into question whether our courts are being administered with financial integrity.
Again : “Our” courts?
The reference to Administrative Office of the Courts fails to mention– which Ms. Russell has been advised of, and didn’t really follow up on — that this office administers grants originating in father’s rights movements, and compromising court cases through a grants system that is not being properly tracked:
From the California AOC:
MATERIALS POSTED!
The Center for Families, Children & the Courts announces the following new publications. For a complete list of CFCC’s publications, click here.
California’s Access to Visitation Grant Program (Fiscal Year 2009-2010) (March 2010) (PDF) (note — this link is broken now — why?)
THIS “AOC / CFCC” (Center for Families, Children & The Courts) is where many of the practices Ms. Russell’s group has been protesting (in public, & loudly) LIVE and are administered through, and she has rejected the assessment that this is taking place, from what I can see. http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/programs/cfcc/resources/grants/a2v/research.html
Legislative Report 7: Ten Years of Access to Visitation Grant Program Services (Fiscal Years 1997-2007) (March 2008). The grant program celebrated its 10-year anniversary in fiscal year 2006–2007. The report showcases programs funded, program successes and accomplishments, innovative promising practices, and program service delivery gaps and challenges. Although no formal recommendations are made in the report, it does identify various challenges and complexities regarding the administration and operation of the grant-related services that limit the ability of the grants to address the great demand for program services
I have blogged and quoted excerpts from some of these reports and repeatedly directed readers to the HHS which is funding the grants. These reports are fatherhood-oriented, and PAS-friendly. Professionals in this area (including, to my understanding, Isolina Ricci, Joan Kelly, et al.) are pushing mediation and reconciliation on women attempting to leave abuse, a totally unfair power balance. They tend to be active in the AFCC, an organization which also is where Gardner’s pedophile friendly philosophies reside.
To JUST NOT SPEAK about this is just a travesty, and I’m tired of it! I’d rather take a brusque, and/or offensive version of truth, and act on it (see nafcj.net) than a watered down version of it talking, why can’t we just collaborate, after all, we ALL want what’s good for our kids, don’t we? This is an offence to me. Again, I speak only for myself in that. Ms. Russell knows better.
California NOW (Family Law Page) has known better for a very long time. A study back to 2002 (oft cited on my blog) studied the history and origins of family law, and details how due process is farmed out to other professionals.
Other professionals themselves (source: LizLibrary, Trish Wilson, and others) have also detailed this. It’s an acknowledged issue, in the wider public. WHY softpedal this?
When a member of the public visits their local courthouse and [his/her] finds a “closed” sign on the door, they deserve [he or she deserves] to know if courtroom closures could have been avoided. But a loophole in current law shields court financial information from outside scrutiny.
Every member of the public has a right to inquire about the use of nonprofit or federal funds funneled through or to the courts, even down to examining vendor payments. This is what Marv Bryer (Los Angeles area) did a long time ago, and discovered the L.A. Judges Slush fund, and a private organization operating out of the county courthouse. Look it up yourself — I did, and I’m a litigant. How’s come more others didn’t?
The unintended consequences of a well-intended law known as the Trial Court Funding Act of 1997 have allowed our courts to escape the same kind of outside audits required of other public institutions, such as school districts and county and city governments, even as our courts should stand as shining examples of the accountability and transparency we expect of our government. The Trial Court Funding Act put local court administration under a larger state umbrella that lawmakers hoped would provide greater stability in funding and better services to the public, but it did not include some basic accountability measures such as independent audits. This lack of adequately independent financial oversight is a problem at both the state level, where no regular audits are required, and at the local level, where the audits are conducted only by the AOC itself.
The public is going to have to start doing these audits themselves. Unless they want to charge the foxes guarding the henhouse with monitoring the other foxes over the same henhouse.
Coming before members of the Assembly Judiciary Committee today, Assembly Bill 2521 is common sense legislation that will ensure that court finances are transparent by requiring independent annual audits of county courts and the AOC.
AB 2521 is a good government bill that will correct one of the flaws of the Trial Court Funding Act. The goal of this bill is simple – to apply the same transparency requirements that apply to school districts, cities and counties to trial courts in California.
Failure to conduct independent audits has serious consequences for our system of justice. For example, a multi-million dollar error resulted in layoffs of San Mateo Superior Court employees, a situation which hurts workers and families and compromised access to our courts.
A lack of transparency prevents our government agencies from operating efficiently and openly. No agency that runs on taxpayer dollars should be free from public scrutiny. Our judiciary exists to serve the people, and reinstating accountability to our court system will give taxpayers back the right to know whether state agencies are doing just that, or whether the courts are failing in their mandate to serve the public interest.
I think this bears following up on, and will attempt to do so. On my “free” time. MANY authors have written on the issues in the courts:
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
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The authors are selling books (presumably). Mothers and fathers being drained, ARE NOT…..
Here is ONE search tool that looks at nonprofits, and NONPROFITS get GRANTS which are influencing the COURTS. Got it? As NONPROFITS, we have a right to know what they are using the funds for:
GuideStar – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Now WHAT can you do with this handy tool? You can look things up…
For example, CJE’s EIN#, and their stated mission:
TO IMPROVE THE JUDICIARY’S PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY AND And STRENGTHEN AND MAINTAIN THE INTEGRITY OF THE COURTS
And their 2008 grants donations, etc. received (no earlier forms show up on Guidestar), which are around $215,000, and who are the executive officers (this is available for free on Guidestar). Ms. Russell, being a staff consultant, presumably gets some of this for her efforts, which is only fair. Workers are worthy of their hire.
Ms. Sacks, noncustodial Mom, on the other hand (see above) is, rather, Spending her money to get justice, hopefully.
Another thing I’ve learned to do is look at who’s on which board, and look them up too. This is one way I learned that Family Violence Prevention Fund went the way of Fatherhood Funding, and –voila — the vocabulary, tone, and emphasis of this major, major nonprofit has changed, to mirror policies already in place at HHS. While many social services are being cut, this particular group’s funding is in FINE shape (endabuse.org)…
Are they going to compromise that funding just because it might not fix the problems in the courts??? What do you think?
More from CJE’s website:
The Center for Judicial Excellence, or CJE, is a community-based organization established to improve the judiciary’s public accountability and strengthen and maintain the integrity of the courts. Since 2008, the CJE board has made a special commitment to protecting the rights of children and vulnerable populations in the courts.
CJE was founded to promote best practices, with a five-point plan of action – information gathering, education, collaboration, implementation and citizen review. The organization works to gather information and educate the community, the media and policymakers at all levels about the courts, judicial issues and best practices, as well as the dire need for judicial accountability and oversight.
And staff: An administrative assistant, and one consultant, Ms. Russell:
CJE also benefits from a long-term consulting relationship with Kathleen Russell Consulting.
Technically speaking, I believe citizens could ask to see receipts for that consulting. Not that I’m saying, something is amiss, but I’m pointing out, that while Ms. Russell is working hard, and advocating for (us?), she’s getting paid for it. We, litigants, are NOT, generally speaking. She also gets a reputation, and possibly business referrals.
I actually just saw the salary (it’s on the IRS 990 if you register with Guidestar). It seems to me that, along with a board of directors, and an advisory board, a website, and an administrative assistance, “CJE” in essence “IS” Kathleen Russell. So when she puts her name, for pay, on what may purport to be MY story (stories of women in my situation), I just think the difference of viewpoint should be pointed out.
I could educate both my kids and would’ve easily foregone child support (let alone social services of any sort) on, literally, one-TENTH of that salary. I am certainly educated and experienced enough to speak to the issue. I just wasn’t raised as a PR consultant, and hadn’t developed those connections over time. Like many Moms, we stayed on the right side of the law and minded our own kids-raising, income producing business, and changed society through our kids, our volunteer work (as appropriate), or our professional jobs.
I finally “got” how nonprofits operate when I had to resort to them for help while unemployed (after government agencies, not only the courts, had failed, and failed abysmally). These nonprofits are accountable to their funders at least as much as their “clients” (the group that the nonprofit status claims to serve). Pro Bono Buyer Beware.
And had I foregone child support, after leaving abuse, there’s a GOOD chance that my girls would’ve continued living with me. It’s that economic control that gets you every time, either while in the relationship, or while funneled INTO the family law system.
Kathleen Russell Consulting
Telling Stories Moving Mountains
The question arises, naturally, WHOSE stories are being told? This is where it gets a little interesting….
Among a wide variety of clients (appropriate for any successful consulting firm, and a sign of professionalism, for sure…) is the Young Men’s Ultimate Weekend.
The Young Men’s Ultimate Weekend (YMUW) is an initiation program for young men, providing them with adult mentoring and male support during their transition from adolescence to adulthood. By empowering young men with physical and mental challenges and providing strong adult male mentors, the YMUW helps young men develop confidence and leadership skills and learn the importance of teamwork through honoring what is RIGHT and embracing the principles of Respect, Intelligence, Gallantry, Humor and being True. KRC was hired by YMUW to conduct media and community outreach in the run up to the weekend event in the Santa Cruz Mountains
In addition to lots of nice, positive press, if googled, we also find it listed alongside some serious cult-like behaviors that (from MY POV) sound quite similar to the male-bonding and “setting off” procedure that my own ex (batterer) was more and more prone to, particularly with his religions connections.
And a whole SLEW of fatherhood groups. I tracked this down a while back, and the “Dean Tong” mentioned (see Rightsformothers.com narration, or a narration it links to, summarizing Linda Marie Sacks’ situation:
- East Bay Nation of Men
- National Men’s Resource Center
- Resource Center’s links to many men’s sites.
- Life Partners: (Bill Elbring)
- Men’s Divisions International
- Men’s Books
- Northern California Men’s Center (Gary Plep)
- The Mankind Project (New Warrior Training)
- Sterling Institute
- National Coalition of Free Men (Northern California)
- Manworth Chat Room (Terence Moore)
- Men’s Voices Magazine
- Men’s Voices Info on Men’s Groups
- Mircea Eliade
- Shadow Workshop
- Abuse-Excuse
- MenAlive
- Battered Men’s Helpline
- Men’s Resource Center of New Mexico
- Men’s Center and Mens’ Sight Magazine
- Men’s Center’s pages on Fathers’ Rights
- Sacred Path Productions (Los Angeles)
- Mosaic Voices
- Wide Sky Men’s Council
- Minnesota Men’s Conference (and other events including Robert Bly, others)
- Sunday Friends
- Men’s Flair, a “men’s style guide magazine”
- Cornerstones for Men: Men’s retreats.
- Fatherhood and Fathers’ Rights
- Dictionary for Dads: Family information site for Dads
While these may be all very well and nice (though I don’t think all ARE…), I think it MAY explain why Center for Judicial Excellence and Kathleen Russell Consulting aren’t going to come down TOO hard on fathers’ rights, or fathers’ rights funding. Although I don’t have a precise answer, I am deducing that MOVING A MOUNTAIN AND TELLING THAT STORY — about the Father’s Rights origins (1994 NFI, 1995 Bill Clinton Executive Order, 1998/1999 resolutions in Congress, and the Religion Through Government Agencies narration) story, as soul-numbing as it is (if you’re not a man) just wouldn’t be good for business. And we all have a right to sustain our own businesses, right?
In fact, every time I turn around there’s more “male bonding” going around. … SOMEONE has to counteract those feminists…
The New Warrior Training Adventure
The New Warrior Training Adventure is a singular type of life affirming event, honoring the best in what men have to offer the planet. We are only able to recognize the powerful brilliance of men because we are willing to look at, and take full responsibility for, the pain we are also capable of creating … and suffering. This is the paradox of modern masculinity, and it is a lesson we are dedicated to learning and teaching.The New Warrior Training Adventure is a modern male initiation and self-examination. We believe that this is crucial to the development of a healthy and mature male self, no matter how old a man is. It is the “hero’s journey” of classical literature and myth that has nearly disappeared in modern culture. We ask men to stop living vicariously through movies, television, addictions and distractions and step up into their own adventure – in real time and surrounded by other men.
Among some of the topics, generally speaking, will be how to keep your woman (or women, as it may be) in line, and what you can talk with them about, and what you should NOT talk with your woman about. I kid you not. Back to feudalism….
SO, there’s a living to be made, and stories to be told.
Except family court litigants, one parties’ of which (or both) will most likely be destroyed — possibly permanently — in the process of being sripped of our civil rights.
So, improving court excellence and saving children? Of course, who doesn’t want to do THAT?
Of course, that’s the purpose, ostensibly, of the millions (see below) already going to the courts, also, for example under “court improvement” and so forth.
BELOW — some $$ figures from HHS on money going to the California Judicial Council to improve the courts and help noncustodial parents.
I want a lively discussion on THESE figures, but most people don’t have the head, or heart, or will for it. It takes a certain analytical and nosy mindset.
Again, hope I didn’t offend TOO many good people, and apologies for any incomplete sentences in the first part of the post.
This is not exactly the first time I posted this chart on-line, and I’ve emailed it privately enough also. THis is only ONE of many programs running through the courts affecting outcome IN the courts, the grants ending “SAVP.” You can also look up at least 3 other kinds of grants coming directly to the California Judicial Council, at the same source: Taggs.HHS.Gov.
For example:
| 2009 | 0901CASCID | 1 | 1 | ACF | 12-07-2008 | $ 786,069 |
| 2009 | 0901CASCIP | 1 | 1 | ACF | 12-07-2008 | $ 807,034 |
| 2009 | 0901CASCIP | 1 | 6 | ACF | 06-06-2009 | $ 266,289 |
| 2009 | 0901CASCIT | 1 | 1 | ACF | 12-07-2008 | $ 788,370 |
| 2009 | 0910CASAVP | 1 | 1 | ACF | 12-23-2008 | $ 942,497 |
| Fiscal Year 2009 Total: | $ 3,453,010 | |||||
Award Actions
State = CALIFORNIA
CFDA Number = 93597
Recipient: CA ST DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES
Recipient ZIP Code: 95814
| FY | Award Number | Budget Year of Support |
Agency | Award Code | Action Issue Date |
Amount This Action |
| 1998 | 9701CASAVP | 1 | ACF | 2 | 05-31-1998 | $1,113,750.00 |
| 1998 | 9801CASAVP | 1 | ACF | 1 | 09-01-1998 | $1,113,750.00 |
| 1999 | 9901CASAVP | 1 | ACF | 2 | 08-16-1999 | $987,501.00 |
| 2003 | 9801CASAVP | 1 | ACF | 7 | 02-24-2003 | ($250,805.00) |
| 2003 | 9901CASAVP | 1 | ACF | 5 | 02-25-2003 | ($139,812.00) |
| 2009 | 9901CASAVP | 1 | ACF | 8 | 09-14-2009 | ($38,917.00) |
| Award Subtotal: | $2,785,467.00 | |||||
Recipient: CA ST DEPT OF CHILD SUPPORT SERVICES
Recipient ZIP Code: 95741
| FY | Award Number | Budget Year of Support |
Agency | Award Code | Action Issue Date |
Amount This Action |
| 2000 | 0001CASAVP | 1 | ACF | 3 | 08-24-2000 | $987,501.00 |
| 2001 | 0001CASAVP | 1 | ACF | 4 | 10-06-2000 | ($987,501.00) |
| Award Subtotal: | $0.00 | |||||
Recipient: CA ST JUDICIAL COUNCIL
Recipient ZIP Code: 94107
| FY | Award Number | Budget Year of Support |
Agency | Award Code | Action Issue Date |
Amount This Action |
| 2001 | 0010CASAVP | 1 | ACF | 5 | 10-10-2000 | $987,501.00 |
| 2001 | 0110CASAVP | 1 | ACF | 1 | 08-23-2001 | $987,501.00 |
| 2002 | 0210CASAVP | 1 | ACF | 2 | 08-06-2002 | $970,431.00 |
| 2003 | 0310CASAVP | 1 | ACF | 1 | 09-11-2003 | $970,431.00 |
| 2004 | 0410CASAVP | 1 | ACF | 1 | 09-15-2004 | $988,710.00 |
| 2005 | 0510CASAVP | 1 | ACF | 1 | 09-14-2005 | $988,710.00 |
| 2006 | 0610CASAVP | 1 | ACF | 1 | 09-19-2006 | $987,973.00 |
| 2007 | 0710CASAVP | 1 | ACF | 1 | 07-20-2007 | $950,190.00 |
| 2008 | 0810CASAVP | 1 | ACF | 1 | 01-30-2008 | $957,600.00 |
| 2009 | 0010CASAVP | 1 | ACF | 8 | 09-14-2009 | ($48,827.00) |
| 2009 | 0110CASAVP | 1 | ACF | 4 | 09-14-2009 | ($26,938.00) |
| 2009 | 0210CASAVP | 1 | ACF | 6 | 09-14-2009 | ($46,392.00) |
| 2009 | 0310CASAVP | 1 | ACF | 2 | 09-14-2009 | ($15,092.00) |
| 2009 | 0910CASAVP | 1 | ACF | 1 | 12-23-2008 | $942,497.00 |
| 2010 | 1010CASAVP | 1 | ACF | 1 | 11-25-2009 | $946,820.00 |
| Award Subtotal: | $10,541,115.00 | |||||
| Total of all awards: | $13,326,582.00 |
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New America Foundation on “God’s Country” tribalization
Blessed be the hands that feed us social services, and report on them too:
APRIL 15th in U.S.A., land of the Federal Reserve Currency System and the bottomless hole of debt in the name of every good cause under the sun.
- Land of Big Brother and the crisis in Fatherlessness.
- Land where THINKING is relegate to THINK TANKS, and information gathering is via media owned by some of the same people funding the think tanks, and where experts are paid for.
- LAND where good luck if you as an individual, or family, want to get the services promised for (luck will be necessary, or a loud squeak in the system…..)
With a land like this religion will be necessary for revival — either faith (“take it on faith”) in this big brother, or in the collective consciences of the voters (and the honesty of the ballot processes) — or faith in God, Allah, Buddha, or the innate goodness of the human condition, when given proper environment, and watering.. This last will require also the fantasy-version of human history.
So I thought on Tax Day I’d write you about two things: New America Foundation (you DO know we are already forming a “new America” right? — or didn’t you catch that on the evening news? The Constitution is evolving and the Bill of Rights (etc.) are anachronistic in the global economy….) AND an article by one of its authors, under one of the MULTIPLE “INITIATIVES” in this think tank, foundation, or whatever it is. One thing I bet — IT’S not filing taxes and paying them today….
The New America Foundation
1899 L Street, N.W., Suite 400, Washington, DC 20036
921 11th Street, Suite 901, Sacramento, CA 95814
The RELIGIOUS INITIATIVE (I clicked actually under Family & Workforce) is only one of many initiatives for this megalith (presumably). You should know who’s running this part of it:
David Gray
Director, Workforce and Family Program; Senior Advisor, Education Policy Program; Coordinator, Religious Center Initiative
gray@newamerica.netRev. Dr. David E. Gray directs the New America Foundation’s Workforce and Family Program, which researches and develops solutions to social, economic and family policy issues. He also serves as a senior advisor to New America’s Education Policy Program and the coordination for the Religious Center Initiative
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In case you wondered, he’s also a Presbyterian Pastor….and member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and your academic pedigree, probably, can’t hold a candle to his. How DARE You make decisions for your own family contrary to some of these foundation-funded, policy-studied, pronouncements? Especially if you are a WOMAN– Look at this:
David is the Senior Pastor of Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church, a chaplain at American University, and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a graduate of Yale, Harvard, Northwestern University School of Law and Wesley Theological Seminary
While I doubt he’d subscribe, even (I hope) in his private thoughts, to the “Christian Domestic Discipline.com”, I wonder if he subscribes as well to the concepts embodied in the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, and other concepts that do not treat people as policy subjects…. I wonder if he cares that our country has become a child-trafficker through its own courts, and that some of the policies promising “help” have redefined the Constitution, and help, and are themselves a problem, if not THE problem, nationwide? It’s an “attitude” thing…..
SO, I”m going to post about “God’s Country” faith struggles which are actually economic struggles, and how it plays out. The article is written by another, I’d bet highly-credentialed writer, whose work is I presume sponsored by this same foundation. I think it’s a well-written article.
How I found this article: Watching TV, and in particular a MSM (MainstreamMedia) protest that the federal government, really, really is doing great stuff for us, and should not be criticized — especially in Florida — look at the school system, look at this nearly blind woman whose Alzheimer husband has home help, look at the military installation — why aren’t we grateful for the hand that feeds us, etc. — as I recall a spokesperson from New America Foundation was shown.
(As usual with my posts, the intros can be long, personal and pedantic. For the body of the post, scroll down to the article quote…. As it’s also MY post, I feel free to stray off topic and cast a wider context than the title. The persistent, fast readers, or those with time to spare will get to the juicy center of it eventually, the faint of heart (or attention) need not apply. Welcome to what’s on my mind today…)
I may be wrong about the context where I heard this name, but I doubt I’m wrong about the heavy hand that foundations play in our daily lives, and government.
FOUNDATIONS:
Foundations (tax-free, and typically from wealthy capitalist families, some of whose ancestors helped install the IRS, and progressive income tax, Federal Reserve Board, and other marketed viewpoints that help keep this U.S.A in permanent debt crisis) — have got my attention. Previously, as this blog states, my attention was merely on getting free from domestic violence and back to a “normal” lifestyle which by my definition means (without abuse in the home) the freedom to:
1. Earn money where, how, and when I choose, within limits of demand for services I’m qualified to give and contacts I have made. To someone leaving a battering relationship, that alone is like heaven. It breeds HOPE and CONFIDENCE.
2. Spending that money with wisdom according to our particular needs and staying off the receiving end of social services once I’d gotten there.
4. Not subjecting my offspring to the bottom of the barrel educational model, which (as to our options) the public schools in this state ARE. And are not about to change in the near future — at least for the better….They are war grounds for competing ideologies and breeding grounds for gangs and civil rights violations, through trauma and in general chaotic philosophies.
They are also — and I believe intentionally so — class sorters. And they feed social scientists (and pharmaceutical companies) with nonstop substance in the form of young humanity, for projects of all kinds and with all kinds of motives. Again, I came to this jaundiced view (after decades of working with multi-talented and smart kids of all kinds in and out of the schools) after my bout with the family law system in this century.
GOD’S COUNTRY, @ 2008…..
(In the land of the brave and home of the free, this is when I first hit 100% unemployment through family court escalations and insanity, and my own “insane” and apparently religious faith, that there was some due process somewhere around…Instead, I found the alternate religion of therapeutic jurisprudence and courts as psychology. It’s really all a matter of how you view the issues, and what language is used to describe them).
NOW FOR TODAY’S ARTICLE — many parallels with USA.
God’s Country
By Eliza Griswold, New America Foundation
Ms. Griswold bio:
Eliza Griswold is a writer who focuses on conflict, human rights, and religion. Her reportage and analyses have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, and The New Republic, among other publications. She was a 2007 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and is the recipient of the first Robert I. Friedman Award for international investigative reporting. Her first book of poems, Wideawake Field, was recently published by Farrar Straus and Giroux.
As a Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation, Ms. Griswold will continue to pursue her interest in conflict, human rights, and religion. She is at work on her first nonfiction book, The Tenth Parallel, an examination of the meeting place between the Christian and Muslim worlds, which will also be published by Farrar Straus and Giroux.
If I have enough more decades of life left, I could get into this type of writing. Hope you read the whole thing….
March 2008 |
It was an ordinary soccer pitch: sparse tufts of grass and reddish soil surrounded by cinder-block homes. The two candidates stood on opposite sides of the field as the people of Yelwa, a town of 30,000 in central Nigeria, lined up behind them one May morning in 2002 to vote. Whoever had more supporters would lead the town’s council. And whoever led the council would control the certificates of indigeneship: the papers certifying that Yelwa was their home, and that they had a right there to land, jobs, and scholarships. Between the iron goalposts milled ethnic Jarawa, principally Muslim merchants and herders; next to them were the Tarok and Goemai, predominantly farmers and Christians. For several years, their hereditary tribal chief, a Christian, had refused certificates of indigeneship to Muslims no matter how long they’d lived in Yelwa. Without the certificates, the Muslims were second-class citizens.
As the two groups waited in the heat to be counted, the meeting’s tone soured. “You could feel the tension in the air,” Abdullahi Abdullahi, a 55-year-old Muslim lawyer and community leader, said later. A tall, thin man with a space between his two front teeth and shoulders hunched around his ears in perpetual apology, he was helping to direct the crowd that day. No one knows what happened first. Someone shouted arna — “infidel” — at the Christians. Someone spat the word jihadi at the Muslims. Someone picked up a stone. “That was the day ethnicity disappeared entirely, and the conflict became just about religion,” Abdullahi said. Chaos broke out, as young people on each side began to throw rocks. The candidates ran for their lives, and mobs set fire to the surrounding houses.
After that episode, the Christians issued an edict that no Christian girl could be seen with a Muslim boy. “We had a problem of intermarriage,” Pastor Sunday Wuyep, a church leader in Yelwa, told me on the first of two visits I made in 2006 and 2007. “Just because our ladies are stupid and attracted to money,” he sighed.
Economics lay at the heart of the enmity between the two groups: as merchants and herders, the Muslim Jarawa were much wealthier than the Christian Tarok and Goemai. But Pastor Sunday, like many others of his faith, felt that Muslims were trying to wipe out Christians by converting them through marriage.
{{A book Now They Call Me Infidel talks about this}}
“It’s scriptural, this fight,” he said. So he and the other elders decided to punish the women. “If a woman gets caught with a Muslim man,” Sunday said, “she must be forcibly brought back.” The decree turned out to be a call to vigilante violence as patrols of young men, both Christian and Muslim, took to the streets. What eventually transpired, in the name of religion, was a kind of Clockwork Orange.
Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country, with 140 million people (one-seventh of all Africans), and it’s one of the few nations divided almost evenly between Christians and Muslims. Blessed with the world’s 10th-largest oil reserves, it is also one of the continent’s richest and most influential powers — as well as one of its most corrupt democracies. Last year’s presidential election in particular — in which President Olusegun Obasanjo, an evangelical Christian, handed power to a northern Muslim, President Umaru Yar’Adua — was a farce. Ballot boxes were stuffed by thugs or carted off empty by armed heavies in the pay of political candidates. Across the country, political power is a passport to wealth: according to Human Rights Watch, anywhere from $4 billion to $8 billion in government money has been embezzled annually for the last eight years. The state has all but abdicated its responsibility for the welfare of its people, roughly half of whom live on less than $1 a day.
In this vacuum, religion has become a powerful source of identity. Northern Nigeria has one of Africa’s oldest and most devout Islamic communities, which was galvanized, like many others, in the 1980s by the global Islamic reawakening that followed the Iranian revolution. For Christians, too, in Nigeria, there’s been a revolution: high birthrates and aggressive evangelization over the past century have increased the number of believers from 176,000, or 1.1 percent of the early-20th-century population, to more than 51 million, or more than a third now. Thanks to this explosive growth, the demographic and geographic center of global Christianity will have moved, by 2050, to northern Nigeria, within the Muslim world.
No one knows what this shift will yield, in part because neither faith is a monolith. Indeed, the most overlooked aspect of this global religious encounter may be that the competition within the faiths — between Pentecostals and orthodox Christians, or between Islamic groups that want to engage with or reject the modern world** — is just as important as the competition between the faiths. But it’s also true that the fastest-growing forms of faith on both sides tend to be the most effervescent and absolute. They promote a system of living in this world that promises heaven in the next, they see salvation in stark binary terms, and they believe they have a global mandate to spread their exclusive brand of faith.
{{** In my last post about “christian domestic discipline” — a euphemism — is an example of the latter, who want to reject the modern world, and go back to wife-beating. }}
While religion became a source of friction in Nigeria during the Biafran civil war in the late 1960s, the trouble between Christians and Muslims intensified in the 1980s, when the first oil boom fizzled and the ensuing economic downturn led to violence. Since then, thousands have been killed in riots between the two groups sparked by various events: aggressive campaigns by foreign evangelists; the implementation in 1999 and 2000 of sharia, or Islamic law, in 12 of Nigeria’s 36 states; the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan in 2001; and the 2002 Miss World pageant, when a local Christian reporter, Isioma Daniel, outraged Muslims by writing in one of Nigeria’s national papers, This Day, that the Prophet Muhammad would have chosen a wife from among the contestants. Most recently, in 2006, riots triggered by Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad left more people dead in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world.
“These conflicts are a result of secular processes,” said Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, one of Nigeria’s leading intellectuals and a top executive of one of the country’s oldest banks, FirstBank. “It’s about bad government, economic inequality, and poverty — a struggle for resources.” When a government fails its people, they turn elsewhere to safeguard themselves and their futures, and in Nigeria at the beginning of the 21st century, they have turned first to religion. Here, then, is the truth behind what Samuel Huntington famously calls religion’s “bloody” geographic borders: outbreaks of violence result not simply from a clash between two powerful religious monoliths, but from tensions at the most vulnerable edges where they meet — zones of desperation and official neglect where faith becomes a rallying cry in the struggle for land, water, and work.
****
In Nigeria, the two faiths meet along a band of terrain roughly 200 miles wide called the Middle Belt. This swath of land, for the most part (an exception being Nigeria’s southwest), marks the fault line between Christianity and Islam not only in Nigeria, but across the entire continent. A satellite image from Google Earth shows the Middle Belt as a gray-green strip between the equator and the 10th parallel, dividing the fawn-colored dry land from the vibrant sub-Saharan jungle canopy. It also separates most of the continent’s 367 million Muslims to the north from 417 million Christians to the south. Plagued by bad government, a shortage of water and arable land, and rising birthrates, the Middle Belt is also the victim of environmental change: growing aridity in the north (the desert creeps forward at slightly less than half a mile a year) and flooding in the south. Shifting weather patterns have made planting and grazing seasons unpredictable and allowed insect-borne diseases, such as malaria, to run rampant.
Islam all but stopped its southward spread here in the late 1800s, because the traders, missionaries, and Sufi jihadists who had carried Islam south couldn’t handle the jungle terrain or the tsetse flies that plagued their horses and camels with sleeping sickness. Abdullahi’s people, the Jarawa, claim that their rights to the land go back to the days of Usman Dan Fodio, a Sufi teacher and ethnic Fulani herder who launched a 19th-century jihad to purify the faith, promote the education of women, and outlaw the enslavement of his fellow Muslims. Some of his jihadists, called his flag bearers, rode south over vast reaches of dry land until they reached the southern edge of the Sahel, roughly where the town of Yelwa is today.
The high, dry ridges and rocky escarpments of the Middle Belt also provided an ideal defense against Muslim slave raiders for non-Muslim hill people like the Goemai. When Christian missionaries arrived 100 years ago, many targeted these “pagan” hill people. For some, the mission was to create a buffer against the southern “spread of Mohammedanism,” as Karl Kumm, one of the more uncompromising missionaries, put it. But many of his coreligionists had little interest in combating Islam. Instead, armed with the two B’s of Bible and bicycle, as well as with the imperative of self-reliance, they dispensed practical advice on health, agriculture, and eventually education, providing a form of “emancipation” for the historically disenfranchised hill people, who also gained a powerful collective identity in Christianity.
The British colonial administration was ambivalent about missionaries, fearing that their efforts to convert Muslims would destabilize Britain’s plans for empire-building — as they had elsewhere in Africa. When the British overthrew the caliphate, then unified North and South Nigeria in 1914, the new colonial administration forbade missionaries to enter Muslim lands. Under the British policy of Indirect Rule, which was modeled on the Raj in India, Dan Fodio’s emirs were largely left in place. Many came to be seen as colonial agents, losing their religious legitimacy even as they amassed power and wealth. This colonial policy of favoring Muslims over minority Christians left a legacy of mistrust between the two groups.
{{Doesn’t this sound like some of the forerunners of the Rwandan genocide, with Belgian basis? In the bottom line, it’s about empire-building. Americans, beware…}}
“Every crisis is automatically interpreted as a religious crisis,” said Archbishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon, the Anglican bishop of Kaduna. “But we all know that, scratch the surface and it’s got nothing to do with religion. It’s power.”
****
One Tuesday at 7 a.m. in Yelwa, about 70 people were praying their morning devotions at the Church of Christ in Nigeria (founded by none other than the fiery Kumm himself). It was in February 2004, about a year after the elders had issued their edict that no Christian woman was to be seen with a Muslim man. As the worshippers finished their prayers, they heard gunshots and a call from the loudspeakers of the mosque next door: “Allahu Akhbar, let us go for jihad.” “We were terrified,” recalled Pastor Sunday, who had been standing outside the gate as the churchyard swarmed with strangers. He stayed near the church gate, but many other people fled toward the road behind the church. There, men dressed in military fatigues reassured them that they were safe and herded them back to the church. Then the men opened fire.
Pastor Sunday fled; that’s why he survived. The attackers — who were not, in fact, Nigerian soldiers — set the church on fire and killed everyone who tried to escape. They chased the head of the church, Pastor Sampson Bukar, to his house next door and ran him through with cutlasses. They set fire to the nursery school and the pastor’s house. During my first visit to Yelwa in the summer of 2006, his burned Peugeot was still outside. The church had been rebuilt and painted salmon pink. Boys were playing soccer, each wearing only one shoe so that everyone could kick the ball. “Seven in my family were killed,” said Sunday as we sat in the churchyard. “We call them martyrs.” He pointed to a mound of earth not far from where we were sitting. On top was a small wooden cross: it marked the mass grave for the 78 people killed that day.
“This is about religious intolerance,” he went on. “Our God is different than the Muslim God… If he were the same God, we wouldn’t fight.” For Pastor Sunday, the clash was millenarian and grounded in the literal words of Christian scripture. “The Bible says in Matthew 24, the time will come when they will pursue us in our churches,” he said. Matthew 24 foretells the Tribulation: the war that will precede Armageddon and the final coming of Jesus.
****
A few hundred yards down the road from the church, there’s a cornfield. In it, a row of mounds: more mass graves. White signs tally the dead below in green paint: 110, 50, 65, 100, 55, 25, 60, 20, 40, 105. Two months after the church was razed, Christian men and boys surrounded Yelwa. Many were bare-chested; others wore shirts on which they’d reportedly pinned white name tags identifying them as members of the Christian Association of Nigeria, an umbrella organization founded in the 1970s to give Christians a collective and unified voice as strong as that of Muslims. Each tag had a number instead of a name: a code, it seemed, for identification. They attacked the town. According to Human Rights Watch, 660 Muslims were massacred over the course of the next two days, including the patients in the Al-Amin clinic. Twelve mosques and 300 houses went up in flames. Young girls were marched to a nearby Christian town and forced to eat pork and drink alcohol. Many were raped, and 50 were killed.
Yelwa was still a ghost town of sorts in August 2006. In block after burned-out block, people camped in what used to be their homes. The road was lined with more than a dozen ruined mosques and churches, but the rubble was hidden in hip-high elephant grass; canary-yellow morning glories climbed the old foundations. When I arrived at the home of Abdullahi, the Muslim human-rights lawyer, his street was mostly deserted. He stooped on his way out of a low-ceilinged hut. Behind him, I could see the sour faces of a man and woman sitting on the floor by his desk. “Marital dispute,” he explained.
It was the rainy season, so I waited out the noon deluge in another small hut on his compound. Finally, Abdullahi ducked inside, a worn accordion file under his arm. His wife followed, carrying a pot of hot spaghetti. In the beginning, he explained, the conflict in Nigeria had nothing whatsoever to do with religion. “Let me give myself as a case study,” Abdullahi said. He went to Christian mission schools and federal college, and never, as a Muslim, had any problem. “Throughout this period, I’d never seen religious segregation, because at that time the societal value system was intact. We were taught to respect each other’s beliefs and customs.” But as the population grew and resources shrank, people began to fight over who had the right to the land and its resources — who belonged as an indigene, and who didn’t.
{{THINK ABOUT< NOW< THE TAX BURDEN IN USA, AND HOW THE FACTIONALISM BEGINS TO TAKE ON RELIGIOUS TONES, THROUGH THE GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS (FATHERHOOD, HEALTHY MARRIAGE, VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN, EDUCATION, HEALTHCARE, YOU NAME IT…) IN THE BOTTOM LINE, DOES MONEY HAVE COLOR? OR RELIGION? OR NATIONALITY? WHO IS FUNDING THE POLICIES, AND THE POLICY STUDIES? }}
Abdullahi has attempted to bring several cases of ethnic abuse to the government’s attention, but as with the church massacre, the government has done little to investigate or to try those involved. He handed me a folder with depositions from one such case. As I read them, Abdullahi returned with two young women, Hamamatu Danladi and Yasira Ibrahim, who had survived the incident detailed in the files. Danladi met my eye as she stood in the doorway; Ibrahim, with long upturned lashes and a moon face, didn’t. Abdullahi invited the women in, lowered his head, and left.
During the Christian attack, the two young women took shelter in an elder’s guarded home. On the second day, the Christian militia arrived at the house. They were covered in red and blue paint and were wearing those numbered white name tags. The Christians first killed the guards, then chose among the women. With others, the two young women were marched toward the Christian village. “They were killing children on the road,” Danladi said. Outside the elementary school, her abductor grabbed hold of two Muslim boys she knew, 9 and 10 years old. Along with other men, he took a machete to them until they were in pieces, then wrapped the pieces in a rubber tire and set it on fire.
When Danladi and Ibrahim reached their captors’ village, they were forced to drink alcohol and to eat pork and dog meat. Although she was obviously pregnant, Danladi’s abductor repeatedly raped her during the next four days. After a month, the police fetched Danladi and Ibrahim from the Christian village and took them to the camp where most of the town’s Muslim residents had fled. There, the two young women were reunited with their husbands. They never discussed what happened in the bush.
“The Christians don’t want us here because they don’t like our religion,” Danladi said. “Do you really think they took you because of your religion?” I asked. The women looked at each other. “In Islamic history, there are times when believers and nonbelievers have fought,” Danladi said. “We think what happened here is part of the clash that will come. After the clash, people will see poverty and suffering and that’s what’s happening now. According to our ulamas [teachers], there is no way that the whole world will not be Muslim.”
Later, I looked up Matthew 24, the verses that Pastor Sunday had cited. In many versions of the Bible, Jesus’ words are inked in red to show that these are the exact and inerrant words of the Lord. Down the rice-paper page, one red verse (Matthew 24:19) caught my eye: “But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days!” I thought of Hamamatu Danladi. After her rape, she told me, she didn’t give birth for four more months, which meant she carried that child for more than a year. Maybe I didn’t understand her. When I returned to visit her a year later, I asked again if I’d misunderstood. No, she said, she’d carried the baby for more than a year. Maybe, she thought, he simply refused to come into this world during the conflagration.
****
At the time of the massacre, Archbishop Peter Akinola was the president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, whose membership was implicated in the killings. He has since lost his bid for another term but, as primate of the Anglican Church of Nigeria, he is still the leader of 18 million Anglicans. He is a colleague of my father, who was the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in America from 1997 to 2006. But the American Episcopals’ election of an openly homosexual bishop in 2003, which Archbishop Akinola denounced as “satanic,” created distance between them. When I arrived in 2006 in the capital of Abuja to see the archbishop, his office door was locked. Its complicated buzzing-in system was malfunctioning, and he was trapped inside. Finally, after several minutes, the angry buzzes stopped and I could hear a man behind the door rise and come across the floor. The archbishop, in a pale-blue pantsuit and a darker-blue crushed-velvet hat, opened the door.
“My views on Islam are well known: I have nothing more to say,” he said, as we sat down. Archbishop Akinola has repeatedly spoken critically about Islam and liberal Western Protestants, and he was understandably wary of my motives for asking his thoughts. For Akinola, the relationship between liberal Protestants and Islam is straightforward: if Western Christians abandon conservative morals, then the global Church will be weakened in its struggle against Islam. “When you have this attack on Christians in Yelwa, and there are no arrests, Christians become dhimmi, the vocabulary within Islam that allows Christians and Jews to be seen as second-class citizens. You are subject to the Muslims. You have no rights.”
When asked if those wearing name tags that read “Christian Association of Nigeria” had been sent to the Muslim part of Yelwa, the archbishop grinned. “No comment,” he said. “No Christian would pray for violence, but it would be utterly naive to sweep this issue of Islam under the carpet.” He went on, “I’m not out to combat anybody. I’m only doing what the Holy Spirit tells me to do. I’m living my faith, practicing and preaching that Jesus Christ is the one and only way to God, and they respect me for it. They know where we stand. I’ve said before: let no Muslim think they have the monopoly on violence.”
Archbishop Akinola, 63, is a Yoruba, a member of an ethnic group from southwestern Nigeria, where Christians and Muslims coexist peacefully. But the archbishop’s understanding of Islam was forged by his experience in the north, where he watched the persecution of a Christian minority. He was more interested during our interview, though, in talking about the West than about Nigeria.
“People are thinking that Islam is an issue in Africa and Asia, but you in the West are sitting on explosives.” What people in the West don’t understand, he said, “is that what Islam failed to accomplish by the sword in the eighth century, it’s trying to do by immigration so that Muslims become citizens and demand their rights. A Muslim man has four wives; the wives have four or five children each. This is how they turned Christians into a minority in North Africa.”
He went on, “The West has thrown God out, and Islam is filling that vacuum for you, and now your Christian heritage is being destroyed… You people are so afraid of being accused of being Islam-phobic. Consequently everyone recedes and says nothing… Over the years, Christians have been so naive — avoiding politics, economics, and the military because they’re dirty business. The missionaries taught that. Dress in tatters. Wear your bedroom slippers. Be poor. But Christians are beginning to wake up to the fact that money isn’t evil, the love of money is, and it isn’t wrong to have some of it. Neither is politics.”
****
Democracy, Nigerians told me repeatedly, is a numbers game. That’s why whoever has more believers is on top. In that competition, Christianity has a recruiting tool beyond the frontline gospel preached by those such as Archbishop Akinola: Pentecostalism, one of the world’s most diverse and fastest-growing religious movements. In Nigeria, the oil boom of the 1970s brought a massive movement of people into cities looking for work. That boom’s collapse spurred the growth of the Pentecostal Gospel of Prosperity, with its emphasis on good health and getting rich; and of the African Initiated Churches, or AICs, which began about 100 years ago, when several charismatic African prophets successfully converted millions to Christianity. Today, AIC members account for one-quarter of Africa’s 417 million Christians.
One bustling Pentecostal hub, Canaanland, the 565-acre headquarters of the Living Faith Church, has three banks, a bakery, and its own university, Covenant, which is the sister school of Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Canaanland is about an hour and a half north of Lagos, which has an estimated population of 12 million and is projected to become the world’s 12th-largest city by 2020. With 300,000 people worshipping at a single service at the Canaanland headquarters alone and 300 branches across the country, Living Faith is one of Nigeria’s megachurches, and the dapper Bishop David Oyedepo is its prophet. The bishop, whose bald pate glistens above deep-set eyes and dazzling teeth, never wanted to be pastor: he had no interest in being poor, he told me. “When God made me a pastor, I wept. I hated poverty in the Church — how can the children of God live as rats?”
Bishop Oyedepo built Canaanland to preach the Gospel of Prosperity. As he said, “If God is truly a father, there is no father that wants his children to be beggars. He wants them to prosper.” In the parking lot at Canaanland, beyond the massive complex of unusually clean toilets, flapping banners promise: WHATSOEVER YOU ASK IN MY NAME, HE SHALL GIVE YOU, and BY HIS STRIPES HE GIVES US BLESSINGS.
The Pentecostal movement is so vast and varied, it’s a mistake to generalize about its unifying principles. But Pentecostals do tend to share an experience of the Holy Spirit, or the numinous, that offers the gift of salvation and success in everyday life — particularly in the realms of personal health and finance. Archbishop Akinola, whose own Anglican Church is more threatened in some ways by the rise of Pentecostalism than by the rise of Islam, finds these teachings suspect: “When you preach prosperity and not suffering, any Christianity devoid of the cross is a pseudo-religion.”
But Bishop Oyedepo’s followers say that those who criticize don’t understand what’s happening in Africa. “There’s a kind of revolution going on in Africa,” one of the bishop’s employees, Professor Prince Famous Izedonmi, said. “America tolerates God. Africa celebrates God. We’re called ‘the continent of darkness,’ but that’s when you appreciate the light. Jesus is the light.” The professor, a Muslim prince who converted to Christianity as a child to cure himself of migraine headaches, was the head of Covenant University’s accounting department and director of its Centre for Entrepreneurial Development Studies.
++++++++++++++
COMMENT: I am beginning to think it is not possible to separate religion from government, because my understanding of “religion” is a vocabulary, an assignment of meaning to life (and who wants a government to do that?) and a set of priests, prophets, sacred tabus (thinks we can’t talk about) and of course the caste system. The history of humanity is basically a history of human sacrifice, that is hard put to treat women & children kindly across the board, and is offended when some intend to do so. The history of humanity IS a power struggle…
So I think the thing is, to limit it.
An article today in the newspaper tells how an ex-homeless man is being kept in debt and penalized for his industry (I’ll try to put it up next). But if you want to become an early child-care researcher, the heavens (grants) will open up for sure.. See next post.
HAPPY APRIL 15th….. And many more.
WIKIPEDIA:
United States House Select Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations and Comparable Organizations
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Select Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations and Comparable Organizations was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives between 1952 and 1954.[1] The committee was originally created by House Resolution 561 during the 82nd Congress. The committee investigated the use of funds by tax-exempt organizations (non-profit organizations) to see if they were being used to support communism.[2][3] The committee was alternatively known as the Cox Committee and the Reece Committee after its two chairmen, Edward E. Cox and B. Carroll Reece.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/3768227/Dodd-Report-to-the-Reece-Committee-on-Foundations-1954
All I know, is I wanted ANSWERS why the courts have become a farce. I have a logical mind, in my own way, and like to look things up. The more I looked the more foundations I saw behind policies that hurt my family. These are identifiable traces, and I know the average person doesn’t have time (or sometimes the will) to find this out. The average person, in short, is being lied to in regards MANY of the institutions that affect his or her daily lives.
I couldn’t have been battered at home for so many years without scores of “enablers” who just didn’t have the vocabulary to address this, or the commitment, risking THEIR times, livelihood (and at some level, when it escalates) possibly lives — and certainly, money — which seems to have been key — in failing to speak about it.
Speaking out can mean “ex-communication” from one’s supportive spheres, but shutting up does violence to the spirit of a person. And if there’s one thing we need to sustain us in troubles, it’s that spirit.
I believe that the “thing” is to understand what’s going on in the very TOP (behind the media curtain and even behind the government curtains) and the very BOTTOM of society. This will better explain the middle.
Currently, the very TOP does not really want to hear from the very BOTTOM.
This is going to fall harder and harder on those in the middle who just don’t want to talk about it. Particularly REALLY hard topics like, murder, and child molestation, government-sanctioned and promoted. In the U.S.A.
Sooner or later there may be no “middle,” so I suggest more of the “middle” folk start listening to the Bottom folk with their HEARTS, and EYES open, and without that patronizing, us/them, condescension, let us fix you mentality. Get over yourself! Get quiet, and start observing.
(if that shoe fits, please wear it. If not, ignore it). Some burdens we have to bear alone, others we cannot. Stop being a spectator and start thinking — for real!
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Michael Anthony Nelson ~ Strategic Opportunist (con artist), just in the wrong business
Brilliant?, strategist/serial entrepreneur, visionary gets caught
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/02/BAJP1COTC7.DTL
It’s the overall effect of this — good Lord, he knows that forming banks, consulting, promising services that aren’t delivered, getting cash to come to him, computer savvy, and in general a leadership mentality — in criminal activity, unfortunately — jail didn’t seem to phase him too much, and while promising altruism, was apparently unhampered with a conscience (that can lead to some successful business ventures) —
Well, look at this:
In 1999, Michael Anthony Nelson created a fake bank in Florida and stole more than $700,000 in loans. Let out five years later on federal probation, he headed north to Chicago, where he created a consulting firm, convinced people that he had friends in high places and allegedly conned hundreds of thousands of dollars out of small businesses and churches.
He went back behind bars, but only for a few months – and when he got out, federal authorities say, he stole the identity of a New York lawyer, hired employees for a bogus law firm and ripped off victims in the Bay Area for about $35,000 for legal services he didn’t actually provide.
This is starting to sound like some organizations I’ve dealt with.
Did this guy miss a fine career in government, particularly the Executive Branch? He didn’t seem too interested in climbing the corporate ladder, or that the auto plants wouldn’t close before retirement, or any hopeful employee relationship with a business. That indicates some savvy. Wonder why…
The attorney whose identity he allegedly stole, Michael Scot Nelson, was admitted to the State Bar of California in 1995 and works as an attorney for the Federal Reserve Bank in New York.
Michael Anthony Nelson, 38, of Orlando, on the other hand, has never been an attorney anywhere in the United States. What he’s been, prosecutors say, is a con man from coast to coast.
On Thursday, a federal grand jury in San Francisco indicted Nelson on charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, computer fraud and aggravated identity theft for allegedly hijacking the New York attorney’s good name.
. . .
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/02/BAJP1COTC7.DTL#ixzz0k4STgZBD
What they arrested them on should speak loudly to people hoping to reform the courts: Mail Fraud, Wire fraud, and in effect fraud. I think this line about “they just don’t underSTAND!!!….,” whether “they” is a judge, a social worker, a custody evaluator, an attorney, a therapist, a guardian ad litem, a parenting coordinator, . . . . . . Let’s work HARD at making them underSTAND!!! . . . that line just doesn’t cut it.
Let’s look at the books! Then this may raise some governmental outrage, and action. I mean, think about it.
Compare that with the writing in this fine exhibit I blogged on earlier. I actually waded through the verbiage, full of passives and situations that “just happen” or “arise” or “have become” and there is practically not a single, direct descriptor noun actually DOING something in the entire piece. Programs happen. It’s kind of like the weather. No one is seeding the clouds, we are just the reporters. . . .
Ten Key Findings from Responsible Fatherhood Initiatives
February 2008
Prepared for:
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE)
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
(Intro paragraphs:)
The role of noncustodial fathers in the lives of low-income families has received increased attention in the past decade. As welfare reform has placed time limits on cash benefits, policymakers and program administrators have become interested in increasing financial support from noncustodial parents as a way to reduce poverty among low-income children. Although child support enforcement efforts have increased dramatically in recent years, there is evidence that many low-income fathers cannot afford to meet their child support obligations without impoverishing themselves or their families. Instead, many fathers accumulate child support debts that may lead them to evade the child support system and see less of their children.
To address these complex issues, {{that rained down from the sky, and that we don’t want to directly attribute responsibility for….}} states and localities have put programs in place that focus on developing services and options to help low-income fathers find more stable and better-paying jobs, pay child support consistently, and become more involved parents. In part because of the availability of new funding sources and a growing interest in family-focused programs,
Could it BE any more evasive??? Interest in family-focused programs is, just, well, like crops, just so happening to coming up through the fertile ground of mega-farms (no one bought seed, plowed, planted seed, watered, or even conceived of the idea of farming. This interest does NOT, we repeat, does NOT have anything to do with any of the founders of the National Fatherhood Initiative, or any other visionaries who foresaw a real crop of grants with a constant stream of clients, and is not, we repeat, NOT, a backlash to feminism. It just kinda sorta, you knew, “GREW.” We here, are just dispassionately reporting on what happened. (Give me a break…. )
this area is experiencing dramatic growth, with hundreds of “fatherhood” programs developing across the country.
Coincidentally, and surely not causally, related to the fine funds that are available here, and the replicatable business model that is being taught, or their close associations with — child support agencies, attorney general’s offices, welfare offices, and so forth. Those fatherhood programs just plain out developed, like a young girl entering puberty. Entirely unpredictable. It just happened.
Under the expanded purposes of Title IVA, authorized in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-193, also known as PRWORA), states have been able to use some of their Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds to provide services to nonresident fathers, including employment-related services. PRWORA also authorized grants to states to assist noncustodial parents with access and visitation issues, and it required states, as part of their Child Support Enforcement Program, to have procedures requiring fathers who are not paying child support to participate in work activities, which may include employment and training programs. The Deficit Reduction Act (DRA) of 2005 (P.L. 109-171), which contains a reauthorization of the TANF program, also authorized funding to states and public and nonprofit entities for responsible fatherhood programs.
Funny how the anti-violence nonprofit group I went into didn’t tell me this ahead of time. You might get your restraining order, but you also might (later) lose all contact with your children, through no fault of your own.
These recent policies encourage the development of more programs for low-income fathers. This brief focuses on several important early fatherhood initiatives that were developed and implemented during the 1990s and early 2000s that provide valuable lessons to policymakers and program staff now in this field.
(Note — not necessary to tell the actual litigants, or both sides of any litigating parties, of these programs, even though funds for them come, at least in California, I believe, come straight to /through the Judicial Council of California)
Formal evaluations of these earlier fatherhood efforts have been completed, some quite recently, making this an opportune time to step back and assess what has been learned and how to build on the early programs’ successes and challenges.
Diagram some of these “social policy” sentences — subject, object, verb, and see if there is a real human being or a specific action in place that relates to real-time, real people’s lives.. Good luck.
Contrast this oblique speech (and by the way, those interested in family court matters would do well to read it, and to notice that the writers are quoting — by and large — themselves. Or related organizations under contract to report on who is studying what. Study, study, study.
Michael Anthony Nelson, by contrast, moved at the speed of light, and before you know it, a lot of people were out of a lot of money. The article describes specific, aggressive action in simple declarative prose:
He (allegedly):
- In FL, created a fake bank and stole $700,000 in loans.
- In Chicago, he created a consulting firm (that’s the BUSINESS these court folks are in, practically!)
- In NY, he stole the identity of a lawyer, hired employees for a bogus law firm and ripped off victims in the Bay Area for about $35,000 for legal services he didn’t actually provide,….
- rented office space in Los Angeles and Atlanta, applying for credit cards in the name of a real law firm in Seattle….
Again, this appears to be what a Los Angeles County judges slush fund did, in the county courthouse, according to (Marv Bryer) “Johnnypumphandle”, and California NOW 2002 report, tracking the EIN# of the founding organization behind AFCC (Association of Family & Conciliation Courts). Their employees are often (not exclusively) civil servants, but the origin of the thing began, I at least believe, with tax fraud. And its going to HELP us?
The guy’s a real go-getter. No, I do NOT respect him. But I do notice that he’s not like some standing in line for welfare (LONG lines), or at the courts to file some paperwork, or trying to get through (if one is female) to the local county child support agency and get a straight answer about what happened?
(If this was ever in the background, it’s clear) he quickly assessed that this was a lose/lose proposition.
These systems doesn’t reward good behavior and moral mindsets. It wasn’t designed to do this. These systems reward those who profit from them. Consulting firms, nonprofits, government contracted policymakers, and so forth. They employ LOTS of people to study unemployment, and the voices of the unemployed are, generally speaking, not reported directly, any more than the structures of the organizations are.
Then there are people who start reporting on corruption, and end up like Nancy Schaefer and her husband, which is an unfinished story with significant “SPIN” on it, and a lesson in the high stakes of exposing corruption regarding agencies that deal with children.
And these are flourishing, in fact replicating faster probably than our population, around the court system. Sooner or later there may not be babies enough to report on.
The report above, by the way, actually holds the term “multiple-partner fertility,” as if we were rabbits. Which we aren’t. Yet.
Finally, it seems, he made a mistake (or was reported, and caught). But the business he’s in doesn’t seem TOO different than many operating in the government spheres.
MY POINT:
To think that some people with educationese and social reform on their minds can behaviorally re-condition men (or women) that think like this, and move this fast, particularly when it comes to systems analysis — is simply ridiculous.
OR, itself a con game.
Just putting out a few ideas, and connecting them that may be related. At least it beats waiting in line somewhere else, with an idiotic hope in my brain.
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Responsible Fatherhood and (ir)Responsible Social Policy — MY informal findings…
OK, it’s my indignant rant, but I bet you’ll admit an informative one….
You have NO idea what’s up in the honorable and well-funded halls & courts (that’s regal, I’m talking, not legal) of social policy.
In-breeding in Federal Programs to Examine Fatherhood….
The courts are biased against fathers? Yeah, and what other religious myths are still circulating? ??? Poor dears…..
Fact is, rather, the bulk of the US populace is being used, wherever possible, for wide-scale, years-long, federally funded (and let’s look at which foundations are involved, not just non-profits whose money comes from foundations and the feds) social demonstration projects — often without informed consent — and questionable summaries of “findings” in order to justify more expenditures. And more. And more.
This apparatus could simply NOT be sustained if there were concerned, and NOT desperate for basic survival — individuals around in sufficient mass and with sufficient memory of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, what they were about to start with — who fought back about being “used” for elitist pyschologists (etc.) with what is too damn close to a dissociative Nazi mentality willing to run experiments on OPK (Other People’s Kids). And the parents. And report to each other (out of earshot).
Here’s (just one — just one) piece of evidence that fathers are NOT underrepresented (the opposite is true) in these circles, and that the LAST thing we need is more Warren Farrell’s to sell their wares to men objecting to the women they couldn’t keep actually getting free without being punished for it. And roping in plenty of (2nd wives, etc.) women to support their misogyny and need to continue access to young boys and girls “for their own good.”
Ten Key Findings from Responsible Fatherhood Initiatives
February 2008
Prepared for:
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE)
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)Prepared By:
Karin Martinson and Demetra Nightingale
The Urban InstituteThis report is available on the Internet at:
http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/07/PFF/KeyFindings/This report is part of a larger project:
{{Did you GET that??}}
Partners for Fragile Families (PFF) Demonstration ProjectsPrinter Friendly version in PDF format (12 pages)
At the end of the report is, naturally, credits to the authors. Although they appear to come from two reputable institutions, The Urban Institute and Johns Hopkins, a quick Google search shows that one author (Ms. Nightengale) was formerly principal at The Urban Institute itself, i.e., professional referrals, apparently). cf. Wade Horn, formerly of HHS, but also of The National Fatherhood Institute (f. 1994)…. Real independent…
You can look at the report here — but these are the authors credited for it:
About the Authors
Karin Martinson is a senior research associate in the Urban Institute’s Center on Labor, Human Services, and Population. Her research interests include welfare reform, employment and training programs, service delivery systems, and work supports. She has worked on numerous program evaluations in these areas, with a focus on implementation studies of programs and services for low-income families.
Demetra Nightingale is a principal research scientist at Johns Hopkins University. An expert in social policy, she has focused for more than 30 years on issues related to employment, welfare, poverty, and the alleviation of poverty. She has written many reports, books, and articles.
SPOKE.com lists her as a principal researcher at The Urban Institute
Here (from The Urban Institute) is a list of 51 articles, some shared with Karen Martinson:
View Research by Author – Demetra Smith Nightingale
// And here’s the Google search on Dr.. Nightengale — obviously a social policy researcher…
And here is a bio blurb:\from where she is now:
DEMETRA NIGHTINGALE, PH.D.
Dr. Nightingale holds a Ph.D. in public policy from the George Washington University. She has directed numerous program evaluations and policy studies, publishes extensively, and sits on many advisory groups, boards, and task forces. Before joining Johns Hopkins, for over twenty-five years she was at the Urban Institute, most recently as a principal research associate and program director in the Labor and Social Policy Center.
Understand, I’m not PERSONALLY criticizing a person who obviously can write and research and has chosen social policy as a field. I’m sure there are reasons she and others in the field ended up in their fields, just as there are reasons why I, a former teacher and musician (and dual-degreed) ended up marrying a man who didn’t respect woman, and having a helluva a time just staying a live, let alone involved in that profession, during and after marriage. My research on this blog is in part of an intent to know WHY I shouldn’t be able to leave and get on with life, given that my only apparent crime was poor choice of spouse and giving that marriage “the old college try” before leaving, shortly before it got lethal, as opposed to merely dangerous.
I believe the answer lies in the fact that what we expect to be halls of justice and law (let alone expecting the soon to be nationalized school system, either, to be as involved in education as in behavioral conditioning) have become dispensers of pop psychology and use of the human populace as a research subjects, and doing so at public expense — ALL of the public who pays taxes…
On my last post, I posted writings from an attorney, and a Ph.D. The Ph.D. (Warren Farrell) probably gets more press, but I found her reasonings to be more sound. I think we are entering into an age in which the presence of “Ph.D.” in any social science field should be a contra-indicator, not a positive.
=======
This is an adequate living, apparently, all this research (note. None of mine produces a dime…)
“Evaluation of the Partners for Fragile Families Projects” (Acting Project Director 2003; key
senior analyst); 2001-2007 Contract with U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Urban Institute contract.
“Evaluation of the Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ Demonstration” (Senior
Evaluator, with MDRC prime contractor and Urban Institute); 2002-2009, Contract with U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation
HHS (translation: Your federal taxes, if you are in US and paying them…) is paying this salary. MDRC is another contractor I aim to report on one of these days, along with more on CPR (Center for Policy Research) and Thoennes/Pearson (both Ph.D.s I believe also), who show up in this featured report today:
So, let’s talk more abound the “independence” of this report, project, or others like it, in looking at its bibliography.
This brief was completed by the Urban Institute under contract to the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as part of the Partners for Fragile Families evaluation, under contract number 100-01-0027. The authors gratefully acknowledge the guidance and comments provided by their project officer, Jennifer Burnszynski. Helpful comments were also provided by Linda Mellgren of ASPE and by Margot Bean, Eileen Brooks, and Myles Schlank of the Office of Child Support Enforcement in the Administration for Children and Families/HHS. The authors also benefited from comments by Burt Barnow and John Trutko and editing by Fiona Blackshaw.
From the Bibliography of the Reporters summarizing the programs they are paid to evaluate, and quoting some of the key contractors profiting from those programs, in the year 2008 in which (in my county) there were, I believe, 10 deaths (femicides) from domestic violence, and women attempting to leave such marriages, some of them tearing up businesses and claiming a police officer also, and a bystander or so…. Not to mention the 18-year imprisonment and repeated rapes and impregnation of Jaycee Dugard by an improperly monitored Phil Garrido, who had already been in jail for kidnapping in rape, there was contacted by a woman, married her, and with her, got that adolescent girl, and IMPRISONED her. Her childhood was stolen, while these studies marched on, and on, and on. She worked from a ramshackle set of tents and out-buildings, supporting her kidnappers own business in a professional manner and raising two children fathered by him.
Quite a different persepctive…
Anyhow, here is “CPR” footprint on this report, under the Bibliography.
Office of Child Support Enforcement, Responsible Fatherhood Programs
Pearson, Jessica, Nancy Theonnes, David Price, and Jane Venohr. 2000. OCSE Responsible Fatherhood Programs: Early Implementation Lessons. Denver, CO: Center for Policy Research and Policy Studies, Inc. http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cse/rpt/process.htm.
Pearson, Jessica, Nancy Theonnes, Lanae Davis, Jane Venohr, David Price, and Tracy Griffith. 2003. OCSE Responsible Fatherhood Programs: Client Characteristics and Program Outcomes. Denver, CO: Center for Policy Research and Policy Studies, Inc. http://fatherhood.hhs.gov/Stability/RespFaPgmsClientChar.pdf.
If you are comfortable with us becoming, instead of a republic with 50 states, a single nation carved up into regions on which demonstration projects about us will be run at our expense, and supporting a bureaucracy which would be jeopardized if this was stopped, then just stop reading, and thinking, and go on paying taxes without thinking, and demanding, accountability. Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT, teach your youngsters to use the internet to research nonprofits and look at their IRS forms, and connect the dots. Do not, in fact, teach them about economics, history, or money in any coherent manner.
Just keep showing up to be demonstrated upon, and believe (like a religion) that this is going to improve someone’s lot in the long run, or our society. Sure.
And make sure NOT to look at the conversation between a family rights lawyer (Kates, Esq.) and a man who provides expert testimony — for fathers — and help getting their attorneys to coach the mother’s attorney to cave in, or risk losing custody to him (Farrell, Ph.D.). Don’t read the decades earlier conversations between Kates & Farrell on the Positive qualities of Incest, and quoting the Penthouse article (by Farrell) on it.
If Incest is acceptable, then by all means, let’s change the laws. however, if the laws against this are still pertinent, then I suggest we get the Dept. of Health and Human Services 100% out of the courts, and defund anything resembling Farrell & friends! I for one, am opposed to the concept, as are, I trust, most underage girls, or boys, who have been subjected to it.
Anything else is pure Cognitive Dissonance, and part of the problem.
I realize the survival benefit of denial, but at some point, it reaches a point of no return. That point is directly related to the SIZE and WEIGHT of the institutions influencing our individual lives, and whether we are going to also farm out reflective, informative THINKING to experts who have run amok, like a pack of dogs running out of meat and without restraint.
Sorry, sort of, about that last analogy, but it sure seems appropriate, if you are not dazzled by 3-syllable words.
Did I mention that one of the founders of the Center for Policy Research is among the founders, also, of the humongous AFCC (that group of professionals that seems to hearken back to a tax-dodging group run under the Los Angeles County Courthouse, and under its EIN#, but consisting in effect of a slush fund for judges…)
When you have the same personnel PROPOSING projects, CONDUCTING projects, and REPORTING on/EVALUATING on those projects to each other (i.e., policy makers reporting on policy), when the words “demonstration” are used on PEOPLE, then, Houston (and Plano, TX, if you’re there) we indeed have a problem. The ship isn’t going to come in, ever, and that dog ain’t gonna hunt…. until it is recognized HUMANITY is not correlative to educational and $$ status.
Catch you later — — —
Meanwhile, check out this: If the Fatherhood Guys aren’t able YET to totally get the balance swung back in their favor, adn if women as a whole aren’t willing to boycott sex, parenting, marriage, and child support to make a point (perhaps for even just 3 months in a row), it is going this direction sooner than later, while you were, probably, waiting for a court hearing, or wondering (moms) where your kids were on that weekend or joint-custody visitation time….. or between paying to see the children you gave birth to, so your interactions could be further studied and reported on by social policy makers, like those above…..
The Artificial Womb
“If you didn’t see this coming, you haven’t been paying attention.”
Copyright © 2009, Paul Lutus —
ACTUALLY, I was going to link to the IS PSYCHOLOGY SCIENCE page..
To further motivate you to actually READ ‘Is Psychology Science?” (and a close reading will show he’s not particularly female-friendly, but poses some good question), here’s one:
- During the 2006 meeting of the American Psychological Association, psychiatrists admitted they have no scientific tests to prove mental illness and have no cures for these unproven mental illnesses (more here). I’ve always thought the first step to learning something new is to acknowledge one’s own ignorance. It seems the professionals are willing to take this first step.
ConclusionAt this point it must be clear to the intelligent reader that clinical psychology can make virtually any claim and offer any kind of therapy, because there is no practical likelihood of refutation – no clear criteria to invalidate a claim. This, in turn, is because human psychology is not a science, it is very largely a belief system similar to religion.
Like religion, human psychology has a dark secret at its core – it contains within it a model for correct behavior, although that model is never directly acknowledged. Buried within psychology is a nebulous concept that, if it were to be addressed at all, would be called “normal behavior.” But do try to avoid inquiring directly into this normal behavior among psychologists – nothing is so certain to get you diagnosed as having an obsessive disorder.
In the same way that everyone is a sinner in religion’s metaphysical playground, everyone is mentally ill in psychology’s long, dark hallway – no one is truly “normal.” This means everyone needs psychological treatment. This means psychologists and psychiatrists are guaranteed lifetime employment, although that must surely be a coincidence rather than a dark motive.
This article also raises the question of ethics, as does Liz Kates, Esq., in her “Therapeutic Jurisprudence” article. Unlike her, I don’t think that the family law venue can be cleaned up of the practices, because I believe that its originators and promoters (family law DOES have a history, it didn’t just pop out fully formed, like Venus (unclothed) on a clamshell, or Athena (?? fully clothed and armored) from the head of her male forebear divinity..
EVERY institution has a Daddy somewhere. The field of psychology and social science don’t have very honorable ones… a little too close to Hitler’s minions, for my comfort:
If society correctly evaluated human psychology as a loose grouping of subjective cults and fads, the above summary would not pose any kind of social problem. But in fact there are people who still think human psychology is based in science, all evidence to the contrary. The sad result is that society’s engine of legal and social authority is sometimes steered by psychology, sometimes with unjust and terrible consequences. Here is a brief list of historical examples in which psychology’s bogus status as a science has produced harm (it is by no means a comprehensive list):
- During World War I, psychologist R. M. Yerkes oversaw the testing of 1.7 million US Army draftees. His questionable conclusions were to have far-reaching consequences, leading to a 1924 law placing severe limitations on the immigration of those groups Yerkes and his followers believed to be mentally unfit – Jews and Eastern Europeans in particular. Yerkes later thoroughly recanted his methods and findings in an 800-page confession/tome that few bothered to read, and the policies he set in motion had the dreadful side effect of preventing the immigration of Jews trying to escape the predations of Hitler and his henchmen later on.The original test results happened to dovetail with Yerkes’ explicit eugenic beliefs, a fact lost on nearly everyone at the time.
- In an effort to answer the question of whether intelligence is primarily governed by environment or genes, psychologist Cyril Burt (1883-1971) performed a long-term study of twins that was later shown to be most likely a case of conscious or unconscious scientific fraud. His work, which purported to show that IQ is largely inherited, was used as a “scientific” basis by various racists and others, and, despite having been discredited, still is.
(photo, ABOVE)
In the 1950s, at the height of psychology’s public acceptance, neurologist Walter Freeman created a surgical procedure known as “prefrontal lobotomy.” As though on a quest and based solely on his reputation and skills of persuasion, Freeman singlehandedly popularized lobotomy among U.S. psychologists, eventually performing about 3500 lobotomies, before the dreadful consequences of this practice became apparent.
At the height of Freeman’s personal campaign, he drove around the country in a van he called the “lobotomobile,” performing lobotomies as he traveled. There was plenty of evidence that prefrontal lobotomy was a catastrophic clinical practice, but no one noticed the evidence or acted on it. There was — and is — no reliable mechanism within clinical psychology to prevent this sort of abuse.
These examples are part of a long list of people who have tried to use psychology to give a scientific patina to their personal beliefs, perhaps beginning with Francis Galton (1822-1911), the founder and namer of eugenics. Galton tried (and failed) to design psychological tests meant to prove his eugenic beliefs. This practice of using psychology as a personal soapbox continues to the present, in fact, it seems to have become more popular.
What these accounts have in common is that no one was able (or willing) to use scientific standards of evidence to refute the claims at the time of their appearance, because psychology is only apparently a science. Only through enormous efforts and patience, including sometimes repeating an entire study using the original materials, can a rare, specific psychological claim be refuted. Such exceptions aside, there is ordinarily no recourse to the “testable, falsifiable claims” criterion that sets science apart from ordinary human behavior.
One might think that psychology might have learned from its past errors and evolved into a more strict and scientific enterprise. In fact the reverse seems to be the case. Here are two contemporary examples:
Facilitated Communication to me is uncomfortably close to what gets termed (but isn’t) “mediation” in the courts. We are not adults able to speak for ourselves, neither are our children (regardless of their ages), therefore a Mediator must “intervene” and produce a “required outcome” of the “due process” which results in “increased noncustodial parenting time” (the A/V grants and fatherhood thesis, in application), thereby shattering the concept of facts, evidence, and law.
As this DOES produce endless income, no wonder the shattering of the legal process is not of primary concern among the social policy makers….
Perhaps if we can BOTH mock and boycott, something might change. But this won’t be easy… And it requires sustainable livelihood to do this, which is getting scarcer and scarcer, as the evaluations and declarations get “curiouser and curiouser.”
{The next subtitle in this article is about “Recovered Memories” and he discredits it. However, there is a factor where denial serves to protect the nervous system; I have experienced this in a (recent, not childhood) sense, and there IS a ‘dissociation” which seems to occur to preserve survival under extreme circumstances.
When society itself gets dissociative, then we have substantial problems. I think the desire to change society should be done like Jesus did it — with self-sacrifice, and on a case-by-case basis. When HE confronted the political-religo-combo, it was threatened, and (as the account goes in the Bible, at lesat) they crucified him. Wars are still being fought over that, so perhaps if we could cool it on the institutional SIZE, the RELIGIOUS aspects of any institution might be minimized and deflected.
As I write, my President is pushing the HEALTHCARE initiative, which I oppose on the basis of it’s going to end up, soon enough, in who merits living, and who merits dying, who can have babies and who can’t, and after producing them, whose kids ARE they? All the linguistics I’m hearing (press, TV, etc.) is that they are “OURS.” That simply defies the concept of biology, until a real artificial womb takes its proper place beside artificial insemination, fatherhood practitioners, and domestic violence advocates, CPS, Child Support agencies, and the rest of them.
What a “village” to raise all these kids…
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Big Brother (Forget the Sistahs) Throughout the Land…
OK, so this post is long. But do you really want a right-wing Psychologist (or programs he set up after being, ah, er, deciding to resign) running some of the largest federal policies affecting day to day life for many Americans?
http://nafcj.net/fathers_rights_and_judges.htm
Big Brother the MatchMaker:
(and some of the costs… and some of the organizations that got in on the action)…
Here’s the OFFICIAL point of view — from one of my older Blogroll Links:
DO NOT PASS GO unless you can DIGEST & COMPREHEND THIS (and some of its significance)…This is 2006, like, OLD, folks…. And still going strong. This is one administration ago. This is BEFORE we elected a President raised by a single mother. Excuse me, I uttered the “M” word! good gracious me…I mean, by a “father-absent” household —
OFA Healthy Marriage and Promoting Responsible Fatherhood Initiatives
In February 2006, President George W. Bush signed the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which reauthorized the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program administered by HHS’ Administration for Children and Families (ACF). The DRA reauthorization also included $150 million to support programs designed to help couples form and sustain healthy marriages. Up to $50 million of this amount may be used for programs designed to encourage responsible fatherhood. In its welfare reform law of 1996, Congress stipulated three of the four purposes of the TANF block grant to states be related to promoting healthy marriages.
“A key component of welfare reform is supporting healthy marriages and responsible fatherhood,” Dr. Horn added. “Approval of these funds will help to achieve welfare reform’s ultimate goal: improving the well-being of children.”
The Healthy Marriage Initiative, administered by ACF, was created in 2002 by President Bush to help couples who have chosen marriage gain greater access to marriage education services, on a voluntary basis, where they can acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to form and sustain a healthy marriage. Funding for responsible fatherhood includes initiatives to help men be more committed, involved and responsible fathers, and the development of a national media campaign to promote responsible fatherhood.
On September 30, 2006, the Office of Family Assistance announced grant awards to 226 organizations to promote healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood as authorized by the Deficit Reduction Act.
“These programs will help couples form and sustain healthy marriages, and equip men to be involved, committed and responsible fathers in the lives of their children,” said HHS Assistant Secretary for Children and Families Wade F. Horn, Ph.D.
[[That he was former President & Founder of the National Fatherhood Initiative I suppose was just coincidence…]]
These grants, overseen by ACF’s Office of Family Assistance, must have procedures in place to address issues of domestic violence and ensure that program participation is voluntary. Grant funds may be used for the following purposes:
- Competitive research and demonstration projects to test promising approaches to encourage healthy marriages and promote involved, committed and responsible fatherhood;
- Technical assistance to states and tribes;
- Marriage education, marriage skills training, public advertising campaigns, high school education on the value of marriage and marriage mentoring programs; and
- Promoting responsible fatherhood through counseling, mentoring, marriage education, enhancing relationship skills, parenting and activities to foster economic stability.
Every statement and program (including the strange concept that PROGRAMS can, or even SHOULD fix MARRIAGES, which are between individuals…)
WIKIPEDIA ON Dr. Horn, the Psychologist:
Wade F. Horn is an American psychologist who received unanimous confirmation (under President George W. Bush) in 2001 as the Assistant Secretary for Children and Families. Before his resignation on April 1, 2007, he oversaw the function of the Administration For Children and Families, an agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services. He also served under President George H. W. Bush as Commissioner of Children, Youth, and Families within the Administration For Children and Families.
Horn represents a key advocate for the re-envisioning and re-vising of the Federal Head Start program. A key proponent for family involvement in education, Horn served as president of the National Fatherhood Initiative. Horn is also a strong advocate for “abstinence education.”
He received his Ph.D. in 1981 from Southern Illinois University. He served as an assistant professor of psychology at Michigan State University and was an affiliate scholar at the right-wing think tank, The Hudson Institute.
Secretary Leavitt praised Wade Horn for his leadership, citing his actions to “significantly improved the lives of vulnerable children and strengthened the American family as he led the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) for the past six years.”
He continued, “Under Wade’s leadership, we passed and implemented the next chapter of welfare reform, launched the first-ever healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood grants, began outreach to victims of human trafficking, helped increase the number of adoptions in America, connected children of prisoners with mentors, and created a strong partnership with faith-based organizations.”
About that resignation in 2007:
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From “Media Transparency” (1/31/05)
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If you like the way Wade Horn is doing business with right wing pundits, in the words of Al Jolson, the popular singer of the 1920s, “You aint seen nothing yet!” In late-December 2004, the Washington Times reported that in addition to his hefty responsibilities as the Assistant Secretary for Children and Families in the Administration for Children and Families, at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Horn will now be in charge of drumming up support for, and doling out grants to, abstinence-only sexual education programs.
Recent headlines about Horn’s work have focused on revelations that syndicated newspaper columnists Mike McManus and Maggie Gallagher had joined conservative commentator Armstrong Williams as part of a loose coalition of the shilling: right wing pundits who take government money to support Bush Administration policies.
In early January, USA Today revealed that Williams, a prominent African American radio and television personality, had received $240,000 from the Department of Education – through a contract with the Ketchum public relations firm – for his support for the president’s No Child Left Behind project.
Paid to promote marriage
Wade Horn has been in the marriage promotion business for quite some time. He is a co-founder and former president of the National Fatherhood Initiative which, according to its Web site, made its national debut in March 1994 with Don Eberly – a former White House advisor and civil society scholar who served as Deputy Assistant to the President for the Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives – serving as President, Horn as Director, and David Blankenhorn as Chairman of the Board of Directors.
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From Feministing (04/07), “Party On, Wade“
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Horn has indeed been cozy with hardline social conservatives. His achievements include:
- overseeing multi-million-dollar funding increases for abstinence-only education programs and crisis-pregnancy centers
- promoting abstinence-only programs for not just teens, but for adults, too
- running the National Fatherhood Initiative before he became a government employee, and then funding his organization with millions of federal dollars
{{THIS IS A KEY CONCEPT …}}
- shunting federal dollars toward various other religious groups and right-wing organizations he is personally affiliated with, such as Marriage Savers
- deciding that low-income women need a husband more than they need job training, and funding “marriage promotion” programs with welfare dollars
- once arguing that Head Start programs should only admit children of married couples
(See Talk2Action for the complete lowdown.) Horn’s temporary replacement, Daniel Schneider, seems to be ideologically in step with him. At a recent congressional hearing, Democrat Barbara Lee questioned Schneider about why the only federal sex-ed funding goes to abstinence-only programs:
“It seems very unbalanced to me,” Lee told Daniel Schneider, deputy assistant secretary for the Administration for Children and Families, at the March 8 hearing.Schneider said states and local governments provide ample funding for “comprehensive” sex education and that “abstinence education has been ignored in the past, to some extent.”
Yeah. Except for the fact that state and local governments don’t fund comprehensive sex ed, they put their money toward securing federal matching grants, which are strictly for abstinence-only. And I don’t think that pouring millions of federal dollars into abstinence-only programs is “ignoring” them, by any stretch of the imagination.
Before joining ACF in 2006, Schneider was chief of staff for Rep. Jim Ryun (R-Kansas), one of the most conservative members of congress. While there, Schneider got cozy with Prison Fellowship Ministries, but I could find little else about his pre-ACF days.
Horn is clearly confident in Schneider’s ability to carry the right-wing, anti-woman torch. As Horn told Focus on the Family, “The good news is that the people who did the work are still going to be here. The initiatives which have been launched will continue for the rest of the time that this president is in office.”
Wheee! Glad to have Horn out of the way, in the private sector at an accounting firm. But it looks like we’re going to have to wait for a new presidency to see real change at ACF
From The Democratic Underground (05/07, Bill Berkowitz Article. Suggest you finish this one, all of it: “Wade’s Horn of Plenty“
In fact, I’m posting most of it right here:
Sent Friday, May 4, 2007 8:26 am
To xxxx……..com
Subject Berkowitz-Wade’s Horn of plenty:Friends & family get HHS millions
Wade’s Horn of plenty
Former Department of Health and Human services official signs on as a consultant with Deloitte Consulting LLP after questions are raised about federal government grants and abstinence-only sex education programsBill Berkowitz
WorkingForChange
05.04.07It’s difficult to know exactly what Wade Horn was thinking in the days prior to his resignation from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS): Perhaps he didn’t relish the thought of having to defend his pouring of millions of dollars in taxpayer money into abstinence-only sex education programs that have been thoroughly discredited; perhaps he was worried about being brought in front of a congressional committee and asked to account for some of his other grant-making decisions.Perhaps he was concerned about being subjected to charges of cronyism — involving contracts to organizations he has been closely affiliated with — and/or nepotism — involving subcontracts attained by his wife’s company from organizations that received faith-based money. Perhaps he was thinking that the revelation “shortly before his resignation” that the nearly $1 million he gave to the National Fatherhood Initiative ( NFI ), where he was the president for at least three years until joining the Bush administration in 2001, was only the tip of the iceberg.
Perhaps it was all of the above.
Whatever the reasons, in early April, Wade Horn opted to resign from his post as the Assistant Secretary for Community Initiatives at HHS . During his tenure at HHS Horn was the Bush Administration’s point man for welfare reform, Head Start and abstinence-only education, and as such, he was a veritable faith-based slot machine for religious organizations, some of which he had longtime close relationships.
Despite charges by David Kuo, the former second-in-command at the White House Office on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives who, in his book “Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction” claimed that the Bush Administration short-changed Christian faith-based organizations, Horn was responsible for placing hundreds of millions of dollars in the religious right’s and conservative philanthropy recipients’ collective coffers.
On April 18, a little more than two weeks after his rather unexpected resignation, Horn joined Deloitte Consulting LLP as a director in the organization’s Public Sector practice. According to PR Newswire, Horn “will be a key advisor to health and human services clients of Deloitte Consulting’s state government practice”
Why did Horn suddenly resign?
In two recent postings at Talk to Action, Cynthia Cooper, a playwright and the author of several nonfiction books, carefully tracked some of Horn’s shenanigans. In a post called “Hand That Feeds” (March 3, 2007), Cooper wrote that Horn, who oversaw a budget of $47 billion, was “very kind to Religious Right organizations, including the one that he founded in 1994 with Religious Right money — the National Fatherhood Initiative (website) in Gaithersburg, Maryland.”
According to Cooper, Horn gave “the National Fatherhood Initiative a … ‘ Capacities Building ‘ grant in the amount of $999,534 from a program he started in his agency and called by the familiar-ringing name of the ‘Responsible Fatherhood Initiative.'”
Cooper also pointed out it was Horn who “approved the hiring of columnist Maggie Gallagher” — who also worked for the National Fatherhood Initiative — “to promote marriage”; and “gave money to writer Mike McManus to support marriage promotion, while also giving money to McManus’ organization, Marriage Savers (website) (‘a ministry that equips … local congregations to prepare for lifelong marriages …’).” Horn was also a founding board member of Marriage Savers.
In addition to the NFI grants, in 2006, the organization received a $2.279 million no-bid contract from the Assistant Secretary’s office, investigative reporter Mike Reynolds told Media Transparency. That money, according to OMB Watch, is part of a $12.382 million contract that runs through the year 2011, three years after the end of President Bush’s second term.
Before Horn resigned, Cooper notes that he had been “recently handed additional money to dispense — the $157 million in abstinence-only education. He has a nifty idea that abstinence programs could go beyond students, and become engaging programs for adults, as well.”
After Cooper’s story on Horn appeared in early March, several other commentators added to the conversation. In a posting titled “Blowing the Whistle on Wade Horn”, the revealer asked: “Why is Wade Horn invisible to the press? Is it because the media is part of a vast right-wing conspiracy? Is it because reporters hate women and queers? Not likely. Rather, it has more to do with a decades-long decline in press coverage of the federal government’s middle managers, who oftentimes have more influence over our everyday lives than the boldface names. Such stories don’t sell papers, but they do serve the public interest.”
In her regular column for the National Organization of Women, Kim Gandy, president of NOW wrote “Right Wing ‘Father’land” in which she pointed out that Horn, “Opposing everything NOW stands for (from abortion rights to economic justice), … founded the National Organization of Fathers , and openly stated his belief that ‘the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church.’ He even advocated that federal benefits, such as Head Start and subsidized housing, should only be available to children of married couples, not single parents. So of course the Bush administration put him in charge of all the welfare and public assistance programs that primarily serve those very same single mothers he so detests. And did he find a way to derail the funding away from single moms? You bet he did.”
The National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association said in a statement that in his position, Horn “administer both the Abstinence Education Grants to States program (Title V) and the Community-Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) program. During Horn’s tenure, the CBAE program saw major funding increases, bringing the current total for federally funded abstinence-only-until-marriage education programs to $176 million per year. Horn also oversaw a dramatic tightening of HHS restrictions on how abstinence-only funds can be used, and promoted an increased emphasis on marriage and faith-based initiatives.”
In her follow-up post after his resignation titled “Wade Leaps” (April 3), Cooper pointed out that there were other troubling things going on during Horn’s reign: “Horn had stonewalled successfully for years. A legal action filed with the HHS Civil Rights division by Legal Momentum, pushed some buttons. It alleged sex discrimination in 34 of 100 programs funded under the ‘Responsible Fatherhood’ initiative, and cited the funding that went directly to Horn’s old program as running as high as $5 million.”
“As Democrats control the House and Senate and Henry Waxman is driving the House Oversight committee, Wade Horn had to know that he and his discredited faith-based abstinence-only programs and their funding were smack in Waxman’s crosshairs,” Mike Reynolds, author of a book on politics, money and the religious right to be published by St Martins Press in 2008, told Media Transparency in an e-mail exchange.
“Given the choice between answering subpoenas and facing the CSPAN cameras like the hapless Attorney General Alberto Gonzales or moving on to a more lucrative position at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu seems like a no-brainer to me,” Reynolds added. “And it’s no surprise that he landed at Deloitte since his old boss at HHS , Tommy Thompson, heads the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions.”
All in the family
Reynold has also been keeping a sharp eye on Horn’s wife Claudia, who founded and heads Performance Results Inc. (PRI), which according to its website is “an organizational services and support firm specializing in evaluation, evaluation training, and data systems to support evaluations.” PRI has worked as subcontractor for the Institute for Youth Development (IYD) and its sister nonprofit, the Children’s Aids Fund (CAF).
Reynolds pointed out that IYD, which has received millions of dollars from HHS , provides technical assistance and training to abstinence-only groups, crisis pregnancy centers, “healthy marriage” programs and other Bible-based ministries regarding how to receive government grants and how to manage their respective operations.
Claudia Horn also provides ResultsOnline, “a customized, web-based program evaluation system that enables users to design their own program evaluation, create customized surveys, input participant information, and create powerful summary reports.”
In the course of his research, Reynolds found that “according to its GSA filing, PRI’s ‘sales to the general public/state or local government’ for 2005 was $1.1 million, with an additional $250,000 coming from federal contracts. As project director … Horn charges $1,551 per day for training. PRI’s client list posted on their web page includes the Department of Justice, Office of Personnel Management, HUD, the Institute for Youth Development and the National Fatherhood Initiative. …
With IYD and NFI — both so closely entwined with the Assistant Secretary — regularly pulling in millions of federal dollars from his CAF for their ‘faith-based’ outsourcing and then subcontracting to his wife’s company to service those federally-funded programs appears to be far less than six-degrees of separation.”
Claudia Horn is also the co-author, along with Patrick F. Fagan, Ph.D., Calvin W Edwards, Karen M Woods and Collette Caprara of a recent Heritage Foundation Special Report titled “Outcome-Based Evaluation: Faith-Based Social Service Organizations and Stewardship” (March 29, 2007).
The Special Report deals with something the authors call “Outcome-based evaluation (OBE)” which they claim “is a tool … faith-based organizations to define specifically what success means for their programs and then measure the degree to which they achieve those goals. This discipline not only documents effectiveness, but also helps the organizations to refine the work they do and thereby begins a cycle of continuing improvement and greater success.”
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Last, but not least, from NAFCJ.net:
E-mails from the past implicate father rights leaders in organized case rigging with the HHS program system.
Fathers rights e-mail chatter from 2004-2005 discusses HHS officials “invitation only” meetings to work with them to ensure they received grant money and state agencies were “father-friendly” . Government officials are not supposed to conduct “invitation only” meetings with special interest groups Meanwhile, they have made excuses to mother’s leaders that they can’t meet with them, because that would violate “open meeting” requirements.
Walter B.’s e-mail from February 2005 talks about how Wade Horn, (then HHS-ACF Secretary) used his influence to get more fatherhood grants for them and make state agencies more father friendly. July 2004 message from an anonymous writer described what happened with Dick Woods money and how they got more for their programs and cases. The Aug 2004 is a forward from ACFC head, Stephen Baskerville, which describes how former OCSE {{Translation: Office of Child Support Enforcement — get the connection? Noncustodial fathers pay child support, or supposedly do…Many do, but under the FATHERHOOD (new state religion?) promotion, many are paying less, now that they are getting legal help for custody-switching, child support abatement, etc. activities that SISTAHS just don’t get!!}} head ran a invitation only meeting for fathers rights activists.
FEB 2005 July 2004 AUG 2004More on Fathers Rights local groups:
While they try to appear as independent people united at the grass roots to fight individual injustices – they are in reality cogs in a highly organization national scheme to recruit male litigants into the AFCC-CRC organized litigation racket. The men are used to keep the case litigation as active as possible so each court hearing can be billed to federal HHS-ACF program funds.
As to that last point in red: “The men are used,” it’s true. The real “scam” is simply a transfer of wealth operation, from the hands of WHOEVER is the custodial parent into someone who is going to help litigate issues, on and on, until the children age out, and possibly beyond.
I have thought I should change the motto of this website from how the “family” “law” system hurts us all to a more honest representation — how it’s simply another business model. It certainly doesn’t hurt court professionals.
I’m “so” reassured that a major player in the largest US Branch, the Executive Branch (not that they are all that separate any more), whose head is the President of the United States, has programs still in place from an American Psychologist, and a right-wing conservative one at that, who for sure sounds to me like misogynist, right-wing one as well.
DON’t THINK, however, that a person’s Democrat leanings make a major difference when it comes to bad attitudes towards women…
Which President wrote THIS, in 1995, and very likely in response to the 1994 NFI, which was a parallel backlash to the VAWA.?
Back in 1995 president _____ directed all federal agencies to review their programs with an eye to strengthening fatherhood.
{{A link to this letter is on my blogroll to the right…}}
AND THIS on FATHER’s DAY 2000? A REPUBLICAN”
The research and the results are clear: Supporting responsible fatherhood is good for children, good for families, good for our Nation. It’s why we propose building on our progress with a $255 million responsible fatherhood initiative called “Fathers Work/ Families Win.” The fact is, many fathers can’t provide financial and emotional support to their children, not because they’re deadbeat but because they’re dead-broke.
Our initiative would help at least 40,000 more low income fathers work and support their children. Unfortunately, in the spending bill passed in the House this week, the Congress turned its back on this challenge by not including any money for this important initiative. So I ask Congress to work with me across party lines to pass a budget that makes sure more fathers can live up to their responsibility. Working together, we can help fathers better fulfill the emotional, educational, and financial needs of their children.
As we prepare to celebrate the first Father’s Day of the new century, let’s do all we can to help more fathers live up to that title, not just through their financial support but also by becoming more active, loving participants in their children’s lives.
Now all of these are conferencing together, and drawing away tax dollars to STILL not stop the killing of families from, basically, insane court orders.
It’s not an insane system in the eyes of the people whose livelihood depends on a never ending supply of family conflicts!!
Even some men are saying Big Brother’s program is an insult to men, in punishing them for money they don’t have, and treating them as if they weren’t adults: From:
Playing Politics With The Federal Fatherhood Initiative
© 2006 by Carey Roberts
Originally published on ifeminists.com
Reproduced with permission of the author.
June 14, 2006 — Last week the Pope issued a wake-up call to persons of all religious persuasions. Never before in history, the pontiff warned, has the family been so threatened as in today s culture. As the traditional defender and protector of the family, it’s no surprise that fathers and fatherhood have taken the brunt of the Leftist-feminist onslaught.
Fatherhood has come under attack on six fronts:
1. Smearing dads with the patriarchal epithet.
2. Claiming that fathers and mothers are socially interchangeable.
3. Removing fathers legal say in abortion decisions.
4. Encouraging moms to summarily evict their husbands under the pretext of domestic abuse.
5. Allowing inequities in child custody awards.
6. Enacting child support laws that send men to jail for not paying money that they don’t have in the first place.
No wonder American families are falling apart. And no surprise that so many eligible bachelors avow no interest in marriage.
Back in 1995 president Bill Clinton directed all federal agencies to review their programs with an eye to strengthening fatherhood. With the high-profile backing of vice president Al Gore, the federal Fatherhood Initiative sprang to life. Conferences were held, research agendas were developed, and fathers were on a roll. But the Lavender Ladies began to fret over the infiltration of fathers rights groups and plotted to throw a monkey-wrench into the operation. Finally someone had a stroke of genius: we’ll insert the adjective “responsible” before the word fatherhood. Who could ever oppose that?
So in his June 17, 2000 Father’s Day radio address, Bill Clinton gave his blessing to the catechism of Responsible Fatherhood, making it clear that responsible dads always make their child support payments on time.
Problem is, that high-sounding phrase is a demeaning affront to fathers. It’s like saying mothers need to be taught how to be nurturing, and of course we need a government program to take care of that. What mom in her right mind would ever go to a class called, Caring Motherhood? With the Fatherhood Initiative now under the ideological thumb of the child support zealots, the whole effort quickly lost its momentum.
A few months later George W. Bush was elected on a platform that included shoring up the traditional family. Bush tapped Wade Horn to head up the Administration for Children and Families, a gargantuan $49 billion welfare bureaucracy that covers everything from Head Start, child abuse, homeless youth, and child support enforcement.
A psychologist by training, Dr. Horn had served as president of the National Fatherhood Initiative for eight years. Horn seemed destined to be the go-to guy to re-focus and re-energize the Fatherhood Initiative.
In the religious tradition, confession must precede atonement. Unfortunately, the Administration for Children and Families has never admitted the heinous sin of Great Society welfare programs that made fathers redundant, thus decimating the traditional family in low-income communities. Wade Horn did not wish to do battle with his own Office for Child Support Enforcement. In fact, he became its vocal proponent. In 2003 Horn wrote in Crisis magazine, “In such cases, are we to simply turn our backs on negligent non-custodial parents who refuse to support their children financially?”
That stinks like a pile of fresh barnyard manure.
I happen to agree, however not with the next sentence, because it’s simply false. I say that based on anecdotal evidence in some communities where I have worked. Even the head of the OCSE one year, Nicholas Soppa, was himself behind on support and spending weekends in jail for this, while working weekly at the same administration that was charged with collecting support! I’m sure he was not a low-income family.
Again, re: this statement, Mr. Roberts apparently WOULD like the Fatherhood Initiative, if only that pesky child support factor weren’t so influential. He has pegged the influence correctly, it is being used to restructure families, for sure, and from there, society. He writes (this being 2006):
So in his June 17, 2000 Father’s Day radio address, Bill Clinton gave his blessing to the catechism of Responsible Fatherhood, making it clear that responsible dads always make their child support payments on time.
Problem is, that high-sounding phrase is a demeaning affront to fathers. It’s like saying mothers need to be taught how to be nurturing, and of course we need a government program to take care of that. What mom in her right mind would ever go to a class called, Caring Motherhood?
Mr. Roberts, I hope you are not a conservative evangelical Christian. You must not be, or you know that classes just about of this level, and an insult (at least I take it as one) are still going on throughout mainstream and nondemoninational churches, even in our “blue” California…
You are right, it is in essence a national religion, and frighteningly similar to “der Vaterland,” particularly from a feminine perspective.
With the Fatherhood Initiative now under the ideological thumb of the child support zealots, the whole effort quickly lost its momentum
SO, SINCE YOU are UNHAPPY WITH BIG BROTHER, and WE (I’m speaking for women missing their kids, women tired of being stuck in (and by) the family law venue, tired of being examined, categorized, labeled, and psychoanalyzed, when a brief review of the facts, in many cases, might suffice to tell who is, and who is not complying with existing relevant law, why don’t we ALL learn to settle our differences OUT OF COURT.
HOWEVER, my friend, that doesn’t include with the back of the hand, depriving a woman of her necessities or of making some decisions about her own life, lecturing her in private (since you don’t like federally funded public lectures on this topic) how to be a mother or a woman, threats, degrading talk, or any of the activities that prompted feminism to start with. No, it did NOT just rain down out of the sky.
You guys went to war (REMEMBER?) . We went to the factories to help make munitions and ships. Then you came back, and wanted US back, and to forget what we’d just learned, including a thing or two about budgeting.
Some horses, once out of the barn, are simply not going back. Like in the book of Esther in the Bible, there is always some politician trying to teach a woman — even a queen — that she is replaceable, lest women through out the land get some hairbrained idea that they have a right to say no to things that insult and degrade THEM!
We are not going back to rural America, it just ain’t going to happen. So some things are going to have to change, and if you don’t like the FEDS getting into the Marriage business (I certainly don’t), then some adjustments to the Norman Rockwell version of reality have to be made.
ONE of them might be dismantling the dysfunctional educational system** and teaching your own kids. THAT’D be an involved father, and if enough people did this, they might have a better sense of their purpose and meaning in life. Including the ones who drive Lexuses and don’t have to enroll their kids in the local, caste-sorting public school.
Pardon my passion, but I happen to have some…
Here’s Diane Ravitch on that system (March 2nd article):
Dr. Ravitch is now caustically critical. She underwent an intellectual crisis, she says, discovering that these strategies, which she now calls faddish trends, were undermining public education. She resigned last year from the boards of two conservative research groups.“School reform today is like a freight train, and I’m out on the tracks saying, ‘You’re going the wrong way!’ ” Dr. Ravitch said in an interview.
Dr. Ravitch is one of the most influential education scholars of recent decades, and her turnaround has become the buzz of school policy circles.
. . .
In 1991, Lamar Alexander, the first President Bush’s secretary of education, made her an assistant secretary, a post she used to lead a federal effort to promote the creation of state and national academic standards.
Since leaving government in 1993, Dr. Ravitch has been a much-sought-after policy analyst and research scholar, quoted in hundreds of articles on American education. And she has written five books, including “Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform” (2001) and “The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn” (2003), an influential examination of the censorship of school books by left- and right-wing pressure groups.
(BY THE WAY, I DON’T STAND IN EXACTLY THE SAME POSITION SHE DOES ON THIS TOPIC…)
or, EARLIER (I haven’t read this link yet):
Get Congress Out of the Classroom – New York Times
Oct 3, 2007 … Diane Ravitch, a professor of education at New York …
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/03/opinion/03ravitch.html
Women do the bulk of the world’s work, and we most certainly bear its babies. Won’t hurt to treat us like full-status human beings, particularly in the land whose pledge of allegiance reads “with liberty and justice for all.”
You can’t have justice with out-come based courts, or for that matter SCHOOLS (Ravitch has been saying). I’m a musician, and I know that it was the joy of the process that kept my attention, and will keep the attention of kids when they are given something that doesn’t insult THEIR intelligence to do, in their schools and with their lives.
The entity to give that to them is not the federal government, as far as I am conc
Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History 
Operating Systems Analysis for Family Law System — see the RICO Act [Published Mar. 18, 2011!].
with 2 comments
This post is:
Operating Systems Analysis for Family Law System — see the RICO Act [Published Mar. 18, 2011!]. (case-sensitive, WordPress-generated short-link ends “-EV”).** This post is about 1,700 words only which nowadays in my blogging is almost unthinkable (typical post length: 7,000 – 12,000 words most times…//LGH 7/3/2022.
(I only added the date to the title July 3, 2022, in a blog search for posts covering RICO, and for an opportunity to record it’s short-link, add a few borders to the post, etc.). For the record, it had just a few tags:
Also I see that (unlike most posts), someone commented on this one (username: “Mother of 8”) and I replied, at length. You can find those at the bottom of the post.
A recent post from a blogger friend of mine focuses — as we are taught to do– on the PSYCHOPATH/SOCIOPATH characters of litigants.
As with “Whacko in Wisconsin” post (subtitle “No, I’m NOT talking about the litigants…) I propose that it’s less
“The Tactics and Ploys of Psychopath Aggressors in the Family Law System“ as written by a reputable “Independent Advocate for Children and Families,” Dr. Charles Pragnell.
[that blog, Rightsformothers.com, whose author I knew at the time and had even met (at a conference) has long been shut down, voluntarily, by the author (not Pragnell, but a certain mother.//LGH commenting 7/2022].
than
The Tactics and Ploys of THE Psychopath Aggressors OF the Family Law System (including those who designed it!)
as proposed by me, an Independent “Devil’s Advocate” for my fellow-blogger, above, and practically anyone selling “solutions” for the crises (plural) in the courts which have any mental-health, jurisprudo-therapeutic-jargon-DSM-centric psycho-linguistic talk ANYWHERE ON ANY PROPOSED ANALYSIS.
WHILE TRUE THAT THERE ARE PROBABLY PLENTY OF PSYCHOPATHS AND SOCIOPATHS WHO LOVE TO DOMINATE OTHERS WITH IMMUNITY — AND ARE SMART ENOUGH TO SET UP AND RUN SYSTEMS TO LEGALIZE THIS ACTIVITY — I HAVE A DIFFERENT ANALSYSIS.
This paradigm is closer to the rock-bottom truth (and will offend almost anyone I’ve been dealing with in these matters in past years) and is not a jest.
I do believe this one is closest to its heirarchical structure, extent, and purpose.
SO, today, below, I post link to an explanation of RICO by Mr. Grell — whose qualifications are stunning to explain this concept: Georgetown University School of Law, magna cum laude, 1990, Assistant Attorney General ,Minnesota (2008-2010), plenty of court practices, he teaches or has taught it as at Univ. of MN, but most telling to me — he has been prosecuting and defending RICO cases quite a bit, and teaching on it as well. Some say “those who can, do, but those who can’t -teach.” It obviously doesn’t apply, here. So check it out…
WHY STUDY RICO TERMINOLOGY?
— the terms are a primer of understanding the interrelationships between the court entitites, the involvement of the US Federal Government’s grants to states, and the BEHIND CLOSED DOORS DEALS made to dupe and extort parents (and taxpayers) in so many matters.
WHY AM I POSTING IT NOW?
Well, I have already begun reporting on these things, and once one begins to “squeal” the best thing is to probably keeping on reporting — and in public — for self-protection, if nothing else. If people have questions about this “take” on the courts — I think the analysis holds, and without the emotion-based, cognitive-activity-curtailing rhetoric of PAS / anti-PAS (true or false, it’s the heartbeat of the courts, in the bottom line) or gender talk.
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Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up
March 18, 2011 at 6:46 PM
Posted in Business Enterprise, Cast, Script, Characters, Scenery, Stage Directions, History of Family Court, Metaphors for Family Law, My Takes, and Favorite Takes, Vocabulary Lessons
Tagged with Family Law as legalized RICO operation, Psychobabble vs Organizational Analysis, RICO, social commentary