Archive for the ‘My Takes, and Favorite Takes’ Category
British Voice on International Problem: Family Courts
Guilty until proved innocent: the grotesque reality of family courts
Will we be able to report if a mother kills herself through the grief of loss?
THERE IS SOMETHING I wanted to write about today. But I cannot. I cannot even tell you that I cannot tell you, because to do so might be to imply what it was I wanted to write about. And that might lead you to infer that I was referring to a situation that I should not refer to. Get it? No?
I am beginning to understand why so few journalists write about cases in the family courts. The lawyers are patiently diminishing my file of potential cases week by week. But at least I am learning about the armoury of secrecy that social services can deploy which prevents scrutiny of the removal of children from their parents.
John Sweeney, an investigative reporter and presenter on the BBC’s Real Story, describes reporting on the family courts as being as difficult as reporting from Zimbabwe. Of the seven child abuse cases he has covered in the criminal courts over the past few years, all have ended in the quashing of convictions. Some of the defendants — Angela Cannings and Sally Clark — have become household names. But of the five cases he has covered in the family courts, all have ended in the parents losing their children for ever. You will probably never know the names of those people. Their names must be changed and their faces blocked out, to “protect” the children. It is hard to expose miscarriages of justice when the stories are drained of human content.
What I have found extraordinary is how often highly able lawyers are uncertain about what we can and cannot write. Despite the issuing of a model order last year by Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, then head of the Family Division, the court orders that limit press coverage are still often so badly drafted as to be completely unclear. Sometimes the order that is drawn up by the court bears no relation to the draft that the press was sent in advance of the hearing. Sometimes we are notified of the order too late to make representations against it. It costs money to fight these orders. Local papers in particular cannot afford to consult lawyers all the time. The result is self-censorship: one errs on the side of caution. We end up conspiring to silence families.
The irony is that the injunctions are becoming more draconian just as a door is opening in Whitehall. Harriet Harman, the Minister for Constitutional Affairs, has announced that she will consult this year on opening up the family courts to greater scrutiny. This is a positive step. But make no mistake: the same old authorities are gearing up to argue that openness is inappropriate where children are involved.
Even if that particular battle is won, there will still be miscarriages of justice. For the Government’s consultation will not deal with some fundamental unfairnesses at the heart of the system. The first is the threshold for conviction. In a criminal court, you are innocent until proved guilty, and you can only be convicted if your guilt is beyond reasonable doubt.
A family court, because it cannot imprison you — only condemn you to serve a different kind of life sentence by taking away your child — “convicts” on a balance of probabilities. You cannot plead not guilty. In fact you are often penalised for not showing “remorse”. The assumption of guilt starts with the first referral to social services and continues into the courtroom, where few judges allow parents to call experts in their defence. New medical research is slowly demolishing the textbooks on child abuse: including various new and innocent explanations for certain types of fracture that are currently thought by social workers to be diagnostic of abuse. But this new thinking is rarely permitted into the family courtroom.
Wrongs are compounded by the irreversible nature of the judgments. It is generally accepted that once a child has been adopted, the parents cannot see that child again even if they have managed to prove their innocence. They cannot even refer in public to that child by name. Yet this is utterly wicked. Yes, it will be desperately tricky to reunite innocent parents with children who have been adopted by other loving families. But it is a challenge that society must rise to. It is just not good enough to use the manifest difficulties as an excuse for not even trying. Lorraine Harris, who was cleared after serving a jail sentence for shaking her baby to death, when it was proved that he had a blood disorder, has little hope of ever seeing her other child again. We only know of her because her case went through the criminal court. How can this be? How can we pile wrong upon wrong?
The more I study this area, the more unanswered questions appear. Will we be able to report if a mother kills herself through the grief of loss? Or will they say that this, too, would not be in the interests of the child? Will we be able to report if an adopted child continues to suffer from precisely the complaints that were originally taken to be evidence of abuse? If the family courts are opened up, will there be any redress for parents who protest their innocence, who were convicted in secret? A little more light, please, into the dark corners.
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Darwin in the Dept. of Health and Human Services. . ..
Good morning, some of you.
This morning, I looked up “Camilla Cavendish,” who I know covers some Family Law in the UK, and doing so ran across “The Heretical Sex” — which seems to be an Australian men’s rights blog, but has enough pro and con commentary that I decided to let them speak for me today.
Why?
Because:
LetsGetHonest is busy following the Money Trail, by phone and URL.
I spent about a half hour on hold today attempting to communicate with the local child support agency about what’s up, and again get coherent instructions on how to log into their new, improved, statewide site. And the status of my case. Because of their previous failures, in large part, I was at a bus stop (not in my car) anyhow, so I was just redeeming some time, or so I thought. I’ll spare you the commentary on that conversation. But not on this URL:
http://www.cdc.gov/od/pgo/funding/CE09-002.htm#SectionIII
Title:
Adaptations of Evidence-Based Parenting Programs to Engage Fathers in Child Maltreatment Prevention (U01)
United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
Issuing Organization
National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (NCIPC/CDC) at http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/
Background
Parent Training programs are the most promising approach to date to prevent the two most common forms of child maltreatment (neglect and physical abuse).
And the purpose of Child Protection Services was, then . . . . ? Passing, but failing to consistently enforce laws against child abuse and neglect, or punish people already caught with their pants down sufficiently as a deterrent (see my last post on the judge — OR, Google “Stephen J. Thompson,” a NJ judge. Former) was . . . . ??
“Specific parenting programs {which ones?} have shown {to WHOM?} efficacy for reducing re-occurrence of maltreatment (Chaffin, Silovsky, Funderburk, Valle, Brestan, Balachova, Jackson, Lensgraf, & Bonner, 2004; Lutzker & Rice, 1987), and for preventing abuse in families where it has not occurred (Bugental, Ellerson, Lin, Rainey, Kokotovic, & O’Hara, 2002; Daro & Harding, 1999; Olds, Kitzman, Cole, & Robinson, 1997).
Trust my government to solicit people to prevent abuse in families where it has NOT occurred, while ignoring abuse in families where it HAS –and all under the same Federal Agency Umbrella. This is a current grant. They also acknowledge that:
“prevention strategies specifically targeting fathers or male caregivers have not been developed or evaluated (that’s debatable…) . . .
“This is problematic because research has shown that the role of fathers in child maltreatment perpetration is substantial; studies have reported that as many as 48% of maltreatment cases involve fathers as perpetrators. Furthermore, almost two-thirds of male perpetrators were reported as being the only perpetrators, indicating that prevention efforts involving mothers in these cases would not address the areas of need in these families (US Dept of Health and Human Services, 2005).
Note the specific and recent (4 yrs old) cite, buried somewhere in THE largest federal agency in the U.S., 50%+ of the annual outlay, by its own admission. If the HHS truly believed this, then why are they so liberally funding “promoting responsible fatherhood” programs which end up mom-blaming and child-support reducing, etc.?
My assertion is that if you adopt the right tone of voice (speak like an expert) and can cite at least one publication which has multiple authors (making it appear to have more credence than a single author, say, “Gardner”??), you can shake loose dollars without being noticed. Those were MY KIDS’ DOLLARS, and my own, and my friends that supported me while the legal system didn’t!
Never mess with a Mom who has figured this out and whose children are still minors. That’s unwise!
I plan to remedy the “WITHOUT BEING NOTICED” part. NO ONE should be able to put forth this rhetoric and be paid for it.
Again, let’s consider:
“Adaptations of Evidence-Based Parenting Programs to Engage Fathers in Child Maltreatment Prevention “
If your ten-year old can’t make sense of this, then it shouldn’t get funding.
No one should be allowed anywhere near children that thinks, OR talks, like this. No talk like this should be heard — I allow that there is an Amendment covering the right talk this way — but without a resounding round of laughter. And dismissal of grant-status. Good grief: get real! Would you trust your life to these theoreticians? (well, your money has already been entrusted to them, and other similar).
It seems only appropriate to expose details, ridicule if possible, and question how any of us could’ve taken these systems seriously to start with.
So, I’ll be back (once I actually LEAVE….). Here are today’s substitute teachers; they are basically following the same scent, totalitarianism:
They offer in better writing a foreign flavor (to the U.S.) take on the same old, same old problems of what in the US we call, at least in some states:
“Family Law, Child Support Enforcement, Parent Education, Responsible Fatherhood, Healthy Marriages, Early Head Start, Violence Against Women, Mediation,** and (a recent one entitled approximately), “Explicating Domestic Violence in the Context of Custody,” (a joint project funded from Office of Violence Against Women through the “Battered Women’s Justice Project” (BWJP) and a group called “AFCC,” which makes for REALLY odd bedmates if you have reviewed their sites, as I did. The trained family law bloodhound sets to baying, and pointers (like me) set to pointing, on alert when they sniff that stuff…)
**MEDIATION: The fact that individuals recently the target of sufficient physical abuse, and other kinds, to merit an actual restraining order, have to then go bargain for their own children with the perpetrator, simply because one of them got knocked up earlier, seems singularly ridiculous — except in these venues. No wonder so many mental health practitioners are making a financial “killing around the place, at least so long as their clients both (with kids) shall live.
***the AFCC: I say has helped more battered MOTHERS stay trapped in battering relationships, and prolonged the tragedy, trauma, and public waste by keeping more KIDS such as Aliyah, or Alanna (Krause, now grown, you may google the name) in their respective places (of torture) — by “explicating” to such decision-making professionals how families (the new subject matter and market niche, along with children) must be behaviorally modified to understand that what they formerly believed (based on what they were just told by a different branch of the same justice system) is hereby and in THIS venue declared hogwash.
And that if they both refuse to kneel down, in august respect — and, say, train the kids to believe they were not abused when they were, act like they don’t have post-traumatic stress (hint: returning soldiers have this) when they really do, and for the matter, dealing with hostility and disbelief when reporting abuse triggers it — and confess the friendly neighborhood “parenting education” classes will actually make all well again, well, alternately, there’s always jail, or custody-switch followed by no-contact orders, or supervised visitation only, and a variety of Spanish-inquisition-like techniques (emotional/ financial) are all here to teach these incompetents a lesson about who’s in charge. Kind of like the original abuse was intended to also do. . . .
and all at their cost (or, alternately, if one is already broke), taxpayer cost.)
The key words here are “Kneel Down.” Anything else is jargon, which can be discovered by the scientific method (control experiment) of refusing to kneel. If you don’t yet properly understand, like little Aliyah, what this action is for, when NOT voluntary, see my last post about the Judge in Texas and the Mom in jail.
Now, I realize that was a breathless paragraph (not including footnotes). As a singer, I have pretty good lung capacity, but my run-on style is intentional; intent to convey a taste — just a taste — of the dazzling array of claims, institutions, agencies, and hopemongers that inhabit the courts of distress.
NO WONDER !! this is an arena populated by LOTS of mental health professionals. I have totally ceased taking words and labels at their face value — there are actually very FEW people I know whose word is good, and next to no actually government agencies whose funding titles actually describe their functional effects. When in doubt, assume the opposite and you are close to the mark. We have “degraded” from a literate, literal interpretation of the world by assuming that “words” accurately describe “things,” (or people) to a far more instinctive, contextual, and in fact jungle-style way of life. Words shift and flex in meaning by a bewildering host of dichotomies: Us/Them, Expert/Plebian, Fathers/Mothers, (add in a few religions, shake til done, and swallow whole?)
If you read the above quote and think I’m speaking in tongues, drunk, or mad, that means you just ain’t been baptized (been drenched, quenched, and hung out to dry) by by the tax-payer funded institutions, and not a few nonprofit charities as well. This is not an experience from which retreat to innocence is possible. It has all the intensity of a close-up encounter with true religion –and not one’s own, or not at least of the mythical America you innocently thought was minding its own business while you were minding yours.
Well, enough of my glossalalia — I’m not praising anyone here, just putting out the signposts of sound.
Camilla, and Heretical
(Click, Hunt, Gather, Examine & Sort for yourselves…)
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Same, old Wine on New Whitehouse.gov Website…
-but apparently what changed was the Dream.
I went looking for Former President Clinton’s 1995 Memo to all federal agencies, telling them to within 90 days revamp their programs to incorporate father-friendly-(funding, procedures, etc.), and found a memo, same president, same summer, addressing the 20th anniversary of the Child Support Enforcement Agency. These are related, folks.
While looking this, I also found a very fine summary of the relationship (and the history of the Father-land Talk) dating back to 2001, which is at the end of this post. I will add it to the blogroll also.
I’d already looked at the white house agenda and FY2010 proposed budget (see link, top right), seen its token reference to domestic violence, but detailed determination to take children from hospital through age 18 (at least) from the arms of their mothers (while, if necessary medicating their mothers, who are presumed incompetent til proven otherwise, which at this rate, they won’t be given much of a chance….). I had already in previous weeks/months been (in some shock) looking at the millions and millions of funding for unbelievably gratuitous studies on this theme of Dads Are People Too.
No one paid me for these studies. But I’m publishing (here) anyhow.
The problem with a White House drunk on its own collective dreams is that tipsy with power, it has swerved:
The content of the dream changed from 1963.
“I have a dream” to “we have a dream.”
Well, I have not been dreaming about forcing my version of utopia on the rest of the United States. I never drank from that trough. I was focused on the immediate (my family, work, etc.) with a long-view to their future.
I’m getting tired of the Government as Nanny and Behavioral Interventionist Expert on things its Experts haven’t experienced. What they are experienced at is obtaining federal funding to promote pet policies, as far a I can tell.
Kind of reminds me how April is “Sexual Assault Awareness Month,” “Child Abuse Awareness Month,” but also in several states across the U.S., I hear, “Parental Alienation Awareness Day” which might be properly re-named “S A N D”, i.e., “Sexual Assault Never Discussed” day, as its origins tie DIRECTLY to the reframing of many, hard-won women’s rights issues, such as not being slapped around in the home, especially not with kids watching. And there is an overlap between kinds of bad behaviors.
We don’t have “Fatherhood Federally Funded” days, but that seems to be a permanent fixture in the Federal Budget, far more permanent that VAWA funding, or arts in the schools. Hey, the family that plays (musical instruments), reads, learns, dances or does sports together stays together? How about that for a federal policy?
At the bottom of this post (you have to scroll past my quotes, comments, and complaints first) is a coherent summary (dating to 2001) of what the ‘fatherhood initiative” is about, really.
But before then, crook your neck at this:
THE END OF MANHOOD:
A Book for Men of Conscience
Now that I have your attention, and before you load any weapons, the Title above is a link to the Harvard Educational Review of it. I have read this book, and it addresses the mythic thinking that is also behind some of these Fatherhood Fallacies. In fact, as it’s 1995, the years seems appropriate, too:
“Stoltenberg presents a radical critique of the very concept “manhood,” arguing that it serves no socially desirable function — only hurtful functions that can and should be eliminated from men’s personal identities and social interactions. He presents a provocative alternative to most thinking about men and the problematic aspects of our behavior and identity. He bases his critiques on the claim that “manhood,” in all of its various masculine incarnations, is at odds with, and in fact mutually exclusive of, an authentic sense of “selfhood” — a selfhood necessary for relating to others in just, moral, and non-violating ways. He argues:
This book therefore rejects the widespread notion that “manhood” can be somehow revised and redeemed — the contemporary project variously described as “reconstructing,” “reinventing,” “remythologizing,” “revisioning,” and re-whatevering gendered personal identity so as to bring its hapless adherents back into the human fold. That project is utterly futile, and we all have to give it up, as this book will carefully explain. (p. xiv)
Stoltenberg’s book provides a detailed and complex analysis of gender relations and identity formation around his underlying argument that gender is nothing more than a means of social control that is harmful to individuals, families, and society because the culturally defined ways of “being a man” are generally at odds with intimacy and real interpersonal connection.”
As a heterosexual, male-friendly, but criminal-behavior-antagonistic woman and mother who has been searching for ways to address the language stupidities in many sectors, I really appreciate books like this. They are a find, a real gem. Thank you John Stoltenberg.
It’s not uncommon to find women who have been able to put words to this, but while I’m hear one uncommonly good source is Dr. Phyllis Chesler, and her book “Mothers on Trial” seems to address the issues within the courts as well. Perhaps these two books, along with “The Batterer As Parent” should be required reading (and in the possession of) the “family justice centers” across the country.
UNFORTUNATELY, THEY ARE NOT FUNDED BY PARTNERSHIPS BETWEEN GOVERNMENT, UNIVERSITY CENTERS, AND PRIVATE FOUNDATIONS, THEREFORE THEY DO NOT SELF-PROPAGATE. I’LL ADD THE SITE TO THE BLOGROLL.
Anyhow, is the Fatherhood = REAL Family, single-mother households, kindly exit stage left talk, going to change? Are they going to stop penalizing mothers who try to report or leave abuse and do NOT consider themselves ipso facto inferior persons? Is it going to allow them to set a limit their personal exposure to violence without sacrificing their CHILDREN (and to similar futures)?
Not likely on this watch: see whitehouse.gov, Agenda, Family:
“FAMILY”
“…[A]t the dawn of the 21st century we also have a collective responsibility to recommit ourselves to the dream; to strengthen that safety net, put the rungs back on that ladder to the middle-class, and give every family the chance that so many of our parents and grandparents had. This responsibility is one that’s been missing from Washington for far too long — a responsibility I intend to take very seriously as President.”
— Barack Obama, Spartanburg, SC, June 15, 2007
President Obama (and I voted for you), with all due respect, “the dream” above sounds quite different than the one with which I’m more familiar, although I am of different color and gender both. My DREAM includes, along with seeing my daughters again, and that they understand that they are NOT on this earth to be someone else’s dream, except by their informed consent.
My dream didn’t include being given direction and handouts for me, my daughters, my relationships, and more. My dream is a day where the words “dream” are not a collective trance, but that individual families can, without retaliation, choose different lifestyles for themselves and their children, and make creative use of existing resources to house, feed, and educate them. To make a choice to leave a violent situation without having to become permanent welfare, permanently injured, or permanently lose contact with one’s offspring because of one’s gender.
My dream this particular week was to see these young ladies on their school break. But because someone had coached someone in what venue to continue control and abuse of our family (and them), and break down a safety zone I’d set, they are in a situation where court orders are no longer safely enforceable — safe for them, me, or now an elderly relative also. And in tracking down where this dream originated, and what it was about (it was NOT about the children, it was about balancing the federal budget. Talking about children, families, fathers, dreams, and change are simply how funding is released and programs are re-focused. I do not have a job, a car, a bank account, credit, or contact with my immediate family members.
This is an artificial situation started that took government interference and squelching of initiative I showed post-marriage, and it was done now I am finding under programs that believe fathers — ANY fathers — are better than no fathers, no matter what the circumstances. And the belief that single mothers — ANY single mothers (not just ones on welfare) were worse for their children than mothers in two-parent homes, no matter what happens in those homes.
How is this different than judging based on skin-color, please?
Should I quote the other “I have a Dream” speech? OK…
This dream was about JUSTICE, not about DOLE-OUTS. As characterized on “USConstitution.net”
In 1950’s America, the equality of man envisioned by the Declaration of Independence was far from a reality. People of color — blacks, Hispanics, Asians — were discriminated against in many ways, both overt and covert. The 1950’s were a turbulent time in America, when racial barriers began to come down due to Supreme Court decisions, like Brown v. Board of Education; and due to an increase in the activism of blacks, fighting for equal rights.
Martin Luther King, Jr., a Baptist minister, was a driving force in the push for racial equality in the 1950’s and the 1960’s. In 1963, King and his staff focused on Birmingham, Alabama. They marched and protested non-violently, raising the ire of local officials who sicced water cannon and police dogs on the marchers, whose ranks included teenagers and children. The bad publicity and break-down of business forced the white leaders of Birmingham to concede to some anti-segregation demands.
Thrust into the national spotlight in Birmingham, where he was arrested and jailed, King helped organize a massive march on Washington, DC, on August 28, 1963. His partners in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom included other religious leaders, labor leaders, and black organizers. The assembled masses marched down the Washington Mall from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, heard songs from Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, and heard speeches by actor Charlton Heston, NAACP president Roy Wilkins, and future U.S. Representative from Georgia John Lewis.
King’s appearance was the last of the event; the closing speech was carried live on major television networks. On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, King evoked the name of Lincoln in his “I Have a Dream” speech, which is credited with mobilizing supporters of desegregation and prompted the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The next year, King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The following is the exact text of the spoken speech, transcribed from recordings.
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
So, President Obama, regarding “Agenda,” I never lost sight of that dream. I am old enough to remember both it, MLK, JFK, RFK, and was raised on the musicians mentioned above. I have also spent much of my life working in “multi-cultural” situations before the word was invented. I attended the first college in the United States to admit blacks OR women (Oberlin College, Ohio) and from it, took a year to work in your stomping ground (meaning Chicago, South Side) in music, and continued working along these lines for many years.
Although I worked with choirs, my dream was not to force everyone to. Although we also homeschooled, my dream at this point is not to force everyone to. Although I am a Christian (although challenged in this with the treatment of battered women in that faith, as well as in others), I am not trying to convert everyone else, but simply walk the talk. And although I had children, I am not trying to raise everyone else’s. Although I didn’t have seven, or even four children, I have known terrific families with seven or nine kids that do very well. Mom and Dad work it out one way or another. We had one family that lost a father to cancer; the whole group pulled together and cooked meals for them, helped with rides, they supported that woman and children through her grief in a wonderful way.
Moreover, when my ex-husband escalated his aggressions towards me and continued to knock out jobs, and systematically withhold child support, some of these individuals stepped in to help our household as well.
Even in the field of music, the trend nowadays is towards dynamic, small ensembles in a variety of styles, that can really pull out the best, as community choirs still continue (though fiscally challenged). So why are we doing the one size fits all family, please? As I formerly made a living for organizations putting back into schools what government took out, and I thereafter made a very decent living (when permitted to) for a combination of these groups and parents that had opted out of the system, why cannot you envision that something NOT regulated by the federal government and under the age of 18, just MIGHT be OK if left alone?
We are individuals, and have individual dreams. I see that the tax burden on us to execute YOUR administration’s dreams is not going to permit this, apparently, any longer. The dream has changed. Again, let’s compare:
1963:
When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Will Smith, the PURSUIT of HAPPYNESS, remember? This movie was about his pursuing and reaching, his goal, overcoming obstacles, and showing incredible tenacity and diligence to reach it, with his son. He went from sleeping in the subway to successful stock broker, right? The movie was about the PURSUIT of happiness.
The “I have a Dream” speech, here, talks about the “bank of justice,” not the “bank!” It’s a metphor…
Where is the Federal Funding to stop the erosion of due procees in the family courts? Laws are already on the books to protect women and children from abuse, and men, but these are being systematically ignored, to the destruction of their personal economies, mental health, stability, and at time, lives.
Now, the people for whom THAT dream (of opportunity equallity, and justice) is most important to me in 2009 are my immediate family and others I have become acquainted with since seeking to safely disengage from violence in the home, and failing to find this supported in the Family Court venue, at all. Or in related arenas.
I do not share the “dream” of enforcing my lifestyle nationwide, or endorsing funding for federal funds to study compare two-parent families with violence (etc.) vs. single-mother households without it; or of women working 9 to 5 with their children in child care and day care, ( if things continue as stated on your new Agenda, this would be ages 0 to 18) [Compartmentalized thinking, some of which i believe is a holdover from the manufacturing age, assembly-line production of a populace) over holding, cuddling, and nursing children longer, and engaging in competent homeschooling and, what often goes along with this, increased local community involvement. I do not share a dream of putting violent and abusive (and unrepentant about it) fathers back with the people individuals they have abused in order to balance a corporate budget.
Prior to marriage, I was also acting my dream, in service to nonprofits in urban areas, and I worked with children, youth and adults. During marriage, this put on hold (many years) as an attempt was made to reprogram me about WHO I WAS and WHAT CHOICES I COULD MAKE. WHAT THINGS I COULD PROVIDE FOR OUR DAUGHTERS.
After marriage, I resumed the original plan, only with children, who were not a burden to be farmed out, dumped off, or federally cared for in order that I could pursue work I wasn’t on this planet to do. Rather, being an individual, and using what talents and education I already and had obtained, and with diligence and consistent effort, I resumed contributing to the communities around me, in the same field I’d attended a top U.S. college and been trained for since little, but adjusted which type of work I assumed to my children’s lives. There was a return of joy to my life, and I imagine it was noticeable. “Do what you love and the money will follow” happens to have some merit to it, sometimes, because PASSION is involved, and commitment.
The sole cause of my need to return for enforcement of child support orders was interferences, repeated and escalating, in this pattern of re-engaging and making decisions independently of the father. ALL of this took place primarily when our legal case went into family court. I was legally forced back into a lifestyle already proven to lead to insolvency. Repeated often enough and severely enough and for long enough, insolvency gets there. Now I’m occasionally hungry, but that beats being beat, still.
Here’s the “Family” agenda:
Obama will make college affordable, reform our bankruptcy and credit card laws, protect the balance between work and family, and put a secure and dignified retirement within the reach of all Americans. President Obama has been a strong advocate for working people throughout his public life, and he will stand up to special interests and bring America together to reclaim the American dream.
Support Working Families
(Pause to acknowledge that mothers raising their children — without referring too much to bodily function, including “Labor,” I would like to point out that this IS work, which seems to have been forgotten somewhere in the list of topics here). Under this topic, you have 10 bullets of agenda, and detailed plans.
Strengthen Families at Home
(pause to acknowledge that under this topic you have only 2 bullets)
Of these two bullets the first one is the same old same old (only probably MORE of it) “Fatherhood and Families”
and the second one which addresses your belief that teen mothers need more in-home visitation).
Therefore I presume that intelligent, lifelong-working, law-abiding, educated mothers (like me) whose work per se allows flexibility, and who chose not to buy into the one-size-fits all education OR the one-size-fits all definition of marriage, OR the one-size-fits all definition of employment, do not exist. Nor do the women, such as Shirley Riggs, who at last count, was sitting in a jail because she, understanding (as do I, now) that no law enforcement or court agency was going to protect her four children from being sexually abused by their father and grandfather, which apparently had been established, and she FLED. Or, women such as Holly Collins, who had to flee the United States with her kids for safety, or women such as are now in other more permament underground boxes, because they stood up for their civil rights, too, and for their kids. They were mothers too, and they went to court for help.
They didn’t need behavioral modification, they needed protection. They had dreams, too, that they wouldn’t be denied due process because of their gendcr, or because they didn’t choose a wise partner.
ANYHOW, Trish Wilson, in this link, addresses, why not just stick with the welfare and allow women to BE single?
Now, I find that not only is CHANGE.GOV not changing the mixture of messages about this situation, but it is pretty darn similar to what was going on under Clinton and Bush as well. We want “healthy families” and “involved fathers.” Well so, sirs, did I. Unfortunately, this was not available with both of us living at the same address.
At this point, I do not appreciate expert professionals with VERY cushy government funding — in some cases whole institutes have been founded on this matter — who have not EXPERIENCED the direct economic, and physical/emotional impact of getting free from violence to be dragged back in through family court, until ones’ kids have just about aged out of the system and onesself has aged out of, just about, employability — I do not appreciate having my first-hand assessment of these matters challenged by people I cannot look in the eye and tell them where different parts of their anatomy are currently residing (metaphorically), or advising them how to put them there.
I do not personally appreciate being the subject matter funding someone else’s research without my informed consent. The only reason I am now informed is that a generous neighbor helped me get a laptop. No charity or organization did that although I sought them there. The laptop enables internet access. The internet access enables job searches, communications, and networking, something women are good at as well as men. It also enables a degree of research.
Until you’ve taken the time to study (or been personally thwacked by this policy), certain phrases will have a pleasant, noble ring to them. On the other side off familycourtmatters as promoted by a desire to reduce welfare, and justified also by the child support agency carapaces getting harder and harder towards the people they are supposed to serve (I spent about 2 years trying to penetrate my local one, during which 2 years my kids were stolen. To date they have not served him with a seek work order to my knowledge, and as usual are not collecting arrears either before or after that event, despite a substantial arrearage, still. We recently went statewide as to distribution, and I have given up on translating the new, improved, computer system.)
Consequence: Stalemate. If I am served with a child support order, I cannot pay — the process just put me out on the street almost, besides which I would simply point to what I am presently owed (in the thousands, naturally) and say, “take it off that.” Who is hurt with this? Primarily our children, but not only them..) Worse: If I serve a contempt order, I do not know the risk level, but I would assess it as high on the lethality scale. Thank you, “Fatherhood and Family” corporate trancemakers.
Strengthen Fatherhood and Families:
Barack Obama has re-introduced the Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act to remove some of the government penalties on married families, crack down on men avoiding child support payments, ensure that support payments go to families instead of state bureaucracies, fund support services for fathers and their families, and support domestic violence prevention efforts. President Obama will sign this bill into law and continue to implement innovative measures to strengthen families.
The parts I just italicized, above, in this context pretty much qualify as lies. In practice what happens, I would qualify as lies.
What happens is that federally funded outreach (through child support payment offices many times, or family courts) endorsed by federally funded studies, make plea-bargains to reduce child support arrears in exchange for more visitation time wiht the kids, and COACH them how to do this. On the way, (3rd italicized phrases), lots of people get referral work around the psychological evaluation of why Suzy doesn’t want to visit Daddy this weekend, or why Mommy is looking so distraught in court, or right after a visitation. This is inherent in the design of the program, and in its conception too. The reason I now have time to research this is that, through no crime except ignorance of how these things operate, I have been now unemployed for the longest time in my entire adult life, and I can document (in this particular case) that “the economy” had nothing to do with it. At all.
read about it below. The title of the link is a clue to the contents. This was in 2001, and not much has changed since.
RE: Responsible Fatherhood, Child Support Enforcement, Preventing Violence Against Women, Healthy Marriages
http://www.stopfamilyviolence.org/get-informed/custody-abuse/fathers-rights-movement/u-s-fatherhood-initiatives
I am now promoting a self-initiative (not federally funded) to speak about this and I advise women leaving abuse to AVOID the child support system if at all possible. There is a better way to get free, if only the well-intentioned government would leave us alone (as they did during the violence, many times) to let us figure it out. This is not the manner of government, however, and never has been.
+++++++++
When it comes to Women:
Preventing Violence Against Women
- Reducing Domestic Violence: One in four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. Family violence accounted for 11 percent of all violence between 1998 and 2002. As a member of the Senate, President Obama introduced legislation to combat domestic violence by providing $25 million a year for partnerships between domestic violence prevention organizations and Fatherhood or Marriage programs to train staff in domestic violence services, provide services to families affected by domestic violence, and to develop best practices in domestic violence prevention.
These same partnerships have been diluting the protections we so needed. I have seen it happen over the almost two decades I have been personally dealing with these issues. I oppose such partnerships as fundamentally dishonest.
Let me see where a non-teen mother might be able to participate in mothering her child:
Early Childhood Education
- Zero to Five Plan: The Obama-Biden comprehensive “Zero to Five” plan will provide critical support to young children and their parents. Unlike other early childhood education plans, the Obama-Biden plan places key emphasis at early care and education for infants, which is essential for children to be ready to enter kindergarten. Obama and Biden will create Early Learning Challenge Grants to promote state Zero to Five efforts and help states move toward voluntary, universal pre-school.
It is a short step from voluntary to compulsory, and the end of breastfeeding and other age-old healthy practices (like bonding with one’s parents) as we understand them. And I personally never had such a LOW goal for my kids as to be “ready to enter kindergarten.” Both were reading easily before then, and when they got there, were coloring in large letters and doing other obviously busywork designed to handle large groups of children at once. Most homeschooling Moms I dealt with reported similar experiences. I have taught many kindergartners and younger over decades. They are fun. However, I conclude that most of them belong with their Mommies a little longer. This is good for Mom and children both.
- Expand Early Head Start and Head Start: Obama and Biden will quadruple Early Head Start, increase Head Start funding, and improve quality for both.
- Provide affordable, High-Quality Child Care: Obama and Biden will also increase access to affordable and high-quality child care to ease the burden on working families.
It seems clear to me that as mothers “pro-choice” does not include opting out of some of these expensive systems any more than out of a very violent marriage without forking over the kids to either a government program, or the Dad.
Please count me out of this corporate dream. I want my own back, and this type of group-think off my back, and out of my “neck of the woods.” It frightens me to wonder where the sound-thinking individuals are going to be found, in coming dccades.
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Old Tactics in New Clothing?… 36 strategies, B.C./A.D.
I found these, readily, under “psychological warfare.”
They seem applicable in the Wars taking place across the country (and world) over the fates of women, men, and children when the women, and men, split up, recombine. One of the most transparent is transforming the conversation about domestic violence or child abuse (which focuses on patterns of actions by an agent) to a conversation about the symptoms or results of such actions (focusing on situations). Like debt, it appears that whoever’s lap it lands in, pays the bill.
Family court matters do not happen in a vacuum, but the terminology (cast, script, players) in SOME factors act as though it does. For example, if a woman appears traumatized, then she is analyzed. If a child appears traumatized, it is the mother’s fault, apparently, for alienating (these are examples). If a parent becomes HOMELESS, is the cause of the homelessness dealt with in court? Obfuscation supreme.
I have not taken up the “parental alienation” discussion because I believe it is a ruse. The word is of recent origin. I thought it appropriate to review some concepts that have been around a LONG time. . . .
http://www.easy-strategy.com/thirty-six-strategies.html
The 36 Strategies
1. Deceive the sky to cross the ocean.
Moving about in the darkness and shadows, occupying isolated places, or hiding behind screens will only attract suspicious attention.Six Confrontation Strategies
7. Create something from nothing.
You use the same feint twice. Having reacted to the first and often the second feint as well, the enemy will be hesitant to react to a third feint. Therefore the third feint is the actual attack catching your enemy with his guard down.Six Attack Strategies
13. Startle the snake by hitting the grass around it.
When preparing for battle, do not alert your enemy to your intentions or give away your strategy prematurely.Six Chaos Strategies
19. Remove the firewood under the cooking pot.
When faced with an enemy too powerful to engage directly you must first weaken him by undermining his foundation and attacking his source of power.
25. Replace the beams with rotten timbers.
Disrupt the enemy’s formations, interfere with their methods of operations, change the rules in which they are used to following, go contrary to their standard training.
Six Desperate Situations Strategies
31. The honey trap.
Send your enemy beautiful women to cause discord within his camp. This strategy can work on three levels. First, the ruler becomes so enamoured with the beauty that he neglects his duties and allows his vigilance to wane.
History of the 36 Strategies
The origins of the Thirty Six Strategies are unknown.
No author or compiler has ever been mentioned, and no date as to when it may have been written has been ascertained.
The first historical mention of the Thirty-Six Strategies dates back to the Southern Chi dynasty (AD 489-537) where it is mentioned in the Nan Chi Shi (History of the Southern Chi Dynasty).
It briefly records, “Of the 36 stratagems of Master Tan, “running away is the best.” Master Tan may be the famous general Tan Daoji (d. AD 436) but there is no evidence to either prove or disprove his authorship.
While this is the first recorded mention of Thirty Six Strategies, some of the proverbs themselves are based on events that occurred up to seven hundred years earlier. For example, the strategy ‘Openly Repair the Walkway, Secretly March to Chencang’ is based on a tactic allegedly used by the founder of the Han dynasty, Gaozu, to escape from Szechwan in 223 BC.
The strategy `Besiege Wei to Rescue Zhao’ is named after an incident that took place even earlier in 352 BC and is attributed to the famous strategist Sun Bin.
All modern versions of the Thirty Six Strategies are derived from a tattered book discovered at a roadside vendor’s stall in Szechwan in 1941. It turned out to be a reprint of an earlier book dating back to the late Ming or early Ching dynasty entitled, The Secret Art of War, The Thirty-Six Strategies.
There was no mention of who the authors or compilers were or when it was originally published. A reprint was first published for the general public in Beijing in 1979.
Since then several Chinese and English language versions have been published in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
Without any other information, current speculations about the origins of the Thirty-Six Strategies suggest that there was no single author.
More likely they were simply a collection of idiomatic expressions taken from popular Chinese folklore, history, and myths.
They may have first been recorded by general Tan and handed down verbally or in manuscript form for centuries.
It is believed that sometime in the early Ching dynasty some enterprising editor collected them together and published them in the form that comes down to us today.
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Spiritual Machines and Cyberspeak People?
Life, Liberty and the Pursuyt of Purpose?
Conjugate, Propagate and Delegate it to a Governmental Policy?
There are times, really, when I have wondered whether the domestic violence, school violence, etc., was merely a matter of saying “I am!” loudly enough to be heard. Sometimes. To me, meaning centered around purpose, conscious choice in the face of difficult circumstances, enabling creativity in children (often through singing). As a mother, my purpose was never surrogate mother for the “state” (or anyone else), nor did parenting mean, choosing which daycare. It meant the whole ball of wax.
Today and this week were significant for two major religions. I am uninvolved, this time round. I have no significant sentiments, The major drive of my life has not changed from yesterday to today: (a) fiscal physical and emotional survival (b) finding and speaking some truth, (c) what can I do about the crises in the courts? Can something I do or say avert the next family annihilation, or expose why these are happening to the point they do, less?
Last night I watched Dr. Who (yes, I have devolved, although in my defense, a typical day is long. Also watching TV does help me forget that my children no longer live here, courtesy failure-to-enforce (across a spectra of institutions one would think WOULD) custody orders, such as sole physical custody to a nonbattering mother, etc., I watch TV at night, after reading, researching, writing, and connecting with people all day. It is my non-think time. This is also the first period in my adult life I watched TV regularly. Given the last several years, I just don’t do chit-chat and entertainment well, and I have retreated from the former open home policies, integrating colleagues, my kids, their kids, and at-home clients (teaching). I’m too often in shock, pissed off, or simply puzzling out how to solve the latest intractable legal issue (without funding).
This could be mildly justified as social commentary on what is current diet and what age level the average evening program seems aimed at (what “market niche”). Anyhow, so after konking out, I woke up to “Dr. Who.”
In this episode, homeless and hungry people were being experimented upon by some mastermind trying to produce eternal life for his debilitated self. Eventually upgraded (with screaming and frightening looking tools) to the metal-skinned Cybermen (clunking slowly, but ominious, destructive, and unstoppable through windows and other obstacles. Briefly, I thought of the Book of Revelation in the Bible, where did the image come from?). However, the populace were definitely “plugged in” and paused for their daily downloads. Brain takeover was a few steps away.
Most fiction draws off real life, and comments on it.
So, the big fear is of robots taking over, and them physically destroying too many of us, of an outrageous conformity and willingness to take orders, no matter how horrible.
Let’s see, can this be identified by a metal skin and slow movements?
I think sometimes we are fearing the wrong things.
From my perspective (a decade of “head of the household” DV plus about a decade of double-talk and psychospeak in what I thought was a justice system), the degradation and fragmentation of languages into technospeak means human kind is perhaps getting so specialized that when their anointed (pardon, me, “apPOINTed”) experts do not speak, the rest of us are speechless, on issues which haven’t been proclaimed upon. If it hadn’t been proclaimed or pronounced upon, then it must not exist, probably.
Language is a two-edged sword. We teach kids to define words properly in school, or get the multiple choice question wrong, and grade them on correctly guessing what the test-maker-meant. The best use of language is with double-meanings and context sensitive. I think school desensitizes the observing factors, at least when it comes to coursework.
Particularly in the middle class, I think, who are not independently wealthy (do not have wealth-producing assets such that they could take time out to process things, or step away from their routine of JOB – WEEKEND – VACATION – LEISURE – KIDS EDUCATION lifestyle long enough to actually understand “what happened”? If you want a very coherent opinion, dogmatic and determined, perhaps the two places to find it are among homeless people (who I’ve found to be VERY well-read, many of them) and — if you can find them — people who started a foundation or five. You may not be rubbing shoulders with these people, but you can read the “History” section of their foundations.
And/Or, you can go to major universities around the country, and find out what centers, fellowships, and institutes have been named after them. I have been. It’s INTERESTING.
Well, enough commentary. I just thought the following passage was interesting enough to post. Decide for yourself if it’s relevant!
Species that overspecialized didn’t survive the crises as well as the generalists. The ability to use TOOLS is key, as well as to adapt to different environments.
I am concerned that a tool the majority of us don’t have time to guard — carefully — is LANGUAGE. (I say this despite the abominable prose above, let alone copyediting). What I mean is that we have not experienced enough to connect terms in common use with commonly lived through experiences. This does not reduce the affirmation and certainty with which they are used. Hence, we still think that in the U.S. there are possibly three separate branches of government whose powers balance each other. Or that Public Eduction is either. Or that HomeSchooling (a new verb) is that, either. My favorite oxymoron is when we get to the point that the ‘experts” on many topics who are listened to by virtue of Ph.D’s and publishings, have not actually experienced what they proclaim on.
One of my very favorite books in the world on these matters of perception/interpretation versus actually noticing and observing, was written by a woman who is (was?) an autistic behavioral scientist. “ANIMALS IN TRANSLATION.” I learned much about PTSD and WHY my thinking process changed after, oh, say, about 12 years of up-close dealing with people who lie, and one or more who stalk. I became more alert to nonverbal cues (AND verbal ones). This actually helped in a certain line of work (in the arts). It did not help with relationships, overall, because the level of sensitivity was too high, and level of trust too low. I hope to get it in balance one of these (years). There was, however, a need to counter being too trusting.
If this post was interesting, please comment. Thank you. It’s an FYI, and not one of my most passionate ones.
Sincerely,
“LetsGetHonest” 04-11-09
I believe this is a review of the book on “Spiritual Machines.”
If the machines are permitted to make all their own decisions, we can’t make any conjectures as to the results, because it is impossible to guess how such machines might behave. We only point out that the fate of the human race would be at the mercy of the machines. It might be argued that the human race would never be foolish enough to hand over all the power to the machines. But we are suggesting neither that the human race would voluntarily turn power over to the machines nor that the machines would willfully seize power. What we do suggest is that the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines’ decisions. As society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more of their decisions for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better results than man-made ones. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won’t be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide.
On the other hand it is possible that human control over the machines may be retained. In that case the average man may have control over certain private machines of his own, such as his car or his personal computer, but control over large systems of machines will be in the hands of a tiny elite – just as it is today, but with two differences. Due to improved techniques the elite will have greater control over the masses; and because human work will no longer be necessary the masses will be superfluous, a useless burden on the system. If the elite is ruthless they may simply decide to exterminate the mass of humanity. If they are humane they may use propaganda or other psychological or biological techniques to reduce the birth rate until the mass of humanity becomes extinct, leaving the world to the elite. Or, if the elite consists of soft-hearted liberals, they may decide to play the role of good shepherds to the rest of the human race. They will see to it that everyone’s physical needs are satisfied, that all children are raised under psychologically hygienic conditions, that everyone has a wholesome hobby to keep him busy, and that anyone who may become dissatisfied undergoes “treatment” to cure his “problem.” Of course, life will be so purposeless that people will have to be biologically or psychologically engineered either to remove their need for the power process or make them “sublimate” their drive for power into some harmless hobby. These engineered human beings may be happy in such a society, but they will most certainly not be free. They will have been reduced to the status of domestic animals.1
1 The passage Kurzweil quotes is from Kaczynski’s Unabomber Manifesto, which was published jointly, under duress, byThe New York Times and The Washington Post to attempt to bring his campaign of terror to an end. I agree with David Gelernter, who said about their decision:
“It was a tough call for the newspapers. To say yes would be giving in to terrorism, and for all they knew he was lying anyway. On the other hand, to say yes might stop the killing. There was also a chance that someone would read the tract and get a hunch about the author; and that is exactly what happened. The suspect’s brother read it, and it rang a bell.
“I would have told them not to publish. I’m glad they didn’t ask me. I guess.”
(Drawing Life: Surviving the Unabomber. Free Press, 1997: 120.)
In an earlier post I looked at an article on “Intimate Partner Violence,” by a woman in Australia who helps women in crisis because of this. After grilling her article (I hope, not unkindly) on its premises — (which is how I converse, and think — interactively) I felt it only fair to search for the upcoming book “The Future By Us.” What I attempted to confront was the articles innocent, I felt, groupthink — vision of a violence-free word to be created by productive dialogue with others.
The google search led to a book I have (The Age of Spiritual Machines), reminding me uncomfortably of how little most of us understand what goverment-funded and privately-funded policies, established without input, alerts, discussion, or permission can do. They are simply so large, well-funded, and in perpetual motion, that a person with whom an individual actually interfaces may or may not be able (or prone) to act AS a person, but rather as an extension of a policy only.
As a mother (or father, I guess), you may be talking to a live person that looks to be living, breathing, and sentient — but that person is working in a system that has policies, priorities — and owes their funding to those policies and priorities — that may have nothing to do with you, your interests, your children, or anything you call moral, upright, or such.
At some point, one realizes that most of the myths we were raised with (the justice system is about justice, law enforcement is about law enforcement, and courts are where both sides of a case are heard and fairly adjudicated, in the pure form. Those laws you finally looked up that are to protect your children are on the books to be enforced, and “if only” the judge knew that these laws applied, he/she/it would rule correctly.
Wrong again. I learned a lot of this through NAFCJ.net AND checking out the links, I spent weeks on Google and now habitually (it is my HABIT) when reading almost anything in this field, published by an organization, I look at: 1. Board of Directors 2. Funding, and then I go back and see who they are. SOME insight develops over time.
I’m almost afraid to review what I wrote above. This blog is not about essays, it’s about the act of speaking, and I hope that Gentle Readers will forgive shortcomings in this one in particular. I just thought it interesting. Unlike other topics here, it lacks the intensity that makes for focused writing.
Ah well….
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Opening Salvo
Why it matters…even if you’re not inside the doors. . . .
You are probably living with, next to, or in association with someone who has. You may be sleeping with one — or with someone raised by one. You may be blissfully unaware of WHAT that guy who cut your car off in traffic this morning was upset about, and why he’s wound so tight you might get hurt if you honk back. If you teach, your classrooms are going to be affected –either by getting some resources deleted from them, or from having a different quality of children in them.
One person going into this system is going to be traumatized. Another will be probably robbed. A third will be shocked. A fourth will be rewarded. A fifth will be back for more behavioral modification.
A sixth will be forced back to negotiate with the abusive partner she (OK, now you can argue: “or he”) was attempting to separate from — and will be lectured, after having worked up courage to do this — not to upset the children by showing anger, or conflict, because in this YOU-topia supposedly conflict never happens — or at LEAST never between parents.
- This belief, along with belief in Santa Claus, according to the same logic, is going to set your children on a good path for life.
A seventh will be hired to report on your demeanor after having just found out, you won’t be seeing your kids this weekend — or month – – or as it turned out in my case — next month either.
An eighth will be in an associated office saying, that wasn’t her department.
A ninth will be hired by taxpayers to enforce court orders dispensed from the bench — and possibly not do so if those orders were issued to protect a woman.
I am a woman, and I speak for myself, and add a qualifier, “possibly.” In my case, the statistical odds seemed a little stacked, as my prior concept of the word “law enforcement” was the common English usage. Not so any more. Which brings me to the ninth:
The ninth person going through those doors will have learned that the majority of the English language is entirely context-specific, kind of like a Mac. Until you “get” this — that the words are not spoken or written in these parts for their meaning, but for their EFFECT. As such, you will quickly learn the buzz words (whether by having them sting your situation, or I hope not, by using them yourself to sting someone else).
As such, the ninth person is going to be alienated from sense of self, reality, and that the world operates according to certain principles.
Of course the real cure for that is simply to know that you fell down a rabbit hole. And you will not emerge intact. It’s a virtual religious experience — transformative.
Which, of course, was the purpose. Every good oligarchy needs a Family Court, lest the rabbits stop breeding, hopping, getting snared, and nibbling the same low-cut grass jobs (or going underground) in the same geographic areas, generation after generation of market niches and material for the next set of pharmaceuticals or animal behavioralists. The bait is money, custody, and social respectability.
After all, if they all went “Watership Down,” who would serve? Without enough servants, landscapers, nannies, fast-food retail workers, and the multitude of unseen people that make the infrastructure “go,” how would all the certified specialists come up with the theories, and where would THEY self-propagate?
What would they do down on the non-ethereal grass, floors, garages, at the foodbanks, or for that matter shelters, prisons, and so forth — with the rest of us?
Label? Write a report? And then stand alongside “Street Sheet,” charge a $1.00 and see if that will buy dinner?
Wikipedia: “Street_Sheet”
What it Is
STREET SHEET is a monthly tabloid written primarily by homeless and formerly homeless people that provides its readers with a perspective on homelessness that mainstream media simply cannot match. It provides a unique opportunity to its vendors as well: a dignified alternative to panhandling. The STREET SHEET (cover price $1) is given free to qualified poor and homeless San Franciscans, who get to retain 100% of the proceeds from their sales. Last year, the paper celebrated its 15th anniversary, making it the oldest continuously published street newspaper in the world.
Contact information:
STREET SHEET Vendor orientations take place
Fridays 10 A.M. @ 468 Turk Street
Phone: (415) 346 3740 ext. 304
Or tell the truth like The Beat Within?
.
Other Literature from BCD (“Behind Closed Doors”):
[Co-Pieces, found today]
It made me realize that a person who makes threats of death, can’t be taken lightly. It also left me with a low tolerance and a lack of respect for individuals who choose to treat their significant others in such a violent fashion.
The abusive language and exaltation of violence in most gangsta rap music are the reality of our present day society. Most of us are intelligently mature enough to realize that by not talking about something won’t cause it to go away.
Back in the day when I was going to school, getting really good grades not getting in fights or getting in trouble of some kind. I used to be a honor roll student.
we make mistakes listening to our thoughts
we make mistakes from things we’re taught
we might change if we get caught
we fell in love with fake dreams we bought
He grabbed her arm, turned her around, slapped her so hard her long hair went flying as if she were a doll. I was pretending I didn’t know what was going on and the loud sound of the slap make me flinch and put the video game on pause
Like a blind man who’s walking in a state of darkness, the same for the poor man in the ghetto who’s taking his anger out on his fellow comrade.
Beware of these politicians who pander to the public by legislation which they purport is “tough on crime,” but which in reality erodes civil liberties.
[end quote]
This is true in all our boxes: Womb to Tomb, sometimes only the first one ain’t a box and interacts with a real, living, pulsing human being.
Boxes along the way; Play pens (sometime), apartments, schools, courts, police stations, prisons, office cubicles, nursing homes, mental institutions, and finally that last long literally underground box. For the lucky ones.
Then there are the air-conditioned, Danish & coffee-serving, large conference halls where the certified ex-spurts (experts) talk to each other about what to do about those not invited to the talks.
Hurt doesn’t dissipate — it goes somewhere. It changes things.
Let’s talk. Family Court matters, it’s agonna hurt someone. Otherwise they’d “settle out of court.” What does all that pain really gain? And for whom??
~ ~ ~
Sometimes, you don’t even have to be near a court, there are trawlers [1] [2] out for the vulnerable, the needy, the hapless, and those who forgot their South Bronx Common sense — and WHAM! No access to your son, your daughter — for not leaving an abusive situation, or even poverty, the “right” way, or staying, I suppose, within your socially allotted caste (by working hard/smart/ and occasionally receiving a service from the government . . .
[1] Merriam-Webster Definition:
-
: to catch fish with a large net (called a trawl)
-
: to search through (something) in order to find someone or something
[2] from On-line Etymology Dictionary, we can see the root meaning is from “to drag.” The net seeking a catch is dragged through an area where fish are expected, I supposed including the bottom:
- trawl (v.)
1560s, from Dutch tragelen, from Middle Dutch traghelen “to drag,” from traghel “dragnet,” probably from Latin tragula “dragnet.” Related: Trawled; trawling.
Some groups, I believe the phrase was being circulated, “trawling for trauma” — some groups are trawling for traumatized mothers, in particular, and net (‘ensnare’) them on-line and through personal communications into a coordinated framework which lays the cause of “custody of children going to batterers” on “judges just don’t understand,” i.e., lack of domestic violence experts on-hand in the family court system. Along with this belief system is the corollary that FIXING it would be to “enhance” the family court system through additional training of judges, lawyers, custody evaluators (and just about anyone else), that is to say, for certain professionals to have opportunity to become consultants to government officials.
This is from “Poor Magazine.” They’re experts on being poor, not from the School of What To Do WIth Poverty but from the experiential angle. Notice the Honesty, the details.
“One low-income mother’s story..
~ ~ ~This story speaks to me: I was going through, thinking there was justice inside the halls of justice, and that some mature adult would see through these clear lies about my children, myself, and so forth. . . . . . ~ ~ ~
Virginia Velez/Special to PNN
Tuesday, March 25, 2003;
Before welfare de-form, I did all the right things to get out of poverty as a single mom. Luckily, I only have one child, a very rebellious, independent child. Anyway, I went to college when he was eight. It was the 80’s and I worked part-time in the very university I was attending 22 hours a week so I could get health benefits for my child and I. It was a while before the financial aid folks noticed, then they forced me to give up my nice job on campus to take work-study for much less pay and no medical benefits, or I would lose my grants. Luckily, another single mom told me I could get AFDC, at least for Medicaid and food stamps, and I did. I did so well in that Washington state university that I got a fellowship to go to the most elite school in California.. . .
So far so good.
Then . . . .
“…Dummy me called them to ask for a social worker or someone to help me get my son home and work things out. Yup, obviously Stanford had affected my good-South-Bronx-ghetto-child sense.. . .
She’d paid her dues, she asked for help for a situation…
“The police, CPS, social workers, all did absolutely nothing. . . that never before had anything been held against me in my caring for my child, alone, for 13 years. They did not care I was sad and depressed from finances, and from having to be around the most selfish, ego-centric, richest and most messed up people in the world, while I worked my butt off in my studies and part-time work. “
“…Never, ever ask for help from any agency. It’s completely pitiful for the moms and kids, but there is absolutely no institution you can trust for any help raising or just keeping your child. “
Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History 
If Obama had been born after Promoting Responsible Fatherhood…
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(TYPICAL of what Promoting Responsible Fatherhood can do to already Responsible Mothers. . . . )
(after switching custody, without due process, in order to achieve this out-come based, presidentially-desired population profile:)
MOST responsible mothers will test and attempt to find justice in the family law system, not always knowing that the case was decided from a Top-Down federal initiative, and that while they may NOT get competent free legal help in family courts (as they did in obtaining, perhaps an initial restraining order), many fathers, deserving and undeserving // incarcerated or free // low-income OR high-income too — may have been receiving referrals, coaching, and pro bono legal advice, or forms preparation, to oppose them before they hit the courtroom. If this doesn’t work, then mediation will be forced, as it’s far easier to persuade a single mediator than actually compile the facts and evidence actually required, by law, to switch custody)….
Where I was last week:
For approximately a week I’ve been struggling with Internet down, and negotiating with service providers, etc. Living hand to mouth, I received an unexpected gift of $60 which would repair a simple power cord. My used laptop, which itself was charity and took me 11 months (after my last employment) to get to (another adventure) has a power cord that, thankfully, was sold in a city a short commute away only. The round trip commute “only” cost $10 (which I didn’t have).
Coming to my local haunt to figure things out (brought by someone who is familiar with me by side of road and gave a lift again, saving $2.00 bus fare), there was another local Mom I know in similar situation (though her details varied) who gave me $20 and some paper goods (knowing that Food Stamps don’t buy these, FYI). There is indeed a host of information not possible to personally understand unless you spend a long time marginalized. I did not grow up marginalized, there was help getting me to this state (again).
For example, the importance of cash flow, and split-second timing sometimes.) A little compassion — not to be often found in the larger institutions, where children are commodities, as is our prolonged distress, in fact it’s a business — goes so far, is so fantastic! I do not think people who haven’t been through a little hell (if there be such folk) can appreciate this.
Also today, inexplicably, $XX.cc of the $XXX.cc (of multiple $XX,XXX.cc’s total child support arrears) due each month appeared without warning on a little debit card connected to the great child support enforcement system that has (I have come ot learn) bargained away justice for MOms in support of Promoting Responsible Fatherhood. FYI, grants show clearly that where our government LOOKS for some of these responsible fathers is in prisons and by communicating with parole officers, etc.
Now I have to decided whether that $xx.cc goes to (a) keeping home phone/internet on (b) a bus pass or (c) keeping, for safety reasons, a cell phone on. SIt will pay ONLY one of the above. This is the type of situation, I suppose, all those multiplce choice questions in elementary school (if you went public) prepared us for. What do you think? To me, safety seems paramount, which means cell phone. But I’m hungry. Thus, it’s most likely, however, that I will go have something to eat, and put a bit on the phone (paying twice as much per minute), which goes off at 3:30pm today, I’m told. that $xx.cc amount WOULD pay for an entire month of unlimited cell use (one relief for sure!), however stomach counts, and so does the ability not to have to hitchhike, at my age, and with the amount of STUFF I bring along daily, including papers, laptop, and sometimes a change of clothes. Can we say, “Infrastructure of the Individual?”
This is another thing that forays through one or, worse, more, of a federally-mandated, top-down, and guns-toting officers enforced policy with a few layers of administrative personnel as gatekeepers (between you and who’s funding it and why) is likely to dismantle: INdividual Infrastructures. If it’s stable, it’s a threat to the system, and something must be shifted around — take from Peter to prop up Paul, by way of Phillip, whose idea this was (actually SOME of the prime movers, not just enablers, in these systems, originating them, are women).
While I do that, here’s another self-report of a trip through the “Family” “Law” system, and how what appears to be a competent mother gets dumped on in order to satisfy the state-endorsed religion that “a kid without a father involved — ANY quality father” is like a fish out of water, not “a fish without a bicycle.”
I also had a close call, this week, with Fathers’ Rights in the Making (generation 3?) by getting thrown out of a church I’d fled to, for some company, for — yes, you heard this — speaking up. The problem was, my plumbing. I was almost physically ejected after the 2nd minute. Unbelievable, and this was in a home, not even a large formal setting. I am entirely too curious about reporting from the front lines about groups of people who seem angry that women got the vote, laws were passed to restrict PUBLICALLY beating us, and so compensate by as much as possible publically humiliating intelligent ones who actually speak.
Silly folks, don’t they realize this is where feminists came from to start with? They got pissed off, that’s all. I’m beginning to think this at least. The only people who actually think second class citizenship, or for that matter, abject poverty and slavery, are good ideas, are those profiting from it. And for THAT, you will have to research who is getting the grant money to generate study after study justifying the kind of results you read about below here:
What I’m trying to say here is, my uneven reporting and prose is a direct factor of having to deal with the situation, while also attempting to report on it. As a general principle, I’d say, if you probe deeply to any website which is EXTREMELY polished and professional, they probably haven’t gone through it themselves, only dealt with families who have. The situation never seems to end, so we have to publish on the fly, kind of like some of the men who had the audacity to translate the Bible into the common language (whether German, English, or Spanish). Going up against the Spanish Inquisition takes courage, for sure. The capacity of man to crucify man (and women, and children) never seems to end, and generally, it has to do with exposing some nonsense.
NEVER show up smarter than someone else who has control over your kids.
NOTE: taking hostages is a characteristic of war. Why is the US Government waging war on mothers? (sorry folks, the statistics do NOT support it as a war on fathers, based on $$ allocated at Federal level). Then again, there
http://womenmakenews.com/content/white-woman-without-her-black-looking-children-family-courts-make-mistakes-dont-get-fixed
Her story is here. The link above has a few more links also:
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Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up
May 21, 2009 at 10:15 AM
Posted in Domestic Violence vs Family Law, History of Family Court, My Takes, and Favorite Takes
Tagged with custody, domestic violence, family law, Feminists, social commentary, U.S. Govt $$ hard @ work..