Archive for the ‘warfare: strategic’ Category
Exodus Lessons @ Passover — Phyllis Chesler . . .Let’s Reflect
What does it take to free an entire nation, men, women and the little ones, from slavery? Besides the help of God?
I can’t think of anyone more appropriate to write on this topic — and many others — than feminist author Dr. Phyllis Chesler, who has dedicated the article below to her parents.
I dedicate this post to my children, my daughters, and hope anything they have gone through will produce insight, reflection and above all, honesty about the world they live in, and the value of respecting others’ understanding of the Abrahamic religions as they relate to history, politics, and their places as women.
Also to a Christian woman, fairly young (30s? 40s?), a mother of several children and one still breastfeeding I met a few months ago. At the time, she appeared in semi-shock, and very distressed.
Why?
She’d separated from violence in the home, had gotten a restraining order, for physical protection. ….The courts (i.e., whichever judge signed the order), predictably father-friendly, shared-parenting friendly and unbelievably cruel — had put her nursing baby on a 48 hours on, 48 hours off. She was still attending the same church as her husband and the children’s father. In order to honor this restraining order — and fail to acknowledge the abuse — they had her excluded from the sanctuary, and him sitting up front, in the place of honor. Why? I imagine money was a factor…. Churches have to pay mortgages, and they are most definitely patriarchal. It’s behavior like that, like covering up mistreatment of wives and playing the system of laws in our land in reverse — that has me too disgusted with churches to attend, any more. That church has already been judged, in my eyes, and will probably have to give an account in any resurrection, for how they handled their own, in this world….
This woman, this mother, may not run across this post, but she knows who she is, and I want to remind her that if Moses’ mother found a way in terrible times, with the help of the living God (not a fake one, not just empty religious traditions), she can too. Any God worth worshipping will see — like Moses did, like Moses’ mother did, like Pharaoh’s daughter did — what’s really going on, and can part seas, and make a way out, can prepare an Exodus from the insanity….
PASSOVER
I barely noticed Passover. I plan to barely notice it’s Easter weekend, either — except nominally. I don’t do “congregations” these days. Holidays without family have definitely lost their flavor, and holidays within the family were also times of trauma and pressure when we all lived under one roof. They are times of danger, trauma, or isolation for many, or facades for others — when home is not a safe place.
However, thinking about its significance, and in light of turbulence Africa, Arabian Peninsula MidEast, I’m going to acknowledge it this year. The center of this post is from an article by Dr. Phyllis Chesler — and she is not responsible for how I may have fleshed it out, stuck it on a family law blog, and added my own interpretations of meanings before, after and some commentary inbetween. I do not even know all the terms used in the post, but the message seems universal, and current.
EXODUS
Exodus, and the lives of Joseph, Pharaoh, Moses — the concept of slavery and escaping it — are my tradition of faith enriched by understanding of violence in the home, and whether this intent to break a (woman’s) spirit works — or fails. I understand, as her article discusses, marvelling at how there was no “mensch” (person of spirit, compassion, humanity and true princely FIRE) to do anything much about this abuse, and I know understand how it’s actually profitable to maintain within the United States.
Exodus is set in a regime-change for the Israelites in Egypt — and the new regime both hated and feared the descendants of Joseph and his brothers. While appreciating their labor, they feared their fertility and determined, based on fear, to keep the upper hand.
To understand the parallels today, one has to have read the U.S. Congressional Record authorizing fatherhood legislation targeted at low-income urban black men and women. I was shocked when I began to read and comprehend that this came from a select group of rulers who literally feared being out-reproduced, as well as fearing and hating women (feminism in particular). It has been indeed a regime change and sea-change (Administration changes?) over here as well. I cannot convey this in a single post, but have sensed and seen it over time.
For example, when in 2000, in Ohio, A “Commission on Fatherhood” is legislated into existence, of the six members from the state representatives and senators, fully half “must be from legislative districts that include a county or part of a county that is among the one-third of counties in this state with the highest number per capita of households headed by females.” . . . . And when a recent population study of 4,000 women over a 27-year time span also breaks it down by race:
…The data included detail on individual men in each household, capturing what demographers call “relationship churning.” For nonresidential relationships, Dorius triangulated information from mother and child reports to establish common paternity.
She found that having children by different fathers was more common among minority women, with 59 percent of African American mothers, 35 percent of Hispanic mothers and 22 percent of white mothers with two or more children reporting multiple partner fertility. Women who were not living with a man when they gave birth and those with low income and less education were also more likely to have children by different men.
But she also found that multiple partner fertility is surprisingly common at all levels of income and education and is frequently tied to marriage and divorce rather than just single parenthood.
I have a problem with populations described as to their breeding habits: “multiple-partner fertility” studies such as:
Copyright © 2010 Population Association of AmericaLAURA TACH, RONALD MINCY, and KATHRYN EDINLaura Tach, Department of Sociology, William James Hall, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138; e-mail:….Ronald Mincy, School of Social Work, Columbia University.Kathryn Edin, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University.
Besides this being one class (highly educated and in positioned in universities and/or with funding to conduct such studies) studying another class, the pre-occupation with how different races breed and at which rates, gets a little obsessive — it’s a close cousin to eugenics, and a distance offspring of what Exodus 1 talks about in the fear of the “foreign” population of slaves in the land:
Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. 10Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” 11Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. 12But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. 13So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves 14and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.
I see & sense the fear of too many poor people, the fear of too many brown people having too many babies {Take a look at the U.S. Congress and see what I mean}, and at its bottom line, also a severe fear of feminism and women. Yet despite that fear, there is no fear of keeping such people in low-wage jobs (and their kids in daycare), and inadequate schools, such as these people would not send their own children to. (etc.)….. As if this were not enough, when they separate, they must run the gauntlet of custody and mental health evaluations.
The entire network of fatherhood grants, funding, preaching, resource centers, nonprofits and legislation speaks of this. This is not the 70s any more and feminism must GO! Libertarians and Tea Party, and a lot of religious groups are also poised to help it do so…. The linkage of “Patriotism” with “Patriarchal” often leaves no safe place or community for those women who love civil rights, justice, AND their God. And staying alive. Between the social scientists/demographers, and the religious fundamentalist “divorce is a crime” groups…
Which brings up this question:
Can Atheists Handle Religious-based Misogyny by ignoring its roots?
Progressive, liberal, secular, etc. advocates and groups really do not comprehend what fires the religious mind to kill its own, and others. They mistrust religion and miss its strengths. Our country has foolishly thought that the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives is some sort of social solution to stop violence and poverty — failing to realize where some of the same tax-exempt groups cause more of it, if one is a woman, or a child. I find this very disturbing and short-sighted. For more, see Don Eberly & origins of the “National Fatherhood Initiative.” He was co-founder. Wade Horn was the HHS connection. Don Eberly was the “Office of Faith-Based” connection…
It truly takes people who have lived in these systems to change them, but moreover, takes a readiness to accept them as they truly are — and in the case of Egypt, the Exodus accont shows a genocidal Pharaoh who feared the fertility of the same slaves who built up the infrastructure, the monuments.
Consider Moses, Consider the first Passover:
As Dr. Chesler discusses the duality (Jewish/Egyptian) of Yosef and Moshe (Joseph and Moses, obviously) and how they might have responded to their own identities, I am thinking how her own status as a Jewish feminist unafraid to confront honor killings as honor killings, to warn, and to stand in her own strengths, knowledge, faith, and experiences — to talk about these things, still relevant today.
Below the writing, I’m putting another map to show how religiously isolated Israel is in the uproar now happening across northern Africa, Arabian Peninsula, and the Middle East. This is no small matter for any woman, of faith or no faith, to consider.
Map = for reference only….
http://www.mideastweb.org/maps.htm
The Exodus’ Lessons
by Phyllis Chesler
Israel National News
April 18, 2011http://www.phyllis-chesler.com/975/the-exodus-lessons
…
Time is short and the Jews are, as usual, in trouble. What does the Exodus teach us about what to do?Yes, the Jews are in trouble both today and long ago, when we were slaves in Egypt. Apparently, Jews can be in trouble both as slaves and as citizens of our own Jewish state and as citizens of the world in an era in which a Jewish state exists. It’s like a bad Jewish joke.
In Egypt, we are literally enslaved and we cannot save ourselves. We need God to save us –and God chooses a redeemer for us. This is how we, the “Hebrews” are pulled out of “Mitzrayim.”
We have many midwives who free us from the narrow place of affliction so that we can be born as God’s people.
Moshe is not raised like all the other Hebrew slaves. In a memorable act of civil disobedience, Pharaoh’s own daughter saves the infant who cried out.
Let’s not forget, in this age where the word “mother” is almost a curse-word in the courts (and not on our current President’s radar, or vocabulary often, even when talking about families and children and parents, or for that matter his own mothers, that the earlier act of civil disobedience was by Moshe’s mother — who refused to kill her firstborn. The practice of the day was oppression (slavery), and the oppressors feared the fertility of the enslaved. So, the law of the land was genocide; the midwives disobeyed, and Pharaoh had set out the order:
(EXODUS 2)
And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. 2And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. 3And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river’s brink. 4And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him.
Never underestimate a committed mother with her firstborn…. She put her life on the line to keep her son alive…disobeying a direct command from the Pharoah to all, and this command was to murder your own offspring. Can we imagine this? Suppose it was you — or us? What would you do?
For such a patriarchal book to credit Moshe’s mother — and not both parents — is telling. Both were Levites — but would the father have been so brave, or approved? Pharoah’s daughter risked disapproval -too — did she risk her life? Just thought I’d mention this. Back to Dr. Chesler’s writing:
For this act of hesed, or merciful kindness, she is midrashically and rabbinically re-named “Bat’ya, because by this act she becomes God’s daughter too. Pharaoh’s daughter adopts Moshe and raises him as if he is an Egyptian prince.
Moshe is a more evolved version of Yosef: someone who is both a Jew and an Egyptian. He is a Jew who knows his way around the larger, non-Jewish world –but he is also a Jew who breaks with that world with wrenching and utter finality. Ultimately, even though he has grown up away from his Jewish family, Moshe, rather paradoxically, remains close to, even dependent upon, his Jewish brother and sister, Aaraon and Miriam.
In a sense, Moshe is also the anti-Yosef. Yosef is born and reared as a Jew and remains a Jew–but he also becomes a powerful and assimilated Egyptian. Moshe is born as a Jew but is reared mainly as an Egyptian. Yosef helps Egypt store up food against a coming famine and Moshe is part of God’s plan to “spoil” Egypt and to render her bare of food, food sources, first-borns, gold, silver, and clothing which are all given or lent to the Hebrews–or are really, all back pay for the 210 years of slavery.
Still, it is Moshe-the-Egyptian who becomes miraculously Jewish and who becomes God’s greatest intimate.
How do we know that Moshe is Egyptian royalty? Moshe has unlimited access to Pharaoh’s palace. No one stops him when he enters. One wonders if his adoptive mother Bat’ya is still there; does she accompany him to his meetings with Pharaoh?
. . . . .
Therefore, this much is clear: Moshe has not been enslaved. He has, in fact, been reared as a Prince. This is very important. He has not been broken by slavery. He is not afflicted with “kotzer ruach,” a shortness of spirit , a lack of generosity, indeed an absence of humanity which slavery and oppression causes. He is fully entitled. (We find the phrase in Vaera 6:9 and I will return to it shortly).
What kind of spirit does it take to retain humanity while enslaved? To not let it get to destroying one’s insides, hardening them?
Perhaps Moshe was even more arrogant than Yosef–although his alleged speech impediment speaks to us of his having also been marked by trauma, loss, “differentness.” In fact, Moshe never exactly fits in anywhere except in his relationship to God and in God’s plan.
I have not been through anything like this, did not live through the Holocaust, and have not been under a law of the land that requires genocide, human sacrifice of babies, to a dictatorship, a king….But I do know trauma, loss, and the “differentness” that comes from going through the family law courts, USA (west coast, even….) and stigma that comes from having had custody switched after leaving a personal hell, abuse & violence in the home like I thought didn’t exist in the second half of the 20th century.
I take courage that it’s possible to not fit in anywhere, and still be a leader, and to change society…
In Shmot 2:11-2:12, Moshe sees, he really sees, a fellow Eyptian (an “eesh Mitzri”) beating a Hebrew slave to death. Moshe first looks around. He turns “coh v’coh,” this way and that way. Some say that he is looking to see whether any other Egyptians are there watching him before he kills the Egyptian taskmaster and buries him in the sand. Others suggest that he is looking within himself as well. Who am I? Am I an Egyptian or a Hebrew? What must I do?
(More on this question, below….)
I do not think that Moshe is afraid of another Egyptian. He is a Prince and can possibly get away with murder. I think that Moshe does not yet understand what slavery is and can do. Moshe waits–but he sees that there is “no man” there among the Hebrews, no one who will come to his brother’s aid.
On the question of Moshe’s turning “coh v’coh,” Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi of Mecklenburg,** in his Ha-ketav Veha-kabalah, notes that “Moses thought that one of the other Hebrew slaves who were standing there would rise up against the Egyptian taskmaster and would save their brother whom he was beating to death.” But he saw that there was no man.” (Ain Eeesh). Moses saw that there was no “real man,” no mensch (“gever b’govreen”) amongst them, and no one was paying attention to the distress of his brethren to try and save him.”
Now, let me turn to a few important things that are specific to the end of the story. Bo is the parasha in which God unleashes the last three plagues: locusts, darkness, and the killing of the first-born and it is the parasha in which we gain our freedom.
However, as important, we also receive our first mitzvot, or holy deeds, (12:2) not as an individual, not as a family, not even as a tribe, but as a “nation.” We are given Rosh Chodesh to observe. We begin to count, and therefore control our own time, something that slaves cannot do. We are also told to observe the first Pesach, to teach it to our children, and to remember it as a festival forever after.
Here is where we are told to do so even before we leave Egypt and certainly before we receive the Torah. In this sense, Bo is an early precursor to “Na’aseh v’ Nishma” which we say in Dvarim and partly say while standing at Sinai. “We will do, and we will then listen or hear or learn.”
Finally, most interestingly: When Moshe asks Pharaoh for permission to leave for three days to worship our God, Moshe says that everyone must come: the old people, the young people, both the sons and the daughters. Moshe understood that both daughters and sons, women and men, are crucial in God’s worship.
As we continue to wrestle with Moshe’s duality in terms of his being both a quintessential Egyptian and a quintessential Jew, let us ask: Did Moshe learn that women were crucial for worship from the fact that women were priestesses in Egypt and that many of Egypt’s multiple Gods were also Goddesses–or was Moshe prescient, did he understand that one day, Judaism would have women Torah and Talmud scholars, women rabbinic pleaders and kashrut supervisors, women-only davenning groups and a Jewish society in which both women and men are viewed as important in Shabbos service?
Possibly Moshe remembered that his mother had saved his life. Possibly Moshe remember that Pharaoh’s daughter had continued to save his life, too. Perhaps he’d learned of the civil disobedience of the midwives who refused to kill all sons, who found a way to JUST NOT PARTICIPATE IN GENOCIDE OF THEIR OWN…. Bridging two traditions, he claimed the one of courage, the one whose God was not a dictator, who didn’t enslave nations to build monuments to himself… Who knows?
What a tremendous tradition, complex to this day as, and important to understand from more than one viewpoint, including the feminine as well, which certain Protestant Evangelical what-nots still fear, as we speak… NOW and certain others are still partially clueless as to this, despite efforts to stop abuse of women and children.
I will leave you with this question.
I want to thank Nechama Leibowitz, Rabbis Michael Shmidman and Avi Weiss, and my friend and teacher, Rivka Haut, for their ideas and support.
This learning is dedicated to the memory of my parents and grandparents. May their memories be for a blessing.
Thanks to them for you, Phyllis Chesler…
Here’s another map from “GULF/2000” It’s too small print to read, but the complexity of religion shows how small Judaism remains in this area of the world (green vs. Orange, overall).
This map found at: http://gulf2000.columbia.edu/images/maps/Mid_East_Religion_sm.jpg
A more simplified version shows Israel in a sea of green, representing Islam….
Arab-Israeli Conflict – Role of Religion
From “Israel Science and Technology Homepage”
“Map of Arab countries and Israel. note that Israel is a tiny island in a sea of Arab countries”
I don’t want to further dilute this message, or this evening, but quoting the page, but it is worth considering — and again, as a woman, a worldwide Islamic empire is simply not a good idea. Empires, in general, have not been too kindly to women and children, no matter who or where they are.
{{Format note — the bold print paragraphs below, read as regular type. Cannot seem to adjust it this evening, will try again tomorrow, laptop has been acting up today.}}
“http://www.science.co.il/arab-israeli-conflict-2.asp:
Many Islamist groups already declare that their aim is to re-establish one Muslim Nation (Islamic ummah) encompassing all Muslim nations, ruled by Islamic law replacing secular governments. Many Arab, as well as non-Arab countries, such as Iran and Afganisthan are examples of this trend. The mass demonstrations of support for Osama bin Laden in many Arab countries are popular expressions of support for this wish for global Islamic unity.In historical perspective, the wish of Islamists for global rule is reminiscent of the communist ideology to establish a “world nation of proletariat” (the communist slogan was “Workers of the world unite!”). It is significant that at the peak of the power of the USSR empire, the Arab countries were strong natural allies of the USSR against the West.Like any ideology that wishes to establish a totalitarian global rule, Islamic Arab-fundamentalism presents a serious threat to the community of nations, including the non-Arab Muslim nations, such as Turkish republics.While the role of Christianity as a force in shaping International affairs has decreased, the role of Islamic Empire in shaping International affairs has greatly increased as a result of several factors:
- Expansion of the Islamic Empire as noted above
- Strong Arab electorates in European capitals formed by Arabs who emigrated mostly from North Africa (over 6 million Arabs in France alone)
- The need to appease Arabs because of their financial power and control of global petrol prices
- Combination of age-old anti-Semitism (remember European collaboration with Nazi Holocaust that killed 6 million Jews!) with Arab interests in the Middle against Israel.
Meanwhile, back in the USA, people are fighting and arguing psychology, custody, and “PAS” throughout the family court system, our own idolatrous government has proclaimed “family” as a new idol (hypocrites! How many wars, so far? Wars definitely break up families….) and our CEO (President Obama) didn’t even mention “women” (half the population), or anything about them, as a topic in his 2011 State of the Union Address. Whitehouse.gov barely says “mothers” in connection with “Families” on its issues page. “father” on the other hand, is mentioned 4 times: See:
Strengthen Families
President Obama was raised by a single parent (which gender? Male or female? If Female, how come not “his mother”???) (the “how come” probably relates to campaign financing…..) and knows the difficulties that young people face when their fathers are absent. He is committed to responsible fatherhood, by supporting fathers (not mothers) who stand by their (ownership, much?) families and encouraging young men to work towards good jobs in promising career pathways. The President has also proposed an historic investment in providing home visits to low-income, first-time parents by trained professionals. The President and First Lady are also committed to ensuring that children have nutritious meals to eat at home and at school, so that they grow up healthy and strong.
Overentitled men are being exploited by the mental health professionals and psychologists in the “Family Court” (how many shades away from Shari’a? ????), conflict-reduction, forced-shared-parenting, and etc. This is absolutely distracting and weakening the entire nation, and if it doesn’t wake up — serves ’em right, I say! When it comes to entire nations, generally speaking, it’s leaders that will take a nation down, not the common man, the masses — who bad leaders fear and seek to manipulate, control, and particularly control the breeders among the masses, male & female.
These leaders should take a lesson from Egypt, and remember Moses’ mother, a Levite — who were the priestly class. But she was a woman….They should remember that gain and wealth gotten by a few hundred years of slavery will backfire….and can take down a nation — if there IS a God that hears, if there is justice, if there is a limit to evil. It was Moses’ mother, not father, who goes on record as saving his life in a creative way, eventually leading an enslaved nation out of Egypt, and perpetuating the religion that has Israel, at this present day, surrounded by Islam….which hates it.
So Let’s remember Moses, Exodus, the Passover Lamb (scapegoat), and let’s be prepared, feet shod, looking to the future with hope and vision, but not forgetting where we came from. and who got us out of slavery (and, US, colonization/ taxation without representation…).
Let’s recognize the character of the times and the lands we (individually) live in. And that any future is going to require women, including Mothers, of vision and courage, including courage to spare their children from insane, destructive, genocidal government policies based on the desire for glory & immortality (I’m thinking of the Pyramids..), and rooted, many times, in simple greed & paganism — excuse me, I mean, materialism…. What is all that stuff FOR? and how much of it is really needed? Who built it? Freedom is better, including freedom from debt. Let’s remember that to worship ANY God properly, one needs women….I think about how Moshe was adopted of Pharaoh, and the religion stemming from the covenant in the wilderness talks about God adopting Israel. The compassion in his life was framed by women, certainly…. Whereas Joseph’s own brothers, out of jealousy, sold him into slavery…
Moses/ Moshe had both worlds, could’ve chosen to stay as an adoptive prince. But instead, he chose ethics and stood against an entire nation that dealt in unbelieveable slavery and glorification of death in pursuit of immorality. No thanks!
SHARE THIS POST on...
All the World’s a Stage. Or, is it Classroom? Or, is it Human Laboratory?
Well, it depends on the point of view. In yesterday’s obnoxiously long post, I ran across the phrase “Recalcitrant parents” being used in Kids’ Turn propaganda. The word “recalcitrant” is generally applied to the word “child” —
A Sampler of Timeless “Wisdom” across the centuries:
-
“All the World’s A Stage” … the bottom line is…
1600s, roughly:
William Shakespeare – All the world’s a stage (from As You Like It 2/7)
All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
Whatever you may think of that phrase, it’s full of metaphors, and takes a few minutes to chew on them, translate into perhaps common terms (what is he referring to, in other words?) and you come out with a perspective on life pretty close to “from dust to dust.” Shakespeare’s seven stages of man go from infant to infant: A child “mewling and puking in its nurses’ arms…” and towards the very end, like the last scene, “sans (without) teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” There is a real truth to this, and perspective — Life has stages, beginning, and end. Noting this, with elegance, puts man — meaning ALL of us — humbly in place; all have exits and entrances, and all go to the same final stage — helpless, like a child…
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound.
At least it makes you think!
The World is a stage, and a sense of perspective says there are different acts, AND bottom line, the play is over, it has an exit, no matter how poorly or well we played our parts. He pokes fun at the sixth stage, a Justice — “full of wise saws (sayings)…”. He’s going to slip into high-pitched voice, no teeth, and that impressive presence is going to turn back into a helpless infancy on the way out…
Shakespeare’s speech finds something to mock in every stage — appropriately, because,
the bottom line is… there will be an exit.
Hundreds of Years BC (or, to be Politically Correct, “BCE”):
Solomon (book of Ecclesiastes, “the Preacher”)
-
Vanity of Vanity, all is Vanities — the bottom line is …
From Ecclesiastes 12 (last chapter)–
Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; 2While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: 3In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened,4And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low;
Basically, he’s describing that seventh stage of life, in a very picturesque way, rich in symbolism.
5Alsowhen they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: 6Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. 7Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. 8 Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity.
And he gently mocks the endless writings….
. . .of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
To be condensed into:
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. 14For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
Again, the bottom line is Fear God, because what you do, including what you tried to do in secret, is going to be judged (in the resurrection, is implied):
Remember thy Creator while young, and Fear God, keep his commandments. THere’s even a rationale provided: “for God shall bring every work into judgment, every secret, whether good, or whether evil.”
Even those who may not believe in that future judgment, or in terms such as “good” or “evil” (perhaps this is a sad loss in our society, to openly say we believe there is good and there is evil — as opposed to functional & dysfunctional, healthy and unhealthy (as defined by ……?) might be able to grasp some interest in the symbolism, the recommendation towards humility in life. Some of the phrasing, about Times and Seasons has made it into music, old and new… it’s simple enough to grasp the concept….
“Simple Pictures are Best!”
The basic commandments cited were about ten only (one for each finger, in intact humans), not too many to count…and they too had a condensed internal order to them that refer to ethical behavior and not putting onesself first as “God” in worship, or in relationships. Most of these have some direct parallel in law today — i.e., thou shalt not bear false witness ( slander, libel, perjury), though shalt not steal (self-explanatory!), thou shalt not commit murder (homicide), and a few most have tossed since — honor the sabbath, honor mother and father, don’t commit adultery (definitely tossed by the wayside), and stop coveting all your neighbor’s stuff.
How about just TWO concepts?
Anyhow, moving on… Jesus, in the gospels, further simplified those 10 down into just 2: Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Hard to remember? No. Hard to do? Yes. But one need not Ph.D- it (pile it higher deeper) (Ph.D.) to practice, or sit at the feet of one to practice these, either. It relates to choice, determination, and will — not education only..
Even atheist George Carlin (search my site — believe I linked to this YouTube) was able to boil those 10 down to 2 also, and with some humor. Most normal people could figure these out. It takes a special mindset NOT to….
Fast forward to somewhere between 30 and 70 A.D. excuse me, politically more correct, “CE”). This — still in Shakespearean English (but in any language — Greek, Hebrew — the elegance of language still holds)
Or, OK, THREE main concepts…
-
Things go better with “Love” (Charity) — without them, it’s just all show and noise”
The apostle Paul, to some Gentiles with significant “relationship” problems, including even incest, strife, and divided loyalties, ignorance, and (this addresses), the omnipresent hyperinflated EGO…
|
There is a difference between doling out tons of charity, and living with this love and concern for others’ well-being. They are not the same things, and sometimes people sitting atop and running charitable foundations can be real pompous and arrogant. I can think of few things more arrogant than the attempt to train the entire U.S. population (at its own expense) in concepts like “fatherhood” or “abstinence” and so forth…. let alone “healthy relationships.” Sorry, but that’s ARROGANT! Congresspeople that voted for this are not likely monogamous, uniformly faithful to their own wives (and/or husbands — though its the male indiscretions we hear most about), or even all straight. The intent is to legislate this for the common folk — not the upper echelon or the policymakers. |
||
Bear with the Bible stuff, please…
I wouldn’t be exposing readers to all this scripture without a point, be patient please. To recall: all the world’s a stage, in the bottom line, all is vanity — you’re going to die, one way or another/strength will fade; constant writing of books is weariness of the flesh, and MOST wisdom can be condensed down in to a very few basics — whether 2 items (Fear God & Keep his Commandments), 2 OTHER items (Love God with all you got AND your neighbor as yourself), or here, we are going to have THREE items, and ranked as to which one ranks the highest:
12For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. 13And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of theseis charity.
This world view values humility, and realizes that changes happen — that we are NOT know-it-alls or perfect. So, until then, recognize this, and focus on the three most important qualities:
- Faith
- Hope
- Charity
The first two relate specifically to the religion — faith in Jesus Christ, hope in the return, and future judgment of good & evil, and that we are on the right side of that judgment, and recognition that, like it or not, a lot of secret things will exist till then. ALl will come out in the wash. Faith and Hope relate SPECIFICALLY to where the individual will stand at that future judgment, and expects it to come.
I don’t take this (case in point, see blog!) to mean passivity in the face of evil, or lack of social justice efforts. But anyone who undertakes serious reporting of corruption, crime, or attempts to clean up institutions, or to live so clean one-self regarding all standards– will soon learn it’s a rough road (if a good one) and a risky one, and vast in nature. Without some kind of personalized hope, personalized faith in what one is doing, the sustained effort simply wouldn’t be worth the pain and drain!
People who have this faith and hope (whether in this religion, or other causes they actually are personally committed to) are hard to manipulate, sway, and intimidate — and threaten people to whom those practices are normal.
Among such groups are parents attempting to protect their children from abuse, and I have to say judging by the courts, that SOMETHING about the mother-child relationship must be quite threatening to the status quo — because it has been disrupted, intentionally and systematically, by judges, and “in the best interests of the child.” The real bottom line in the courts is, parents cannot decide for themselves, and must not be allowed to. they are infants, they are incompetent, they are “recalcitrant” some literature from Kids Turn said (last post….). They need to be taught…. ALL of them…..
We just passed the month of Valentine’s Day. That’s about romance. This is a deeper kind of action:
The Greatest of these is Charity.
It will abide beyond the Faith and Hope…
It is the deepest motivator.
the bottom line is… charity. And a healthy dose of humility — because now, we know in PART…
Now, I’d like to contrast the above sections with where we are now, in the permanently in need of education, training and I suppose, diapering?, population of the United States of America primarily from the Executive Branch, and again, at its own expense…
No more stages of humanity — for those teaching or for those taught. Of childhood and development, yeah sure – but once in the courts, immaturity for ever seems to be assured. THis is basic public policy (those doing the teaching and “training” excepted, of course). We have really sunk so low to a permanent, unchangeable state of needing to be taught and trained…. And this is reflected in the degraded, pompous, self-important language of the trainers, which bears no relationship to the timeless wisdom of the ages — Love God (i.e., YOu are not God..) Love your neighbor, work no ill to your neighbor, and keep things in perspective…life has stages, and consider how you spend them, because assuredly there is an exit.
Nope, no more of that. Instead we have “constructs” and “Initiatives” and “Explications”. We have ever-expanding “mental health” needs (probably because the society is so insane!….).
How about “Parenting Coordination”?
I’ll just pick a random AFCC conference agenda, or a random term, for a sampler:
- All North America — well, at least (here) USA — and heck, let’s throw in Canada — needs PARENTING COORDINATION:
-
Parenting Coordination. The bottom line is. . we need parenting coordinators.
But someone has to Coordinate the “parenting” coordinators — so why not put together a task force to define practices in this new field defined (and created) by the court system itself…
This is from May, 2005
Guidelines for Parenting Coordination
Developed by The AFCC Task Force on Parenting Coordination May 2005
Scratch the surface (or look at the foundations — see my blog!) of almost any family court, or “domestic relations” court, or “Unified Family Court” system — and this AFCC organization will be there, and probably helping run it as well.
Just enjoy the elegance, catch the flavor, catch the drift…..
The Guidelines for Parenting Coordination (“Guidelines”) are the product of the interdisciplinary AFCC Task Force on Parenting Coordination (“Task Force”). First appointed in 2001 by Denise McColley, AFCC President 2001-02, the Task Force originally discussed creating model standards of practice. At that time, however, the Task Force agreed that the role was too new for a comprehensive set of standards.
The Task Force instead investigated the issues inherent in the new role and described the manner in which jurisdictions in the United States that have used parenting coordination resolved those issues. The report of the Task Force’s (2001-2003) two- year study was published in April of 2003 as “Parenting Coordination: Implementation Issues.”1
The Task Force was reconstituted in 2003 by Hon. George Czutrin, AFCC President 2003-04. President Czutrin charged the Task Force with developing model standards of practice for parenting coordination for North America and named two Canadian members to the twelve-member task force. The Task Force continued investigating the use of the role in the United States and in Canada and drafted Model Standards for Parenting Coordination after much study, discussion and review of best practices in both the United States and Canada.
AFCC posted the Model Standards on its website, afccnet.org, and the TaskForce members also widely distributed them for comments. The Task Force received many thoughtful and articulate comments which were carefully considered in making substantive and editorial changes based upon the feedback that was received.
I was in the court system at this time. No one asked MY opinion…. Of course we weren’t the type of family that could afford the custody evaluation/parenting coordinator route. There are two tracks in the courts (surely you know this by now) — families with money to be drained out — they go for the custody evaluation route — and families WITHOUT money to be drained out — they go the mediator route, with the end goal of getting the minor children away fro BOTH parents and into the foster care system somehow. Alternately, someone in government could end up personally adopting children, or adolescents, if such is desired. (see my Wacko in Wisconsin series — an account is detailed, and the on-line docket supported the pattern the forlorn, probably bankrupt by now mother, described). Sometimes foster care kids get trafficked (Franklin County, NE coverup being a horrible example). Sometimes they run away and get picked up by other abusers, as has happened in the Northern California area at least once. So the No-MOney-to-extort segment of society, they are encouraged to fight in court, and then, any number of alternatives may result — but I do know in my case, when I said I was NOT going to call in CPS on a simple (but blatantly illegal) violation of a physical custody order, the local law enforcement stood by with their arms folded. I wasn’t going to, as a mother, produce some income for the county up front by abandoning my children, so “forget you!”
Track one — extort money from the parents by promoting litigation on frivolous issues, call in some parenting coordinators, custody evaluators, court-appointed attorneys, or in short almost anything court-associated. The medical equivalent would be something similar to dialysis — blood is drained out, recirculated at huge expense, and put back into the parent’s and children’s blood stream, a total sea change of relationships…
Track two — is “Give us your kids, or forget you”
Back to the sample of “literature” in the endless education field of the courts:
Even the name of this document was changed to “Guidelines for Parenting Coordination” to indicate the newness of the field of parenting coordination and the difficulty of coming to consensus in the United States and Canada on “standards” at this stage in the use of parenting coordination. The AFCC Board of Directors approved the Guidelines on May 21, 2005.
The members of the AFCC Task Force on Parenting Coordination (2003 – 2005) were: Christine A. Coates, M.Ed., J.D., Chairperson and Reporter; Linda Fieldstone, M.Ed., Secretary; Barbara Ann Bartlett, J.D., Robin M. Deutsch, Ph.D., Billie Lee Dunford-Jackson, J.D, Philip M. Epstein, Q.C. LSM, Barbara Fidler, Ph.D., C.Psych, Acc.FM. Jonathan Gould, Ph.D., Hon. William G. Jones, Joan Kelly, Ph.D., Matthew J. Sullivan, Ph.D., Robert N. Wistner, J.D.
1 See AFCC Task Force on Parenting Coordination, Parenting Coordination: Implementation Issues, 41 Fam. Ct. Re. 533 (2003).
Joan Kelly, Ph.D. (not ‘J.D.”) appears to be one of the grand dames of the system – her name, and her work is “everywhere.” Then again, AFCC has great PR.
At the bottom of this post (under the line of ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ‘s) I’ll post a classic 2003 condensed summary of the interrelationships, still a good writing on this (Cindy Ross). The same intelligence is also found at NAFCJ.net (Liz Richards’) blog, which has been exploring these matters since 1993…
The key to the system is the “business and professions” model analysis. Where professional organizations, and certain professionals who conference, task force, promote certain legislation, etc., fit into this picture is that these ASSOCIATIONS (affiliated with certain professions – judges, mediators, psychiatrists, mental health services providers, and of course, now, parenting coordinators….) are going to, each and every time, try to drum up more business. Why not — the groups boast memberships with judges on them ,and have learned how to become “principal investigators’ or “program directors” in various funding streams, and then channel those streams one way or another — and parents who lack the skill to investigate and challenge this — are babes in the wood when it comes to the family court process. THey get lost there, too.
-
the bottom line apparently is, “NO exit from this system, at least in this life…”
The system expands — endlessly — and gets more and more pompous and arrogant in the positions, the languages, and the number task forces needed to change a light bulb. Experts fly to and fro across the country to collaborate with each other on the next (scam) (possible profession to establish from the messes created by the courts to start with!). …. Most parents are not alerted to the hyper-active flight schedule of their overlords…. or where they congregate.
What pithy language, what clear terms, what graphic real-life symbolism comes from this trade:
Overview and Definitions
Parenting coordination is a child-focused alternative dispute resolution process in which a mental health or legal professional with mediation training and experience assists high conflict parents to implement their parenting plan by facilitating the resolution of their disputes in a timely manner, educating parents about children’s needs, and with prior approval of the parties and/or the court, making decisions within the scope of the court order or appointment contract.
And a little grammar fluke “assist parents . . . .. to implement their parenting plan” The correct usage is “assist parents . . IN implementing their parenting plan…
To review the wonderful terms, nouns, verbs, adjectives.
PARENTING COORDINATION IS a . . . . . . PROCESS.
….Wow, I’m gripped already…. I can’t wait to hear the rest of the plot.
What kind of process?
. . . . it is a child-focused alternative dispute resolution process….
Wrong on both counts.
(1) It’s not focused on the children, it’s focused on the professionals, and drumming up more business for them. Decently written “parenting coordination plans” (what are we, cattle?? In need of personal assistants to write in dates and times of drop off, pick up?) would need extra help to implement.
(2) From what we are reading about the courts, the disputes don’t get resolved — but rather heightened and escalated until someone breaks, or someone else shuts down emotionally socially, etc.
…in which a mental health or legal professional ….
i.e., what AFCC is primarily composed of, and of course not any ordinary person. People outside the fields promoted and endorsed by this group NEED NOT APPLY. (i.e., an elite squad of only the truly informed…)
…with mediation training and experience…
Of course. The “mediation” promotion (also endless in this field) is CENTRAL to family courts and has already been identified as how to increase noncustodial parenting time. They have rules, but don’t follow them. Fact-finding on the parents is DISCOURAGED in some circumstance. Recently, an ETHICAL mediator was fired (for doing the right thing — actually reading where criminal records existed — unheard of almost, in this field) and won a case that her firing was discriminatory retaliation for, basically ,whistle-blowing.
This quote is from TODAY’s post, article by Peter Jamison, cover story on the SF Weekly.
{FYI: I have submitted 2 comments (under this name) on the site Rightsformothers.com which, if approved, may shed some more light on the article and what it does, and does not, cover.}}
Emily Gallup, a Stanford-educated mediator in the Nevada County Family Court, was fired after her supervisors criticized her for reviewing parents’ criminal histories when making her custody recommendations. In a March 2010 written reprimand of Gallup prepared by Court Executive Officer Sean Metroka, and obtained by SF Weekly, Metroka states that it was “unprofessional and unacceptable” for her to have requested a criminal history report in a recent case she was handling. “I admonished you not to take the role of a court investigator,” he wrote.
Research on parents is part of a mediator’s job, as it is for evaluators, minors’ counsels, and judges — no single court official is specifically designated as an “investigator.”
Hmm. I was told — to my face — by a court mediator that he could NOT even look at information I submitted which completely countered the story portrayed in court. It included handwritten notes from my daughters at a young age, and some photographs of them. But I was told that because it hadn’t been filed also with my ex (on the record) he couldn’t look at mine. THis didn’t go both ways — the information he himself had, submitted by my ex, I hadn’t received before the meeting. And I had ONE shot to state my case as to a multi-page, pre-fab, INDEXED parenting plan which I hadn’t seen in advance, to “come to an agreement” or take it back to court. My ex didn’t type at the time, and it clearly wasn’t his work. Moreover, once I (year or so later!) learned the rules of court for parenting plans involving domestic violence — this didn’t follow any of them. I suspect by then he’d already been contacted by a fatherhood-funded program attorney, who knew what to do — file for divorce and custody, and set up a parenting plan that didn’t state place, or exact times, and was GUARANTEED to produce a lot of debating and negotiating on these matters — and there was a restraining order on at the time….
I can see wisdom in the mediator NOT going beyond the court file– contrary to this article’s portrayal. How can a parent respond to invisible information he or she has not received or been served? It dilutes the legal due process.
Metroka says that Gallup went too far, conducting criminal background checks in cases where they weren’t relevant. “It’s easy to violate [parents’] due-process rights if you try to make more out of a case than is there when it’s presented to you,” Metroka says. “Emily’s position is that in every case a mediator should investigate and get every piece of evidence she can before the mediation.”
Just last month, Gallup prevailed in a grievance against the family court system over her dismissal. Arbitrator Christopher Burdick found that she “had reasonable cause to believe that Court’s Family Court Services department had violated or not complied with statutes and rules of court,” and ordered an audit of the court to investigate the claims in her grievance.
“They’re making these monumental decisions based on air,” Gallup says. “They think if you have too much information about a parent, that makes you biased. My contention is, if you have more information, that will make you less biased.”
Something doesn’t smell quite right about this situation. Perhaps Gallup is not aware, as some of us are, of the true purpose of mediation– which is to increase noncustodial parenting time, per federal grant, and allow the Secretary of the HHS to suggest (and get states to implement and evaluate) demonstrations on people that come through the courts, generating MORE revenue for those in courts employ, or at least in their entourage. She musta been a rookie….
For example, suppose — in a “mis”-guided (according to this mindset) attempt to comply with the state code, (I can’t speak to Nevada, but IF it has the rebuttable presumption against custody going to a batterer code) — she checked for a criminal background in domestic violence. This would compromise the mission of retaining federal funding and INCREASING custody to such people, and it would actually add some weight to a protective parent’s position.
OK continuing with this 2005 AFCC Coordinating the Parenting Coordinators whose job is to help IMPLEMENT an already- written coordination plan that parents are working with — people who do this must also:
Overview and Definitions
Parenting coordination is a child-focused alternative dispute resolution process in which a mental health or legal professional with mediation training and experience assists high conflict parents to implement their parenting plan by facilitating the resolution of their disputes in a timely manner, educating parents about children’s needs, and with prior approval of the parties and/or the court, making decisions within the scope of the court order or appointment contract.
. . . assists high conflict parents to implement their parenting plan….
[pause to adjust to the “assist . . .. to” syntax error again. OK, I’m better now …I’ll go on…]
Any legal professionals ought to know that one way to encourage a parent to comply with a written plan incorporated into any court order is, if it becomes habitual, file a contempt and seek some kind of sanction for it through the courts, putting this IN the court record..
Let us remember again – parents that comply with well-written parenting plans don’t drive more business to the courts. This behavior should NOT be encouraged……
FIRST OF ALL both parents may not need assistance. ONe may be an asshole, simply decides not to comply, thereby causing problem for either custodial or noncustodial parent, who then gets frustrated. I suppose enough of that frustration, and disruption of the children’s schedules and lives and/or someone’s work, might cause the other parent to come into a state of “needing assistance” and circuitously justify saying BOTh “parents” need this help.
“HIGH-CONFLICT PARENTS” — How about someone — for god’s sake! — actually investigating what the conflict is about, i.e, analyzing it, putting that on the record, and fixing it through normal legal means, promptly? This incessant lumping of both parents into “high-conflict” when only one may have started and continued to cause it is wrong. It’s a lose-lose combination.
Any good parent has conflict with certain BEHAVIORS, one of which is called, failing to comply with court orders. Complying with court orders is a GOOD value to give children. IF the courts themselves cannot recognize this (because some organizations wish to perpetuate work for their members) then who will?
well, here’s some more decisive, to the point, and clear writing:
…by facilitating the resolution of their disputes in a timely manner, educating parents about children’s needs, and with prior approval of the parties and/or the court, making decisions within the scope of the court order or appointment contract.
….facilitating the resolution of their disputes in a timely manner…
[by creating a co-dependent behavior between the parenting coordinators and the parents, in total conflict the court’s own theory that any domestic violence (etc.) issues are just disputes and parents should WORK IT OUT THEMSELVES!]
[“facilitating dispute resolution in a timely manner” and involving more court personnel is an oxymoron. It’s a contradiction of terms! Add to this Task Forces that can’t write straight, and what a mess! Most family law cases I personally know lasted a minimum of five years, some, three -times that. These professionals are most likely WHY….]
…educating parents about children’s needs. .
AHA! We come to the juicy caramel center of what this is about — another opportunity for endless education, including Kids’ Turn -type agenda..
Why don’t these professionals content themselves with HAVING and RAISING their own children — grandchildren, if they need to — and thus be able to help form new characters etc. Or, are they the cast-offs from the public education system, which is constantly having “peripheral” positions cut, such as psychologists and counselors, librarians, and sports/arts/ etc. roles?
“…..and with prior approval of the parties and/or the court, . . .
“…OR the court?” Meaning, if the parties don’t approve beforehand, the COURT can make more “prior approval” decisions WITHOUT their approval or prior knowledge? (commonly called ex parte when it changes a court order, so I guess this one just means, sort of fine-tuning the terms of an existing one. If that. . . It shoulda been fine-tuned out the gate. ….
making decisions within the scope of the court order or appointment contract.
In other words, high-conflict parents (some of which conflict might be with poorly-written court orders, or inappropriate decisions to start with) should become co-dependent/passive and learn to let these people make their decisions instead. Also, if some highly legitimate causes of conflict exist (like someone threatened to abduct, or did) — then how nice to have already got a new profession in place in case some illiterate judge goes back to allowing shared parenting after custody-switch, etc. (Many mothers know that the “shared parenting” with an abuser escalates in conflict, and leads to various crises, and sometimes on calling on the courts (a mistake, probably) to resolve this . . a judge will switch custody. Thereafter, she may not see her kids again — PERIOD. Or, only for pay — and a high pay — such as supervised visitation for HER (because of potential “parental alienation..”). … And so on.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><>,
(Apologies today — my hyperlink function on this computer is temporarily not functional — so I am pasting titles, not links, to material discussed….).
MORE FROM TEXAS AFCC, 2007, ON THIS SAME TOPIC:
Report of the Texas Association of Family and Conciliation Courts Taskforce on Parenting Coordination
(translation: two years later, still needing more task forces..)
Members
Jack Bannin, San Antonio, TX Carrie Beaird, Dallas, TX Mike Booth, Dallas, TX Mary Bullock, San Antonio, TX Deborah Cashen, Houston, TX Jeff Coen, Dallas, TX
Bradley Craig, Arlington, TX Deborah Higgs, Galveston, TX Sondra Kaplan, Houston, TX
Toni Jo Lindstrom, Texas City, TX Susan Marsh, Houston, TX Judith Miller, Houston, TX Leta Parks, Houston, TX
Aaron Robb, Keller, TX Christy Schmidt, Dallas, TX Dina Trevino, San Antonio, TX Robin Walton, San Antonio, TX
Compiled by Aaron Robb, Chapter President August 8, 2007
Read a bit of this and see how it’s clear they wish to limit WHO can be a parenting coordinator to affilliated professions…. and missed the legislative bandwagon that might have allowed such a professional restriction… This article cites the one above, summarizing the scenario like this:
The AFCC parent organization began examining the issue of parenting coordination early in this century, forming a Taskforce on Parenting Coordination composed of nationally known experts in this emerging field.
“Nationally Known Experts in this emerging field.” . That’s “rich.” why does this, somehow, remind me of The National Fatherhood Initiative’s self-description as having been started by a “few prominent thinkers” back in the 1990s? Maybe it’s just the tone, I can’t say for sure.
“this emerging field” — -give me a break! With time, one comes to understand that in some lips the words ’emerging field” actually means a field that they (themselves, or close associates) are personally developing and promoting — in part by naming task forces after it — and it didn’t “emerge” like grass, or buds at springtime, or chickens from eggs, except that it IS sure that the seed was planted long ago that the sky’s the limit on professions that can spring out of the family court high-conflict parenting theme….
Supervised Visitation “emerged” the same way, as did “Batterer Intervention Programs.” Neither has proven particularly effective, both require lots of conferences, task forces, publications, and nonprofits to actually DO the supervising and intervening. Also those last two terms are known compromises with the battered women’s movement which in late 80s/early 1990s was much more pushing for full separation of the women and children from the danger, whether in shelters, or through full-custody.
The initial Taskforce produced a report entitled Parenting Coordination Implementation Issues in August of 2003 outlining the various forms and formats of practice that fell under the general heading of “Parenting Coordination.” The task force was reconstituted in 2003 and continued its work, expanding to examine best practices in both the United States and Canada.1
In 2004, in anticipation of growing interest in parenting coordination services in the state, Texas AFCC conducted a formal survey of our members, examining basic issues of role clarity and role delineation. At the same time Texas AFCC was approached regarding input on legislation that was being drafted regarding parenting coordination for the 2005 legislative session.
(Probably by someone affiliated with a father’s rights program… or CRC, etc.)
Responses from AFCC members to the survey came [“amazingly” given what AFCC is basically comprised of] from a mix of legal and mental health professionals, however the actual legislation regarding parenting coordination failed to address many of the prevailing opinions noted in the survey.
Chief among these was a strong consensus (89%) that to be qualified as a parenting coordinator a practitioner should be a mental health professional. A majority (56%) also noted that a parenting coordinator should be trained as both a mediator and parent educator.
If this became law, then any HIGH-CONFLICT PARENTS with POORLY WRITTEN PLANS (or, one or more parents who refused to comply with them) ARE GUARANTEED TO HAVE A HIGH-PRICED MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL — OR ATTORNEY — WITH A MEDIATIOR (PROMOTE MORE ACCESS FOR NONCUSTODIAL PARENT) MINDSET, AND A PENCHANT FOR EDUCATING PARENTS.
I CANNOT THINK OF ANY FIELDS I WOULD LESS LIKE HAVING IN MY PERSONAL OR RELATIONSHIP LIVES. WOULD YOU? SUPPOSE ONE PARENT JUST DECIDES TO ABANDON THE KIDS ON WEEKENDS WHEN YOU MIGHT HAVE, FOR EXAMPLE, A SOCIAL LIFE OR DATE. OR HE MIGHT… CALL IN THE MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL AND SIT DOWN — BOTH OF YOU — FOR MORE LECTURES ON HOW TO BE A PARENT, LET ALONE AN ADULT WITH A COMMITMENT OF SOME SORT!
THIS IS WHAT THIS GROUP APPEARS TO WANT.
A substantial majority of members (74%) also indicated that they believed parenting coordination Services should be non-confidential to allow reporting back to the court.
THIS NEXT SECTION IF FUNNY, IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT:
The AFCC Board of Directors accepted the final report and Guidelines on May 21, 2005.
Unfortunately this direction from the parent organization came too late for our local group to effectively act on it. HB 252 (relating to the use of parenting plans and parenting coordinators in suits affecting the parent-child relationship) had been introduced in February 2005 and had been voted out of the House by April 2005. It was subsequently voted out of the Senate in May 2005 and sent to the governor just days after the parent organization’s years worth of work on this issue came to a close.
Sounds to me like the would-be coordinator coordinator’s task force, dreaming about expansion into Canada, wasn’t too coordinated — and didn’t pay attention (or process input from the local Texas AFCC group) in time for the parenting legislation to be voted on! They were behind the 8-ball.
And this is who is trying to restrict the profession to people like themselves!
Parenting coordination is a maturing field and nationally there are many different theoretical and practice models for services that fall under the broad heading of “parenting coordination.”
Keep your (God-damn) “practices” away from my kids, and me. If I have a broken leg, I’ll go somewhere around a medical practices. If a loose tooth (both of these factors which may occur around “high-conflict” marriages and/or divorces), a dentist. If I am short an academic degree, or wishing to enter a new field MYSELF, I will approach someone qualified in that PRACTICE and will myself engage, and PRACTICE that they are qualified to teach, forming a contract between me and that person which PROBABLY would be bound the contracts, (i.e., breaking it would be a “tort” and could be handled in CIVIL courtrooms, unlike “relationship” issues which land up in this morass of family law….)
But for the “crime” of having a relationship (marriage, or out-of-wedlock birth parent) that went sour — in other words, it wasn’t a great match, or something seriously deficient or wrong showed up — we are to be doomed FOREVER to being ordered into FAMILY COURT PRACTICE PROFESSIONS (“parents forever, right?”) by a group of people who can’t find something more useful to do with their lives, and which might require hard sciences or truly disciplined practice THEMSELVES….
Here it is — they want more “training.”
Increase education and training requirements for parenting coordinators to include basic and advanced family mediation experience as well as formal parenting coordination training for all parenting coordinators.
Commentary: Given that parenting coordination is now firmly codified as a hybrid ADR procedure it seems only logical that the state should require parenting coordinators to have family ADR training. Issues of positional vs. interest based negotiations and other mediation related issues are core to helping families progress past their disputes and adopt a healthier problem solving strategy. This is reflected in not only the AFCC Guidelines but the Texas Association for Marriage and Family Therapy Parenting Coordinator Taskforce Recommended Practice Guidelines for a Family Systems Model of Parenting Coordination within the Context of Texas Family Law report as well.
Can you do this? Read aloud the title (it’s ONE title) for another related to the courts organization (AMFT). Read it in one breath, without stop, and with a straight face. i dare you. Now picture how many more such taskforces are flying around the land, invisibly spreading bad grammar, creating emerging fields, and writing model practices for those fields, and of course setting up the entrance fees to get into them, through more training…..
Did you? Try again: The Texas association for marriage and family therapy parenting coordinator taskforce (break for the short-winded)… recommended practice guidelines for a family systems model (what other kind of models would there be for ‘parenting coordination’ Extra-familial systems model, like with the athletic department of junior’s afterschool needs, or there’s a budding gymnast in the high-conflict parenting family??) within the context of texas family law
Wow — brilliant. I myself was thinking of developing some practice guidelines that CONFLICTED with texas family law — that way, more business for the cognitive dissonance folk, mental health professionals.
They go on to note (apparently catching up with FL Attorney Liz Gates — who wrote this I bet much earlier in Therapeutic Jurisprudence )
Ethically dual roles are problematic (and highly restricted) for many professionals. {{they’re more than problematic, they create a conflict of interest….}}
Attorneys, therapists, and others who may have had a previous relationship with a family member bring history to the process that may undermine their effectiveness as a parenting coordinator. A parenting coordinator who goes on to serve in one of these other roles with a family may be seen in hindsight as self-serving, and compromises the integrity of the process.
That bird has flown the coop already. People know, parents know, they blog and write and complain on the nepotism, cronyism and backroom deals around the courts — with or without the new field of parenting coordinators.. Here’s a wise group in 2007 noticing that.. This problem is intrinsic to the family law profession, let alone an expansion in that profession..into uncharted territories where “need” is anticipated — probably because these people INCLUDE many judges who are able to order such things, if they choose to..
But, they want more training — naturally.
My friends, … about those court-ordered train the trainers trainings — I have to tell you something:
“Where the Wild Things Slush FundsAre.”
Looking for where the money went, or kickbacks tend to happen? Look no further — you got it!
From “NAFCJ: Fathers Rights and Conciliation Court Law’ (article by Cindy Ross of N. CA area):
When AFCC affiliates assist fathers get [in getting] custody and get [in getting] out of paying child support, they instigate frivolous litigation for their own financial gain. They take kickbacks and other improper payments to rig the outcomes of the cases. Judicial slush funds, such as the “hearts and flowers” fund exposed in Los Angeles Superior Court, are established using fees charged for child custody “training” seminars. [20]
Because Conciliation Court codes specify how funding is dispersed to the court itself, huge sums of money are diverted out of federal and state block grants by AFCC affiliates, in the guise of “amicable settlement of domestic and family controversies”. [15] (See Codes 1800-1852). The National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI) was founded in 1994, to “lead a society-wide movement to confront the problem of father absence”, i.e., to embed the fathers’ rights agenda into government policies and programs. [21]
This is such OLD news, but [far too] few women seem to be acting to do anything about I. I’ve heard of more men – such as the Richard Fine folk — who at least understand the process and strongly advocate against this. No mention of this was made in the SF Weekly Article above…. and at this late stage of the game, I’d have to say that this omission is suspect. People who work in and report on these fields KNOW the basic literature that’s out on it, it is no longer an unsolved mystery…
Maybe all the world IS a stage, but we need permission to “exit stage left” from this family court system, and as we are forced into the roles, it’s time to find out who wrote the screenplay, and who’s on the Lights, who’s pulling curtains where, and who is providing the cue cards…
To Be, or Not to Be, that is the question…”
A recent hit movie “The King’s Speech” shows how a man overcame a stutter because he had to be king in the time of radio — and when Hitler was threatening Europe and Great Britain. He didn’t want to be a public speaker, OR king — and as presented, he’d suffered some serious childhood abuse, emotional and physical (like not enough food) which probaby precipitated the stutter — but he stepped up to the plate once he fired the bad speech coaches (including the ones recommending smoking!) and got an off-ball, un-doctored Australian who actually knew how trauma works, and how to get past it. The relationship was STILL voluntary, even by a king, or future king — but once it was entered into, it became successful.
We are in times like that. I’d rather be doing something else, and investigative reporting is not my primary field, and smoking out slush funds is very disturbing. But it certainly beats walking around in a daze, wondering what happened, and blaming something or someone else for the problem!
I changed from doing free PR for psychologist professionals who talk about PAS and bad custody decisions (and not slush funds, federal funds, and fatherhood funding, etc.). I changed because I missed my daughters, and I love them, and as part of this love, I want the truth out. As part of caring about my local communities, I want to spare others going through three or four years of anguish as I did (at least) BEFORE I connected some of these dots.
Remember — Three things abide, BUT, the greatest of these is charity.
How’s yours these days?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
For footnote to Joan Kelly being omipresent (sort of) in these organizations and their literatures: From 2003,
NEWSMAKINGNEWS.COM
http://www.newsmakingnews.com/ross,familycourtcorrupt2nd2,19,03.htmFamily Court Corruption, Part 2: Fathers’ Rights and Conciliation Court Law: Federally funded misogyny and pedophile protection
by Cindy Ross © 2/19/03
Numerous reports have identified bias against women and corruption in family courts across the country. In bizarre and illegal rulings, family court judges ignore or deliberately suppress evidence of male perpetrated family violence and child molest. Fathers who are batterers and sex offenders are routinely granted visitation and custody, while mothers and children trying to escape abuse are punished through financial sanctions, loss of custody, supervised visitation, jail and institutionalization. [1]
While publicly touted as “responsible fatherhood programs” official federal documents say the purpose of their programs is to provide noncustodial fathers with free attorneys to litigate for custody. [4]. . . . {{SO — read those document, just don’t buy the “party line” that it’s really all about “relationship coaching” and healing, and so forth… It ain’t.
AFCC affiliated experts who have established federal “model custody” programs using PAS methodology, include Joan Kelly, a founding official of CRC, and Judith Wallerstein of the Center for the Family in Transition.
Richard Gardner originally based his PAS theory on Wallerstein’s and Kelly’s research. [23] Joan Kelly sets up family court services programs and trains judges and “special masters” (mediators with quasi-judicial authority), using Access to Visitation grant funding. She is also connected — primarily through CRC — to Michael Lamb, of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Kelly and Lamb promote materials developed by Richard Gardner (and other pedophiliac experts), in conferences and seminars regarding “parenting time” and “alienation”. [8]
Judith Wallerstein, is an advisor to NFI. According to CA NOW’s “Family Court Report 2002”, in 1986, Wallerstein provided testimony — along with David Levy of CRC — to the House committee on Children, Youth and Families. regarding the “problems of single female parent families”. [24]
Members of Wallerstein’s Center for the Family in Transition and Kelly’s Northern CA Mediation Center, have “reformulated” PAS as “alienated children”, possibly to distance themselves from Richard Gardner.
However, in addition to being connected to some of the most egregious local (Marin County, CA) PAS cases, as the “Northern CA Task Force on the Alienated Child”, their group promotes PAS custody switching methods and “threat therapy” at AFCC conferences around the country and the world.
[25]Wallerstein, Horn, Eberly and others connected to NFI, CRC and AFCC have expanded the Conciliation Court agenda to include not only divorce prevention, but marriage promotion. By merging conciliation court and fathers’ rights agendas with a “faith based” marriage “movement”, they call for even more federal programs promoting “two-parent” families, through “marriage initiatives” funded by TANF/Welfare grants. [26]
And we wonder why the economy is in such crisis!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
SHARE THIS POST on...
More on “Veni, Vidi, Vomiti” at BMCC [published Jan. 18, 2011]
(“Vomite” would be an imperative in Latin, if it were a real verb, so I adjusted the ending).
Read my most recent post for some background
This morning, I noticed visitors from three universities (New York, Princeton & Berkeley) had been on my site very recently. The Berkeley visitor was viewing a site featuring some work by Lundy Bancroft, a well-known author books such as “Why does he DO that?” or “The Batterer as Parent.”
I would like to comment upon “Why he (Bancroft, et al.) DOES that” and the concept of “The Batterer as Parent” in a wider perspective of this field of the family law system.
For the former perspective, the short answer is, a combination of from (I’ll still presume) residual good will towards suffering females and their children and, more to the point, for a living.
To recap that, the reasons appear to be:
- He’s probably basically a good guy, which probably put him outside the mainstream (meaning, funding flow) of the family law court professionals, and
- For a living.
See my post “Moms are Parents Too” and read the comment at the bottom, which is an update.
Now, as to the concept “The Batterer As Parent.”
Although assault and battery is a crime (or either one alone) as I understand it, either misdemeanor or felony level, in practice, the family law system acts as an opaque umbrella under which this terminology is really not taken seriously. Not really.
So mothers who take Bancroft & batterer language into a court hearing may be in for a real rude awakening — it’s not welcome overall. Hence, a living has to be made elsewhere, and a name, as I mentioned. Although Mr. Bancroft has in the past presented alongside what I’d call overt “fatherhood” presenters (yeah, I looked that up), I’d say he’s not on the same page, or in the forefront of THAT movement. He and this rhetoric is more like a gnat in its side — definitely not so much as a “thorn in the flesh.”
Obviously, it lands with something of a thud. to solve this, we are encouraged to watch our demeanor more carefully, strategize just so, and not step on too many toes. Don’t pick unnecessary battles, don’t rock the boat, etc.
I believe that anyone telling a mother who has been ass-whupped (or anything approaching it, including emotionally, financially, etc.) in front of her own kids, to advise, do it some more, and all will be well, or this is the ONLY way all will be better than it is now, has a lot of nerve.
Read the rest of this entry »
SHARE THIS POST on...
From “No Excuse for Abuse” to “Truth is No Defense”: Terrorizing Terrorists with Civil Litigation
Maybe “all roads lead to Rome” but it seems that religious conflagration is more Middle Eastern in origin.
Today’s article quote (the longer one) is from the Middle East Forum (I finally figured out — I am on some legal mailing lists, including FindLaw.com, which publishes opinions and recent cases in specific fields). This email list I got from my interest in the feminist writings by the author of “Women & Madness” who also understands extra punch packed by a fist, or practices, incited by religious beliefs of women’s inferiority, or (at best) secondary place in society, or else.
Phyllis Chesler. ‘How Afghanistan shaped my feminism’
Nov 6, 2008 …Phyllis Chesler. ‘How Afghanistan shaped my feminism’ …. marathon tea-drinking and pistachio-eating, my polite smile was stuck to my face. …
vladtepesblog.com/?p=2954 –
Phyllis Chesler: Obama Throws Muslim Women Under the Bus
by an unrepentant kulak
Monday, June 8, 2009
Did President Obama sacrifice the interests of Muslim women in his Cairo speech? Phyllis Chesler thinks so, and says as much in a characteristically well-articulated piece at PJM:
It is a Catholic woman’s right to become a nun and shave or cover her hair; it is an Orthodox or Hasidic Jewish woman’s right to shave or cover her hair; and it is a Muslim woman’s right to cover her hair and her face–as long as those women who refuse to do so are not browbeaten, beaten, ostracized, stalked, stoned to death or honor-murdered. I have written about just such cases in the West right here, at this blog, cases in which young American- and Canadian-Muslim girls were tormented, then killed because they refused to wear hijab.
In Europe, where there are many more Muslims, there is a veritable epidemic of such exceedingly dishonorable and incredibly gruesome “honor” murders.
But there’s something more. Let’s face it: The Islamic face-veil and headscarf have become symbols of “jihad” and Islamic religious apartheid or intolerance in the West. And, it is spooky, even frightening to see women, (or are they men?), face-veiled or wearing full-body shrouds. Masked people, hooded people, have cut themselves off from human contact; they can see you, but you can’t see them. You cannot see their expressions in response to what you are saying. I would not want to appear before a masked judge, study with a masked teacher, hire a masked lawyer, etc. Would you?
Whether I approve of their clothing choices or not, Hasidic (ultra-orthodox or anti-modern) Jews and Catholics are not threatening western civilization and are not out there be-heading those who leave Judaism or Catholicism. Nor are they force-converting Muslims and Hindus. Muslims are doing just that at this very moment in history when America’s President has reached out to the entire Islamic world.
What’s more, Jews and Catholics are not honor-murdering their daughters and wives because they refuse to veil their faces, their hair, or their bodies. Mainly Muslims do that.
No, nothing like that. By the way — did the readers not that the man in Buffalo who beheaded his wife claims she was abusing him? Sound like a familiar theme?
ALthough “nothing like that,” it’s increasingly getting to be like that, as I sometimes email Dr. Chesler, while she still takes heat, I’m sure, for alliance with conservative Christian groups in some forums. Someone will listen, one of these days, of where the THEORIES (if not the practices, including familicides) unite. Can you say “faith-based collaborative” and “Fatherhood.gov”? There are dramatic differences, but too many striking parallels, between these groups. The atmosphere on the “family” issues is changing. Can you say “Islamification” and “Islamophobia’ in the same breath?
So these topics, mine and hers, seem doomed to overlap, time and again.
Today being 01/11/11, and as I have recently posted on my feelings of the similarity between the family law system and Shari’a law system (keep it in the family, right?), one has to wonder whether this family law system is intended to overwhelm independent “parents” (Moms) such that they return to dependence on at least the state, or their extended support systems. Leaving abuse amicably? Hell, no! What has this world come to? How else are older immoral* men going to continue their unfettered access to young girls, and boys?
[(*I’m NOT talking about the decent ones)]
I’ll bold or change font color on a few key terms. Understand, I am not following this case, or theme, in detail — BUT, it’s getting to be a smaller and smaller world. As a “noncustodial mother” (I suppose the term ceases to have meaning when children have all turned 18, at which point it may mean that one regains contact with grown children, or one does not. If not, then does the word “mother” apply at all? Historically, yes — but in present tense? . . . . As the dear old AFCC decided long ago to find a newer, better language to describe criminal actions (battering, kidnapping, assault, stalking, and molesting minors, including but not limited to incest), it is gradually transforming society into generations of traumatized kids, and at public expense.
At the BMCC [“Battered Mothers Custody Conference” in Albany, New York] recently, the Holly Collins case was featured, and she spoke, and her son. She fled to the Netherlands. Another woman who also fled there, was outed (Melissa Stratton), particularly after the child’s father bicycled through Europe and broadcast his distress — and after a ruling by the court-appointed psychologist that she’d imagined it all. She was an intelligent, educated woman who it seems to me considered the available options (grim, if one considers the situation) and chose a hard one. When we talk, Netherlands, Scandinavia, Denmark, and indeed almost ANY country these days, it’s likely that some high-profile cxustody case is attached. South Korea (NJ judge orders woman jailed on returning, although abuse charges were under way in Korea); Brazil, Canada, you name it, some Dad and friends has probably gone after some legislator to, gol, dang it — bring me back my kids! A Rep. in N.J. wants India and Japan to sign the Hague convention to make this a little easier.
The article below deals with Denmark, among other places — well, you can see.
Meanwhile, nursing infants in the family court system are STILL subject to a judge’s court order about what nipple they get to suck it from, and whether that’s accompanied with Mom’s smells, voice, embrace, or arms, or some with a leaner muscle mass, most likely, AFTER a domestic violence court order has already been issued. Kind of makes ya’ wonder…. Didn’t Germany try this kind of child-raising some generations ago? Dads can be nurturers, too, right — but at certain ages, an infant needs a reliable parent, a MOM, on-call. Her reassurances are a need, and a foundation for later independence. When society can’t respect this, when men (SOME men) are so needy personally that a child is an interruption to the fulfilment of their own narcissism, or possibly an alteration in a sexual relationship, society is sunk. When Moms, in a changing society are to be punished for adjusting to it in ways involving employment, or running a reasonable business while also being Mom — society is sunk. We’re already beyond that through this system in the U.S, and hardly contained within it.
That system has a religious basis, on the rights of males (notice, I didn’t say “man,” generic) and females as lesser, which we know because “God said so.’ The consequence to a man of listening to a woman’s voice (Eve) is that the fall of the world, and a curse. Talk about primal fears! For any woman thereafter to trust her own inner voice without running it first by her man, or if she doesn’t have one, a local religious leader, is an outrage to the stability of the world, and we will fight a few wars to drive the point home.
This site says detached kids make for genocides. Possibly true…. given the child-rearing practices. USA isn’t far behind with early childhood education (universal, ideally), and getting MOm into those low-paying jobs and her kids to the local child center, and Dad back into the kids’ lives after abuse and incarceration. She will be dependent to SOMEONE a lifetime — a man, an employer, a preschool being reliably available, etc. Unless she is wealthy, and possibly even then, if dumped.
The Childhood Origins of the Holocaust
Lloyd deMause
This is a disturbing read readers might do well to read, about what kids went through, previously, growing up. Don’t mock it — the U.S. had Spock which said breastfeeding was not advised, and which many Moms listened to. Now, I suppose, we have “Dr. Phil” and judges. (my commentary, not the quote)… It is a very disturbing read, however, after two decades of incredible (in supposedly free U.S.A.) punishments for simply existing, and showing independence, or expecting input into family decisions based on mutual information — not dictatorship — one has to deal with what are the origins of this shock, and becomes more sensitive to boundaries, and to violations of personhood and exercise of one’s simple WILL, from totally unexpected sources. I absolutely am witness (not here, in detail, obviously) to my own case that the underlying principle is that I must not make decisions, or even influence them, about my own basics of life, including work, sleep, come, go, finances/banking, transportation, education (i.e., continuing mine, or continuing in the field I had upon marriage), or budgeting, MAIL, and so forth. This was promulgated to me on the basis of Christianity, and “unfortunately,” for the husband, I actually read the scriptures. While they may be more restrictive than the wider society, nothing in them justified what he did to me, and what pastors witnessing it continued to allow. As a participant, researcher (after my fashion) and narrator of what’s UP with these systems, I have come to the conclusion that while an enraged, or angry person is indeed dangerous, and can hurt, or kill, or destroy — it’s nothing so frightening to me personally as a cold, detached personality claiming in sanitized terms to analyze a volatile and flesh-and-blood situation. Or, speaking in group terms, clinical terms about horrors, as if they were population research and functions in society, ONLY. There is something particularly Nordic about this attitude, and I find the social scientists — when placed near legislators — of far more concern than inflammatory rhetoric that shows its inflammation and anger, and is recognizable as emotionally based. Feminists have been called “feminazis,” but it’s the very, very masculine “Nazi” that is the concern here. This site talks about it better than I just did, below. The social denigration of women, and girls — even down to baby girls — has hurt society badly. Not the fact that now, they can work, or other civil rights! It’s passed down through the generations. |
THIS REMINDS ME OF HOW LITIGATION CAN BE DISABLING AND LIFE-THREATENING, IF IT NEVER STOPS! (STRESS, PRESSURE, ADDITIONAL PRESSURE FROM POVERTY, AND PARTICULARLY WHEN NOT IN A JUST CAUSE OF ACTION. THAT ALONE WELL DESCRIBES THE LITIGATION THAT IS PROMOTED AND PROLONGED ON OUR FAMILY LAW COURTS — THERE IS NO WIN/WIN IN SOME SITUATIONS, THOSE SITUATIONS BEING IN WHICH A WOMAN & MOTHER IS LEAVING FOR REASONS OF SAFETY FOR HERSELF, AND/OR THE CHILDREN SHE GAVE BIRTH TO…. THE FAMILY LAW SITUATION WAS ITSELF DESIGNED (I BELIEVE) AS A HYBRID TO MAKE THIS VERY ACCESSIBLE TO FATHERS ACROSS MANY LANDS. HERE, THE SIMILAR IDEA (ALTHOUGH I REALIZED FAMILY LAW IS NOT A “CIVIL” CAUSE OF ACTION IN THE U.S.) IS BEING PROMOTED AS A WAY TO STOP TERRORISTS, A CATCH-22 ABOUT TESTIFYING! AND ACKNOWLEDGED AS HAVING BEEN USED BY THEM IN DENMARK.
The latest terrorist tactic: litigation
by Daniel Huff
The Daily Caller
January 11, 2011http://www.legal-project.org/1060/http-dailycallercom-2011-01-11-the-latest
Send
RSS
Share: Be the first of your friends to like this.
On December 29, Scandinavian authorities arrested five terrorists planning an attack in Denmark. Almost as interesting as what they targeted is what they spared and the lessons it holds for future counterterrorism efforts.
The plot was to storm the Copenhagen newsroom of Jyllands Posten and murder its staff. It was the fourthattempt this year by Islamic extremists to punish the newspaper that published the Mohammed cartoons. But the terrorists are guilty of selective prosecution. They have yet to strike Politiken, which also published the cartoons, even though its offices are literally next door.
It is logical that Jyllands is the principal target because it sparked the controversy. It was Jylland’s editor, Flemming Rose, who originally commissioned the cartoons in 2005. A Danish comedian had told interviewers he would publicly urinate on the Bible, but would not dare do the same to the Koran. Rose’s message was that Islam should be treated equally, not specially.
Nevertheless, there is a second reason Politiken is not a target. It already surrendered, vanquished by the nonviolent instrument of a civil lawsuit.
In 2008, extremists nearly murdered Kurt Westergaard, who drew one of the original cartoons. In response,Politiken reprinted the cartoons as part of a unified stand against intimidation of the press. The defiance didn’t last. A Saudi law firm claiming to represent 94,923 descendants of Mohammed threatened it with legal action and the paper caved. On February 26, 2010, it effectively apologized for defending free speech.
This is a textbook illustration of how litigation has become a complementary and sometimes superior strategy for Islamic extremists who traditionally relied on physical violence alone to intimidate their opponents.
In Europe especially, their cause is aided by vague hate speech laws that make it all too easy to punish legitimate discourse on Islam. Last month, a Danish Member of Parliament pleaded guilty to violating hate speech laws with comments he made on Islam’s treatment of women. He had agreed to forgo parliamentary immunity in order to fight the charges on the merits only to discover that truth is no defense.
[Paragraph by LGH blog] On January 24, another Danish politician, International Free Press Society president Lars Hedegaard, will stand trial forsimilarly speaking his mind. He also faces a potentially costly libel suit. There were reports last summer that Denmark’s hate speech laws would be reformed to prevent abuse, but this has yet to happen.
THIS author is saying, fight back, using the same weapon. I wish battered mothers, protective mothers, and etc. would at least get smart about what weapons ARE being used against them in their War for Independence (meaning, the right to leave destructive relationships WITH their children, and without being held hostage a lifetime to suits for custody, and sometimes more suits).
In the meantime, authorities can borrow from the extremists and use civil litigation as a complementary strategy in counterterrorism operations, particularly in the US.
This tactic was used consistently on me since I left the abuser. The battles were won OUTSIDE the courtroom, and it was made clear that any stand against other outrages would be met by escalation. I was specifically told this while still married — “don’t ever oppose me, or I will escalate til I win.” One of the few martial vows that has been kept, another one having been how to disappear, beat the system and not pay child support. That, I could understand, however, forcing me out of jobs so that I can’t survive AFTEr leaving him is off the charts. This was done by entering the family law venue. How hard was that? Not hard — the U.S. Government is all into “families” these days, and are sponsoring the concept, while the word “mother” is rapidly becoming an anachronism, when found in association with a backbone and in the face of danger to herself or her kids, including after damage has already occurred.
Forcing terrorists to fight simultaneous criminal and civil proceedings would make it difficult for them to focus their defense resources effectively. This has been the experience in white-collar cases when the Justice Department and a regulatory agency pursue parallel investigations against a target company.
PRECISELY WHAT ABUSERS (AND WAR STRATEGISTS) DO. WEAKEN THE ENEMY ON MULTIPLE FRONTS.
While criminal defendants can get court-appointed lawyers, civil defendants pay out of pocket and the plaintiff’s burden of proof is typically lower. In addition, the broader scope of discovery [[Did you know that? I didn’t!]] in civil cases may produce information otherwise unavailable to prosecutors. Finally, parallel lawsuits can pin terrorists between remaining mum in the civil suit and likely losing, or fighting back and forfeiting their right to “plead the Fifth” in the criminal case. Defendants might dodge these difficulties by delaying the civil proceedings, but courts do not always permit that.
This plan presupposes a clear basis for civil suits. In 1994, Congress passed a bill making it illegal to use force against persons exercising abortion rights and permitting victims to sue for damages. With only minor modifications, this law could be expanded to cover threats against free speech rights as well.
For example, officials are investigating whether the recent plot is connected to the 2009 arrest of two Chicago men for conspiring to attack Jyllands Posten. According to the indictment, Tahawwur Rana and David Headley gained access to Jylland’s offices on the pretext of purchasing advertising for their immigration services company. Once inside, they conducted videotape surveillance of the premises which they provided to co-conspirators in Pakistan who recommended using a truck bomb.
Headley pleaded guilty in March, but Rana goes on trial in February. Were the proposed law on the books now,Jylland’s staff could sue for damages using information from the indictment and guilty plea. This would be particularly disruptive to Rana as he tries to focus on preparing for his criminal trial.
More broadly, a law along these lines would allow victims to go on the offensive against Islamic radicals who terrorize them instead of having to hope authorities continue catching these extremists in time.
Daniel Huff is Director of the Legal Project at the Middle East Forum and a former counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.
I realize that either this last conference, or the new year, or the Tuscon, Arizona mass-shooting is more timely blogging. However horrible, SIX DEAD is not entirely unprecedented in the family law field, and if this is multiplied by how often — think about it. it’s just how, and who died, that was the issue here.
Yet, today is January 11, 1/11/2011, and I still remember 09/11/2001, an event that while in the forefront of the nation, happened and was played out in my case when I was hard at work leaving an abuser who had himself threatened suicide, talked bout his fantasies of it, and whose own father had recently followed through with the deal. I have yet to find a venue that took this seriously, as I still have to, given the entrenched position. The intent to destroy me, along with himself, seems to be one thing he hangs onto. Forget about the kids — they are already abandoned, and again, do the courts care about this, when it doesn’ produce income, or a warm body under 18 years old to attract income and justify the institution?
The answer is, no.
Truth is no defense in family law because it’s so nebulous, one cannot define it.
But, if one does, there exists within the system an easy out and a contradicting “truth,” and networks to disseminate it. Truth, like beauty, is in the eye(s) of the beholders, who are often attracted by things that glitter and repulsed by women reporting abuse. Nasty, filthy topic, you must be mad, have imagined it.
What we need instead to examine is the “ranking” of “truths.” Why should PAS get more attention than “rebuttable presumption” and why should “family” get more priority than “safety” and individual rights.
It’s no longer possible, Moms, to continue ignoring the delivery structure of what passes for justice. And for this, the infrastructure and sponsoring organizations that foot the billl, have to be defined as a whole — just as you, individually, are going to have to look at your entire budget if you are wondering “what happened?”
There are some holes in the plumbing. Like lead in plumbing in other famous civilizations, our asbestos, in our lifetimes, it will take its toll if things don’t change. And as to that on/off breastfeeding schedule, kids need breast milk when growing to at least toddlerhood (ideally) unless she’s on drugs, alcohol, or so stressed by abuse that hormones, I’d suppose, flood that system, or improper nutrition.
You can’t get much more stressful than Dad throwing Mom around, or Dad who threw MOM around (which requires obvious strength), or assaulted her, now in possession regularly of a fragile infant who represents, to him, HER, possibly. I mean think about it. Either that judge is going to have to recommend she pump her own breast milk for Dad’s use on alternating days (have we gone that far in court orders invading a woman’s biology and self-care) to having baby just do one breast milk, and one formula. Unless Dad has another willing and lactating female to draw from (pun unintentional). There is no odditiy, no outrage, no contradiction of common sense I’d not put beyond this system, most have already occurred within it, I hope.
It did talk to a mother with children who was in this situation at the conference, and more outrageous. I question whether women should “submit” to that at all, and should remember to warn others beforehand.
The healing from trauma is not likely to progress while while trauma is ongoing. When trauma comes from being unable to help — or even know the condition of — an immediate relative –one that fights have been fought over — while the aftermath of the last few assaults remain — the issue is FIRST to rectify that situation, and then to deal with the trauma more seriously, I believe. I’m saying this to explain the length of this post, and in deed many of mine. It helps me to write, and there are other (non-offending) ways to manage, one of which is to focus on something else, and do so for a good while. I’ve just attended a conference I’ve heard about for years, but couldn’t afford to get to (other side of the USA), and put face and voice, and observed in action, the professionals that are supposed to be stopping these outrages (in the courts) and assaults on free speech in the courts about important matters.
Mothers are getting gag orders, as well as thrown in jail. I have not heard of a father getting a gag order about his case, to date — have you? Although I’m years in the system, from what I can tell, things have n’t changed much.
And the “buy our book” people, I witnessed in action some attempts to handle reasonable questions from Moms lined up at microphones, and they had no answers, for the most part, to some very critical ones, namely, “what do you do if your judge is a crook?” The entire business was based on the premise that they aren’t — they “just don’t understand — but we can train them, maybe, so they “know better.”
I find that sadly lacking in reason. Writing, here, diverts some of the alarm about the situations.
SHARE THIS POST on...
@My Comments, Your Blogs: Rights for Mothers, BMCC, 12/28/2010: Family Court Cover(up)s no Patchwork Quilt, but a near-Seamless System
(need to work on those snappy titles…)
Readers are advised that I rarely tag and categorize my posts any more. If you want to find something, try the search function.
I’ve been blogging ( and commenting) long enough on certain topics (herein) that when I google, a site comes up which I know refers to my comment on the topic, not the blogger’s posts. So I figure — give those guys a break, and start putting it here instead, keyword “@” in the title line.
Too few people are writing on the heart of these issues. I think people reach their energy expiration dates on tackling the topic (or they are hurt or disappear somehow?). … One finds blogs that aren’t updated, and date from 5 to 10 years ago, are off the wall and telling the truth (not fluff and not rhetoric). I find these are often the most accurate, straightforward, and easy enough for an eighth grader (who can read & do basic math, I should qualify) to understand.
Which is probably why those sites can’t be easily niche-marketed; and many times whoever wrote them doesn’t make the effort to get a high search ranking, either. The authors probably weren’t paid, and to get paid in these fields, one has to repurpose, copyright and repackage the obvious. So, how does one market and repackage:
“I believe and have concluded that these people/organizations/associations/institutions/foundations and agencies are (or, were originated by and steered by, if not operated by,) criminals and engaging in legalized criminal rackets“?
a.k.a., the Sky is Falling or we’re headed for that fabled Armageddon, that “Valley of Decision,” and not because of religious fanatics (although they may relish and prepare for it a little better….). As one site says (with whom I have no association!!: I google, I cut, I paste, cogito (or so I like to think 🙂 ) ergo I am….OK?). I hunt, and I gather:
Whereas Armageddon is actually a mountaintop, most references relative to it are concerned with the valley that lies below it. During the past 4000 years, at least 34 bloody conflicts have been fought at the ancient hilltop site of Megiddo and the adjacent areas below in the vast Jezreel Valley. Throughout history Megiddo and the Jezreel Valley have been Ground Zero for battles that determined the very course of civilization.*** Megiddo is a fascinating site of twenty cities built directly on top of one another and inhabited continuously from 3000 to 300 BC. Megiddo lies at an ancient strategic junction of roads running north-south and east-west. Whoever held control of Megiddo held absolute control of one of the major trade routes of antiquity, the Via Maris. (the “Way of the Sea”)
***The internet has changed this, somewhat, and it seems that among other places the battle for control of civilization is being fought is, in these family court systems. They run deep (pockets) and they run wide (Paraprofessionals)…..
Many Christians believe that the Last Judgment will be held in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, interpreting the passage in the book of Joel:
- I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land. (KJV)
Well, the gathering these days seems to be of power and influence, and wealth (in the form of ongoing very profitable business with very little accountability) and warm bodies often bring this. So, they don’t gather “at the river” and they don’t gather in this valley (yet at least),but they do gather in the courts. If you control the courts — or live off them (think, feudalism, which it essentially is), you control a good portion of the world, because these are life and death decisions. There is transfer of time and assets and children, who of course are to be trained in a better way of thinking than their parents …
One could definitely divide the “theologies” into about three pieces, and practices to match:
- There is a loving God, live moral and just, and you’ll be rewarded by harmonizing to this resonance of that loving God, NOW.
- The universe is undergirded by justice, and if you don’t get this, you may come back reincarnated as something “lower” and have to work your way back up again (although it seems that humanity’s behavior qualifies as “lower-level” more often than not..)
- There is a (pissed-off) God, therefore, live moral and just because if not, you’ll pay later, but if you do, oh boy, just you wait! He’s been watching and waiting, and currently is pissed off..
- And by the way, this invisible God has representatives on earth — which we are and you aren’t. And chosen people (ditto).
- There is a God, and it is US. Accordingly, we will live moral and just insofar as it’s practical and no one is looking, because otherwise who will provide for us in old age? We are Gods by the divine right of innate superiority because — see, we are richer. There’s the evidence. Poor people are asking for it, might makes right and gain is godliness.
-
- Besides, it’s more fun to stockpile and steal, manipulate, and obtain immortality by naming something after yourself, like a foundation, or a theory.
I really can’t pronounce on officially all that. But, judging by Nature, if God created it, at times it, and hence in this worldview, its creator, God, is a great steward, and can handle droughts, it has a sense of humor for sure, and at times is extravagant beyond reason, and at times it seems to clear the plate and attempt to start all over from scratch. Consider, for example, the food chain.
(One thing I don’t really see “Nature” doing a lot is what we do to the animals we eat, or to the children we raise.)
There are of course many other varieties of spirituality (or atheism), but I think I got the three ones that are causing the rest of us non-extremist plebes the most trouble here and now.
So, this is my morning’s work, as another year without my kids draws to a close and I’m through with celebrating this holiday season, no matter under which theological or family umbrella. See graphic below:
o
There Was a Little Girl,
Who Had a Little CurlThere was a little girl,
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
She was very, very good,
But when she was bad, she was horrid.
Creative financing: dozens of municipal projects in Los Angeles County have been financed using bondlike instruments called COPs, which critics charge have allowed officials to enter into long-term financial obligations without voter approval
Insight on the News, April 15, 2002 by Kelly Patricia O’Meara
Since the downfall of Enron and the crippling of the former energy giant’s accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, a great deal of attention and concern has been focused on big business. To be more precise, the focus has been on whether the well-being of a corporation is real or imagined, and how one can get to the facts by running the maze of complicated financing packages and misleading accounting techniques set up by experts to confuse, obfuscate and obstruct. While most of the hubbub is centered on the private sector, the public sector is by no means exempt from such shenanigans.
Incidentally, this author (never met him/her) has also uncovered quite a bit in the family court system….Attempting to track funding tends to do that….
For instance, one need take but the barest peek at the funding of municipal projects in Los Angeles County — a microcosm of the nation’s local funding policies — to see that accountancy in county and municipal governments can be just as opaque where there is a desire to deceive. Just as Enron shareholders blindly followed management’s hype, taxpayers in the County of Angels appear to have drifted into a trance when confronted with how their civic monies are handled. What is clear is that the taxpayers — call them shareholders in the county — pay their money into the system and then look the other way. Where the money goes, how it is used and who gets the equity it buys is anyone’s guess.
Nowhere is this more evident than with the increasingly used financial instruments known as certificates of participation (COPs). It’s fair to say that those who run Los Angeles County prefer COPs. Literally dozens of municipal projects involving hundreds of millions of dollars have been financed using these financial instruments, which for all intents and purposes are bonds or debentures backed by county or municipal credit.
Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History 
WIth Them in Spirit Tomorrow — Pennsylvania Parents Protest Apparent Court Cronyism (12/2/2011, Lackawanna County)
with one comment
This information is on a public forum, so I took the liberty of copying it here — from a thread from “Scranton Political Times” “Doherty Deceit Forum”
It’s a quick post, but covers topics I’ve been blogging for a long time:
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
PRESS RELEASE SENT OUT AT NOON TODAY
Second Lackawanna County Family Court Kids 4Kash Protest Set For December 2, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Scranton, Pa
The second in a series of demonstrations in what The Protesters have labeled The Lackawanna County KIDS 4 KASH Corruption Scheme will begin at 9am this Friday in front of the Family Court Building at 200 Adams Avenue. The protesters, many of whom are family court litigants, are in disbelief and outraged that President Judge Thomas Munley has not taken any action against the Court Appointed Guardian ad Litem, Attorney Danielle Ross. Unbelievably, Ross who is currently under investigation by the FBI and the Administrative Office of the Pennsylvania Court (AOPC) is still being assigned new cases every week.
{{WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF PARENTS SIMPLY REFUSED TO PARTICIPATE? REFUSED TO PAY? AND THE JUDGE THEN TRIED TO INCARCERATE? }}
Their investigation of Ms. Ross was set in motion when a parent named Bruce Levine contacted Detective Michelle Mancuso from the Lackawanna County District Attorneys Office about discrepancies he found on Ross invoices for the services she claimed she provided as Guardian. As fate would have it, right about the same time, a thread directed against Ross called Kids 4 Kash was started by political activist Joseph Pilchesky on his contentious website, http://www.dohertydeceit.com. Fundamental to Pilchesky’s website is The First Amendment Right to Freedom of Speech.
The site encourages antagonistic dialogue about current local and global issues that is often times abrasive. Users that post comments on topics typically remain anonymous; therefore, it provides a safe venue for other parents and litigants to share their family court horror stories and eventually their identities with one another. Several of those parents that connected with each other on the website began to turn over Ross’ invoices to the authorities, which eventually lead to the involvement of the United States Attorney General’s Office.
The FBI began their investigation with a subpoena requesting all documents involving each and every case to which Attorney Ross was appointed and a Grand Jury was convened. In days to follow, many additional subpoenas were served upon court employees including the Lackawanna Count Court Administrator, Ron MacKay. When federal agents showed up at MacKay’s office located inside the county’s main Courthouse, he was sequestered and forced to remain in the hallway while agents searched his office. After about an hour, the agents left the Court Administrator’s Office with several boxes of documents.
It is unknown at this time what the FBI confiscated from MacKay’s office. As to why they raided his office, those close to the case strongly believe that the scope of the federal investigation has broadened well beyond the alleged fraudulent billing practices of Attorney Ross. Rumors of case steering and monetary kickbacks are out there.
The status of the AOPC investigation into the Guardian ad Litem Program, as well as Home Evaluation and supervised visitation payments, is unclear at this time despite the fact that on November 2, 2011, AOPC Attorney, Michael Daley, stated in open court that it would be available two weeks ago. To date, a RTK letter that was sent to the Court requesting the report has gone unanswered. Reliable sources within Family Court speculate that there are at least two plausible reasons for the delay. On one hand, there are many who are convinced that the AOPC investigation amounts to little more than a smoke screen used to give the Court a few months to cover its tracks and get its act together. While others believe that public pressure has forced AOPC investigator, Joseph Mittleman, to hold off on finalizing the report. He states that the AOPC is obligated to look into alleged acts of attorney misconduct as well as to conducting interviews with alleged victims of Family Court corruption.
Protests will be held every Friday starting at 9am in front of Family Court. The goal is to bring forth public awareness and gain support in the effort to expose what appears to be a moneymaking racket devised by the members of the Judiciary and several Child Custody/Divorce Professionals who do business with Family Court. The individuals with whom the Court most frequently Orders Family Court litigants to consult are Guardians Danielle Ross and Brenda Kobal, Lackawanna County’s sole co-parenting coordinator, Anne Marie Termini, Kids First presenter, Chet Muklewicz, Court mediator, AnthonyLibassi, Psychologists Drs. Ronald Refice and Arnold Shivenhold, and various child visitation supervisors affiliated with the Scranton Counseling Center.
The Parties who have been forced by Order of the Court to see these providers, attend numerous appointments, whether they need to or not, and pay enormous fees (if they are not declared indigent) have a lot of unanswered questions. Until those questions are answered, the only logical conclusion is that the Court and these providers are unjustly enriching themselves not only with the millions of Federal and State Grant dollars allocated for indigent Lackawanna County Children and Families but also money from private-pay litigants.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
“SHIVENHOLD” I’m fairly sure means “SCHIENVOLD” who is AFCC leadership:
Here’s one filing in which Mr. Shienvold was called as Expert Witness for the Father, who wants primary physical custody of the children, and after the mother submitted to custody reports preceding a “Custody Trial” the mother then, of course, had to make special motions to actually read what was reported about her, and apparently planned to call him up and interview or cross-examine him. The father then protest — aw heck, look at it yourself.
http://www.courts.state.pa.us/OpPosting/Superior/out/a29038_05.pdf (his name is apparently mis-spelled here, too).
I have already posted on the forum that Mr. Scheinvold is a primary player in the Pennsylvania Commission for Justice Initiatives, and a key AFCC person, as was at least one of their judges, and that Harhut, Termini, and (was it Ross?) were presenting in Brooklyn, 2009 together at an “NACC” association meeting on matters related to Guardianship and Domestic Violence.
He is ALSO the “President-Elect” of AFCC, meaning his influence will be upon more parents than just those in this area. I hope they figure this out quickly in time for the next generation of children, that an international association with a checkered history is helping run the courthouses, but right now, most don’t seem too interested in this, they are scrambling to survive, and have not looked up to the horizons. In other words, for control to operate freely, it’s connections to other control must remain subterranean. AFCC is hardly “subterranean” when it’s publishing statewide model custody evaluation standards, inventing new fields of practice faster than the previous ones can be caught and complained about (Parenting Coordination) and with personnel (over 3,000 membership) including, for example, at least a few on the California Judicial Council Administrative Office of the Courts.
[AFCC]
President Elect
Arnold T. Shienvold, Ph.D.
Harrisburg, PA
Arnold Shienvold is the founding partner of Riegler, Shienvold & Associates. Dr. Shienvold received his Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in clinical psychology from the University of Alabama and has specialized in dealing with high-conflict families since he began his practice in 1980. Dr. Shienvold is a member of the American Psychological Association and is a fellow of the Pennsylvania Psychological Association where he also serves on the custody evaluation task force. Dr. Shienvold is a past president of the Academy of Family Mediators and a past president of the Association for Conflict Resolution. He is also a member of the Pennsylvania Council of Mediators.
The PA Adminsitrative Office of the Courts and FBI are supposedly investigating the Lackawanna County parents’ complaints, so I hope they take it upon themselves to figure out — quickly — who the Pennsylvania Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) is comprised of, paid by, and answerable to.
I don’t know that these parents have yet accepted that a State-Level “commission for Justice Initiatives” report (2007) called “Changing the Culture of Custody” with Mr. Shienvold listed front and center as a consultant actually relates to problems they are having at the county level
Yep. High-conflict families. Here’s a website I found in Australia (where AFCC has active membership, FYI) which calls “High Conflict” what it is, if I may quote them. As an added bonus, I stuck two or three comments on this post, which is a year old now. I hope that by the time 2012 is halfpast, the people in Scranton area will figure out (accept) what they are dealing with in the Unified Family Courts per se — which is an expense-paid (by txpayers) largely immune from responsibility, self-referring, self-propagating multiple income stream and often tax-exempt cash machine for paid membership of about 5 different organizations (all playing at monitoring each other, instead of, more commonly, referring each other and providing business referrals to make them look more expert than they really are. If “expert” means, learning a business-specific jargon, and to have a greater conscience about one’s cohorts than one’s clients — then a 12 year old, for example, has already learned to speak his or her own cultural language among peers, and probably knows as much about bullying, gangs, exclusion and arbitrary standards for who is IN and who is OUT.
In order for this field to continue until each generation of Family Court professionals retires (and eventually some will die of old age, though many of the originals are still collecting royalties, probably through Kids’First type operations nationwide), it MUST continue the lie (that’s L.I.E.) that adult parents are by and large to be treated like misbehaving children, or punished until they play along.
This has been going on SO LONG that what they are studying and conferencing about now is basically a contaminated sample (of people and personalities). In addition to the many factors of society contributing to any parent’s “psychological profile,” is probably such things as motherless children, children in foster care because there’s an incentive to put them there, kids who run away from abuse because there was no other safe option (they do not all turn out as well as Alanna Krause of Northern California, whose father, once he got custody, sent her away at age 13 to some kind of reform camp), and a series of protective mothers who feel it necessary to flee the US, or the state — although they, too, are quite likely to be hunted down and incarcerated.
10 Reasons The Family Court is Not Just About Conflict
Here’s a 3-page outline from a 2007 Texas Meeting of the AAML ( a group which initials anyone with a family law case should look up themselves!)
DEALING WITH CLIENTS WHICH ARE TOO HARD TO LOVE
The presenters gratefully acknowledge the work of Arnold T. Sheinvold, Ph.D. Dr. Sheinvold is the managing partner of Riegler, Shienvold & Associates, a comprehensive psychological practice in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The materials in this presentation were developed and presented by Dr. Sheinvold {{that’s SHIENVOLD}} at the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers’ 2007 Midyear Meeting. The presenters appreciate Dr. Sheinvold’s generosity in sharing his materials with the Texas family law community.
(and lists the personality types — borderline, narcissistic, histrionic, antisocial, etc.)
Here’s a 2006 article (abstract, I guess) from the FAMILY COURT REVIEW — which is a publication jointly published by AFCC & Hofstra Univ. in New York, listing this psychologists among others the parents are protesting, a number of AFCC personnel, including Philip Stahl, Ph.D. which virtually guarantees there will be (more) conversation about parental alienation (one of Dr. Stahl’s favorite topics), etc.
Too bad Thomas Szasz professor took up with a cult that’s been literally booted out of a country, the Church of Scientology — but think about what’s being said here:
I wonder how the book compares to Phyllis Chesler’s “Women & Madness”
Who wants a CONFLICT-FREE SOCIETY? Is this some sort of death-wish, or a wish for a sedated society? Or a managed society, as opposed to one where leadership is not shut down (because most leaders are going to cause some conflict; in fact some of the most significant leaders around — Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and others – (may I say Jesus Christ in this context?) — end up getting assassinated — yet their work lives on. Most particularly, Gandhi was assassinated, but through NONViolent protest and understanding the economic system, helped get the British Empire out of India. Maybe all of us should re-read his “moment of truth” and get to ours, quicker, building upon what others before have actually learned — and not continually recreating from scratch as if the world has no history.
These groups are causing the conflict themselves by a number of habits:
Go, Lackawanna!
I hope that protesters, besides correcting the spelling of “SHIENVOLD” (for credibility reasons), also feel free to search my site reporting on LibassiMediation being built by revising rules of court, into the custody modification form, my comparison of KIDS FIRST to KIDS TURN (California)*
And come to realize that a fifth column of psychologists, psychiatrists (adult, child, whatever) and mental health experts is basically a “Family Court Archipelago.” Even physicists have to examine their fundamental assumptions from time to time (cf. Newton, Galileo, and the recently publicized “String Theory”) not the least by at least examining evidence. in this field — ONE NEVER HAS TO; It’s just about become THE primary field of the US Government (world’s largest contractor, and debtor) — and there are no right answers. There is only a caste system: Paid Expert v. Humble Subject matter).
*which is virtually a training ground for the California Family Court personnel (almost everyone has been on its boards, not to mention a person who was “most-wanted” or close to it as a Tax Evador — Halsey Minor (I think he’s on the Board too), plus the defenders of the high priestess of Satan against the High Priest (LaVey, and I”m using the terms loosely), operating at the time out of the same address were, it seems, Kids Turn was operating (2nd floor, 1242 market Street) and I posted that link also.
THE MYTH OF MENTAL ILLNESS, from ARACHNOID.COM/Psychology
with thanks to its author for presenting another outlook on the “experts” causing the trouble above.
The evidence-based revolution in psychology.
Copyright © 2011, Paul Lutus
SHARE THIS POST on...
Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up
December 1, 2011 at 4:38 PM
Posted in AFCC, After She Speaks Up - Reporting Child Sexual Abuse, Bush Influence & Appointees (Cat added 11/2011), Business Enterprise, Cast, Script, Characters, Scenery, Stage Directions, Healthy Marriage Responsible Fatherhood (cat added 11/2011), History of Family Court, Lackawanna County PA Corruption Protests, Parent Education promotion, Parenting Coordination promotion, PhDs in Psychology-Psychiatry etc (& AFCC), Psychology & Law = an AFCC tactical lobbying unit, warfare: strategic, Who's Who (bio snapshots)
Tagged with acestudy.org, AFCC, Ann Marie Termini, Anthony Libassi mediation, Arnold Shienvold, Backlash: America's Undeclared War on Women, Brenda Kabal, Bruce Levine Lackawanna County, Chet Muklewicz, custody, Danielle Ross, family law, FBI raids courthouse, Is Psychology Science considered, Joe Pilchesky, Judge/attorney cronyism, Kids' Turn, KidsFirst, Parenting Coordination, Scranton Political Times, social commentary, Social Issues from Religious Viewpoints, Szasz: The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement (1970), The Myth of Mental Illness (Paul Lutus), Women & Madness (Chesler), women's rights